Federation, Sectarianism, and the Catholic Middle Class in Australia

This article examines the engagement of middle-class Catholicism with the federal movement in Australia. It pays particular attention to the period between 1896 and 1901, thus tracking the involvement of politically active Catholics in federation’s so-called Popular Movement. Parallel to an upswing in federal sentiment in the broader community throughout that period was a rise in sectarian tensions, as the Catholic élite strove to contribute to the federal debate against the current of age-old religious tensions in Australia’s socio-political climate. Those tensions drew further strength from more general anxieties over federation, loyalty, and national identity. This article argues that, by examining the actions and attitudes of middle class, politically engaged Catholics in the lead-up to Australian federation, we can get a clearer sense both of the nature of social divisions in colonial Australia and the liminality of lay Catholicism’s upper order at the turn of the twentieth century: a class simultaneously characterised, by both Protestant and Catholic elements in the community, as the loyal religionists of a persecuted church and the affluent products of a persecuting, hegemonic cultural Protestantism.