Humanitarian Aid, Politics and Religion: A Transnational History of the Catholic Near East Welfare Association from the 1920s to the present day

Project Information

HUMANE

Grant agreement ID: 101032864

DOI

10.3030/101032864

Project closed

EC signature date 26 April 2021

Start date 1 September 2022

End date 31 August 2025

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Total cost

€ 236 011,20

EU contribution

€ 236 011,20

Coordinated by

ECOLE FRANCAISE DE ROME
Italy

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - HUMANE (Humanitarian Aid, Politics and Religion: A Transnational History of the Catholic Near East Welfare Association from the 1920s to the present day)

Reporting period: 2024-09-01 to 2025-08-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

While the notion of humanitarianism has exploded in contemporary discourse and practice since the 1990s, HUMANE looks at the prolegomena of this phenomenon. At the crossroads of religious history, migration and international relations, this project focuses on faith-based humanitarian aid, combining local dynamics in the Middle East and transnational perspectives. More specifically, it investigates Catholic aid networks for the populations of the Middle East in interaction with locally-established structures (1920-1990), and in particular, a dual American-Vatican structure: the Catholic Near East Welfare Association (CNEWA) and its executive agency on the ground, the Pontifical Mission for Palestine (PMP). The study includes emergency relief, educational work and longer-term assistance, and examines how advocacy and informal diplomacy are intertwined. The analysis is based on archival collections and field surveys in Lebanon, Jordan, Israel/Palestine, as well as in Rome and the United States.
This research provides an opportunity for a critical re-reading of the origins of humanitarianism, how it functions and has developed over time, starting with the Middle East. In the context of new conflicts in the Middle East and their repercussions on the aid sector, with humanitarian actors on the front line and sometimes controversial debates about their involvement, this re-reading is both necessary and instructive.
With regard to the state of the art, the research is situated within a perspective of redefining humanitarian action. In fact, current definitions of humanitarian action are based on a historiography that has long focused on Europe, the battlefields and the aftermath of war, and still does not take sufficient account of work carried out in its two main areas of action, Africa and the Middle East. Analysis struggle to establish the links between the major international organisations and their field of operation, with the risk of producing a disconnected and overhanging vision of humanitarian action, while neglecting the actors' diversity. The archives consulted reveal a more complex reality: definitions of humanitarianism appear porous; the terms used are often interchangeable; practices are deeply intertwined in various forms of charity, including charity, social action, emergency relief and development. The objectives are to produce knowledge that is contextualised and rooted in the field, define practices rather than categories, bring to the fore actors who have hitherto had little visibility in historiography, and question the norms of governance.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

During the first phase of the fellowship, in-depth work was carried out in various archives in Rome and the Vatican, Amman, Beirut, Bethlehem, Jerusalem and Geneva. Analysis was presented at conferences and seminars, and led to initial publications. It is now possible to fully reconstruct the history of CNEWA-PMP from its foundation to the present day, and understand its role in the field of philanthropy, social welfare, emergency relief and support for missionaries, by looking at actors, benefactors, modus operandi and motives, as well as identifying norms, patterns, singularities and transformations. The aim is also to provide a bottom-up history, including a focus on the beneficiaries (refugees and people in need, mission and local Churches, orphanages, schools, hospitals) and collaborations on the ground (with agencies like ICRC, Caritas, UNRWA or local authorities), as well as to assess results and effectiveness (duration in camps, number of schools and seminarians, living conditions).
Another objective is to understand how this aid diplomacy emerged in complex political context. What have been the modalities and political underpinnings of Vatican’s diplomacy in relief? How is it related to the role of religion in global politics? This work has been especially carried out as part of two research programmes, GLOBALVAT at the Ecole française de Rome (EFR), and “Humanitaires en guerre mondiale (1939-1956)” in Paris, University Paris 1-Panthéon Sorbonne. Both of these collective programmes focus on unpublished Vatican archives for the period of Pius XII's pontificate (1939-1958), and, in the latter case, Geneva archives (League of Nations, YMCA, ICRC, etc.).
Through comparative analysis as well as discussions with professionals and scientific experts in the field, it has been possible to broaden this analysis and engage the scholarship in humanitarian studies. In addition to the faith-based dimension of humanitarian aid, a new analysis has been initiated regarding the financial mechanisms of humanitarian aid and development within the exploratory workshop ‘It's a rich man's world’ (Beirut, June 2024). Another reflection has been conducted within the framework of a collective programme that investigates the relationship between humanitarian assistance and safeguarding cultural heritage through the role of the Armenian mission, led by the Jesuits from 1881 to 1981 in Central Anatolia and then in Lebanon and Syria.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

This project aims to re-evaluate the place of religion in the humanitarian field. While this approach responds to the place held by missionaries in the genealogy of the phenomenon, as well as to the enduring interconnections between religious structures and humanitarian organisations, the aim is to examine the driving role of religious sentiment in humanitarian action, as well as to highlight the often underestimated role of faith-based NGOs. The Catholic Church, as a transnational player, offers an exemplary case study: it operates at the crossroads of international networks and a complex local fabric, while collaborating with a diversity of players, such as the ICRC, UN agencies (UNICEF, UNRWA) and local communities. It thus provides an opportunity to investigate the interplay between politics and religion through the Holy See's humanitarian diplomacy and its multi-scalar deployment in the Middle East.
From this point of view, one of the published articles looks at the Vatican's action in the field of migration governance and assistance to refugees after World War II, and examines more specifically the role of the Migration Office it set up in Geneva to assist the International Refugee Organization and look after displaced persons. It shows the entanglements between the Vatican diplomatic network and the militancy of Catholic associations, both official and informal, and how they were part of a confessional diplomacy that was reasserting itself as it adapted to the new framework of international relations after the Second World War.
Another article concerning the new archives of the Pie XII’s Pontificate (1939-1958) highlights the specific features of the assistance provided by the Holy See in the more general context of the transformation of humanitarian aid in the face of totalitarian violence, the Second World War, post-war migratory reconfigurations and reconstruction.

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