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  • Notes and Comments
  • Raymond J. Kupke

Journal News

The Catholic University of America Press has announced that the volumes of The Catholic Historical Review, except for the most recent five years, are now available online in the database JSTOR. For the recent volumes, please consult Project MUSE, Scholarly Journals Online, Johns Hopkins University Press.

Association News

At its special meeting held at Washington University in St. Louis on September 27–28, 2008, the Executive Council of the American Catholic Historical Association decided to increase the annual dues for ordinary members from $50 to $60; the increase was effective immediately. The fees for the other categories of membership were not changed.

The Executive Council appointed the Reverend Paul Robichaud, C.S.P., secretary and treasurer of the Association for a term of three years beginning at the end of the next annual meeting, January 5, 2009.

Research Tools

The staff of the Vatican Secret Archives is currently cataloguing the 16 million documents for the pontificate of Pius XII (1939–58). It will take approximately six to seven years to prepare the 15,430 folders and 2,500 dossiers needed to catalog them properly. Once the documents are readied for consultation, it will be up to the pope to make the final decision about opening these archives to scholars.

Brepols Publishers has announced that the encyclopedia Dictionnaire d’histoire et de géographie ecclésiastiques (currently containing 70,000 entries) and the journal Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique are now available in an electronic format. For more information on these databases, visit the Web site http://www.brepols.net or contact Rudolf Puelinckx atrudolf.puelinckx@brepols.net.

Cengage Learning has announced that the state papers for the reigns of Henry VIII through Elizabeth I are now available online. The project will eventually cover the period 1509–1714 and include both domestic and foreign papers and the registers of the Privy Council. It will match the calendar entries [End Page 192] with the original documents. Part 1 involving 380,000 facsimile manuscript documents dealing with Tudor domestic affairs was released in November. Part 2 involving 560,000 facsimile manuscript documents dealing with Tudor foreign matters (including Scotland, Ireland, and the Borders) are scheduled for release in March 2009. Part 3, the domestic papers for the Stuarts, are due out in late 2009; and part 4, the Stuart foreign papers, in mid-2010. An edition for more general use will become available in 2011. For more information, see http://www.gale.cengage.co.uk/statepapers .

Symposia and Lectures

On September 15–17, 2008, the congress “Examining the Papacy of Pope Pius XII” was sponsored by the Pave the Way Foundation, which seeks to promote dialogue between religions. Its president, Gary Krupp, a Jew, informed Pope Benedict XVI that the papers given at the symposium, which were based on significant documents (referring to verbal and encrypted messages) and video-recorded eyewitness testimony, had come to stunning conclusions that contradict the negative image of the pope’s wartime activities. Many of Pius XII’s interventions on behalf of the Jews were done secretly and silently—because something was not recorded in written form does not mean it never happened. Krupp noted approvingly the claim that the Catholic Church under Pius XII was instrumental in saving as many as 860,000 Jews from extermination.

On October 26, 2008, James L. Swanson, author of Manhunt: The Twelve-Day Chase for Lincoln’s Killer (New York, 2006), presented a lecture to the Catholic Historical Society of Washington on the search for John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of President Abraham Lincoln. He explored the supposed Catholic connections to the assassination plot.

On November 1, 2008, Clara Bargellini of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México spoke at the Academy of American Franciscan History in Berkeley, California, on “Franciscan Mission Art in Colonial New Spain in the 17th and 18th Centuries.”

On November 6–8, 2008, a congress to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the death of Pius XII was held in Rome under the title “Eredità del Magistero di Pio XII.” It was cosponsored by the Pontificia Università Gregoriana and the Pontificia Università Lateranense. Among the papers given were...

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