Father Brian Kolodiejchuk, MC is a Canadian Catholic priest who served as the advocate for Mother Teresa of Calcutta in the cause for her canonization, [1] and director of the Mother Teresa Center. [2]
He edited and wrote the commentary for the book Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light, published by Doubleday, on September 4, 2007. [2]
Father Kolodiejchuk's 20-year association with Mother Teresa began in 1977 when he joined a new group of contemplative brothers she was then starting. He later joined the priestly branch of Mother Teresa's religious family, the Missionaries of Charity Fathers, at the time of their foundation in 1984. [3] He was ordained to the priesthood in June 1985 in the Ukrainian Catholic Church of St. John the Baptist in Newark, New Jersey, USA, by the late Metropolitan-Archbishop of Winnipeg, Maxim Hermaniuk, C.Ss.R. In March 1999 he served as Mother Teresa's advocate in advancing the cause of her beatification and canonization. He was appointed director of the Mother Teresa Center. [4]
Mychal Fallon Judge, OFM, was an American Franciscan friar and Catholic priest who served as a chaplain to the New York City Fire Department. While serving in that capacity he was killed, becoming the first certified fatality of the September 11 attacks.
Teresa of Ávila, OCD, also called Saint Teresa of Jesus, was a Carmelite nun and prominent Spanish mystic and religious reformer.
The advocatus diaboli is a former official position within the Catholic Church, the Promoter of the Faith: one who "argued against the canonization (sainthood) of a candidate in to uncover any character flaws or misrepresentation of the evidence favoring canonization".
Thérèse of Lisieux, also known as Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face, was a French Catholic Discalced Carmelite nun who is widely venerated in modern times. She is popularly known in English as the Little Flower of Jesus, or simply the Little Flower, and in French as la petite Thérèse.
The Missionaries of Charity is a Catholic centralised religious institute of consecrated life of Pontifical Right for women established in 1950 by Mother Teresa, now known in the Catholic Church as Saint Teresa of Calcutta. As of 2023, it consisted of 5,750 members religious sisters. Members of the order designate their affiliation using the order's initials, "M.C.". A member of the congregation must adhere to the vows of chastity, poverty, obedience, and the fourth vow, to give "wholehearted free service to the poorest of the poor." Today, the order consists of both contemplative and active branches in several countries.
Mary Teresa Bojaxhiu MC, better known as Mother Teresa, was an Albanian-Indian Catholic nun and the founder of the Missionaries of Charity. Born in Skopje, then part of the Ottoman Empire, at the age of 18 she moved to Ireland and later to India, where she lived most of her life. On 4 September 2016, she was canonised by the Catholic Church as Saint Teresa of Calcutta. The anniversary of her death, 5 September, is her feast day.
The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice is a book by the British-American journalist and polemicist Christopher Hitchens published in 1995. It is a critique of the work and philosophy of Mother Teresa, the founder of an international Roman Catholic religious congregation, and it challenges the mainstream media's assessment of her charitable efforts. The book's thesis, as summarized by one critic, was that "Mother Teresa is less interested in helping the poor than in using them as an indefatigable source of wretchedness on which to fuel the expansion of her fundamentalist Roman Catholic beliefs."
Hell's Angel is a television documentary programme criticising Mother Teresa which premiered in the UK on Channel 4's Without Walls arts strand on 8 November 1994. It was hosted by Christopher Hitchens, directed by Jenny Morgan, and produced by journalist Tariq Ali. Hitchens and Ali co-wrote the programme's script. Hitchens originally titled the documentary Sacred Cow, but the film's backers instead chose Hell's Angel as the title.
Aroup Chatterjee is a British Indian author and physician. He was born in Calcutta, and moved to the United Kingdom in 1985. He is the author of the book Mother Teresa: The Untold Story, a work which challenges the widespread regard of Mother Teresa as a symbol of philanthropy and selflessness.
Maria Teresa Goretti was an Italian virgin martyr of the Catholic Church, and one of the youngest saints to be canonized. She was born to a farming family. Her father died when she was nine, and the family had to share a house with another family, the Serenellis. She took over household duties while her mother and siblings worked in the fields.
Catholic nun and missionary Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu, commonly known as Mother Teresa and known as Saint Teresa of Calcutta since 2016, has a complicated public image. She has been widely admired by many for her charitable work, which lead to her being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize "for work undertaken in the struggle to overcome poverty and distress, which also constitutes a threat to peace". During her life she was highly celebrated, receiving multiple awards and honorary degrees, as well as consistently ranking as one of the world's most admired people. She is also venerated by many Catholics who consider her a saint and ask for her intercession.
Marianne Cope, OSF,, was a German-born American religious sister who was a member of the Sisters of St. Francis of Syracuse, New York, and founding leader of its St. Joseph's Hospital in the city, among the first of 50 general hospitals in the country. Known also for her charitable works, in 1883 she relocated with six other sisters to Hawaiʻi to care for persons suffering leprosy on the island of Molokaʻi and aid in developing the medical infrastructure in Hawaiʻi. Despite direct contact with the patients over many years, Cope did not contract the disease.
John Anthony Hardon, SJ was an American Jesuit priest, writer, teacher and theologian. A candidate for sainthood since 2005, he is recognized by the Catholic Church as a Servant of God.
Alphonsa of the Immaculate Conception, FCC ; 19 August 1910 – 28 July 1946), was a nun in the Franciscan Clarist Congregation and an educator by profession. She was also known for being a victim soul, visionary and prophetess in the Kottayam pergunna of the erstwhile Travancore province of British India, in the present-day Kerala, India.
St. Mother Teresa Catholic Academy ; also known as by its former names Blessed Mother Teresa Catholic Secondary School before 2016 and Mother Teresa Catholic Secondary School in its inception is a Catholic secondary school in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It serves the Malvern neighbourhood of Scarborough.
The Confraternity of Catholic Saints (CCS) was a Catholic organization of young people in the Philippines. Their dedication is to proclaim the gospel and to promote the Catholic view that holiness is very possible.
The early life of Karol Józef Wojtyła, the future Pope John Paul II, covers the period in his life from his birth in 1920 to his ordination to the priesthood in 1946.
Clelia Barbieri was an Italian Roman Catholic and the founder of the Little Sisters of the Mother of Sorrows. She is regarded as the youngest founder of a religious congregation in the history of the Catholic church, as she was just twenty-three when she died. Barbieri declined the married life in her adolescence – even when pressured – in favor of leading a life dedicated to the needs of others; she served as an educator for a while and joined a religious movement which made her a notable figure in her village.
The Apostolate for Family Consecration is a U.S. Roman Catholic lay movement headquartered in Bloomingdale, Ohio. Founded in 1975 by Jerry and Gwen Coniker.
The canonization process of Pope Pius XII dates to shortly after his death in 1958. He was declared a servant of God in 1990 and venerable in 2009. Father Peter Gumpel was the relator of Pius XII's cause for canonization. The potential beatification of Pius XII has raised concern, especially by Jewish organisations, because of his controversial record during the Holocaust. The objections especially arise because of the refusal by the Vatican to allow independent access to the Vatican's archives for the period of Pius XII's papacy.