Mother Teresa meets with U.S. President Ronald Reagan at the White House on Dec. 16, 1985. / Credit: Series: Reagan White House Photographs, 1/20/1981 – 1/20/1989 Collection: White House Photographic Collection, 1/20/1981 – 1/20/1989, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
CNA Staff, Aug 26, 2024 / 16:50 pm (CNA).
Born on Aug. 26, 1910, in North Macedonia, St. Teresa of Calcutta left a lasting impact on the world. The beloved saint founded the Missionaries of Charity, working tirelessly to serve the poor and dying in the slums of India, and was also a vocal defender of the unborn.
Here are five things you might not know about Mother Teresa:
1. She devoted her life to her faith at the age of 12.
The youngest of three children, Mother Teresa was born into a devout Catholic home to parents of Albanian descent. She was baptized the day after she was born in Skopje, North Macedonia, and throughout her life witnessed her mother caring for those less fortunate. She also became fascinated with the lives of missionaries and by the age of 12 committed herself to religious life. At the age of 18 she joined the Sisters of Loreto, an Irish community of nuns who sent missionaries to India. She trained for several months in Ireland before going to India. She never saw her mother or siblings again.
2. She once had to beg for food.
When Mother Teresa first arrived in India for her missionary work, she had no income and little access to food. Experiencing hunger, she was forced to beg for food from people on the street. This experience gave her a more personal understanding of the suffering many of the poor people living on the streets of India were going through.
3. She answered her “call within a call.”
On Sept. 10, 1946, while traveling by train from Calcutta to Darjeeling for her annual retreat while teaching at the St. Mary’s School for Girls, Mother Teresa received what she described as a “call within a call.” On that day, she received a great desire to serve the poorest in India. After two years, she received permission to begin what would become her life’s mission. On Aug. 17, 1948, she dressed for the first time in her white-and-blue-bordered saree, left the Loreto convent, and entered into the slums of India.
4. She received more than 120 honors and awards.
Mother Teresa was awarded more than 120 awards and honors both during her lifetime and after she passed away. Some of these include the Padma Shri in 1962, the Ramon Magsaysay Peace Prize in 1962, the Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International Understanding in 1969, the Pope John XXIII Peace Prize in 1971, the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979, and the Bharat Ratna, India’s highest civilian award, in 1980.
5. She has an airport named after her.
There are many roads and buildings named after Mother Teresa. However, one that particularly stands out is an airport. The international airport in Albania was renamed in 2001 to honor the saint. Its name is now the Tirana International Airport Nënë Tereza (Mother Teresa).
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Daniel O’Connell, lithograph attributed to R. Evan Sly (EP OCON-DA (17) II) from the National Library of Ireland. / Credit: National Library of Ireland
Dublin, Ireland, Aug 9, 2025 / 07:00 am (CNA).
Daniel O’Connell, known as “The Liberator,” was a pivotal figure in 19th-century Ireland, championing the cause of Catholic emancipation.
Opposed to violence, he advocated for Catholic rights through peaceful means, emphasizing dialogue and legal reform, and organizing mass demonstrations to rally public support and raise awareness about the injustices faced by Catholics.
“Daniel O’Connell’s achievement in forcing the British government to concede Catholic emancipation in 1829 was immense,” Bishop Niall Coll of Ossory told CNA. “The penal laws, a series of oppressive statutes enacted in the 17th and early 18th centuries that targeted the Catholic majority in Ireland, restricting their rights to own land, hold public office, and practice their religion were set aside.”
O’Connell’s efforts culminated in the passage of the Catholic Relief Act of 1829, which allowed Catholics to sit in Parliament and hold public office and significantly transformed Irish politics.
O’Connell was born in 1775 in Caherciveen in rural Kerry. His parents had managed to maintain their land despite the penal laws, thanks to their remoteness, business sense, and help from Protestant neighbors. O’Connell’s earliest years, until he was 4, were spent with an Irish-speaking family that instilled in him an inherent understanding of Irish peasant life.
After studying in France at the English Colleges in St. Omer and Douai during the French Revolution, he returned to Ireland, completed his studies, and was called to the bar. In 1802, then a successful barrister, he married a distant cousin, Mary O’Connell, and they had 12 children — seven of whom survived to adulthood. In 1823 he founded the Catholic Association with the express aim of securing emancipation.
O’Connell’s early experiences were critical to his political and social formation, according to Jesuit historian Father Fergus O’Donoghue, who told CNA that O’Connell’s exposure to European influences undoubtedly shaped his character, his opposition to violence, and his deep-seated opposition to tyranny.
“He witnessed the French Revolution, which appalled him and set his heart completely against violence,” O’Donoghue told CNA. “What Daniel O’Connell really did was produce a political sense in Ireland that was never previously generated. Irish Catholics lived in appalling poverty and were neglected. He energized them. He brought Church and laity together into politics and constitutionalism.”
Bishop Fintan Monahan at Daniel O’Connell’s memorial in Rome. Credit: Bishop Fintan Monahan
O’Donoghue explained how O’Connell’s arousal of a nationwide Irish Catholic consciousness impacted politics and society but also had far-reaching consequences beyond Irish shores.
“When Irish Catholics emigrated, which of course many were forced to do, many of them were already politically aware. That’s why Irish people got so rapidly into American politics and into Australian politics later.”
“He was part of the enormous revival of Irish Catholicism in the 19th century. Before the Act of Union, various relief acts had been passed so Catholics officially could become things like judges or sheriffs, but none really were appointed in numbers. He was blistering in highlighting the difference between the law and reality. He was liberal, which amazed people; he believed strongly in parliamentary democracy. Many Catholics were monarchists and tending to be absolutists and he was having none of that. Under no circumstances would he approve of violence.”
Coll told CNA how O’Connell’s personal reputation extended his influence worldwide: “The fact that he could remain a devoted and practicing Catholic — while supporting the separation of church and state, the ending of Anglican privileges and discrimination based on religious affiliation, and the extension of individual liberties, including those in the sphere of politics — made him a hero and inspiration to Catholic liberals in many European countries.”
Coll continued: “The fact that his political movement was based upon popular support and the mobilization of the mass of the people, while yet being nonviolent and orderly, gave proof that political agitation did not necessarily have to be anticlerical or bloody. The attention his movement and opinions received in the continental European press was remarkable, as were the number and distinction of European writers and political figures who visited Ireland with the express purpose of securing an audience with O’Connell.”
Coll agreed firmly with historians who believe no other Irish political figure of the 19th or early 20th century enjoyed such an international reputation as did O’Connell throughout his later public career.
Among those whom O’Connell also influenced were Eamon de Valera, president of Ireland; Frederick Douglass, social reformer and slavery abolitionist in the United States; and Gen. Charles de Gaulle. Indeed, de Gaulle, when on an extended visit to Ireland, insisted on visiting Derrynane House in Kerry, the home of Daniel O’Connell.
When asked how he knew about O’Connell, de Gaulle replied: “My grandmother wrote a book about O’Connell.” The grandmother in question was Joséphine de Gaulle (née Maillot), a descendant of the McCartans of County Down and his paternal grandmother, who wrote “Daniel O’Connell, Le Libérateur de l’Irlande” in 1887. De Gaulle’s father, Henri, was also a historian interested in O’Connell.
In The Tablet,Dermot McCarthy, former secretary to the Office of the Irish Prime Minister, wrote that O’Connell’s primary legacy was “lifting a demoralized and impoverished Catholic people off their knees to recognize their inherent dignity and realize their capacity to be protagonists of their own destiny.”
Minister for Culture, Communications, and Sport Patrick O’Donovan said last month: “Daniel O’Connell was one of the most important figures in Irish political history, not just for what he achieved, but for how he achieved it. He believed in peaceful reform, in democracy, and in civil rights; ideas and concepts to which we should still aspire today.”
However, in its official communiques praising O’Connell, the Irish government minister failed to mention the word “Catholic” even once.
For O’Donoghue, the absence of any Catholic context is unsurprising given the prevailing secular attitudes among many of the country’s politicians.
Bishop Fintan Monahan, bishop of Killaloe, visited O’Connell’s grave in Rome during the Jubilee for Youth, telling CNA: “In 1847, the Great Famine was at its most severe and O’Connell’s final speech in the House of Commons was an appeal for help for its victims. Due to his physical weakness, this final speech was barely audible.”
O’Connell died in Genoa on May 15, 1847, on the 17th anniversary of the first time he presented himself at the House of Commons.
It was hoped that his heart might be interred in St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican. However, Pope Pius IX feared offending the British government on whose goodwill Catholic missionaries depended in many parts of the world. A requiem Mass was offered for O’Connell in the Roman baroque basilica of Sant’Andrea della Valle. The attendance included the future cardinal, now canonized saint, John Henry Newman.
O’Connell had said he wished to bequeath “his soul to God, his body to Ireland, and his heart to Rome.”
Weekday Mass is celebrated in the Church of Sts. Simeon and Anne in Jerusalem, where the Hebrew-speaking Catholic community (keilla) gathers together. / Credit: Marinella Bandini
Jerusalem, Nov 19, 2023 / 06:00 am (CNA).
Among the many expressi… […]
1 Comment
She served the last, the least, and the lost with dedication and affection. St. Teresa of Calcutta – Pray for us.
She served the last, the least, and the lost with dedication and affection. St. Teresa of Calcutta – Pray for us.