Search

The paper aims to describe and discuss the principal contents of the files kept in the Secret Vatican Archives - both in the Vatican Secretariat of State and the Sacred Congregation for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs - concerning Catholic Jews and the 'would be'converted immediately after the promulgation of the Fascist racial laws (1938). The study is based on previously unpublished documents and research on this topic is still ongoing. My research is based on two main types of sources. First, the 'subjective documentation': letters and pleas written during the 'year of the Race' and sent to the Holy See. The authors of these documents were referred to as 'Jews by race, Catholic by faith' or 'Christian Jews' or 'converted Jews' or 'baptized Jews' or - more frequently - 'Catholic Jews'. Second, the contrasting nature of the documentation produced by the Church body in response to these letters. The Holy See's Secretary, Eugenio Pacelli, and the Secretary of the Sacred Congregation for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs, Domenico Tardini, answered these pleas in an official and diplomatic way, seeking a way to protect Catholic Jews without provoking a clash with the Fascist regime and its laws. These documents give us a more in-depth understanding of both the political and religious procedures adopted by the Church authorities regarding the Jewish persecution and in particular this specific aspect of the anti-Jewish laws. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]