After thirty years teaching in Western Australia, Irene McCormack, a Sister of St. Joseph of the

Sacred Heart, felt called to mission work in Latin America. An “overwhelming experience of the

unconditional, gratuitous love of God” had joined a powerful social conviction: that “to continue

to spiritualize what it means to be poor and not to work with the poor in a third-world situation is

…a way of evading history, the real world.”

McCormack was born in Kununoppin, Western Australia, a small rural locality. In her youth she

was said to be vibrant, determined, fun-loving; and an avid Australian football fan. McCormack

was initially educated by the Sisters of St. Joseph, and then boarded at Santa Maria College,

Perth, she is said to have developed her two great loves: serving God and educating youth. At 15,

she wanted to be a religious sister. She joined the Sisters of St. Joseph in 1957, professing her

first religious vows the following year.

McCormack was a teacher in Western Australia for the next 30 years. She was a petite woman

and popular teacher and principal, but also known as feisty and demanding. She was an

accomplished golfer and tennis player.

After decades teaching in Australian schools, she became a Peruvian missionary worker in 1987.

She first worked in El Pacifico, a low income suburb in San Juan de Miraflores, Lima, and Santa

de Perola in Distrito de San Martín de Porres. On 26 June 1989, she was sent to serve in

Huasahuasi, high in the Andean highlands. McCormack and her companion, Sister Dorothy

Stevenson RSJ, were asked to supervise the distribution of emergency goods by Caritas Peru.

McCormack continued her ministry of providing poor children with library facilities to aid their

school homework, which they otherwise would not have had. She also trained extraordinary

ministers of Holy Communion as well as visiting parishioners in the outlying districts.

On 17 December 1989, the Catholic priests in Huasahuasi were warned of danger from Sendero

Luminoso (Communist Party), so they and the two sisters left the village for Lima. McCormack,

however, felt that the church could not abandon the villagers at this time, so she and Stevenson

returned on 14 January 1990. Huasahuasi went 12 months without a resident priest. During this

time McCormack and Stevenson served the people, providing spiritual leadership by regularly

conducting services as no priests were available to go to the village.

On May 21, 1991, Sendero rebels invaded the town. After seizing Sr. Irene along with four local

men, they subjected them to a public “trial” as agents of “Yankee” ideas and then shot them

each in the back of the head.

In October 2010, Australian media report McCormack’s possible recognized sainthood. Daily

Telegraph reported that Peruvian and Australian Catholic clergy expected submission to the

Vatican for McCormack’s sainthood. Congregational leader of the Sisters of St. Joseph, Sister

Ann Derwin, said that people in Huasahuasi, already regarding McCormack as a saint demanded

this.

The Irene McCormack Catholic College in Butler, Western Australia, was named after McCormack. The school was founded in 2000. (Sources: Give Us This Day, Blessed Among Us May 25, 2023)