VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who dedicated her life to helping people she called "the poorest of the poor," may be beatified as early as next year, marking the final step before sainthood, Vatican sources said on Monday.
The sources said a committee was due to meet at the Vatican this week, possibly as early as Tuesday, to formally declare that Mother Teresa, who died in 1997, possessed "heroic virtues" of the Christian faith.
This would pave the way for the formal declaration of a miracle attributed to the intercession of the diminutive Albanian-born woman who spent much of her life helping the world's most destitute people.
The formal declaration of a miracle, expected as early as next month, would open the way for beatification, the step before sainthood in the Roman Catholic Church.
Promoters of her sainthood say a woman who was suffering from a tumor was inexplicably cured after praying to the nun.
If a Vatican commission recognizes the miracle, a ceremony to beatify her could be held next year, Vatican sources said.
A second miracle attributed to Mother Teresa would be needed after the beatification in order for her to be declared a saint.
Under church rules, five years must pass after a person dies before the long bureaucratic procedure for sainthood can even begin.
But in 1999, Pope John Paul granted a special dispensation so the procedure could start less than two years after her death.
Devotees of Mother Teresa, who was known as "the saint of the gutters," began pressing the Vatican soon after her death to allow the nun's sainthood cause to move more quickly because they said her holiness was clear to many around the world.