Comments come after media reports suggest Pope Francis may speed up release of Holocaust-era documents.
By JEREMY SHARONVatican archives(photo credit: REUTERS)
Yesh Atid MK Aliza Lavie called on Pope Francis to open the Vatican’s archives and make available documents pertaining to the Catholic Church’s relationship to the Jewish people through the generations, its activities during the Holocaust and Jewish texts and artifacts that are held by the Holy See.“I call on the pope to allow access to information held in the Vatican Archives and its libraries, information that is relevant to the heritage of the Jewish people and to its relationship with the Vatican through the generations,” Lavie said.“Amongst other things, we’re talking about archival information relating to the activities of the Holy See during the Holocaust, as well as Hebrew texts and artifacts that have been accumulated in the vaults of the Vatican over the centuries.”Lavie said such a move would help improve trust and further advance relations between Judaism and Christianity and “illuminate missing parts of history.”Media reports have suggested the Vatican may now be considering opening up documents relating to the Holy See’s documents from the Holocaust era.On Thursday, The Guardian wrote that Pope Francis may speed up the process for the Vatican’s release of such documents as a gesture of goodwill to the Jewish people.In a book he co-wrote in 2010 with his longtime friend Rabbi Avraham Skorka, Jorge Mario Bergolgio, as the pope was then known, said he thought the files in the Vatican should indeed be opened.
