Mother Mary MacKillop: Patron Saint of Whistleblowers?
That’s what they’re calling Australia’s first native-born saint-to-be after it was revealed that the outspoken nun and co-founder of a religious teaching order denounced a priest for sexually abusing children, an event that contributed to her excommunication for five months.
From my story on the events as recounted in an ABC (Australia broadcasting) documentary:
“The story of the excommunication amounts to this: that some priests had been uncovered for being involved in the sexual abuse of children,” Father Paul Gardiner, the official advocate for MacKillop’s canonization, says in the documentary.
Gardiner said that when MacKillop’s complaints led at least one priest to be disciplined, one of his fellow priests “was so angry with this that he swore vengeance.” The priest, Father Charles Horan, used his influence with Bishop Sheil to have MacKillop excommunicated.
“Priests being annoyed that somebody had uncovered it — that would probably be the way of describing it — and being so angry that the destruction of the Josephites [MacKillop's order] was decided on,” Father Gardiner told ABC.
Father Jim Martin has insights on why whistleblowers and women are later seen as saints, and the Religion News Service piece is also comprehensive.
Again, it is an open question at best as to whether this key episode in the religious life of Blessed Mary MacKillop will be cited at her canonization on Oct. 17. John Henry Newman’s problems with church authorities were not exactly highlighted at his beatification. But the thing about popular devotion is that the populace has its say, too.
David:
Since the word first hit the web a couple days ago, I’ve been reviewing Mary MacKillop’s major biography. And after a close reading, the progression of events become clear last night.
The problem with the whistle-blower scenario is that Mary wasn’t anywhere near Adelaide in April, 1870 when her sisters there heard rumors about Fr. Keating, a local Franciscan. She was in Brisbane, 1,000 miles away, and didn’t return until nearly a year later. (A journey of 1000 miles in 1870 Australia took weeks.)
The sisters in Adelaide heard stories of abuse and told Fr. Woods, their founder. Fr. Woods told the Vicar General of the diocese and the Vicar General sent Keating away. One of Keating’s confreres, Fr. Horan, set out to take his revenge on Fr. Woods by destroying the Josephite Sisters which he had founded. It was Horan who drafted a long list of accusations against the Sisters, calling them incompetent and disobedient, and it was Mary MacKillop who was trying to keep her footing and protect her sisters in the middle of what was essentially a dispute among priests. And all of this occurred while the bishop, who was the only one who could have defused the situation, was away in Europe for over a year at the First Vatican Council!
In those days, the rule of the community had not yet been approved by Rome, the vision of a Mother General was not yet approved (local bishops wanted to control the sisters in their dioceses) and Mary was merely the “Guardian” of the sisters while Fr. Woods was the “Director” and had the real decision making power. Woods was wildly eccentric, prone to all sorts of extravagant visions and spiritual experiences and terrible with money. (For instance, Woods would have a vision that Our Lady would provide for all the Institute’s need and proceed to plan expansions of the sister’s buildings without any cash on hand. Mary had no control over any of this.) He had angered the vast majority of the other priests and the Franciscan, Horan, took advantage of that fact.
As Fr. Paul Gardiner, author of the approved biography puts it:
The roots of the trouble were:
– the preoccupation of Fr. Woods and some Sisters with preternatural phenomena, visions, inspirations, prophecies, miracles, and diabolical visitations
– the growth of substantial debts because of the works of the Institute and of the diocese;
– the alienation of some of the clergy from Fr. Woods and the Sisters;
– the implacable opposition of Fr. Charles Horan.
Mary returned to Adelaide in April, 1871. The Bishop’s health was rapidly declining and he became very dependent upon Fr. Horan, who functioned as his vicar general. The Bishop was persuaded to make major changes to the Josephite rule but Mary pointed out that the Sisters had vowed to live the original rule and that if it was to be changed, all the sisters had to accept those changes or be given a dispensation from their vows.
The basic charges against Mary and the Sisters were disobedience and incompetence. The Bishop performed a ceremony of excommunication against Mary on September 22 – apparently on the spur of the moment because she would not simply accept the new rule as an act of obedience. Bishop Sheil died 5 months later and rescinded his excommunication on his deathbed. By that point, he realized that he has been seriously mislead by Fr. Horan.
This is an old scenario where male clerics use women’s communities as weapons in their own battles. The same thing happened two centuries earlier to Mary Ward and her Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary which was caught up into controversies surrounding the Jesuits and in other power struggles between curial cardinals, various archbishops and local rulers who brought BVMs in.
But the imagined “whistle-blower” scenario of Mary personally walking into the bishop’s office to report an abusive priest never happened. The Josephite community in Adelaide were whistle-blowers but the ultimate whistle-blower was Fr. Woods and he was the one that Horan was attempting to punish for it.
But in the current climate with the first Australian canonization happening in three weeks, it was much easier – and more profitable – to fudge the facts. So the saintly, unjustly treated woman becomes the whistle-blower while the mentally ill male co-founder, who actually did the reporting is ignored.
Sherry, that’s all good information and perspective. The information that is coming out now seems to be new, or at least more detailed, in that MacKillop appears to have passed along the reports to Father Wood (following the chain of command). Hence the denunciation and banishment of the offending priest back to Ireland (who knows what havoc he wreaked there) and Horan’s ire. How do you account for the claims by her advocate, Fr. Gardiner, and the confirmation by her order?
Interesting information about Mary MacKillop. Thanks, David Gibson and Sherry Weddell.
I don’t know how it is in Australia, but one thing I know about the histories of women’s congregations here in the U.S. is that the older ones often contain more details about the abusive treatment of nuns by priests and bishops than the newer ones do. That is, if a congregation has published its history three times (as many have done) — one, maybe, for its 50th jubilee in 1900, another for its 100th in 1950, and a third for whatever reason in the 80s, the most accurate and the bluntest will be the first one. Later ones tend to gloss over the details of expelled founders, overturned elections, etc., etc.
The current issue of “History of Women Religious: News and Notes” contains a review of Nuns: A History of Convent Life 1450-1700, by Silvia Evangelisti, Oxford U. Press, 2007, with an interesting detail: “some confessors exerted control by destroying nuns’ manuscripts”.
There must be many nuns still alive with knowledge of abuse by priests. I wonder if they were asked for names and details in the questionnaires and by the visitators.
As an interesting aside, Fr. Paul Gardiner’s biography of Mary simply says that “The Sisters had evidence that one of the priests there, Fr. Keating, was guilty of scandalous conduct and they informed Fr. Woods.” I’ve checked with some of my Australian contacts who are very familiar with Mary’s story and none of them knew that the “scandalous conduct” was, in fact, child abuse.
All the documentation has been available for years and the story of Mary’s excommunication is the best known fact about her. So obviously some people knew the true nature of the scandal but chose not to talk about it until now. But the larger Catholic community knew nothing about it.
So Sherry, what do you make of the new information?
It seems more than possible that Fr. Gardiner knew about this when he wrote his book but didn’t reveal it. And it is his very detailed blow by blow description of the events of 1870 that I am quoting. If Mary was personally involved in the chain of whistle-blowing, he did not say so, and the chapter makes it clear that she didn’t learn about many of the disastrous happenings in Adelaide until she got back in 1871.
It would be most odd for Gardiner not to mention Mary’s role in this – if she was involved – since the whole point of the chapter was to understand the complex patterns of events that led to her excommunication and dissolution of the Josephites in the Diocese of Adelaide (Some of the communities outside Adelaide survived.)
Of course, an error is always a possibility but his book is not the work of a careless or incompetent man.
All I have to go on is the printed page of his book.
Yes, it is interesting. Thanks.
I should add that in the 28 page section (p. 85 -112) on the events in Adelaide in 1870 – 1871 which led to Mary’s excommunication, the matter of the reporting of Fr. Keating’s “scandalous conduct” only occupies a single, short paragraph. It was significant because it made a life-long enemy of Fr. Charles Horan who would later have great influence over the bishop.
If the “whistle-blowing” incident was the primary reason that Bishop Sheil excommunicated Mary MacKillop, then this whole section of Gardiner’s book amounts to either a very serious misreading of the historical record or an intentional distortion of the true story.
” “reduce the extraordinary richness of her work to a very marginal episode in her life,” Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi told RNS. ”
“Marginal”???? Being excommunicated wrongly is a marginal episode???
They STILL don’t get it!!!!! As if her commitment to the Lord and his vulnerable little ones wasn’t whole and entire and present in all her life, and as if this episode wasn’t a most remarkable sign of that commitment.
What does the Vatican think sanctity is? One big sum that is just a lot of little acts added up to make one big stupid spiritual score? That’s my idea of superstition! Granted, the Little Flower’s life was, among other things, a sum of such little acts, but it was her great love of God and her fellow humans that was constant throughout her life that made her such a great saint. Sheesh.
Maybe the Vatican should close down the universities where the cardinals are trained if that’s the sort of theology they teach them there.
I think we should all throw some shrimp on the barbie on Oct. 17 and celebrate this remarkable woman’s canonization.
OK — so I shot that postl off before reading Sherry Weddell’s post. However, I note that Msgr. Lombardi has not denied the story either. I wonder what he knows. Hmmm.
Gerelyn, Interesting point about successive biographies of religious founders. Paul Moses makes the same point about St. Francis in “The Saint and the Sultan”; each successive biography commissioned by the Friars Minor was sanitized to make Francis appear more ecclesiastically correct.
Eric – if I may expand on this pattern. The Vincentian family (followers of Vincent dePaul and Louise deMarillac) are seeing something different currently.
Briefly, at the time of Vincent’s death and a few years afterwards, the Vincentian community began to gather, develop, and write the biography of Vincent. This was well intentioned and reflected both their time period and the belief that their community founder was already a saint (altho not declared by the church). Thus, these early biographies were an attempt to lay the groundwork for the canonization process. In fact, one specific Vincentian priest/biographer’s work was the seminal work for the “family” for more than 200 years.
In Vincent’s case and as a challenge to the biographers, much of Vincent’s early life had no historical records – specifically, the gradual conversion of Vincent from French priest at the French court to “apostle of charity” was lost. But, the hagiographers took stories, second/third hand accounts and enshrined certain myths about Vincent e.g. captivity in North Africa by the Moslem pirates; movement from a country pere to a significant power against the sins of poverty almost overnite. This was normal and was not a deliberate attempt to distort or lie. It does have a lot to do (even today) with how we understand “myth” and stories.
Critical historical research has brought to light two early letters by Vincent in which the North Africa captivity is raised and Vincent asks that these two letters (in the original French – those damnable letters) be returned to him forthwith towards the end of his life. In fact, Vincent never spoke about this “North African captivity” and appears to be embarrassed about his early in life letters mentioning this event.
Vincentian historians (recent production by DePaul University) have explained these “myths” such that the overarching purpose and heart of Vincent’s mission to the poor is emphasized but at the same time correcting the embellishments of early biographers.
We just celebrated the350th anniversary of Vincent’s death on Sept. 27th.
Wonder if something like this will not eventually happen to the complete story/biography of Sr. McKillop.
Upon re-reading the post, I see that according to the Australian Broadcasting Company documentary what Fr. Gardiner is saying now is that MacKillop did herself complain. And apparently (judging from the ABC report) he has not denied the new story but thinks it’s not very relevant. Here’s what the post says:
“Gardiner said that when MacKillop’s complaints led at least one priest to be disciplined, one of his fellow priests “was so angry with this that he swore vengeance.” The priest, Father Charles Horan, used his influence with Bishop Sheil to have MacKillop excommunicated.”
So did MacKillip complain or not? (I hate these he-said-that- they-said-that-she= said issues.)
Just to update for anyone who checks old stories. Fr. Paul Gardiner has vehemently denied ever describing Mary MacKillop as a whistle blower. He points out, as I did above, that Mary was 1,000 miles away in Queensland and had nothing to do with it. It seems that someone in the news channels typed it wrongly – whether intentionally or not is unclear.
Per The Age: (Melbourne paper)
THE priest who spent 25 years lobbying for Mary MacKillop’s canonisation has angrily dismissed recent media reports.
The reports said the soon-to-be saint was excommunicated from the Catholic Church for exposing acts of child sex abuse by a South Australian clergyman.
Paul Gardiner, chaplain of the Mary MacKillop Penola Centre, said the claims, published on ABC Online and in Fairfax newspapers last month, were false, and he feared the misleading coverage was an attempt to take a swipe at the church and distract the public in the lead-up to MacKillop’s canonisation on October 17.
But both Father Gardiner and the program’s executive producer deny ever making such an inference. “Early in 1870, the scandal occurred and the Sisters of Saint Joseph reported it to Father Tenison Woods, but Mary was in Queensland and no one was worried about her,” Father Gardiner told The Australian.
Father Gardiner, considered the nation’s foremost authority on the history of MacKillop, said his words had been twisted to suit the “ill will” of media outlets.
“There was a long chain of causation. Somehow or other, somebody typed it up as if to say I said Mary MacKillop was the one to report the sex abuse,” Father Gardiner said.
“I never said it – it’s just false – it’s the ill will of people who are anxious to see something negative about the Catholic Church. There’s already enough mud to throw, though.”
The executive producer of Compass, Rose Hesp, told The Australian that the documentary, which will air on the ABC on Sunday, does not suggest MacKillop was excommunicated because of her role in exposure of the child abuse.
“At no stage . . . is it claimed Mary MacKillop was excommunicated because she personally reported instances of abuse to the Catholic Church,” she said.
Indeed, the story has changed and may be more about her order than about she herself. Fr. Jim Martin at America parses:
http://www.americamagazine.org/blog/entry.cfm?blog_id=2&entry_id=3373
I’ll put up a new post later to reflect this.