“Trying to proceed with the beatification process now raises concerns because one has the sense that the whole record is not out there,” said Ventresca.

It would take a minimum of six more years to catalogue the hundreds of thousands of documents collected in the Vatican archives covering the period from 1939 to 1958, according to Vatican sources.

It’s perfectly reasonable for the Vatican to take whatever time is necessary to properly catalogue the material, said Ventresca. He thinks it unlikely the mostly official, diplomatic and legal documents remaining in the Vatican’s secret archives will reveal anything new about Eugenio Pacelli — the former Vatican diplomat who became Pope Pius XII.

“Keep in mind that we already have 11 volumes that are published (from before 1939). So we know a lot of stuff,” said Ventresca. “I just don’t think there’s anything in there that’s going to radically change our understanding of Pacelli. But the impression is that until we get access to these sources these questions are unanswered.”

Jewish historian Michael Marrus of the University of Toronto, one of an elite team of Jewish and Catholic scholars the Vatican invited in 1999 to examine the pre-war record of Pope Pius XII, said it is time to hand the controversy over to a new generation of historians, including his former student Ventresca.

“Sadly this issue has become so politicized and opinions have become so entrenched that it really is time to yield to a newer generation of investigators, scholars and historians who will sort this out,” Marrus told The Catholic Register.

Marrus was among the scholars who signed the November message urging the Vatican to wait before canonizing Pius XII.

“I signed this with a little bit of hesitation,” Marrus said. “Not because I disagree with the theme, but because I think non-Catholics have to be very careful not to be involving themselves in what is obviously a Catholic decision. At the same time, my own way of dealing with this is to say that friends owe it to friends to say what might be the consequences of what they’re doing.”

As one of the new generation of scholars looking at Pacelli, the Second World War and the Holocaust, Ventresca is in agreement with his former teacher about the value of John Cornwell’s controversial book, Hitler’s Pope.

“I don’t think anybody takes Cornwell seriously any more,” he said.

That is, historians and scholars dismiss Cornwell’s book. But that doesn’t mean accusations of dark, secret connivance between the Nazis and the Vatican aren’t still part of popular culture’s view of the papacy. Even among undergraduates Ventresca teaches, it’s a Da Vinci Code world when it comes to the institutional church.

“A lot of the pop culture has primed them (students) to be suspicious of the church as an institution,” Ventresca said. “They just assume that there is a Da Vinci Code-like secrecy going on. There’s some kind of conspiracy going on behind all this. I try to say the reality is much more mundane.”

The political, rather than theological, considerations behind the Vatican’s stance on Nazi targeting of Jews has been subject to a great deal of speculation, and scholars have work to do in finding an accurate reflection of the historical reality, said Ventresca. Counterposing irresponsible accusation with irresponsible, defensive hagiography isn’t getting us any closer to the truth.

“In the process of defending or criticizing a lot of the historical accuracy seems to be sacrificed,” said Ventresca.

With a working title of Soldier of Christ: The Political Life  of Pope Pius XII, Ventresca’s book is planned for release about 2011. He hopes to widen the lens so readers will see more of Pacelli beyond the wartime record.

“You just always get the sense that the guy remains an enigma,” he said. “It’s the person, it’s the personality that attracts me.”

Rather than the stiff and remote figure embodying a church with a white-knuckle grip on the pre-modern world, Ventresca sees Pius XII as a forerunner of the popular, media-savvy Pope John Paul II.

“I don’t think we fully appreciate how much he used the media,” he said. “If you actually go back to the records and you see at the time, he could draw the crowds. He used mass media.”

Nor does Ventresca accept the view that Pope John XXIII represented a radical break from the papacy of Pius XII.

“Not enough is made of the roots and the seeds that Pacelli sowed in helping to prepare the way for Vatican II,” he said.

Ventresca promises his book won’t be an unreadable door-stopper of defensive scholarship.

“There is such a public interest in this story. It’s important, I think, to write something and be able to communicate to as wide an audience as possible.”