Australia’s first openly atheist leader yesterday declared her support for the country’s first saint-in-waiting, Mary MacKillop, saying her October canonisation would be a “great celebration” for the nation.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard pledged $1.5 million to festivities for MacKillop’s anointment as Australia’s first saint at a fundraising dinner in Sydney on Thursday night.
“It will be a fantastic celebration around the country, the canonisation of Mary MacKillop,” said Ms Gillard.
“Whether you believe Mary MacKillop’s a saint, whether you believe she was a great Australian pioneer providing education to kids who needed it, whether you believe both, this is a great moment to celebrate.”
Though secularism is enshrined in its constitution, Christianity is Australia’s dominant religion, with 64 percent of the population designating themselves as belonging to the Christian faith in the latest census.
Sessions of parliament begin with the Lord’s prayer and Gillard’s rival for the August 21 elections, Tony Abbott, is a staunch Catholic who was once in training for the priesthood.
Ms Gillard snatched the leadership from elected prime minister Kevin Rudd in a June coup, and if returned to office in her own right the childless former lawyer will be Australia’s first female leader and its first unmarried one.
Shortly after taking power Ms Gillard declared she would “not pretend a faith I don’t feel” but she must curry favour with the Christian vote in order to win the election and become the first atheist to take Australia’s top job.
Ms Gillard told Thursday’s canonisation dinner that MacKillop’s sainthood was historic for all Australians, not just the nation’s five million Catholics.
“For all Australians, who share a country in which we put freedom of religion into action every day by respecting each others’ beliefs, it is a time of celebration,” she said
MacKillop, a bold and pioneering woman who founded her first school in a disused Outback stable, was born to Scottish parents and had a rebellious streak. She was briefly excommunicated from the Church for insubordination.
The Vatican said in February it would canonise MacKillop, after recognising that she had miraculously healed two terminally-ill women who prayed to her years after her 1909 death.