Vatican City: Pope Francis proclaimed Mother Teresa a saint on Sunday before a crowd of more than 100,000 in St. Peter’s Square, bestowing the Catholic Church’s highest honor on one of the most widely admired public figures in recent history.
“We declare and define Blessed Teresa of Calcutta to be a saint and we enroll her among the saints, decreeing that she is to be venerated as such by the whole church,” the pope said in a ceremony at the start of Mass, provoking applause from the congregation gathered under sunny skies.
Behind him, on the facade of St. Peter’s Basilica, hung a banner-sized portrait of Mother Teresa, one of the late 20th century’s most recognizable faces even beyond the ranks of Catholics.
Born to an ethnic Albanian family in what is now Macedonia, the diminutive Mother Teresa founded the Missionaries of Charity in 1950 with 12 followers in Kolkata, India. The order now runs hospices, homeless shelters and other services for the destitute in 139 countries.
In his homily, Pope Francis highlighted the new saint’s outspoken opposition to abortion.
“She was committed to defending life, ceaselessly proclaiming that ‘the unborn are the weakest, the smallest, the vulnerable,’” the pope said.
But he also recalled that “she made her voice heard before the powers of this world, so that they might recognize their guilt for the crime of poverty they created.”
The pope thus highlighted two aspects of Mother Teresa’s wide appeal among Catholics, uniting those focused on challenging the mores of modern secular culture and those who emphasize questions of social and economic justice.
Mother Teresa was widely hailed as a saint even during her lifetime and won many worldly accolades, including the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979. Only 18 months after her death in 1997, St. John Paul II cut short the usual five-year waiting period to start the canonization process. He beatified her, bestowing the church’s highest honor short of sainthood, in 2003.
Her proclamation as a saint occurred one day before the 19th anniversary of her death. That anniversary, Sept. 5, will now be her feast day in the calendar of the Catholic Church around the world.
In an off-the-cuff addition to his homily, Pope Francis said that it be hard to adjust to calling her “St. Teresa,” and that he expected most would continue to call her by the title Mother.
For the church, saints are exemplars of “heroic virtue” whose divine salvation is an article of faith, and Catholics are encouraged to pray to them to intercede on their behalf with God.
The congregation in the square on Sunday, notably smaller than the 300,000 who had attended Mother Teresa’s beatification in 2003, included 20 official foreign delegations, including those led by Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj and Queen Sofía of Spain.
After the pope proclaimed Mother Teresa a saint, two nuns of her order presented one of her relics: some of her blood in a cross-shaped reliquary. The reliquary was made largely of wood from various sources, including the kneeler of a confessional, to symbolize the importance that Mother Teresa placed on repentance and divine forgiveness.
There were also 1,500 residents of homeless shelters run by the Missionaries of Charity in various Italian cities, who had been transported to the event overnight by bus. The Vatican said the pope would be treating them to pizza for lunch in the papal audience hall following the Mass.
Fernando Fazio, 56 years old, said had traveled to Rome with his son and sister from Madrid, where he regularly volunteers for Missionaries of Charity, distributing food to needy families.
“Mother Teresa and her extreme generosity to the whole world and to the neediest is the perfect example of the mercy of God, which all of us should follow if we are Christian,” Mr. Fazio said. “I am only sorry I never met her in person.”
In Kolkata, at the Missionaries of Charity’s Mother House, or global headquarters, nuns and pilgrims wedged together on simple wood benches watched the live ceremony on a borrowed television screen.
Ancy Rodrigues had traveled 2½ days by train from Goa to be there. “One of my prayers at night was always for her to become a saint,” said Ms Rodrigues. “Now it’s happening, I am so happy.”
Joining the pilgrims praying and laying floral wreathes were local politicians, including the urban development minister of West Bengal State, Firhad Hakim. “It’s a matter of pride for us that Mother Teresa used to walk on these streets,” Mr. Hakim said.
(Source: The Wall Street Journal: By FRANCIS X. ROCCA in Vatican City and DANIEL STACEY in Kolkata)