Number 14 Who Was Mother Teresa?
Mother Theresa was a Roman Catholic nun and missionary who founded an international congregation
dedicated to helping the poor, sick and dying.
She’s often remembered as one of the greatest humanitarians of the 20th century.
She was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 and, in 2016, the Catholic Church canonized
her as Saint Teresa of Calcutta.
Indeed, many descriptions of Mother Teresa’s work and legacy present her as a beacon of
hope for those suffering or in need.
Nevertheless, there are a number of controversies regarding the care provided by her congregation
and the donations it received.
Some of the criticism is aimed at Mother Teresa herself, with allegations of hypocrisy and
questions regarding the motivation behind her charity.
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Number 13 Early Life Mother Teresa was born Anjezë Gonxhe on August
26, 1910, to devout Catholic parents of Albanian descent.
She was baptized the following day, which she would later refer to as her “true birthday”.
She was born in North Macedonia at a time when the region was part of the Ottoman Empire.
Teresa became fascinated with the lives of missionaries from a young age.
By her early teens, Teresa knew that she would dedicate herself to religious life.
At 18, she joined a congregation called the Sisters of Loreto and moved to Ireland.
She took her first religious vows at age 21 and the name “Teresa” after the patron
saint of missionaries.
“Mother” was a title given to her upon taking her solemn vows, in 1937.
Teresa moved to Calcutta, India, and for twenty years taught at a Loreto convent school dedicated
to teaching girls from the poorest families.
Number 12 “Call Within The Call” By the 1940s, Teresa had become increasingly
more distraught by the poverty surrounding her.
The Bengal famine of 1943 had brought death, disease and misery to Calcutta.
In September, 1946, she experienced what she described as a “call within the call”
that would change her life forever.
Mother Teresa was on a train, bound for a retreat at the foothills of the Himalayas,
when, according to her, she received a message from Christ.
Teresa was reportedly ordered “to leave the convent and help the poor while living
among them”.
In 1948 she started missionary work in the slums of Calcutta.
She’d replaced her Loreto garb with a white cotton sari with blue borders, which she would
always wear in public.
After six months of basic medical training, Teresa ventured into the slums alone, with
the intention of helping those in need.
Teresa founded a school, where she would tend to the poor and hungry.
The first year was reportedly hard as she had to beg for food and supplies while fighting
off loneliness, doubt and the temptation of returning to the comforts of convent life.
It was this experience that reportedly strengthened her resolve through the burden of poverty.
She was eventually joined by a group of young women and a religious community grew, dedicated
to helping the poorest of the poor.
Number 11 Crisis of Faith In 2003, Mother Teresa’s private correspondence
was published and it detailed a crisis of faith she’d experienced for over five decades
of her life.
In letters to her confidants she expressed doubts about the existence of God and the
pain she’d felt over her lack of faith.
Teresa wrote that “even deep down…there is nothing but emptiness and darkness “. She
would ask her confidants to destroy the letters out of concerns of how they might influence
other people.
After the reveal of Mother Teresa’s letters, public perception on her legacy changed.
Some saw her as a hypocrite while others saw her as more humanized.
Her doubts and troubles were likened to those experienced by Christ on the cross, wondering
why He’d been forsaken by God.
Number 10 Missionaries of Charity In 1950, Mother Teresa was allowed by the
Vatican to form a congregation that would be known as the Missionaries of Charity.
She’d also gotten support from Indian officials and was able to open her first hospice in
1952.
What followed were leprosy-outreach clinics offering food, medication and dressings.
Then the congregation opened a home for orphans and homeless youth.
The Missionaries of Charity steadily grew, attracting new recruits and worldwide donations.
The congregation expanded their charity efforts throughout India and beyond.
During the 1970s there were already houses and foundations in the US as well as many
other countries in Europe, Africa and Asia.
Her congregation had begun with 13 members and had grown exponentially under her guidance.
By 1997, the year of Teresa’s death, the Missionaries of Charity had over 4,000 sisters
and 300 brothers who operated over 600 schools, missions and shelters in more than 120 countries.
The congregation was still operational after Teresa’s death.
Its members continued to vow chastity, poverty, obedience and to offer free service to the
world’s poorest.
Number 9 Alleged Forced Conversions For many of those who followed her work Mother
Teresa remains the “Saint of the Gutters” - an inspiration and a symbol of quintessential
Catholic values.
Yet, there are others who question the motivation behind her charity work.
One of Mother Theresa’s most vocal critics was author Christopher Hitchens who called
her “a fanatic, a fundamentalist and a fraud”.
He alleges that Mother Teresa would encourage those in her congregation to secretly baptize
the dying, regardless of their individual religions.
Nuns were to pretend that they were cooling off a patient’s head with a wet cloth and
quietly speak the necessary words.
This was allegedly done to Muslims and Hindus, who were unaware of the religious implications
of a Christian baptism.
Hindus in her adoptive country have also alleged that she would stealthily try to convert the
poor to Catholicism.
One author has described the behavior as preying on the weak as way of harvesting souls for
Jesus.
Number 8 Global Charity Work As the Missionaries of Charity congregation
grew so did Mother Teresa’s international reach.
In her own words “By blood, I am Albanian.
By citizenship, an Indian.
By faith, I am a Catholic nun.
As to my calling, I belong to the world.
As to my heart, I belong entirely to the Heart of Jesus” After founding and expanding her
organization, Teresa would personally travel to areas where she believed people were suffering
most.
In 1982, during the Siege of Beirut, she brokered a temporary cease-fire between Palestinian
guerillas and the Israeli Army.
In doing so, Teresa and Red Cross workers managed to rescue 37 children trapped in a
hospital on the front line of the warzone.
This wasn’t the only instance of her international charity work.
Teresa travelled to assist the hungry in Ethiopia, earthquake victims in Armenia and radiation
sufferers in Chernobyl.
Number 7 Use of Donations The Missionaries of Charity at one point received
donations amounting to millions of dollars but no one knows for sure how that money was
spent.
German magazine Stern estimated that less than 7% was used for charity.
Author and physician Aroup Chatterjee, who’d briefly worked in one of Teresa’s homes,
investigated the financial practices of her congregation.
He alleges that most of the funds were directed towards missionary work thus challenging Teresa’s
reputation as a “helper of the poor”.
Among others, he offers the example of facilities run by the Missionaries of Charity in Papua
New Guinea.
Chatterjee alleges that they were void of residents, functioning primarily for the purpose
of converting locals to the Catholic religion.
He points out that, in Calcutta circa 1998, the Missionaries of Charity didn’t rank
among the largest charity organizations.
To this day, the congregation has refused to provide even the slightest balance of how
the money from donations was used.
In 2017, investigative journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi published accounting documents from
the Vatican Bank.
Funds held in Mother Teresa’s name or on behalf of her congregation amounted to billions,
making her the institution’s biggest client.
Taking out significant sums would have undoubtedly put the Bank at risk thus casting further
doubts on the purpose of Teresa’s charity.
Number 6 Connections with Controversial Figures Mother Teresa accepted millions of dollars
from high-profile fraudster Charles Keating, who’d even lent her his private jet when
she visited the US.
She reportedly received donations from Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier, a Haitian dictator
who ran one of the bloodiest regimes the country has ever seen.
When Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi suspended civil liberties in 1975, Mother Teresa made
approving comments about the measure which was known as “The Emergency”.
She cited happier people, less strikes and more jobs even though the press was censored
and widespread atrocities were carried out.
She spoke in favor for Licio Gelli’s nomination for the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Gelli was the head of an Italian masonic lodge tied to cases of corruption and murder.
These connections to controversial figures are sometimes cited as a testament of Mother
Teresa’s corruptible character.
Number 5 Recognition and Distinctions Mother Teresa became a global icon through
her charity work and earned numerous awards and distinctions.
In the 1960s the Missionaries of Charity were given the Decree of Praise by Pope Paul VI.
She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, in 1979, and asked that the cost of the laureates’
banquet be donated to the poor in India instead.
The following year Mother Teresa was given the Bharat Ratna, or the Jewel of India, the
highest distinction given to a civilian.
In the US, she received the Order of Merit in the early 1980s and was made an honorary
citizen in 1996.
These are only a few of the many ways in which Mother Teresa was recognized around the world.
Number 4 Controversial Stances Some of Mother Teresa’s critics have proposed
that she used the pretense of helping the poor to fuel a cult that promoted and glorified
suffering.
In an infamous 1981 conference she claimed that it’s “beautiful for the poor to accept
their lot” and that the suffering of poor people helps the world.
Perhaps the most fervent critiques target her stance against abortion, divorce or contraception.
Within this context, it’s viewed as a continuation of the very same issues Teresa’s charity
was supposed to help with.
Teresa even used her Noble acceptance speech as a platform for an anti-abortion message,
which drew further reactions from her critics.
Number 3 Canonization Mother Teresa health started declining in
the 1980s and she started suffering from heart problems.
After a second heart attack, she received an artificial pacemaker.
Believing that she was under attack by the devil, the Archbishop of Calcutta ordered
a priest to perform an exorcism on her, with Teresa’s permission.
She resigned as head of the Missionaries of Charity in March, 1997, and died in September
of that same year, at age 87.
After her passing the Catholic Church began a process called beatification.
It’s one of the steps towards canonization, in which Teresa was declared in Heaven and
referred to as “Blessed”.
In 2002, the Vatican recognized a miracle related to Mother Teresa that had allegedly
taken place on the one year anniversary of her passing.
An Indian woman named Monica Besra had reportedly healed a tumor in her abdomen by applying
a locket containing Teresa’s picture.
Besra claimed that a beam of light had come down and healed her tumor.
A second miracle attributed to Teresa was recognized by Pope Francis in 2015.
It involved the healing of a Brazilian man with multiple brain tumors.
In 2016, during a ceremony held at the Vatican which was witnessed by tens of thousands,
Mother Teresa was canonized by Pope Francis as Saint Teresa of Calcutta.
Number 2 Image Created by Catholic Church A comprehensive 2013 study from the University
of Montreal examined 96% of the literature on Mother Teresa and challenged her legacy.
Her image is described as a successful media campaign led by the Catholic Church.
Along with promoting the religion and earning new followers it was also meant to draw attention
away from ecclesiastical scandals.
One potential argument in this direction comes from the family of Monica Besra, the woman
claiming she’d experienced the first Mother Teresa miracle.
Her husband and the medical staff have maintained that months of treatment had been the source
of her recovery.
Her husband called the miracle a “hoax”.
Besra herself claimed that a nun from the Missionaries of Charity had confiscated her
medical records.
There was no comment from the congregation, then under fresh leadership, regarding the
allegations.
Number 1 Charity Mission Conditions The criticism that most often falls on Mother
Teresa and the Missionaries of Charity has to do with the quality of care they provided.
The main point of this argument is that they essentially let poor people die and didn’t
give them treatment despite earning millions in donations.
Teresa herself referred to her facilities as “Houses of the Dying”.
Some of the sisters and volunteers had no medical training and were incapable of distinguishing
between curable and incurable patients.
This increased the risk of people, who could’ve otherwise survived, contracting fatal infections.
Needles were rinsed with warm water while those suffering from transmissible diseases
weren’t isolated.
The little medicine available was stored for months and even used passed its expiration
date.
People suffering from terminal cancer, who were in great pain, were often only given
aspirin.
One journalist compared the conditions of some missions in India to those from Nazi
concentration camps.
Mother Teresa believed that the suffering of the poor was a form of divine glory and
not a burden.
She favored them feeling wanted and at peace with God to medical treatment.
However, when she was suffering from heart problems she was treated with a pacemaker,
in a modern hospital.
Her critics saw it as a form of hypocrisy while her supporters viewed it as a necessity
as it allowed her to keep doing important work.
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