The Defamation of Mother Teresa

[radhika]

asteroid:

From the UK media this week:

Donal MacIntyre gained access to the Kolkata orphanage of the Missionaries of Charity recently. He is an investigative reporter and documentary maker. His findings were seen in a recent documentary on UK television that I didn’t see and there is an article in the New Statesman issue that came out yesterday.

He was contacted by committed Catholics who had volunteered as workers in the orphanages. One worked in Daya Dan and could only work there for three days. She states “It was simply too distressing … We had seen the same things in Romania but couldn’t believe it was happening in a Mother Teresa home”. These Catholics had written with their concerns to Sister Nirmala, the Mother Superior but had received no response.

MacIntyre writes “I winced at the rough handling by some of the full-time staff and Missionary sisters. I saw children with their mouths gagged open to be given medicine, their hands flaying in distress, visible testimony to the pain they were in. Tiny babies were bound with cloths at feeding time … Some of the children retched and coughed as rushed staff crammed food into their mouths. Boys and girls were abandoned on open toilets for up to 20 minutes at a time. Slumped, untended, some dribbling, some sleeping, they were a pathetic sight. Their treatment was an affront to their dignity, and dangerously unhygienic.”

Footage was secretly filmed and the local police have promised to investigate. MacIntyre concludes, from personal experience, that the homes “are a disgrace to so-called Christian care and, indeed, civilised values of any kind. I witnessed barbaric treatment of the most vulnerable.”

Here’s the full text of the article in the New Statesman (other articles are available on the site):

macintyre.com/content/view/533/105/

I answered in another thread about my personal experiences with the sisters. Here in Ahmedabad I know them very well and spend considerable time with them. They run a home for abandoned babies and a home for destitutes. It distresses me to see this kind of calumny about them written. Their homes are impeccably clean. the sisetrs live with no comforts of any kind, all their time is devoted to their charges. I cannot imagine them being in any way cruel to the people/babies they look after. I have not seen it, nor do expect to-this is my personal testimony.

 

[Faustina]

The only thing that shows me, is how fast things have declined since Mother Teresa’s death. It has been almost 10 years since her death and the homes that are to be her legacy, seems to be a disgrace. What is telling is the statement about the Indian governments not willing to “tarnish” Mother Teresa’s reputation. (paraphrased)
Mother Teresa started the Missionaries of Charity to help the poorest of the poor. What has occurred after her death cannot tarnish her reputation. If there is 50 million sitting in the banks, then it is the administrators that need to answer some questions.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

RikasAngel:

Hello All,

If you guys thought Hitler’s Pope was bad, checkout this book: The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice by Chjristopher Hitchens www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/185984054X/ref=cm_bg_d/104-8809154-9892718?v=glance . Has anyone heard about the claims made in this book? Can anybody refute the claims Hitchens makes?

Something can be refuted, only if it is untrue, and demonstrably so. Are his criticisms demonstrably untrue ? I’ve heard of some of them; if any of them are true - then they are. (Incidentally, “refute” is not a synonym for “deny”, widespread though this mistake is; to refute something, is to show why it is untrue - not simply to say that it is untrue.)​

It isn’t wrong to criticise her - much depends on the tone and *content *of the criticisms. Even if she is a saint (which has still to be decided), saints are not always right; and their critics are not always wrong. ISTM that we are far too sensitive to criticism. ##

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

LSK:

Chrstopher Hitchens has been asked to testify as a 'Devil’s Advocate" in the ongoing investigation on Mother Theresa. I read most of his articles about her when they were published in Vanity Fair Magazine several years ago. What I concluded was that he was angry about her accepting monetary contributions by nefarious characters and then not giving the money back when these people turned out to be crooks. One of her benefactors turned out to be a spy planted in the CIA - Jack somebody and I am sorry I cannot remember his name. He also claimed that she liked her status as a celebrity nun.

You know, he was listened to by the Vatican and his testimony was taken. I think he objections to her are arguable - I certainly see nothing wrong with putting ‘dirty money’ to good use -

There is an ethical issue here - the problem of connivance: C. S. Lewis has a discussion of it somewhere:​

If money is tainted, can it be used by Christians - or should it be returned, if this is at all possible ? IOW - should we not keep our hands clean, and so “avoid even the very appearance of evil” ? St. Paul wanted Christians to “avoid even the very appearance of evil” - and taking tainted money does not help a Christian organisation to do that. It looks like compromising one’s principles; it looks very short-sighted. Unfortunately, it is not difficult to find good arguments for such a course of action - such as the harm done to others by letting one’s principles getting the way. Whether those arguments are valid - that is another matter.

When Marcion was finally expelled from the Church in Rome, in about 140, the money he had given the Church was rejected too; a very principled stand, IMO. Nowadays, money comes to us in more indirect ways - it’s a safe guess that a fair amount of the investments made by the larger Churches - Catholic, Anglican, whatever - is tainted at some stage. Keeping one’s hands clean is much easier if one does not invest, but relies instead on donations from day to day: but how many of us have that sort of faith ? And how could a Church with tens of million of members, millionds of them very poor indeed, get by, if it did not invest ? Maybe the larger Churches will have to be less centralised, far poorer, and far readier to trust God to provide: that might be a very good thing for us - it would certainly help to remove the Churches from the compromises and iniquities of the money market. Money & proclaiming the Righteousness of God don’t go easily together. ##

and I wonder if he was simply flumoxed by her obedience to the Holy Mother Church and so cannot accept her as she was…does that make sense?

If he raises issue X, rather than issue Y, it seems reasonable to think that he is concerned about X, and not Y; that sort of searching for someone’s “real motive” is dangerous, because it’s a game two or more can play: you may have unworthy or sinister motives for questioning his motives - and I may have sinister motives for wondering about yours, and before we know it, we are all in a hall of mirrors, seeing each others’ words, but refusing to think it possible that they convey our real intentions. That way lies the complete collapse of mutual trust, and so, of society; because if we can’t take it that our words to each other convey (however inadequately) our true intentions toward each other, then we have no way of escaping from our own limited selves - “it is not good that man should be alone”.​

I think that C. S, Lewis called this frame of mind “Bulverism” :

barking-moonbat.com/God_in_the_Dock.html

bulverism.blogspot.com/

fee.org/vnews.php?nid=1348

proaxis.com/~logos/llight/ll1098.html ##

 

[Al_Masetti]

Recently Fr. Groeschel on EWTN said that Penn & Teller made some disparaging remarks about Mother Theresa, but I have no knowledge of the specifics.

 

[Al_Masetti]

Recently Fr. Groeschel on EWTN said that Penn & Teller made some disparaging remarks about Mother Theresa, but I have no knowledge of the specifics.

 

[BibleReader]

Okay, let’s say you are riding in to work on the subway, reading about Mother Theresa. A nasty anti-Catholic sees the book, and says, “How about that Mother Theresa – receiving $1 million from Michael Keating, who stole that money from the public! I mean, if the Pope received $1 million from the Nazis, made from the sale of melted-down gold teeth yanked out of the mouths of murdered Jews, wouldn’t you insist that the pope return the money? Isn’t the Mother Theresa case merely a lesser case of the gold teeth hypothetical, but of the same ilk?”

How do you answer the anti-Catholic mass transit rider?

 

[elwedriddsche]

Al Masetti:

Recently Fr. Groeschel on EWTN said that Penn & Teller made some disparaging remarks about Mother Theresa, but I have no knowledge of the specifics.

My recollection is that several allegations were raised.

The medical care provided in her homes was portrayed as substandard, to put it mildly, while no expense was spared for her own medical care.

The vast majority of the funds donated were purportedly used to further a cult of personality and not to enhance medical care in her homes.

Funds donated from what turned out tainted sources couldn’t be returned, because in the words of some Catholic Bishop “they were already spent”, with two implications left for the viewer: Spent on what, and how does the purported inability to refund any questionable donation square with the amount of donations received.

The image of Indian painted by her is apparently highly offensive to some Indians.

Finally, there was video footage with her commenting on the beauty of pain (or something to that effect) that I found highly disturbing.

Even with the show’s obvious bias, they raise a valid challenge to Teresa’s public image. Rather than calling it defamation or disparaging remarks, it would be more appropriate to demonstrate the show’s research to be factually wrong.

 

[estesbob]

Al Masetti:

Recently Fr. Groeschel on EWTN said that Penn & Teller made some disparaging remarks about Mother Theresa, but I have no knowledge of the specifics.

townhall.com/columnists/brentbozell/bb20050603.shtml

 

[Al_Masetti]

In today’s mail was the July-August 2005 issue of “Catalyst”, the journal of the Catholic League. They have an article on the Penn & Teller episode.

Visit: www.catholicleague.org

click on Catalyst and then on the July - August 2005 issue and then on the Mother Theresa defamation story.

 

[manualman]

It shouldn’t surprise us that secular people are offended by Mother Teresa.

TV driven modern sensibilities say that if you are going to do anything, you must do everything. Thus, it is not enough to take an abandoned, dying child off the street and give him love and basic human care until death takes him. If you don’t rush him to the hospital, attempt transfusions, chemo and perhaps a transplant, you shouldn’t have done anything.

MT never set out to end poverty or bring medical care to the world’s poorest. Those are noble goals. But hers was too. Hers was to seek out the most forsaken, abandoned hopeless wrecks and give them LOVE. Give them, perhaps for the first time, the sense that they are precious children of God.

It’s true that teaching NFP to women in abusive marriages won’t solve their fundamental problem. But again, MT’s mission was not to be an activist for battered women. It was to bring LOVE into the lives of those women. When a woman realizes that she truly is a being of the utmost dignity, it can change her and even change her family. When a woman is handed a condom as a solution, she is being told she isn’t worth anything better.

Those offended that she didn’t tackle and overcome EVERY injustice she encountered ought to get off their high horses and do something THEMSELVES! (And whining about what others haven’t done doesn’t count as doing something)

 

[rjs1]

elwedriddsche:

Even with the show’s obvious bias, they raise a valid challenge to Teresa’s public image. Rather than calling it defamation or disparaging remarks, it would be more appropriate to demonstrate the show’s research to be factually wrong.

I wonder why people are not taking note of Radhika’s post (August 21 and August 13 on a similar thread).

Radhika gives a personal, firtshand rebutal of the charges. Radhika has been to Mother Teresa’s centres. Please listen to what Radhika says.

 

[elwedriddsche]

rjs1:

I wonder why people are not taking note of Radhika’s post (August 21 and August 13 on a similar thread).

Radhika gives a personal, firtshand rebutal of the charges. Radhika has been to Mother Teresa’s centres. Please listen to what Radhika says.

I can see why you view these posts as a rebuttal. If you wish, I’ll give you a more detailed answer in a PM.

 

[trogiah]

RikasAngel:

Hello All,

The major arguments of Hitchens book are that Mother took in lots of money

The only reason she took in money is people gave it to her, Did Hitchens have anything to say about the people that gave her money?

RikasAngel:

, including some from convicted Charles Keating,

A central tenet of our faith is that people can have a change of heart. Isn’t that possible?

RikasAngel:

that was used to further Catholic doctrine rather than serve the poor.

Mother Teresa admitted quite openly that the first thing she intended to include, in any structure she built of used, was a chapel where Mass would be celebrated. I suppose that implies a measure of Catholic Doctrine. People are free to give their money to other Charities.

RikasAngel:

He claims she associated herself with dictators, specifically from Haiti,

She associated with anyone and everyone.

RikasAngel:

and provided herself with expensive medical care, all the while her Order’s medical practices were substandard given the level of doonations. There is also a claim that people died from use of Natural Family Planning which she advocated. What does everyone think of this litany of charges? Is there any truth here?

Mother Teresa’s first efforts to help the poor were less an attempt to provide medical care than they were simply to provide a place for someone to die in peace. (In the end, isn’t that what we all need?) To her, the greatest evil was not that someone was dying, but that they were dying alone, thrown away by the rest of society.

She was “discovered” by some British TV journalist, can’t remember his name, who basically made her a “celebrity.”

Perhaps she didn’t really know how to handle that celebrity status. Does that make her “unsaintly” I think even Hitchens had more problems with the public perception of Mother Teresa than with the woman herself.

Her efforts were imperfect, her followers are flawed, should that suprise us? No. She is human. Was she following the path to God’s kingdom? Even if I accept everything Hitchens states as the truth, I still believe she was.

Someone said it well, We don’t need to be to concerned about criticism.

peace

-Jim