Carroll writes to Cicognani in what is obviously a private letter, not intended for publication, introducing the War Relief Services-National Catholic Welfare Conference’s proposal on resettlement. Among other things, Carroll mentions that the Undersecretary of State had assured Cardinal Stritch confidentially that the US government would be willing to pay the cost of transporting Displaced Persons (DPs) from Europe to Latin America, and that the US government was in some stage of negotiation with Latin American governments over placing DPs there. In the proposal, on the other hand, we find more edited and smoothed-over viewpoints that seem intended for a larger audience. The document, written after the Vatican gave its approval for an American Catholic Committee on Displaced Persons, explains the global situation and the crisis which the US bishops are attempting to address. Although the US government has good intentions towards the DPs, the document says, it does not have enough resources to aid them on its own. On the other side, threatening the DPs with forced repatriation, stand the forces of Communism. The Communist mentality, or at least the US Bishops’ conception of it, is summed up in a section of the proposal entitled “The Totalitarian Attitude”. Among other things, in this proposal we find a handy sketch of the political events in post-World War II Europe that led to the rise of the “Iron Curtain” and the captivity of Eastern European nations in the Communist bloc. The proposal casts the Catholic Church in the role of savior for these DPs, rather than assuming that secular international organizations will do the work.
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