SYDNEY - Australian Catholics celebrated Sunday a papal decision that will likely give the country its first saint - the feisty Mary MacKillop, who founded a network of schools for poor children and was briefly excommunicated before being set on the path to canonization.
The Vatican on Saturday said that Pope Benedict XVI approved a decree that MacKillop was responsible for a second miracle, one of the final steps in a complex and often years-long process before sainthood can be bestowed.
MacKillop founded the Congregation of the Sisters of St.
Joseph, an order that built dozens of schools for poor children across the Australian Outback in the 19th century, as well as orphanages and clinics for the needy.
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 is also remembered as a strong-willed advocate who sometimes got into trouble for challenging orthodox thinking within the male-dominated church. In 1869 she was excommunicated for inciting her followers to disobedience, although the bishop who punished her recanted three years later and she was exonerated by a church commission.
- The Associated Press
Neo-Nazis rally at synagogue
RIVERSIDE, Calif. - Congregants at a Southern California synagogue were met by a group of neo-Nazis waving swastika flags on the last night of Hanukkah.
Rabbi Suzanne Singer says the Friday demonstration at Temple Beth El in Riverside was the third at the temple in recent months.
There were fewer than a dozen protesters at the site. Police were called but there were no incidents or arrests and the services went on as planned.
In October in Riverside, a scuffle broke out and punches were exchanged between about 20 Neo-Nazis rallying against illegal immigration and about two dozen counter-protesters near a Home Depot store where day laborers often gather. One man was arrested. A similar rally was held a month earlier.
Singer says members of her congregation have been among the counter-protesters at those rallies.
- The Associated Press
Catholic college thrives in Wyoming
LANDER, Wyo. - Students filtered into the pews as church bells rang to mark the start of a Wyoming Catholic College noon Mass, a service conducted in Latin on a recent fall day.
The prospect of daily church services may not appeal to many college students, but it’s a draw for this tiny, fledgling liberal arts college in central Wyoming.
Now in its third year, Wyoming Catholic College is operating near capacity in Lander and developing plans for a new campus 15 miles south of town.
President Robert Cook said the college has enrolled about 33 students each fall since 2007 - for a total of 99 - and retained all but one student. The student body represents 35 states, and applications for next school year have arrived from 45 states.
The college is laying the groundwork to raise money for its planned $120 million campus, which will sit on donated ranch land.
- The Associated Press
Religion, Pages 27 on 12/24/2009