Pope Francis declares Mother Teresa saint

Mother Teresa of Calcutta, the Catholic icon revered around the world for her work with the poor and dying, was declared a saint of the Roman Catholic Church by Pope Francis on Sunday before thousands of people gathered in St Peter’s Square in the Vatican.

Tens of thousands of pilgrims packed St. Peter's Square at the Vatican for a service to honour the tiny nun, who worked among the world's neediest in the slums of the Indian city now called Kolkata and become one of the most recognizable faces of the 20th century.

Standing under a canvas hung from St. Peter's Basilica showing the late nun in her blue-hemmed white robes, Francis said she was a "dispenser of divine mercy" and held world powers to account "for the crimes of poverty they created".

"For Mother Teresa, mercy was the salt which gave flavour to her work, it was the light which shone in the darkness of the many who no longer had tears to shed for their poverty and suffering."

Around 120,000 people attended the ceremony, according to Vatican estimates, celebrating the life of a woman who Francis said it might be difficult to call "Saint" as people felt so close to her they spontaneously used "Mother".

Nuns – some wearing the distinctive blue and white robes of Mother Teresa’s order – priests, pilgrims and tourists crammed into the square in front of St Peter’s Basilica for the two-hour ceremony.

About 1,500 homeless people in Italy were given seats of honour at the celebration, which was to be followed by a pizza lunch served by 250 nuns and priests of the Sisters of Charity order on the orders of the pope.

During the canonisation ceremony, Cardinal Angelo Amato read a brief description of Mother Teresa’s work before asking the pope to canonise her.

Francis responded: “After due deliberation and frequent prayer for divine assistance, and having sought the counsel of many of our brother bishops, we declare and define Blessed Teresa of Calcutta to be a saint and we enrol her among the saints, decreeing that she is to be venerated as such by the whole church.”

In his homily, Francis described Mother Teresa as an “emblematic figure of womanhood” and a “tireless worker for mercy”. He told the crowd: “May she be your model of holiness.”

In an unscripted comment, he added that many people would have difficulty in referring to her as Saint Teresa. “I think we’ll carry on calling her Mother Teresa.”

In India, a special mass was celebrated at the Missionaries of Charity.

Mother Teresa established the Missionaries of Charity order in Kolkata in 1950. The order now runs 758 homes, hospices and shelters in 139 countries around the world.

Among the crowds in Rome was Paul Spiteri, 69, who had travelled from Malta for the ceremony. Handing out Mother Teresa prayer cards, he said he had met the nun four times and was thrilled to witness her being made a saint. “This is a very special moment,” he said.

Critics say she did little to alleviate the pain of the terminally ill and nothing to tackle the root causes of poverty. Atheist writer Christopher Hitchens made a documentary about her called "Hell's Angel".

She was also accused of trying to convert the destitute in predominantly-Hindu India to Christianity, a charge her mission repeatedly denied.

But Pope John Paul II, who met her often, had no doubt about her eligibility for sainthood, and put her on the route to canonization two years after her death instead of the usual five.

Mother Teresa, who was born Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu in 1910 in what is now Macedonia, was proclaimed a saint almost 19 years to the day after her death in 1997. Conforming with the process of canonisation, two miracles were deemed to have been performed after she died, both involving the alleged cure of terminally ill people.

Mother Teresa was awarded the Nobel peace prize in 1979. She said she did not deserve the award but accepted it “in the name of the hungry, the naked, the homeless; of the crippled, of the blind, of the lepers, of all those people who feel unwanted, unloved, uncared for throughout society”.