I know the importance of searching for answers. And I know how much of an impact it has when you see how big questions play out in everyday life.
I was 24 when I went through an intensive six-week training program with the National Evangelisation Teams (NET ministries) followed by nine months of mission work. This helped me put my theology and philosophy studies into practice, and I saw how much they matter. I saw how much they play out in families and communities and practice. It reinforced the idea that principles both matter in themselves and how they play out in practice.
Family mattered to B.A. “Bob” Santamaria, and not just as a principle. It also mattered in practice, because Bob’s own family was integral to The Movement and its impact during his life. One person to particularly note is his brother, Dr Joseph “Dr Joe” Santamaria. Dr Joe was a brilliant physician and a social organiser at an unparalleled level.
Dr Joe knew there was a hunger for depth, a thirst for knowledge, not just in the centre of society but on the margins.
Birth of TMC
Dr Joe was the key mind behind the Australian Family Association (AFA) and the Thomas More Centre (TMC). He saw the need for formal groups, as represented by the AFA, but also the need for a genuinely liberal educational environment for faith and philosophy.
This environment needed to be confident that it held truth, so it was unafraid of questions or differences of opinion. It needed to transcend the polarisation within church education, and it needed to go outside the formal academy into the school of everyday life. It needed to reach people where they were at – intellectually, personally, financially – rather than where others wanted them to be at.
Dr Joe knew there was a hunger for depth, a thirst for knowledge, not just in the centre of society but on the margins. So, he established the Thomas More Centre with a young Anna Krohn as his executive assistant.
They built a space for people to talk and explore and share their experiences, but in a rigorous and thoughtful way. Indoctrination and an insistence on assent in such an environment are counterproductive, because the True, the Good, and the Beautiful can speak for themselves.
Continuing the Legacy
We have kept up those principles with our education and formation programs, like YPAT and the Democratic Club. And I am thrilled to announce that we are bringing back the full TMC experience with the appointment of Anna Krohn as executive director for the Thomas More Centre.
Anna has spent decades exploring and examining the spaces between faith and culture and society. Her teaching and writing represent a corpus of creativity and analysis that is unparalleled.
We know this hunger for depth and thirst for knowledge has not gone away. We all have questions. By recreating this alternative approach to the academy, we are rebuilding the foundations on which we can develop answers, answers based on foundational principles but dealing with the practical reality of everyday life in this day and age.
Please join us as we rebuild this experience, not just in Melbourne but around the country.
Luke McCormack is national president of the National Civic Council.
