Atheist group at Dartmouth plans anti Mother Teresa event

[jwinch2]

Oh, I see. Thank you.
This is common to do among nuns and priests when they take their vows???

Its common among consecrated religious (i.e. sisters, nuns, friars, monks, etc.), but not secular priests (think your typical parish priest) or permanent deacons.

Peace,

 

[dje101]

Absolutely disgusting

 

[JimR-OCDS]

DaddyGirl

Hitchens didn’t make the claim, she herself did.
And it wasn’t a “claim”–it was her reality.
Teresa’s “dark night” lasted for the last fifty years of her life, she says in her letters. For five decades until her death, she wrote, she didn’t feel God’s presence “in her heart or in the eucharist”.

Mother Teresa never claimed she lost her faith. Going through a dark night of the soul, which she went through, is not a loss of faith, but of the loss of consolations from God.

Not feeling the presence of God in the Eucharist is not a loss of faith, but a loss of the consolations that many of use feel, but which the Saints often go through in their Dark Night of the Soul, which St John of the Christ describes for those who have obtained union with God.

I know she’s a symbol for many, but at the same time…you’ve got to let the woman be human and be herself.

We don’t take away her humanity, but confirm it in understanding what the Dark Night of the Soul, which she endured, until her death.

Again, this is not a loss of faith where one no longer believes in God, as Hitchens
claimed.

Even though she was essentially a good person who did her best–however flawed–to help people, she herself is crying out in her letters that she was not the same as the image created of her. People should accept that and not minimize it.
She sounds tortured by the dissonance between her public image and her true feelings and thoughts.
Let the woman be as she was.
Reading her heartfelt words of misery makes me think she wouldn’t even want to be canonized. I feel very sorry for her.

(by the way, why do people call her “Teresa” when her name is Agnes?)

Again, you misunderstand what the Dark Night of the Soul is, and which she suffered severely through, but this isn’t a loss of faith, but a loss of consolations.

Jim

 

[57Bill]

Their perception of Mother Theresa is very obtuse and IMHO when it’s obtuse you can’t have a debate nor should one try.

The spiritual darkness she experienced was more real, more honest and something she really wanted to be kept private because she felt it too personal and that many would not understand. Her experiences were as high spiritually and as low spiritually as I could imagine. The fact that she did not abandon her work says multitudes about her FAITH.

She had an extremely large cup here on earth that she eagerly accepted and it must be flowing over now. I hope these folks see her Light in the darkness someday.

 

[Tigg]

Hitchens didn’t make the claim, she herself did.
And it wasn’t a “claim”–it was her reality.
Teresa’s “dark night” lasted for the last fifty years of her life, she says in her letters. For five decades until her death, she wrote, she didn’t feel God’s presence “in her heart or in the eucharist”.

I know she’s a symbol for many, but at the same time…you’ve got to let the woman be human and be herself.
Even though she was essentially a good person who did her best–however flawed–to help people, she herself is crying out in her letters that she was not the same as the image created of her. People should accept that and not minimize it.
She sounds tortured by the dissonance between her public image and her true feelings and thoughts.
Let the woman be as she was.
Reading her heartfelt words of misery makes me think she wouldn’t even want to be canonized. I feel very sorry for her.

I remember when Katie Couric did a piece on her letters. The spin was that she was labeling Mother Teresa as a fraud. Oh how I laughed at that because Katie, poor thing, was so completely out of her depth…to try to do a report on even the most basic elements of mystical theology…well, to be kind, it was ludicrous, and of course, her absolute ignorance of such a weighty subject was the most pronounced thing about it.

Regarding your comments, who was the canonized saint who said they considered themselves a worm, so conscious were they of their own sins as contrasted to the holiness of God. I’ve no doubt Mother Teresa felt much the same if she was in the illuminative state, or perhaps even the unitive way. Many other saints had similar opinions and suffered as Teresa. You may be right about one thing, tho…canonization would mean nothing to her totally humble soul when/if immersed in the beatific vision. I’m not sorry for her at all - I rejoice for her!

 

[Tigg]

DaddyGirl

Mother Teresa never claimed she lost her faith. Going through a dark night of the soul, which she went through, is not a loss of faith, but of the loss of consolations from God.

Not feeling the presence of God in the Eucharist is not a loss of faith, but a loss of the consolations that many of use feel, but which the Saints often go through in their Dark Night of the Soul, which St John of the Christ describes for those who have obtained union with God.

We don’t take away her humanity, but confirm it in understanding what the Dark Night of the Soul, which she endured, until her death.

Again, this is not a loss of faith where one no longer believes in God, as Hitchens
claimed.

I agree with you and only add it is so foreign for us to try to understand the sensory deprivation that would be necessary for a soul being purified.

 

[rorydaman]

I don’t understand why.

I have not looked into the accusations myself, but there have been some dubious claims made about mother teresa. One is that she didn’t provide suffering people with proper medical care, just prayer…and that she actually wanted people to suffer.

I haven’t looked into the claims though.

 

[rorydaman]

It’s funny how they never do an anti- Prophet Muhammad event.
I bet there would be no public outcry over an event like that.
They could explain that “they just plan to discuss and debate with passion. And if the topic is a controversial figure, as he has become, that is not a bad thing”.

There would be no public outcry over an anti Muhammad event? Like that video on youtube that caused riots that killed lots of people in the Middle east.

Here is an episode of Penn and Teller’s show about Mother Teresa…it is pretty disrespectful.

youtube.com/watch?v=Sc732uzUkw4

And here is Christopher Hitchen’s book on her. THIS is why they are doing this protest.

amazon.com/Missionary-Position-Mother-Teresa-Practice/dp/1455523003

 

[manualman]

Hitchens didn’t make the claim, she herself did.
And it wasn’t a “claim”–it was her reality.
Teresa’s “dark night” lasted for the last fifty years of her life, she says in her letters. For five decades until her death, she wrote, she didn’t feel God’s presence “in her heart or in the eucharist”.

Ouch. Sometimes people profoundly reveal what they understand and what they don’t understand without even realizing it. Faith is NOT what you FEEL. Faith is what you decide to believe and involves making decisions to conform yourself to what you believe even when you feel something else. This is such utter heresy to modern American culture that people totally miss the point without realizing what they’ve missed! MT’s writings DEMONSTRATE her profound faith. She chose to trust God with her life in spite of not having warm gushy feelings anymore. That’s a BIGGER faith than those whose religion is mere sentiment.

 

[EmperorNapoleon]

To besmirch, Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, and her work, is blasphemy of the work of the Holy Spirit.

Mother Teresa was always a controversial figure even among the Catholic faithful including those in her own mission. Of course, one of the great things about saints is that they weren’t perfect. Hitchens has tunnel vision when it comes to those things but I don’t think anyone here should be too concerned since the leader of this club estimated that only about 5 people would show up.

 

[Biblepoe]

Her goal was NOT to provide cutting edge, top quality health care to as many people as she could afford. Her goal was always to establish communities of people who would first LOVE the sick and then provide loving care for them.

But wouldn’t loving a sick person entail doing what you can to heal them or at least give them painkillers? I’m not sure if this is the case or not, but I’ve heard that she didn’t even give the sick people painkillers, instead using all the donations (to the tune of millions upon millions of dollars, once even receiving a donation of $50,000,000 reportedly) on things other than medical aid and\or painkillers to the sick.

I haven’t done a whole lot of research so I don’t know how much of that may be inaccurate misinformation (in which case, feel free to correct me), but if you are running a home for the dying and you have many millions of dollars, I would think that loving the patients would entail at least giving them painkillers.

 

[Tigg]

But wouldn’t loving a sick person entail doing what you can to heal them or at least give them painkillers? I’m not sure if this is the case or not, but I’ve heard that she didn’t even give the sick people painkillers, instead using all the donations (to the tune of millions upon millions of dollars, once even receiving a donation of $50,000,000 reportedly) on things other than medical aid and\or painkillers to the sick.

I haven’t done a whole lot of research so I don’t know how much of that may be inaccurate misinformation

Then why post such a thing? Either support it or retract it.

 

[JimR-OCDS]

Mother Teresa was always a controversial figure even among the Catholic faithful including those in her own mission. Of course, one of the great things about saints is that they weren’t perfect. Hitchens has tunnel vision when it comes to those things but I don’t think anyone here should be too concerned since the leader of this club estimated that only about 5 people would show up.

I never saw Mother Teresa as being a controversial figure.

She was an inspiration for Catholics and non-Catholics alike.

She was certainly respected in India, recall the funeral they gave her.

Jim

 

[estesbob]

I never saw Mother Teresa as being a controversial figure.

She was an inspiration for Catholics and non-Catholics alike.

She was certainly respected in India, recall the funeral they gave her.

Jim

Kinda like Pius XII. Loved and respected in his lifetime-target of malicious lies and misinformation after his death.

 

[manualman]

But wouldn’t loving a sick person entail doing what you can to heal them or at least give them painkillers? I’m not sure if this is the case or not, but I’ve heard that she didn’t even give the sick people painkillers, instead using all the donations (to the tune of millions upon millions of dollars, once even receiving a donation of $50,000,000 reportedly) on things other than medical aid and\or painkillers to the sick.

Repeating derogatory rumors on the internet without doing the research is just cyber gossip. Don’t do it.

The detailed critical accounts I have read have never involved denial of basic care such as you describe. Instead they focused on the lack of cutting edge treatments and staff training, criticized the amount of time sisters spent in their day at mass, devotions, etc when they could have spent that time caring for patients (I seriously read that!) and similar nonsense. If one already believes that religion is worthless claptrap, then I’m sure it IS offensive to see MT’s order spending big money on a beautiful chapel when their clinic gives palliative care to advanced cancer patients instead of modern chemo and radiation treatment for a remote shot at extending their lives. Such critics probably spend a LOT more on their own collective mcmansions, vacations, TV’s, iphones and luxury cars, but fail to see the hypocrisy! Those who understand faith see the chapel as key to the meaning and purpose of the religious vocation. It’s a nice side effect that those are precisely the people who STAY in their vocation for a lifetime of caring for the poor instead of leaving the order to marry and live in the suburbs or putting on the pantsuit and taking up activism instead of direct care for the poor…

Can you tell I’m not much impressed with MT’s critics?

 

[EmperorNapoleon]

She was an inspiration for Catholics and non-Catholics alike. She was certainly respected in India, recall the funeral they gave her.

I don’t disagree with that and I laud the concept of her work but, still, it was controversial. One of the major controversies was the total lack of analgesics; presumably because Mother Teresa held an extreme view regarding the spiritual value of physical suffering.

 

[JimR-OCDS]

I don’t disagree with that and I laud the concept of her work but, still, it was controversial. One of the major controversies was the total lack of analgesics; presumably because Mother Teresa held an extreme view regarding the spiritual value of physical suffering.

Oh yeah the story about how she withheld pain killers from a patient who was suffering, telling him that Jesus was kissing him.

Problem with the story was that at the time, the hospice Mother Teresa ran, had a limited amount of pain medicine and so she did the best to help the person with compassion and prayer. Everyone thinks that her mission had the funds that we she became popular and won the Noble Peace prize. The reality is, they struggled economically and had limited resources for most of her years of working with the poor. It wasn’t until a Front Line Documentary about her, that funds began to pour into her organization.

Jim

 

[EmperorNapoleon]

Oh yeah the story about how she withheld pain killers from a patient who was suffering, telling him that Jesus was kissing him. Problem with the story was that at the time, the hospice Mother Teresa ran, had a limited amount of pain medicine and so she did the best to help the person with compassion and prayer.

I’m not familiar with that account but the fact that analgesics were not provided was documented and well known even in the 90s. I have a great appreciation for her work but I would refine her philosophy in saying that preventable/unnecessary suffering should be prevented rather than embraced as spiritually beneficial.

 

[New_eve]

Who doesn’t love Mother Teresa. I’m not Catholic, but I love Mother Teresa. She stood for what was so right in the world: caring for the poor and destitute, standing up for the disenfranchised and more. I hope they reconsider.

 

[Crescentinus]

Who doesn’t love Mother Teresa. I’m not Catholic, but I love Mother Teresa. She stood for what was so right in the world: caring for the poor and destitute, standing up for the disenfranchised and more. I hope they reconsider.

I agree with you there, and I’m a Catholic.
She is a rolemodel for many of us because she actually does something to solve the problem instead of using the internet to whine about a problem and not doing anything about it.