The seeds of the AMAIC were sown in the 1970s from the determination of a group of Australian Catholics to counteract widespread doctrinal and moral error and to uphold the light of truth. The notion of Academy was already in the minds of members due to their associations with schools, colleges, seminaries, and other academic institutions, also through philosophy (e.g. Plato’s Academy), and the Thomistic influence of the famous Aquinas Academy of Dr. Austin Woodbury (S.M.), in Sydney. The cherished phrase, Marian Academy , to which we added our national designation, Australian, was inspired by St. Maximilian Kolbe, who had said: “If the Immaculata wants it, we shall found a Marian Academy to study, teach and publish for the entire world what the Immaculata is – an Academy even with a doctorate in Mariology”. We owed this last piece of information to Kolbe Missionary and former Legionary of Mary, Josephine Mary Nethery, of Sydney Australia, who had provided us with E. Piacentini ’s “Panorama of the Marian Doctrine of Bl. [now Saint] Maximilian Kolbe”.
Finally, as already noted, His Eminence Cardinal Deskur invested our Academy with the concluding phrase of our title, of the Immaculate Conception.
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