B. A. Santamaria
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Bartholomew Augustine Santamaria, usually known as B. A. Santamaria (14 August 1915 – 25 February 1998), was an Australian Roman Catholic
anti-Communist Anti-communism is Political movement, political and Ideology, ideological opposition to communism. Organized anti-communism developed after the 1917 October Revolution in the Russian Empire, and it reached global dimensions during the Cold War, w ...
political activist and journalist. He was a guiding influence in the founding of the Democratic Labor Party (DLP).


Early and family life

Santamaria was born in Melbourne. The son of a greengrocer who was an immigrant from the
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in Italy, Santamaria was educated at St Ambrose's Catholic Primary School in Brunswick, behind his father's shop, and later at St Joseph's College in North Melbourne by the Christian Brothers. He finished his secondary education at St Kevin's College as dux of the school. One of his teachers, Francis Maher, belonged to a newly founded Roman Catholic association, the Campion Society. Santamaria attended the University of Melbourne, where he graduated in arts and law. He completed his Master of Arts degree with a thesis entitled ''Italy Changes Shirts: The Origins of Italian Fascism''. Santamaria was a political activist from an early age who earned recognition as a leading Catholic student activist. During the Spanish Civil War, he was a strident supporter of the Nationalist side. Santamaria was married in 1939 and had eight children. In 1980 his wife, Helen, died. He later married Dorothy Jensen, his long-time secretary. His brother, Joseph, was a Melbourne surgeon and prominent in the Roman Catholic bioethics movement. His daughter Bernadette Tobin, is a leading Catholic bioethicist.


Catholic Worker movements

In 1936 he co-founded ''The Catholic Worker'', a newspaper influenced by the social teaching of the Roman Catholic Church, particularly the
encyclical An encyclical was originally a circular letter sent to all the churches of a particular area in the ancient Roman Church. At that time, the word could be used for a letter sent out by any bishop. The word comes from the Late Latin (originally from ...
''
Rerum novarum ''Rerum novarum'' (from its incipit, with the direct translation of the Latin meaning "of revolutionary change"), or ''Rights and Duties of Capital and Labor'', is an encyclical issued by Pope Leo XIII on 15 May 1891. It is an open letter, pass ...
'' of Pope Leo XIII. He was the first editor of the paper which declared itself opposed to both communism and capitalism. Although the group campaigned for the rights of workers and against what it saw as the excesses of capitalism, Santamaria came to see the Communist Party of Australia, which in the 1940s made great advances in the Australian trade union movement, as the main enemy. In 1937 he was persuaded by Archbishop Daniel Mannix to join the National Secretariat of Catholic Action, a lay activist organisation. During World War II, Santamaria gained an exemption from military service. In 1972 Arthur Calwell, a leading Catholic Labor politician, confirmed that Santamaria had "dodged" war service after Mannix had approached him to gain the exemption. When asked, Calwell stated "I want to put the record straight because apparently the Department of Defence cannot find any of the records, nor can the Department of Labour and National Service." Santamaria and two other men (Maher and K. W. Mitchell) were, argued Mannix, "members of the Secretariat of Catholic Action and that their work was equivalent to that of a minister of religion." Calwell said 'I regret my part in it... I want the country to know that these three men who have been pestering and opposing and demonstrating against the Australian Labor Party for the last 30 years were people who dodged military service'. He reflected on the Vietnam War and noted that all three supported it and "conscription of men for military service", adding "I regret that these people who benefited from our generosity did not beget any children who went out to fight in the war in Vietnam. Their sons were exempted, all of them, because they were employed in reserve institutions as were their fathers." Santamaria denied the allegation that he had ever sought an exemption and stated that 'if Mr Calwell repeated his statement outside of parliament he would take appropriate action'. Calwell moderated his statements regarding Maher, but not on Mitchell or Santamaria. In May 1972, previously missing records were found confirming Calwell's version. In 1941, Santamaria founded the Catholic Social Studies Movement, generally known simply as "the Movement" or Groupers, which recruited Catholic activists to oppose the spread of communism, particularly in the trade unions. The movement gained control of the Industrial Groups in the unions, fighting the communists and gaining control of many unions. This activity brought him into conflict not only with the Communist Party but with many left-wing Labor Party members, who favoured a united front with the communists during the war. During the 1930s and 1940s Santamaria generally supported the conservative Catholic wing of the Labor Party, but as the
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developed after 1945 his anti-communism drove him further away from Labor, particularly when
H.V. Evatt Herbert Vere Evatt, (30 April 1894 – 2 November 1965) was an Australian politician and judge. He served as a judge of the High Court of Australia from 1930 to 1940, Attorney-General of Australia, Attorney-General and Minister for Foreign Aff ...
became Leader of the Labor Party in 1951. Seven Labor MPs, elected from Victoria and associates of Santamaria, criticised Evatt's leadership over the next four years.


Labor split and the National Civic Council

Events leading to " The Split" included a well publicised incident in the Parliament of Victoria. In October 1954, the '' Sydney Sun-Herald'' reported on a letter sent by the Victorian Minister for Lands, Robert W. Holt, to the federal secretary of the Australian Labor Party, a Mr J. Schmella, which the paper described as "probably as explosive, politically, as any document in Australia". Holt stated "My charge is that the Victorian branch is controlled and directed in the main by one group or section through Mr. B. Santamaria ... My criticism is not personal. It is leveled against those ideas which are contrary to what I believe Labor policy to be. Moreover, I have been requested by my numerous and trusted friends, who happen to be Catholic, to fight against the influence of Mr. Santamaria and those he represents, when he seeks to implement his ideas through an abuse of a political movement, designed to serve a truly political purpose." Holt spoke of events the previous year and described attending a meeting of Santamaria's National Catholic Rural Movement Convention, following which he was, as Minister of Lands, approached by Santamaria and
Frank Scully Francis Joseph Xavier Scully; (April 28 1892 – June 23 1964) was an American journalist, author, humorist, and a regular columnist for the entertainment trade magazine '' Variety''. Career Scully studied journalism at Columbia Universit ...
, where he was asked to use his position to make
Crown land Crown land (sometimes spelled crownland), also known as royal domain, is a territorial area belonging to the monarch, who personifies the Crown. It is the equivalent of an entailed estate and passes with the monarchy, being inseparable from it. ...
available to "Italians with foreign capital". When he refused, "Santamaria stated that I might not be in the next parliament", and Scully agreed. Holt considered this "a direct threat" which was confirmed when another M.L.A. confided that there was 'pressure' to oppose him for party selection for his seat. He added that "subsequent events which happened during the selection ballot' had convinced him that the ALP's "Victorian branch is not free to implement Labor policy and connives with this method". He concluded by stating his belief in:
a party machine which permits the true expression of opinion of its members, regardless of who or what they may be. The only requirement is loyalty to Labor ideals and principles. This is not possible in the present circumstances...
Holt introduced the Land Bill without Santamaria's desired advantage and it was at first amended by another ALP member, then defeated, amended again and passed – with what Santamaria wanted – after two Liberal party members "switched sides". In December 1954, Santamaria launched a suit against Holt for
libel Defamation is the act of communicating to a third party false statements about a person, place or thing that results in damage to its reputation. It can be spoken (slander) or written (libel). It constitutes a tort or a crime. The legal defini ...
, citing the letter published in-full by the ''Sun-Herald''. The libel action was withdrawn, without explanation, in April 1955. In 1954 Evatt publicly blamed "the Groupers" for Labor's defeat in that year's federal election, and after a tumultuous National Conference in
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in 1955, Santamaria's parliamentary followers were expelled from the Labor Party. The resulting split (now usually called "The Split", although there have been several other "splits" in Labor history) brought down the Labor government of John Cain senior in Victoria. In Victoria, Dr Mannix strongly supported Santamaria, but in New South Wales, Norman Cardinal Gilroy, the first Australian-born Roman Catholic prelate, opposed him, favouring the traditional alliance between the Church and Labor. Gilroy's influence in Rome helped to end official Church support for the Groupers. In January 1955, Santamaria used Dr Mannix as his witness to the statement, "There is no Catholic organisation seeking to dominate the Labor Party or any other political party ... So that there will be no equivocation, Catholics are not associated with any other secular body seeking to dominate the Labor Party or any other political party." Santamaria made this statement when he denied charges from the general secretary of the Australian Workers' Union (Mr T Dougherty) that the "No. 2-man in the Victorian ALP" (Frank McManus), the "No. 2-man in the NSW Labor Party" (J. Kane) and the "secretary of the Australian Rules Football Association of Queensland" (Mr Polgrain) were Santamaria's "top lieutenants in ''The Movement''". For his part, McManus suggested that Dougherty "appeared to have contracted an ailment from one of his political colleagues ... the chief symptom of this ailment was that the sufferer believed he was always detecting conspiracy theories". Santamaria founded a new organisation no longer an organ of Catholic Action, the
National Civic Council The National Civic Council (or NCC) is a Conservatism in Australia, conservative Christian lobby group in Australia, founded by B.A. Santamaria in the 1940s. The NCC publishes a weekly magazine, ''News Weekly''. The NCC promotes policy based on S ...
(NCC), and edited its newspaper, '' News Weekly'', for many years. His followers, known as Groupers, continued to control a number of important unions. Those expelled from the Labor Party formed a new party, the Democratic Labor Party (DLP), dedicated to opposing both Communism and the Labor Party, which they said was controlled by Communist sympathisers. Santamaria never joined the DLP but was one of its guiding influences.


Anti-communist and social conservative

During the 1960s and 1970s Santamaria regularly warned of the dangers of communism in Southeast Asia, and supported
South Vietnam South Vietnam, officially the Republic of Vietnam ( vi, Việt Nam Cộng hòa), was a state in Southeast Asia that existed from 1955 to 1975, the period when the southern portion of Vietnam was a member of the Western Bloc during part of th ...
and the United States in the Vietnam War. He founded the
Australian Family Association The Australian Family Association (AFA) is a conservative Christian political organisation. It was founded in 1980 by the National Civic Council's then president, B. A. Santamaria. Beliefs and lobbying The AFA states they were formed to "provide ...
and the Thomas More Centre (for Traditional Catholicism) to extend the work of the NCC. However, his political role gradually declined. The death of the 99-year-old Archbishop Mannix (in 1963) ended the Roman Catholic Church's support for the NCC, even in Victoria. In 1974 the DLP lost all its seats in the
Senate A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...
, and was wound up a few years later. Santamaria ran the NCC in a highly personal and (according to his critics) autocratic way, and in 1982 there was a serious split in the organisation, with most of the trade unionists leaving it. The first of four unions disaffiliated after the split of 1955, attempted to return at the ALP Victorian State Conference in 1983. The
Federated Clerks' Union The Federated Clerks Union of Australia (FCU) was an Australian trade union representing clerical workers, in existence from 1911 to 1993, when it amalgamated with the Australian Services Union. History Between 1900 and 1907, attempts were made to ...
and three others similarly aligned 'right-wing' unions – the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association, the Federated Ironworkers' Association of Australia and the Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and Joiners – had their re-affiliation cases considered by a special Victorian ALP committee of ten which split on the decision 5 against 5 and had submitted separate reports to the State Conference. The Federated Clerks' case, 'after a bitter and at times acrimonious 3 and a 1/2-hour debate', which was 'centred on alleged links' with Santamaria, the National Civic Council, and the Industrial Action Fund, was defeated at the State Conference by 289 votes to 189. It was noted in a news report of the time that all four were likely to appeal to the federal ALP executive and that they had the support of then Prime Minister
Bob Hawke Robert James Lee Hawke (9 December 1929 – 16 May 2019) was an Australian politician and union organiser who served as the 23rd prime minister of Australia from 1983 to 1991, holding office as the leader of the Australian Labor Party (A ...
. The ALP federal executive supported the re-affiliation before the 1985 Victorian State Conference while two of the unions were refused re-affiliation in the Northern Territory later that year. Ultimately, all four returned as ALP affiliated unions in some form; the Federated Clerks' Union amalgamated into the affiliated Australian Services Union in 1993, the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association is a current ALP affiliated union, while the Federated Ironworkers' Association of Australia and the Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and Joiners amalgamated with the affiliated Australian Workers' Union. But Santamaria's personal stature continued to grow, through his regular column in '' The Australian'' newspaper and his regular television spot, ''Point of View'' (he was given free air time by
Frank Packer Sir Douglas Frank Hewson Packer (3 December 19061 May 1974), was an Australian media proprietor who controlled Australian Consolidated Press and the Nine Network. He was a patriarch of the Packer family. Early life Frank Packer was born in K ...
, owner of the
Nine Network The Nine Network (stylised 9Network, commonly known as Channel Nine or simply Nine) is an Australian commercial free-to-air television network. It is owned by parent company Nine Entertainment and is one of five main free-to-air television netw ...
). He was one of the most articulate voices of Australian conservatism for more than 20 years. According to historians David McKnight and C. J. Coventry, Santamaria worked for the United States of America as an informer in the 1960s and 1970s discreetly providing information about Australia to diplomatic officials. He was offered a knighthood by Malcolm Fraser but declined it.


Traditionalism in the Catholic Church

Santamaria also opposed what he saw as liberal and non-traditional trends in the Catholic Church following the Second Vatican Council (which he had sought to attend as an independent observer), and founded a magazine through his Thomas More Centre, called ''AD 2000'', to argue for traditionalist views. He welcomed Pope John Paul II's return to conservatism in many areas. The conservative Archbishop of Melbourne, George Cardinal Pell, a staunch supporter of Santamaria, delivered the
panegyric A panegyric ( or ) is a formal public speech or written verse, delivered in high praise of a person or thing. The original panegyrics were speeches delivered at public events in ancient Athens. Etymology The word originated as a compound of grc, ...
at his funeral, which was held at St. Patrick's Cathedral, Melbourne. Santamaria had died from an inoperable brain tumour at age 82 at Caritas Christi Hospice, Kew, Victoria. On his death Santamaria was praised by conservatives for his opposition to communism, but also by some on the left (such as veteran left-wing Labor ex-Cabinet Minister Clyde Cameron) and by social democrats (such as former Governor-General Bill Hayden) for his consistent critique of unrestricted capitalism.


Bibliography


Books

* The Price of Freedom : the Movement – after ten years (1964) Campion Press * Point of View (1969) Hawthorn Press * The defence of Australia (1970) Hawthorn Press * Against the Tide (1981) Oxford University Press * Daniel Mannix : the quality of leadership (1984) Melbourne University Press * Australia at the crossroads : reflections of an outsider (1987) Melbourne University Press * Santamaria : a Memoir (1997) Oxford University Press (Revised ed. of ''Against the tide'') * Your Most Obedient Servant : selected letters, 1938–1996 (edited by Patrick Morgan) (2007) Miegunyah Press (in association with the State Library of Victoria) * Running the Show : selected documents, 1939–1996 (edited by Patrick Morgan) (2008) Miegunyah Press (in association with the State Library of Victoria)


Pamphlets

* What the church has done for the worker (1940) Renown Press * The fight for the land : the program and objectives of the National Catholic Rural Movement (1942) * Advocate Press * Self-government and the land : War Agricultural Committee Organisation (1943) NCRM * The earth - our mother (A study of the future of Australian agriculture) (1945) Araluen Publishing * Correspondence with Professor N. W. Arndt (1956) * The pattern of a Christian society (1956) Renown Press * Catholics and the fight against communism in Australia (1956) NCRM * Religious apostolate and political action (1956) * The mission of the layman : an analysis of the thought of Pius XII on the mission of the layman in the modern world (1957) Australian Catholic Publications * Peace or war? : The global strategy of world communism (1958) Renown Press * New Guinea : the price of weakness (1959) Australian Catholic Publications * The peace game (1959) National Civic Council * Spotlight on Santamaria : a commentary on the present and future of Australia (1960) Hawthorn * Equality in education (1960) Institute of Social Order * Communism returns to Yallourn (1960) Renown Press * The Movement 1941-60 : an outline (1961) Hawthorn Press * State aid in perspective (1966) Hawthorn Press * Determined to survive (1966) Hawthorn Press * The politics of 1966 (1966) Hawthorn Press * Contraception : reflections on the Pope's ruling (1968) * The Australian Labor movement (1966-71) : the issue of control (1971) Hawthorn Press * Philosophies in collision (1973) National Civic Council * Archbishop Mannix : his contribution to the art of public leadership in Australia (1978) Melbourne University Press * A.N.Z.U.S. in the “eighties” (1979) Australia Defence Association * The movement into the eighties : a study paper (1981) National Civic Council * The challenge of the eighties : a study paper (1981) National Civic Council Extension Committee * Test tube babies? (1984) Australian Family Association * The church in Australia : the visit of John Paul II in perspective (1986) National Civic Council * Presentation of discussion papers to the Society by Bob Santamaria and Clyde Cameron, Elder Hall Adelaide University, 26th October 1997 (2000) Society for the Study of Labour History


Articles

*


Critical studies, reviews and biographies of Santamaria

*
Ross Fitzgerald Ross Andrew Fitzgerald (born in 1944) is an Australian academic, historian, novelist, secularist, and political commentator. Fitzgerald is an Emeritus Professor in History and Politics at Griffith University. He has published forty-three books ...
: ''The Pope's Battalions: Santamaria, Catholicism and the Labor Split'': St. Lucia, University of Queensland Press: 2003; * Gerard Henderson: ''Mr Santamaria and the Bishops'': Sydney: Hale and Iremonger: 1983; *Xavier Connor, et al.: ''Santamaria: The Politics of Fear'': Richmond: Spectrum: 2000; *Joseph N. Santamaria: ''The Education of Dr Joe'': Ballan: Connor Court Publishing: 2006; *Gerard Henderson: ''Santamaria: A Most Unusual Man'': Melbourne: Miegunyah: 2015;


References


External links


Obituary for B.A. Santamaria


Reprinted from AD2000. Vol. 11; No. 3. (April 1998), p. 10 {{DEFAULTSORT:Santamaria, B.A. 1915 births 1998 deaths Activists from Melbourne Journalists from Melbourne Australian anti-communists Australian traditionalist Catholic Australian people of Italian descent Australian people of Sicilian descent Deaths from brain tumor Deaths from cancer in Victoria (Australia) People educated at St Kevin's College, Melbourne People educated at St Joseph's College, Melbourne University of Melbourne alumni