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No Question Of Returning Mother Teresa’s Remains To Albania: Indian Govt.

By SAR NEWS

NEW DELHI (SAR NEWS) – With Albania, the country of origin of Mother
Teresa, clamouring for the saint’s mortal remains to be returned to
it, India October 13 rejected the demand saying Teresa was an Indian
citizen.

According to media reports, an official of the external affairs
ministry said Mother Teresa was an Indian citizen and there was no
question of returning her remains to Albania, the country where ‘the
saint of the gutters’ was born August 26, 1910.

“Mother Teresa was an Indian citizen. There is nothing more to be
said,” the Indo-Asian News Service cited the official as saying.

The decision was expectedly widely welcomed by the people across India
where the Nobel Prize winner spent her life working for the welfare of
the poor and tending to the abandoned sick and dying, mainly in the
City of Kolkata.

Welcoming India’s decision, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India
(CBCI) said the Church would want her remains to be in the country.
“The Catholic Church gladly welcomes the response of the external
affairs ministry that Mother Teresa was fully an Indian citizen. We
would want her remains to be in India,” said CBCI spokesman, Divine
Word Father Babu Joseph.

“Mother Teresa had all through her life and activities built a strong
bond with all sections of Indian society and she is respected by all
in the country. And this was the filial relationship between the
Mother and Indians, which cannot be overlooked.”

Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha’s government had on October 10
asked India to return the mortal remains of the Roman Catholic nun by
the 100th anniversary of her birth in August next year.

Berisha had also said, according to media reports, that Albania has
started negotiations with the Indian government, which “will be
intensified this year”.

MoC yet to receive request: Meanwhile, The Missionaries of Charity
(MoC) congregation, founded by Mother Teresa, said October 11 that it
had not received any request from any quarter for transfer of the
saint’s remains to Albania.

Salesian priest Father Robin Gomes, who ministers to the nuns in the
Auxilium Parish in Kolkata, said: “Unless we receive any specific
request from any quarter in this regard, we cannot comment.”

He said the MoC headquarters in Kolkata would not probably agree to
any request for transfer of Mother Teresa’s remains outside of her
tomb, which is situated in a room on the ground floor of the Mother
House in Kolkata. “It will not be fair to remove her remains from
there,” Gomes said.

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