A CNS story:

The current prefect of the Vatican Secret Archives, Father Sergio Pagano, said in a Sept. 17 article in the Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, that the documents offered "a fascinating survey" of the Vatican’s diplomatic dealings at such a crucial time in history.

The meticulous notes Cardinal Pacelli took in his almost daily meetings with the pope are so "very precious," he wrote, that the archives will also be publishing them in a 10-volume series starting next year.

Such richness in detail, wrote Father Pagano, will allow historians interested in the figure of Pope Pius XII "to draw, we believe, substantiated ideas and motives in (their) analyses of the character and efforts of the then-secretary of state and future pope."

An official at the Vatican archives told Catholic News Service that in the first week after the 1922-1939 archives were opened, between 55 and 60 scholars from all over the world were going through the documents each day.