Pope recognizes second Mother Teresa miracle, sainthood expected

An Indian Catholic nun cleans a portrait of late Mother Teresa on her 103rd birth anniversary, at an orphanage at Agartala on August 26, 2013. AFP FILE PHOTO

VATICAN CITY, Holy See—Pope Francis has recognized a second medical miracle attributed to the late Mother Teresa, clearing the path for the beloved nun to be elevated to sainthood next year, Catholic newspaper Avvenire reported Thursday.

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Mother Teresa, celebrated for her work with the poor in the Indian city of Kolkata, is expected to be officially canonised in Rome on September 4 as part the pope’s Jubilee year of mercy, according to the newspaper’s Vatican expert Stefania Falasca.

The move comes after a panel of experts, convened three days ago by the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints, attributed a miraculous healing of a Brazilian man with multiple brain tumours to Mother Teresa, Avvenire reported.

Teresa, who was born to Albanian parents in what is now Skopje in Macedonia, was known across the world for her charity work. She died in 1997 at the age of 87.

Nicknamed the “Saint of the Gutters,” she dedicated her life to the poor, the sick and the dying in the slums of Kolkata, one of India’s biggest cities. She won a Nobel Peace Prize in 1979.

She was beatified by then pope John Paul II in a fast-tracked process in 2003, in a ceremony attended by some 300,000 pilgrims. Beatification is a first step towards sainthood.

In 2002, the Vatican officially recognized a miracle she was said to have carried out after her death, namely the 1998 healing of a Bengali tribal woman, Monika Besra, who was suffering from an abdominal tumour.

The traditional canonization procedure requires at least two miracles.

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Her canonization is again expected to draw large crowds to Rome for what will likely be one of the highlights of the special Jubilee year.