Post by Tamrin on Oct 21, 2008 18:09:39 GMT 10
France's 'Mother Teresa' dies aged 99
[Article by Isabelle Ligner (ninemsn, today) - Excerpts - Linked Above]
[Article by Isabelle Ligner (ninemsn, today) - Excerpts - Linked Above]
Sister Emmanuelle, France's answer to Mother Teresa, who has died aged 99, was an unorthodox nun who spent 20 years helping the poor in a Cairo slum before returning to France to defend the homeless.
The diminutive Catholic, who had been called Madeleine Cinquin before taking her vows, was best known in France for her frequent appearances on television to campaign passionately for the poor and homeless.
She came to media attention in France with her work with some of the world's poorest people, the residents of the Ezbet El-Nakhl slum in Cairo who eke out their living by scavenging in the garbage produced in the major Egyptian city.
The nun won many French hearts with her straight talk and her defiance of Catholic orthodoxy by backing contraception and marriage for priests.
French president Nicolas Sarkozy, echoing tributes that poured in from politicians and officials, said Sister Emmanuelle "touched our hearts", as a "woman of action for whom charity meant concrete actions of solidarity and fraternity".
The diminutive Catholic, who had been called Madeleine Cinquin before taking her vows, was best known in France for her frequent appearances on television to campaign passionately for the poor and homeless.
She came to media attention in France with her work with some of the world's poorest people, the residents of the Ezbet El-Nakhl slum in Cairo who eke out their living by scavenging in the garbage produced in the major Egyptian city.
The nun won many French hearts with her straight talk and her defiance of Catholic orthodoxy by backing contraception and marriage for priests.
French president Nicolas Sarkozy, echoing tributes that poured in from politicians and officials, said Sister Emmanuelle "touched our hearts", as a "woman of action for whom charity meant concrete actions of solidarity and fraternity".
She was called back to France in 1993, at the age of 85, despite her wish to stay on in Cairo.
In various television appearances, in her white veil and large glasses, she began to speak out for the homeless and the poor of French cities.
She also wrote several books, one of which, Confessions of a Nun, she said could be published only after her death.
She liked to say she was no saint, but a woman who was "vindictive", "irascible" and "a little bit feminist", and she admitted she had been in love with a man but had decided to devote herself instead to God.
In her last years she was wheelchair-bound. She said her death would simply be a "reunion between a child and her father".
She died peacefully in her sleep overnight on Sunday - a month before her 100th birthday - in a retirement home in the southern French town of Callian, said the Asmae-Association Soeur Emmanuelle.
In various television appearances, in her white veil and large glasses, she began to speak out for the homeless and the poor of French cities.
She also wrote several books, one of which, Confessions of a Nun, she said could be published only after her death.
She liked to say she was no saint, but a woman who was "vindictive", "irascible" and "a little bit feminist", and she admitted she had been in love with a man but had decided to devote herself instead to God.
In her last years she was wheelchair-bound. She said her death would simply be a "reunion between a child and her father".
She died peacefully in her sleep overnight on Sunday - a month before her 100th birthday - in a retirement home in the southern French town of Callian, said the Asmae-Association Soeur Emmanuelle.
