Vatican Secrets

The Vatican's so-called "Secret Archive" was never secret in the sense of hidden knowledge. The word "secret" came from the Latin "secretum," meaning private papal records, and the archive was renamed in 2019 to correct centuries of misunderstanding. Pope Francis changed the official name from Archivum Secretum Vaticanum to Archivum Apostolicum Vaticanum to dispel conspiracy theories about concealed historical documents. The repository sits inside Vatican City and stores all acts promulgated by the Holy See. The Pope personally owns all archive material during his tenure, and ownership passes to each successor upon death or resignation. The archive is papal property, not institutional Church property.

Pope Paul V created the archive in 1610 by separating it from the Vatican Library. Before this separation, scholars had very limited access to documents within the library. The new archive was closed entirely to outsiders. This complete exclusion fueled speculation about concealed historical documents for nearly three centuries. Pope Leo XIII ended the lockout in 1881 by opening the archive to qualified researchers for the first time. The archive's holdings span 85 kilometers of shelving and hold state papers, papal correspondence, account books, and ecclesiastical documents accumulated over centuries of Church history. The collection is not comprehensive. Most documents from before the 13th century have been lost, leaving gaps for the early medieval and ancient periods of Church history.

Over a thousand researchers now access the documents annually. In 2020, the archive opened records from Pope Pius XII's pontificate (1939-1958) to scholars, continuing a pattern of expanding access to historical material.