Sr Annette Cunliffe RSC. Photo: Sisters of Charity website/portrait by Tim Bauer (timbauerphoto@mac.com)
When Sr Annette Cunliffe joined the Sisters of Charity in 1959, she could have had no idea of the series of ministries – or their breadth – which would make up her life as a religious Sister. After all, those were the days when people in the general community had one job, and had it for life, by and large.
Sixty years later, Sr Annette was most recently co-executive officer of the Church’s National Committee for Professional Standards (NCPS), a joint committee of Catholic Religious Australia (CRA) and the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference.
The committee, established to oversee the development of policies, principles and procedures in responding to Church-related abuse complaints, was wound up when the Church set up Catholic Professional Standards Ltd in response to the report from the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.
Now, she sits on the board of the Garvan Institute of Medical Research, and on that of St Columba’s College in Essendon. Sr Annette is also Chair of the Jesuit Refugee Service, a position which she has held since 2015, after joining the board in 2012.
In the forefront of leadership in education and social justice since she was professed in 1962, Sr Annette is also a Trustee of the University of Notre Dame Australia.
That’s rather a lot to do, with a lot of air miles as a consequence, but although Sr Annette is in her mid-70s now, she has clearly no intention of abandoning her efforts.
She has devoted her life to inspiring and providing leadership in education, while pursuing social justice, as her CV shows: She was a teacher and principal in secondary colleges in several States, and then headed to Australian Catholic University in the Schools of Education and Educational Leadership. Sr Annette has also acted as a mentor for young teachers from South-East Asia.
She has coordinated outreach programs for vulnerable community members, been President of the Conference of Leaders of Religious Institutes (NSW) and Inaugural Chair of the Stewardship Board of Catholic Health Australia; was the President of Catholic Religious Australia until 2014. That same year, Sr Annette was NSW State Finalist for Senior Australian of the Year.
Included in her list of ministries is twice being elected Congregational Leader of the Sisters of Charity of Australia, from 1996 to 2002, and then from 2008 to 2014.
Clearly the Sisters liked her way of managing the Congregation to have her back a second time, it was suggested to Sr Annette. “Or perhaps 1) they thought I had earned a second chance, or 2) I had done well enough the first time round that they were giving me a second opportunity to get things right,” she said.
During her second stint as Congregational Leader, Sr Annette oversaw three major developments for the Sisters of Charity; two for the future and one relating to the past. The past was celebrated in the 175th anniversary celebrations of the arrival of the first Sisters in Australia, in 2013. The future was shaped by the establishment in 2008 of Mary Aikenhead Ministries to make sure the ministries of the Sisters of Charity – the schools and the hospitals, aged care facilities continued into the future. This was a plan which developed during the Congregational Leadership of Sr Elizabeth Dodds and on foot when Sr Annette took over as Congregational Leader in December 2008.
The second was a change to Sisters of Charity Community Care Ltd, established in 2000. Until 2014, SoC Community Care provided support to ministries conducted by the Congregation in Victoria and Tasmania. After June 2014, it incorporated three ministries of the Congregation operating in Queensland and NSW – Downs and West Community Support (out of Brisbane), and Remote and Rural and Providence Homeopathy (both in NSW). Downs and West and Remote and Rural continue to operate to this day providing direct relief for suffering, distress, isolation, misfortune, destitution or helplessness to serve the people of Australia without discrimination and to carry on the benevolent activities of the Congregation.
While her day to day ministry with the Congregation concluded when NCPS was wound up, a ministry which she described as “confronting, rich, and frustrating,” Sr Annette is not in a position to say what her next ministry will be. There is little doubt, however, there will be one, and it will benefit from the global understandings developed during 50 plus years of ministry, and Sr Annette’s innate gifts.
This is an abridged version of an article first published on the website of the Sisters of Charity. Read the full story here.