Mary MacKillop
Australian religious sister and saint (1842–1909)
Feast: 8 August (not on the universal Roman calendar; kept in the Roman Martyrology or local calendars)
Who they were
Mary MacKillop was born on 15 January 1842 near where Melbourne now stands, in an Australia of poverty, religious discrimination, unemployment and deplorable treatment of Aboriginal people, where few priests served a scattered rural population.
With the encouragement of her mentor Father Woods she founded the Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart, which she governed amid many difficulties and insults; in 1885 she was removed as Mother General.
The miracles
The Dicastery's biography does not describe the miracles approved in the cause.
Why that counted as sanctity
A foundress who served the poor of a hard young country and bore great trials and injustice with faith.
- Dicastery for the Causes of Saints - biography: Maria della Croce MacKillop
- Wikidata Q275976 — dates, feast day and identifiers (CC0)
- English Wikipedia — Mary MacKillop (CC BY-SA)
Checked against the sources listed on 21 September 2026. Corrections welcome.