It means the archives are open to serious scholars doing research but not every Tom, Dick and Harry. Scholars such as David Kertzer, mentioned in the article, whose recent book is critical of the Church's relationship with Mussolini and who "spent years researching in the Secret Archives"(quote). Even he says that "the Secret Archives are staffed by professionals, and “there’s an appreciation of serious historical scholarship.” (quote). That's where the problem lies; with the word "serious". The non-serious are excluded which displeases a lot of people but it doesn't appear to have been a problem for Kertzer.
Thus the restrictions can mean such things as that the VSA "are surrounded with their own controversy over what they might show about the Church's diplomatic conduct in World War II, and whether Pope Pius XII did too little to protest the Holocaust. Debate has been raging since an International Catholic-Jewish Historical Commission suspended its activities in 2000 after requests by panel members for unrestricted access to the archives were turned down."
The source for the serious history student; USA Today. Simple message for the hoi polloi...the Vatican is hiding something.
It's useful to know that it was the Vatican which appointed this Commission to look into this issue. How's that for secrecy? Its preliminary report is HERE. Secondly, the Vatican baulked at allowing unlimited access to the Archives because the Commission became mired in recriminations. Press releases were made without the approval of Catholic members, reports were leaked to the press and Commission work was misrepresented. It was the Vatican's position that since such poor use had been made of existing Archive material, no more would be provided and the Commission disbanded
Debate will always rage. The conviction that the Church is hiding something will never die, no matter what. If incriminating evidence can not be found the debate will simply shift to whether the archives are complete and whether material has been destroyed or altered.
In that regard, a Church so preoccupied with "secrecy" and hiding the truth from the eyes of disinterested and scholarly truth seekers, is difficult to reconcile with a Church determined to retain all this documentation in the first place. "Secrecy" would be much better served by simply destroying all the evidence. A real commitment to "secrecy" over the papacy of Pius XII would have resulted in these documents going through the shredder. Retaining vast historical records is strange behavior for miscreants determined to hide the truth.
And considering how extensive the archives are, to convey there is nothing hidden would be quite a statement:
Nobody is making this statement since it is ambiguous. "Hidden" may mean deliberately concealed or it may mean not thoroughly cataloged or misplaced. It may mean hidden from you or hidden from everyone.
Even if so, the devil is in the details of what "restricted" means, but this can indeed be understandable
No, the devil is in the details of what "secret" means. You are suggesting that anything less than full access to the entire archives by anyone who wants it at any time is synonymous with "secrecy".
If that's "secret", then so is the British Museum.
How can you say that when it is not true, only that " there is transparency around many items known to be housed there," and "the sitting pope decides when to expand the archives," and thus Francis is considering when to open the full archives of Pope Pius XII?
Denying that only serves to evidence more of the usual "protect the franchise at any cost" often evidenced by RCs, while i am not even objecting to the restrictions here.