held a state funeral for Mother Teresa. On September 13, her body was
carried through the streets of Calcutta on the same gun carriage used to
transport two of India’s greatest leaders and heroes: Mahatma Gandhi and
Jawaharlal Nehru. Thousands of mourners lined the streets as the carriage
traveled to the Calcutta sports stadium where a state funeral mass was
held; numerous dignitaries were in attendance to pay their respects. Af-
terwards, in a private ceremony, with soldiers firing their guns in a last
tribute, Mother Teresa was laid to rest beneath a plain stone slab on the
grounds of the Motherhouse located at A.J.C. Bose Road. Here, she is not
far from the people she served and helped.
THE MAKING OF A SAINT
Six years after her death, Mother Teresa was back in the news. In 2003,
it was announced that John Paul II, to help commemorate his 25th an-
niversary of his election to the papacy, would beatify Mother Teresa on
October 19. The event marks the final step before canonization, or official
sainthood. It was a remarkable process in that no one has ever been beat-
ified in so short a time as Mother Teresa. Yet, Vatican officials worked rig-
orously to treat her case as they would any other.
Even before her death, some officials in the Vatican thought she ought
to be canonized without the usual investigation. Pope John Paul II even
waived the usual five-year waiting period to see whether a candidate’s
reputation for holiness is justified. For Father Brian Kolodiejchuk, the
task ahead was even more daunting; he was charged with coordinating
the team that eventually put together 67 volumes arguing that Mother
Teresa met all the requirements for sainthood. In addition, the church
lawyers held 14 tribunals all over the world to hear testimony from peo-
ple who knew Mother Teresa well. Nearly all were friendly witnesses who
had to answer 263 questions that were used as evidence that Mother
Teresa had manifested the virtues required of a Roman Catholic saint:
faith, hope, and charity, as well as humility, prudence, justice, fortitude,
and temperance to an extraordinary degree. Mother Teresa also had her
critics: three non-Catholics testified against her, among them Christo-
pher Hitchens.
In the end, Father Kolodiejchuk’s team concluded that Mother Teresa’s
willingness to work with those who were morally and financially corrupt
was in keeping with her own philosophy: using ill-gotten money to do
good for the poor and also provide spiritual benefits for the donors. As to
her failure to take a more aggressive stance against institutionalized injus-
tice, the team sided with Mother Teresa. They argued that her mission
“THE MOST OBEDIENT WOMAN IN THE CHURCH” 137