Pope Francis will hold and preside over an ordinary public consistory of cardinals in the Vatican March 15, during which he will sign the decree for canonizing Blessed Mother Teresa of Kolkata and four others. Canonization is the act within the Orthodox, Oriental Orthodoxy, Roman Catholic or Anglican Church of being recognized after death as a someone who lived a virtuous life as God's servant and who was involved with perceived miracles.
The dates and venue of the new group's sainthood ceremony are expected to be declared at the March 15 consistory; it's widely believed Blessed Teresa's canonization will take place Sept. 4.
Pope Francis had officially cleared Blessed Mother Teresa for sainthood on Dec. 17, 2015, recognizing the miraculous healing through her intercession of a Brazilian man with multiple brain abscesses. The miracle healed a now 42-year-old mechanical engineer in Santos, Brazil, who was in a coma after being diagnosed with a viral brain infection that resulted in multiple brain abscesses.
Mother Teresa was conferred the title "Blessed" in Rome, Italy, on October 19, 2003, after Pope St. John Paul II recognized the miraculous healing of an Indian woman with a tumor in her abdomen.
Born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu of Albanian parents on August 26, 1910, in Skopje, in what is Macedonia today, Mother Teresa died in Kolkata, formerly Calcutta, on September 5, 1997. Affectionately known as the "saint of the gutter" for her unconditional love for the poor, abandoned and the marginalized, she earned several international honors, including the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979.
The March 15 consistory also will determine the approval of canonization of Argentine "gaucho priest," Blessed Jose Gabriel del Rosario Brochero and Blessed Jose Sanchez del Rio, a 14-year-old Mexican boy martyred for refusing to renounce his faith during the Cristero War of the 1920s, the Vatican stated March 7.
The meeting of cardinals and promoters of the sainthood causes, also known as an "ordinary public consistory," formally ends the process of approving a new saint.
Sept 4 is the date when the Jubilee of Workers and Volunteers of Mercy is celebrated, and comes the day before the 19th anniversary of Mother Teresa's death, Sept. 5, 1997.
The pope also will announce the canonization dates of Blessed Stanislaus Papczynski of Poland, founder of the Marians of the Immaculate Conception, and Blessed Mary Elizabeth Hesselblad, a Swedish Lutheran convert who established a branch of the Bridgettine order in Sweden.
