The looming battle: Our Lady of Fatima and public space in Cold War Queensland

Abstract

The Pilgrim Statue of Our Lady of Fatima toured Queensland during 1951 as part of a global journey that was designed to promote moral renewal and defeat international communism. Previous analyses of Catholic anti-communism in Cold War Queensland have focussed on B.A. Santamaria's Social Studies Movement or the Labor Party split, but rarely investigate the changes in Catholic identity that preceded such dramatic events. Queensland Catholics were particularly sensitised to the communist threat at both international and local levels. They projected these concerns publicly during the Pilgrim Statue's tour, and tested the social boundaries that had hitherto constrained their public expression of anti-communism. The Queensland section of the tour by the Pilgrim Statue of Our Lady of Fatima offers a clear example of a transitional period in Catholic identity, as models of political and social behaviour moved away from Irish ethnicity towards a focus on Australian anti-communism.