Bartholomew Augustine Santamaria (born 1915), a Roman Catholic publicist and organizer in Australia, founded the Catholic Social Movement.

Bartholomew Santamaria was born in Brunswick, Victoria, on Aug. 14, 1915, the son of Italian immigrants. He was educated at the University of Melbourne and soon became prominent as a Roman Catholic ideologist and organizer in Victoria. In 1937 he became assistant director and, in 1947, director of the National Secretariat of Catholic Action. This organization had been founded to enlist the support of the laity in the pastoral work of the Roman Catholic Church and existed in all parts of the world under the patronage of the Pope. In 1943 Santamaria created, and became president of, the Catholic Social Movement, which was organized and largely recruited by the members of Catholic Action.

By the 1940s Santamaria's principal concern was the advance of communism in the Australian Labour party, and to counter it he sought to...