After more than 30 years of unwavering service, Sr Mary O’Shannassy SGS has officially retired from her role as senior chaplain of the CatholicCare prison ministry team in Victoria. Sr Mary is the longest serving prison chaplain and the only female to have held that leadership role in Victoria. In recognition for her outstanding service, on Tuesday 13 May, Archbishop Peter A Comensoli presented Sr Mary with the Papal Cross of Honour—the highest honour the Pope can confer on an individual for their distinguished service to the Catholic Church.
The papal award was presented to Sr Mary at a gathering to celebrate her decades of service to the Victorian community. Earlier in the evening, a special Mass was held at St Patrick’s Cathedral, celebrated by Archbishop Comensoli, Bishop Shane Mackinlay (Diocese of Sandhurst) and the auxiliary bishops and clergy of the Archdiocese of Melbourne.
As Victoria’s longest serving prison chaplain, Sr Mary has been a regular presence at the state’s 15 prisons and helped to establish a statewide chaplaincy team that now consists of six full-time chaplains, 10 volunteer chaplains, 60 volunteers and 40 priests. Through CatholicCare Victoria’s chaplaincy services, thousands of women and men, or ‘residents’ as Sr Mary calls them, are provided with emotional, spiritual, sacramental and pastoral support during their time in prison and as they return to society.
In 2017, Sr Mary was awarded the Order of Australia Medal (OAM) for her service to the community through church and social welfare bodies, and in 2021 she was conferred with an Honorary Doctorate from Australian Catholic University in recognition of her loving service to people imprisoned in Victoria and for her leadership in chaplaincy.
A privileged ministry
Sr Mary began her prison chaplaincy journey in the mid-1990s and describes her first day as a chaplain as ‘awesome’. She and another member of the prison chaplaincy team visited Pentridge Prison in Coburg, the Metropolitan remand prison at the time.
‘It was a funny December Melbourne day,’ she recalls. ‘We went in with an umbrella—which we had to immediately put in a locker—and then suddenly the sun began shining. And we thought, how crazy is this?’
The weather wasn’t the only odd thing about that day. Upon arrival, they had also discovered that all the prison officers had gone on strike.
‘We proceeded to find our way around, and because it was a strike day by the prison officers, we ended up contributing to taking around the meals [to everyone], and that went on for a couple of days.
‘So that was a very different beginning to prison chaplaincy,’ says Sr Mary.
Three decades on and Sr Mary still describes her ministry as a ‘privilege’—a way to help people experience ‘acceptance’ and to see themselves as worthy of God’s love.
Speaking to those gathered on Tuesday night, Sr Mary said her ministry has always been one of presence and accompaniment.
‘Our dear Pope Francis, who just four days before he died visited prisoners in a prison near the Vatican, frequently spoke of the Church as a “field hospital”—a place where people’s wounds should be healed and their hearts warmed.
‘My experience has been that prisons are among those field hospitals. All of us here would know that hurting people hurt other people,’ she said.
‘Whilst the dignity of people is always a top priority in our chaplaincy, it’s also a great challenge. A significant number of people in prison have lacked that dignity and hence do not respect themselves or others. The simple gesture of calling them by name—not their nickname but the name their parents gave them—enables the transformation, which gives them that crack for the light to come through,’ she observed.
‘So it’s the healing of those wounds ... It is being close to people … meeting them where they are in the dark times of their lives and companioning them on their journey—being a presence, a welcoming presence, an affirming presence—[that] contributes to affirming their dignity as a person, that offers them the courage to embrace their own dignity, thus enabling each to come to respect themselves and then to be able to respect the other person,’ said Sr Mary. ‘This is a privilege.’
‘I will miss the people’
Agnes Sheehan, CEO of CatholicCare Victoria, described Sr Mary’s legacy as one of hope.
‘Sr Mary is a Sister of the Good Samaritans—and truly, a good Samaritan is exactly what she has been ... Under her leadership, these [chaplaincy] teams have brought support, friendship and hope to thousands of people in custody,’ said Agnes.
‘Words like courage, tenacity, empathy and collaboration are often used to describe Sr Mary, and rightly so. But above all, she has led by example—quietly, faithfully and with tireless commitment to those often forgotten by society.’
An important part of Sr Mary’s legacy is that every prison in Victoria is now home to a sacred space—a ‘sanctuary’—which she believes is integral to the residents’ journey of transformation.
‘These places, these chapels, are different from any other place in a prison and are valued by the residents,’ Sr Mary said.
‘There are rare times in prison when a person can be alone to ponder important aspects of life, as they’re either sharing the cell or they can’t walk alone by themselves. Or they need to walk around with someone for their own safety. Residents know that in the chapels, they can come and be with likeminded people with whom they can connect.’
These last few months leading up to her retirement have been ‘very, very special’ for Sr Mary, she says, as they have given her time to visit and say thank you to members of the chaplaincy team as well as prison staff and residents throughout Victoria’s prisons.
‘I will miss the people. From the residents—the men and the women—to the staff, the leaders, prison managers and prison officers, who were all very professional and very welcoming,’ she said.
‘And as I said goodbye to the men, their sentiments were just absolutely beautiful. So many spoke of my being there with them in the dark times of their lives. It was very touching.’
Reflecting on what lies ahead after her ‘30 years and a quarter’ of service, Sr Mary says that some much needed rest and a good book are on the cards.
‘I’m just going to enjoy each day,’ she says. ‘I’m enjoying reading Hope [by Pope Francis] ... And to think he was going to publish it after he died but chose to do it earlier. I’m glad that he did!’
‘And who knows what else? I’m just going to wait for the moment and see what opens up before me.’
