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Australia and the Popes

Significant events in Australia's history
during the reign of Pope Pius XII, 1939-1958

Two significant developments for the Church in Australia:

In Australia during the pontificate of Pope Pius XII two particular developments deserve special attention besides the more general matters covered in Yuri Koszarycz's online History of the Catholic Church in Australia which we drew attention in our coverage of the pontificate of Pius XI.

The first is that the enormous influx of refugees and new migrants from post-War Europe beginning in 1947 began a massive change to the character of the Catholic Church in Australia. Prior to the War, the Church was overwhelmingly Irish in character with small pockets of other nationalities, most notably Italians. Following the Second World War there was a massive influx of Catholics from Italy, Malta, Eastern Europe. The changing sociological make-up of the Catholic congregation in Australia would never be static again as towards the end of the twentieth century the character would change again with a heavy influx of migrants and refugees from Asia, India, Sri Lanka, Africa and South America.

Lay activist, B.A. Santamaria Photo from Australian Biography website

The second significant event was emerging differences of opinion between Archbishop Mannix in Melbourne and the Bishops of Sydney, led by Norman Cardinal Gilroy, in the attitude to be taken by the eccelsial leadership to the endeavours of Mr B.A. Santamaria, the National Civic Council (which Santamaria founded and headed) and the Democratic Labor Party (which Santamaria heavily influenced). In his earlier years as an activist against communist infiltration of trade unions in Australia, Santamaria had enjoyed general support from all of the Australian bishops and most particularly from Archbishop Daniel Mannix in his home city of Melbourne. Priest-Historian, Bruce Duncan though has documented the changing attitude of the Sydney Bishops when it was perceived that Santamaria's energies began to be directed towards a wider agenda that was interpreted as a take-over of the Australian Labor Party.

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The textual material on these pages was sourced from a large number of places all of which can be found through the links on each page. The material was researched, assembled and produced by Brian Coyne for Catholic Australia. The images used in the Flash animations are in the public domain. Other images used are in the public domain or sourced from the webpages to which they are linked.