Australia's first saint helped found 'Sisters of the Outback'

CANBERRA, AUSTRALIA - Australia's 5 million Catholics have their first saint after Pope Benedict canonized Mary MacKillop, co-founder more than 140 years ago of an order of nuns known as the "Sisters of the Outback."

More than 8,000 Australians are estimated to have joined the crowd outside St. Peter's Basilica in Rome attending Sunday's ceremony. The pope also granted sainthood to five other candidates, from Canada, Poland, Spain and two from Italy.

MacKillop, who died in 1909 at the age of 67, was cleared to become a saint when the Vatican in December endorsed the cure of a woman with lung and brain cancer as her second miracle.

Pope John Paul II in 1995 accepted the first miracle attributed to MacKillop, the recovery of a woman with leukemia.

MacKillop's order, the Sisters of St. Joseph of the Sacred Heart, was founded in 1866 and became known as the "Sisters of the Outback" as they traveled to remote mining towns and farms to teach children and help poor families.

The South Australian town of Penola, 804 miles by road from Sydney, where she founded her first school in a disused stable in 1866, held a procession and open-air mass Saturday.

Pastry chef Jason Van Leuven created a "Gateau Mary MacKillop," an almond cake covered with lavender cream to present to the order and pilgrims in the town where MacKillop began her work.

Open-air masses were held in Sydney and Melbourne, while a musical about MacKillop, playing at a theater in Melbourne where she was born, is a sellout. Images of the nun have been beamed onto the pylons of Sydney Harbour Bridge at night and the Australia Post will issue a commemorative stamp featuring a photograph of the nun taken in the 1890s.

MacKillop, to be given the title St. Mary of the Cross, reflects the core values that Australians prize, "giving everyone a fair go, standing up for those who are the underdog," Sister Sheila McCreanor, secretary-general of the Sisters of St. Joseph, who is in Rome for the ceremony, told Vatican Radio.

Australia's government said it plans to stop businesses profiting from her name by requiring ministerial approval for companies that want to suggest a connection to MacKillop.

The only other Australian whose name gets the same level of protection is cricketer and national hero Sir Donald Bradman, who died in 2001.

Existing trademark and trade practices laws will continue to guard against the "improper" use of MacKillop's name, Prime Minister Julia Gillard, said on Oct. 11.