Mother Mary

Australia - Sainthood for Mother Mary MacKillop has been approved by Pope Benedict XVI making her Australia's first saint and was best known for her work among the needy and founded the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph.

Considered a strong-willed advocate, Mother Mary was once excommunicated for challenging more conservative thinking and inciting her followers to disobedience, but was then exonerated by a church commission a few years later. She and her Order built dozens of schools, clinics, and orphanages for the needy across the Australian Outback in the 1800's. Wholly dedicated to helping the poor, MacKillop had taken a vow of abstinence from owning personal belongings as part of her religious commitment. She died in 1909.

Pope John Paul II in 1995 beatified her in 1995. "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 of the announcement of sainthood.