In addition to resisting any changes to the canonical status of the Archdiocese of Breslau, many Silesian Catholic expellees sought to sustain the social bonds they had forged in their homeland.
Another concern of the Silesian clergy in West Germany was the formation of seminarians from Silesia and the cultivation of new vocations among the younger generation of expellees.
Leaders within the Silesian Catholic expellee population also founded a variety of organizations designed to maintain solidarity among lay Silesian Catholics.
In addition to founding organizations, Silesian Catholic leaders encouraged commitment to the Silesian homeland through an extensive print culture.
Pilgrimage was yet another strategy many Silesian Catholics relied upon to sustain solidarity.
Involvement gradually declined thereafter, but the practice stabilized into an elaborate culture and remained an integral part of the lives of many Silesian Catholics.
(35) At this time, tens of thousands of Silesian Catholic expellees could be mobilized to support events, groups, and periodicals organized expressly for them.
A distinctive discourse on the importance of homeland and its integral role in a life of faith animated the efforts of Silesian Catholic expellees to preserve their community in exile and to maintain their claims to Silesia.
In a documentary account of the deportation of Silesian Catholics, Johannes Kaps argued that a "normal person" requires a sense of rootedness in place (Bodenstdndigkeit).
Silesian Catholics often combined the argument regarding the human need for rootedness in place with self-congratulatory assertions that their community honored this need better than most.
If a strong attachment to homeland was taken as a fundamental component of a healthy existence and the God-given order, it should come as no surprise that many Silesian Catholics also viewed it as an important virtue in the Christian life.
In an article concerning the divinely ordained nature of human attachment to homeland, the Silesian priest Edmund Piekorz argued that Jesus Christ set an example that Christians should strive to follow: "Jesus Christ is thoroughly of man of the homeland....
Echoing a sentiment often expressed in Silesian Catholic circles, Johannes Kaps argued that the human relationship to homeland has considerable theological significance, for it can serve as an analogue to an eternal home with God.
In emphasizing the centrality of place in the religious life, many Silesian Catholics drew a logical conclusion about displacement: it is devastating not only from a material perspective but also from an existential and spiritual perspective.
In an article in the Konigsteiner Rufe, a magazine popular among Silesian Catholic expellees, an unnamed author reflected on the full ramifications of the expulsions: "It was a dark day, full of suffering and bitterness.
