Homily for Feast of Mary MacKillop 2010

Travelling in Mary MacKillop's (1842-1909) day was not easy. She frequently visited her convents around Australian to support and encourage the sisters. As well, she made visits to Rome and the UK to find support for her new congregation. She would have had a lot of time to think and pray on those long journeys. No phones or radios to distract her. Weeks and months on uncomfortable sea journeys in the 1870's and rough roads and rails in Australia.

That was only part of her challenges that she faced as she established her mission to teach the children of the poor in Australia. We know of her excommunication for a while because of the efforts of people who objected to her methods. It is just as fascinating, as I have mentioned before, to read of her troubles in setting up schools in Queensland between 1870 and 1900. What sheds light on it all is to recall the events unfolding around the world before and during that time, 1860 to 1900. I am no historian but just to name some events is enlightening not just on Mary but on events in the Church today.

The French Revolution (1789 -1799) was taking place as Australia was first settled by Europeans. It brought great change to Europe. It was the beginning of the end of the absolute monarchy. The revolutionary wars that followed resulted in the French conquest of the Italian peninsula. That revolution influenced the American constitution and in turn the Australian one. Moves toward an Australian Federation and it's own constitution were taking place as Mary worked to set up her schools. The 19th century was one which saw the emergence of nation states in Europe and around the world as the feudal world of Medieval Christian Europe disintegrated. In that old world the Pope hiself had a significant kingdom. He was a medieval feudal prince in his own right besides being the Bishop of Rome. Some Popes even rode into battle with their armies. There was not the clear separation of Church and State as we know it. Now it all was all changing.

Pope Pius IX (Pope from 1846-1878) saw this development as a threat to the Church. He called the First Vatican Council (1869-1870) to respond to the rise of rationalism, liberalism, and materialism. Part of the agenda was to define as dogma the doctrine of Papal infallibility. This was in clear opposition to those who offered a doctrine of human progress based on science and liberty leaving God out of the picture. It was a doctrine, however, that caused considerable debate at the time.

This Council of the Church did not complete its agenda. The Franco-Prussian war (1870-1871) broke out. The French under Napoleon III were defeated and his empire collapsed. He had restored Pope Pius IX as ruler of the Papal States which had been taken by nationalist revolutionaries. The Papal states were now unprotected so the nationalists troops took control to create a united Italy and besieged Rome itself. The Pope lost his territory and the Papal States were eventually reduced to the small bit of real estate we know as Vatican City today. The First Vatican Council was suspended and never reconvened. One important thing that was not dealt with was the relationship between the Pope and the Bishops. This was important particularly in view of this new focus on the Papacy. It was not looked at again until the Second Vatican Council. The end result at the time was that all authority tended to be given back to Rome.

What has all this got to do with Mary MacKillop out here in the isolated British colonies in Australia? Between 1848 and 1863 it is said that as many as 30000 single Irish women alone migrated to Australia in the wake of the latest Irish famine (Talk about boat people!). Presumably most of them married and had children. That is an indication of the extent of poverty among the Irish colonists and their children. Their need in rural Australia prompted Mary's vocation and mission.

In Queensland, Mary was trying to resolve an impasse between herself and Bishop Quinn, the first bishop of Brisbane. She needed a congregation of sisters which could work across borders of colonies and dioceses. Bishop Quinn and most other Australian Bishops wanted to control the work of education in each Diocese. They wanted her to make the Congregation a diocesan institute instead of one which had direct supervision from Rome. In those days Bishops were much more independent than they appear today.

Rome gave tentative approval to Marys' constitution for the sisters but amid the turmoil of events in the Vatican and Europe they did not clearly indicate this to Bishop Quinn. He himself lobbied Rome to rule in his favour. The net result of the uncertainty was that Bishop Quinn expelled Mary and her Sisters from his diocese in 1879 except for those willing to stay under his rule. It was in 1888 that Rome finally gave full approval to the Congregation and that would be based in Sydney.

All this short, incomplete, description of events recalls things which are still relevant for the Church today. The tensions between the central authority in Rome and the local bishops who are shepherds of almost a billion (989 million) Catholics remain. Over the centuries the pendulum of authority has swung one way or the other. After the First Vatican Council it swung definitely towards Rome. After the Second Vatican Council it went in the bishops favour. Indeed, the Second Vatican Council explicitly handed much authority over to the Bishops in many areas to be more responsive to local needs.

You sometimes hear people say that the Second Vatican Council never intended certain things to happen. For example, it did not explicitly decide there should be a widespread use of vernacular languages instead of Latin. That is true. The Council did not envisage how quickly and enthusiastically that was taken up all round the world. But what is also true was that the Council did give the authority to make those kinds of decision to the local bishops acting in a collegial way. Some would want to deny or ignore the fact that bishops do have the authority to make decisions about liturgy and other matters. This decision of the Council was a real revolution in that the bishops had an authority they had not enjoyed since before the Reformation.

In recent years the pendulum is swinging again towards Rome taking control. We see this in the controversies over the translation of the new Roman Missal to be published next year. This tension will always be the case the Church, from an institutional side of things, because it is such a large organisation. (Even the confusion we read in the way the Church has dealt with clergy sexual abuse finds its origin partly in this tension.)

Mary MacKillop of the Cross is put before us by the Church as a spiritual model for Australians. The strong, yet loving way in which she worked through the difficulties of Church life in order to meet a real pastoral need are an inspiration. She was committed to alleviating the "misery and wretchedness" of the "bush children" and the "afflicted poor". In pursuing her commitment she was obedient to both the Bishops in Australia and to Rome. But she was certainly not subservient. Strangely enough, being in a religious order in her time was one of the few ways a women of vision could pursue her goals in a very patriarchal society.

So she, who was once expelled from the Archdiocese of Brisbane, is now it's patron. Her image is displayed in it's Churches. Mary was Beatified by Pope John Paul II in Sydney in 1995. She will be canonised by Pope Benedict XVI on 17th October, 2010 in Rome.

Fr Graham

For the story of Mary MacKillop in Queensland see:

Margaret M. McKenna RSJ 2009. With Grateful Hearts! Mary MacKillop and the Sisters of St Joseph in Queensland, 1870 – 1970. Sydney : Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart.

For an insight into her spirituality see:

E J Cuskelly, MSC 1999. Mary MacKillop A Spiritual Model For All. Sydney, St Pauls Publications.