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 One picks up a growing discomfort in the Australian community over the growing commercialisation surrounding the canonisation of Australia's first saint. The picture being portrayed would seem to be a long way removed from everything that Mary MacKillop stood to represent. Fr Dan Donovan was upset to receive some posters in the mail that he feels takes us away from the spirit of what Mary MacKillop represents. Expressing outrage at the commercialisation of Mary MacKillop... Last week Catholica published a series of articles by me on the current financial situation of Europe due to debt and Euro. It is not my intention to repeat that material here but rather to express my outrage at posters which I received from the Archdiocese yesterday.
The posters have an accompanying letter signed by a Mr Philip Ryall who identifies himself as the Managing Director from Canonisation Travel Office, Harvest Pilgrimages Australia. If copies of these posters have been forwarded to me then the same posters must have been sent to parishes in order to drum up customers. The posters are endorsed by the Australian Catholic Bishops' Conference, Sisters of St Joseph and the Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney. As a former student of the Sisters of St Joseph, I object to this crass commercialisation of the life, charisma and selfless contribution of Mary MacKillop to the Australian people. I must confess that in the years from kindergarten through to year 5, I found the Sisters to have worked in rural New South Wales and other States with the enthusiasm for the religious formation and education of the young as Mother MacKillop herself. This is not to claim that I did not have my own battles with the Sisters who must have secretly expressed their concern at this curly hair kid who was always ready to question. In fact, on the day of my first parish Mass, one of my early teachers said to me "I never thought that I would see the day that I would be blessed by you!" I remember bending down to her and saying, "I never thought that I would ever see the day when I would bless you..." Later when I worked at the Catholic Teachers' College (CTC), the Catholic College of Education Sydney (CCES) and the Australian Catholic University (ACU), it was most rewarding to work in teacher formation in the spirit of Mother MacKillop who educated the young without fear or favour.
In 2008, it was disappointing that ACU felt compelled to erect a statue of Mary MacKIllop, as an old woman on a wheel chair (nursing a dog) outside the Vice Chancery on Mac Killop Campus. In fact, I expressed my critique to the present Vice Chancellor of ACU but his only response was a copy of a letter from the Congregational Leader of the Sisters of St Joseph thanking him for inviting the Sisters to the University Graduations. His response would appear to have been the P.S. highlighted (in yellow) reading: "We like the statue". The issue is this that anyone visiting MacKillop Campus or visitors to the Vice Chancery should be able to see a statue of Mary MacKillop the forthright educationalist who withstood canonical and personal assaults and even an unlawful excommunication on her and her Sisters by a hierarchy drunk with power and determined to bring this upstart woman to heel. The visitor to MacKillop Campus could be forgiven for identifying the statue as simply identifying that the School of Nursing and Aged Care is situated on that campus behind the Vice Chancery. I return to yesterday's letter and those posters. Not only did the hierarchy try to take over Mary MacKillop's vision during her lifetime but the central focus of these posters is BXVI and St Peter's Square. Mary has been upstaged again as she receives only three inserts on posters retailing the Emirates, Cathay Pacific, Malaysia and Thai airlines ... which really are selling travel [Editor's apology: I have not been able to locate a copy of the posters online to display with this story]. All these airlines are from nations which are Asian not European and represent other world religions not Christian proving the new world order. All this on the day that the New South Wales Planning Minister, Mr Kelly, has approved the development of the old brewery at Broadway as Central Park (in Sydney) with commercial-residential and a 10-15 storey commercial tower. Notre Dame will be raised on the site and of course Catholic tertiary education will be in the hands of a tradition other than Australian which has its roots firmly planted in the educational pioneering of Mother MacKillop and her Sisters.  LINKS:
©2010 Fr Daniel Donovan |
How economic inequality harms societies... We feel instinctively that societies with huge income gaps are somehow going wrong. Richard Wilkinson charts the hard data on economic inequality, and shows what gets worse when rich and poor are too far apart: real effects on health, lifespan, even such basic values as trust. Richard Wilkinson, is Professor Emeritus of Social Epidemiology at the University of Nottingham, and cofounder of The Equality Trust, a nonprofit that aims to reduce income inequality by educating and engaging the public while supporting political commitment to address the problem. 16m55s [String on the Catholica Forum where the general issue of wealth inequality and this documentary was first discussed 25Jan12] | [WATCH THE VIDEO]
Doco 035: 25Jan12
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