Pope approves Mother Teresa’s saintly miracle

The Vatican said Francis approved a decree attributing a miracle to Mother Teresa’s intercession during an audience with the head of the Vatican’s saint-making office on Thursday, his 79th birthday.

When the first Miracle is proved the person is conferred Beatification and when the second Miracle is approved Canonisation is conferred on the person and the person becomes a saint.

The patient from Santos, Brazil, was diagnosed with “viral brain infection that resulted in multiple abscesses with triventricular hydrocephalus”, Father Brian Kolodiejchuk, the prelate steering Teresa’s canonization, said in a separate statement.

It is understood the Vatican ascertained that his wife’s prayers for Mother Teresa’s intercession were responsible.

Pope Francis has recognised a second miracle attributed to the revered nun, clearing the path for her to be elevated to sainthood, the Vatican said yesterday.

No date was set for Mother Teresa’s canonization – the highest honor bestowed by the Roman Catholic Church – but Italian media speculated that it will take place during the first week of September 2016, the anniversary of her death and during Francis’s Holy Year of Mercy.

Mother Teresa, who was born to Albanian parents in what is now Skopje in Macedonia, was known across the world for her charity work.

A self-described “citizen of the world”, she founded the religious order “Missionaries of Charity” and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979. “It’s a great honour for all the people that she is being bestowed with sainthood”, said Banerjee.

Primate of All Ireland Archbishop Eamon Martin welcomed the news on Friday that Mother Teresa is to be made a saint.

But Mother Teresa taught all are valuable in God’s eyes and St. Katharine’s is inviting visitors to share in the joy her future sainthood at Christmas and Christmas Eve services.

“We were waiting for this moment, since many years really, and now that it has come we are very happy, overjoyed”, he told Vatican Radio. “We are very happy”, said Sunita Kumar, a spokeswoman for the Missionaries of Charity in the eastern city of Kolkata (earlier called Calcutta), where Mother Teresa lived and worked.

“When it is advantageous for Catholic officials to move quickly, like sainthood for popular figures Mother Teresa and Pope John Paul II, they move quickly”.

But despite global acclaim she was the frequent target of criticism from the left and from atheists who ridiculed her for working with the poor while also supporting Catholic teaching against abortion and contraception, which they said fostered poverty by encouraging population growth.

“It’s going to take some getting used to, saying Saint Mother Teresa of Calcutta next September”.

While more than two decades have passed since Mother Teresa’s Chester visit, her spirit remains and so do the nuns from her order.