The period between 1945 and 1949 was a time of change in the Middle East which affected the faiths as well as the nations and peoples of the region. A mandate had been set up by the League of Nations in 1922 entrusting the British government with the responsibility of ensuring a home for displaced Jewish people while maintaining the rights and security of other parts of the population. This ended when the British finally withdrew on 15 May 1948, when the state of Israel was formally established. Leading up to their withdrawal there was discussion in the United Nations over the future of Palestine. It was finally agreed that Palestine would be divided between Israel and Jordan; and that Jerusalem and the Holy Places of Christianity would be a corpus separatum. This was an area with international governance to preserve access for all to the holy places of Jerusalem and around. This book tells the story of the negotiation for the corpus separatum.

The impact on the Christian community of these events was devastating. In the period between 1945 and 1949 while the future of the holy places was being determined between 50 per cent and 70 per cent of the Christian population was driven from their homes through violence and dispossession and became refugees, many at the hands of attacks by Israelis. The Churches’ actions were directed towards welfare and support of refugees as well as ensuring the security of the holy places.

The Roman Catholic Church was a committed participant in the negotiations. While the Roman Catholic community was smaller than the Greek Orthodox, with around 20 per cent of the Christian population of Palestine, while 40 per cent were Greek Orthodox, the papacy, at the head of over 3,000 dioceses across the world, had an international profile. While the Church was represented by the Vatican, the American Catholic Church played a prominent part. Due to immigration and a high birth rate the Catholic population of the USA grew from 150,000 in 1800 to 30 million in 1950, so constituting 20 per cent of the total population and the largest religious community. As a result the American bishops had influence both in the Vatican and in American political life. This was also expressed in the Catholic press and preaching and so strengthened support for its position in the Catholic population. Then there was further support in the United Nations from majority Catholic countries in Latin America and also Australia, where 40 per cent of the electorate was Catholic and which proposed the eventual decision adopted by the UN of Jerusalem’s territorial internationalisation.

There was a variety of groups concerned about the future status of Jerusalem. This account traces the different parts played by the wide range of those concerned and seeking a just settlement. The papacy worked with the American bishops, who built support among Catholics across America. Catholic organisations took part in this struggle for an international Jerusalem. These included the Catholic Near East Welfare Association, founded in 1926 by Pope Pius xi, based in New York, led by American churchmen and funded by the Vatican, with its secretary Mgr Thomas McMahon (secretary from 1943 until 1955) who was active in support of Palestinian Christians and in diplomatic missions meeting the various groups across the Middle East. The National Catholic Welfare Council set up an Office for UN Affairs set up in 1946, led by Catherine Schaeffer and joined by Alba Zizzamia, two Catholic laywomen who became influential in the debates at the UN. The actions and relationships of these various groups within international Catholicism show the varied networks of power and influence working together.

Alongside the influence of Catholics with the American government in Washington and in the UN in New York, there was also a growing lobby of Zionist groups who gained the support of President Truman for the establishing of the state of Israel. The attitude of the Catholic Church to Zionism had as its starting point the sadly widely held approach of believing that the Jewish people as a whole were responsible for the rejection and crucifixion of Christ and so had been replaced in the purposes of God by the Church and driven from the city of Jerusalem. Into this longstanding antisemitism had come the shock of discovering the extent of the genocide of the Nazi death camps. There was a new sympathy for the survivors and as a result for the Zionist programme of establishing a safe homeland for the Jewish people. Change in attitudes happened gradually, with an important development in the fourth session of the Second Vatican Council in 1965 with the declaration Nostra aetate repudiating the charge of deicide against the Jews, and stating that antisemitism has no place in Catholic teaching. However suspicion and hostility has not disappeared. Pope Paul vi on his pilgrimage in January 1964 avoided all mention of the state of Israel and held only brief meetings with the Israeli government, which took place at Megiddo and not in Jerusalem. Eventually, in 1993, diplomatic relations were established between Israel and the Vatican. Rapprochement continues.

This Catholic venture to preserve the Holy Places under international administration and so to maintaining a Christian character failed. The historical realities of the formation of the state of Israel, fighting between the new state and Jordan and the division of Jerusalem between the two regions overcame and superseded the complexity of the debates at the UN.

Beyond the scope of this study lies the continuing story of the displacement of refugees which remains unresolved, the continuing conflicts between the state of Israel and Arabs in the West Bank and Gaza, the decline in the number of Christians due to emigration to the West as well as displacement which together leads to projections of the gradual disappearance of the Church in the land of its birth. The story told here is an episode in a long and tragic history and it shows how different persons and groups become caught up in a situation which remains a concern and struggle for the worldwide Christian community.