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WASHINGTON, D.C., September 2, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) — The Knights of Columbus unveiled the official canonization portrait of soon-to-be Saint Mother Teresa at the John Paul II National Shrine on Thursday morning.
The image will be displayed on the façade of St. Peter’s Basilica at her canonization on Sunday.
American artist Chris Fagan, who has created portraits of all of the United States presidents, painted the image. The pro-life religious sister famous for founding the Missionaries of Charity and her work helping the poorest of India’s poor is depicted in her blue and white habit holding a rosary.
Mother Teresa’s work with the poor couldn’t be a starker contrast to the work of those who advocate for eliminating poverty by eliminating the poor through contraception and abortion.
She saw the human dignity in everyone and recognized that in order to truly “feed” people, they need spiritual as well as material assistance. Mother Teresa was the opposite of elitists today who sit in ivory towers and speculate about how to best sterilize and abort the world’s poor.
“The greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a war against the child, a direct killing of the innocent child, murder by the mother herself,” Mother Teresa famously said in a room with Bill and Hillary Clinton. “And if we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another? … Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want.”
My prayer is that Mother Teresa’s canonization will inspire the people in countries that accept abortion to choose love instead of the ultimate form of violence.
