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Om Shanti!
S.L.
Hindu Brahmin Convert to Succeed Mother Teresa
CALCUTTA, India (Reuter) - A former Hindu Brahmin who converted to Roman
Catholicism and whose name means "pure" was elected on Thursday to succeed
ailing Mother Teresa as the leader of her religious order, church
authorities said.
"Sister Nirmala, M.C. (Missionaries of Charity) was elected almost
unanimously as the new Superior General," Archbishop Henry D'Souza's office
said in a statement issued in the eastern Indian city of Calcutta.
"Mother Teresa was present for the election and blessed Sister Nirmala,"
it said.
Nuns at the Missionaries of Charity headquarters in India's most densely
populated city were heard rejoicing after an eight-week selection effort
that ended with a closed-door vote by 132 senior nuns.
A crowd of reporters stood outside.
A news conference was set for Friday morning when Mother Teresa, 86, was
to turn over her administrative powers -- but not her title "Mother" -- to
her
63-year-old successor.
"Mother Teresa remains as Mother and foundress," the Missionaries of
Charity said in a statement. "Sister Nirmala is the new Superior General."
Sister Nirmala, whose name in Sanskrit means "pure," takes over a
49-year-old order that has been led since its creation by the charismatic
Mother Teresa, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979
and has become a symbol of devotion to the sick and poor.
Mother Teresa never groomed a successor to lead the order, which has
4,500 nuns in more than 100 countries.
After being taken to hospital for emergency care three times last year
and undergoing a heart operation, Mother Teresa said she would finally step
down.
Sister Nirmala was born into an ethnic Nepali family in the northern
Indian state of Bihar. A member of the Hindu Brahmin, or priestly, class,
she later converted to Catholicism. She trained as a lawyer before joining
Missionaries of Charity.
An estimated 82 percent of India's 936 million people are Hindus, while
12 percent are Muslim and 2.3 percent are Christian.
Sister Nirmala has supervised the order's centers in Europe and the
United States. Since 1979, she has led the contemplative wing, in which
nuns devote their lives to meditation.
She was not one of the order's councilors-general and thus not
considered a prominent candidate in
the election process. But her age, legal training and international
experience were believed to have
been advantages.
Two of the councillors-general -- Sisters Frederick and Priscilla --
were re-elected to that body on Thursday.
The election of Mother Teresa's successor had been postponed twice since
September. It was first set for Sept. 8, but put off because Mother Teresa
was ill.
More than 100 nuns from around the world then went into retreat on Jan.
16 and had planned to vote in a secret ballot on Feb. 2. But the order's
electoral college, apparently unable to find a clear-cut successor, decided
instead to hold closed-door deliberations before taking a vote.
Sister Nirmala's near-unanimous selection dashed speculation that the
order, torn between several candidates, would name a committee instead of
one senior nun as its new leader.
"I would think Sister Nirmala would try her best to lead the sisters
according to the spirit and tradition given to them by Mother Teresa,"
Bombay's archbishop, Cardinal Simon Pimenta, told Reuters. "It's the work
of the Lord."
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My point is, why CNN is so keen of mentioning, 'Hindu Brahmin convert.'
Does it expect,
1.More converts?
2.To make this as a big issue to mock at hindu religion?
Being a hindu or christian is a person's own choice.(And, I personally
feel, only a person who does not know much about his/her own religion
converts to another and shouts a lot of it). But, after 49 years of her
conversion, now CNN sees as a big issue.
The pity on us is, we are buying what it (the western media) wants to
sell. When Prince Charles was told inclining to Buddhism, it showered a
very harsh attack. And, now here, it again wants to make an issue on it.
rizi
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