“Pilgrims of the Night”: The American Catholic Church Responds to the Post-World War II Displaced Persons Crisis
The destruction wrought by World War II initiated a wave of displaced persons across Europe. In response, the American Catholic Church became proactive in its efforts to respond to this crisis and, by the early 1950s, had resettled just shy of two hundred thousand Europeans who were displaced by the...
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
2013
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| In: |
American catholic studies
Year: 2013, Volume: 124, Issue: 3, Pages: 1-20 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (JSTOR) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | The destruction wrought by World War II initiated a wave of displaced persons across Europe. In response, the American Catholic Church became proactive in its efforts to respond to this crisis and, by the early 1950s, had resettled just shy of two hundred thousand Europeans who were displaced by the war. In the years immediately preceding the war, however, the church lacked both the infrastructure and the will to respond to the refugee crisis of the magnitude witnessed in the postwar period. Within a few years following its end, it had established a resettlement network that was international in scope and effective in its response to the immediate crisis in Europe, and that laid the groundwork for its expansive resettlement efforts in the second half of the twentieth century. The process that church leadership took to build this infrastructure provides insights into an important instance of institution building within the American church that had ramifications extending into the twenty-first century; it is a process that, with the exception of a few scholars, has not received as much attention as it deserves in the secondary literature. This essay is a first step in addressing this oversight. |
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| ISSN: | 2161-8534 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: American catholic studies
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1353/acs.2013.0031 |