| Review of: | B.A. Santamaria. Your Most Obedient Servant. Selected Letters: 1938-1996 edited by Patrick Morgan |
|---|---|
| Reviewed By: | Michael D. Barr |
| Reviewed in: | Australian Journal of Politics and History |
| Date accepted online: | 14/01/2008 |
| Published in print: | Volume 53, Issue 03, Pages 465-504 |
Book Reviews
How do you want to read B.A. Santamaria's letters? As an exploration of the politics of the split in the Labour Party in the 1950s? Or of the politics and struggles within the Catholic Church in Australia from the 1940s to the 1990s? Perhaps as part of a study of the relationship between religion and politics? As an aspect of Cold War politics?
He could easily have been a world class scholar or a top silk, but he turned his back on such possibilities and instead devoted his life to a field of activity for which he was not obviously suited: politics. As a university student in the early 1930s his automatic reflex was to identify himself and his personal activism with the Church. Yet his was not a vision of laymen spreading the Gospel or winning converts, but of bringing to the world the Catholic vision of a just society where the "human spirit" was free from "oppression" (Letter 170). The sources of such oppression varied over the next half-century - capitalism, consumerism, Nazism, communism, industrialism, moral relativism, nihilism, the sexual revolution, "secular humanism" (Letter 215) - but his quest at all times remained fairly constant: to build a world where adults can live and work with dignity, raising a family in an environment conducive to passing on good values and - for Catholics - to passing on the faith. His vision was local, national and international, including nearly three decades of effort to extend his work into Asia based on his conviction that Australia has a special role to play in the region (Letter 97).
Yet he was never profoundly interested in the theory of the relationship between church and politics, or any other theory for that matter. He cherry-picked his way through academic, political and religious discourses, threading Arnold Toynbee (Letter 184) or the prophet Isaiah (Letter 178) into his correspondence and his oratory as it suited him, but his serious attention was always on practical results. Not for him the pursuit of rights or ideals regardless of their real-world outcomes. Consequences, intended and unintended, were the measure of the value of an idea (Letter 130).
So it was that when his type of Catholic activism proved to be out of step with that desired by the Vatican, it caused him to review his tactics, not the fundamental principles of his work. In any case, by this time he had entered into other commitments that he saw as irrevocable and ultimately as more important that any theoretical considerations - commitments to the Church (whether the Church wanted his service or not), to causes and ideals and - most important of all - to particular people. Again and again these letters illuminate a man profoundly interested in the dignity and welfare of everyone he ever met (or so it seems). As one who worked in his office for some years I know that his door was literally open to anyone who walked in off the street and who thought Santamaria might benefit from his or her insights. His letters show that this was just the tip of the iceberg. Not only did he take great pains to give personal and thoughtful replies to the most commonplace of correspondents, but he offered counselling, comfort and practical help (often financial help) to ordinary people in distress, as well as to Catholic missionaries and to former political colleagues. It is heart-rending to read his correspondence after the fall of Saigon as he tried to track down and help those Vietnamese who had disappeared or been imprisoned for having been part of his work.
Such a man was never going to be at home in ordinary politics. He was fully aware of this and so never sought public office for himself. Yet he was passionately interested in achieving political results.
This selection of letters canvasses all periods of Santamaria's long public life. They need to be read with care, but Patrick Morgan has helped the reader considerably by providing introductions and notes for most letters and then supplementing these with a thoughtful thirty-three-page commentary at the end of the book.