Mother Teresa

Life

She was born in 1910 in Skopje, then part of the Ottoman Empire, the youngest child of an ethnic Albanian Catholic family. In 1928 she entered the Sisters of Loreto in Ireland, and the following year she went to India, where she taught at the congregation's St. Mary's School in Kolkata (formerly Calcutta). In 1937 she made her final vows (a lifelong commitment to religious life). She is said to have taken the name "Teresa" out of a desire to follow the example of the French saint Thérèse of Lisieux.

In 1946, while traveling by train to a retreat (a period set apart from ordinary life for prayer and meditation), she reportedly received a call to serve the poor. In 1948 she left the convent, put on a white sari (the traditional garment of Indian women) with a blue border, and, after completing basic nursing training, went into the slums. Around this time she acquired Indian citizenship, and she lived as an Indian for the rest of her life. She died of heart disease in Kolkata in 1997.

Ministry and Achievements

A community took shape as her former students came to help her, and on October 7, 1950, the Missionaries of Charity received official approval. The congregation began with twelve members and a "Home for the Dying," which took in people dying on the streets so that they would not die alone; it later expanded its work to orphanages, schools for the poor, clinics, and facilities for people with leprosy. By the time of her death, it reportedly operated 610 facilities in 123 countries. The congregation upholds the ideal of serving Christ present among the poor, a spirit often explained with reference to the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats (Matthew 25:31–46).

She received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 and the Bharat Ratna, India's highest civilian honor, in 1980. The Catholic Church declared her a saint (canonization) on September 4, 2016. In Korean Catholic usage, her name is rendered "Deresa."

Influence on the Korean Church

She visited South Korea three times during her lifetime. On her first visit, on May 3, 1981, she gave a lecture at Sogang University and visited Gamani-chon, a shantytown in Sadang-dong, Seoul. In April 1982 she stayed for about eighteen hours to visit the congregation's houses in Korea, and in January 1985 she visited Panmunjom. The Missionaries of Charity Brothers came to Korea in 1977, and the sisters followed in 1981 at the request of Cardinal Stephen Kim Sou-hwan.

Although she was a Catholic religious, her life has frequently been cited across denominational lines as a symbol of charity to the poor and service. However, because Protestants do not accept the Catholic practice of canonization or the veneration of saints, they do not call her "Saint Teresa."

Assessment

Called "the Mother of the Poor," she was widely respected as an advocate for the poor. At the same time, critics such as the British journalist Christopher Hitchens reportedly raised objections. They questioned the standard of medical care at the Home for the Dying, the transparency of how donations were used, and support received from controversial figures; her opposition to abortion and contraception also became a subject of debate. Her defenders counter that these facilities were not hospitals intended for treatment but places to care for the abandoned in their final days.