Patricia Brennan

Patricia Anne Brennan AM (15 April 1944 – 6 March 2011) was an Australian medical doctor and a prominent campaigner for the ordination of women in the Anglican Church of Australia.

Patricia Anne Wilkinson was born on 15 April 1944 in Hurstville, New South Wales, Australia.

Her father, George Wilkinson, worked as a compositor, and her mother, Eileen Nugent, worked in hospital as a matron.

Wilkinson was one of three daughters born to the family.

Her parents were Anglican and she was herself drawn to the faith at an early age.

As a young woman, she attended St. George's High School, where she learned to debate.

She completed medical studies at the University of Sydney in 1968, having been awarded a Commonwealth scholarship.

Over the next two years, she completed a required internship and residency in hospital settings.

The debate over women's ordination in the Anglican Communion had been growing since the 1970s, after the Episcopal Church in the United States first ordained women priests in 1974.

The couple married in 1971 and moved to Nigeria.

Upon her marriage, she adopted her husband's last name.

She continued working as a physician with SIM; her husband taught mathematics.

Upon their return to Australia, in 1973, Brennan took up a position as registrar in hematology at the Prince of Wales hospital in Sydney.

She also continued to be involved in mission work, supporting the Sudan Interior Mission as a general practitioner consultant.

Four years later, she established a private practice as a physician in the suburb of Summer Hill.

Brennan increasing became involved in advocating for the public health needs of women, particularly around the prevention of sexual violence and support for survivors.

She was the medical director for a Sexual Assault Service that served the Liverpool and Fairfield areas in New South Wales, and was the first forensic medical specialist at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney, where she worked with survivors of sexual assault.

She believed that forensic medicine could provide better evidence for the prosecution of sexual assault cases.

She also worked as an assistant medical director in a breast diagnostic center in Sydney, and was a lecturer at the University of Sydney.

Brennan was also a commentator on radio and television programs, particularly on topics related to religion, in the 80s and 90s.

After her return to Australia, Brennan observed the stark contrast between the independence she had as a medical practitioner and a missionary working in Africa, and the more limited role she was expected to play as a wife in Sydney's Anglican church culture.

Despite having a medical degree and background in mission work, she felt she was treated primarily as "somebody's wife".

Frustration over the differences between what she had accomplished in Africa and what she was expected to do at home led her to question the limitations women faced in the church in Australia.

At the time, the Anglican Church of Australia had an order of deaconess for women, but the clerical roles of deacon and priest were reserved for men only.

The Sydney diocese was one of the most restrictive on the issue of women's leadership within the Anglican Church in Australia; in 1976, it became the only diocese in the country to restrict the role of churchwarden, the highest lay leadership position in a local church, to men only.

A similar movement had been founded in England in 1979 advocating for the ordination of women in the Church of England.

Through her leadership in the Australian organisation, Brennan became a visible and outspoken advocate for women's ordination within the Anglican Church of Australia.

In addition to Brennan, key leaders in the movement included Colleen O'Reilly Stewart (co-founder of Anglican Women Concerned), Eileen Baldry and Ruth Sturmey Jones.

In an homage to Martin Luther's historic act of nailing theses to the door of a church in Wittenburg, Germany, one of the first actions taken by MOW was to nail twelve theses on the door to the chapter house at Sydney's Anglican cathedral, St Andrew's.

In 1982, Brennan was appointed to a diocesan committee that had been formed to study the question of women's ministry.

As part of her work on the committee, she conducted a survey of 80 women in the Sydney diocese who were active in parish work and found that the majority favoured the ordination of women.

She shared her findings with the committee but found her opinions were not welcomed.

In 1983, she helped launch the Movement for the Ordination of Women (MOW) in Sydney.

She became a member of the Order of Australia in 1993.

Later in her life, Brennan studied medical anthropology at the University of Newcastle, completing a Doctor of Philosophy degree in 2001.

Because of her interest in women's health and the need to provide medical support to survivors of rape, she completed additional degrees in medical forensics, earning her bachelor's degree in 2003 and a master's degree in forensic medicine in 2005.

Wilkinson was interested in serving as a medical missionary.

After completing her residencies, she worked for the Société Internationale Missionnaire, or SIM as it is more commonly known, a missionary organization that ran several hospitals in Africa.

Working as a physician and surgeon, she first was stationed in Jos, Nigeria at the Sudan Interior Mission Hospital, and then in Galmi, Niger, at the surgical and obstetric hospital.

Prior to leaving for Africa, Wilkinson had met Robert Brennan, a fellow Anglican, when they were both working as counsellors at a mission program for the Anglican church.