Excommunication is not usually on the path to canonization. In the Church’s whole history, only five individuals were excommunicated and then later named saints. Being banned from the sacraments is not a punishment that the Church takes lightly, and with these exceptions, it is not something her bishops usually carry out in error. One of the members of this most exclusive quintet is St. Mary MacKillop, the first Australian to be canonized.

Born in 1842, Mary MacKillop donned the habit in 1866, asked by a local priest to help him found schools for poor children throughout Australia. Taking the name Mary of the Cross, Sister Mary readily agreed and founded the Sisters of St. Joseph of the Sacred Heart. Immediately, Sister Mary broke with convention when she refused to take government funding for her schools. She wanted to ensure that she could accept anyone she wanted, including the poor and Indigenous children who could not pay tuition, and she did so by relying on private donations rather than public funding. By 1871, 130 sisters were working in more than 40 schools and charitable institutions across South Australia and Queensland.

Despite flouting government funding, Sister Mary did seek to build a fruitful relationship with her diocese. She received her bishop’s blessing to operate as an independent order. But her strong personality made her few friends among the clergy. Tensions heightened when she reported a priest for abuse, causing his subsequent removal from the country. After this, hostility to her and her order grew throughout the diocese. When her bishop, influenced by advisers who bore a grudge against the nun for banishing their fellow priest, tried to unlawfully wrest control of her order, Mary refused. In retaliation, the bishop wrongfully excommunicated her and forbade her from contacting her sisters. Even in the face of this clear abuse of power, Mary did not rise up in anger. She ceased her order’s activities and despite the great pain it caused her, she obeyed the strictures of excommunication until the bishop recanted on his deathbed in 1872. An episcopal commission later completely exonerated her, and with the full approval of the Pope, Sister Mary’s order resumed activity in Australia.

Sister Mary remained a leader of the Sisters of St. Joseph of the Sacred Heart, both as Superior General and in advisory capacities, until her death in 1909, only four years after her last reelection as head of the order. Her grave immediately became a place of pilgrimage, and in 1925, just over 50 years after her excommunication had been lifted, her cause for canonization was opened. She was declared a saint by Pope Benedict XVI in 2010.

The life of Mary MacKillop, this brave nun who remained fixed on Christ’s mission for her, ignoring the petty power plays and grudges within her diocese, is both inspiration and balm. She was a woman who did not fear to speak the truth and to protect the vulnerable. She was not cowed by those in power who wished to ruin her work. 

But even more notable, she did not fall prey to bitterness and vitriol, even when her own bishop betrayed her. She knew that he was wrong to try to rescind his approval and commandeer her order, but when he excommunicated her out of spite, and on the advice of jealous priests, she did not condemn him or the priests who had whispered in his ear. He was still her bishop, and she obeyed. She trusted that God had given her this mission and that if it was to continue, then he would guide her through this trial. He did so and more. The bishop’s heart softened and repented. Mary was not only invited back into communion with her beloved Church, but her order, approved by the Pope, continued to grow, building schools and spreading the Catholic faith throughout Australia.

We can follow her example, not just in her bold and faithful answer to Christ’s call, but in her unwillingness to be distracted by the human failings of the leaders in the Church that he gave us. With heroic virtue, she fought any temptation to denigrate her bishop, knowing that his behavior reflected his own weakness, not any foundering on the part of Christ’s Bride. May God give us the grace to respond to the trials in our own life with such humility.

St. Mary MacKillop, pray for us!