Henry Sebastian D'Souza
Born in Igatpuri, D'Souza was ordained priest in 1948. He became Bishop of Cuttack-Bhubaneswar in 1974 and was named coadjutor Archbishop of Calcutta in 1985. D'Souza retired in 2002 as Archbishop of Calcutta and started the Life Ascending- a monthly newsletter for the elderly. He died at the age of 90 in 2016 at Vianney Home, Kolkata. He was the Archbishop of Calcutta (Kolkata) when Saint Mother Teresa was in her later years and upon her death in the year 1997, helped initiate and support her sainthood.
Mother Teresa
Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya, mayor of Kolkata from 2005 to 2010, said that "she had no significant impact on the poor of this city", glorified illness instead of treating it and misrepresented the city: "No doubt there was poverty in Calcutta, but it was never a city of lepers and beggars, as Mother Teresa presented it." On the Hindu right, the Bharatiya Janata Party clashed with Teresa over the Christian Dalits but praised her in death and sent a representative to her funeral. Vishwa Hindu Parishad, however, opposed the government decision to grant her a state funeral. Secretary Giriraj Kishore said that "her first duty was to the Church and social service was incidental", accusing her of favouring Christians and conducting "secret baptisms" of the dying. In a front-page tribute, the Indian fortnightly "Frontline" dismissed the charges as "patently false" and said that they had "made no impact on the public perception of her work, especially in Calcutta". Praising her "selfless caring", energy and bravery, the author of the tribute criticised Teresa's public campaign against abortion and her claim to be non-political.