CHICAGO -- Mother Teresa, who won a Nobel Peace Prize for her work with the poor, Sunday said America has a hunger for love -- a poverty that is more difficult to solve than the poverty she has worked with in India and Africa.
In less developed countries, children are hungry for bread, the petite 70-year-old Roman Catholic nun told a news conference at the Good Counsel High School.
'I can satisfy their hunger immediately,' she asserted. 'But the hunger we have here is for love. It's much more difficult to remove and much greater.'
She saidthe answer to many of the world's problems is love.
'Nothing will be resolved as long as they don't share the joy of loving one another,' she said of the strife in northern Ireland, stressing the youth of the world should 'love each other until it hurts.'
She said people should try to show love through their actions, not just through words.
An outspoken proponent of women in the church, Mother Teresa said she and other women are 'not just social workers. We have a very big role in the church.'
In Milwaukee to receive Marquette University's highest honor Saturday, Mother Teresa called abortion 'the greatest poverty a nation can experience.'
She said she was accepting the Marquette medal for the 'unwanted and the unloved ... for all her brothers and sisters who have been forgotten.' But she took it especially for the 'little unborn child' and expanded on her abortion views.
Her abortion stand, she said, is compatible with her view on 'respect for human life. We are all created in the image of God.'
Mother Teresa, who came to the United States primarily to speak against abortion in testimony before the Senate and to accept the Marquette University award, has stopped at a number of her missions during a whirlwind sweep of the county.
She is the founder of the worldwide Missionaries of Charity.
From Milwaukee, she went to Kenosha, Wis., Saturday to record television spots for a group devoted to strengthening the family. After her appearances in Chicago, she will travel to Miami, Fla., to dedicate a building for her worldwide order.
The final stops on her tour include New York and Washington, D.C.
