RELIGIOUS FIGURES from Australia

Top 8

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the most legendary Australian Religious Figures of all time. This list of famous Australian Religious Figures is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography's online popularity.

1. Truganini (1812 - 1876)

With an HPI of 71.15, Truganini is the most famous Australian Religious Figure.  Her biography has been translated into 26 different languages on wikipedia.

Truganini (c. 1812 — 8 May 1876) was an Aboriginal Tasmanian woman who has been widely described as the last "full-blooded" Aboriginal Tasmanian. She was a member of the Nuenonne people and grew up on Bruny Island in south-eastern Tasmania. As a teenager she saw the death and displacement of much of Tasmania's Aboriginal population as a result of European colonisation during the Black War. She became a guide to George Augustus Robinson and took part in a series of expeditions to capture and exile the island's remaining Aboriginal population. Truganini was herself exiled along with the surviving Aboriginal Tasmanians to the Wybalenna Aboriginal Establishment on Flinders Island in 1835. She later spent time in the Port Phillip District (modern-day Victoria), where she became a fugitive and was tried alongside four others for the murder of a pair of whalers. After being acquitted of the crime, she was returned to Wybalenna and later moved to Oyster Cove. By 1872 she was the only Aboriginal resident left at Oyster Cove and began to be mythologised and romanticised as the "last of a dying race", becoming an object of fascination for the European population. After her death, Truganini became a symbol of the supposed extinction of the Tasmanian Aboriginal people. She has featured prominently in art, music, and literature, while the narratives surrounding her life have been continually re-defined and re-interpreted. Once cast as the final survivor of a "doomed race", she has since been reframed by some as a memorial to British genocide, and reclaimed by others as an anti-colonial figure. The mythology of Truganini as the "last Tasmanian" has itself been challenged as part of broader efforts to contest the myth of Aboriginal Tasmanian extinction.

2. James Harrison (1936 - 2025)

With an HPI of 65.07, James Harrison is the 2nd most famous Australian Religious Figure.  His biography has been translated into 24 different languages.

James Christopher Harrison (27 December 1936 – 17 February 2025) was an Australian blood donor known as the "Man with the Golden Arm" for his prolific history of donations, 1,173 times between the ages 18 to 81. Harrison primarily donated plasma after his blood was found to contain antibodies against the Rh D antigen, making them useful in preventing Rh disease, and was one of the founding donors for the New South Wales Rh Program.

3. George Pell (1941 - 2023)

With an HPI of 61.19, George Pell is the 3rd most famous Australian Religious Figure.  His biography has been translated into 31 different languages.

George Pell (8 June 1941 – 10 January 2023) was an Australian cardinal of the Catholic Church. From 2002, he faced recurring accusations of sexual abuse. A subsequent sexual abuse conviction was quashed on appeal to the High Court of Australia. Pell served as the inaugural prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy at the Vatican from 2014 to 2019 and a member of the Council of Cardinal Advisers from 2013 to 2018. Ordained a priest in 1966 and bishop in 1987, he was made a cardinal in 2003. Pell served as the eighth Archbishop of Sydney (2001–2014), the seventh Archbishop of Melbourne (1996–2001) and an auxiliary bishop of Melbourne (1987–1996). He was also an author and columnist. A conservative, Pell maintained a high public profile on a wide range of issues, while retaining an adherence to Catholic orthodoxy. Pell worked as a priest in rural Victoria and in Melbourne and also chaired the aid organisation Caritas Australia (part of Caritas Internationalis) from 1988 to 1997. He was appointed a delegate to the Australian Constitutional Convention in 1998, received the Centenary Medal from the Australian government in 2003 and was appointed a Companion of the Order of Australia (AC) in the 2005 Queen's Birthday Honours. During his tenure as Archbishop of Melbourne, Pell set up the "Melbourne Response" protocol in 1996 to investigate and deal with complaints of child sexual abuse in the archdiocese. The protocol was the first of its kind in the world and was subjected to a variety of criticism. In 2018, Pell was convicted of child sexual abuse, and served 404 days in prison, much of it in solitary confinement. On appeal the convictions were quashed and Pell acquitted in 2020 by the High Court of Australia in the decision Pell v The Queen. A separate investigation by the Holy See's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith into these allegations of abuse concluded upon his acquittal by the High Court. However, in January 2025 it was announced that the Australian National Redress Scheme had accepted that Pell abused two boys in Ballarat in the 1970s, with compensation paid to one of the boys in question five weeks prior to Pell's death. According to findings released by Australia's Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in 2020, Pell knew of child sexual abuse by clergy by the 1970s but did not take adequate action to address it. Pell said he was "surprised" and that the royal commission's findings "are not supported by evidence".

4. Edward Cassidy (1924 - 2021)

With an HPI of 60.74, Edward Cassidy is the 4th most famous Australian Religious Figure.  His biography has been translated into 24 different languages.

Edward Idris Cassidy AC (5 July 1924 – 10 April 2021) was an Australian prelate of the Catholic Church who was president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity from 1989 to 2001. He headed the Commission of the Holy See for Religious Relations with the Jews. He spent most of his career in the diplomatic service of the Holy See both in Rome and overseas. He was made a cardinal in 1991.

5. Edward Clancy (1923 - 2014)

With an HPI of 60.20, Edward Clancy is the 5th most famous Australian Religious Figure.  Her biography has been translated into 19 different languages.

Edward Bede Clancy AC (13 December 1923 – 3 August 2014) was an Australian Catholic bishop and cardinal. He was the seventh Catholic Archbishop of Sydney from 1983 to 2001. He was made Cardinal-Priest of Santa Maria in Vallicella in 1988.

6. Norman Thomas Gilroy (1896 - 1977)

With an HPI of 59.55, Norman Thomas Gilroy is the 6th most famous Australian Religious Figure.  His biography has been translated into 18 different languages.

Sir Norman Thomas Gilroy (22 January 1896 – 21 October 1977) was an Australian bishop. He was the first Australian-born cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church.

7. Mary MacKillop (1842 - 1909)

With an HPI of 53.21, Mary MacKillop is the 7th most famous Australian Religious Figure.  Her biography has been translated into 28 different languages.

Mary Helen MacKillop RSJ (in religion Mary of the Cross; 15 January 1842 – 8 August 1909) was an Australian religious sister. She was born in Melbourne but is best known for her activities in South Australia. Together with Fr Julian Tenison-Woods, she founded the Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart (the Josephites), a congregation of religious sisters that established a number of schools and welfare institutions throughout Australia and New Zealand, with an emphasis on education for the rural poor. The process to have MacKillop declared a saint began in the 1920s, and she was beatified in January 1995 by Pope John Paul II. Pope Benedict XVI prayed at her tomb during his visit to Sydney for World Youth Day 2008 and in December 2009 approved the Catholic Church's recognition of a second miracle attributed to her intercession. She was canonised on 17 October 2010, during a public ceremony in St Peter's Square at the Vatican. She is the first Australian Catholic saint. Mary MacKillop is the patron saint of the Archdiocese of Brisbane and of Australia.

8. Peter Hollingworth (b. 1935)

With an HPI of 50.91, Peter Hollingworth is the 8th most famous Australian Religious Figure.  His biography has been translated into 19 different languages.

Peter John Hollingworth (born 10 April 1935) is an Australian retired Anglican bishop. Engaged in social work for several decades, he served as the archbishop of the Anglican Diocese of Brisbane in Queensland for 11 years from 1989 and was the 1991 Australian of the Year. He served as the 23rd governor-general of Australia from 2001 until 2003. He is also an author and recipient of various civil and ecclesiastical honours. In May 2003 Hollingworth became the third Australian governor-general to resign, after criticisms were aired over his conduct as Anglican Archbishop of Brisbane in the 1990s.