Mary MacKillop Mary MacKillop Mary Helen MacKillop RSJ (15 January 1842 – 8 August 1909) was an Australian nun who has been declared a saint by the Catholic Church, as St Mary of the Cross MacKillop. Of Scottish descent, she was born in Melbourne but is best known for her activities in South Australia. Together with the Reverend Julian Tenison Woods, she founded the Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart (the Josephites), a congregation of religious sisters that established a number of schools and welfare institutions throughout Australia and New Zealand, with an emphasis on education for the rural poor.
Veneration of Mary in the Catholic Church special veneration due to Mary, greater than the ordinary "dulia" for other saints, but utterly unlike the "latria" due only to God. The term "Mariolatry" is a Protestant pejorative label for perceived excessive Catholic devotion to Mary. Belief in the incarnation of God the Son through Mary is the basis for calling her the Mother of God, which was declared a dogma at the Council of Ephesus in 431. At the Second Vatican Council and in Pope John Paul II's encyclical "Redemptoris mater", she is spoken of also as Mother of the Church. Growth of Roman Catholic veneration of Mary