- B. A. Santamaria
Bartholomew Augustine "B. A." Santamaria, otherwise 'Bob', (
14 August 1915 -25 February 1998 ),Australia n political activist and journalist, was one of the most influential political figures in 20th century Australian history, however he never held public office or joined a political party. He was a highly divisive figure, inspiring great devotion from his followers and intense hatred from his enemies. He regarded his own career as a failure, but on his death was widely praised for his lifelong opposition toCommunism . Fact|date=December 2007 Santamaria was the unofficial leader and guiding influence of the Democratic Labor Party.Early and Family Life
Santamaria was born in
Melbourne , the son of a greengrocer who was an immigrant from theAeolian Islands inItaly . He was educated at theCatholic primary school of St. Ambrose behind his father's shop, and then at St. Joseph's North Melbourne by the Christian Brothers. He finished his secondary education at St. Kevin's College as dux of the school, which was then in East Melbourne. An influential teacher on the young Santamaria was the Campion, Francis Maher. Santamaria then went to Melbourne University where he graduated in Arts/Law. His MA thesis was titled "Italy changes shirts: the origins of Italian fascism".He was a political activist from an early age, becoming a leading Catholic student activist and speaking in support of Franco's forces in the
Spanish Civil War . He also was a strong supporter and wrote about Mussolini's regime inItaly , but denied that he had ever been a supporter offascism . He always disliked and opposed Hitler andNazism . Fact|date=December 2007 While being a strong supporter of Mussolini up until 1936, he attributed Mussolini's late alliance with Hitler to the failed policies ofAnthony Eden , and expressed regret that Mussolini went with Hitler. Fact|date=December 2007Santamaria was married in 1939 and had eight children, several of whom became prominent in various professions, but none of whom followed him into political activism. In 1980 his wife Helen Santamaria died. He later married Dorothy Jensen, his long-time secretary. His brother, Joseph Santamaria, was a Melbourne surgeon and was prominent in the Catholic
bioethics movement.Catholic Worker Movements
In 1936 Santamaria was one of the founders of the "Catholic Worker", a newspaper influenced by the social teaching of the
Roman Catholic Church , particularly theencyclical "Rerum Novarum " ofPope Leo XIII . He was the first editor of the paper which declared itself opposed to both Communism and Capitalism which it saw as the greater threat.Although the Catholic Worker group campaigned for the rights of workers and against what it saw as the excesses of
capitalism , Santamaria came to see theCommunist Party of Australia , which in the 1940s made great advances in the Australian trade union movement, as the main enemy. In 1937, at the invitation of ArchbishopDaniel Mannix , he joined the National Secretariat ofCatholic Action , a lay Catholic organisation concerned to permeate and improve society.During
World War II Santamaria gained an exemption from military service (it was later alleged that this was obtained through the political influence ofArthur Calwell , a leading Catholic Labor politician, but both men later denied this; it has also been attributed to the influence of former Prime MinisterJames Scullin and Archbishop Mannix). In 1941 he 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 theIndustrial 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 '40s Santamaria generally supported the conservative Catholic wing of the Labor Party, but as theCold War developed after 1945 his anti-Communism drove him further away from Labor, particularly when Dr. H. V. Evatt 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 yearsLabor Split and National Civic Council
In 1954 Evatt publicly blamed "the Groupers" for Labor's defeat in that year's federal election, and after a tumultuous National Conference in
Hobart 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 governments in Victoria andQueensland .In Victoria, Mannix threw the resources of the Church behind Santamaria, but in
New South Wales ,Norman Cardinal Gilroy opposed him, favouring the traditional alliance between the Church and Labor. Gilroy's influence inRome ended official Church support for the Movement as well as, reportedly, Mannix's chances to be elevated to the Cardinalate.Santamaria founded a new organisation no longer an organ of Catholic Action, the National Civic Council (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 its unofficial leader and guiding influence.Anti-Communism and Pro-Family
During the 1960s and 1970s Santamaria regularly warned of the dangers of communism in
Southeast Asia , and supportedSouth Vietnam and theUnited States in theVietnam War .He founded the
Australian Family Association and theThomas More Centre (for Traditional Catholicism) to extended the work of the NCC. However, his political role gradually declined. The declining influence of Archbishop Mannix (who died at the age of 99 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 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 the mid 1980s there was a serious split in the organisation, with most of the trade unionists leaving. The Grouper-controlled unions then returned to their ALP affiliation.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 SirFrank Packer , owner of theNine Network ). A skilled journalist and broadcaster, he was one of the most articulate voices of Australian conservatism for more than 20 years. He was greatly admired by conservative politicians such asMalcolm Fraser andJohn Howard . Santamaria claimed thatRobert Menzies told him that he twice voted DLP (this being confirmed by Menzies' family), and that the DLP was the party Menzies thought he had founded.Santamaria had the satisfaction of living to see the fall of the
Soviet Union and the collapse of the world Communist movement. But he was also hostile to free-market capitalism, and toabortion ,homosexuality ,euthanasia and other liberal and secular trends of the modern world. He was consistent in his support of spiritual, religious and family values and opposed those policies he believed threatened these pillars.For these reasons he was a strong critic of secular humanism in his later years. Politically he could best be described as a Christian Democrat, a political tradition which has never taken root in secular Australia. In the eighties and nineties, he opposed the 'economic-rationalist'/market-based economic policies of the Australian Labor Party and Liberal/National Coalition alike. He came to despise politicians of all parties who failed to oppose these things, and towards the end of his life said several times that his political career had been a complete failure.
Traditionalism in the Catholic Church
Santamaria also bitterly 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 hisThomas More Centre , called "A.D. 2000", to argue for traditionalist views. He welcomedPope John Paul II 's return to conservatism in many areas.The conservative Archbishop of Melbourne, George Pell, a staunch supporter and admirer of Santamaria delivered the panegyric at his funeral held at St.Patrick's Cathedral. He died of an inoperable brain tumour aged 82 at Caritas Cristi Hospice Kew.On his death Santamaria was praised by conservatives for his opposition to Communism, but also by some on the left for his consistent critique of unrestricted capitalism. Fact|date=December 2007
Late Writings
Late in his life he began to write passionately against the dangers of "monopoly capitalism" and was consistent in his view that this represented as great a threat to civil society as communism. He wrote throughout the 1990s, in
The Australian newspaper and elsewhere, that thedebt-based monetary system , credit creation and the private ownership of major banking institutions were all fundamentally deleterious to good order and government, and that international investment banks based in New York, London and Frankfurt had taken effective control of the levers of Australian economic policy since the 1970s.He was also concerned about the consistent contractionary economic policies pursued in the "pro-market" 1990s, which in his view had produced a long-term decline in real wages, which had in turn forced mothers into the workforce, and had then led to the breakdown of the family unit. Late in life, he continued to believe that the power of the "market" was the greatest threat to the survival of the family and, more broadly, of Western civilization in the late 20th century.
He was consistent throughout his life in being a supporter of what he called the "Christian Democratic thesis". Based on his strong anti socialist sentiments, his opposition to completely un-restrained capitalism as well as his support of traditional morals and ethics, many commentators have described Santamaraia as a
national conservative .Critical Bibliography
*"Fifty Years of the Santamaria Movement": Richmond: Jesuit Publications: 1992.
*Ross Fitzgerald: "The Pope's Battalions: Santamaria, Catholicism and the Labor Split": St.Lucia, University of Queensland Press: 2003: ISBN 0-7022-3389-7
*Gerald Henderson: "Mr Santamaria and the Bishops": Sydney: Hale and Iremonger: 1983: ISBN 0-86806-059-3
*B. A. Santamaria: "Against the Tide": Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1981. ISBN 0-19-554346-7
*B. A. Santamaria: "Santamaria: A Memoir": Melbourne: Oxford University Press: 1997: ISBN 0-19-554052-2 (Originally published 1981: Updated)
*Xavier Connor, et al: "Santamaria: The Politics of Fear": Richmond: Spectrum: 2000: ISBN 0-86786-294-7
*Joseph N. Santamaria: "The Education of Dr Joe": Ballan: Connor Court Publishing: 2006: ISBN 0975801538
*P. Morgan, ed: "B.A. Santamaria: Your Most Obedient Servant: Selected Letters 1938-1996": Melbourne: Miegunyah Press: 2006: ISBN 0-522-85274-2
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