Australia got its first Catholic saint today after Pope Benedict approved Mother Mary MacKillop.
He made the announcement during a ceremony at the Vatican today and set the formal canonisation for October 17th in Rome.
Mother MacKillop founded the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph, an order that built dozens of schools for impoverished children across the Australian Outback in the 1800s, as well as orphanages and clinics for the needy.
With vows of abstinence from owning personal belongings and dedication to helping the poor, Mother MacKillop is credited with spreading Roman Catholicism in Australia and New Zealand.
But she was a strong-willed advocate who sometimes got into trouble for challenging orthodox thinking within the male-dominated church.
In 1869 she was excommunicated for inciting her followers to disobedience, though the bishop who punished her recanted three years later and she was exonerated by a church commission.
“This is a great, great tribute to the Catholic church and a great, great tribute to her hard work in education,” Australia’s Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said.
“This is a great honour for Australia. I offer a heartfelt expression of appreciation to the wider Catholic community.” Mother MacKillop died in 1909 and was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1995.
PA