MEDIA STAR'S SUCCESSOR HAS TOUGHER JOB AHEAD.

Byline: Susan Caba Knight-Ridder Tribune News Wire

Mother Teresa was a public relations executive's dream.

She had a visual image, in her blue-bordered sari, as crisp and potent as any corporate logo.

She could stick to her message - service to Jesus through love of the poor - better than most political candidates.

And she had a reputation that, after her death last week, has spurred serious debate about whether the Vatican should speed up the process of declaring her a saint.

She was, in other words, a tough act to follow.

But that is the task of Sister Nirmala, elected in March to succeed Mother Teresa as superior general of the Missionaries of Charity, the Catholic order of nuns founded - and personified - by Mother Teresa.

The difficulty of the job is reflected in her title: Sister. Despite a banner that declared ``We love our dearest Mother Nirmala'' on the day her succession was announced, she has remained simply Sister Nirmala.

It's not only Sister Nirmala who has to live in Mother Teresa's shadow.

The Missionaries of Charity, as an institution, has to build an identity apart from the diminutive woman who, through the strength of her personality and devotion, nurtured a single mission into a worldwide organization with more than 4,000 nuns. Mother Teresa could pick up the telephone and get presidents and prime ministers to take her call. The question now is whether her order can survive without her.

Already, the competition is raising its head.

Mother Teresa has been periodically criticized for ``merely'' feeding and housing the poorest, the sickest and the mentally ill. This week, while hundreds of thousands filed past her body, those complaints were raised again - gently - in an article in the English-language newspaper, the Telegraph.

Representatives of seven social welfare organizations said Mother Teresa was able to ignore government rules that require ``rehabilitation'' of the poor because she relied mostly on big private donations, not government funding.

Mild carping was also heard from legislative assemblyman Subrata Mukherjee, who said Mother Teresa's work was commendable but a lot of similar work by less high-profile organizations is ignored because they lack a star with her charisma.

The future of the Missionaries of Charity will depend, in large part, on whether Sister Nirmala can develop some of her predecessor's skills in overcoming those objections - and in keeping the financial donations flowing in.

``She has to be herself,'' said the Rev. Edouard Le Joly, spiritual adviser to Mother Teresa and the Missionaries of Charity for more than 40 years. ``She's Sister Nirmala, and she knows she is not a second Mother Teresa.''

Mother Teresa was media manna. Besides being photogenic and articulate, she had a great story.

She left her home in what is now Macedonia at age 18 to become a missionary nun. She was sent to Calcutta, where she taught school for 20 years but was disturbed because she couldn't help the poor who lived in the slums and who didn't attend school. Then, one day - Sept. 10, 1946, to be exact - she felt a call from God to dedicate herself to those left in the gutters of life. She got permission to form her own order, loved the most unlovable and went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

Sister Nirmala - the name means ``purity'' - is media-shy.

She is 63, bespectacled and soft-spoken, with a master's degree in political science and some training in the law. The oldest of 11 children, she was born in the northern Indian state of Bihar, though her family has roots in Nepal.

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about her is she was born, in 1934, a Hindu Brahmin - that religion's priestly caste - and converted to Catholicism when she was 24, after hearing of Mother Teresa's work in Calcutta. ``She chose Jesus,'' said Le Joly. ``It certainly is a proof of her love and faith in Jesus.''

Sister Nirmala wasn't one of Mother Teresa's four chief deputies, so her election - after eight weeks of meditation by the sisters - came as something of a surprise. Sister Nirmala ran the order's first overseas mission and later supervised the missions in Europe and the United States.

Le Joly insists the world will love the Missionaries of Charity as much under Sister Nirmala's leadership as it did under Mother Teresa's.

``Out in the world, they will feel a certain void,'' he said Thursday. ``There is a certain emptiness, there is something gone, that is true.

``But the work will carry on in exactly the same way,'' he continued. ``The sisters who have taken this life and taken the vow will continue the same way. For the sisters, things will not change.''

But what about the money Mother Teresa was so adept at raising?

``The money is not raised,'' he replied, with a hint of irritation. ``It is given for the work. And the people will go on to give to the Missionaries of Charity for the work.''

But others are not so sure.

``Mother Teresa, more than what she did, was a packaged product that was accepted in the West,'' said Shuvobrata Ganguly, owner of a Calcutta advertising agency. ``I could do the same things she did, and I wouldn't have rock stars coming to touch my feet. Mother Teresa packaged this product very well and sold it to the West. You need someone to lead the charge, as it were.''

CAPTION(S):

2 Photos

Photo: (1--ran in VALLEY edition only) Sister Nirmala, left, leads a procession behind Mother Teresa's body.

Associated Press 

(2--ran in BULLDOG edition only) Sister Nirmala

Heads religious order