AUSTRALIA gained its first saint at the weekend after Pope Ratzinger intoned some arcane nonsense at a ceremony in Rome at the weekend.
The creation of St Mary of the Cross MacKillop was immediately followed by a call to make the nun -who was briefly excommunicated for blowing the whistle on a paedophile Catholic priest – the patron saint of the abused.
According to this report, one of the most respected Catholic commentators in the US, Jesuit Father James Martin, urged the Vatican to make MacKillop the patron saint of those who have suffered around the world from abuse at the hands of Catholic clergy.
The possibility, reported in the Italian press before the canonisation, had not been taken seriously until Father Martin, editor of the influential Jesuit magazine America, made his comments.
In an editorial, he called for victims of abuse to be given a patron to whom they can pray in their search for justice. He wrote that the canonisation of:
An Australian sister and foundress of a women’s religious order … says a great deal about sanctity, about sin, about women in the church and, finally, about hope. Any whistleblower, particularly when addressing something as incendiary as sexual abuse, then or now, is bound to face serious, even extreme, opposition.
He added:
The prophet will face a dismissive attitude, veiled contempt, hostile denials … or, as in the case of Mary MacKillop, outright punishment. Only recently has the church begun to see whistleblowers as necessary  - and holy.
Broken Rites, a group helping sexual abuse victims, recently said that although it doesn’t have a patron saint, if it gets one, it will be Mary MacKillop.
But Cardinal George Pell, the Archbishop of Sydney, said that while it would be appropriate to have a patron saint for abuse victims, Mary MacKillop had played no such role and was not leading the Josephites when the nuns reported a paedophile priest in Adelaide.
MacKillop was the fourth of six saints canonised yesterday, along with a Pole, two Italians, a Canadian and a Spaniard.
The Freethinker was founded in 1881 by GW Foote, an outspoken critic of religion. After the publication of 
October 18th, 2010 at 9:31 am
The best thing a victim of abuse can do is turn their back on the institution that abused them, not stay and ask that same institution for help.
October 18th, 2010 at 9:44 am
So talking to a dead person will help the abused get over being abused? Why does anyone take these people seriously?
October 18th, 2010 at 9:56 am
J. Ratzinger, aka The Pope, a facilitator of abusers, sanctifies a whistle-blower? I think I smell a Rat in this PR-ploy, but it’s all too obvious. Okay, we didn’t do anything while we should have, no here’s a nice saint to pray to! Run along now!!
October 18th, 2010 at 9:59 am
Ah! we have a certain type of human, who is very adapt at getting revenge and justice, along with other types of support for those that have been wronged. And these are the types that the abused should be looking towards, only for one reason, and that is that these folk actually provide real visible results.
Get yourself a bunch of lawyers.
October 18th, 2010 at 10:11 am
It beggars belief that the catholic church has the temerity to even consider proposing a patron saint for the abused. Like that’s going to make everything better then.
October 18th, 2010 at 10:52 am
I sincerely doubt the efficacy of catholic saints – but I think it’s a good idea for this new one to become the saint of the abused. And I also think that the Aussie cardinal should go fuck himself.
October 18th, 2010 at 11:10 am
Don’t forget that Mary MacKillop was not really a whistle-blower. She only got as far as reporting clerical abuse to her RCC superiors and never approached the Australian police with her concerns. That makes her a facilitator, and her canonisation a symbol of Ratty’s gratitude for her discretion:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_BbVR.....-Night.jpg
October 18th, 2010 at 11:28 am
I don’t think that she will be made patron of the abused. It would be almost, and I mean almost, close to an admission that there has been systematic cover ups over the paedo-priests.
The only thing to pray towards is for these muppets to get some common sense and leave this wretched religion.
October 18th, 2010 at 11:45 am
Saint Mary of The Cross
Was really at a loss -
Kids were abused;
The priests excused -
And THAT made Mary cross!
October 18th, 2010 at 11:50 am
I agree with Broadsword – who made the same point previously – but her actions demonstrate just how effectively an apparently moral and upright woman had been brainwashed as well. When I was a “Plymouth Brother” I, too, knew of crimes – including child abuse – which were swept under the carpet “for the sake of the testimony”!
October 18th, 2010 at 12:09 pm
“In an editorial, he called for victims of abuse to be given a patron to whom they can pray in their search for justice.” Well, I’m just glad the Church is finally taking effective action!
October 18th, 2010 at 12:24 pm
Chick-a-boom: The penny finally seems to have dropped that praying to “Jesus” results in bugger all happening at all!
October 18th, 2010 at 12:41 pm
Now Barrie, such strident atheism! tsk, tsk! I talk to doG a lot, in fact he’s just told me the food dish is empty again; he’s praying for it to get full which will once again prove to me, when I fill it up, the enormous power of prayer. You gotta go with results……
BTW: cardinal pell is a noted jackass, as has been reported often on this very blog. why does anyone pay him any attention?
October 18th, 2010 at 1:01 pm
Those poor aussies, saint free for centuries and now polluted by Ratzi’s nonsense. So how does a dead saint/nun benefit Australia, apart from being dead and no longer a menace?
October 18th, 2010 at 1:04 pm
It’s just ridiculous that an atheist, nazi, paedophilic gangster can elevate a fellow human being to sainthood. Ratty has no holy aura about him that enables him to convincingly pull off this magician’s trick.
I’m looking forward to Saint Mary getting her own shrine at the site where an Aussie catlick sees her image on a piece of toast. She never helped the abused in life and now mocks them from the grave. They’d get more practical help if they appeared on the Jeremy Kyle show.
It’s another case of the Vatican moving too little, too late, inappropriately and only when forced by public anger.
Spoof report here regarding Benedict’s solution to paedo priests:
http://engforum.pravda.ru/show.....on-targets
October 18th, 2010 at 1:20 pm
Victims will get as much assistance from Mary MacKillop as they would from any of the church leaders.
October 18th, 2010 at 1:43 pm
Here’s a list of saints:
http://saints.sqpn.com/
I was chuckling at the patron saints of medical conditions. With typical medieval thinking, if your ailment can’t be cured, pray to the saint.
October 18th, 2010 at 2:02 pm
They should hijack her. Never mind being assigned a patron saint, pray to her anyway, the worst that will happen will be that they excommunicate you too.
Not that I guarantee results, mind.
October 18th, 2010 at 2:18 pm
There is a comic aspect to all this. Where is Saint Mary right now? Where has she been all these years and in what form? And how do the prayers get to her? Is she able to hear without ears and think without a brain? The idea that the snivelling Ratzinger, a protector of paedos, should or could elevate anyone when he stays firmly in his own moral sewer makes a subject for a farce.
I suppose she wasn’t a saint until Ratzo decided to elevate her. How do people, even brainwashed Roman Catholics, manage to believe this?
October 18th, 2010 at 3:04 pm
Some people think that Judas Iscariot should be canonized. The liar and betrayer could hardly be more capricious than his master, anyway. “Yes – of course I’ll grant your request. (No I won’t – tee!hee!hee!)”.
http://www.theologicaleditions...../judas.htm
October 18th, 2010 at 3:47 pm
Here’s a good one:
http://www.secularnewsdaily.co.....t-cartoon/
How cynical!
October 18th, 2010 at 4:32 pm
Nice cartoon, Barriejohn. Talking about these miners: while they were rescued, about 20 of their Chinese collegues died in a mining-accident. Is that because they were probably not christians, or was it too much work for god? Any one who can create the universe in 6 days, should be able to save the lives of those unfortunate Chinese!
Or is this another example of “God’s mysterious ways”?
October 18th, 2010 at 4:47 pm
Yes, Har Davids: those Chinese were Communists! If you wonder at the level of idiocy at work here, just read this:
http://answers.yahoo.com/quest.....524AAIwfjq
BTW: I see that another “super typhoon” is lashing that hotbed of Catholicism, The Philippines. The survivors will doubtless thank “God” for their “miraculous” deliverance, without giving any thought to why He allows this sort of thing to happen to them on such a regular basis!
October 18th, 2010 at 5:15 pm
Har Davids.
These Chinese were commies and deserve all they get.
The Philippes are being hit by the typhoon to punish them for not stringing up the homosexuals in their midst.
See. All perfectly rational.
October 18th, 2010 at 5:23 pm
“Some people think that Judas Iscariot should be canonized.”
Well according to Billy Connolly he paid for the last supper, having ‘come into some money…’ So, patron saint of Pizza delivery drivers?
October 18th, 2010 at 5:26 pm
@ Barriejohn That’s hilarious! You should also check out a site none other than Bob Hutton advised me to visit for answers regarding inconsistencies in the bibble. It’s insane.
If, for example, you want to know where the f**k Cain’s wife suddenly materilaised from, it’s simple – apparently he married his own sister. (Doh! It’s so obvious now they point it out!)
So, there you go – incest is okay with god. The reason? Well, apparently it didn’t really matter because the lineage of Adam and Eve was so pure that there was no chance the brother and sister’s offspring would be in any way defective. (What? Is that really the best these morons can come up with?)
If you’ve got absolutely nothing better to do tonight, you can read some more of the mind-numbingly stupid drivel they pass of as fact here:
http://carm.org/bible-difficul.....euteronomy
October 18th, 2010 at 5:57 pm
The faithful are to be encouraged to pray to a saint to get justice for the abused, an outcome that the RCC has clearly demonstrated, by its actions, that it does not want. Have they not therefore clearly demonstrated that they know damn well that such prayers are futile? The RCC is so obviously a scam that I still have difficulty in believing that people can be daft enough not to realise it.
The photograph is encouraging though, rather a lot of grey hair in it and not many young people. This seems to be the pattern in most Christian denominations in all formerly Christian parts of the developed world barring the USA. Surely this suggests that their eventual demise is inevitable?
October 18th, 2010 at 8:13 pm
One thing that always fascinates me about this nonsense is that there have to be two ‘miracles’ for anyone to be named a saint. I wonder what rubbish was ascribed to this woman.
October 18th, 2010 at 8:36 pm
All this saint business is so depressing along with all the other superstitious bullshit that is being promoted everywhere
October 18th, 2010 at 9:14 pm
Lucy, she supposedly cured two women of cancer (after she was already dead)
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyn.....ottery.php
It’s shocking how religion can just make up any stories they want, and world leaders and international press get in line to respect their babble.
October 18th, 2010 at 9:28 pm
@ Lucy,
Saints in ancient times performed some really impressive ‘miracles’,they defeated armies,converted pagans magically and cured the terminally ill by ‘laying on hands’.
The Church wants the faithful to believe that two apparently terminal cancers were cured by Saint Mary’s intercession. Not very impressive,really, apparently ‘sainthood’ has been drastically devalued.
October 18th, 2010 at 10:33 pm
St mary, hhmmm perhaps they should make this rotten corpse patron of sanitary products? Once catlicks pray to her they’ll be able to flush the damn things without blocking the loo. Surely praying to the dead is a form of worship, a no no in the eyes of jebus.
October 19th, 2010 at 1:09 am
Couple of good cartoons regarding the Chilean/Chinese miners:
http://img224.imagevenue.com/i.....1137lo.jpg
http://img9.imagevenue.com/img....._444lo.jpg
October 19th, 2010 at 9:34 am
I love the cartoons. A picture can truly paint a thousand words!
October 19th, 2010 at 11:42 am
St Mary and the Miracles. No amputated arms or legs sprouting yet? Still the easy stuff. Put some poor squaddies lost legs back – scythed off in RC Blair’s illegal war – and I will be a believer.
October 19th, 2010 at 11:45 am
Someone should make a list of cancers that have gone into remission and what the people cured were doing in the days prior to that. I bet we can find a dozen people whose cancers “miraculously” disappeared after watching Neighbors.
No, wait, that’s not so common any more. Okay, Corrie.
October 19th, 2010 at 11:49 am
Saint Ffwrch of Flange.