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    VATICAN (CWNews.com) -- During his Sunday public audience on September 5, Pope John Paul II paid homage to the memory of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, on the second anniversary of her death.

    After reciting the Angelus with pilgrims at his summer residence in Castel Gandalfo, the Holy Father characterized Mother Teresa as "a great patron of life, honored especially by the young." He invoked the words of the revered nun, reminding young people of their duty to "build up the peace, beginning with their families, and to defend life-- always and in every form, especially when it is most vulnerable."

    On that same day, an anniversary Mass was celebrated at St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. Archbishop Giovanni Battista Re was the principal celebrant at the Mass, which was attended by the Rome-based members of the Missionaries of Charity, the religious order that Mother Teresa founded.

    Meanwhile, it was also announced that Margherita Guarducci, who identified the tomb of St. Peter under the altar of the Vatican basilica that bears his name, died in Rome on September 2 at the age of 97.

    Guarducci, widely known as "the archeologist of St. Peter's," presided over the explorations of the Vatican from 1939 to 1969. In 1965, her team confirmed the identity of St. Peter's tomb, on the basis of ancient writings inscribed on the walls of the site.

    Guarducci, who held a chair in archeology at the Sapienza University in Rome from 1942 to 1972, was the author of 400 books. Her most famous work, The Tomb of St. Peter, appeared in 1989 and outlined the process through which the apostle's tomb was discovered.

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