NEW DELHI: Despite the embarrassment she caused the Congress leadership in her tell-all book, senior leader Margaret Alva along with Louzinho Faleiro has been deputed to represent the party at the Vatican ceremony on September 4, in which Pope Francis will grant sainthood to Mother Teresa of Kolkata.
Regretting her inability to attend the ceremony owing to her ill health, Congress president Sonia Gandhi, in a letter, thanked the Pope for granting recognition to Mother Teresa’s work. This is perhaps the first time the Congress president has come out to endorse a Catholic ceremony, if only to acknowledge the work of Mother’s Missionaries of Charities. “It’s a homage to the woman who was the very embodiment of boundless compassion, mercy and grace,” Sonia’s letter stated. Also in a rare acknowledgement of her faith, Sonia said in the letter: “Every citizen of India, including our nearly 20 million Catholics, takes immense pride and joy on the recognition of Your Holiness and the Catholic Church of Mother Teresa’s profound nobility of soul, purity of purpose, and service to God through service to humanity.”