Vatican archives

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Hello to all!

Often posters ask about other sections of the Gospels, or Scripture: Are there more passages to Matthew, etc.

I am wondering if anyone here knows anything about the Vatican archives? I realize most of what we hear about them come from the mass-media (not a Catholic viewpoint), so I wondered what the official line of the Papacy is, regarding the secrecy which surrounds these many works contained beneath the Vatican. For example: I recall learning, as a child, that the Secret Service would release the “truth” about JFK’s assassination at the time of Jackie O’s and JFK Jr’s deaths, deeming that by that time, it will be appropriate, and no longer harmful, to do so. However, their deaths are now long past, and we still never learned who shot JFK!

Have there ever been similar promises made, on the part of the Vatican? That certain of the documents will be made public (or viewable to Catholics) by a certain point in time? Or have they instead said that these documents will remain hidden? Also, is it known which documents, specifically, the Archives contain?

I’ve always been so curious about this! I first heard of these Archives from a nun in Catholic School, and always imagined monks creeping down there and reading from the stacks by candlelight. A romantic image indeed, but I have no idea how this compares to the truth.

Thank you and peace!
Light1111
 
I suggest you simply investigate the credentials of theose who claims to have seen the secret archieves, often you will find that they were not even roman catholic at some time in their life — so, how would they gain access to that which is “secret”? lol
 
Sorry to burst your bubble, but sometimes the truth is down right boring. Sometimes as boring as a guy named Lee Harvey Oswald!

The term “Secret” in “Vatican Secret Archives” is simply an older term meaning “Personal”, as in the Pope’s “Personal” Archive.

Its no more secret than, perhaps say, the sealed archives of a Juvenal Court system. We know whats in there, criminal records of minors, but we don’t release that information out of respect for the minor’s privacy. Same with the Vatican Archives, in that their may be documents involving extremely private matters, such as document relating to lifting excommunications from penitents in the confessional. Documents such as these may never be released to the public

Many, many documents in the Vatican archives though are in fact accessible with special permission, however, some documents, such as those dealing with recent events, may still require extensive filing and cross referencing before they are made available to researchers.
 
“Often posters ask about other sections of the Gospels, or Scripture: Are there more passages to Matthew, etc.”

Check out this website - 12 pages of historical information concerning the determination of the official canon of the New Testament:

newadvent.org/cathen/03274a.htm
 
The Vatican Archives are so secret that they have their own website where you can take a virtual tour. 😉

Runningdude is right, the truth is a bit more boring. Perhaps someday they’ll change the word “secret” to discourage the misconception, but we’ll see. 😛

EDIT: I just found this on their website as well:

The Archives is open to scholars from 16th September to 15th July (from 8:15 AM to 1:00 PM) Monday to Saturday

Not exactly top secret stuff. 🙂
 
Thanks everyone! 🙂 By the way, the nun didn’t say she had seen the secret archives. Merely that they existed and she wished to see them!!
 
Re: Secret

We still have secretaries (secret-aries), so I don’t think the “private” meaning has gone away yet! 🙂

Re: archival restrictions

Most archives won’t let you look at everything. Obviously, classified documents aren’t seen by all. Archives are also bound by the terms of those who gave them their papers; generally you can’t read stuff until somebody’s been dead for twenty-five years or so, unless you get permission from the person or his estate. The Vatican also has to deal with danger to living persons held under totalitarian governments, diplomatically sensitive materials that would be bad for other countries, etc.

But yeah, tons of people do research in the Vatican Secret Archives every day. The only real handicap is that the cataloging system isn’t quite up to modern standards yet, so it can be hard for the archives staff to find out that certain papers are even there (and so there are many forgotten, misfiled things being found all the time).

There’s an excellent inexpensive book called The Secret Archives of the Vatican which goes into all sorts of history of the institution. Note the Spooky Cover.
 
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