“Russia’s Misfortune Offers Humanitarians a Splendid Opportunity”: Jesuits, Communism, and the Russian Famine
Journal: Journal of Jesuit Studies
Year: 2017

Using archival documentation, this article discusses the beginning of the first grand international aid mission of the Catholic Church (1922–23), undertaken to assist the starving children of Bolshevik Russia. Under the auspices of the American Relief Administration ( ara ), the Papal Relief Mission to Russia fed approximately 158,000 persons a day. The pivotal figure between American Catholics and the Roman Curia, and subsequently between the Vatican and the Bolsheviks, was Edmund Aloysius Wals