Vatican reveals a selection of historic documents from its secret archives

[bob]

now this is very fasinating to me, loads of historical stuff

http://worldnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/02/29/10541847-vatican-reveals-a-selection-of-historic-documents-from-its-secret-archives

[Flick James]

You mean the Catholic church has stuff they've been hiding from us?

[indianasmith]

From what I read, none of the released documents are exactly secret.  The world knows that the Church excommunicated Luther and Galileo, and refused Henry VIII his divorce . . . sounds like these would be better described as rare and original documents rather than "secret".

[BoyScoutKevin]

For a person interested in history, we may know what the document says, but there is nothing like actually seeing the document itself. And I hope this is just a small start, that they continue to make available to the public the documents they have.

[indianasmith]

I absolutely agree!

[Jim H]

I wonder if they have been or ever plan to have them digitized?  Seems like a worthy endeavor, in case anything should ever happen to the originals..