The Mannix Era covers the main actors, organizations, events and issues in the archdiocese from 1920-1970. The narrative has four heroes: Dr Mannix, the Archdiocese itself, its weekly newspaper The Advocate, and the well organised Catholic community. It is the story of a Catholic archdiocese in which initiatives were encouraged, to become under Dr Mannix the most energetic in Australia, a self-aware community with high participation rates, but suddenly and unexpectedly, it came to a shattering crash with the great Labor split of the mid 1950s.

This book is a sequel to the author’s Melbourne Before Mannix. Patrick Morgan was educated at St Bernard’s CBC, Moonee Ponds, and at the University of Melbourne. He taught English at the Clayton and Churchill campuses of Monash University and has written and edited books on topics where religion, politics and history intersect. He is a frequent contributor to Quadrant, Tintean and other journals.