Mother Teresa was proclaimed a saint on September 4, 2016. Her figure has long become an element of popular culture, but why are there so many votes against her canonization?
Agnes Gonje Boyagiu (real name of Mother Teresa) was born in Macedonia in 1910. After the death of her father, Agnes was brought up only by her mother, and raised in a very religious spirit. Therefore, at the age of 18, the girl joined the Irish Catholic missionary organization Loreto.
It was then that Agnes takes the name Teresa and travels to Sister of Mercy in India, where he must teach children English. In ten years, Teresa decides to fight poverty and begins from the Indian city of Calcutta. First, she opens a school for the poor. Soon - begins to help those in need with food and provide free medical care.
Two years later, in 1950, the Vatican gave Theresa permission to establish the monastic congregation “Sisters of the Missionaries of Love”.
The first significant action of Mother Teresa within the framework of the congregation was the opening of a shelter for the dying. According to official figures, people at death were provided with medical care and religious rituals that were in line with the religion of the person.
After some time, Mother Teresa founded a shelter for leprosy patients. And already in 1955 the first children's shelter was opened. It was then that the real fame came to Mother Teresa’s mission: charitable contributions fell from all over the world.
The first refuge of Mother Teresa’s mission outside India opened in Venezuela in 1965, and then there were more and more of them: they opened in Asia, Africa, America and the USA. The personal popularity of Mother Teresa increased significantly after the release of the book and the film “Something Beautiful for God” by Malcolm Maggerij. In 1979, Teresa received the Nobel Peace Prize with the wording “For Activities in Helping a Needy Man”.
Mother Teresa led her mission until 1997. Six months before her death, she withdrew the authority of the head. Teresa died at the age of 87 on September 5, 1997. At that time, about 4, 000 sisters and 300 brothers belonged to the mission, and more than 100 thousand volunteers were involved in the work. Missions worked in 610 centers in 123 countries.
In 2003, Pope John Paul II proclaimed Mother Teresa Blessed. And this year, Pope Francis canonized her as Saint Theresa of Calcutta.
Suffering or help?
The first criticism of Mother Teresa’s activity appeared quickly enough. To date, the main complaint against her mission is the quality of medical services that were provided in her shelters.
Critics said that in her homes the dying did not save anyone, even if the person had a chance to recover and survive. Patients did not even receive pain medication.
In 1991, an article by Robin Fox, editor of the British medical journal The Lancet, became a scandal. He wrote that “unsystematic” order reigns in the shelters of Libra. Fox agreed that the patients were kept clean, cared for and treated their wounds, and treated well, but the editor argued that the sisters made important decisions about patients without any medical education.
The shelters lacked real doctors, and the sisters simply did not see the difference between the curable and incurable patients. Fox also makes a clear distinction between hospices and the homes of dying Mother Teresa: the latter lacked strong painkillers to consider them places where people with minimal suffering face death. Fox also wrote that the needles were not sterilized, the sisters simply rinsed them with hot water, leaving the risk of blood poisoning.
The same statements were voiced by Mary Loudon, a former mission volunteer, in the documentary of Mother Teresa Christopher Hitchens’famous opponent“ Angel from Hell Mother Teresa Kalkutska ”.
No - to abortions and other contraceptives
Especially great flurry of criticism Mother Teresa caused her attitude to abortion and contraception. Positioning herself as a defender of the poor, she also argued that there should be no birth control.
“Meanwhile, millions die through the reason that the will of their mothers was such. And that’s exactly what hurts the world the most today, ”is one of the first phrases of Mother Teresa’s Nobel speech.
And in her speech in Ireland, Mother Teresa addressed people with the following message: “Let's promise the Virgin Mary, who loves Ireland so much that we will not allow a single abortion in the country and no contraceptives.”
This position is natural for the Catholic fundamentalist, but it was surprising to many that such statements are made by a person who daily looks at the suffering of overpopulated India - a country, suffocating in poverty and disease.
Here it is worth recalling the famous statement of Mother Teresa from a press conference in 1981. To the question “do you teach the poor to endure their fate?” the nun replied: “I believe it is wonderful when poor people accept their fate and share their suffering with Christ. I think that the suffering of these people really helps the world. ”
Million dollar indulgence
In the 1990s, claims began also to the financial operations of sisters from the organization of Mother Teresa. One of the first scandals was a connection with the American banker Charles Keithing, which was known as a Catholic fundamentalist. Keating donated $ 1.25 million for Theresa Mission.
And when Keating was accused of fraud and arrested, Mother Teresa wrote a letter to the judge asking her to show leniency to Keating, because he gave a lot to charity. ”
Vіdpovіv her deputy district attorney Paul Tjorlі. In a letter, he called on Mother Teresa to return the money stolen from ordinary people through fraud. And even quoted the Bible. However, on this correspondence broke off. Mother Teresa never answered the letter from the prosecutor.
And in 1991, the German magazine Stern published an article stating that only 7% of the funds raised by the mission for the year were used by these goals. Where the rest of the money went is still unknown.
An article in Stern cites former newsletter Susan Shields, who says that on a mission in New York, the sisters spent several hours each evening processing mail donations. Amounts ranged from five dollars to one hundred thousand. Most donations came before Christmas. Stern estimated donations for all missions at $ 100 million per year.
Robin Fox, who we mentioned earlier, was sincerely surprised why doctors were not invited to the homes of the dying, because the congregation had enough donor funds. According to him, the mission was more likely to imitate the provision of medical services than real help.
The mission was also seriously criticized for the fact that during natural disasters in India, the victims of which were hundreds of thousands, Mother Teresa urged everyone to pray for the victims, but she never transferred funds to assist them.
Ticket to paradise
Former missionary Susan Shields also recalls that the sisters asked the patient at death if he wanted a “ticket to paradise." And if the person, exhausted by suffering and pain, answered in the affirmative, the sister secretly baptized her: she applied wet tissue to her head, as if for cooling, and quietly performed the ceremony. Shields is the only one who has publicly announced the baptism of Muslims and Hindus in dying homes for Mother Teresa.
Strong friends
Mother Teresa was friends with the powers that be. She calmly accepted the award from the hands of US President Reagan, whom she criticized for aggressive military campaigns and invasions. In 1981, the nun received an award from Haitian dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier, against whom they subsequently made a coup. It turned out that he had appropriated almost all the means of the state budget, and Mother Teresa spoke very favorably about his regime.
She laid flowers on the grave of Enver Hoxha, the totalitarian leader of her native Albania. It was with his instructions that representatives of any faith were brutally persecuted in the country.
She supported the candidacy of Licho Jelly for the Nobel Prize in literature, although he was involved in killings and corruption in Italy, and also had close ties with the neo-fascist movement and the Argentine military junta.
Double standard
Christopher Hitchens criticized Mother Teresa for treating herself at the best Western and Indian clinics, and did not trust her health with her own mission.
Theresa herself in diaries and correspondence (at her request they should have been burned after death, but instead published) wrote repeatedly that she had lost faith in God. For example, here is a quote from a letter to her mentor: “I feel lost. The Lord does not love me. God cannot be God. Perhaps he is not. ”
When Mother Teresa was hospitalized due to heart problems, the Calcutta archbishop proposed an exorcism ceremony, to which Mother Teresa agreed.
Some have criticized the exaltation of Mother Teresa because she fell under the historical colonial tradition - a white woman sacrifices comfort and does something for black, colored, uneducated and dirty natives. In such a situation, the Western public is inclined to notice such a character and not see the actions of local people, which are also trying to improve the situation.
The doctor and writer of Indian origin, Arup Chatterjee, who wrote a lot about Mother Teresa, confirms this thesis by the following fact: in 1998, with 200 charitable organizations operating in Calcutta, the “Sisters” were not the largest. For example, the “Assembly of the Lord” - the organization was considered the largest, fed about 18, 000 people daily.
