Mother Teresa: Holier than thou

[michaelbaribeau]

I was doing some research covered by a thread with this title on this forum. It was listed as ‘closed’ but I had more information I thought important. I don’t know if it can be added to the closed thread, linked to it or whatever but here it is…

Regarding the line, ‘AIDS is the retribution for improper sexual misconduct.’ It’s not accurate to attribute this as a direct quote from Mother Teresa.

Christopher Hitchens, The Missionary Position; Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice, Verso, London 1995. Emily Lewis, a seventy-five-year-old nurse who has worked in many of the most desperate quarters of the earth… “My own experience of Mother Teresa occurred when she was being honored at the 1989 luncheon meeting of the International Health Organization in Washington, D.C…She also touched on AIDS, saying she did not want to label it a scourge of God but that it did seem like a just retribution for improper sexual conduct.”

Perhaps this is regarding the ‘World’ Health Organization. I have been unable to verify the Emily Lewis account or the ‘Health Organization’ honor but having, “…received more than 120 prestigious awards and honors” it may just not have been well documented.

But even if true, the report from nurse Emily Lewis is her paraphrased account of Mother Teresa’s speech so isn’t verbatim and may or may not have captured the full meaning of what Mother Teresa was trying to convey. But there is a report from another source, USA Today says Mother Teresa did have some views intolerant of homosexuality…

09/05/97 Mother Teresa dies at 87 By Lori Sharn, USA TODAY (excerpt). She is credited with helping to break down prejudice against people with AIDS, by opening hospices and fearlessly visiting victims. But some people have mixed feelings about her work in this area. “What we were arguing… was forget the lifestyle, forget the activity, these are people who are suffering,” said Jim Graham, executive director of the Whitman-Walker Clinic, primary provider of AIDS services in the Washington area. Mother Teresa’s actions reinforced this argument. But she also brought traditional Catholic views intolerant of homosexuality, he says. And the local sisters running the AIDS hospice have never become part of the area AIDS network. (fwiw the last 2 sentences are missing quotation marks in the online article so appear to be paraphrased as well) usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/mothert/mother01.htm

 

[TeenageConvert]

Disagreeing with an immoral lifestyle doesn’t make on “holier than thou”

 

[katholikos12]

I do not mean for this to across crass, this is a genuine question.

What’s the purpose of you posting this? What are you getting at?

 

[meltzerboy]

I was doing some research covered by a thread with this title on this forum. It was listed as ‘closed’ but I had more information I thought important. I don’t know if it can be added to the closed thread, linked to it or whatever but here it is…

Regarding the line, ‘AIDS is the retribution for improper sexual misconduct.’ It’s not accurate to attribute this as a direct quote from Mother Teresa.

Christopher Hitchens, The Missionary Position; Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice, Verso, London 1995. Emily Lewis, a seventy-five-year-old nurse who has worked in many of the most desperate quarters of the earth… “My own experience of Mother Teresa occurred when she was being honored at the 1989 luncheon meeting of the International Health Organization in Washington, D.C…She also touched on AIDS, saying she did not want to label it a scourge of God but that it did seem like a just retribution for improper sexual conduct.”

Perhaps this is regarding the ‘World’ Health Organization. I have been unable to verify the Emily Lewis account or the ‘Health Organization’ honor but having, “…received more than 120 prestigious awards and honors” it may just not have been well documented.

But even if true, the report from nurse Emily Lewis is her paraphrased account of Mother Teresa’s speech so isn’t verbatim and may or may not have captured the full meaning of what Mother Teresa was trying to convey. But there is a report from another source, USA Today says Mother Teresa did have some views intolerant of homosexuality…

09/05/97 Mother Teresa dies at 87 By Lori Sharn, USA TODAY (excerpt). She is credited with helping to break down prejudice against people with AIDS, by opening hospices and fearlessly visiting victims. But some people have mixed feelings about her work in this area. “What we were arguing… was forget the lifestyle, forget the activity, these are people who are suffering,” said Jim Graham, executive director of the Whitman-Walker Clinic, primary provider of AIDS services in the Washington area. Mother Teresa’s actions reinforced this argument. But she also brought traditional Catholic views intolerant of homosexuality, he says. And the local sisters running the AIDS hospice have never become part of the area AIDS network. (fwiw the last 2 sentences are missing quotation marks in the online article so appear to be paraphrased as well) usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/mothert/mother01.htm

So what if Mother Teresa was intolerant of homosexuality? She was intolerant of homosexual behavior, which is in keeping with Catholic teaching, but not intolerant of homosexuals as people and children of G-d, which is also in keeping with Catholic teaching. Further, she wasn’t perfect because she was human; however, she did a lot of tangible good for people who were in dire need, which is more than most of us have done.

 

[Irishmom2]

Disagreeing with an immoral lifestyle doesn’t make on “holier than thou”

I do not mean for this to across crass, this is a genuine question.

What’s the purpose of you posting this? What are you getting at?

So what if Mother Teresa was intolerant of homosexuality? She was intolerant of homosexual behavior, which is in keeping with Catholic teaching, but not intolerant of homosexuals as people and children of G-d, which is also in keeping with Catholic teaching. Further, she wasn’t perfect because she was human; however, she did a lot of tangible good for people who were in dire need, which is more than most of us have done.

All of these.

 

[michaelbaribeau]

To the question “What’s the purpose of you posting this? What are you getting at?” It was to answer the question regarding the source of the ‘quote’. That it was most likely missattributed but that she may have said something similar to it.

I was researching the AIDS retribution line, suspecting that it was being missattributed to Mother Teresa. When I initially started my search and googled the line this forum was at the top of list asking the same question, forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?p=8467773 The thread on this forum was under the subject line “Mother Teresa: Holier than thou”, which was why I used it. I assume the person who originally posted it was referring to a Penn & Teller episode under the same name, I don’t know, I didn’t watch it but I did see links for it on youtube in google.

If you’re asking me to more specifically address the remark, “Disagreeing with an immoral lifestyle doesn’t make one ‘holier than thou’” my interpretation for their using the derogatory phrase ‘holier than thou’ in this context originally was to draw attention to the point that not everyone shares the same values and doctrine and when someone’s values or lifestyle are decried immoral they perceive it as a threat to their rights. And since there has been a long social and political battle over such issues they would be right to be concerned. I think this also addresses the question about ‘what’s wrong with being intolerant of gay sex?’ In addition the suggestion that a god they might share faith in was responsible for the suffering of loved ones would be considered a cruel sentiment.

Again, it wasn’t my intention to characterize the quotes and language, merely answering the question about the source.

 

[Mintaka]

What this exposes is the intolerance of society toward Mother Teresa, not the other way around.

AIDS was a public health problem with clear vectors.

When yellow fever had a clear vector, we killed the mosquitoes, drained swamps and puddles, fixed areas that collected water, and taught everybody to stay safe under mosquito nets. There were radical changes in human behavior, because humans wanted not to die more than they wanted not to change.

When AIDS had two clear vectors – blood and sex – we worked to protect the blood supply and intravenous drug users, but we didn’t demand that vector humans (either intravenous drug users or infected homosexuals and heterosexuals) change their behavior and protect other humans. It became a sacred obligation to society that humans not want to change, even if they wanted not to die.

So you see that the real complaint there in the article was that the nuns didn’t join an organization of AIDS groups and bend the knee to whatever anti-survival pieties were going to be demanded of them. It didn’t matter what good the nuns did; it mattered that they didn’t mouthe the right words and say nice things about the sacred disease vector.

 

[michaelbaribeau]

I wouldn’t characterize society as intolerant of Mother Teresa. Even though I think she is being misquoted here, she has been honored world wide for her accomplishments. “Mother Teresa received more 120 prestigious awards and honors, among them the Padma Shri award from the President of India in 1962; the Bharat Ratna (Jewel of India), India’s highest civilian award, in1981, the Order of Merit award in 1983, the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 (the prize money was donated to poor people, as per her request), The Pope John XXIII Peace Prize in 1971 and the highest US civilian award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, in 1985.”