Mary MacKillop small yellow cottage now known as Mary MacKillop cottage was originally built as a miner's house around 1870. It was bought by the church and incorporated into the church school in 1882 and then in 1897, Sister Mary MacKillop had the cottage and some of the school converted to a convent for the Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart who worked in New Zealand and Australia. In 1897, Bishop Maher of Port Augusta arranged for the Sisters of St Joseph to take charge of the St Anacletus Catholic Day School at Petersburg (now Peterborough). MacKillop founded a convent
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