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Journalism of Courage
The late nun who is soon to become Australias first Catholic saint was briefly excommunicated by the church in part because she exposed a paedophile priest,a new documentary claims. Mary MacKillop,who will be canonised by Pope Benedict XVI next month,was the founder of the Sisters of Saint Joseph of the Sacred Heart order of nuns which ventured into remote outback areas.
A documentary to be screened on national broadcaster ABC will paint her as a woman who also spoke up to church authorities about allegations of child molestation by priests,reports said on Saturday.
The story of the excommunication amounts to this: that some priests had been uncovered for being involved in the sexual abuse of children, Father Paul Gardiner,a campaigner for MacKillops sainthood told the documentary makers.
MacKillop told her superiors and severe action was taken,including sending one priest back to Ireland. This so enraged other priests that they swore to take revenge against MacKillops order.
Part of this revenge included encouraging the then Bishop of Adelaide Laurence Shiel to excommunicate MacKillop,something he duly did in 1871.
She submitted to a farcical ceremony where the Bishop had… lost it, Gardiner told the documentary,which screens on October 10. He was being manipulated by malicious priests. The man sent back to Ireland continued as a priest,the documentary says.
Were they covering up sexual abuse? Well,I suppose you could put it that way, Gardiner said. Or priests being annoyed that somebody had uncovered it and being so angry that the destruction of the Josephites was decided upon.
From his deathbed some five months later,Shiel instructed that MacKillop be absolved. Calls for her canonisation began shortly after her death in 1909.
