Does BA Santamaria exert more power today than ever before in Aus society? (Main Forum)

by Brian Coyne , LINDEN, NSW, Monday, September 10, 2012, 15:44 (283 days ago) @ Enda

One thing I think is pretty evident now in this country is the way the old protestant establishment has almost totally disintegrated without a fight even*. The way these former DLP tragics have moved right across and taken over the Liberal Party of Menzies is a quite incredible phenomenon that there has been little commentary about in the media. Between George Pell's strangulation hold over the Catholic Church across Australia** and the rise to power of the Santamaria Catholics in the Liberal Party, whatever the morality of it, or the practical outcomes that it may end up producing, you do have to stand in absolute awe of how unlikely an outcome it would have seemed half a century ago.

Tony Lowes' commentary today is a two-part projection trying to imagine what the Catholic Church might look like in another 50 years. Today we present the Utopian scenario and tomorrow we'll present the Dystopian scenario.

*There is a paragraph in David Marr's essay that captures it well from the time Abbott took over the student Liberal Club at Sydney University:

His plan was to win the presidency of the SRC and collapse it from above. He was well under way. In May, he had taken control of the campus Liberal Club. It was the idea of Joe Bullock, now state secretary in WA of the shop assistants' union: "I said, 'We need a banner to fight under. We've got to have something that can draw people to us.' The Labor Club was extreme left. There was no chance of knocking it off. But the Liberal Club was a dreadful bunch of dilettantes and social climbers. And there were not many of them. So I said, 'Let's knock off the Liberal Club.' But Tony was really reluctant. 'Oh, no, I don't want to join the Liberal Club.' He made it clear his loyalties were to Labor. Eventually I persuaded him against his better judgment to join."

**Fundamentally George Pell is continuing to try and impose the Santamaria agenda and vision for Catholicism on this nation.

Brian Coyne
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