No Humanitarian religious figure is more famous in the Western imagination than Mother Teresa. She is a Nobel Peace Prize winner, a declared saint by the Catholic church and a nun who dedicated her life to the poor. But was she trying to end poverty or to "protect the sanctity of poverty?" There are many photos of this woman praying over the poor. Yet there is evidence that she was more generous with her prayers than her funds. The doctors who visited her missions noted unfit conditions and a significant lack of hygiene, actual care, painkillers or food. One journalist even compared the conditions at Teresa's Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta to the photographs she had seen of Nazi Germany's Bergen-Belsen concentration camp (Washington Post). The problem was not a lack of funds. The Order of the Missionaries of Charity had successfully raised hundreds of millions of dollars. But where did these millions disappear to?
According to Susan Shields, (one of the sisters in Teresa's congregation), "Mother was very concerned that we preserve our spirit of poverty." Spending money would destroy that poverty. Teresa was obsessed with using the most miserly and simple means of caring for her patients. Never mind the fact that Teresa sought her own personal care at a modern American hospital. According to the Susan Shields account, the sisters re-used needles in Haiti until they became blunt and caused discomfort. The sisters were encouraged to beg for most basic staples of food and supplies, and to let the costs for patients fall on hospitals, local merchants and farmers. Meanwhile the millions of dollars raised by the charity sat in the bank and were treated as if they didn't exist. (Arctic Beacon)
There is also Mother Teresa's controversial association with the pedophile priest, Donald McGuire. Fr. Donald McGuire was a high flying Jesuit, a preacher whose controversial views matched Teresa's own. McGuire went on to become a confessor and spiritual director to Mother Teresa's spiritual order. Despite clear evidence of McGuire's abusive behavior, Teresa had still spoken up for him and insisted that he be reinstated into the ministry. Later he was brought to trial and sentenced to 25 years in prison for nearly three decades of abuse of young boys. (Bharata Bharati)
A controversial study in Canada has called Mother Teresa anything but a saint. This study will be published in the journal of studies in religion/sciences called Religieuses. It mentions how the Vatican overlooked Teresa's tendency to glorify the suffering of the sick rather than relieving it. Not only did Teresa have insufficient treatment for the poor, but she used her media platform to promote ultra right wing views against abortion and birth control - the same birth-control that actually elevates many women out of poverty. There was also much media hype about Teresa's "miracles." One famous miracle was her healing of Monica Bersa's abdominal pain with a blessed medallion, even though a doctor claims that it was actually drugs that healed Monica's ovarian cyst (The Times of India) . Nevertheless, the Vatican concluded that it was a miracle and promoted the event as such.
Teresa's motives have also been questioned in her charity work. Was she really being charitable, or was her real aim to make religious conversions? She has been criticized by the head of the Hindu nationalist group Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). "It's good to work for a cause with selfless intentions. But Mother Teresa's work had ulterior motive, which was to convert the person who was being served to Christianity," RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat said at the opening of an orphanage in Rajasthan state on Monday, the Times of India reports.
In Christopher Hitchen's pamphlet titled "The Missionary Position," he made the argument that Teresa was less interested in helping the poor than in using them as an indefatigable source of wretchedness on which to fuel the expansion of her fundamentalist Roman Catholic beliefs.
There are some serious questions that need to be raised about this figure's actual contributions to the poor. There is nothing sanctimonious about poverty. Poverty is a dire problem in our world that needs real solutions, not glorification.
DOCUMENTARY
Christopher Hitchens - "Mother Teresa: Hell's Angel"
In this investigative documentary (published in November 8th, 1994) Christopher Hitchens investigates whether Mother Teresa of Calcutta deserves her saintly image. He probes her campaigns against contraception and abortion as well as her relationships with right-wing political leaders. Contributors include the cameraman who worked on the 1969 film `Mother Teresa of Calcutta' which was presented by Malcolm Muggeridge, the journalist Mihir Bose, and former volunteer Mary Loudon.
LINKS
The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice (Book on Amazon)
Former Catholic Sister Says Even Mother Teresa Is a Fraud (Arctic Beacon)
Why, to many critics, Mother Teresa is still no saint (Washington Post)
Mother Teresa defended notorious paedophile priest – Nelson Jones (Bharata Bharati)
Mother Teresa and her millions – Susan Shields & Walter Wuellenweber (Bharata Bharati)
Conversion was Mother Teresa's real aim, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat says (Times of India)
Mother Teresa Humanitarian Image A 'Myth,' New Study Says (Huffington Post)
Mother Teresa 'saint of the media', controversial study says (The Times of India)
The pope beatifies Mother Teresa, a fanatic, a fundamentalist, and a fraud. (Slate)
Mother of All Myths (Deeshaa)