The Vatican has insisted that Mother Teresa’s path to sainthood will not be affected by a deep crisis of faith that she appears to have undergone for the last four decades of her life.“Mother Teresa has already been beatified,” said Monsignor Robert Sarno, who is in charge of her case at the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.
“For her canonisation as a saint, she now requires one more verified miracle.”
Mgr Sarno said it was “not surprising” that Mother Teresa had, at times, turned away from God.
“It would be surprising if she hadn’t,” he said. “It’s really very simple. People have to realise that the Church does not canonise God. She was a human being, not a cartoon super hero like Batman or Superman, and she faced reality. Even the saints are faced with the difficulties of life.”
He drew attention to the struggles undergone by the apostles in the New Testament.
“They had their problems. They abandoned the Lord and then they rose above that and continued in their faith,” he said.
The Vatican has over 35,000 pages of documents attesting to the virtues and shortcomings of Mother Teresa.
Mgr Sarno had to close the investigation because of the enormous amount of evidence that poured from Mother Teresa’s supporters.
Over 100 witnesses, far more than in any other case for sainthood, have testified in the process.
According to some of the letters within her file, Mother Teresa began to struggle with her belief in God at roughly the same time as she started caring for the poor and sick in Calcutta in 1949.
The Catholic Association of Bengal, the largest lay organisation in Calcutta, has mounted a constant prayer for the last two weeks to push her cause forward at Rome.
The organisation has nominated 2007 as "the year of Mother Teresa's Sainthood", since Sept 5 will mark the 10th anniversary of her death.
Euguen Gonsalves, the president of the association said it was "clear that she lived a saint's life and there are no doubts for many in the world that she is already a saint".
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