Today, October 17, 2010, marks a milestone in Australian history as Australia’s first saint was canonized by Pope Benedict XVI in St. peter’s Square in Rome together with five other new saints, Blesseds Stanis?aw So?tys (Polish), Andre Bessette (Canadian), Candida Maria de Jesus Cipitria y Barriola (Spanish), Giulia Salzano and Battista da Varano (both Italian). Australia’s five million Catholics have their first saint after Pope Benedict XVI canonized Mary MacKillop, co-founder more than 140 years ago of an order of nuns known as the “Sisters of the Outback.” More than 8,000 Australians are estimated to have joined the crowd outside St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome attending today’s ceremony. The pope also granted sainthood to five other candidates, from Canada, Poland, Spain and two from Italy.

MacKillop, who died in 1909 at the age of 67, was cleared to become a saint when the Vatican in December endorsed the cure of a woman with lung and brain cancer as her second miracle. Pope John Paul II in 1995 accepted the first miracle attributed to MacKillop, the recovery of a woman with leukemia.

MacKillop’s order, the Sisters of Saint Joseph of the Sacred Heart, was founded in 1866 and became known as the “Sisters of the Outback” as they travelled to remote mining towns and farms to teach children and help poor families. The South Australian town of Penola, 1,295 kilometers (804 miles) by road from Sydney, where she founded her first school in a disused stable in 1866, held a procession and open-air Mass today. Pastry chef Jason Van Leuven created a “Gateau Mary MacKillop,” an almond cake covered with lavender cream to present to the order and pilgrims in the town where MacKillop began her work.

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“It’s going to be very small and humble,” reflecting the simplicity of MacKillop’s life, Van Leuven said by phone from his business in Naracoorte. “It always amazes me how God uses the most humble of people to do the most incredible jobs.” Open-air Masses were held in Sydney and Melbourne, while a musical about MacKillop, playing at a theater in Melbourne where she was born, is a sellout. Images of the nun have been beamed onto the pylons of Sydney Harbour Bridge at night and Australia Post will issue a commemorative stamp tomorrow featuring a photograph of the nun taken in the 1890s.

MacKillop, to be given the title Saint Mary of the Cross, reflects the core values that Australians prize, “giving everyone a fair go, standing up for those who are the underdog,” Sister Sheila McCreanor, secretary-general of the Sisters of St. Joseph, who is in Rome for the ceremony, told Vatican Radio. Australia’s government said it plans to stop businesses profiting from her name by requiring ministerial approval for companies that want to suggest a connection to MacKillop. The only other Australian whose name gets the same level of protection is cricketer and national hero Sir Donald Bradman, who died in 2001.

Existing trademark and trade practices laws will continue to guard against the “improper” use of MacKillop’s name, Prime Minister Julia Gillard, said on Oct. 11. The measures recognize “the significance that Mary MacKillop’s life holds, not only for the five million Australians of Catholic faith, but for all Australians,” she said.