Mother Teresa, Symbol of Charity, Quits at 79 Because of Ill Health

Mother Teresa, the frail nun who became a symbol of selfless charity, has been forced to give up her life’s work helping the sick and dying because of ill health, the Vatican announced today.

The Nobel Peace Prize winner resigned as superior general of her Missionaries of Charity order, which runs more than 400 homes for the destitute around the world.

“I resigned in the interests of my organization, which needs to be run efficiently,” Mother Teresa, 79, told Reuters from her base in the poverty-stricken city of Calcutta.

“To me, the work and the cause of my mission is more important than any individual,” she added.

Mother Teresa was fitted with a pacemaker last December after treatment at a Calcutta hospital for a cardiac ailment. Doctors said her hectic travel schedule contributed to her illness.

Vatican spokesman Piero Pennachini said: “Pope John Paul has accepted the resignation of Mother Teresa on health grounds.” She told the Pope “she was happy to leave her post in younger hands,” Pennachini said.

Asked what she would do now, Mother Teresa said: “I will pray to the Lord as much as I can and thank God for giving me a chance to serve his cause.”

The Vatican said a new leader of the order, which wears simple white robes with blue borders, will be chosen Sept. 8.

Mother Teresa, born in Yugoslavia of Albanian parents, was made a Nobel laureate in 1979 for her decades of work in the slums of Calcutta, scene of some of the worst poverty in the world.

She founded her order after going alone to work among the dying and destitute of the city in 1949.

Before her illness she traveled constantly and was showered with honors.

She met the Pope several times, and in 1988 he opened a vagrants shelter she set up inside the Vatican walls.

Mother Teresa once summed up her work with the words, “The poor must know that we love them.”

The gentle but dynamic missionary, who brought hope and dignity to millions of poor people, said: “It gives me great joy and fulfillment to love and care for the poor and neglected. The poor do not need our sympathy and pity. They need our love and compassion.”