Blister pack BU

Mutter Teresa was born in 1910 as Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu in Skopje, in what is now North Macedonia (Nordmazedonien), into a Catholic Albanian family. At the age of 18, she joined the Irish Loreto Order. The order sent her to India, where she initially worked as a teacher and later as headmistress at a Catholic girls’ school in Calcutta (Kalkutta).

According to her own account, in 1946 she experienced a religious calling to leave the convent and work among the city’s poorest inhabitants. She took Indian citizenship and founded the religious order Missionaries of Charity (Missionarinnen der Nächstenliebe) in 1950. Its members cared, among others, for homeless people, orphans, the sick and the dying. The initially local community developed into an internationally active Catholic order with facilities in numerous countries.

Mutter Teresa received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 for her humanitarian work. At the same time, her work was not free from criticism. The medical and hygienic conditions in some facilities, her handling of donations, and her opposition to abortion and contraception were among the issues criticized. Her public perception was therefore shaped both by her personal dedication to people in need and by her consistent advocacy of Catholic moral teaching.

Pope John Paul II (Papst Johannes Paul II.) beatified her in 2003. Pope Francis canonized her in 2016; within the Catholic Church, she has since been venerated as Saint Teresa of Calcutta (heilige Teresa von Kalkutta). The prerequisite for this was the Church’s recognition of two healings as miracles achieved through her intercession.

The choice by Vatican City (Staat Vatikanstadt) is explained primarily by this ecclesiastical veneration. In the Catholic understanding, Mutter Teresa represents active charity and care for the poor, the sick and those marginalized by society. The occasion for the issue thus also connects with themes that play a central role in the social teaching and charitable work of the Catholic Church.