Women in the Catholic Church
Mother Teresa of Calcutta established the Missionaries of Charity in the slums of Calcutta in 1948 to work among "the poorest of the poor". Initially founding a school, she then gathered other sisters who "rescued new-born babies abandoned on rubbish heaps; they sought out the sick; they took in lepers, the unemployed, and the mentally ill". Teresa achieved fame in the 1960s and began to establish convents around the world. By the time of her death in 1997, the religious institute she founded had more than 450 centres in over 100 countries.
Brian Kolodiejchuk
Father Kolodiejchuk's 20-year association with Mother Teresa began in 1977 when he joined a new group of contemplative brothers she was then starting. He later joined the priestly branch of Mother Teresa's religious family, the Missionaries of Charity Fathers, at the time of their foundation in 1984.
He was ordained to the priesthood in June 1985 in the Ukrainian Catholic Church of St. John the Baptist in Newark, New Jersey, USA, by the late Metropolitan-Archbishop of Winnipeg, Maxim Hermaniuk, C.Ss.R. In March 1999 he was appointed Postulator of the Cause of Beatification and Canonization of Mother Teresa of Calcutta and had the joy of seeing her beatified on October 19, 2003. He was appointed director of the Mother Teresa Center, which is an extension of the office for the cause of canonization of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, in June 2004.