Mother's journey to sainthood will be swift

For the Angel of Hope, the journey to sainthood will be as swift as the Vatican can possibly make it.

"Her life was so resplendent before the eyes of all that I don't think it will be too long a process,'' said Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the Vatican's authority on doctrine.

"Mother Teresa is a heroine of our times," added the Vatican's Secretary of State Cardinal Angelo Sodano, "that beatification could come in a brief time.''

Sodano recalled that Pope John Paul II used to call the modest nun an example for all humanity. "The Pope loved this great woman very much, this mother of the poor and heroine of our times,'' he said.

Since last Friday, the Vatican has been flooded with requests to make an exception for Mother and waive the five-year waiting period before the process for canonisation can begin. Most of the requests have come from the general public, but some bishops are also reported to have requested it.

The Pope has the authority to do it, but the Vatican officials said there are no precedents for this. Following Pope John XXXIII's death in 1963, a group of bishops had called on his successor, Pope Paul VI, for the same reason. But the Pope had rejected the proposal.

The second Vatican council had called for sweeping modernising reforms in the Roman Catholic church. The case for beatification, the last step before possible sainthood, is under study.

UNI