Indians, Hindus, Bengalees and specially Kolkatans are highly sensitive about Mother Teresa, proudly claiming her as one of the Nobel Laureates “from Kolkata”.
After her death, the ‘secular’ Government of India, had decided to break out of protocol and observe state mourning all over the country and accord her state funeral status, an honor normally reserved for India’s highest political leaders.
But few are aware of the other side of the mother ……..
Washington, Mar 2 (ANI): The myth of altruism and generosity surrounding Mother Teresa has been dispelled by a group of researchers, who claim 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.
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 have made the claims.
“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,” Professor Larivee, who led the research said.
“The description was so ecstatic that it piqued our curiosity and pushed us to research further,” Larivee said.
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 percent 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, 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.“
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.
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, the researchers said.
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 said.
“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?” Larivee said.
Despite these disturbing facts, how did Mother Teresa succeed in building an image of holiness and infinite goodness? According to the three researchers, her meeting in London in 1968 with the BBC’s Malcom Muggeridge, an anti-abortion journalist who shared her right-wing Catholic values, was crucial.
Muggeridge decided to promote Teresa, who consequently discovered the power of mass media.
In 1969, he 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 said.
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,” they said.
The research is set to be published in the journal Studies in Religion/Sciences religieuses. (ANI)
One can further enlighten oneself from
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Mother_Teresa
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Missionary_Position
………. Christopher Hitchens details Mother Teresa’s relationships with wealthy and corrupt individuals including Haitian dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier and his wife Michèle Duvalier, enigmatic quasi-religious figure John-Roger, and disgraced former financial executive Charles Keating.
Hitchens argues that her support for unscrupulous figures contradicts the alleged humanitarianism of her work
Charles Keating
The book includes the reproduction of a letter written by Mother Teresa on behalf of Charles Keating to Judge Lance Ito who was presiding over Keating’s trial for defrauding his investors of billions of dollars. The letter urged the judge to consider the fact that Keating had donated generously ($1.25 million) to the Missionaries of Charity and suggested that Judge Ito “look into [his] heart” and “do what Jesus would do.”
Hitchens also includes the contents of a letter written to Mother Teresa by the man prosecuting the case against Keating, Deputy District Attorney for Los Angelos, Paul Turley. In the letter, Mr. Turley pointed out to Mother Teresa that Keating was on trial for stealing more than $250 million from over 17,000 investors in his business. In addition, Turley expresses his opinion that “[n]o church, no charity, no organization should allow itself to be used as a salve for the conscience of the criminal” and suggests:
“Ask yourself what Jeses would do if he were given the fruits of a crime; what Jesus would do if he were in possession of money that had been stolen; what Jesus would do if he were being exploited by a thief to ease his conscience? I submit that Jesus would promptly and unhesitatingly return the stolen property to its rightful owners. You should do the same. You have been given money by Mr. Keating that he has been convicted of stealing by fraud. Do not permit him the ‘indulgences’ he desires. Do not keep the money. Return it to those who worked for it and earned it! If you contact me I will put you in direct contact with the rightful owners of the property now in your possession.”
After the conclusion of the letter, Hitchens notes: “Mr. Turley has received no reply to his letter. Nor can anyone account for the missing money: saints, it seems, are immune to audit.”
Hindu focus 