VATICAN CITY, March 15, 2016 (UPI) — A ceremony elevating Mother Teresa to sainthood is scheduled for Sept. 4, the Vatican announced Tuesday.
A celebrated and visible symbol of Christian charity until her death in 1997, Mother Teresa moved from present-day Macedonia to India in 1929 and founded the Missionaries of Charity in 1950. There, she ministered to the sick and dying in some of the poorest areas of the country.
After her death, Pope John Paul II waived the usual five-year waiting period and began the long process of research and investigation leading to canonization.
Mother Teresa is one of five Catholics who will be named as saints in 2016. In the announcement Tuesday, Pope Francis said that two founders of religious orders would also be elevated to sainthood in ceremonies on June 5: Stanislaus Papczynski, 17th century Polish founder of the Marian Fathers of the Immaculate Conception and Mary Elizabeth Hesselblad of Sweden, who re-founded the Brigettine order in Sweden after she converted to Catholicism while living in the United States.
Argentinian “gaucho priest” Jose Brochero, who gained fame for charitable work during a cholera epidemic in the 1860s and 1870s, and Jose Sanchez del Rio, who was martyred in 1928 for refusal to renounce his faith during Mexico’s anti-Catholic Cristero War, will be elevated to sainthood on Oct. 16.
