Mother Teresa festival drops film

The Vatican plans to beatify Mother Teresa this year

A Channel 4 documentary that criticised Mother Teresa has been dropped from a festival in Calcutta celebrating her beatification.

The film Hell's Angel questioned her acceptance of donations from former Haitian ruler Jean-Claude Duvalier and US financier Charles Keating.

The documentary, based on a book by journalist Christopher Hitchens, accused her of consoling and supporting the wealthy and powerful - while preaching to the poor that they should accept their lot.

It has now been withdrawn after objections from the Missionaries of Charity order, founded by Mother Teresa to care for the poor, sick and dying.

The order has also objected to the showing of French author Dominique Lapierre's film In The Name Of God's Poor, starring Geraldine Chaplin as Mother Teresa - however, this film will still be screened.

A 1969 documentary, Something Beautiful for God, will also be shown.

The festival will be held as Mother Teresa is beatified at St. Peter's Basilica in Rome on 19 October.

The ceremony will be shown live in downtown Calcutta, which Mother Teresa made her home in 1929. She died there in 1997, aged 87.

In December, the Pope approved a miracle attributed to her - the reported healing of a woman's tumour - which paved the way for her beatification.

According to Roman Catholic belief, a second miracle would make her eligible for sainthood.