Mary MacKillop

Life events

1. Born — 1842

   Mary Helen MacKillop was born on 15 January 1842 in what is now the Melbourne suburb of Fitzroy, Victoria, the eldest of eight children of Scottish immigrants Alexander MacKillop and Flora MacDonald.

2. Other — 1866

   On 21 November 1866, the feast of the Presentation of Mary, MacKillop and several companions formally established the Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart in Penola, South Australia, together with Fr Julian Tenison-Woods. MacKillop took the religious name Sister Mary of the Cross.

3. Exiled — 1871

   On 22 September 1871 Bishop Laurence Sheil of Adelaide excommunicated MacKillop, citing insubordination; the action followed her congregation's reporting of alleged clerical child abuse in the Kapunda parish and a subsequent campaign by rival clergy to discredit the Josephites. An episcopal commission later fully exonerated her.

4. Other — 1872

   On 21 February 1872, acting on Bishop Sheil's deathbed instruction, Fr Horan absolved MacKillop at the Morphett Vale church, lifting the excommunication that had stood for five months.

5. Pilgrimage — 1873

   MacKillop travelled to Rome in 1873 to seek papal approval for the Josephites' Rule of Life and was encouraged in the work by Pope Pius IX; Roman authorities confirmed the congregation's governance structure after a trial period and gave formal approval in 1885 under Pope Leo XIII.

6. Other — 1902

   A stroke in Auckland, New Zealand in 1902 left MacKillop paralysed on her right side, confining her to a wheelchair for the remaining seven years of her life; she learned to write with her left hand and continued her correspondence and administration, and was re-elected superior general in 1905.

7. Died — 1909

   MacKillop died on 8 August 1909 at the Josephite convent in North Sydney. Cardinal Patrick Francis Moran, Archbishop of Sydney, attended and said: 'I consider this day to have assisted at the deathbed of a saint.'

8. Other — 2010

   MacKillop was canonised on 17 October 2010 in St Peter's Square, Vatican City, by Pope Benedict XVI, becoming the first Australian Catholic saint; an estimated 8,000 Australians were present for the ceremony.

Relationships

Documented claims

• MacKillop's 1871 excommunication followed, in significant part, her congregation's reporting of alleged child sexual abuse by Fr Keating of the Kapunda parish; an episcopal commission later fully exonerated her and historian Fr Paul Gardiner confirmed no evidence supported the charges against her. (likely)
• During her excommunication MacKillop was sheltered by Jesuit priests and given rent-free housing by Emanuel Solomon, a prominent Jewish merchant; her burial vault in 1914 was a gift of Joanna Barr Smith, a lifelong friend and admiring Presbyterian. (likely)
• Two miracles were formally recognised for MacKillop's canonisation process: the 1961 cure of Veronica Hopson from leukaemia (endorsed 1992) and the cure of Kathleen Evans from inoperable lung and secondary brain cancer in the 1990s (approved by papal decree 19 December 2009). (likely)
• The Josephite sisters adopted a plain brown religious habit by the end of 1867, which gave them the colloquial name 'Brown Joeys'; sisters who chose to remain under diocesan control after the 1871 excommunication were called 'Black Joeys'. (likely)
• By 1871, just five years after the Josephites' founding, 130 sisters were working in more than 40 schools and charitable institutions across South Australia and Queensland, serving the rural poor without accepting government funding. (likely)