In a gesture of compassion, the Pope arranged for a pizza lunch to be served to 1,500 needy people after the Mass. They came from shelters run by Mother Teresa's order in Rome, Milan, Bologna, Naples and Florence.

Pizza Napoletana was to be cooked by pizza makers from Naples and served in the Paul VI Hall, a large space near St Peter's Basilica. The pizzas were to be served by 250 nuns and 50 priests.

Mother Teresa died in 1997 in Kolkata, the Indian city where she spent her adult life, first teaching, then tending to the dying poor.

It was in the latter role, at the head of her now worldwide order, that she became one of the most famous women on the planet.

Born to Kosovar Albanian parents in Skopje - then part of the Ottoman empire, now the capital of Macedonia - she won the 1979 Nobel peace prize and was revered around the world as a beacon for the Christian values of self-sacrifice and charity.

She was simultaneously regarded with scorn by secular critics who accused her of being more concerned with evangelism than with improving the lot of the poor.