Pope Francis: Mother Teresa would have scared me

Pope Francis talks with reporters on the airplane on his way back to Rome , Sunday, Sept. 21, 2014. AP

ROME — Pope Francis joked during a visit to Albania that Mother Teresa would have struck fear into him if she had been his mother superior, the Vatican spokesman said Monday.

“She spoke her mind,” Francis told the Albanian priest acting as his interpreter during the visit on Sunday, according to papal spokesman Federico Lombardi.

The pope met the late nun, an ethnic Albanian from Macedonia, in Rome in 1994 when he was mere Bishop Jorge Mario Bergoglio.

Lombardi said the pope recalled admiring “the strength and the decisive character of her involvement.”

“I would have been scared if she had been my mother superior,” he told the priest.

Forever associated with her work in the slums of Kolkata, Mother Teresa has given her name to airports, hospitals, schools and roads in Albania.

She died in 1997, and was beatified in 2003.

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