HISTORY AND STRUCTURE OF PAX ROMANA
Click here to read or download a longer history of Pax Romana ICMICA in PDF format.
With roots going back to 1887 and today present in 80 countries with some 420,000 members, Pax Romana is a more than 120-year-old global lay Catholic movement of intellectuals, professionals, and university students especially devoted to the study, application, and advancement of Catholic Social Teaching.
A worldwide movement, Pax Romana reaches across Africa, Asia/Pacific, Europe, Latin America/Caribbean, and North America.
In 1921,the movement was officially recognized by the Holy See (Vatican), with Benedict XV personally meeting with its leaders and blessing the movement. Its The official motto, approved by the Holy See, “Pax Christi in Regno Christi” (The Peace of Christ in the Reign of Christ).
In 1947, the Pax Romana movement reorganized into two cooperating international branches: 1) The International Catholic Movement for Intellectual and Cultural Affairs (ICMICA) for intellectuals and professionals; and 2) the International Movement of Catholic Students (IMCS) for university students. Both jointly constitute Pax Romana.
With the encouragement of the Holy See, Pax Romana was represented at the League of Nations and later at the founding conference of the United Nations in San Francisco. Its members helped to create the UN's NGO category, and it became one of the first UN NGOs.
Today Pax Romana is a United Nations NGO (Non Governmental Organization) with missions to UN centers in Geneva, Nairobi, New York, Paris, and Vienna. We hope soon to open a new NGO mission in Nairobi.
Pax Romana is also an international Catholic organization accredited to the Holy See’s Pontifical Council for the Laity, and it maintains close relations with the Holy See's Secretariat of State and with papal nuncios at UN centers around the world.
In Barcelona the movement has a research and action center for international human rights, in Geneva a human-rights training-program, and in Miami a center for research and publishing on Catholic Social Teaching.
In addition, Pax Romana hosts specialized international secretariats for artists, teachers, engineers, agronomists, business managers, jurists, and scientists.
Pax Romana has a long history of forming distinguished lay Catholic leaders for all social institutions, including presidents and prime ministers. For example, in the political sphere distinguished Pax Romana members have included Eduardo Frei Montalva, a past President of Chile, and Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo, the first female Prime Minister of Portugal, as well as many Italian statemen.
Also, Pax Romana has been blessed with distinguished national chaplains, including Pope Paul VI in Italy and Pope John Paul II in Poland (both before becoming pope), and in the United States the great Jesuit theologian, John Courtney Murray, who also helped to found our US federation.