A group of scientists and researchers is seeking access to the Vatican Apostolic Archives to uncover information about UFOs and the paranormal, believing there may be traces amid the 80 km of shelves holding everything from handwritten papal notes to presidential missives.

The era of divisive debate about Pope Pius XII has been left behind, and now Catholics and Jews, historians and theologians must take up serious and collaborative study, said the co-organizer of a major conference looking at the early results of new research into the wartime pontificate.

A Vatican archivist discovered a letter to Pope Pius XII's personal secretary from a Jesuit priest in Germany, who was active in the resistance against the Nazis, reporting that thousands of Poles and Jews were being incinerated daily in a Polish concentration camp.

The Catholic Church Index Librorum Prohibitorum (“List of Prohibited Books”), the list of publications deemed blasphemous or morally reprehensible in the view of the Sacred Congregation of the Index, is the subject of a new deep-dive academic research novel from St. Thomas University professor Dr. Robin Vose. 

Getting an early look at the full archive of the wartime papacy of Pius XII is more than a passing interest for King’s University College historian Robert Ventresca.

VATICAN CITY -- When the Vatican's wartime archives open to researchers March 2, it will be just the start of what should be a long, slow process of studying, analyzing and publishing findings, said the Vatican's archivist and librarian.

OTTAWA – Newly released digital inventories of Vatican documents have revealed fresh insights into Canadian history, but don’t expect the kind of dramatic revelations that would fill a Dan Brown mystery novel, says an Italian specialist.