Mother Teresa
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to navigationJump to search This article is about Mother Teresa of Calcutta, Catholic nun and saint. For other uses, see Mother Teresa (disambiguation).
| Saint Teresa of Calcutta Mother Teresa MC | |
|---|---|
| Consecrated religious, nun | |
| Born | Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu 26 August 1910 Üsküp, Kosovo Vilayet, Ottoman Empire (present-day Skopje, Republic of Macedonia) |
| Died | 5 September 1997 (aged 87) Calcutta, West Bengal, India (present-day Kolkata) |
| Venerated in | Roman Catholic Church |
| Beatified | 19 October 2003, Saint Peter’s Square, Vatican City by Pope John Paul II |
| Canonized | 4 September 2016, Saint Peter’s Square, Vatican City by Pope Francis |
| Major shrine | Mother House of the Missionaries of Charity, Kolkata, West Bengal, India |
| Feast | 5 September[1] |
| Attributes | Nun’s habitRosary |
| Patronage | World Youth DayMissionaries of CharityArchdiocese of Calcutta (co-patron) [2][3] |
| Mother Teresa | |
|---|---|
| Title | Superior general |
| Personal | |
| Religion | Roman Catholicism |
| Nationality | 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) United States, honorary citizenship (awarded 1996) |
| Signature | |
| Institute | Sisters of Loreto (1928–1948) Missionaries of Charity (1950–1997) |
| Senior posting | |
| Period in office | 1950–1997 |
| Successor | Sr. Nirmala Joshi, MC |
Mother Teresa, known in the Roman Catholic Church as Saint Teresa of Calcutta[6] (born Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu, Albanian: [aˈɲɛzə ˈɡɔndʒɛ bɔjaˈdʒiu]; 26 August 1910 – 5 September 1997), was an Albanian–Indian[4] Roman Catholic nun and missionary.[7] She was born in Skopje (now the capital of Macedonia), then part of the Kosovo Vilayet of the Ottoman Empire. After living in Macedonia for eighteen years she moved to Ireland and then to India, where she lived for most of her life.
In 1950 Teresa founded the Missionaries of Charity, a Roman Catholic religious congregation which had over 4,500 sisters and was active in 133 countries in 2012. The congregation manages homes for people dying of HIV/AIDS, leprosy and tuberculosis; soup kitchens; dispensaries and mobile clinics; children’s- and family-counselling programmes; orphanages, and schools. Members, who take vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience, also profess a fourth vow: to give “wholehearted free service to the poorest of the poor.”[8]
Teresa received a number of honours, including the 1962 Ramon Magsaysay Peace Prize and 1979 Nobel Peace Prize. She was canonised (recognised by the church as a saint) on 4 September 2016, and the anniversary of her death (5 September) is her feast day.
A controversial figure during her life and after her death, Teresa was admired by many for her charitable work. She was praised and criticised for her opposition to abortion, and criticised for poor conditions in her houses for the dying. Her authorised biography was written by Navin Chawla and published in 1992, and she has been the subject of films and other books. On September 6, 2017, Teresa was named co-patron of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Calcutta, alongside St. Francis Xavier.