Secrets of the Vatican: Inside the Archives | The Visual Edition
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What are the Vatican Secret Archives and why are they considered so mysterious?
I would like to see
a whistleblower
come forward and
tell the secrets they've been
withholding.
If they believe that Jesus Christ is going to return as an alien, wouldn't they want to use this telescope to try to make contact with him first?
Securely housed deep inside the Vatican are the Vatican Apostolic Archive, known until recently as the Vatican Secret Archive, containing the Catholic Church's most important and potentially controversial documents, including the private papers of every Pope stretching back a thousand years.
The Vatican's secret archives or Archivum Secretum actually genuinely only means private archives in Latin. The word secret doesn't really come into it, but there's no doubt that an awful lot of what's in those vaults is most definitely secrets. There's fifty miles Of shelving and you're only allowed to see certain parts, 'cause there's an awful lot in there in that fifty miles that I believe the Catholic Church doesn't want anyone to find out about.
Scholars are allowed limited access to the secret archive. But significantly, all Vatican documents and private papers of the Pope can only be accessed at least seventy years after the end of a pope's reign. As a result, it's usually necessary to wait for three quarters of a century. Before there's any hope of finding out the secret truth. About the Vatican's controversial scandals.
The Vatican has to be one of the most secret organizations in the history of the world. It guards its nasty little secrets, of which there are a great many jealously.
It has been alleged, for example, that the Vatican collaborated with the Nazis. The Vatican and some historians strongly dispute this. But until now, the truth has been hidden because the Vatican's documents, written during the Second World War. have remained inaccessible in the secret archive.
Pope Pius XII was pontiff during World War II and as such had a great deal of contact with the Nazi leadership as well as the Allied leadership. He officially maintained a position of neutrality, uh being in the Vatican in the absolute heart of fascist Italy. But there's been great speculation over how much he did and did not appease the Nazis.
Some people say that in fact behind the scenes, Pope Pius XII and the Vatican secretly undermined the Nazi regime.
In my opinion, I believe that the Pope and his cardinals were actually helping to save the lives of thousands of Jews. By harbouring them, hiding them in their churches, getting them out of the country, either out of Italy, uh out of other countries, and saving their lives.
Critics, however, have claimed the complete opposite. Calling Pope Pius XII Hitler's Pope. In particular, the very serious allegation has been made that the Pope was anti-Semitic and ignored evidence of the Holocaust. The fierce controversy about the Vatican's role during World War II continues to rage. So, in hope of showing that Pope Pius XII really was an anti-Nazi humanitarian. На про насі колаборатор. The current pontiff, the reforming Pope Francis, made the unusual decision to allow early access to the Vatican's wartime secret archive. Scholars were able to view these materials beginning in early 2020.
Pope Francis has just made a really exciting announcement that he is going to release nine years early the archives of Pope Pius XII, whose records may or may not contain evidence damning the church and how it reacted to the Nazi threat.
Did Pope Pius XII turn a blind eye to the Holocaust and the Nazis' policy of genocide? Or did he help save thousands of Jews? Did the Vatican help leading Nazis escape justice after the end of World War II? As has been alleged. With access to the Vatican's wartime archive, historians should have clearer answers. Although it could take scholars years to review and make conclusions from all the newly released materials.
There's this long-standing story that says the Vatican helped Nazis escape after the war. Why? Because a lot of Catholic priests were historically quite sympathetic to Nazism because they saw Nazism as being the only force in the world that could stand up to communism, which they thought represented an existential threat to the Catholic Church.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What are the Vatican Secret Archives and why are they considered so mysterious?
0:00–5:59
2
Did Pope Pius XII help Jews survive the Holocaust or collude with the Nazis?
5:59–10:43
3
What evidence links the Vatican Bank to Nazi money laundering and the Mafia?
10:43–15:45
4
Was the 1978 death of Pope John Paul I a murder tied to Vatican financial scandals?
15:45–20:19
5
How did the Calvi affair expose possible Vatican‑Mafia corruption?
20:19–25:43
6
Why does the Vatican operate a state‑of‑the‑art observatory in Arizona?
25:43–29:30
7
Is the Vatican Observatory secretly searching for extraterrestrials or UFOs?
29:30–34:17
8
What unanswered secrets might the Vatican’s archives reveal about future protocols for alien contact?
34:17–38:41
Speakers
3 identifiedMore from Forbidden History
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