World News 20-10-2003 Mother Teresa Beatified By Ailing Pope who: Mother Teresa what: Beatified by Pope John Paul II where: Rome, Italy when: Yesterday snippet: "His speech was slurred to the point of incoherence," writes Phil Reeves in The Independent from St Peter`s Square in Rome where 300,000 people gathered to witness the beatification of Mother Teresa. "Age and illness had cruelly robbed him of the ability to deliver his homily, but Pope John Paul II somehow mustered the strength to utter the one word that, on a sunny autumn Roman day, more than a quarter of a million people had been drawn to St Peter`s Square to hear." "Pilgrims in wheelchairs lined the walkways while thousands of poor and homeless people took privileged front row seats alongside heads of state and religious leaders for the two-and-a-half-hour open air ceremony," says The Scotsman. "Beatification, which requires evidence of a miracle, is the final step before sainthood," explains Richard Owen in The Times. "Although the process normally begins five years after death, this was reduced by the Pope to two years in the case of Mother Teresa. It is an open secret in the Vatican that he would have preferred to make her a saint straight away." "Brothers and sisters, even in our days God inspires new models of sainthood," the Pope told the throng before his voice failed. "Some impose themselves for their radicalness, like that offered by Mother Teresa of Calcutta, whom today we add to the ranks of the blessed." [... more]

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