New Delhi, September 2 : A 12-member delegation led by External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj today left for Rome to attend the canonisation ceremony of Mother Teresa on Sunday.
During her three-day visit, Swaraj will also have bilateral meeting with her Italian counterpart Paolo Gentiloni, the first high-level contact between the two countries after the UN tribunal’s verdict of the return of Italian marines charged with murdering two Indian fishermen off Kerala coast in 2012.
“Leaving for Rome to attend the canonisation ceremony of Mother Teresa,” Swaraj tweeted.
According to official sources, Swaraj will meet her Italian counterpart over the weekend during which the two sides will review the status of bilateral ties.
The relationship between India and Italy soured after India detained Italian marines -Salvatore Girone and Massimiliano Latorre- on charges of murdering two Indian fishermen.
Unsatisfied with Indian judicial process, Italy moved the UN Tribunal, which in May this year allowed Girone to return pending the trial. Latorre is already in Italy on health grounds.
Apart from the central government delegation, two state government-level delegations from Delhi and West Bengal led by Chief Ministers Arvind Kejriwal and Mamata Banerjee respectively also left for Rome to attend the ceremony.
Swaraj’s delegation will comprise Minister for Food Processing Industries Harsimrat Kaur Badal, Lok Sabha MPs Prof K V Thomas, Jose K Mani, Anto Anthony and Conrad K Sangma and Deputy Chief Minister of Goa Francis D’Souza.
Others include Judge of Supreme Court Justice Kurian Joseph, eminent lawyer Harish Salve, Secretary General of Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India Theodore Mascarenhas and K J Alphons.
Secretary (West) in the Ministry of External Affairs Sujata Mehta will also be part of the delegation.
In March, Pope Francis had announced that Mother Teresa, who founded the Missionaries of Charity, will be elevated to sainthood after the Church recognised two miracles attributed to her after her death in 1997.
Monica Besra to pray at her home on Mother’s sainthood day
Monica Besra, whose healing was Mother Teresa’s first miracle, will spend September 4 - the day when the late nun will be canonised in Vatican City - praying at her home in a Bengal village.
Speaking to PTI over phone Monica (50), a poor tribal farmer’s wife from Harirampur in South Dinajpur district, said she will pray for the people of the country, of the world, her district, her village and finally her family in that order at her home on the day.
Her husband Selku Murmu said he would do the same.
Harirampur is about 400 kms from Kolkata, where Mother Teresa lived and worked to help the sick, poor and dying and set up her Missionaries of Charity.
Monica, who was cured of a large stomach tumour miraculously, says it was due to the divine power of Mother Teresa whom she worships.
“I was taken to Rome in 2003 and narrated the incident in which Mother Teresa’s divine power healed me. I would have loved to attend Mother Teresa’s canonisation,” she said adding she has no regrets that she had not received any invitation.
She had met Pope John Paul II and his cardinals in 2003 and had narrated her experience to them, which later on became Mother Teresa’s first miracle. This led to the nun’s beatification later that year.
The second miracle was the 2008 recovery of a Brazilian man suffering from multiple brain tumours.
