Saint Mary MacKillop RSJ

Readers note: This is an excerpt from the 200 Treasures exhibition catalogue, developed in 2017. This content was written as a brief biography on why this person was included in the exhibition.

In 2010, Mary MacKillop became Australia’s first saint, 101 years after her death.

MacKillop was born in Melbourne in 1842 to parents who had recently migrated from Scotland. She was the eldest of eight children. Caught up in the 1840s colonial depression, the MacKillop family’s fortunes plummeted. Being the oldest child, Mary had to earn an income from an early age. She worked in various jobs from shop girl to governess. As a result of her experiences, MacKillop chose to devote herself to a religious life that aided the disadvantaged.

In 1866, at age 24, she founded the Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart (known as the ‘Brown Joeys’) with the aid of Father Tenison-Woods, at Penola in South Australia. The order would live in poverty, dedicated to the care and education of poor children. It grew rapidly in South Australia, and within five years there were 35 schools run by Josephite nuns. Despite her incredible success, the Catholic hierarchy dealt MacKillop and her order a savage blow in 1871: MacKillop was excommunicated for ‘insubordination’ (she reported a priest abusing children to Adelaide’s bishop). She was cast out into the street and her order virtually disbanded. Justice prevailed and the excommunication order was lifted six months later, allowing the order to continue to expand in Australia and New Zealand. MacKillop relocated the order’s headquarters to North Sydney, NSW, in 1883.

MacKillop died in 1909 but her order continued to grow and to develop its outreach to the needy. Today, the order ministers beyond Australasia, in Peru, Timor Leste, Scotland and Brazil. The Sisters of St Joseph started campaigning for Mary’s sainthood in 1925, and in 1995, she was beatified in Sydney and canonised 15 years later in Rome.