The Vatican Press Office published on August 7, 2001, the declaration signed by historian Jesuit Father Peter Gumpel explaining why the Vatican is not able to open all its World War II archives right now. Jewish and Catholic members of a historians' panel had been studying the Vatican archives relating to Pope Pius XII's wartime activities. Father Gumpel in his declaration explained that not all three million pages of documents have been catalogued yet, and therefore are not available to scholars.

In the declaration, Father Gumpel, postulator of the cause of beatification of Pius XII, complains about news leaks by a commission member which have seriously compromised the group's work. He also noted that Eugene Fisher, the group's coordinator, said it would have been difficult to write a summary report of the group's work, given the disparity of the members' judgments.

The commission was established in 1999 to respond to accusations that Pope Pius XII allegedly failed to condemn Nazi atrocities publicly. The group included three Jewish and three Catholic historians, who were reduced to two when Eva Fleishner resigned.

In a statement published at the end of July, Cardinal William Keeler, Archbishop of Baltimore and moderator for Catholic-Jewish relations of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, attested to additional news leaks. The "Coordinator of the Jewish side, Mr. Seymour Reich, chairman of the International Jewish Committee for Interreligious Consultation (IJCIC), has released to the press the group's joint letter to Cardinal Walter Kasper and used the occasion to misrepresent its content in his press release," Cardinal Keeler said in the statement. Cardinal Keeler requested the commission to continue with the dialogue and not politicize the Holocaust.

Reprinted with permission from ZENIT (ZE01080705)