By DPA
Rome : Mother Teresa is set to move significantly closer to sainthood following what is described as the miraculous disappearance of a 13-millimetre long stone, or growth, in the urethra of a priest in India, an Italian newspaper reported Friday.
According to the Turin-based daily La Stampa, the Vatican has received documents indicating that Reverend V.M. Thomas, 56, was cured after he celebrated mass on the 10th anniversary of Teresa’s death on Sep 5.
Thomas had been scheduled to have surgery the next day to remove the growth, which had caused him great pain over three months, at a hospital in the eastern Indian city of Guwahati.
But when doctors examined X-ray images and ultra-sound reports, they found no trace of the growth.
The Archbishop of Guwahati Thomas Menamparampil has submitted to the Vatican a report by a surgeon at the hospital that “no medical explanation” for the growth’s disappearance can be provided, La Stampa said.
“It really seems to be a miracle that the stone which had not been eliminated through medical cure has disappeared. The stone is no longer in the urethra and has not been expelled by (the patient) urinating,” wrote the surgeon Subhash Khanna in his report, La Stampa said, citing the Catholic news agencies UCA News and Zenit.
The Vatican has to be convinced that a person was responsible for at least three important miracles before they can be declared a saint.
However, it gives special importance to miracles credited to candidates after their death.
Born in Macedonia of Albanian heritage, Teresa who founded the Missionaries of Charity, known for their work with the destitute in the slums of eastern India’s Kolkata metropolis and elsewhere, was in 2003 beatified by Pope John Paul II — the first step towards sainthood in the Catholic Church.
The anniversary of her death at the age of 87 on Sep 5, 1997, was marked by controversy over her letters published in a book, “Be My Light”, in which she said that on occasion she doubted God and was tormented by doubts.