Pontificia Commissione di Assistenza

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Pontificia Commissione di Assistenza (PCA), also known as “Pontificia Commissione di Assistenza ai Profughi”, “Vatican mission” and “Vatican Relief”, was a

papal ad hoc commission, created by Pope Pius XII
on April 18, 1944, to provide quick, non-bureaucratic and direct aid to needy populations, refugees, and prisoners in war-torn Europe.

The needs of millions of people after the war and the thirty million refugees in Europe [1] created new challenges for charities throughout the world. Its large-scale assistance was to be quick, to the victims and basic. On April 18, 1944, Monsignore Ferdinando Baldelli, Carlo Egger and Otto Faller started on behalf of the Pope the official Pontificia Commissione di Assistenza.[2] Parallel to these efforts, Madre Pascalina was asked by the Pope to direct his personal charity efforts, the Magazine, officially under Monsignor Montini, later Pope Paul VI. As the Vatican has decided not to publish summary statistics on the full extent of its charity, only spotty information is available. The papal Pontificia Commissione di Assistenza to the most needy populations of Europe delivered more than ninety thousand crates, weighing well over six million pounds. They were shipped by rail from Vatican station to dozens of countries, Catholic, Protestant and Pagan”.[3] The Pope asked the faithful, bishops, governments and the United Nations for help. In 1946, he invited 50 000 children to the Vatican. They each received a full meal after which the Pope thanked the benefactors of the United Nations for their great generosity.[4]

As Bishop of Rome, Pope Pius XII felt a personal obligation towards needy Romans. He increased papal soup kitchen rations from three million rations annually to forty million by the year 1947. On Christmas 1944, he personally gave gift packages to three thousand Roman children and delivered another four thousand to children on the Feast of Epiphany, two weeks later. By Christmas 1945, Pope Pius had forty thousand packages. The Swedish

Giovanni Battista Montini (who would later become Pope Paul VI) and Domenico Tardini were well informed and even played an active role.[6]

The temporary ad hoc organization received official status on June 15, 1953, when the Pontificia Commissione di Assistenza (PCA) was renamed into Pontificia Opera di Assistenza (POA). In Northern Italy, it assisted 300,000

Catholics after the war, who contributed thirty million dollars over a very short period of time.[9]

As national Catholic charities began to mushroom, Pope Pius XII initiated the creation of an international Catholic Charity Conference and invited national organisations to a meeting in Rome on September 15, 1950. They agreed to a permanent cooperation and elected Ferdinando Baldelli as president. In the following years, Catholic charities developed in

The Netherlands, Belgium and Italy.[10] In 1970, POA was changed into Caritas Italiana by Pope Paul VI
.

Although Pope Pius XII began to speak on the subject in his last months of 1958, the concept of large-scale international development aid was not formalized during the time of Pope Pius.

Magazino of Madre Pascalina Lehnert

To assist the pope in the many calls for his help and charity,

cardinals and bishops
freely visited Madre Pascalina, who by now was nicknamed Virgo Potens, powerful virgin.

Literature

References

  1. ^ Gatz 449
  2. ^ Primo Mazzolari, La Carita Del Papa, Pio XII.e la ricostruzione dell’Italia, Edizione Paoline, 1991)
  3. ^ Smit 234
  4. ^ L’Osservatore Romano, January 27, 1946
  5. ^ L’Osservatore Romano, March 1, 1947
  6. ^ Goñi, 327-348
  7. ^ Gatz,450
  8. ^ AAS 1949, 165–172; AAS 1947, 625–627; AAS 1946, 15–25; Haurietas Aquas AAS 1956, 309–353
  9. ^ Gatz, 450
  10. ^ Gatz, 453
  11. ^ Pascalina Lehnert, p. 104
  12. ^ Pascalina Lehnert, p. 104
  13. ^ Pascalina Lehnert, p. 103
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