The Lord is "my life's refuge," says the psalmist this Sunday. Mother Mary MacKillop, who founded a religious order, the Sisters of St. Joseph of the Sacred Heart, that offered refuge, shelter, and education to impoverished children across the Australian Outback in the 1800s, will become that nation's first Catholic saint in October. Pope Benedict XVI made the announcement this week and set the formal canonization for October 17 in Rome.

With vows of abstinence from owning personal belongings and dedication to helping the poor, MacKillop is credited with spreading Roman Catholicism in Australia and New Zealand. But she was a strong-willed advocate who sometimes got into trouble for challenging orthodox thinking within the church. In 1869 she was excommunicated for inciting her followers to disobedience, though the bishop who punished her recanted three years later and she was exonerated by a church commission.

"This is a great, great tribute to the Catholic Church and a great, great tribute to her hard work in education," Australia's Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said Friday. "This is a great honor for Australia. I offer a heartfelt expression of appreciation to the wider Catholic community."

"Today it has been recognized that a woman can become a saint in the Australian environment with all its complexities and challenges," Postulator for the Cause of Mary MacKillop, Sister Maria Casey, said in a statement. "Mary MacKillop is to be listed among the saints of the Catholic Church. I look forward to the celebration of her goodness when many pilgrims from all over the world come to Rome for the ceremony."

MacKillop died in 1909 and was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1995. Sainthood was also approved for Stanislaw Soltys, a 15th-century Polish priest; Italian nuns Giulia Salzano and Battista Varano; Spanish nun Candida Maria de Jesus Cipitria y Barriola; and Canadian Holy Cross Brother André Bessette.

Source: An article by Victor L. Simpson for the Associated Press