Terry Prone: Secrecy a thing of the past as Pope opens up trove of Second World War letters 

Pope Francis has made 40,000 files accessible to anyone who wants to read them — but they do not make for comfortable reading

Pope Pius XII blesses a group of war correspondents in the Vatican, shortly after the liberation of Rome during the Second World War, on June 7, 1944. Picture: Getty

The mills of God grind slowly but they grind a little faster when a man such as Francis occupies the Vatican. Since 2020, letters seeking the direct help of Pope Pius XII from Jewish people in Europe during the Second World War have been open to scholars. Now the Pope has gone further, making the 40,000 files accessible to anyone who wants to read them. 

They do not make for comfortable reading, coming as they did from people frantic to avoid concentration camps or desperately seeking help to find family members who had been taken to such camps.