Patrick Joseph Ryan

Patrick Joseph "Paddy" Ryan (1904 – 1969), an Australian Catholic priest and anti-communist organiser, was born in Albury, New South Wales in 1904. He was ordained as a priest in the order of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart 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.[1] His philosophy was strictly neo-scholastic[2] and he vigorously debated the atheist philosophers of Sydney University.[3]

Sacred Heart Monastery, Kensington, New South Wales, where Ryan taught philosophy

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.[4]

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 in Melbourne. After the Australian Labor Party split of 1955, however, he, like the majority of Sydney Labor supporters, followed the A.L.P. instead of the new Democratic Labor Party.[5]

Ryan frequently engaged in polemics with Communists and Communist apologists.[6] [7] His most prominent public activity was a debate in 1948 in Sydney with Edgar Ross of the Communist Party of Australia on `Whether Communism is in the best interests of the Australian people'. An audience of 30,000 heard a vigorous debate.[8] [9] Communist Party president Lance Sharkey replied to Ryan's attacks.[10] [11] Ryan's many anti-Communist speeches in the next few years helped create the strong Australian Catholic tradition of anti-communism.[12]

In 1943 Ryan accidentally shot and killed a man he mistook for a rabbit; the coroner found he was blameless.[13] He died in 1969.

References
  1. Caruana, Anthony (2002). Monastery on the Hill: A History of the Sacred Heart Monastery Kensington, 1897-1997. Kensington NSW: Nelen Yubu Missiological Unit. pp. 226–31. ISBN 0958786941.
  2. Ryan, P.J. (17 May 1934). "The fundamental tenets of scholasticism: old and new". Catholic Press. Sydney. Retrieved 30 June 2021.
  3. "Have we freewill? Lively debate at Sydney University". Catholic Freeman's Journal. Sydney. 27 April 1939. p. 20. Retrieved 30 June 2021.
  4. "Station 2SM 'Question Box' Recommended". Catholic Press. Sydney. 14 March 1940. Retrieved 30 June 2021.
  5. Franklin, James (1996). "Catholic thought and Catholic Action: Dr Paddy Ryan MSC and the Red Peril" (PDF). Journal of the Australian Catholic Historical Society. 17: 44–55. Retrieved 30 June 2021.
  6. Ryan, P.J. (1942). Dean Hewlett Johnson's 'Socialist Sixth of the World'. Westmead NSW: St Vincent's Boys Home.
  7. "Gollan-Ryan debate". Tribune. Sydney. 18 December 1948. Retrieved 30 June 2021.
  8. "Stadium's Record Crowd Hears Political Debate, With Big Anti-Communist Majority". Sydney Morning Herald. 24 September 1948. Retrieved 30 June 2021.
  9. Campion, Edmund (2014). Australian Catholic Lives. Melbourne: David Lovell Publishing. pp. 103–5. ISBN 9781863551458.
  10. Sharkey, L.L. (1943). A Reply to Father Ryan (PDF). Sydney: Communist Party of Australia.
  11. L.L. Sharkey (2 October 1948). "Marxism and Morals: Dr. Ryan Answered". Tribune. Sydney. Retrieved 30 June 2021.
  12. "Dr. Ryan Warns Australia on Communism: Danger Cannot Be Exaggerated". Inverell Times. 17 October 1951. Retrieved 30 June 2021.
  13. "Mistaken for rabbit: man killed". Newcastle Herald. 21 May 1943. Retrieved 30 June 2021.

Australian Dictionary of Biography article on Ryan

J. Franklin, Catholic Values and Australian Realities (Connor Court Publishing, 2006), ch. 2.

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