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Helping establish better living conditions for immigrants to Australia in the 19th century

Opening the Female Immigrants’ Home in Sydney

Assisting unemployed young women migrants in finding jobs

Placing over 11,000 people in homes and jobs

Founding the Sisters of St Joseph of the Apparition in France

Helping the poor and pursuing ‘all works of charity’

Caring for the sick in hospitals and in prisons

Teaching children, and caring for children neglected by their parents

Establishing the Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart in Australia

Running schools, refuge centres and orphanages with the Sisters

Serving the children of the poor, and many who were suffering and neglected

Kindness, encouragement to others, and for always seeking unity

Establishing the group that would later become the Institute of Saint Ursula
(the Ursuline Sisters)

Advocating for the education of girls

Working to improve living conditions by being among the people and understanding their needs

Being the patron saint of disabled and sick people

Founding the Society of the Catholic Apostolate (SAC)

Encouraging people, including lay people, to actively participate in the Church’s mission of living and spreading the Good News

Pallottine Brothers and Priests – who have ministered to Aboriginal people in Western Australia since 1901

The Pallottines’ Rossmoyne and Riverton communities have assisted the faith life of the College since 1983, including providing boarding facilities for students from Kimberley region in the College’s early years

Serving as the Catholic Archbishop in El Salvador during the 1960s and 1970s

Speaking out on behalf of the poor and the victims of his country’s civil war after witnessing human rights violations

Heroic faithfulness to his vocation, and the idea that ‘faith and justice’ go hand in hand

Being the ‘Servant of God’, a title bestowed upon him by Pope John Paul II in 1997

Arriving in Australia from Spain in 1846 as a Benedictine Monk and developing the Mission at New Norcia; consecrated Bishop in 1849

His unwavering commitment to helping Aboriginal people, including providing education

Physical endurance, courage and considerable resourcefulness – on one occasion he walked 130km to Perth by himself, eating whatever he could find (lizards, worms, opossums) to petition Bishop Brady for funds for the Mission, and upon being turned down, then organised and performed a piano recital to raise the necessary money!

Founding the religious order of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits)

His work as a priest and devoted disciple of St Ignatius Loyola, helping the church flourish wherever he went

His mission work in India, and later in the Far East as far as the Moluccas and Japan

Is the patron saint of all spiritual retreats, as declared by Pope Pius XI in 1922