Missionaries of Charity 517 missions in more than 100 countries. In 1990, Mother Teresa asked to resign as head of the Missionaries, but was soon voted back in as Superior General. On March 13, 1997, six months before Mother Teresa's death, Sister Mary Nirmala Joshi was selected the new Superior General of the Missionaries of Charity. Sister Mary Prema was elected to succeed Sister Nirmala during a general chapter held in Kolkata in April 2009. In July 1998 in Al Hudaydah, Yemen, three Missionaries of Charity, two Indians and a Filipina, were shot and killed as they left a hospital. In March 2016
Missionaries of the Precious Blood not take vows but are held together by the bond of charity only and by a promise of "fidelity to the Congregation of Missionaries of the Precious Blood in accordance with its Constitution and Statutes, giving [themselves] entirely to the service of God". (see the formula of incorporation found in C37 of the Normative Texts 2008.) The stated charism of the Society is to bring the Word of God to where it is most needed. Saint Gaspare del Bufalo founded the Society at the request of Pope Pius VII, who was shocked by the spiritual situation in Rome after he