Scottish Catholic Observer

Scottish and Australian pilgrims led jubilant celebrations in Rome following the Canonisation of Mary MacKillop.

Mother MacKillop, or St Mary of the Cross as she is now known, was born in Melbourne to Scottish immigrant parents. She is now Australia’s first saint following her Canonisation by Pope Benedict XVI in Rome last Sunday along with five other saints.

Scottish support

Cardinal Keith O’Brien, Britain’s most senior Catholic clergyman, was with a large group of Scottish pilgrims who travelled to Rome for the occasion.

“St Peter’s Square erupted with joy at the end of the Canonisation Mass for the new saints, including St Mary of the Cross,” the cardinal told the SCO from Rome.

Bishop Joseph Toal of Argyll and the Isles, who is related to the MacKillop family, and Cardinal George Pell of Sydney, Australia, were joined at the Canonisation by Cardinal O’Brien, hundreds of Scottish pilgrims and thousands of Australians in ‘a sea of blue and white Saltires and bagpipers.’

“Bishop Toal and his mother, whose maiden name was MacKillop, became the centre of attention, along with Mgr Tom Wynne from Roy Bridge—who has done so much to promote the cause of Blessed Mary MacKillop—and Fr Roddy Johnston, the parish priest in Caol, Fort William, who has two sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart in his parish,” Cardinal O’Brien added. “The pipers were led by Sean Cameron, nephew of Bishop Toal and another relative of St Mary of the Cross.”

Australia’s first saint

Thousands of pilgrims from Australia also applauded and waved their national flags as the Holy Father pronounced the formula of Canonisation by which Blessed Mother Mary MacKillop (1842-1909), who educated poor children in the Australian outback, became the country’s first saint.

In his homily, Pope Benedict said Mother MacKillop was a model of ‘zeal, perseverance and prayer’ as she dedicated herself to the education of the poor in the difficult territory of rural Australia, inspiring other women to join her in the country’s first community of religious women.

“She attended to the needs of each young person entrusted to her, without regard for station or wealth, providing both intellectual and spiritual formation,” he said.

Her feast day is to be celebrated on August 8 each year.

Almost 150 nuns from the Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart, the order Mother MacKillop founded in 1867, were in the crowd for what Cardinal Pell said was one of the great moments in the history of the Catholic Church in Australia. Cardinal Pell added that the Canonisation could give new energy and excitement to the Church in Australia and would serve as a reminder to the Church hierarchy that senior clerics could easily make mistakes.

Preparations and thanksgiving

The Canonisation weekend saw the Vatican flooded with the influx of Australian pilgrims as they attended a prayer vigil and concert on the eve of the Beatification and Mass of Thanksgiving the day after.

“The day before the Canonisation a large hall adjacent to St Peter’s Square was filled with pilgrims preparing through song and prayer for the ceremony, including a group of Aborigines,” Cardinal O’Brien said. “Mary MacKillop’s religious congregation catered to all branches of Australia’s society in the field of education but it reached out especially to the poor and the powerless in the outback regions.”

The cardinal added that he was especially delighted to be present at the Canonisation event as he had been fortunate enough to be in Sydney for Mother MacKillop’s Beatification in 1995.

Kevin Rudd, Australia’s foreign minister who was with pilgrims at the Vatican through out the weekend, said: “This is all about a singular woman’s life. This is an unconstrained celebration of something that is purely good.

“It’s not just a line. When you read this woman’s life you see she did more good than all of us together. She is a woman of guts, courage and determination.”

On the other side of the world Australia was also being swept by ‘Mary Mania.’

MacKillop the musical played to sold-out shows in Sydney, a new stamp bearing her image has been published and in one town, ‘MacScallops’ are the must-have meal.

Nationwide celebrations took place to mark the Canonisation, with Mary MacKillop’s former hometown of Penola alone receiving 20,000

worshippers.

New saints

Canadian pilgrims were also cheering last Sunday in Rome as Pope Benedict canonised one of their own among the five other new saints.

St Andre Bessette, 1845-1937, a doorman known for his devotional practices and his healing touch became the Dominion’s first male saint.

The four other new saints are St Camilla Battista Varano, 1458-1524, the illegitimate daughter of an Italian nobleman, who was a sister of the Poor Clares who died in an outbreak of the plague, St Stanislaw Soltys, 1433-1489, who devoted his life to caring for the poor in his native Krakow, Poland, St Giulia Salzano, 1846-1929, who taught catechism to schoolchildren near Naples, Italy, and later founded the Catechetical Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus to continue her work and St Juana Cipitria Barriola, 1845-1912, who was a champion of education for girls and young women in her native Spain.

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—     Pic: Paul McSherry