Sainthood for Mary MacKillop in October

POPE Benedict XVI will announce the date for the canonisation ceremony of Mary MacKillop and five other "saints-in-waiting" from around the world.

MARY MacKillop is likely to be canonised in October, giving Australia its long-awaited first saint.

Pope Benedict XVI will next week announce the date for the canonisation ceremony of Mother Mary and five other "saints-in-waiting" from around the world.

Sources yesterday said the ceremony is expected to take place in October, soon after the Pope returns from his annual European summer break.

Postulator for the Cause, Sister Maria Casey will attend next Friday's meeting with the Pope and will inform the Sisters of St Joseph in North Sydney when the date is confirmed.

Thousands of Australians are expected to make the trip to the Vatican to witness Mother Mary become Saint Mary of the Cross, Congregational leader of the Sisters of St Joseph Sister Anne Derwin said yesterday.

"The canonisation of Mary MacKillop will recognise her as a woman of God and a woman for people, especially those most neglected, vulnerable and suffering," Sister Derwin said.

Hunter Valley woman Kathleen Evans, whose complete and permanent cure from inoperable cancer was decreed Mother Mary's second miracle, said she hoped to make the trip to Rome to witness the event.

Mrs Evans received no medical treatment for her lung and brain cancer but instead prayed to God through the intercession of Mother Mary.

Ten months later, doctors informed Mrs Evans her tumours had gone.

The campaign for canonisation began in 1926, 17 years after her death. She was beatified in 1995 when her first miracle, the cure in 1961 of a woman with terminal leukemia, was confirmed.