The Pope’s words couldn’t have rung truer than when he said Saint Teresa had shamed world leaders for the “crimes of poverty they themselves created”. She died 19 years ago nearly to the day, September 5, 1997 at the age of 87.
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Cardinal Angelo Amato read a brief biography of Mother Teresa’s work, then asked the Pope to canonise her in the name of the Church.
“She exemplifies what Christ is trying to get us to understand”, Donna DiCasimirro, Canonization Activities Chairperson of Saint Teresa of Calcutta Church said.
Applause erupted in St Peter’s Square even before Francis finished pronouncing the rite of canonisation, evidence of the admiration Mother Teresa enjoyed from Christians and non-Christians alike during her life and after her 1997 death.
Mendez was in Saint Peter’s Square in a group of around a dozen fellow nuns, all dressed in the white saris with blue trim Mother Teresa made famous. Critics of the Nobel Peace Prize victor says her charity isn’t financially accountable and lacks medically trained personnel.
Mother Teresa visited the small Alberta town in the 80s, and her missionary sisters are still there working with the First Nations community.
Fr. Francis Parmar, Provincial of Gujarat Jesuits, called upon all to emulate the life and works of Mother Teresa specially in reaching out to the least of our brothers and sisters.
She founded the Missionaries of Charity in 1950.
“By her dealing with those who were at the very bottom of society, dying in the streets of Calcutta; by her compassion and love, the world was captivated”, he said. “She’s so recent, she was really showing how we can love in our world, in our day and age”.
Sisters of Charity volunteers planned to distribute food to the poor nearby after the ceremony, and community meals were being served across Catholic parishes in India on Sunday – a symbolic reference to Mother Teresa’s lifetime of service to humanity, said the Rev. Savarimuthu Sankar of the archdiocese of New Delhi. Marcilio Haddad Andrino claimed to have begun his road to recovery from multiple brain abscesses, after experiencing a sense of peace that he believed to have been sent from Mother Teresa.
Pope Francis formally announced that Mother Teresa would be declared a saint in March 2016, when he recognized “a second miracle” attributed to her.
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Pope Francis said Sunday morning that people may struggle to refer to the Albanian nun as “Saint Teresa”.
