THE FUNERAL OF MOTHER TERESA; `HER GOODNESS WAS CONTAGIOUS'; WORLD FAITH UNANIMOUS IN TRIBUTE.

Byline: Donna Bryson Associated Press 

Mother Teresa, the compassionate Catholic who ministered to the poor whatever their religion, was laid to rest today with the pomp of a state funeral, the tears of the downtrodden and the prayers of a half-dozen faiths.

Pope John Paul II praised her love and compassion in a message from the Vatican. The poor in Calcutta who considered her their angel honored her, too: Scores slipped past police to run beside the garlanded carriage that bore her to her funeral, calling ``Mother Teresa, you're immortal,'' and wiping tears from their cheeks.

A Christian in an overwhelmingly Hindu nation, she unremittingly focused on the world's poorest and built a worldwide network of charities. Her work freely crossed religious boundaries, caught the attention and admiration of world leaders, and won her the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize.

``Perhaps the greatest message she has given is the value and dignity of human life,'' the archbishop of Calcutta, Cardinal Henry D'Souza, said in his eulogy. ``All human life is precious.''

``To the dying and the suffering she brought her tender compassion, washing their wounds, easing their pain,'' D'Souza said.

``Her goodness was contagious. It invited others to share.''

Mother Teresa's open, white casket rested on a platform inside the Netaji indoor stadium, her body raised and tilted to afford 12,000 people - poor and sick, presidents and royalty - a last look. A white-and-blue banner stating ``works of love are works of peace'' draped the altar.

Mother Teresa, known here as the saint of the gutters, died Sept. 5 at 87. She appears an ideal candidate for sainthood in the Roman Catholic Church. However, five years must pass before the bishop in Calcutta may begin collecting proof of ``heroic virtue and reputation of holiness,'' which are required for canonization.

The pope, in a message delivered by Cardinal Angelo Sodano, praised Mother Teresa for showing love and compassion to the poor while others simply debated how to help them. Sodano, who celebrated the funeral Mass, is the Vatican secretary of state.

``The poor are still with us,'' the pope said, calling on others to continue her work. ``At the close of a century, which has known terrible extremes of darkness,'' he said Mother Teresa's ``light of conscience has not been extinguished.''

Her three-hour funeral service blended four languages - English, Latin, Bengali and Hindi. A choir of nuns from her Missionaries of Charity sang in Bengali: ``Touch me with your inspiration. . . . Make me whole.''

Speakers representing the archbishop of Canterbury, the Hindus, the Muslims, the Sikhs, the Buddhists and the Parsi, a tiny religious group in India, paid tribute to Mother Teresa.

After the Mass, first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, who led a U.S. delegation to the funeral, placed a wreath against the base of Mother Teresa's casket. The crowd applauded as representatives of numerous nations walked to the casket and did the same.

``Mother Teresa fulfilled the call of Jesus to the best of her capacity,'' Sister Nirmala, Mother Teresa's successor at Missionaries of Charity, said after the Mass. ``Because of her total surrender to him, the Lord has worked millions and million of miracles which we have witnessed.''

The burial at the headquarters of her Missionaries of Charity order was to be private and simple and last but a few minutes. After a prayer, the body was to be lowered into its grave in the mission's former dining room. Outside, hundreds gathered in drizzle and 90-degree heat.

Slabs of white marble and a rectangular cement box about 3 feet high were seen inside by reporters before the funeral. A fresh coat of beige paint freshened the walls and brown linoleum covered the concrete floor.

Calcutta's unfortunate and sick had lined up for days by the thousands in the heat and rain to pass through the huge wooden doors of St. Thomas' Church and view Mother Teresa's body in a glass coffin. Many of those turned away Friday night received passes for the funeral.

The route of the funeral procession was lengthened at the last minute to allow more of Calcutta's 12 million people - a third of them slum-dwellers - watch her body pass by. The crushing crowds, however, did not materialize.

``Most of the people are at home watching it on TV,'' mourner Santu Pal said. Some said police were stopping people at major traffic junctions, preventing them from reaching the procession route.

Along the 3-mile route to the stadium, thousands of mourners tossed flower petals from balconies onto the gun carriage decorated with jasmine and carrying Mother Teresa's open casket, draped in the Indian flag. Military police in red-plumed turbans lined the streets.

A cross of white flowers hung from the green military troop truck carrying soldiers and nuns, who sat face-to-face. The same carriage was used in the funerals of independence leader Mohandas Gandhi in 1948 and India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, in 1964.

Last month, although his family is Hindu, David Simon took his injured brother to see Mother Teresa. Today, Simon watched her cortege pass.

``Mother Teresa blessed my elder brother when he had fractured his leg in a motor accident. That's what made him well,'' he said.

Only a week ago, Britain's Princess Diana was buried, reportedly with a rosary given to her by Mother Teresa.

The representative of England's archbishop of Canterbury referred to the two women's relationship in his remarks after the Mass.

``Mother Teresa's deep and compelling spirituality was combined with the practical application of faith. I'm sure that these were the qualities that drew Princess Diana and others to hold her in such affection,'' the Most Rev. Dhirendra K. Mohanty said.

Mother Teresa was born in what is now Macedonia, but became an Indian citizen in the 1940s. In 1946, when she was a young nun teaching in church schools in Calcutta, she said she received a call from God to serve the ``poorest of the poor.''

She went on to found hundreds of orphanages, soup kitchens, homeless shelters and clinics run by her 4,000-member Missionaries of Charity order. She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979.

CAPTION(S):

5 Photos

Photo: (1--color) Missionaries and soldiers ride in Mother Teresa's funeral cortege as her body is carried through Calcutta.

(2--color) Mourners line the roadside in Calcutta before Mother Teresa's funeral.

(3) Sister Nirmala, left, head of the Missionaries of Charity, leads a contingent of nuns walking behind Mother Teresa's casket during Saturday's procession through Calcutta.

(4) A mourner bows her head in prayer as Mother Teresa's body is carried from St. Thomas' Church in Calcutta to a gun carriage that will bear it to Netaji indoor stadium.

(5) An Indian mourner prays before a cross of white flowers adorning the truck that pulled Mother Teresa's funeral carriage through Calcutta.

Associated Press