Note: this topic is from 12/04/2009. Thanks NYer.
Posted on 12/04/2009 3:46:43 PM PST by NYer
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- With millions of documents filling almost 53 miles of shelf space, the Vatican Secret Archives obviously still hold some secrets.
Despite the aura of mystery surrounding the archives, the Vatican actually encourages academics to research its holdings and has worked with a Belgian publishing house to bring 105 of the most important, or curious, documents to the public.
The coffee-table book, "The Vatican Secret Archives," was published by VdH Books in Dutch, English, French and Italian.
Cardinal Raffaele Farina, the Vatican archivist, wrote in the introduction that he knows popular books and movies love to imply there are deep dark secrets intentionally hidden from public view.
But, as Bishop Sergio Pagano, prefect of the archives, explained, the "secret" in the archives' title comes from the Latin "secretum," meaning "personal" or "private."
In fact, Pope Leo XIII ordered the archives opened to researchers in 1881, and currently 60 to 80 scholars work there each day, poring over the parchments, ledgers, letters and texts.
The new book lets readers see some of the things the academics have seen, including handwritten letters to Pope Pius IX from Abraham Lincoln and from Jefferson Davis.
Both letters were written in 1863 while the U.S. Civil War raged on.
President Lincoln's letter is a formal, diplomatic request that Pope Pius accept Rufus King as the U.S. representative to the Vatican.
The letter makes no mention of the war, but assures the pope that King is "well informed of the relative interests" of both the United States and the Vatican "and of our sincere desire to cultivate and strengthen the friendship and good correspondence between us."
On the other hand, the letter from Jefferson Davis, president of the secessionist Confederate States, is filled with references to the war and its "slaughter, ruin and devastation."
Only the first page of the letter and Davis' signature are included in the book, but the Vatican historian's commentary about the letter includes quotations from the second page as well.
The commentator said Davis wrote to Pope Pius after the pope had written to the archbishops of New York and New Orleans "urging them to employ every possible means to end the bloodshed and restore peace."
Davis wrote to the pope about the suffering caused by "the war now waged by the government of the United States against the states and people over which I have been chosen to preside." He assured the pope that the people of the South are fighting only to defend themselves and to ensure they can "live at peace with all mankind under our own laws and institutions."
The book's historical commentary said the letter was, in fact, a veiled ploy to convince Pope Pius to recognize the independence of the Confederacy and establish diplomatic relations; the pope did not do so.
The book also includes a photograph of a letter to Pope Leo written on birch bark. The 1887 letter from the Ojibwe people of Grassy Lake, Ontario, thanks the pope -- "the Great Master of Prayer, he who holds the place of Jesus" -- for having given them a good "custodian of prayer," the local bishop.
The birch-bark letter and the most fragile ancient documents in the archives have been digitally scanned, and scholars consult them on one of the computers in the archives' Index Room.
But most of their requests result in the actual document being retrieved from storage in an underground bunker, a loft or one of the many rooms lined with 16th- and 17th-century wooden cupboards.
In a silence broken only by an occasional page turning and a constant click-click of keys on laptop computers, the scholars examine and write about the documents.
Alfredo Tuzi, director of the reading room, said the most popular topics of current research are the 1936-39 Spanish Civil War and the rise of Nazism in Germany and Fascism in Italy, roughly during the same years.
The archival material those scholars are working with has been available to the researchers only since 2006 when Pope Benedict XVI authorized the opening of all materials related to the papacy of Pope Pius XI, who died in February 1939.
Tuzi said that like any government, the Vatican has a set policy for the gradual opening of documents to public research. While some countries stipulate a number of years -- often 50 years after the documents were written -- the Vatican Secret Archives open records one entire pontificate at a time. Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI have asked the archives' staff to speed up the organization and cataloguing of the records from the pontificate of Pope Pius XII -- who reigned during and after World War II -- so that scholars can access them soon.
Archival material created after February 1939 is kept behind a strong wire fence in the archives' two-storey underground bunker, inaugurated by Pope John Paul II in 1983.
Made of reinforced concrete, the bunker resembles an underground parking garage featuring rows of metal shelves instead of cars. The yellow lines painted on the floors do not indicate parking spaces, but are glow-in-the-dark arrows pointing to emergency exits.
Secret archive ping!
I would much rather read documents dating back to the time of King James putting the bible together.
The book's historical commentary said the letter was, in fact, a veiled ploy to convince Pope Pius to recognize the independence of the Confederacy and establish diplomatic relations; the pope did not do so.
The pope could have sent Davis a copy of his predecessor's encyclical: "In Supremo Apostalatus" Pope Gregory XVI (1839)
"We warn and adjure earnestly in the Lord faithful Christians of every condition that no one in the future dare to vex anyone, despoil him of his possessions, reduce to servitude, or lend aid and favour to those who give themselves up to these practices, or exercise that inhuman traffic by which the Blacks, as if they were not men but rather animals, having been brought into servitude, in no matter what way, are, without any distinction, in contempt of the rights of justice and humanity, bought, sold, and devoted sometimes to the hardest labour. Further, in the hope of gain, propositions of purchase being made to the first owners of the Blacks, dissensions and almost perpetual conflicts are aroused in these regions.
We reprove, then, by virtue of Our Apostolic Authority, all the practices above-mentioned as absolutely unworthy of the Christian name. By the same Authority We prohibit and strictly forbid any Ecclesiastic or lay person from presuming to defend as permissible this traffic in Blacks under no matter what pretext or excuse, or from publishing or teaching in any manner whatsoever, in public or privately, opinions contrary to what We have set forth in this Apostolic Letter."
Don’t forget Tell Hazor in Israel. Hopefully they will find the archives soon.
I wish! “The remainder of his acts are written in the Book of Chronicles of the Kings of Israel,” which is flippin’ lost to history, guys. Come on, dig up the dirt!
The canon of the Bible was established in 398 AD, that’s when the books of the Bible was finalized after years of prayer. It would be nice if there were documents going back that far but those were turbulent times and understandably, many things did not survive.
Huh?
The Catholic Church put the Bible together. Where are you getting your religious instruction?
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Just the tip of the iceberg......
What we know as the "canonized" bible was not assembled in anything like it's present form until the 3rd century by a council of bishops (although it was still debated for centuries after). They chose which books should be included in the bible, which books were inspired by God, by vote, just as we might vote on a law. (Can you imagine that some books missed out on being The Word of God by one vote?) Were they any more qualified to judge which books were divine than anyone living today? Is their judgement and knowledge any better than ours?
What ever happened to the Gospels according to Thomas, Jade, James, Peter, and the Gospel of the Hebrews, of the Egyptians, of Perfection, of Judas, of Thaddeus, of the Infancy, of the Preaching of Peter, of the Shepherd of Hermas, the Epistle of Barnabas, the Pastor of Hermas, the Revelation of Peter, the Revelation of Paul, the Epistle of Clement, the Epistle of Ignatius, the Gospel of Mary, the Gospel of Nicodemus and of Marcion? They were all not considered inspired (or inspired enough). They did not get voted in. There were also the Acts of Pilate, of Andrew, of Mary, of Paul and Thecla, and many others. If the bishops at the Council of Laodicea in 365 had voted differently, millions of Christians would have believed differently. The vote of the one is the belief of all the others.
You asked........
There are plenty of them; so many in fact that the KJV and the WCF are shown in beautiful detail as the political documents that they are, masquerading as religious documents. Both of these are an act of the English government, commissioned, bought, paid for, sold and approved by a sovereign secular nation with the intent of imposing religious servitude upon its people, with the secular king as the head of the church.
Are you sure? Have you read the procedures of the councils in which they ratified the canon?
(Can you imagine that some books missed out on being The Word of God by one vote?) Were they any more qualified to judge which books were divine than anyone living today? Is their judgement and knowledge any better than ours?
1. Which books were not included by one vote?
2. The Church was given the authority by Jesus. Qualifications? As sure as that given to Simon Peter and the rest of the apostles by Jesus. Not by anyone or anything else.
If the bishops at the Council of Laodicea in 365 had voted differently, millions of Christians would have believed differently. The vote of the one is the belief of all the others.
Again, the bishops had the authority. You don't and neither do any and all of the Reformers and their children. What do you mean the vote of the one is the belief of all the others?
Of course!
Note: this topic is from 12/04/2009. Thanks NYer.
I predicted a few years ago that Vatican secrets would be released.
While I was having it authenticated some Ahole out bid me and sold it by the page. History down the S#it hole.
You did right.
**I would much rather read documents dating back to the time of King James putting the bible together.**
??
St. Jerome put the Bible together.
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