Pope decries ‘sin of indifference’ as Mother Teresa is canonised

POPE Francis warned yesterday against the “modern sin” of indifference to suffering as he hailed the example of Mother Teresa to thousands of lay volunteers in St Peter’s Square on the eve of the nun’s long-awaited ascension to sainthood.

“Tomorrow, we’ll have the joy of seeing Mother Teresa proclaimed a saint,” Pope Francis told the sea of cheering supporters gathered beneath a portrait of Mother Teresa, her head graced by a on the eve of the ceremony to urge others to follow suit, decrying those who “turn the other way not to see the many forms of poverty that begs out for mercy.” Choosing “to not see hunger, disease, exploited persons, this is a grave sin. It’s also a modern sin, a sin of today,” he said.

Among those in the square for the prayer vigil were nuns from Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity order as well as volunteers who helped rescue survivors of the recent deadly earthquake in central Italy, whom the pope hailed as “artisans of mercy”.

While no major events are planned in Calcutta, reflecting a heated debate over religious intolerance in Hindumajority India, prayers will be held by the city’s small Christian community. Celebrations are also planned in Albania and Macedonia, Teresa’s birthplace.

Few figures were as revered as Mother Teresa, who became a worldwide symbol of Christian charity and selflessness. Her canonisation is one of the swiftest in the history of the Roman Catholic Church, which has more than 10,000 saints, many of whom were not elevated until centuries after their deaths.

Pope Francis decreed last year that she would be given a sainthood, after attributing to her the “miraculous” cure of a Brazilian man who was suffering from a viral brain infection that had left him in a coma. Nuns from the Missionaries of Charity, founded by Mother Teresa in Calcutta in 1950, arrive in St Peter’s Square yesterday, wearing their traditional white saris with blue borders