ROME (CNS): The promoter of Mother Teresa’s cause said that technically she could be beatified within a year.
‘If everything goes favourably, the beatification could be sooner rather than later,’ said Missionaries of Charity Father Brian Kolodiejchuk on May 21.
He said that in late April he gave the Vatican Congregation for Saints’ Causes a four-volume, 5000-page biography of Mother Teresa recounting her ‘life, virtue and reputation for holiness’.
The report, known as a ‘positio’, must be studied by nine theologians.
If, in their judgment, the report proves Mother Teresa lived a life of ‘heroic virtue’, the report is passed on to 12 cardinals and bishops who are members of the congregation.
If they agree with the theologians, a decree of recognition is published in the presence of the Pope.
In the meantime, Fr Kolodiejchuk and his collaborators are working on another report, detailing the unexplained healing of a non-Christian woman in India who had a huge abdominal tumour.
If the congregation’s board of physicians finds there is no natural explanation for the healing and if theologians studying the case for the Vatican recognise a connection between the nuns’ prayers and the healing, it may be the miracle needed for Mother Teresa’s beatification.
