MOTHER Teresa is to be made a saint this September, the Vatican has announced today.
The Macedonian nun will be canonised on September 4, with Pope Francis passing the final stage of the sainthood process that began with her beatification in 2003.
Her canonisation for sainthood was announced by the Pope in December – and today, His Holiness confirmed the date.
Mother Teresa's death at the age of 87 in 1997 was widely mourned – and 300,000 people attended her beatification service in Rome in 2003, the first step towards sainthood.
Renowned for her work in India, Mother Teresa spent most of her life working in the slums of Calcutta – now known as Kolkata.
Mother Teresa was born on August 26, 1910 in Skopje, Macedonia, where she grew up.
At the age of 18, she left her native country for Ireland, where she joined the Sisters of Loreto convent in Rathfarnham, Dublin, to learn English.
After spending a year in Ireland, Mother Teresa moved to India where she founded the Missionaries of Charity, a Roman Catholic congregation of religious sisters.
Her life was not without controversy – she believed that all suffering was a gift from God, which some of her critics condemned her for.
Her critics also accused her of being a Catholic fundamentalist who was more concerned with evangelism than helping the poor.
Despite this, she was widely loved by Catholics around the world, winning the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize for her work in the areas of poverty and distress.
It has yet to be announced whether the sainthood ceremony will take place in the Vatican or in India.
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