Aussie Saint!

Australia got its first Saint today, as the Pope canonized Mary MacKillop today along with five others in a mass celebrated in St. Peter's Square. MacKillop was a tireless fighter for needed children and clashed with senior clergy to such a point that she was actually excommunicated for a brief time (for her part in, funnily enough, exposing a sex-abusing priest at the time) before being welcomed back into the Church. She helped found the Sisters of St. Joseph of the Sacred Heart and died in 1911.

Congrats to the Aussies for this! Someone will speak the lingo up in heaven for all y'all now- and I'm willing to extend a mild kudos to the Vatican for canonizing a woman who took on the hierarchy and helped to expose a sex abusing priest. I'm cautiously pleased by the symbolism of this, even though symbolism is all it may well be. It's not a home run by any stretch of the imagination and it doesn't even begin to address the lack of accountability on the part of the hierarchy to address the issue of sexual abuse in the Church, but I'm willing to acknowledge a baby step when I see one and flash a couple of thumbs up for it. A good woman who was willing to risk excommunication to speak the truth to power became a Saint today-- and the more Saints we have who are willing to speak truth to the heart of the Church, the better off the Church is going to be.