ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on a specific contemporary case: the transfers of money and manpower between Roman and Uniate Catholics in the West and their confreres in Central and East Europe during the years immediately preceding and following the collapse of autocratic state rule in former communist nations. It illustrates the direction, the shape, the history, and the institutions of Roman Catholic philanthropy in Central and East Europe since 1947. The chapter emphasizes the role of the global church and its material and moral support to the growth and flourishing of communities of faith in countries where they had been limited and suppressed. In contrast to the Germans and the Americans, the Polish Church's greatest resource is manpower, some of which is now being directed to the East, though with apparently mixed results. The Society of Jesus—the Jesuits—offers an example of one congregation's priorities that other religious institutes are likely to share.
