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Keywords: Australia's First Saint

  • AUSTRALIA

    Mary MacKillop's advice for today's politicians

    • Michael Mullins
    • 06 May 2013
    13 Comments

    'Never see a need without doing something about it' is the principle that guided Australia's first saint Mary MacKillop. This is also what drives successful politicians, and the NDIS is a good but rare example of this. Unfortunately few political leaders are able to see a real need and successfully legislate to do something about it.

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  • RELIGION

    Best of 2010: Mary MacKillop's Australian story

    • Katharine Massam
    • 11 January 2011
    1 Comment

    Mary MacKillop's face is on the Sydney Habour Bridge, at least temporarily. Is she becoming one of the clichés for Australia, alongside bushmen and Hills Hoist mums in our catalogue of national identity?

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  • RELIGION

    'Sheila' MacKillop boosts Catholic brand

    • Paul Collins
    • 19 November 2010
    9 Comments

    This week it was reported that the canonisation of Mary MacKillop boosted enquiries at Australia's Catholic Enquiry Centre by 63 per cent in the past year. The saturation media coverage of the event suggests the Church may not be as much 'on the nose' as is popularly thought.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Mary MacKillop's lesson for Murray-Darling irrigators

    • Michael Mullins
    • 18 October 2010
    7 Comments

    Tony Windsor is proving himself to be a politician of integrity and tact, but has his work cut out for him in the case of the Murray-Darling Basin irrigators. Mary MacKillop was a champion of rural and regional Australians. It is worth considering her strategy in the context of the irrigators' struggle for survival.

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  • RELIGION

    Mary MacKillop's Australian story

    • Katharine Massam
    • 15 October 2010
    1 Comment

    Mary MacKillop's face is on the Sydney Habour Bridge, at least temporarily. Is she becoming one of the clichés for Australia, alongside bushmen and Hills Hoist mums in our catalogue of national identity?

    READ MORE
  • RELIGION

    The Mary MacKillop reality test

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 14 October 2010
    4 Comments

    It is possible to represent MacKillop as a brave woman, a feisty woman, her own woman, a feminist before her time, a woman who resisted clerical tyranny, a scourge of pedophilia and an activist for the poor. Each of these descriptions misses what was central in her.

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  • RELIGION

    Patron Saint of abuse victims

    • James Martin
    • 13 October 2010
    3 Comments

    MacKillop can be properly seen be as someone drawn into the sexual abuse scandal a century before the rest of the Catholic Church was. As a result, she might be someone that victims and their families feel drawn to in prayer.

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  • CARTOON

    Aussie Mary

    • Fiona Katauskas
    • 13 October 2010
    1 Comment

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Australia's feminist saint

    • Michael Mullins
    • 11 October 2010
    5 Comments

    Sexual abuse was part of the mix of challenges facing Mary MacKillop and her sisters, but it was only one of many elements of disfunction within the Church and society of the time. Historian Father Ed Campion has described MacKillop as 'a heroine to modern Australian feminists'.

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  • RELIGION

    Mary MacKillop's template for the Independents

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 23 September 2010
    9 Comments

    The aftermath of the election gave play to the mythical Australian preference for the underdog as people enjoyed the Greens' and Independents' day in the sun. There is an intriguing contrast to be drawn between this and the life of Mary MacKillop, who will become Australia's first saint.

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