Australia's first saint overcame excommunication

PENOLA, Australia (AP) — Mary MacKillop's path to sainthood included an unlikely hurdle: excommunication.

As a young nun, MacKillop — who will be canonized as Australia's first saint Sunday at the Vatican — was briefly dismissed from the Roman Catholic Church in a clash with high clergy in 1871.

One of the catalysts for the censure strikes a note familiar to the present-day church: her order of nuns had exposed a pedophile priest.

The scandal, downplayed in church history, came to the forefront last week in a documentary about her by the Australian Broadcasting Corp. MacKillop was not the one who reported the abuse, but as a co-founder of the Sisters of St. Joseph of the …