BUT IT IS A BIT OF A LEAP TO GO FROM THAT TO THE GOVERNMENT SPENDING OVER A MILLION BUCKEROONIES ON A PARTY PURPORTING THE NOTION THAT THE VERY IDEA OF THIS DECEASED FITZROY-BASED WOMAN CURED CANCER.

[turns passionate caps-lock off]

I just think the whole situation is a bit silly. And although, as discussed, I am an advocate of freedom of religion, I also fervently believe that any idea – particularly ones that involve the allocation of public funds and the separation of church and state – should be subjected to rational examination, criticism and debate.

Sort of like this:

To be canonized as a saint in the Roman Catholic church, you need to have at least two “miracles” accredited to your name. And no, sitting through the entirety of Marley & Me doesn’t count; these miracles have to be pretty awesome. According to this baffling article by Andrew Hamilton from the ABC’s Religion and Ethics site, miracles have to be “significant”, they “cannot be explained by current scientific knowledge” and they can’t be able to be repeated by “current scientific practice”. So unexplained medical cures – such as the case of a woman who recovered from terminal leukemia in 1961 and the case of Kathleen Evans recovering from lung and secondary brain cancer in 1993, both attributed to the healing powers of worshiping MacKillop’s nice face – are the most common events labelled as “miracles”, which are then used to establish sainthoodiness.

Ok – I gots me some questions:

1. Why two miracles? When you think about it, that’s actually an extremely high bar to set for…well, anything. If you were going for a job and your resume included that miracle you once performed in defiance of all known science and logic, you’d be pretty pissed if the interviewer seemed unimpressed and asked if you’d had any other experience in the Magical Occurrences Field.

I mean, if it is genuinely believed that your holiness is so extreme that the act of people praying to your memory resulted in someone recovering from terminal mother-f**king leukemia, surely that should be enough for people to go, “Yep – this one was a good egg”. Why is the Catholic Church so picky? Do they realise how many shitty Catholics are kicking around right now and how much they need the PR boost of having miracle-makers within their ranks? Did the Pope hear news of Mary’s first piece of magic, lean back in his throne, suck on a cigar and say, “Come back to me when you’re fixing multiple organs, kid”?

2. Um… can’t we just, like… not have cancer? Of course, the immediate question that pops into the ol’ rational noggin is something like If it’s God’s will to cure these victims of these terrible diseases, why did He allow them to fall sick in the first place? Don’t get me wrong – if miracles are bona fide, they sound awesome. But shouldn’t God and all the saints get together and let off a giant miracle bomb that sees everyone who’s sick get miraculously better and get free ice cream?

3. Isn’t it a bit convenient that miracles aren’t allowed to be explained or repeated by modern science? This seems to be a glaringly obvious example of religion just filling the gaps in present knowledge, just like that whole whacky “the world is flat” situation a few years back. “God moves in mysterious ways” we’re told, but it seems God’s ways grow mysteriouser and mysteriouser as science gets better and better. Furthermore, this little prerequisite means we have shifting goalposts for the makings of a saint. Say that in 2013 there is a breakthrough in medical science that fully explains Kathleen Evans’ sudden recovery in 1993 – what then? Do we have a de-canonisation ceremony? Will everyone have to take back all those nice prayers they made to Saint Mary and feel dejected and spiritually ripped off? Will my Make Mine A Big Mac-Killop! mug become totally worthless?

4. Why so much with the evidence all of a sudden? I find it ironic that this canonization process – including the need for evidence to establish that a miracle happened in order to establish that a certain person is (and always was) a saint – is so reliant on a kind of proof. Surely if the same rigorous process was applied to some other, less palatable parts of the Catholic faith (e.g., the viewing of homosexuality as a sin, the belief in Hell, the objection to contraception and abortion, etc), the Vatican and its hundreds of millions of followers would act mighty differently. Unfortunately, those parts of Catholicism aren’t bothered by crazy things like evidence; they’re explained away by blind faith.

5. Where are all the old-school miracles? I don’t want to sound spoilt or anything, but I’ve heard about people coming back from the dead and walking on water and really knowing how to work a bread-maker and stuff, and that sounds pretty undoubtedly miracle-y. Maybe we could book someone who does those kinds of things to perform this Sunday?

My self-righteous atheistic blogging aside, our elected officials’ love affair with the canonisation of Australia’s first saint should be troubling to anyone living in our secular democracy, regardless of their theological persuasion. As I’ve said, I think the acknowledgement of Mary MacKillop’s achievements upon this mortal coil is super dooper; but the sinking of $1.5m into this exercise and the sending of a delegation to Rome for the proceedings, thereby effectively endorsing the nonsensical beliefs inherent in the canonisation process, are the actions of a government equivocating on the separation of church and state. Critics of this kind of thing are often labelled as party poopers; we’re asked to “lighten up” and to recognise the cultural significance (and perhaps the marketing opportunities) of this historic day for Australia. But that’s just not how the system should work. Would the same effort be made if an Australian was given a recognition of equal importance in Islam or Buddhism or Judaism or Baha’i or from the Jedi Council? What about the annual Astrologers’ Society Awards, or the winner of The One, or that psychic crocodile – do they all deserve that money over our hospitals, our education system or scientific research?

Sure, strict adherence to that higher principle is going to piss a whole lot of Catholics off and may well become a political wedge, but that’s kind of the way the cookie has to crumble, isn’t it?

I think the most devastating impact of all this miracle/sainthood hoo-hah would have to be upon those who very rarely make the feel-good coverage in the media. I always wonder how the friends and families of people suffering from terminal illnesses must feel when they read about Mary’s seemingly “magical” works, particularly if they too regularly pray and ask for miracles for their loved ones. If you were to truly believe that saints are looking down on everything and prayers can be answered, as the canonisation frenzy suggests we should do, in that situation you would surely have to ask yourself: Why hasn’t it worked for us?

False hope and stubborn ignorance may be good enough for the Catholic faithful, but it’s not good enough for me. Mary Helen MacKillop, as wonderful a person as she clearly was, is undoubtedly deceased and, based upon all credible scientific evidence at our disposal, it is reasonable to conclude that she is in no way actively influencing the bodies of other human beings.

I’ll be celebrating this wondrous fact with a few quiet drinks at my place on Sunday. You’re very welcome to join me.

*Don't forget to catch Tom Ballard live on-stage at the Warrnambool Entertainment Centre on Saturday October 23.