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Monday, 23 Apr 2012 A book about two conflicting views of lay action in the world...  Dear Friends, Serendipitously arriving in my mail box last Friday was a new book book from Garratt Publishing recounting another side of the influence of prominent layman, Bartholomew Augustine Santamaria, on the Catholic landscape of Australia. This time the rural landscape of this nation and his attempts through the National Catholic Rural Movement (NCRM) to build some kind of agrarian, small plot utopia in this land. In his essay commentary last week Dr Graham English mentioned, almost in passing, Santamaria's attempts to give life to a vision of almost peasant agriculture. It was one of Bob Santamaria's significant defeats and in this new book, Kevin Peoples, who was for a brief time enamoured of the vision, has gone to primary sources to document the history. As indicated in our recent concentration on the book of Dr Anne O'Brien, which also has a significant focus on the endeavours of Mr Santamaria and his various organisations, this is not just ancient history. Some of the bishops who were infatuated with the Santamaria vision and style now control the Catholic institutional agenda in this country and many are asking today to what sort of final destination they are leading the Church: to some resurgence or to a denouement like the almost now forgotten Democratic Labor Party, or initiatives like the NCRM?
Wishing you a great day wherever you happen to be ... in life and in our world. Catholica |
