Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption As the Pope declared Mother Teresa a saint, cheers rang out from the crowd of thousands in St Peter's Square

Mother Teresa, revered for her work with the poor in India, has been proclaimed a saint by Pope Francis in a ceremony at the Vatican.

Francis said St Teresa had defended the unborn, sick and abandoned, and had shamed world leaders for the "crimes of poverty they themselves created".

Tens of thousands of pilgrims attended the canonisation in St Peter's Square.

Two apparent cures of sick people after Mother Teresa's death in 1997 have been attributed to her intercession.

In India, a special Mass was celebrated at the Missionaries of Charity, the order she founded in Kolkata (Calcutta).

An hour with the Saint of the Slums

What happened to the critics?

How to become a saint

Image copyright Reuters Image caption Pope Francis led the canonisation ceremony

Cardinal Angelo Amato read a brief biography of Mother Teresa's work, then asked the Pope to canonise her in the name of the Church.

Pope Francis responded: "We declare and define Blessed Teresa of Calcutta to be a saint and we enrol her among the saints, decreeing that she is to be venerated as such by the whole Church."

The Pope said Mother Teresa had spent her life "bowing down before those who were spent, left to die on the side of the road, seeing in them their God-given dignity".

He added: "She made her voice heard before the powers of the world, so that they might recognise their guilt for the crimes of poverty they themselves created." He then repeated: "The crimes of poverty they themselves created."

Image copyright AP

Shining a light: Analysis by BBC's Caroline Wyatt

Despite the intense heat, the atmosphere among the pilgrims in St Peter's Square was one of joy, and the service a celebration of the life of this extraordinary woman.

Teresa was born an ethnic Albanian, and the Albanian flag was much in evidence, as was the distinctive white habit, trimmed with blue stripes, worn by the nuns of her order, the Missionaries of Charity.

In his homily of St Teresa's work, Pope Francis said she had shone a light in the darkness of the many who no longer had tears to shed for their poverty and suffering. It was clear that her life reflected the kind of Church that this Pope is trying to build: one that shows mercy to all and offers practical help for the poorest and for all those in need.

Although critics have sought to portray St Teresa as a sinner and a hypocrite, her supporters have been just as vocal in her defence, challenging those critics to live their lives the way St Teresa did, before they cast the first stone.

Hundreds of Missionaries of Charity sisters attended the event, along with 13 heads of state or government.

Some 1,500 homeless people across Italy were also brought to Rome in buses to be given seats of honour at the celebration - and then a pizza lunch served by 250 nuns and priests of the Sisters of Charity order.

Image copyright Reuters Image caption Tens of thousands attended in St Peter's Square

Image copyright AFP Image caption Nuns at the Mother House in Kolkata watch the ceremony

One pilgrim, Charlotte Samba from Gabon, told Associated Press: "Her heart, she gave it to the world. Mercy, forgiveness, good works. It is the heart of a mother for the poor."

Large TV screens were set up at Mother House in Kolkata for the Vatican ceremony.

Worldwide acclaim

Mother Teresa founded a sisterhood that runs 19 homes, and won the Nobel Peace Prize.

But she was not without her critics, as some people noted a lack of hygiene in the hospitals run by her sisterhood, and said she accepted money from dictators for her charity work.

Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Who was Mother Teresa?

She died in 1997 - aged 87 - and was beatified in 2003, the first step to sainthood.

In 2002, the Vatican ruled that an Indian woman's stomach tumour had been miraculously cured after prayers to Mother Teresa, despite the doubts of her husband.

Pope Francis cleared the way for sainthood last year when he recognised a second miracle attributed to her.

Her work complements Francis' vision of a Church that serves the underprivileged.

Her canonisation is a centrepiece of his Jubilee Year of Mercy.

Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption A woman who said she experienced Mother Teresa's first "miracle" describes what happened

Born in 1910 to ethnic Albanian parents, Agnese Gonxha Bojaxhiu grew up in what is now the Macedonian capital, Skopje, but was then part of the Ottoman Empire.

Aged 19, she joined the Irish order of Loreto and in 1929 was sent to India, where she taught at a school in Darjeeling under the name of Therese.

In 1946, she moved to Kolkata to help the destitute and, after a decade, set up a hospice and a home for abandoned children.

She founded the Missionaries of Charity in 1950. The sisterhood now has 4,500 nuns worldwide.

Image copyright Reuters Image caption Nuns belonging to the Missionaries of Charity order are still active in Kolkata

Image copyright AP Image caption Mother Teresa is buried in Kolkata and people can visit her tomb

She achieved worldwide acclaim for her work in Kolkata's slums, but her critics accused her of pushing a hardline Catholicism, mixing with dictators and accepting funds from them for her charity.

It often takes decades for people to reach sainthood after their death, but beatification was rushed through by Pope John Paul II.</s>Vatican City (AP) — Elevating the “saint of the gutters” to one of the Catholic Church’s highest honors, Pope Francis on Sunday praised Mother Teresa for her radical dedication to society’s outcasts and her courage in shaming world leaders for the “crimes of poverty they themselves created.”

An estimated 120,000 people filled St. Peter’s Square for the canonization ceremony, less than half the number who turned out for her 2003 beatification. It was nevertheless the highlight of Francis’ Holy Year of Mercy and quite possibly one of the defining moments of his mercy-focused papacy.

Francis has been dedicated to ministering to society’s most marginal, from prostitutes to prisoners, refugees to the homeless. In that way, while the canonization of “St. Teresa of Kolkata” was a celebration of her life and work, it was also something of an affirmation of Francis’ own papal priorities, which have earned him praise and criticism alike.

“Let us carry her smile in our hearts and give it to those whom we meet along our journey, especially those who suffer,” Francis said in his homily.

Born Agnes Gonxhe Bojaxhiu on Aug. 26, 1910, Teresa came to India in 1929 as a sister of the Loreto order. In 1946, she received what she described as a “call within a call” to found a new order dedicated to caring for the most unloved and unwanted, the “poorest of the poor” in the slums of her adopted city, Kolkata.

The Missionaries of Charity order went on to become one of the most well-known in the world, with more than 4,000 sisters in their trademark blue-trimmed white saris doing as Teresa instructed: “small things with great love.”

At the order’s Mother House in Kolkata, hundreds of people watched the Mass on TV and clapped with joy when Francis declared her a saint.

They gathered around Teresa’s tomb which was decorated with flowers, a single candle and a photo of the wrinkled saint.

“I am so proud to be from Kolkata,” said Sanjay Sarkar, a high school student on hand for the celebration. “Mother Teresa belonged to Kolkata, and she has been declared a saint.”

For Francis, Teresa put into action his ideal of the church as a “field hospital” for those suffering both material and spiritual poverty, living on the physical and existential peripheries of society.

In his homily, Francis praised her as the merciful saint who defended the lives of the unborn, sick and abandoned, recalling her strong opposition to abortion which often put her at odds with progressives around the world.

“She bowed down before those who were spent, left to die on the side of the road, seeing in them their God-given dignity,” he said.

Teresa’s most famous critic, Christopher Hitchens, has accused her of taking donations from dictators — charges church authorities deny. Francis chose to emphasize her other dealings with the powerful.

“She made her voice heard before the powers of the world, so that they might recognize their guilt for the crimes of poverty they themselves created,” he said, repeating for emphasis “the crimes of poverty.”

Hundreds of Missionaries of Charity sisters had front-row seats at the Mass, alongside 1,500 homeless people and 13 heads of state or government and even royalty: Queen Sofia of Spain. For the homeless, Francis offered a luncheon afterward in the Vatican auditorium, catered by a Neapolitan pizza maker who brought his own ovens for the event.

“Her heart, she gave it to the world,” said Charlotte Samba, a 52-year-old mother of three who traveled with a church group from Gabon for the Mass. “Mercy, forgiveness, good works: It is the heart of a mother for the poor.”

While big, the crowd attending the canonization wasn’t even half of the 300,000 who turned out for Mother Teresa’s 2003 beatification celebrated by an ailing St. John Paul II. The low turnout suggested that financial belt-tightening and security fears in the wake of Islamic extremist attacks in Europe may have kept pilgrims away.

Those fears prompted a huge, 3,000-strong law enforcement presence to secure the area around the Vatican and close the airspace above. Many of those security measures have been in place for the duration of the Jubilee year, which officially ends in November.

While Francis is clearly keen to hold Teresa up as a model for her joyful dedication to the poor, he was also recognizing holiness in a nun who lived most of her adult life in spiritual agony, sensing that God had abandoned her.

According to correspondence that came to light after she died in 1997, Teresa experienced what the church calls a “dark night of the soul” — a period of spiritual doubt, despair and loneliness that many of the great mystics experienced. In Teresa’s case, it lasted for nearly 50 years — an almost unheard of trial.

For the Rev. Brian Kolodiejchuk, the Canadian priest who spearheaded Teresa’s saint-making campaign, the revelations were further confirmation of Mother Teresa’s heroic saintliness. He said that by canonizing her, Francis is recognizing that she not only shared the material poverty of the poor but the spiritual poverty of those who feel “unloved, unwanted, uncared for.”

“If I’m going to be a saint, I’m going to be a saint of darkness, and I’ll be asking from heaven to be the light of those who are in darkness on Earth,” she once wrote.

Francis has never publicly mentioned this “darkness,” but he has in many ways modeled his papacy on Teresa and her simple lifestyle and selfless service to the poor: He eschewed the Apostolic Palace for a hotel room, made welcoming migrants and the poor a hallmark and has fiercely denounced today’s “throwaway” culture that discards the unborn, the sick and the elderly with ease.

Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity went on to become a global order of nuns, priests, brothers and lay co-workers. She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 and died in 1997. Soon thereafter, John Paul placed her on the fast-track for sainthood.

Francis has confessed that he was somewhat intimidated by Teresa, knowing well she was as tough as she was tender. He quipped during a 2014 visit to Albania that he would never have wanted her as his superior because she was so firm with her sisters.

But on Sunday, he admitted that even he would find it hard to call her “St. Teresa,” since her tenderness was so maternal.

“Spontaneously, we will continue to say ‘Mother Teresa,'” he said to applause.</s>A general view of Saint Peter's Square during the canonization ceremony of Mother Teresa of Calcutta at the Vatican, on Sunday, September 4, 2016. Pope Francis canonized Mother Teresa as a saint.

Pope Francis leads a Holy Mass and canonization of Mother Teresa on Saint Peter's Square at the Vatican.

Nuns of the Missionary of Charity, the religious order founded by Mother Teresa, carry her relics during Mass.

Faithful attend the canonization Mass for Mother Teresa celebrated by Pope Francis.

A tapestry showing Mother Teresa hangs from the facade of St. Peter's Basilica.

Queen Sofia of Spain, bottom right, greets Mother Superior of the Missionaries of Charity Sister Prema, center, ahead of a Canonization Mass by Pope Francis for Mother Teresa, in St. Peter's Square.

Faithful wait for the Mass and canonization of Mother Teresa Sunday.

The faithful wait for the Mass to begin.

Irma Escuero, of New York, holds a statue of Mother Teresa before the start of Mass celebrated by Pope Francis at the Vatican.</s>[CNN] – Mother Teresa, a Catholic nun who devoted her life to helping India’s poor, has been declared a saint in a canonization Mass held by Pope Francis in the Vatican.

Pope Francis delivered the formula for the canonization of the Albanian-born nun — known as the “saint of the gutters” — before huge crowds of pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City on Sunday morning.

Applause broke out before he completed the formula of canonization, in which he declared “Blessed Teresa of Calcutta to be a saint.”

India renamed the city of Calcutta to Kolkata in 2001 to match the Bengali pronunciation. But the church uses the spelling of Calcutta in its references to Mother Teresa. Speaking in Latin, Francis said that “after due deliberation and frequent prayer for divine assistance, and having sought the counsel of many of our brother bishops, we declare and define Blessed Teresa of Calcutta to be a saint, and we enroll her among the saints, decreeing that she is to be venerated as such by the whole church.”

Catholics — including hundreds of blue- and white-robed nuns from the Missionaries of Charity sisterhood founded by Mother Teresa — had gathered from around the world to attend the canonization of the church’s newest saint, just 19 years after her death.

A huge portrait of Mother Teresa, whom the church credits with having performed two miraculous cures of the sick, hung from St. Peter’s Basilica during the colorful ceremony. Pope Francis then delivered a homily, in which he praised Mother Teresa — “this emblematic figure of womanhood and of consecrated life” — for her charitable work.

“Mother Teresa, in all aspects of her life, was a generous dispenser of divine mercy, making herself available for everyone through her welcome and defense of human life, those unborn and those abandoned and discarded,” he said.

“She bowed down before those who were spent, left to die on the side of the road, seeing in them their God-given dignity. She made her voice heard before the powers of this world, so that they might recognize their guilt for the crime of poverty they created.” For the newly-sainted Teresa, he said, “mercy was the salt which gave flavor to her work, it was the light which shone in the darkness of the many who no longer had tears to shed for their poverty and suffering.”

She was an example to volunteers around the world, he said. “May she be your model of holiness.”

In a departure from his scripted remarks, he noted that people “may struggle” to refer to her as “Saint Teresa.” “With great spontaneity, I think we will continue to call her Mother Teresa,” he said.

Prayers were then delivered in a number of languages, including Albanian, Mother Teresa’s native tongue, and Bengali, the language of Kolkata, where a special Mass was celebrated at the Missionaries of Charity Sunday. A prayer was delivered in Chinese for persecuted Christians around the world.

About 1,500 homeless people from across Italy were bused into the Vatican to be given seats of honor at the Mass — and be served a pizza lunch by nuns afterward. Most of the Catholic Church’s saints or blessed people are honored decades, if not centuries, after their deaths. Traditionally, there is a mandatory five-year waiting period before formal evaluation of a candidate for beatification can begin. Mother Teresa’s devotees began pressing the Vatican soon after her death to speed up the nun’s sainthood cause, saying her holiness was clear to many around the world. Pope John Paul II granted the special dispensation in 1999, and the procedure began.

The pope waived the waiting period in part, some believe, because of her fame and reputation.

John Paul II further paved the way for her beatification in 2002, when he approved a miracle attributed to Mother Teresa after her death.

The approved miracle involved Monica Besra, a 30-year-old Kolkata woman who said praying to the nun cured a stomach tumor. The Vatican committee said in October 2002 that it could find no “scientific explanation” for the woman’s recovery. “I took doctors’ medicines, threw up and was in a lot of pain. But when I prayed to Mother Teresa from my heart, Mother Teresa blessed me and now I am healthy,” Besra told CNN last week.

“My entire village and I am very happy that she is being made a saint.”

Pope Francis formally announced that Mother Teresa would be declared a saint in March 2016, when he recognized a second miracle attributed to her.

A Brazilian man with multiple brain tumors was healed after loved ones prayed to Mother Teresa to heal him, according to Avvenire, a newspaper affiliated to the Catholic Church. Born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu in 1910, Mother Teresa set up her Missionaries of Charity in the slums of Kolkata in 1950 and made her headquarters in the Indian city for nearly half a century.

Her small figure, often in a white-and-blue sari and sandals, became familiar around the world. She died in Kolkata in 1997 at age 87. Earning global recognition for her unending work and compassion for the poor, Mother Teresa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee said her spirit and the respect she had for the worth and dignity of human beings inspired constructive efforts to do away with hunger and poverty. However, Mother Teresa’s legacy has been criticized. Her critics say her charity isn’t financially accountable and volunteers aren’t properly trained. And some doctors claim Besra was healed by modern medicine, not by prayer.

The nuns and priests from the Missionaries of Charity continue her work around the world, including some ex-communist countries where she was banned. Her order has offices in Europe, Africa, the Americas and Australia, as well as Hong Kong and Russia.

A group of nuns will travel to the Vatican for the canonization ceremony, and those who remain in Kolkata will mark the day with prayers of thanks.</s>Thousands of Catholics are gathering in the Vatican where Pope Francis is set to proclaim Mother Teresa a saint this morning.

Mother Teresa, the tiny nun who cared for the world's most unwanted and became an icon of the Catholic Church, will be canonised at a ceremony in St Peter's Square.

Two supposedly miraculous cures have been attributed to Teresa by the Vatican, paving the way for her sainthood.

At least 100,000 pilgrims and tourists are expected at the ticketed ceremony this morning, as well as dozens of heads of state.

Pope Francis, who yesterday decried the modern 'sin of indifference' to suffering, will preside over the morning Mass.

Mother Teresa died in 1997 and was beatified - the first step towards becoming a saint - in 2003, after her first cure - of a woman with an ovarian tumour - was recognised by the Church.

Pope John Paul wanted to declare her a saint immediately, bypassing the beatification process, but was dissuaded by cardinals.

Her second 'miraculous cure' - of a man supposedly healed of a brain infection - was recognised last year, leading to her canonisation.

Throughout last night, pilgrims prayed at vigils and flocked before dawn to the Vatican under heavy security to try to get a good spot for the morning Mass.

For Pope Francis, Mother Teresa put into action his ideal for the church to be a merciful 'field hospital' for the poorest of the poor, those suffering both material and spiritual poverty.

Yesterday he praised the care Mother Teresa had for the poor and the sick, while taking a swipe at world leaders for their 'sin of indifference' to suffering today.

'Tomorrow, we'll have the joy of seeing Mother Teresa proclaimed a saint,' he said. 'She deserves it!'

The Pontiff decried those who 'turn the other way not to see the many forms of poverty that begs out for mercy'.

Choosing 'to not see hunger, disease, exploited persons, this is a grave sin. It's also a modern sin, a sin of today,' he told the gathered thousands.

THE SAINT'S FIRST 'MIRACLE': HOW MOTHER THERESA 'CURED' A WOMAN'S TUMOUR Mother Teresa canonisation comes after she is said to have 'miraculously cured' two sick followers of the Catholic Church. The first came in eastern India, where Monica Besra vividly recalls the 'blinding light' emanating from Mother Teresa's photo that she believes helped cure her ovarian cancer. Besra, a tribal woman from West Bengal, became an overnight sensation in September 1998 when she claimed that a picture and a medallion of the world's most famous Roman Catholic nun had cured her ovarian tumour. On September 5, 1998 - exactly a year after Mother Teresa's death - nuns placed a tiny aluminium medallion that had been blessed by the future Saint Teresa of Kolkata on Besra's stomach and prayed for her. 'Two sisters carried me to the church since I was too weak to stand or walk by myself,' the 50-year-old said. 'As soon as I entered (the church), a blinding, divine light emitted from Mother's photo and enveloped me. I closed my eyes, I couldn't understand what was happening. It was indescribable, I felt faint.' 'I got up from my bed feeling so light and good. I looked down to see the giant lump had disappeared. I couldn't believe it. I touched that part, poked it, pinched it. It was really gone. I wasn't dreaming it,' said Besra, who still wears the medallion around her neck. The next day she was proclaimed cured, a feat hailed by the Vatican as a miracle leading to Mother Teresa's beatification - a crucial step on the path to sainthood - that took place in October 2003 in Rome. Besra claimed that a picture and a medallion of the world's most famous Roman Catholic nun had cured her ovarian tumour

'Everything she did gave an example to the entire world,' said 17-year-old student Massimiliano D'Aniello, from Grosseto, Italy, who will watch the ceremony today.

'She showed we can't all do everything, but little gestures made with so much love are what's important,' she added.

Pramod Sharma, a Kolkata resident who grew up near a convent school and childcare centre where Mother Teresa worked, said she had chosen India as her home.

'(She) belonged to our India and stayed with the Indians and will forever stay in our hearts,' Ms Sharma said.

'I think most of all we are thankful to her for the message, for really changing our lives with her example, humility, being close to the poorest of the poor,' said Simone Massara as he prayed with his wife at a vigil at the Basilica of Sant'Andrea della Valle before the Mass.

Mother Teresa was born to ethnic Albanian parents in what is now Macedonia in 1910.

Deeply religious, she became a nun at the age of 16, joining the Loreto abbey in Ireland. Two years later she was given the name Sister Teresa.

In early 1929 she moved to Calcutta, now known as Kolkata, where she became a teacher and, 15 years on, headmistress at a convent school.

In 1946 she received 'a call within a call' to found the Missionaries of Charity, officially established as a religious congregation in 1950. Nuns of the order began calling her Mother Teresa.

In 1979 Mother Teresa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her work for the world's destitute. 'I am unworthy,' she said.

On September 5, 1997, Mother Teresa died of a heart attack at her order's headquarters in Kolkata. An array of world dignitaries attended her funeral.

THE SAINT'S SECOND 'MIRACLE': HOW MOTHER TERESA 'CURED' A BRAIN INFECTION Mother Teresa's second supposed miracle saw a Brazilian man claim she healed him of a viral brain infection. Marcilio Haddad Andrino was due to have brain surgery but doctors could not intubate him, leaving him in crippling pain. His wife, Fermanda Nascimento Rocha, said she and her family began praying for Mother Teresa's intercession after receiving a relic of her in September 2008. Marcilio Haddad Andrino, pictured with his wife, Fernanda Nascimento Rocha, was said to have been cured of a brain infection after Mother Teresa's intercession By December of that year, despite powerful antibiotics, the brain abscesses and fluid had built up so much that Andrino was suffering debilitating headaches. 'I asked Mother to cure Marcilio if this is God's will, and if not, to take him by the hand and bring him to the house of the Father to feel his caress,' Mrs Rocha said She said she went to her mother's home and prayed 'with all the strength I had'. When the surgeon returned to Andrino's room, he was awake, pain-free and asymptomatic, according to the priest spearheading Mother Teresa's sainthood cause, the Reverend Brian Kolodiejchuk. Within six months, Andrino said Friday, he had returned to work. Soon after, the couple conceived the first of their two children, though Andrino had been told that the powerful drugs he had taken had made him infertile. He calls his two children 'the extension of that miracle'. 'We are very grateful to Mother Teresa for our family,' he said. Pope Francis decreed Andrino's cure a miracle in December after Vatican doctors and theologians determined that it was medically inexplicable and due to the intercession of Mother Teresa.

Since her death, the Vatican has ruled that two people were miraculously cured by Mother Teresa.

A year after her death, nuns placed an aluminium medallion blessed by Mother Teresa on an Indian woman who had a tumour caused by ovarian cancer.

The sick woman, Monica Besra, claimed a bright light suddenly burst from the necklace and she was instantly cured.

'A blinding, divine light emitted from Mother's photo and enveloped me. I closed my eyes, I couldn't understand what was happening. It was indescribable, I felt faint,' she said.

'I got up from my bed feeling so light and good. I looked down to see the giant lump had disappeared. I couldn't believe it. I touched that part, poked it, pinched it. It was really gone. I wasn't dreaming it,' she added.

The supposed cure was recognised by the Vatican in 2002 and led to Mother Teresa's beatification.

Another cure, recognised by Pope Francis last year, is said to have seen Mother Teresa heal a Brazilian man's brain tumour.

Marcilio Haddad Andrino and his wife, Fermanda Nascimento Rocha, said they received a relic of the nun's in 2008, after he contracted a viral brain infection.

'I asked Mother to cure Marcilio if this is God's will, and if not, to take him by the hand and bring him to the house of the Father to feel his caress,' Mrs Rocha said.

She said she went to her mother's home and prayed 'with all the strength I had'. Later that day, Mr Andrino was healed.

Critics say she did little to alleviate the pain of the terminally ill and nothing to tackle the root causes of poverty. Atheist writer Christopher Hitchens made a documentary about her called 'Hell's Angel'.

She was also accused of trying to convert the destitute in predominantly-Hindu India to Christianity, a charge her mission has repeatedly denied.

Sunday's festivities honoring Mother Teresa were not limited to Rome and the Vatican.

In Kolkata, where Mother Teresa spent a lifetime dedicated to the poor, a special Sunday Mass was held at the order's Mother House.

Volunteers and admirers converged on Mother House to watch the canonization ceremony, which was being broadcast on giant TV screens in Kolkata and elsewhere.</s>The canonisation of Mother Teresa was held in St. Peter’s Square. Pope Francis declared Mother Teresa a saint at Sunday morning Mass, making her the model of his Jubilee Year of Mercy.

Related:Mother House erupts in joy after Mother Teresa’s canonisation Related:As it happened: Mother Teresa is now St. Teresa of Calcutta</s>(CNN) Hundreds of thousands of pilgrims are expected to gather in Rome to witness the canonization of Mother Teresa, the nun who dedicated her life to helping the poor in India.

The canonization mass, held by Pope Francis, will take place Sunday morning in St. Peter's Square in Vatican City. A number of bishops from both Albania, where Mother Teresa was born in 1910, and India are due to attend, as well as state leaders.

The crowd is anticipated to surpass the 300,000 that attended Pope John Paul II's beatification of Mother Teresa in Rome in 2003.

"Brothers and sisters, even in our days God inspires new models of sainthood," John Paul told the crowd at the time.

Most of the Catholic Church's saints or blessed people are honored decades, if not centuries, after their deaths. Traditionally, there is a mandatory five-year waiting period before formal evaluation of a candidate for beatification can begin.

Mother Teresa's devotees began pressing the Vatican soon after her death to speed up the nun's sainthood cause, saying her holiness was clear to many around the world. Pope John Paul II granted the special dispensation in 1999, and the procedure began.

The pope waived the waiting period in part, some believe, because of her fame and reputation.

John Paul II further paved the way for her beatification in 2002, when he approved a miracle attributed to Mother Teresa after her death.

"I took doctors' medicines, threw up and was in a lot of pain. But when I prayed to Mother Teresa from my heart, Mother Teresa blessed me and now I am healthy," Besra told CNN last week.

"My entire village and I am very happy that she is being made a saint."

A Brazilian man with multiple brain tumors was healed after loved ones prayed to Mother Teresa to heal him, according to Avvenire, a newspaper affiliated to the Catholic Church.

Born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu in 1910, Mother Teresa set up her Missionaries of Charity in the slums of Kolkata in 1950 and made her headquarters in the Indian city for nearly half a century.

Her small figure in a white-and-blue sari and sandals became familiar around the world. She died in Kolkata in 1997 at age 87.

Known as the "Saint of the Gutters" for her unending work and compassion for the poor, Mother Teresa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee said her spirit and the respect she had for the worth and dignity of human beings inspired constructive efforts to do away with hunger and poverty.

The nuns and priests from the Missionaries of Charity continue her work around the world, including some ex-communist countries where she was banned. Her order has offices in Europe, Africa, the Americas and Australia, as well as Hong Kong and Russia.

A group of nuns will travel to the Vatican for the canonization ceremony, and those who remain in Kolkata will mark the day with prayers of thanks.</s>Mother Teresa to be made saint at Vatican ceremony

VATICAN CITY, Sept 4 (Reuters) - Mother Teresa of Calcutta, a Nobel peace laureate known as the "saint of the gutters" during her lifetime, will be made a saint of the Roman Catholic Church on Sunday.

More than 100,000 pilgrims are expected to attend a service led by Pope Francis in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican to honour the tiny nun who worked among the world's neediest in the slums of the Indian city now known as Kolkata.

Her legacy fits neatly with Francis's vision of a poor church that strives to serve the poor, and the ceremony will be a highlight of his Holy Year of Mercy which runs until Nov. 8.

Mother Teresa and her Missionaries of Charity (MoC) order have been criticised both during her life and since her death in 1997, but many Catholics revere her as a model of compassion.

Thousands attended a papal audience on Saturday in the Vatican, where a large canvas of the late nun in her blue-hemmed white robes hung from St. Peter's basilica.

"Her testimony makes us reflect and transform...and make a better world," Brazilian priest Carlos Jose Nacimento said.

Critics say she did little to alleviate the pain of the terminally ill and nothing to tackle the root causes of poverty. Atheist writer Christopher Hitchens made a documentary about her called "Hell's Angel".

She was also accused of trying to convert the destitute in predominantly-Hindu India to Christianity, a charge her mission has repeatedly denied.

But Pope John Paul II, who met her often, had no doubt about her eligibility for sainthood, and put her on a fast track to elevation two years after her death instead of the usual five.

The Church defines as saints those believed to have led such holy lives they are now in Heaven and can intercede with God to perform miracles - two of which are needed to confer sainthood.

She is credited with healing an Indian woman from stomach cancer in 1998 and a Brazilian man from a brain infection in 2008.

The canonisation will also be celebrated in Skopje, the capital of modern Macedonia where Mother Teresa was born of Albanian parents in 1910 and became a nun aged 16.

In Kolkata, where the first MoC mission was set up in 1952, there will be prayers, talks and cultural events, but no major ceremony.

Delegations from at least 15 national governments are expected at the Vatican.</s>Thousands of people have gathered at St Peter’s Square for the canonisation of Mother Teresa, the nun who cared for the world’s most unwanted.

Pope Francis will declare Mother Teresa a saint at a morning Mass on Sunday, making her the model of his Jubilee Year of Mercy and in some ways his entire papacy.

For Francis, Mother Teresa put into action his ideal for the church to be a merciful “field hospital” for the poorest of the poor, those suffering both material and spiritual poverty.

Throughout the night, pilgrims prayed at vigils in local churches and flocked before dawn to the Vatican under heavy security to try to get a good spot for the Mass that was expected to draw more than 100,000 people.

“I think most of all we are thankful to her (Mother Teresa) for the message, for really changing our lives with her example, humility, being close to the poorest of the poor,” said Simone Massara as he prayed with his wife at a vigil at the Basilica of Sant’Andrea della Valle before the Mass.

While Francis is clearly keen to hold Mother Teresa up as a model for her joyful dedication to the poor, he is also recognising holiness in a nun who lived most of her adult life in spiritual agony sensing that God had abandoned her.

According to correspondence that came to light after she died in 1997, Mother Teresa experienced what the church calls a “dark night of the soul” - a period of spiritual doubt, despair and loneliness. In Mother Teresa’s case, it lasted for nearly 50 years - an almost unheard of trial.

For the Rev Brian Kolodiejchuk, the Canadian priest who spearheaded Mother Teresa’s saint-making campaign, the revelations were further confirmation of her heroic saintliness.

He said that by canonising her, Francis is recognising that Mother Teresa not only shared the material poverty of the poor but the spiritual poverty of those who feel “unloved, unwanted, uncared for”.

“What she described as the greatest poverty in the world today (of feeling unloved) she herself was living in relationship with Jesus,” he said in an interview on the eve of the canonisation.

Born on August 26 1910 to Albanian parents in Skopje, Mother Teresa came to India in 1929 as a sister of the Loreto order. In 1946, she received what she described as a “call within a call” to found a new order dedicated to caring for the most unloved and unwanted, the “poorest of the poor”.

In 1950 she founded the Missionaries of Charity, which went on to become a global order of nuns - identified by their trademark blue-trimmed saris, as well as priests, brothers and lay co-workers.

She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979.

She died in 1997 after a lifetime spent caring for hundreds of thousands of destitute and homeless poor in Kolkata, for which she came to be called the “saint of the gutters”.

St John Paul II, her most ardent supporter, fast-tracked her for sainthood and beatified her before a crowd of 300,000 in 2003.</s>Mother Teresa, the celebrated nun whose work with the poor of Kolkata made her an instantly recognisable global figure, will be proclaimed a saint on Sunday.

Pope Francis will preside over a solemn canonisation mass in the presence of 100,000 pilgrims and with a giant haloed portrait of Teresa smiling down from St Peter's Basilica.

The sainthood ceremony, for which the Vatican could easily have issued twice as many tickets, comes one day short of the 19th anniversary of Teresa's death, at 87, in the Indian city where she spent her adult life, first teaching, then tending to the dying poor.

It was in the latter role, at the head of her own still-active order, the Missionaries of Charity, that Teresa became one of the most famous women on the planet.

Born to Kosovar Albanian parents in Skopje -- then part of the Ottoman empire, now the capital of Macedonia -- she won the 1979 Nobel peace prize and was revered around the world as a beacon for the Christian values of self-sacrifice and charity.

She was simultaneously regarded with scorn by secular critics who accused her of being more concerned with evangelism than with improving the lot of the poor.

The debate over the nun's legacy has continued after her death with researchers uncovering financial irregularities in the running of her Order and evidence mounting of patient neglect, insalubrious conditions and questionable conversions of the vulnerable in her missions.

A picture of her as someone who was just as comfortable flying around in a private plane as clutching the hand of a dying patient has also emerged to counterbalance her saintly image.

Sceptics will be absent from the Vatican Sunday however as Francis pays homage to a woman he sees as the embodiment of his vision of a "poor church for the poor".

"Tomorrow we will have the joy of seeing Mother Teresa proclaimed a saint," the Argentinian pontiff said on Saturday. "And how she deserves to be!"

"This witness to mercy in our time will join the vast array of men and women who, by their holiness of life, have made the love of Christ visible."

By historical standards, Teresa has been fast-tracked to sainthood, thanks largely to one of the few people to have achieved canonisation faster, John Paul II.

The Polish cleric was a personal friend of Teresa and as the pope at the time of her death, he was responsible for her being beatified in 2003.

Achieving sainthood requires the Vatican to approve accounts of two miracles occurring as a result of prayers for Teresa's intercession.

The first one, ratified in 2002, was of an Indian woman, Monica Besra, who says she recovered from ovarian cancer a year after Teresa's death -- something local health officials have put down to medical advances rather than the power of prayer.

In the second, approved last year, Brazilian Marcilio Haddad Andrino says his wife's prayers to Teresa led to brain tumours disappearing. Eight years later, Andrino and his wife Fernanda will be in the congregation on Sunday.

Also among the crowd at St Peter's will be Teresa Burley, an Italy-based American teacher of children with learning difficulties who says the soon-to-be Saint Teresa inspired her vocation.

"I'm also named Teresa," she told AFP. "I remember growing up admiring the things she did for children and the poor.

"We need to remember we are here to help each other. We need to be here for those who can't help themselves. It's the same for refugees arriving here: we have to be there to help them transition into their new lives."

Many Indians have made the trip to Rome, among them Kiran Kakumanu, 40, who was blessed by Teresa when he was a baby and grew up to become a priest.

Abraham, an Indian expatriate in London, said Teresa's life had set a unique example to the world.

"She practised Christianity. The majority of Christians only spend their time talking about it."
Mother Teresa, known for working with the desperately poor, is canonized in a ceremony at the Vatican.