Patrick Joseph "Paddy" Ryan (1904 – 1969), an Australian

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

priest and anti-communist organiser, was born in

Albury Albury () is a major regional city in New South Wales, Australia. It is located on the Hume Highway and the northern side of the Murray River. Albury is the seat of local government for the council area which also bears the city's name – the ...

New South Wales ) , nickname = , image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , es ...

in 1904. He was ordained as a priest in the order of the

Missionaries of the Sacred Heart The Missionaries of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (MSC; la, Missionarii Sacratissimi Cordis; french: Missionnaires du Sacré-Coeur) are a missionary congregation in the Catholic Church. It was founded in 1854 by Servant of God Jules Chevalier (182 ...

in 1929. After gaining a doctorate in Rome, he returned to Australia and for many years taught philosophy at the order's seminary in Kensington, New South Wales. His philosophy was strictly neo-scholastic and he vigorously debated the atheist philosophers of Sydney University.

Life and career

During 1940-1, he took over the 'Question Box' program on radio 2SM while the regular presenter, his colleague Dr Rumble, was touring America. He was the principal founder and head in Sydney of the `Movement', the semi-secret Catholic anti-communist organisation that struggled with communism for control of the union movement in the late 1940s and early 1950s, thus being the counterpart of

B.A. Santamaria Bartholomew Augustine Santamaria, usually known as B. A. Santamaria (14 August 1915 – 25 February 1998), was an Australian Roman Catholic anti-Communist political activist and journalist. He was a guiding influence in the founding of the Demo ...

in Melbourne. After the

Australian Labor Party split of 1955 The Australian Labor Party split of 1955 was a split within the Australian Labor Party along ethnocultural lines and about the position towards communism. Key players in the split were the federal opposition leader H. V. "Doc" Evatt and B. A. ...

, however, he, like the majority of Sydney Labor supporters, followed the A.L.P. instead of the new Democratic Labor Party. Ryan frequently engaged in polemics with Communists and Communist apologists. His most prominent public activity was a debate in 1948 in Sydney with Edgar Ross of the

Communist Party of Australia The Communist Party of Australia (CPA), known as the Australian Communist Party (ACP) from 1944 to 1951, was an Australian political parties, Australian political party founded in 1920. The party existed until roughly 1991, with its membersh ...

on `Whether Communism is in the best interests of the Australian people'. An audience of 30,000 heard a vigorous debate. Communist Party president

Lance Sharkey Lawrence Louis Sharkey (19 August 1898 – 13 May 1967), commonly known as Lance Sharkey or L. L. Sharkey, was an Australian trade unionist and communist leader. From 1948 to 1965 he served as the secretary-general of Communist Party of Austr ...

replied to Ryan's attacks. Ryan's many anti-Communist speeches in the next few years helped create the strong Australian Catholic tradition of

anti-communism Anti-communism is political and ideological opposition to communism. Organized anti-communism developed after the 1917 October Revolution in the Russian Empire, and it reached global dimensions during the Cold War, when the United States and the ...

. In 1943 Ryan accidentally shot and killed a man he mistook for a rabbit; the coroner found he was blameless. He died in 1969.

References

External links

''Australian Dictionary of Biography'' article on Ryan
J. Franklin
Catholic Values and Australian Realities
(Connor Court Publishing, 2006), ch. 2. {{DEFAULTSORT:Ryan, Patrick Joseph 1904 births 1969 deaths People from Albury, New South Wales 20th-century Australian Roman Catholic priests Missionaries of the Sacred Heart Australian anti-communists Australian philosophers Pontifical Gregorian University alumni