Mother Teresa
Mary Teresa Bojaxhiu MC (born Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu, Albanian: [aˈɲɛzə ˈɡɔndʒɛ bɔjaˈdʒi.u]; 26 August 1910 – 5 September 1997), better known as Mother Teresa,[a] was an Albanian-Indian Catholic nun and the founder of the Missionaries of Charity. Born in Skopje, then part of the Ottoman Empire,[b] at the age of 18 she moved to Ireland and later to India, where she lived most of her life. On 4 September 2016, she was canonised by the Catholic Church as Saint Teresa of Calcutta. The anniversary of her death, 5 September, is her feast day.
This article is about the Catholic nun and saint. For other uses, see Mother Teresa (disambiguation).
Teresa of Calcutta
Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu
26 August 1910
Üsküp, Kosovo Vilayet, Ottoman Empire
5 September 1997 (aged 87)
Calcutta, West Bengal, India
19 October 2003, Saint Peter's Square, Vatican City by Pope John Paul II
4 September 2016, Saint Peter's Square, Vatican City by Pope Francis
Mother House of the Missionaries of Charity, Calcutta, West Bengal, India
5 September[1]
- Ottoman subject (1910–1912)
- Serbian subject (1912–1915)
- Bulgarian subject (1915–1918)
- Yugoslavian subject (1918–1943)
- Yugoslavian citizen (1943–1948)
- Indian subject (1948–1950)
- Indian citizen[4] (1950–1997)
- Albanian citizen[5] (1991–1997)
- Honorary American citizenship (awarded 1996)
- Sisters of Loreto (1928–1948)
- Missionaries of Charity (1950–1997)
1950–1997
Sr. Nirmala Joshi, MC
Mother Teresa founded Missionaries of Charity, a religious congregation, which grew to have over 4,500 nuns across 133 countries as of 2012.[6] The congregation manages homes for people who are dying of HIV/AIDS, leprosy, and tuberculosis. The congregation also runs soup kitchens, dispensaries, mobile clinics, children's and family counselling programmes, as well as orphanages and schools. Members take vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience and also profess a fourth vow: to give "wholehearted free service to the poorest of the poor."[7]
Mother Teresa received several honours, including the 1962 Ramon Magsaysay Peace Prize and the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize. A controversial figure during her life and after her death, Mother Teresa was admired by many for her charitable work, but was criticised for her views on abortion and contraception, as well as the poor conditions in her houses for the dying. Her authorised biography, written by Navin Chawla, was published in 1992, and she has been the subject of many other works. On 6 September 2017, Mother Teresa and Saint Francis Xavier were named co-patrons of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Calcutta.
Recognition and reception
India
From the Indian government, under the name of Mary Teresa Bojaxhiu, Mother Teresa was issued a diplomatic passport.[81] She received the Padma Shri in 1962 and the Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International Understanding in 1969.[82] She later received other Indian awards, including the Bharat Ratna (India's highest civilian award) in 1980.[83] Mother Teresa's official biography, by Navin Chawla, was published in 1992.[84] In Calcutta, she is worshipped as a deity by some Hindus.[85]
To commemorate the 100th anniversary of her birth, the government of India issued a special ₹5 coin (the amount of money Mother Teresa had when she arrived in India) on 28 August 2010. President Pratibha Patil said, "Clad in a white sari with a blue border, she and the sisters of Missionaries of Charity became a symbol of hope to many—namely, the aged, the destitute, the unemployed, the diseased, the terminally ill, and those abandoned by their families."[86]
Indian views of Mother Teresa are not uniformly favourable. Aroup Chatterjee, a physician born and raised in Calcutta who was an activist in the city's slums for years around 1980 before moving to the UK, said that he "never even saw any nuns in those slums".[87] His research, involving more than 100 interviews with volunteers, nuns and others familiar with the Missionaries of Charity, was described in a 2003 book critical of Mother Teresa.[87] Chatterjee criticized her for promoting a "cult of suffering" and a distorted, negative image of Calcutta, exaggerating work done by her mission and misusing funds and privileges at her disposal.[87][88] According to him, some of the hygiene problems he had criticized (such as the reuse of needles) improved after Mother Teresa's death in 1997.[87]
Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya, mayor of Calcutta from 2005 to 2010, said that "she had no significant impact on the poor of this city", glorified illness instead of treating it and misrepresented the city: "No doubt there was poverty in Calcutta, but it was never a city of lepers and beggars, as Mother Teresa presented it."[89] On the Hindu right, the Bharatiya Janata Party clashed with Mother Teresa over the Christian Dalits but praised her in death and sent a representative to her funeral.[90] Vishwa Hindu Parishad, however, opposed the government decision to grant her a state funeral. Secretary Giriraj Kishore said that "her first duty was to the Church and social service was incidental", accusing her of favouring Christians and conducting "secret baptisms" of the dying.[91][92] In a front-page tribute, the Indian fortnightly Frontline dismissed the charges as "patently false" and said that they had "made no impact on the public perception of her work, especially in Calcutta". Praising her "selfless caring", energy and bravery, the author of the tribute criticised Teresa's public campaign against abortion and her claim to be non-political.[93]
In February 2015 Mohan Bhagwat, leader of the Hindu right-wing organisation Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, said that Mother Teresa's objective was "to convert the person, who was being served, into a Christian".[94] Former RSS spokesperson M. G. Vaidhya supported Bhagwat's assessment, and the organisation accused the media of "distorting facts about Bhagwat's remarks". Trinamool Congress MP Derek O'Brien, CPI leader Atul Anjan and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal protested Bhagwat's statement.[95] In 1991[96] the country's first modern University, Senate of Serampore College (University) awarded a honorary doctorate during registrarship of D. S. Satyaranjan.
Canonization
Miracle and beatification
After Mother Teresa's death in 1997, the Holy See began the process of beatification (the second of three steps towards canonization) and Brian Kolodiejchuk was appointed postulator by the Diocese of Calcutta. Although he said, "We didn't have to prove that she was perfect or never made a mistake", he had to prove that Mother Teresa's virtue was heroic. Kolodiejchuk submitted 76 documents, totalling 35,000 pages, which were based on interviews with 113 witnesses who were asked to answer 263 questions.[152]
Co-Patron of Calcutta Archdiocese
On 4 September 2017, during a celebration honouring the 1st anniversary of her canonisation, Sister Mary Prema Pierick, Superior-General of the Missionaries of Charity, announced that Mother Teresa would be made the co-patron of the Calcutta Archdiocese during a Mass in the Cathedral of the Most Holy Rosary on 6 September 2017.[165] On 5 September 2017, Archbishop Thomas D'Souza, who serves as head of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Calcutta, confirmed that Mother Teresa would be named co-patron of the Calcutta Diocese, alongside Francis Xavier.[166][167] On 6 September 2017, about 500 people attended the Mass at a cathedral where Dominique Gomes, the local Vicar General,[168] read the decree instituting her as the second patron saint of the archdiocese.[169] The ceremony was also presided over by D'Souza and the Vatican's ambassador to India, Giambattista Diquattro, who lead the Mass and inaugurated a bronze statue in the church of Mother Teresa carrying a child.[169]
The Catholic Church declared St. Francis Xavier the first patron saint of Calcutta in 1986.[169]