Mick Hartley

Is Scotland about to get its first modern saint?

Father Ed Hone, who has raised thousands of pounds through innovative and sometimes controversial schemes, said that marketing Margaret Sinclair could be a lucrative source of funds for the poor and needy.

Ms Sinclair, a Scottish biscuit factory worker and trade unionist, used to worship at the Edinburgh church where Fr Ed is now based.

Efforts to have her canonised are already well advanced and, in March, Pope Benedict XVI said he would proceed with the beatification of Ms Sinclair if a miracle was officially ratified.

Fr Ed, known to some parishioners as "Father Cash", is part of a four-man team from the Redemptorists order currently based at St Patrick's Roman Catholic Church in Edinburgh's Cowgate. He said there was a huge global spin-off potential from DVDs, books and a "saint trail" based around Ms Sinclair.

In 1923, Ms Sinclair joined the Poor Claires convent in Notting Hill, London, where she was given the name Sister Mary Francis of the Five Wounds. Calls for her to be made a saint began almost immediately after her death from tuberculosis two years later.

Fr Ed's previous marketing ploys have included using the model of phone sex lines to set up standard-rate pre-recorded lines to advise Catholics on issues such as divorce and homosexuality.   […]

A hospital consultant in Ireland was willing to testify to a miracle after a Margaret Sinclair prayer card placed in an ailing baby's incubator appeared to help recovery, but the family shunned publicity.