Vatican City: Blessed Mother Teresa of Kolkata will be among five people who will be cleared for sainthood on March 15, the Holy See Press Office has announced.
On that day Pope Francis will also sign the decrees for the canonization of José Sanchez del Rio, Stanislaus of Jesus and Mary, Maria Elisabeth Hesselblad and the “gaucho” priest Brochero
The decrees will be signed at the Ordinary Public Consistory for the canonization the Pope will preside. An “ordinary public consistory” is the meeting of cardinals and promoters of the sainthood causes. It will end the process of approving a new saint.
On December 17, 2015, the Pope approved a second miracle through Mother Teresa’s intercession. A Brazilian man with brain tumor experienced an extraordinary recovery in 2008. A 42-year-old mechanical engineer in Santos, Brazil was in a coma after being diagnosed with a viral brain infection that resulted in multiple brain abscesses.
Mother Teresa was born in Skopje as Anjeze Gonxhe Bojaxhiu. She died on September 5, 1997 at Kolkata at the age of 87. Pope John Paul 11 beatified her on October 19, 2003.
The Pope Francis mentioned Mother Teresa at Angelus on March 7, while remembering the four nuns from her order who were killed in Yemen. “I pray for them and the other people killed in the attack, and for their kin. These are today’s martyrs! They are not on the front pages of the newspapers; they are not news — they give their blood for the Church,” said the Pope.
The March 15 consistory will also determine the approval of canonization of Argentine “gaucho priest,” Blessed Jose Gabriel del Rosario Brochero and Blessed Jose Sanchez del Rio, a 14-year-old Mexican boy martyred for refusing to renounce his faith during the Cristero War of the 1920s.
Although the canonization dates are often announced at the consistory, it is widely believed Blessed Teresa’s canonization will take place Sept. 4. That date celebrates the Jubilee of Workers and Volunteers of Mercy and comes the day before the 19th anniversary of her death.
Others to be canonized is Blessed Stanislaus Papczynski of Poland, who was born John Papczynski, in 1600 and founded the Congregation of the Marian Clerics of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Blessed Mary Elizabeth Hesselblad, a Swedish Lutheran convert who established a branch of the Bridgettine order in Sweden, is also set to become a saint.
Another saint is Blessed Giuseppe Gabriele del Rosario Brochero, an Argentinian diocesan priest better known as “Fr. Brochero.” Pope Francis is fond of this priest.
In the message for his beatification in September 2013, the Pope called him “a pioneer in going out to the geographical and existential peripheries to bring love and God’s mercy to everyone.” He was born in 1840in Córdoba, Argentina, and devoted his life “to going out to seek the people.” He died in January 1914 in Villa del Transito, which shortly afterwards was renamed Villa Cura Brochero.