Two ministers from Kerala attending Mother Teresa’s canonization

The government of southern India’s Kerala state has said it is sending two ministers to Rome for the ‎Sept. 4 canonization of Mother Teresa of Kolkata, formerly Calcutta, PTI reported.  Chief Minister ‎Pinarayi Vijayan, who heads the Kerala’s CPI (Marxist)-led Left Democratic Front government  said in ‎Thiruvananthapuram on Wednesday that state Finance Minister T.M. Thomas Isaac and Water ‎Resources Minister Mathew T. Thomas would represent the state government at the sainthood ‎ceremony of the Albanian-born nun who became an Indian citizen.  Vijayan told a press briefing the ‎government was sending the delegation on the request of the head of the Syro-Malankara Catholic ‎Church, Major Archbishop Cardinal Mar Baselios Cleemis of Trivandrum. ‎

Pope Francis announced in March that Mother Teresa would be declared a saint at a ‎canonization ‎or ‎sainthood ceremony on September 4, the eve of her 19th death anniversary.  ‎Born ‎Agnes Gonxha ‎Bojaxhiu‎ of ‎Albanian parents on ‎August 26, 1910, in Skopje, in ‎what ‎is ‎Macedonia ‎today, Mother ‎Teresa died in ‎Kolkata, on September ‎‎5, ‎‎1997.  ‎Affectionately known as the "saint of ‎the gutter" for ‎her ‎unconditional ‎love ‎for the poor, ‎abandoned and the marginalized, the naturalized ‎Indian earned ‎numerous national and international ‎honours. ‎She was beatified by St. Pope John Paul II ‎in 2003.‎