Het vormgeven van katholiek internationalisme: de Katholieke Arbeidersjeugd en de opkomst van internationale katholieke organisaties (1920-1960)

This dissertation reconstructs the history of Catholic internationalism through one of its most dynamic and contentious embodiments: the Jeunesse ouvrière chrétienne internationale. By defining Catholic internationalism through the perspectives and practices of its historical actors, it places the often disruptive JOCI at the center of its analysis. In doing so, it builds on existing scholarship while challenging prevailing assumptions about the motivations, geography, and chronology of Catholic international engagement. Rather than treating Catholic internationalism as a derivative of anti‑communism or Cold War politics, the study uses it as a lens to reassess these familiar narratives. The dissertation also advances a deliberately decentered approach, counterbalancing the European focus of institutional histories by integrating Asian, African, and Latin American experiences. It also adopts an unconventional chronology that cuts across the standard "waves" of internationalism, thereby questioning the temporal boundaries typically imposed on Catholic international activity. From this vantage point, the study traces a four‑decade, multi‑continental history from 1920 to 1960. Crafting Catholic Internationalism demonstrates how international Catholic organizations emerged, expanded, and became crucial to the Church's confrontation with postwar modernity and its own internal processes of modernization. Rooted in developments since the late nineteenth century, reshaped after the First World War, and transformed after 1945, Catholic internationalism unsettled long‑held assumptions about the Church and compelled institutional change. Carefully constructed in the face of ecclesiastical skepticism, and only gradually embraced by the Vatican, international Catholic organizations provided the Church with the tools to respond to the accelerating global pressures of the second postwar era. From the Cold War to decolonization, these organizations reshaped Catholic modes of engagement with politics, society, and international institutions. Together, they created new channels of reciprocal influence between Church and world, generating consequences that extended well beyond the mid‑twentieth century. Indeed, their histories help illuminate the onset of Global Catholicism, the rise of Catholic NGOs, and the internal divisions that would become visible during the Second Vatican Council.