Vatican City, Oct 28, 2019 / 05:15 am
Pope Francis declared Monday that the Vatican Secret Archive be changed to the title of Vatican Apostolic Archive, to avoid the negative associations which accompany modern interpretations of the word "secret."
In an apostolic letter issued motu proprio Oct. 28, Francis declared that "from now on, the current Vatican Secret Archive, nothing changing in its identity, its structure, and its mission, be called the Vatican Apostolic Archive."
This change, the pope wrote, is to avoid associations with the evolving interpretation of the word "secret," which instead of denoting "private," has, he said, "assumed the prejudicial sense of being hidden, not to be revealed and to be reserved for a few."
Francis added that this interpretation is "the complete opposite of what the Vatican Secret Archive has always been and intends to be."