(ZENIT News – OMPress. / Rome, 21.10.2025) – On Saturday, October 18, the nuns founded by Mother Teresa of Calcutta celebrated this anniversary in Rome. It was on October 7, 1950, when the then Archbishop of Calcutta, Monsignor Ferdinand Perier, recognized the Congregation canonically.
They also celebrated the 50th anniversary of the House they have in Rome itself, in San Gregorio al Celio, a place that was home on several occasions to Mother Teresa of Calcutta, «a universal icon of charity lived to the extreme in favour of the most needy, discarded by society.» Since that canonical recognition, the Missionaries of Charity, dressed in white saris bordered by three blue stripes, symbolizing their vows of poverty, obedience and service to the poor, have written a history of closeness and love for them.
This anniversary, celebrated by the Congregation throughout the world, was held in Rome on Saturday afternoon, in the Basilica of St. Anastasia on the Palatine, where the Italian Bishop Emeritus, Monsignor Ambrogio Spreafico, presided over the Mass. The 50th anniversary of the Religious Family was also commemorated in San Gregorio al Celio, opposite the Circus Maximus, in an old chicken coop donated by the Camaldolese monks to the Sisters in 1975. It was recalled how that year, on November 22, the first poor person was welcomed. As Sister Miriam Teresa explained at the celebration, «he was the first of many beloved children of God whom we have had the privilege of serving. Through Mother’s fragile ‘yes’ and our daily fragile ‘yes,’ the Lord spreads His love throughout the world, in the 130 countries where we are present and where we continue to pray to be humble collaborators of God.»
The House on Mount Celio was the second one the Foundress opened in Rome. The first was inaugurated in 1968 in Tor Fiscale, where the Missionary Fathers of Charity, a Religious Community founded by the Saint in 1984, currently reside (the contemplative Brothers, however, reside in Sant’Agapito).
There are about seventy Sisters in Rome, divided into several communities. They run five Houses of active women religious: in addition to that of San Gregorio, there is a House in Tor Bella Monaca, one in the Casilina area (where young women in formation aspiring to become Missionaries of Charity also live), one in Primavalle, which welcomes pregnant mothers, and «Dono de Maria,» the building in Piazza del Sant’Uffizio donated to Mother Teresa by John Paul II, which houses a soup kitchen, a dormitory, and a women’s shelter. Finally, in Acilia, on Via Dragoncello, is the contemplative branch of the Congregation.
