Sisters of the Good SamaritanPrint Page

The Good Samaritan Rose commemorates the Sisters of the Good Samaritan of the Order of Saint Benedict, the first Australian religious congregation of women. The roses were dedicated in 2007 on the 150th anniversary of the religious order. 

The Congregation of the Sisters of the Good Samaritan, colloquially known as the "Good Sams", is a Roman Catholic congregation of religious women commenced by Bede Polding ,OSB Australia’s first Catholic bishop, in Sydney in 1857. The congregation was the first religious congregation to be founded in Australia. The sisters form an apostolic institute that follows the Rule of Saint Benedict. They take their name from the well-known gospel parable of the Good Samaritan.

Under the guidance of Polding’s co-founder, Mother Scholastica Gibbons, a Sister of Charity, the sisters cared for needy, homeless women at a refuge, the House of the Good Shepherd in Sydney, and orphans at the Roman Catholic Orphan School, a government institution at Parramatta.  Foundations were made throughout Sydney and New South Wales as bishops urgently requested staff for Catholic schools. The first foundation outside New South Wales was made at Port Pirie, South Australia, in 1890, and since then sisters have served in all states and territories of Australia.

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