Mary McKillop and all that press ...

If you live in Australia and especially Sydney, you will have noticed a huge amount of press interest in the Canonisation of Sister Mary McKillop. Australian TV newsreaders and current affairs reporters are all over the story with live crosses to the Vatican and Rome to report on the event.
Never has such coverage been given to what is essentially a religious event.
Got me thinking as to why … and here are a few thoughts.

1. The life of Mary McKillop (read about it here) was truly remarkable. She endured rejection and excommunication from her church and then founded her own religious order.
2. There are 5,126,884 Catholics in Australia (2006 Census), who all watch television and read newspapers, so it makes economic sense to cover a story that is of interest to over 5 million people.
3. The Catholic Church do spectacle and ceremony really well so the event works for television networks and it will play here on a Sunday evening, just right for prime-time viewing, AND
   
4. Media outlets are keen to promote Christian faith as they understand its importance to life and eternity …
   

STOP PRESS. Sorry, that last one slipped in .. wishful thinking on my part!

1. It's safe. None of this Jesus stuff and asking Him into your life that evangelical protestant Christians are always on about. This is history and pageantry which doesn't ask us to consider where we stand on the subject.

Some secular columnists have raised questions like, "what about all those other people who prayed to Mark McKillop and who weren't healed? How is that Mary is supposed to have healed the two women whose cures led to her being Canonised but no one else?"

Ever since Christ walked the earth, people have asked him for healing. Asking 'via' someone who has lived a life of commitment to the poor and marginalised, as Mary McKillop did, is a particularly Catholic tradition. Why or how that makes the request more (or less) likely to be heard is something that I don't understand and neither it seems, does the Bible.

But, raising these sorts of issues in the public space means that all Christians can get involved in the debate about faith, healing and what good does the Church do anyway.