St Patrick’s Catholic Church, built between 1873 and 1902 on a landmark corner site, has been the focus of Catholic worship and education in Arrowtown since its inception. It is a fine example of architect F.W. Burwell’s ecclesiastical architecture and has a significant association with Australasia’s first saint, Mary of the Cross MacKillop.

The history of the Catholic community in Arrowtown reaches back to the discovery of gold on the Arrow River in 1862. The first Catholic priests, Father Moreau and Father Martin, took it in turns to visit the isolated mining settlements. After Invercargill parish was separated from Queenstown in 1873, the care of the around 650 Catholics was entrusted to Father John Mackay. On 26 July 1873, miner John Healy gave a three-quarter acre section to the Bishop of Dunedin as a site for the church.

Prominent architect F.W. Burwell designed the church in a Gothic style with a narrow spire and a fine rose window. Built of local stone with contrasting cement facings, St Patrick’s is set on a generous corner section above Arrowtown’s main street. Alongside the church sits Mary MacKillop’s cottage, a small stone building that provided a home for the sisters, and later for the priest when he stayed overnight in Arrowtown. In 1880, the church bought the section next to St Patrick’s, complete with stone cottage. The cottage, over the years, served as a home, refectory, classroom and garage. The church served as a classroom for the school during the week. In 1882, the church was renovated and enlarged. A new sanctuary (16 feet by 15 feet) was added, and a stained glass window at the back of the altar. In February 1883, the Bishop ‘canonically erected’ the Stations of the Cross. By 1886, a strong parish had developed - the buildings reflecting the strength of the community - the parish had spent £2,370 on the church and grounds, priest’s residence and site for a convent. The sacristy was added in 1902.

In 1897, the Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart, led by assistant Mother General (and founding sister) Mary MacKillop, arrived in Arrowtown. MacKillop was born in Melbourne of Scottish parents and spent her life providing education to and ministering to the needs of Australia and New Zealand’s poor and working class. She founded the order in Penola, South Australia in 1866. By 1891, it had 300 sisters working in nine dioceses in Australia and New Zealand. MacKillop has been known as Saint Mary of the Cross MacKillop since her canonisation in 2010. Although MacKillop herself was only in Arrowtown for a short time, her biographer Paul Gardiner writes that ‘[n]o place typifies the spirit of Mary MacKillop and the early Josephites better than Arrowtown – by Australian standards it is far “beyond the black stump”, by the standards of the rest of mankind it is on the edge of the earth but it was not too humble, cold or remote for the sisters to go there to bring the knowledge and love of God to little children.’

By the 1940s, the Arrowtown Catholic school roll was falling, and the convent closed, ending the relationship between the Sisters of St Joseph and the Arrowtown parishioners. In 2014, St Patrick’s Catholic Church remains the heart of Arrowtown’s Catholic community and attracts visitors interested in the life of Australasia’s first saint.