BA Santamaria

Australia at the Crossroads: Reflections of an outsider by B. A. Santamaria

August 1988, no. 103

James Griffin reviews 'Australia at the Crossroads' by B. A. Santamaria

B.A. Santamaria is given to self-dramatization. His autobiography (1981) was subtitled Against the tide but he was not metaphorically explicit as to whether the tide was going out or coming in. For myself I do not want to think of Santamaria behaving with Canute-like megalomania; I prefer to envisage him backstroking towards shore with a rear-vision snorkel, spouting against the undertow of inevitable social change, and praying for some apocalyptic dumper to preserve him from the future agoraphobic shock of an ever-widening ocean.

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B.A. Santamaria: Your most obedient servant: Selected Letters 1938–1996 edited by Patrick Morgan

by Brenda Niall •

March 2007, no. 289

Brenda Niall reviews 'B.A. Santamaria: Your most obedient servant: Selected Letters 1938–1996' edited by Patrick Morgan

Among countless unused fragments of information from my convent schooldays, I remember the correct forms of address for churchmen of all ranks. For the pope, it was Your Holiness; for a cardinal, Your Eminence. Next came Your Grace and My Lord, for archbishops and bishops. Then the cumbersome Right Reverend and Dear Monsignor, followed by Dear Reverend Father, which sufficed for a priest.

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On the Park Bench

by Edmund Campion •

July 1999, no. 212

You know you are getting old when one of your students, genuine in her puzzlement, says to you, ‘Who was Bob Santamaria?’ Santamaria? The most famous lay Catholic since Ned Kelly! The man whose machine split Australian Catholicism for a generation; whose politics kept Labor from office for two decades; whose disciples and friends still move through the corridors of power in church and state! To meet someone to whom Santamaria is an unfamiliar name is to know that you too will soon be history.

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