Knocking on the Vatican's Gates. Refugees, the Holy See, and the Spectre of Communism, 1945-1958

This project will be the first to explore the crucial – but hitherto neglected – role of the Vatican Relief Commission (the Pontificia Commissione di Assistenza, PCA) in assisting and resettling European refugees after World War II and in the early Cold War.

It takes advantage of an unprecedented opportunity: the opening of the part of the Vatican Apostolic Archive (or VAA, named the Vatican Secret Archive until 2019) pertaining to the pontificate of Pius XII (1939-1958) in March 2020.

To meet its central aim - providing a new understanding of Western humanitarianism in the postwar period - this project interrogates the documents held in VAA to integrate the missing puzzle piece of papal aid into the picture of the international refugee assistance.

It demonstrates the importance of the Vatican’s faith-based humanitarianism and its use of refugees from Eastern Europe as a playing card in building an anti-communist defensive.

Three objectives are to be achieved in the lifetime of the project: A) to conduct intensive archival research in the untapped collections of VAA and to triangulate this with material from the archives of the International Refugee Organization (IRO) and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) B) to analyze this primary source material in order to revisit historiographical assumptions on the post-war refugee regime, international humanitarianism, the Catholic Church, and the Cold War C) to disseminate the research findings to the scholarly community, the public, refugees, and policymakers, drawing attention to the importance of historicizing refugee experiences and policies.

The methodology of this project combines historical analysis of original archival sources, qualitative research techniques, and interdisciplinary conceptual frameworks.

Integrating institutional and bottom-up perspectives, it highlights the issues of gender, class, and ethnicity in experiencing and negotiating displacement.