www.nickhodge.com

I was born a Prot­est­ant. I will more than likely die one, too. Intense excav­a­tion into fam­ily his­tory has shown me that my genes are Prot­est­ant for at least 8 gen­er­a­tions on both sides. Bap­tised and con­firmed a Lutheran, I was taught a thing or two about the most suc­cess­ful (not the first) split from the Cath­olic Church by Mar­tin Luther.

Dur­ing pub­lic school man­dated “religious edu­ca­tion”, I was taught by the local Cath­olic Priest. He seemed nice enough; kindly tak­ing us through the New Test­a­ment book Romans. It took many years for me to real­ise that this was an attempt at turn­ing me from my heretic ways to the true canon. If I recall, he didn’t even use the Revised Stand­ard Ver­sion of the Bible. Yes, Peter and Paul: the fath­ers of the cath­olic church.

After trav­el­ling to Europe in 1997 and 2004, I saw enough Saints’ rel­ics: shrunken heads, fin­gers, toe­nails and shrouds to last me a life­time. Large cathed­rals raised in the name of the Vir­gin or some Saint across the cit­ies of Europe show the folly of man, attempt­ing to reach for ter­restrial god status. The ven­er­a­tion of Saints and other popery not only rubs me the wrong way: I am sure my ancest­ors turn in their col­lect­ive graves.

So as Mary MacK­il­lop has moved through the man-made pro­cess of can­on­isa­tion within the Cath­olic Church, my genes quiver.

We hear that the church wants old and young to travel to Rome to wit­ness the can­on­isa­tion cere­mony. That will fill the cof­fers of the Romans.

I also heard many dis­cus­sions on the “brand” of Mary MacK­il­lop being valu­able. Like a product. Even our ABC both on radio and TV seems to have caught the “Mary MacK­il­lop” fever. So much for edit­or­ial independence.

And that is exactly what this can­on­isa­tion is about. Money. Never get in the way of a large cor­por­a­tion and money.

Luck­ily the Cath­ol­ics re-admitted her to the church. Oth­er­wise they would have missed out on their cash.

This tra­di­tion and hun­ger for money is not new. Saint­hood and pil­grim­ages have cre­ated many a city in the world as sup­plic­ant masses crawl on their knees to assuage their mor­tal sins. Pay­ing money for Indul­gences, as done in the Middle Ages, and more recently with spe­cial vis­its to ran­dom vir­gin sightings.

Don’t get me wrong: I am not anti-personal faith.

But please sep­ar­ate Mam­mon from Mary. She was, and I high­light was, just a not­able Aus­tralian woman who did more for the down­trod­den than any group of Car­din­als, Abbotts or Bish­ops ever did. And I would argue, ever will.