PAX ROMANA. - This is an apostolic work considered on the international level; it seeks to bring about, amid a disoriented world, the union of Catholic students and intellectuals, in order to proclaim the Christian message. Its programme is summarized in the motto: Pax Christi in regno Christi.
After numerous attempts to organize Catholic student youth internationally—attempts that may be traced back to the first contacts between Swiss and French students in 1887, under the auspices of Baron George de Montenach and Count Albert de Mun, and that followed one another amid alternating hopes and failures—P. r. was finally established at Fribourg (where a first constitutive meeting had already been held on 23 August 1889, without effect) on 20 July 1921 as the “International Secretariat of the national associations of Catholic university students.” Twenty countries immediately affiliated themselves with the new Secretariat. Its programme included student exchanges, financial support for spiritual-assistance works in universities, assistance to needy students, international meetings, etc. The Secretariat developed rapidly, and the successive annual congresses (1922 Fribourg, 1923 Salzburg, 1924 Budapest) demonstrated its growing vitality, until at the Bologna Congress (1925) it
was transformed into the international confederation “Confederatio studentium universi terrarum orbis catholica.”
P. r. continued its activity at an increasing pace until the outbreak of the Second World War. In the meantime, a group of graduates and professionals had emerged within it who, educated in its spirit and ideals, were unwilling to abandon it and disperse. Thus, at the end of the war, the Congress meeting at Fribourg in 1946 for the twenty-fifth anniversary of the founding of P. r. conceived the idea of establishing an autonomous section for intellectuals and professionals. The project was now mature, and during the Octave of Easter 1947, two assemblies meeting simultaneously in Rome and Anzio consecrated the reorganization of P. r. into the two international movements of intellectuals and professionals (Mouvement international des intellectuels catholiques [M. I. I. C.]) and of university students (Mouvement international des étudiants catholiques [M. I. E. C.]).
According to the new statutes, the two sections of the single P. r. are autonomous and possess their own organs; nevertheless, they cooperate with one another closely and intimately, especially through the “P. r. Committee,” composed of the president, a vice-president, and the secretary-general of each of the two branches. Mons. Charrière, bishop of Lausanne, Geneva, and Fribourg, in whose diocese P. r. has its headquarters, holds the office of general ecclesiastical assistant and appoints an ecclesiastical assistant for each of the two movements. Also common to the two movements is the “Bureau de secours,” which gathers information on the needs of students and intellectuals in the countries devastated by the war, coordinates efforts, and distributes funds.
The members of MIEC are the national federations of Catholic university students (74 national federations in 46 countries, at the beginning of 1950); the members of MIIC are Catholic associations of intellectuals and members of the liberal professions, whether national in character or pursuing particular aims (38 organizations representing 31 countries at the beginning of 1950). The general Secretariat of both branches is based in Fribourg (Switzerland); the various international secretariats are based in different countries.
Every three years, a world congress common to the two movements is held. P. r. publishes its own monthly organ, common to the two movements, edited in French, German, English, and Spanish, and Scrinum (elenchus bibliographicus universalis), a universal bibliographical bulletin.
Marisetta Paronetto Valier