In the European sense she works for the Catholic Church whose missionaries set up St Teresa’s school on the island in 1911. In reality, she works for the Tiwi (Aboriginal) people. She will retire in the next few years, and in due course she will be replaced as principal.
The miracle, not in any sense recognised by the Vatican’s Sacred Congregation for the Causes of Saints, is that Sister Anne will be replaced by a Tiwi.
It will be the culmination of her mission and many years of training Tiwi teachers at the school through the teachers’ college at Batchelor. Indeed, the name of the school was changed three years ago from St Teresa’s to Murrupurtiyanuwu Catholic School in honour of Murrupurtiyanuwu, the first Tiwi to qualify as a teacher, who since died of a brain tumour. Her name means the wave that pushed against a boat.
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