Mother Teresa to become saint amid criticism over miracles

mangaloretoday-ANI

Vatican, Sept 03: Half a million people are expected to attend the canonisation of Mother Teresa at the Vatican on Sunday,September 03 in a ceremony transmitted live to her adopted home of Kolkata and Catholic audiences worldwide.

The two-hour mass in St Peter’s Square, led by Pope Francis almost 19 years after she died, will transform the diminutive nun who became a global icon for her work with the poor into Saint Teresa of Kolkata. But it will also reignite deep criticism of the order she founded, the Missionaries of Charity, which according to detractors focused on the elevation, rather than the relief, of suffering.

Pilgrims will venerate her relics and have the opportunity to buy 1.5m commemorative 95c postage stamps, released on Friday, that celebrate her “great strength, simplicity and extraordinary humility … [and] tireless dedication”, according to an accompanying brochure.

In the lead-up to Sunday’s mass, images of Mother Teresa have been publicly displayed in and around the Vatican. A series of seminars, feasts, musical events and prayer sessions held for visiting pilgrims have emphasised the parallels between her life’s work and Pope Francis’s central message of social justice and humility. British pop star Rita Ora is due to perform at the Vatican ahead of the canonisation ceremony.

In Kolkata, three months of commemorations are planned, including book launches, art shows, a stadium mass and the installation last week of a lifesize bronze statue of the nun.

The prime minister of India, Narendra Modi, paid tribute to Mother Teresa in a radio broadcast, saying “she devoted her whole life to the poor”. He added: “When such a person is conferred with sainthood, it is natural for Indians to feel proud.”

In a letter to the Vatican, Congress president Sonia Gandhi said every Indian, not just the country’s 20 million Catholics, took “immense pride and joy” in the canonisation of a “woman who was the very embodiment of boundless compassion, mercy and grace”.

Critics however have protested against Modi’s decision to send a 100-strong delegation, led by foreign minister Sushma Swaraj, to Sunday’s mass. An online petition said: “It boggles the mind that the foreign minister of a country whose constitution exhorts its citizens to have scientific temper would approve of a canonisation based on ‘miracles’.”

Hindu nationalists have claimed that Mother Teresa was a “soul harvester” who proselytised among the poor, and that she and her followers surreptitiously baptised the dying without their knowledge.