Mother Teresa one step closer to sainthood
Mother Teresa sainthood ‘expected’ after Pope Francis recognizes second miracle attributed to her.
Pope Francis has accepted a second miracle attributed to Mother Teresa, making her sainthood anticipated
Pope Francis has recognised a second miracle attributed to Mother Teresa, clearing the way for her to be made a saint next year, according to international reports.
According to a report on the Avvenire newspaper, the miracle in question involved the healing of a Brazilian man with multiple brain tumours.
Mother Teresa, a Macedonian born Roman Catholic nun was beatified - the first step towards sainthood - in 2003. She won a Nobel Peace Prize for her work with the poor in the slums of the Indian city of Kolkata (Culcutta), where she died in 1997.
According to reports she is expected to be canonised in Rome in September.
The BBC reports that beatification requires one miracle by the Catholic Church, while the process of becoming recognised as a saint requires proof of at least two miracles. It adds that Mother Teresa was beatified in 2003 after Pope John Paul II accepted a miracle attributed to her, when she cured an Indian woman suffering from an abdominal tumour.
Mother Teresa was born Agnes Gonxhe Bojaxhiu in Skopje, Macedonia, in 1910 and she founded the Missionaries of Charity in 1949, dedicating her life to caring for impoverished and sick people in Kolkata. She is known as the "saint of the gutter" and she has earned worldwide acclaim for her efforts. Critics of the influential figure, however, accuse her of mixing with dictators and peddling a hardline Catholicism.
