Mary MacKillop at Penola: Ron visits the Centre in the South East region of South Australia

For many people entry into the township of Penola marks the entry point into a remarkable story of a woman who is Australia's first saint. Today Penola is a bustling town servicing many wealthy farming enterprises and world class wineries. Back in the 1860s it was a remote outpost with a mix of pastoralists, shepherds, poor rural workers and their children and the dispossessed aboriginal people of the local Pinchunga tribe. The canonization of Mary MacKillop in Rome by Pope Benedict the 16th will likely mean the little town of Penola will never be the same again.

Marg Muller, Mary MacKillop Centre: "When I have pilgrim coaches they always get out and they know the importance of this site. They've got their booklets and they'll say prayers."

It seems like any other park in any other town but this is a very special place in the Mary MacKillop story. The journey to sainthood has been long and hard but where does it start? Well many say it starts right here because this is the site of the original stable in which a young Mary MacKillop established her school for the poor and isolated children of the Penola district.

A photo of the original stable gives you some idea of what the 24 year old Mary MacKillop and parish priest Father Julian Tenison Woods were up against - not to mention the kids who came from all over the district.

Marg Muller, Mary MacKillop Centre: "Mary's brother, John was here at the time and he was a carpenter and renovated the stable. He let two stalls for the horses and four for the children. While it was set up as a Catholic school there were Protestant children, aboriginal children and Catholic children. People only paid what they could if anything at all. Every child was welcome."

From a stable in the backblocks of the State's southeast a vast network of schools would blossom. Over the past month workers have been engaged in a constant battle against time in an effort to have the Woods-MacKillop Schoolhouse ready for the celebrations. It was built in 1867 to replace the stable and was severely damaged in a recent Penola tornado. Head into the Interpretive Centre next door and Mary's story comes to life - first as a young girl in Melbourne whose father went bankrupt - throwing the MacKillop family into a life of poverty.

Marg Muller, Mary MacKillop Centre: "The family lived with relatives. They moved around quite a bit so Mary understood poverty."

The Josephite Order grew along with schools and the numbers of poor children they tended to. With expansion came run-ins with the Church hierarchy. Mary believed she was answerable to Rome and not the bishops of Australia.

Marg Muller, Mary MacKillop Centre: "When they said 'we need to control you' she had to dig her heels in and she did. The more you dig into Mary MacKillop's story the more you realise what a remarkable woman she truly was. And two things become very clear - her unwillingness to bend to the powerful men of the Catholic Church and her supreme courage in following what she believed to be God's will." Ultimately she was excommunicated from the Catholic Church for a short period of time. Committed atheist, writer and publisher, Max Harris was one of Mary's biggest fans - doing much to bring her name to public prominence last century. He summed her up to a tee.

Marg Muller, Mary MacKillop Centre: "Max Harris said 'she is the saint for all Australians' and I think he was absolutely right because she was in all different parts of Australia. You can go into little country towns in Western Queensland and you'll see Mary MacKillop because there was a school there at some stage. North Queensland, Tasmania, Western Australia - there are sisters of Saint Joseph. So in that sense, yes she is a saint for all Australians."

The Mary MacKillop and Penola Centre is located in Portland Street and is open daily. The site of Mary's original stable cum school is located in Queens Street Penola.

Mary MacKillop and Penola Centre
Portland Street
Penola
Open Daily

Old stable site
Queens Street
Penola

Published Sunday 10th October 2010