c. 2003 Religion News Service

Vatican Opens Archives on Pre-World War Relations with Germany

VATICAN CITY (RNS) The Vatican has given historians access to 394 folders of documents dealing with pre-World War II relations with Germany, which it hopes will help to remove doubts about Pope Pius XII’s attitude toward the Nazi persecution of the Jews and clear the way for his beatification.

Professors Agostino Giovagnoli of Catholic University of Milan and Emma Fattorini of Rome’s Sapienza University were the first of some three dozen applicants to have access to files when they were unsealed on Saturday (Feb. 15).

The documents deal mainly with diplomatic relations between the Vatican and Germany during the pre-war years of 1922 to 1939 when Pius XI was pope and Archbishop Eugenio Pacelli, the future Pope Pius XII, served first as ambassador to Germany and then as secretary of state. He was elected pope in 1939.

Officials of the Vatican’s Secret Archives and Secretariat of State announced a year ago that Pope John Paul II had directed them to open the files to historians to try to “put an end to unjust and ungrateful speculation” about Pius XII.

Critics of the wartime pope have alleged that Pacelli knew about the Holocaust but failed to intervene to try to save the Jews from Nazi gas chambers because he was anti-Semitic and wanted Germany to serve as a buffer against communism.

The controversy appears to have halted the procedure for declaring Pius XII blessed and eventually making him a saint.

The Rev. Sergio Pagano, a Barnabite father who is prefect of the Secret Vatican Archives, said the newly opened folders contain about 1 million records of the Vatican missions to Munich from 1922 to 1939 and Berlin from 1922 to 1930. An allied bombing of Berlin in 1945 destroyed documents dated from 1931 to 1934.

Another 90 folders in the archives of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith deal with the Vatican’s views on Hitler’s National Socialism movement and its racist policies.

The documents will be open for examination in the reading rooms of the Secret Vatican Archives and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith where photocopies cost 8.20 euros a page and notes must be taken only in pencil.

Pagano said all remaining documents on the pontificate of Pius XI, from 1922 to 1939, will be unsealed in 2006.

_ Peggy Polk

Study: Britain Should Outlaw Religious Discrimination

LONDON (RNS) A call for religious discrimination to be outlawed in Britain, just as race discrimination has been since 1976, is one of the recommendations of a study of British Muslims and state policies conducted by the Center for Research in Ethnic Relations of Warwick University.

Other recommendations include training and recruiting British Muslims for key positions in government, public services, the police, and the judiciary, and providing Muslim schools on the same basis as Christian and Jewish schools within the British educational system.

The latest census figures show that 2.7 per cent of the United Kingdom’s population, or 1,591,000 people, are Muslims _ the largest category after Christians (71.6 per cent), those of no religion (15.5 per cent), and those who declined to state their religion (7.3 per cent).

According to the report, drawn up by Muhammad Anwar and Qadir Bakhsh, Muslims _ particularly those of Pakistani and Bangladeshi origin _ “are one of the most deprived groups in Britain.”

The report examined the current policy and practice of central and local government and other organizations towards Muslims and found these on the whole “inadequate.”

In particular, the report found the levels of educational achievement reached by British Muslim children were generally lower than those of white and some other ethnic group children. Meanwhile, a significant number of the British Muslims interviewed for the survey felt that ordinary state schools lacked facilities for Muslims, such as halal food, understanding the needs of Muslim pupils fasting during Ramadan, and the provision of time and space for prayer.

The report said Muslims were over-represented in Britain’s prison population, making up almost 10 per cent of the total, but under-represented in the police and the judiciary. Some respondents thought the police discouraged recruiting Muslims.

_ Robert Nowell

Number of Catholic Deacons Up 17 Percent Across Globe

(RNS) The number of Roman Catholic deacons grew by 17 percent between 1998 and 2001, although growth in the United States was lower, at 10 percent, according to the International Diaconate Center in Rottenburg, Germany.

Last year, there were about 28,000 permanent deacons around the world, with almost half of them in the United States. Over the four-year period, all regions of the world except Asia saw an increase in the number of deacons.

Deacons are ordained by the church to assist priests and bishops. Deacons are able to proclaim the Gospel, witness marriages, conduct funerals and preside at baptisms. Deacons, who may be married with families, are not able to celebrate Communion or forgive sins.

The permanent deaconate was revived after the Second Vatican Council in the mid-1960s. The U.S. bishops approved the deaconate in 1968.

North and South America saw an overall growth rate of 15 percent since 1998, with Canada at 11 percent, the United States at 10 percent and Mexico at 88 percent _ the largest growth anywhere in the world.

In Africa, the rate of growth was 9 percent. Australia and Oceania saw an increase of 13 percent, and Europe reported a 24 percent increase, despite a 59 percent decrease in Pope John Paul II’s native Poland.

Only Asia _ with 128 deacons in 23 countries _ repeated a decrease, of 10 percent.

_ Kevin Eckstrom

Top British Cleric Assails Refugee Treatment

LONDON (RNS) Roman Catholic Bishop Patrick O’Donoghue of Lancaster, chairman of the English and Welsh Roman Catholic bishops’ office for refugee policy, has called the increasingly hostile attitude toward refugees fostered by some politicans and media “alarming.”

“It is alarming that Britain, as a country with a good record of accepting asylum seekers, is becoming increasingly hard-line, fuelled by relentless attacks on asylum seekers by sections of the media.

“Not only are asylum seekers dismissed as abusers of the asylum system and as welfare scroungers: they are now also regularly viewed as would-be terrorists.”

The bishop noted that recently the British government had been sending out “mixed signals” about its attitude to refugees, with the Home Secretary, David Blunkett, saying it is “time to stand up and be counted” in their defense, while Prime Minister Tony Blair, held out the prospect of withdrawing from he country’s obligation to asylum seekers under the European Convention on Human Rights, and the Leader of the Opposition, Iain Duncan Smith, had been advocating “draconian security measures” for all refugees.

O’Donoghue said the Home Secretary was right in arguing that most asylum seekers, whether genuine or not, had nothing to do with terrorism. “Terrorism, whatever forms it takes _ state, group or individual _ must always be condemned, and if there are asylum seekers involved in such activities they must be apprehended and removed,” he said.

But at root the question of asylum is an issue of human rights. “Asylum seekers are a symptom of a tragically disordered world, victims of unjust social, economic and political structures,” he said. “Asylum seekers are often people fleeing torture, persecution, starvation and abuses of human rights. They need protection and recognition of their human dignity. This must be the priority of our asylum system.”

_ Robert Nowell

Quote of the Day: Washington Post Columnist E.J. Dionne

(RNS) “It doesn’t help Bush, or our country, for the world to think _ even unfairly _ that an American president about to wage war is inspired not only by his own certainty but also by God’s.”

_ Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne, writing about President Bush’s frequent invocation of religious language on Iraq and other subjects.

DEA END RNS