OFF THE CUFF: First Lady pays homage

PANAMA’S First Lady Lorena Castillo, like many others,  is jetting first class to  Italy  for the canonization of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who lived a a life of poverty.

The ceremony will take place Sunday September 4  at the Vatican in Rome.

Her press secretary,  Zoraya Quintero,  was  quick to report that Castillo will pay her own expenses for the trip and that it is not an official state visit.

President Juan Carlos Varela and Castillo were widely lampooned as Pope “groupies” during the recent Catholic youth assembly in Krakow Poland, and further criticism followed when it was revealed that the president took his personal chaplain along, on a trip that ended up costing the state hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Earlier, Castillo, who is unelected, went to Taiwan for a week to join in the celebtations of the election of the country’s first woman president.

Mother Teresa, who lived a life of poverty in India’s slums, founded the Missionaries of Charity, a group that is now active in 133 countries. She died in 1997.