Mary MacKillop may have dedicated her life to the Catholic Church, but she still received the ultimate punishment. Yes, in 1871 Bishop Laurence Bonaventure Sheil – who helmed the church’s Adelaide operations – made the decision to excommunicate the nun, effectively severing her ties to the religious institution that had been her bedrock for more than two decades. And for years, no one knew what MacKillop did to elicit such a shocking response from Sheil.
