Agenda

Panel featuring David Kertzer (Brown University), Nina Valbousquet (Ecole Française de Rome), and Maria Chiara Rioli (Ca’ Foscari and Fordham University), moderated by David Gibson (Fordham University) and Magda Teter (Fordham University).

Please register at this link 

This event is co-hosted between Fordham University’s Center for Jewish Studies in New York and Ca’ Foscari University’s Department of Asian and North African Studies. The event is part of the REL-NET project. REL-NET has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 835758.

Abstract
On March 4, 2019, Pope Francis announced the opening of the Pius XII archives, and on March 2, 2020, in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic outbreak, the archives were finally opened - after decades of scholarly curiosity about what they contained.  These archives, which contain materials from Eugenio Pacelli’s pontificate from 1939-1958, are of particular interest to those who study the history of the Holocaust and the founding of the State of Israel, and the Catholic Church’s involvement in both.
This panel features scholars of Catholic-Jewish history who will share their initial research findings about the documents concerning Jews carried out in these newly-opened Vatican archives, with a focus both on the role of the Catholic Church in the Holocaust and also on the Holy See's attitude toward the establishment of the State of Israel.  Each panelist will share some of their research from the archives, and will be in dialogue with one another about their findings, and then will address questions from the audience.