[source]
This episode of Postcards gives a brief introduction to Mary MacKillop, co-founder of the Sisters of St Joseph and the first Australian to be recognised as a saint by the Catholic Church.
“Up until 1872, Catholic schools, like those of other denominations were funded by the government, along with the state-run schools.
St Mary of the Cross MacKillop and Fr Julian Tennison Woods had founded the Sisters of St Joseph in 1866, and had opened schools for poor rural children throughout South Australia, their work quickly spreading to other colonies. Throughout the Australian colonies, independent Catholic schools had been opened and staffed by religious orders...These foundations were already laid before the Education Acts in the late 1800s, that changed the funding system.”
[source: To Know, Worship and Love, Year 9: Ch. 6.4]
“Up until 1872, Catholic schools, like those of other denominations were funded by the government, along with the state-run schools.
St Mary of the Cross MacKillop and Fr Julian Tennison Woods had founded the Sisters of St Joseph in 1866, and had opened schools for poor rural children throughout South Australia, their work quickly spreading to other colonies. Throughout the Australian colonies, independent Catholic schools had been opened and staffed by religious orders...These foundations were already laid before the Education Acts in the late 1800s, that changed the funding system.”
[source: To Know, Worship and Love, Year 9: Ch. 6.4]
“In defiance of the Education Acts, the Catholic communities in Australia determined to maintain Catholic schools. To build their schools and keep them open, the people, many of them very poor, scraped together money from their own resources. The bishops brought to Australia many religious orders of women and men, who lived in poverty themselves and taught huge classes of children in rickety buildings with very few resources. The Catholics were very clear about the purpose of their schools. It was to teach their children the true faith, which for most of them was an Irish faith, and to enable their children to take that faith into all walks of Australian life.”
[source: To Know, Worship and Love, Year 9: Ch. 6.7]