Pope Francis canonizes Mother Teresa, India's 'saint of the gutters'

Indian Nuns from the Catholic Order of the Missionaries of Charity watch the live telecast of the canonisation of Mother Teresa from Rome, at the Mother House in Kolkata on September 4, 2016.

(Image credit: Dibyangshu Sarkar/Getty Images)

published 4 September 2016

Mother Teresa of Calcutta, the "saint of the gutters" who spent years working among India's most destitute, was formally canonized as a saint of the Catholic Church on Sunday in a ceremony led by Pope Francis in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican. The service was attended by an estimated 120,000 people and included a pizza lunch for 1,500 homeless people in Teresa's name.

"For Mother Teresa, mercy was the salt which gave flavor to her work, it was the light which shone in the darkness of the many who no longer had tears to shed for their poverty and suffering," Francis said, describing the new saint as a "dispenser of divine mercy" who held the powerful accountable "for the crimes of poverty they created."

Though Teresa's legacy has come under criticism in the years since her death, most notably from atheist writer Christopher Hitchens, she is widely viewed as an inspirational model of self-sacrificial service. "Her heart, she gave it to the world," said Charlotte Samba, who traveled to the mass from Gabon, on Africa's Atlantic coast. "Mercy, forgiveness, good works: It is the heart of a mother for the poor."

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.

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