WORDS Michael McVeigh

This year marked a hundred years since the death of Blessed Mary MacKillop. For many, her life and deeds already mark her as a saint. But the journey to her canonisation has been a long one.

On 10 August, 1909, thousands of people lined the streets as the funeral procession for Mother Mary MacKillop wound its way to St Mary’s Church in North Sydney.

It was a day widely reported in both the Catholic and mainstream press, the passing of a person of great significance. But it was also something more than that. As she lay in state, people touched her skin with rosary beads, holy pictures and other objects of devotion. When she was buried at Gore Hill, people took home scoops of soil from the ground around her grave.

This was something rarely seen in Australian culture, before or since. Australian Jesuit Fr Paul Gardiner has been involved in pulling together the case for Mary MacKillop’s sainthood for 25 years, and says Mary was seen as more than just a significant social pioneer by people of the time. The touching of her skin, and the sampling of holy relics, showed she was also seen as someone who had lived in close communion with God.

‘Our culture does not readily allow us to imagine that there has been a saint in the land. Yet people everywhere were convinced that Mother Mary’s holiness was of an exceptional order’, he says.

‘At her funeral Cardinal Moran, a man not given to flights of imagination, let it be known that he considered her worthy of the honours of the altar. That is, that she could ultimately be canonised.’

Despite the convictions of people who knew her, a hundred years have passed and Mary is only now entering the final stages of canonisation. The process of making a saint is long and painstaking, involving years of interviews, research, and documentation.

The process began in 1925, when Sydney Archbishop Michael Kelly set up a tribunal of investigation. From 1926 to 1928, a number of witnesses were interviewed about her life. But the process was suspended in 1931, when a crucial document could not be located.

The document was written to Cardinal Barnabó, who, in 1872, had authorised two bishops to investigate the Josephite Sisters and the actions against them by the Bishop of Adelaide, as well as other affairs in the diocese. It dealt with the reasons for Mary’s excommunication, and the subsequent overturning of that excommunication. While Mary and the sisters were exonerated, Fr Gardiner says the document reflected badly on a number of church people, some of whom were still alive at the time, and it’s possible this was the reason it was unable to be released.

Father N T Gilroy was the notary at the time of the original investigation, and by 1951 he had become a cardinal in Sydney. He reopened the investigation, and managed to locate the missing document and reconstitute the tribunal. More sessions were held in 1951, and from 1959-61.

Pope Paul VI visited Australia in 1970, and gave extra impetus to the cause. A meeting of cardinals and bishops in 1973 saw the cause formally introduced, with the Pope’s blessing. Fr Paul Gardiner was commissioned to write what is called the positio, which is a detailed study of Mary’s life and virtues. He worked from 1984-89 preparing this document.

Fr Paul had to consider Mary’s writings, the events of her life, and the testimonies of those who knew her, to show that she was a woman who lived an exemplary life in the service of God. He says the evidence gathered from people who knew Mary painted the portrait of a woman whose faith shone out in everything she did. He quotes one priest who knew her well: ‘My first impression was that she was wrapped up in God. As far as a human being could, she was in union with God. Each time I met her I was more impressed… Her union with God was continuous. Her life was one prayer.’

The positio was considered by the Congregation for the Causes of Saints in 1991, and Mary was given the title Venerable Mary MacKillop in 1992. Next, two miracles were needed—one for her to be beatified, another for her to be canonised.
There are any number of stories of Mary’s intervention in people’s lives, but the rules on what constitutes a miracle in this process are strict. It generally comes down to a medical cure. There must be records of the case, and doctors must testify that the cure has no scientific explanation.

In Mary’s case, the first miracle occurred in 1961, when a woman was cured of leukaemia. She went on to have six children, and remained free of the cancer. The miracle was recognised, and Mary was beatified in 1995.

Josephite Sister Maria Casey became involved in the process during the search for the second miracle. There were a number of different cases to look at, each requiring speaking with the people involved, looking at medical records, and talking also with doctors.

In a secular culture such as Australia, doctors aren’t often keen to describe a cure as something that has no scientific explanation. In one case, a doctor who had provided written testimony on a case changed his mind at the last minute. But Sr Maria says in most cases, doctors had no problem saying when a cure had not come about due to medical expertise.

The cure that was eventually presented to the Vatican involved a woman in her 60s who recovered from lung cancer. Sr Maria says the doctors involved in the cure had studied the case extensively.

‘Several years later they took it to one of their conventions to discuss it again, the extraordinary cure that it was. And they couldn’t explain it’, she says.

Sr Maria was appointed as postulator in 2008, replacing Fr Paul who retired due to health reasons. She prepared the documentation for the final miracle. It has been accepted by a panel of doctors and a panel of theologians. It now has to go to a committee of bishops and cardinals, before the case can be placed before the Pope to make the final decision.

A hundred years has passed since Mary’s death, and the strength of her influence on Australian Catholics could be seen in August this year as schools and parishes across the country held celebrations to mark the anniversary. The holiness that drew people to her graveside in 1909 still draws people to pray at her tomb today. Schools and social ministries bearing her name continue the work that she began.

Many wonder how it has taken so long to canonise a woman already revered as a saint by so many. However, Sr Maria says she understands why the process for naming a person a saint is so involved.

‘I’ve learned to appreciate that the detail they require, and the process itself—while it’s not infallible—preserves the integrity of who becomes and who are named as saints’, she says.

That said, the final decision on Mary’s canonisation is a highly anticipated occasion. The canonisation itself will most likely happen in Rome, but the event will be celebrated in dioceses across Australia, as well as in other places where Mary is revered around the world.

Sr Maria says canonisation won’t add to the holiness of Mary MacKillop, but it will bring her story to many others.

‘Not so long ago we had a pilgrimage from the heart of China, and you just wonder how she became known there’, she says. ‘It’s extraordinary the places where she is revered.’

‘The canonisation will confirm for those people that Mary MacKillop is a model for Christian living. That’s the purpose of saints. Mary is this model. She is somebody who can pray for us.’

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