Sisters in Service: Dominican Lay Sisters, Eastern Australia 1867-2019
Creators: name: Hellwig, Elizabeth
Publisher: name: The Australian National University
Year: 2021

description: In 1867, eight Dominican sisters travelled from Kingstown, Ireland to Australia. They had been invited by Bishop James Murray, recently appointed to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Maitland, New South Wales, to open boarding and select day schools for middle class Catholic girls of the area and to staff his already functioning denominational primary school. Two of the women were lay sisters - housekeepers and home makers for the cloistered community. Their role was to complement the work of the six choir sisters, the teachers, who also carried responsibility for formal daily participation in the official Prayer of the Church. This thesis considers the collective lives of the first two lay sisters and the other 78 women who joined this class in Maitland alongside 295 choir sisters, between 1867 and 1958, when the division was suppressed. It discusses how this European two-tiered system of Religious Life adapted to Australian conditions, the circumstances that led to the abolition of the ages-old class system, and the outcomes for those formerly known as lay sisters after 1958. Original archival material has been employed extensively for both the prosopographical and biographical detail described in this thesis. These resources are given weight by the application of Intersectionality theory and the works of Edgar Schein on institutional culture and its evolution. Other secondary sources have also proved invaluable for aspects of Religious Life as experienced over one and a half centuries. The lack of reference to lay sisters in most of these works points to the unique nature of this study. During the years 1958-2019 those women previously referred to as lay sisters individually found new identity and purpose. Their search was compounded by factors that were revolutionary for the total Congregation membership: the forced amalgamation with three other Australian Dominican groups; the impact of Vatican II's introduction of a new theology of Religious Life and its profound respect for the individual participant; the discontinuance of the Congregation's boarding schools; the move away from large communities and corporate ministries; and the rapid decline in membership after 1965. Answers to questions raised in this thesis are found at the intersection of social, political, economic and ecclesial developments over almost 150 years. The women acted as both product and agent of an evolutionary convent culture that they deeply lived, and some continue to live, through the revolutionary changes in lifestyle as experienced by all women's religious communities in the post-Vatican II era. Lay sisters, like all sisters in their Congregation, carried the weight of transnationalism, underwent generational mentoring and experienced the undermining caused by patriarchy and kyriarchy. Constant challenges and new perspectives were faced as the doors of the cloister were thrown open. The role of women changed, education for girls was the new normal, access to good scripture and theological education became available for women, communication and technology developed dramatically and even once core values of conformity and uniformity were dismantled in favour of collaboration and dialogue. Ultimately, the lay sister lived a God-seeking life. Vatican II pointed to a different way of being religious in the contemporary world. The sisters listened. As they weaved the old routines of doing things into the new with skill and determination, those once referred to as lay sisters not only survived, they thrived.