With the first anniversary of her death at the age of 87 on September 5 last year, tributes to the diminutive yet media savvy nun who catered to Calcutta's needy have again brought this question to the forefront.

Even a person like Mother Teresa, whose selfless devotion to the downtrodden and oppressed helped win her the 1979 Nobel Peace prize, cannot justify speeding up the process, said a Vatican spokesman.

``All candidates for sanctification are equal before God,'' he said. The rules require a five-year wait before the path towards sainthood starts. After her death, many voices within the Roman Catholic church tried to push for an exception in Mother Teresa's case and urged for an immediate canonisation. Among them was her close friend Italian cardinal Pio Laghi, now 76, who argued that MotherTeresa had ``done what Jesus did 2,000 years ago''.

In Rome, however, members of Her Missionaries of Charity, a community of 2,500 nuns around the world who minister to the poor, sick and abandoned, uphold Vatican rules and have not pressed for any early start to the canonisation procedure.

Though Pope John Paul II simplified the process in 1983, the path towards sainthood is still a long one. It starts with the local bishop in the diocese where the candidate lived, who must conduct a full inquiry into the acts, writings, and possible martyrdom of an individual whose ``reputation for holiness'' has been brought to the attention of religious authorities.

In the case of Mother Teresa, this would fall to the Calcutta diocese to collect evidence of what the church refers to as the ``heroic virtue'' of the candidate, meaning their practice of the Christian virtues of faith, hope and charity to an outstanding degree.

Should this initial inquiry prove worthy in the bishop's eyes, the file will be transferredto a special Vatican committee for a second look to see if it is deemed worthy enough to send on the Pope, who makes the final decision.

In his 20 years as pontiff, John Paul II has broken church records for pronouncing the most number of beatifications - a first formal step on the road to sainthood - and actual canonisations. As of August, he has beatified 803 people and canonised 279 saints.