During the interwar years, it was most active in providing scholarships to students, organizing three general conferences in 1933, 1936, and 1939, and compiling a biographical dictionary (unpublished).
LKMA resumed organizing general conferences every three years and began publishing academic monographs and journals – a total of 52 publications.
[1] In 1907, Pope Pius X published encyclical Pascendi dominici gregis in which, among other things, he announced the establishment of the International Catholic Scientific Association.
[3] However, the International Catholic Scientific Association never materialized[2] and Lithuanian plans were postponed due to World War I to 1922.
[5] The meeting elected its first board: chairman Juozapas Skvireckas, vice-chairmen Pranas Dovydaitis and Stasys Šalkauskis, secretary Mečislovas Reinys.
Its scholarship fund was established with a donation of $42,500 (equivalent to $773,618 in 2023) from the Lithuanian Roman Catholic Federation of America [lt].
[8] Overall, the academy was not very active in the 1920s as many of its members worked at or were involved with other Catholic organizations, including the Priest Seminary and the Faculty of Theology and Philosophy.
Among other things, the government dismissed 18 professors from the Faculty of Theology and Philosophy in 1931[10] and blocked plans for a Catholic university in 1932.
[11][12] LKMA began the process of separating amateur science enthusiasts from professional academics and started organizing its conferences every three years.
He was supported by historian Zenonas Ivinskis and priest Antanas Liuima [lt], professor at the Pontifical Gregorian University.
[19] In total, there were twelve chapters: Chicago (established in 1956), New York (1962), Boston (1963), Detroit (1964), Montreal (1964), Toronto (1964), Dayton (1965), Munich (1966), Ottawa (1970), Putnam (1971), St. Pete Beach (1981), Los Angeles (1983).
[21] The conferences struggled to reconcile LKMA's academic mission and the need to engage and educate the wider Lithuanian diaspora.
[24] The history section organized three public events to commemorate the Battle of Grunwald in 1410, book smuggler Petras Kriaučiūnas, and poet Antanas Baranauskas.
[24] LKMA published a total of 52 publications,[25] including six biographies (including of bishops Teofilius Matulionis and Vincentas Borisevičius), monographs on the history of the church in Lithuania (on the foundation of the Vilnius University, on the worship of Mary, mother of Jesus in Lithuania), studies on Lithuanian literature, and collected works of historians Zenonas Ivinskis and Konstantinas Avižonis [lt], linguist Antanas Salys [lt], philosopher Stasys Šalkauskis.
[9] The academy published four volumes of Fontes Historiae Lithuanie – a valuable collection of primary documents related to ad limina visits of Lithuanian bishops and to the Diocese of Samogitia.
[27] The articles were published on various topics, not only on theology or Lithuanian language and history, but also on chemistry, medicine, sociology, technology, archaeology, etc.
Separately it acquired and preserved archives of Zenonas Ivinskis, Stasys Raštikis, Lithuanian student societies at the Swiss University of Fribourg.
[23][31] The idea to reestablish LKMA in Lithuania was raised in November 1989 during the organizational conference of the Catholic Youth Federation Ateitis.
Already in February 1990, even before Lithuania declared independence from the Soviet Union, LKMA organized a meeting at Vilnius University attended by 250 people.
[32] It officially joined the Pax Romana federation in 1993 and the Commission Internationale d'Histoire Ecclésiastique Comparée (CIHEC) in 2011.
[37] After a critical evaluation of its mission and situation in 2010, LKMA decided to concentrate on humanities and in particular on the studies of the Catholic Church in Lithuania – in essence abandoning claims that it is an academy of science and recognizing that it became a more specialized research institute.
For example, it held a conference on Lithuanian–Jewish relations in 1998, bishop Motiejus Valančius in 2001, Polish philosopher Marian Zdziechowski in 2008, Saint Bruno of Querfurt in 2009.