Catholic Church – Kolkata
Mother Teresa, a nun who devoted her life to help the poorest of the poor, notably in Kolkata, will be made a Saint of the Roman Catholic Church at a ceremony on September 4, 2016.
Pope Francis, the 266th and current pope of the Roman Catholic Church, announced that Mother Teresa would be identified as a Saint from September 4, 2016, when, at a ceremony, she will be granted the title. The Church recognises Saints as those believed to have been holy enough during their lives to now be in heaven and as those who could interpose with God to perform miracles.
Also known as ‘Blessed Teresa of Calcutta’, she was an Albanian Roman Catholic religious sister and missionary, born in 1910 in the then Ottoman Empire, in what is now Macedonia. After having lived in Macedonia for around eighteen years, she moved to Ireland and then to India, where she lived for most of her life. Mother Teresa was admired worldwide by many for her charitable works and took her religious vows when she was 21.
Pope Francis, who showed concern for the poor, was keen to make Mother Teresa a Saint during the Church’s current holy year and now she will finally be made a saint, 19 years after she died.
She founded the ‘Missionaries of Charity’ with nearly 12 nuns in the 1950s, to help the poor on the streets of Kolkata. Gradually, the religious order spread throughout the world and she won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979.
Died in 1997 at the age of 87, she was known as the ‘Saint of the gutters’ and became an international figure. Mother Teresa spent most of her life working for the poor in India. “The poor people are very great people. They can teach us so many beautiful things,” she said in her acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize.