Loose Lips Sink Fellowships

By Josh Tyrangiel

Any hopes that the Vatican might open its long-secret archives to those researching Pope Pius XII's role in World War II and the Holocaust vanished last week--perhaps for years to come. A church-initiated joint Catholic-Jewish historical committee disbanded after receiving a letter from Walter Cardinal Kasper, president of the Vatican's Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, saying that access to the archives was not possible "for technical reasons." The real reason, however, was probably anger. The committee, formed in 1999, was officially charged with reviewing 11 volumes culled from the archives between 1965 and 1981. But last October its members requested full access to resolve a list of 47 lingering questions. Unfortunately, Bernard Suchecky, a Jewish member of the committee, leaked a copy of the questions to a French newspaper before they reached the Vatican. Church officials, already nervous that Pius was being tried in the press, were furious. Committee member Father Gerald Fogarty fears that access has been shut down until the next Pope or beyond.

--Reported by David Van Biema/New York

With reporting by David Van Biema/New York