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Mother Teresa on fast track toward sainthood
29 Aug, 2007, 1117 hrs IST, AGENCIES
VATICAN CITY: Mother
Teresa, the nun whose work among the poor and sick earned her a Nobel Peace
Prize, was beatified just six years after her death -- the fastest such process
in Roman Catholic history.
Pope John Paul II called the 1979 Nobel laureate, who died a decade ago on
September 5, 1997, "one of the greatest missionaries of the 20th
century" and championed the fast-tracking of her dossier for sainthood.
The journey from death to beatification to sainthood usually takes decades --
if not centuries -- in the Catholic Church, which has 1.1 billion followers
worlwide.
John Paul II pushed for the Albanian-born nun to be sainted without going
through the intervening process of beatification, but the College of Cardinals
advised against it.
Instead, at the request of her home diocese of Calcutta
(Kolkata) in India,
he agreed to a waiver of the usual five-year waiting period after the death of
a candidate for beatification.
The diocese opened what is known as an "examination into the life,
virtues, writings and reputation for holiness" of Mother Teresa.
The dossier included a proposed miracle -- required for beatification -- in
which a 30-year-old Kolkota woman said praying to Mother Teresa had cured her
of a stomach tumour, an event that doctors could not explain.
The dossier was opened in July 1999 and concluded in just four years. The
"saint of the gutters" was the 1,315th to be beatified by John Paul II,
who set a papal record for beatifications and canonisations during his nearly
27 years as pontiff.
The previous fastest process was for Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer, who was
beatified in 1992 some 17 years after his death. He was sainted in 2002.
Pope John Paul II officially beatified Mother Teresa on October 19, 2003 at a
Vatican ceremony that saw 300,000 pilgrims from around
the world filling St Peter's
Square and beyond.
The next step is to be made a saint, but the Vatican's Congregation for the
Causes of the Saints must authenticate a second miracle through her before it
can propose her canonization to the current pope, Benedict XVI.
John Paul II himself is on a fast track to sainthood, and could even speed past
Mother Teresa: his beatification dossier was opened on June 28, 2005 -- just 61
days after his death.
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