Vatican City, 10 October 2014 (VIS) –
A press conference was held yesterday at 11 a.m. in the Holy Press
Office to present the International Congress “Useless Slaughter:
Catholics and the Holy See in the First World War”, organised by
the Pontifical Council for Historical Sciences. The speakers were Fr.
Bernard Ardura, O. Praem., president of the Pontifical Council for
Historical Sciences and Professor Roberto Morozzo della Rocca of the
“Roma Tre” University.
“The initiative of the Pontifical
Committee of Historical Sciences aims to bring together numerous
specialists in the field, with the intention of offering a
reinterpretation of the conflict not only seen but also experienced
by believers, mostly Catholics but also Protestants and Orthodox –
and more specifically for the Holy See that, at the time again
without territory of its own, and therefore within the territory of
Italy, involved in the conflict, sought as far as possible to
safeguard its specific nature”.
The theme of the congress, “Useless
Slaughter”, are two words that express the drama of the First World
War. One hundred years after the outbreak of the first world war, the
Pontifical Committee for Historical Sciences, in collaboration with
the Hungarian Academy in Rome and the Commission International
d'Histoire et Etudes du Christianisme, have offered the opportunity
to review the historiography with particular attention to the
commitment of Catholics and the Holy See in the conflict.
Fr. Bernard Ardura explained that
although the central theme of the meeting was Catholics and the Holy
See in the First World War, the congress also includes interventions
from various historians regarding States with predominantly
Protestant or Orthodox citizens. It is hoped, he affirmed, that a
second Congress will be held in 2018 on the consequences of the
Treaty of Versailles which were, at least in part, at the origin of
the Second World War and whose repercussions can still be felt at the
dawn of the 21st century.
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