What will scholars learn about Pope Pius XII, who had the misfortune of reigning during World War II, in the now-opened Vatican Archives? Will the new materials confirm what has been repeated since the early 1960s — that the wartime pope callously turned a blind eye toward the Holocaust and harbored pro-Nazi sympathies?

In 2003, the Vatican opened its archives up to 1939. One of the very first documents that emerged was a letter dated April 4, 1933 by Eugenio Cardinal Pacelli, the Vatican Secretary of State and future Pope Pius XII, to the papal nuncio in Germany. Cardinal Pacelli instructed the nuncio to see what he could do to oppose Germany’s anti-Semitic policies.