Many years ago Professor C. M. H. Clark suggested that I research the history of the Campion Society, a Catholic intellectual movement which had been active at Melbourne University during his time as a student there. This project led to a more extensive one on the Australian Catholic lay upsurge of the nineteen thirties, with the end result of my studies being the present text.
That the work has seen print is attributable to my relative and good friend, Mr Peter Thomas. When I had moved on to other endeavours, it was he who sought out the manuscript then recommended and effected its publication. Anyone who finds edification in this volume is in his debt.
The nineteen-thirties encompassed the Great Depression, the victory of Nazism in Germany, the rapid growth of Stalinist Communism throughout Europe, the Spanish Civil War and the outbreak of World War II. It was an age of economic and intellectual turmoil; an age when the future of the West appeared to be dangerously dependent on the interplay of the contending totalitarian ideologies, Communism, Nazism and Fascism.
However, for the Catholic Church, which to many seemed to be the one remaining hope for Western civilization, it was a time not of decline but of consolidation and resurgence. In Pope Pius XI Catholics found an inspiring leader; and throughout the world they rallied to his call for a crusade to advance social justice, stem resurgent paganism and revivify Christianity as a cultural force.
This is the story of the Australian response to that call. It tells of how, under the de facto leadership of the Campion Society, the Australian Church adopted new ways of thinking, a new sense of mission and new organisations to meet the challenges of the age.
It is a Catholic story; yet I hope that it holds a catholic interest also, and that all readers shall find it enlightening.
Colin H. Jory
1986