Vatican City ? Mother Teresa, the Roman Catholic nun who spent much of her life caring for the poor in the slums of Calcutta, India, was approved for beatification Friday when Pope John Paul II confirmed a miracle credited to her intercession.

With the miracle, Mother Teresa will be beatified in a ceremony scheduled for Oct. 19 in Rome, her order said. The date is the Catholic Church’s Mission Sunday, and the Sunday closest to the 25th anniversary of John Paul’s election as pope.

John Paul, who has elevated more than 460 people to sainthood in his 24 years as pope, has long held the nun in high esteem. He waived the customary five-year waiting period and began the process that can lead to sainthood just a year after Mother Teresa died in 1997 at age 87. A second miracle is required for sainthood.

Nuns at Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity house in Calcutta rejoiced Friday at word a miracle had been approved and passed out candies to about 100 orphans to celebrate.

“The mood is joyous. It’s great news for us,” Sister Priscillav said. “This is something very special, not only to India, but to the whole world.”

The pope gave his approval to the miracle — as well as 13 others for other saintly candidates — in a ceremony in the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace.

Cardinal Jose Saraiva Martins, head of the Congregation of the Causes of Saints, outlined Mother Teresa’s “heroic virtues” to the pope, calling her work with the poor in Calcutta’s slums a “world emblem of Christian charity.”

The miracle attributed to Mother Teresa’s intercession involves the recovery of a young Indian woman, Monica Besra, who had a stomach tumor. Her recovery, after an image of Mother Teresa was placed on her stomach, was judged to be without any medical explanation by a panel of doctors consulted by the Vatican.

Pope John Paul II greets Mother Teresa at the Vatican in this May 20, 1997, file photo. In a statement released Friday, the pope approved a miracle attributed to Mother Teresa's intercession, paving the way for her beatification.

However, doctors who work for the state of West Bengal, of which Calcutta is the capital, have challenged the Church’s claim that Besra was cured only by the image.

The state health department says Besra was treated with medicine to cure a form of meningitis and an ovarian tumor. They would not say what medicine they gave her.

The pope also approved miracles Friday for two Croats, Maria Di Gesu Crocifisso Petkovic and Ivan Merz, who will be beatified when John Paul travels to Croatia next spring.

He approved second miracles for Bishop Daniele Comboni, an Italian who founded a missionary order that worked extensively in Africa, and the Rev. Joseph Freinademetz, who worked for years in China, which does not recognize the Vatican and allows Chinese Catholics to worship only at state-sanctioned churches.