Teresa of Calcutta canonized

2016NotableContested

Francis canonizes Mother Teresa on 4 September 2016. The Church credited her with healing Monica Besra's abdominal mass in 1998 and a Brazilian man's brain abscesses in 2008; doctors disputed the first.

Longest chain: The Big Bang → First stars ignite → Supernovae seed heavy elements → The Sun forms → Earth forms → First oceans → First life → Photosynthesis evolves → Great Oxidation Event → Complex cells (eukaryotes) → Multicellular life → First animals → Cambrian Explosion → First vertebrates → Jawed fish → Fish walk onto land → The amniotic egg → The Great Dying → Dinosaurs appear → Asteroid ends the dinosaurs → Early primates → Apes split from monkeys → Human line splits from chimpanzees → Walking upright → First stone tools → Genus Homo appears → Homo erectus → Control of fire → Habitual fire and cooking → Homo sapiens appears → Complex language → Natufian villages → Oldest known bread → Agriculture begins → Irrigation → Uruk and the first cities → Cylinder seals → Writing (cuneiform) → Babylonian mathematics → Babylonian astronomical diaries → Thales and natural philosophy → Trial and death of Socrates → Plato's Academy → Aristotle's Lyceum → Alexander's conquests → Death of Alexander and the Hellenistic kingdoms → Seleucid Empire founded → Parthian Empire founded → Sasanian Empire → Birth of Muhammad → Muhammad's first revelations → The Hijra → Conquest of Mecca → Death of Muhammad and the Rashidun caliphate → Arab conquests → Abbasid Caliphate → Battle of Talas → Paper reaches the Islamic world → House of Wisdom → Al-Khwarizmi and algebra → Fibonacci's Liber Abaci → Bills of exchange → Medici Bank → Double-entry bookkeeping → Muscovy Company → English East India Company → Seven Years' War → Stamp Act → Boston Tea Party → American Revolution → Declaration of Independence → Articles of Confederation ratified → Shays' Rebellion → U.S. Constitution → Louisiana Purchase → Austin's colony in Mexican Texas → Texas Revolution → United States annexes Texas → Mexican-American War → Compromise of 1850 → Kansas-Nebraska Act → Lincoln elected president → Fort Sumter → U.S. Civil War → National Banking Act → Federal Reserve → Great Depression → Nazis take power → Munich Agreement → Nazi-Soviet Pact → Invasion of Poland → World War II → Independence and partition of India → Missionaries of Charity founded → Teresa of Calcutta canonized

Contested history

Consensus: The Church credited Mother Teresa's intercession with two cures, and the first, Monica Besra's in 1998, has been disputed by doctors who treated her.

Monica Besra's cure was beyond medical explanationDebated

The Vatican's medical board and Bishop Salvatore Lobo said her abdominal tumor vanished after prayer to Mother Teresa.

Besra recovered through medical treatmentDebated

Doctors at the Balurghat hospital, such as Ranjan Mustafi, said she had a cyst or tubercular mass that responded to months of drug treatment.

The Brazilian cure of 2008 was beyond medical explanationDebated

The Vatican's medical board found no natural explanation for Marcilio Haddad Andrino's recovery from brain abscesses; independent reviews are not published.

Community notes

Loading notes…

Learn more ranked by votes

Documentvatican.va

Homily for the canonization of Mother Teresa (Vatican, 2016) ↗

Editor's pick

BookBrian Kolodiejchuk (ed.)

Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light ↗

Editor's pick

BookChristopher Hitchens

The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice ↗

Editor's pick

VideoSearch on YouTube

Mother Teresa canonization miracles ↗

Editor's pick