Pope Declares Mother Teresa ‘Saint’ Before A Mammoth Crowd At Vatican

Catholic nun, Mother Teresa of Calcutta, known
as the “saint of the gutters,” has been declared a
saint in a canonization Mass held by Pope
Francis in the Vatican on Sunday morning.
During the canonization of the Albanian-born nun
– who devoted her life to helping India’s poor –
the Pope said St Teresa had defended the
unborn, sick and abandoned, and had shamed
world leaders for the “crimes of poverty they
themselves created”, before huge crowds of
pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square in Vatican
City.
Hand-clapping broke out before he completed the
formula of canonization, in which he declared
“Blessed Teresa of Kolkata to be a saint.”
Speaking in Latin, Francis said that “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 Kolkata 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 Mother Teresa had spent
her life “bowing down before those who were
spent, left to die on the side of the road, seeing
in them their God-given dignity”.
He added: “She made her voice heard before the
powers of the world, so that they might
recognise their guilt for the crimes of poverty
they themselves created.” He then repeated: “The
crimes of poverty they themselves created.”
For the newly-sainted Teresa, he said, “mercy
was the salt which gave flavor 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.”
She was an example to volunteers around the
world, he said. “May she be your model of
holiness.”
In a departure from his scripted remarks, he
noted that people “may struggle” to refer to her
as “Saint Teresa.” “With great spontaneity, I think
we will continue to call her Mother Teresa,” he
said.
A huge portrait of Mother Teresa, whom the
church credits with having performed two
miraculous cures of the sick, hung from St.
Peter’s Basilica during the colorful ceremony.
The canonization came 19 years after her death