Pope Francis has declared that the Vatican Secret Archive isn’t so secret after all.
Francis on Monday officially changed the name of the Holy See archive to remove what he said were the “negative” implications of having “secret” in its name.
From now on, the vast trove of documentation of popes past will be officially known as the “Vatican Apostolic Archive.”
Francis noted that the archive has long been open to scholars and that he himself has decreed that the archives of World War II-era Pope Pius XII, accused by some of not speaking out enough about the Holocaust, would open ahead of time March 2, 2020.
But he said the name change better reflects the archive’s reality and “its service to the church and the world of culture.”