Mary MacKillop The process to have MacKillop declared a saint began in the 1920s, and she was beatified in January 1995 by Pope John Paul II. Pope Benedict XVI prayed at her tomb during his visit to Sydney for World Youth Day 2008 and in December 2009 approved the Catholic Church's recognition of a second miracle attributed to her intercession. She was canonised on 17 October 2010, during a public ceremony in St Peter's Square at the Vatican. She is the first Australian to be recognised by the Catholic Church as a saint. Mary Helen MacKillop was born on 15 January 1842
Church of the Immaculate Conception (Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, Indiana) in 1853. The second chapel, a room in the new Providence motherhouse (1853), served the Sisters of Providence until 1863, when a simple frame chapel designed by Indianapolis architect Diedrich A. Bohlen was completed. Although Bohlen's frame chapel was large, capable of seating 300 people, it was only intended to be a temporary structure until a more substantial church could be erected at Saint Mary-of-the-Woods. From the time of her arrival at Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, Saint Mother Guérin hoped to establish a new church to honor the Immaculate Conception. Prior to her death in 1856, she began to gather materials to