Renowned humanitarian and winner of the Nobel Prize in 1979, Mother Teresa is a named recognized (and respected) by many. Originally born Agnes Gonxha, Mother Teresa has recently been receiving a renewed look at the validity of her reputation. Often named as one of the most admired women in the world, author Christopher Hitchens was the first to expose a very different side in his book “The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice”.
While his book was widely criticized, Hitchens was never sued for libel or slander. Nor, surprisingly, were any of his claims refuted, or even received direct response from the Mother Teresa Foundation or The Vatican. While this is not an admission of guilt by any means, it certainly doesn’t look good to leave these statements in a grey area! Essentially, the argument against Mother Teresa revolves around four main points: 1. She seemed to love suffering; 2. She often refused to provide adequate medical care; 3. She may have received financial support from disreputable sources; and 4. Claimed mistreatment of her nuns. Soon, a peer-reviewed paper from the University of Montreal may make even bolder claims against Mother Teresa’s saintliness. The summary below is from a press release by the university:
SaveSoon, a peer-reviewed paper from the University of Montreal may make even bolder claims against Mother Teresa’s saintliness. The summary below is from a press release by the university: The myth of altruism and generosity surrounding Mother Teresa is dispelled in a paper by Serge Larivee and Genevieve Chenard of University of Montreal’s Department of Psychoeducation and Carole Senechal of the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Education. The paper will be published in the March issue of the journal Studies in Religion/Sciences religieuses and is an analysis of the published writings about Mother Teresa. Like the journalist and author Christopher Hitchens, who is amply quoted in their analysis, the researchers conclude that her hallowed image — which does not stand up to analysis of the facts — was constructed, and that her beatification was orchestrated by an effective media relations campaign. “While looking for documentation on the phenomenon of altruism for a seminar on ethics, one of us stumbled upon the life and work of one of Catholic Church’s most celebrated woman and now part of our collective imagination — Mother Teresa — whose real name was Agnes Gonxha” says Professor Larivee, who led the research. “The description was so ecstatic that it piqued our curiosity and pushed us to research further.” As a result, the three researchers collected 502 documents on the life and work of Mother Teresa. After eliminating 195 duplicates, they consulted 287 documents to conduct their analysis, representing 96% of the literature on the founder of the Order of the Missionaries of Charity (OMC). Facts debunk the myth of Mother Teresa In their article, Serge Larivee and his colleagues also cite a number of problems not take into account by the Vatican in Mother Teresa’s beatification process, such as “her rather dubious way of caring for the sick, her questionable political contacts, her suspicious management of the enormous sums of money she received, and her overly dogmatic views regarding, in particular, abortion, contraception, and divorce.” Further quotes from the press release go on to explain the three types of wrong-doing that the report believes Mother Teresa engaged in. As follows: 1. Mother Teresa often refused to provide adequate medical care, preferring to take joy in her patients’ suffering. From the press release: “At the time of her death, Mother Teresa had opened 517 missions welcoming the poor and sick in more than 100 countries. The missions have been described as “homes for the dying” by doctors visiting several of these establishments in Calcutta. Two-thirds of the people coming to these missions hoped to a find a doctor to treat them, while the other third lay dying without receiving appropriate care. The doctors observed a significant lack of hygiene, even unfit conditions, as well as a shortage of actual care, inadequate food, and no painkillers. The problem is not a lack of money — the Foundation created by Mother Teresa has raised hundreds of millions of dollars — but rather a particular conception of suffering and death: “There is something beautiful in seeing the poor accept their lot, to suffer it like Christ’s Passion. The world gains much from their suffering,” was her reply to criticism, cites the journalist Christopher Hitchens. Nevertheless, when Mother Teresa required palliative care, she received it in a modern American hospital.” 2. She would receive money from dubious sources, yet use almost none of it to help others.Again, quoting the researchers: “Mother Teresa was generous with her prayers but rather miserly with her foundation’s millions when it came to humanity’s suffering. During numerous floods in India or following the explosion of a pesticide plant in Bhopal, she offered numerous prayers and medallions of the Virgin Mary but no direct or monetary aid. On the other hand, she had no qualms about accepting the Legion of Honour and a grant from the Duvalier dictatorship in Haiti. Millions of dollars were transferred to the MCO’s various bank accounts, but most of the accounts were kept secret, Larivee says. ‘Given the parsimonious management of Mother Theresa’s works, one may ask where the millions of dollars for the poorest of the poor have gone?’” 3 . She was promoted by an anti-abortionist journalist, Malcolm Muggeridge, and her beatification wasn’t based on genuine miracles. This one might be the most damning: “. .In 1969, [Muggeridge] made a eulogistic film of the missionary, promoting her by attributing to her the “first photographic miracle” when it should have been attributed to the new film stock being marketed by Kodak. Afterwards, Mother Teresa travelled throughout the world and received numerous awards, including the Nobel Peace Prize. In her acceptance speech, on the subject of Bosnian women who were raped by Serbs and now sought abortion, she said: ‘I feel the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a direct war, a direct killing — direct murder by the mother herself.” Following her death, the Vatican decided to waive the usual five-year waiting period to open the beatification process. The miracle attributed to Mother Theresa was the healing of a woman, Monica Besra, who had been suffering from intense abdominal pain. The woman testified that she was cured after a medallion blessed by Mother Theresa was placed on her abdomen. Her doctors thought otherwise: the ovarian cyst and the tuberculosis from which she suffered were healed by the drugs they had given her. The Vatican, nevertheless, concluded that it was a miracle. Mother Teresa’s popularity was such that she had become untouchable for the population, which had already declared her a saint. “What could be better than beatification followed by canonization of this model to revitalize the Church and inspire the faithful especially at a time when churches are empty and the Roman authority is in decline?” Larivee and his colleagues ask.” It’s worthwhile to note that each of these claims seems to support Hitchens’ work and observations. So why does the press release go on to undo much of their own claims? As follows: “Despite Mother Teresa’s dubious way of caring for the sick by glorifying their suffering instead of relieving it, Serge Larivee and his colleagues point out the positive effect of the Mother Teresa myth: “If the extraordinary image of Mother Teresa conveyed in the collective imagination has encouraged humanitarian initiatives that are genuinely engaged with those crushed by poverty, we can only rejoice. It is likely that she has inspired many humanitarian workers whose actions have truly relieved the suffering of the destitute and addressed the causes of poverty and isolation without being extolled by the media. Nevertheless, the media coverage of Mother Theresa could have been a little more rigorous.”
… Which, to me, sounds like a rather elaborate means of continuing to deny Mother Teresa’s responsibility in her less-than-admirable actions. Still, her order of nuns is not working towards curing an illness; still, the lost donations have not been found. In my mind, this is unacceptable. When the paper is released, the authors claim to provide evidence that Mother Teresa (or, her image) provides a positive effect on the lives of people around the world. Either way, Hitchens’ claims will no longer be able to be dismissed as thoroughly, as a peer-reviewed paper by academics carries with it much more weight than a single author’s research. More than anything, this may be a call towards a raising of awareness for all people involved. Rather than continue to rely on the images we’ve been given, why should we not pursue our own understandings, our own investigations, into what is right? Be that abortion laws or medical care, the idea of a woman as flawless as Mother Teresa may never be able to be lived up to by the reality of who we are as human beings. See the article that inspired this one hereSaveSource
SaveSoon, a peer-reviewed paper from the University of Montreal may make even bolder claims against Mother Teresa’s saintliness. The summary below is from a press release by the university:
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