La diplomazia della carità: le opere di assistenza di Pio XII a favore dei displaced persons e dei profughi dellʹEuropa dellʹest dopo la Seconda guerra mondiale (1945-1950)

On Thursday, 27 November, at 5 p.m. in Room F007, the second event in the annual series of permanent seminars on the History of the Papacy will be held. On this occasion, Emilia Hrabovec of Comenius University in Bratislava will give a lecture entitled ‘The Diplomacy of Charity: Pius XII's Assistance to Displaced Persons and Refugees in Eastern Europe after World War II (1945-1950)’. Based on Vatican documentation recently made available for research, the scholar will reconstruct Pope Pius XII's ‘crusade of charity’ launched in the immediate post-war period in the difficult context marked by the beginning of the Cold War. A period characterised by the expansion of communism and the complex and changing attitude of the great Western powers towards the Vatican's actions, which were not without support, but also not without mistrust. In light of this, the lesson will emphasise how, in cooperation with the Allies and with local Churches, especially in overseas countries, the Holy See strove to assist and find a new homeland for the dispossessed Europeans, seeking to overcome both the justice of the victors, which excluded the defeated nations from aid, and the logic of profit, which did not accept the elderly and the weak, lacking the “muscle power” required by the host countries, into the resettlement schemes. In particular, the scholar will highlight how the Holy See was determined to offer displaced persons and refugees not only material assistance, but first and foremost religious and moral support, and to ensure, often against the incomprehension of the secular organisations involved, that refugees were accompanied by Catholic clergy of their own nationality.