Mother Teresa
Blessed Teresa of Calcutta was a Roman Catholic Religious Sister and missionary of Albanian origin who lived most of her life in India. She was born on 26 August 1910 in the Ottoman Empire and died on 5 September 1997 in Calcutta at the age of 87. Mother Teresa founded the Missionaries of Charity, a Roman Catholic religious congregation, which currently consists of over 4,500 sisters and is active in over 133 countries. They run hospices and homes for people with HIV/AIDS, leprosy and tuberculosis; soup kitchens dispensaries and mobile clinics, children's and family counselling programmes, orphanages, and schools.
Members of the order must adhere to the vows of chastity, poverty and obedience, and the fourth vow, to give "wholehearted free service to the poorest of the poor". Mother Teresa was the recipient of numerous honours including the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize as well as being beatified as "Blessed Teresa of Calcutta" in 2003. A controversial figure both during her life and after her death, Mother Teresa was widely admired by many for her charitable works, but also widely criticised, particularly for her efforts opposing contraception and for substandard conditions in the hospices for which she was responsible. |