Mother Teresa to be canonised today

Mother Teresa will be declared a saint by Pope Francis of the Roman Catholic Church in a canonisation ceremony in Vatican

For many of the poor and destitute whom Mother Teresa served, the tiny nun was a living saint.

Many at the Vatican would agree, but the Catholic Church nevertheless has a gruelling process to make it official, involving volumes of historical research, the hunt for miracles and teams of experts to weigh the evidence.

In Mother Teresa’s case, the process will come to a formal end today when Pope Francis declares the church's newest saint.

A second miracle is needed for the person to be declared a saint.

The saint-making process has long been criticised as being expensive, secretive, ripe for abuses and subject to political, financial or theological winds that can push one candidate to sainthood in record time and leave another languishing for centuries.

Pope Francis has raised eyebrows with some rule-breaking beatifications and canonisations, waiving the need for miracles and canonising more people in a single clip — more than 800 15th-century martyrs — than John Paul did in his 26-year pontificate (482).

Francis has also imposed new financial accountability standards on the multimillion-dollar machine after uncovering gross abuses that were subsequently revealed in two books.