User:TUF-KAT/Mother Teresa
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This is my revision of Adam Carr's revision
Mother Teresa
Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, known for most of her life as Mother Teresa, (August 26 1910 - September 5 1997), Catholic nun and founder of the Missionaries of Charity, became a figure of veneration within the Catholic church, and admiration beyond it, for her work among the poor of Calcutta. She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979. But Teresa also became the subject of sustained attacks from some writers, who accused her of misappropriation of funds and exploiting the poor for her own self-promotion. Partly in response to these attacks, she was beatified by Pope John Paul II in October 2003.
Gonxha Agnes Bojaxhiu was born in Uskub, a town in the Ottoman province of Kosovo (now Skopje in the Republic of Macedonia), where her father was a successful contractor. It is usually stated that her parents, Nikolla and Dranafila Bojaxhiu, were Albanian, but it has been suggested that her father may have been of Vlach descent. Her parents were unusual in being Catholics, since most Albanians are either Muslims or Orthodox Christians.
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Early Life and work
Many of the detail's of Teresa's early life is unknown. She recounted that she felt a vocation to help the poor from the age of 12, and decided to train for missionary work in India. At 18 she left Skopje and joined the Sisters of Loreto, an Irish community of nuns with a mission in Calcutta. She chose the Loreto sisters because of their vocation to provide education for girls. After a few months' training at the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Dublin she was sent to Darjeeling in India as a novice sister. In 1931, she made her first vows there, choosing the name Teresa in honour of Teresa of Avila and Therese of Lisieux. She took her final vows in May 1937, acquiring the title Mother Teresa.
From 1929 to 1948 Mother Teresa taught at St Mary's High School in Calcutta, becoming its principal in 1944, but, she later said, the poverty all around her left a deep impression on her mind. In September 1946, by Teresa's own account, she received a calling from God "to serve him among the poorest of the poor." In 1948 she received permission from Pope Pius XII, via the Archbishop of Calcutta, to leave her community and live as an independent nun. She quit the high school and, after a short course with the Medical Mission Sisters in Patna, she returned to Calcutta and found temporary lodging with the Little Sisters of the Poor. Teresa then started an open-air school for homeless children. Soon she was joined by voluntary helpers, and received financial support from church organisations and the municipal authorities.
In October 1950 Teresa received permission to start her own order, the Missionaries of Charity, whose mission was to care for (in her own words) "the hungry, the naked, the homeless, the crippled, the blind, the lepers, all those people who feel unwanted, unloved, uncared for throughout society, people that have become a burden to the society and are shunned by everyone."
With the help of Indian officials she converted an abandoned Hindu temple into the Kalighat Home for the Dying, a free hospice for the very poor. Soon after she opened another hospice, Nirmal Hriday (Pure Heart), a home for lepers called Shanti Nagar (Town of Peace), and an orphanage. The order soon began to attract both recruits and charitable donations, and by the 1960s had opened hospices, orphanges and leper houses all over India.
In 1965, by granting a Decree of Praise to the Congregation, Pope Paul VI granted Mother Teresa's request to expand her order to other countries. The order's first house outside India was in Venezuela, and others followed in Rome and Tanzania, and eventually in many countries in Asia and Africa, including even her native Albania. She travelled widely and became a media figure, and this gave her the ability to intervene in international trouble spots. In 1982 during the fighting in Beirut, she convinced the parties to stop fighting so she could rescue 37 sick children.
Mother Teresa's work inspired other Catholics to affiliate themselves to her order. The Missionaries of Charity Brothers was founded in 1963, a contemplative branch of the Sisters followed in 1976. Lay Catholics and non-Catholics were enrolled in the Co-Workers of Mother Teresa, the Sick and Suffering Co-Workers, and the Lay Missionaries of Charity. In answer to the requests of many priests, in 1981 Mother Teresa also began the Corpus Christi Movement for Priests.
Teresa as Celebrity
In 1969 the British writer Malcolm Muggeridge, a Catholic convert, made a documentary about Teresa called Something Beautiful for God. This highly complimentary film, and the accompanying book, conferred celebrity status on Teresa, a status made more striking by her image of conspicuous poverty and personal modesty. From this time onwards Teresa received many awards.
In 1971 Paul VI awarded her the first Pope John XXIII Peace Prize. Other awards bestowed upon her included a Kennedy Prize (1971), the Albert Schweitzer International Prize (1975), the United States Presidential Medal of Freedom (1985 and Congressional Medal of Honor (1994, honorary citizenship of the United States (1996), and honorary degrees from a number of universities.
Controversy arises
It is, perhaps, inevitable that widespread praise and even reverence will lead to criticism and scorn from detractors.
In 1979 Teresa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize "for work undertaken in the struggle to overcome poverty and distress, which also constitute a threat to peace". She used her acceptance speech to condemn abortion, which, in line with Catholic teaching, she considered to be murder: "Abortion is the worst evil, and the greatest enemy of peace... Because if a mother can kill her own child, what will prevent us from killing ourselves or one another? Nothing."
Teresa's stand on abortion and contraception was uncompromising even by Catholic standards. In the aftermath of the 1971 India-Pakistan war, in which thousands of women and girls in Bangladesh were raped, she made public appeals for the women to keep their unborn babies, and not abort them. In 1993 she was asked about a case in Ireland revolving around a 14-year-old rape victim. She replied: "Abortion can never be necessary because it is pure killing." Also in line with Catholic teaching, she was opposed to contraception. At an open air Mass in Knock, a Marian shrine in Ireland, she said: "Let us promise Our Lady, who loves Ireland so much, that we will never allow in this country a single abortion. And no contraceptives". Some commentators began criticizing Teresa in the 1970s, for these positions and others. Teresa's work often focused on regions where overpopulation was a major contributing factor to the poverty and strife she hoped to alleviate; her stance condemning methods of limiting population growth was seen by many as irresponsible and counterproductive. Her support of Sanjay Ghandi's population control methods, which included forced sterilization, was widely criticized by observers, including some Catholics; many linked this issue with her support of Sanjay's mother, Indira Gandhi, and her suspension of democratic governance, foreshadowing future criticisms.
The 1980s saw health problems begin to plague Mother Teresa, along with increasing scrutinity for her fundraising efforts. She accepted the Legion d'Honneur in 1981 from Jean-Claude Duvalier, a Haitian leader widely perceived, at home and abroad, as a dictator. Teresa claimed that the Duvaliers "loved their poor" and that their love was reciprocated. Later in the decade, she also visited the grave of Albanian Communist dictator Enver Hoxha. Apparent support for Hoxha, Duvalier and Indira Gandhi had led to questions about her commitment to democracy, human rights and freedom. Teresa accepted money gained through means of questionable morality (including embezzling from employee pension funds) from people like Charles Keating and Robert Maxwell. Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity do not disclose the details of its accounting practices, and some have claimed that money donated for the purpose of improving the lot of poverty-stricken individuals is instead saved or used by the Catholic Church to fund missionary programs. The Missionaries of Charity themselves also operate programs to recruit nuns, priests and lay Catholics without any direct involvement in the betterment of the physical, emotional or spiritual wellbeing of local communities.
In response to these fiscal problems, people like Dr. Aroup Chatterjee studied Teresa's life critically. Based on Chatterjee's work, Christopher Hitchens and Tariq Ali produced Hell's Angels, a Channel 4 documentary that criticized Teresa's work. Hitchens followed with The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice. Hitchens and other critics focused on Teresa's own declarations that her intent was not to alleviate poverty, but to help "the poor to accept their lot, to share it with the passion of Christ. I think the world is being much helped by the suffering of the poor people" (from a 1981 press conference, in response to the question: Do you teach the poor to endure their lot?). Less vehement and more comprehensive than the work of Ali and Hitchens, Chatterjee also published The Final Verdict, which criticized Teresa for many of the same reasons as other detractors of Mother Teresa. Many of her critics, including Chatterjee, Hitchens and Ali, are all self-described atheists, who therefore may have had a personal interest in making compassion in the name of religion appear less beneficial than secular programs.
In 1985 Teresa suffered a heart attack in Rome. After a second attack in 1989 she received a pacemaker In 1991, after a bout of pneumonia while in Mexico, she had further heart problems. She offered to resign her position as head of the order, but was persuaded by her colleagues and the Pope to continue. In 1996 she suffered from malaria, and underwent heart surgery, but it was clear that her health was declining. She died in September 1997 aged 87.
At the time of her death Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity had over 4,000 sisters, an associated brotherhood of 300 members, and over 100,000 lay volunteers, operating 610 missions in 123 countries. These included hospices and homes for people with HIV/AIDS, leprosy and tuberculosis, soup kitchens, children's and family counseling programs, orphanages and schools. Many of these institutions were considered ineffective or dangerous. Workers for the order believed that God would decide who would live or die and as such had a carefree attitude towards medical care. Dr. Robin Fox of the British magazine The Lancet described the hospices' medical attention as "haphazard", involving only a few doctors and many nuns with no or little medical knowledge. While Fox noted and praised the attention to cleanliness, the tending of wounds and sores and emotional kindness, he also criticized the lack of adequate analgesics and other pain management equipment. Some people even accused Teresa's order of torture in its treatment of victims in pain and misbehaving children.
To some degree, the issue of the quality of medical attention is linked to a debate over the role of religious charities. Some, like critic Mary Louden, claimed that Mother Teresa and her order were more concerned with ensuring that all persons received a good Catholic funeral than prolonging or improving the quality of life. Many critics either do not understand or accept this motivation, out of reasons that may include atheism or religious liberalism. For most Christians, charity is an important and scripturally-prescribed activity, while "good works" are a necessary component of salvation. Encouraging conversion to Christianity (in this case, Catholicism) is an important concern that may or may not override the urge to perform works of charity, depending on the Catholic involved. To conservatives like Teresa, Western medical care was not as important a goal as spiritual aid for victims or ensuring that all persons received a Catholic burial.
In connection with this goal, some people have accused Mother Teresa and her order of being more concerned with conversion than other factors. Critics like Susan Shields claim that Teresa encourages secret baptisms of Hindu and Muslim patients. At Scripps Clinic, California, in 1991, Mother Teresa said that not patients "died without receiving the special ticket for St Peter, as we call it. We call baptism ticket for St Peter. We ask the [dying] person do you want a blessing by which your sins will be forgiven and you receive God? They have never refused. So 29,000 have died in that one house [in Kalighat] from the time we began in 1952." Teresa seems to have seen nothing wrong with inducing Hindus and Muslims to accept Christian baptism in this manner".
Beatification of Mother Teresa
Following Teresa's death in 1997, the Holy See began the process of beatification, the first step towards possible canonisation, or sainthood. This process requires the documentation of a miracle. In 2002, the Vatican recognised as a miracle the healing of a tumour in the abdomen of an Indian woman, Monica Besra, following the application of a locket containing Teresa's picture.
This purported miracle attracted considerable controversy. Besra's husband reportedly said that the lump in his wife's adomen was not cured by divine intervention, but by hospital treatment. According to a report in Time magazine, records of her treatment were removed by a member of Mother Teresa's order. The Balurghat Hospital where Besra was treated reported coming under pressure from the missionaries to acknowledge that the healing process was the result of a miracle.
Teresa's was formally beatified by Pope John Paul II on October 19 2003, with the title Blessed Teresa of Calcutta. A second authenticated miracle will be required if she is to proceed to canonisation.
The Pope delivered a homily on Mother Teresa (http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/homilies/2003/documents/hf_jp-ii_hom_20031019_mother-theresa_en.html) on the occasion of her beatification. He said: "With particular emotion we remember today Mother Teresa, a great servant of the poor, of the Church and of the whole world. Her life is a testimony to the dignity and the privilege of humble service. She had chosen to be not just the least but to be the servant of the least. As a real mother to the poor, she bent down to those suffering various forms of poverty. Her greatness lies in her ability to give without counting the cost, to give 'until it hurts'. Her life was a radical living and a bold proclamation of the Gospel."
External links
Supportive
- CNN - 'Angel of Mercy' (http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/9709/mother.teresa/)
- TIME magazine 100 People of the Century (http://www.time.com/time/time100/heroes/profile/teresa01.html)
Critical
- Interview with Christopher Hitchens (http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/hitchens_16_4.html)
- 'Saint to the Rich' by Christopher Hitchens (http://www.salon.com/sept97/news/news3970905.html)
Additional Reading
- Becky Benenate, Joseph Durepos (eds) Mother Teresa: No Greater Love (Fine Communications, 2000) ISBN 1567314015
- Aroup Chatterjee: Mother Teresa. The Final Verdict (Meteor Books, 2003). ISBN 8188248002 Full text (http://www.meteorbooks.com/index.html) (without pictures). Critical examination of Agnes Bojaxhiu's life and work.
- Bijal Dwivedi, Mother Teresa: Woman of the Century
- Christopher Hitchens: The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice (Verso, 1995) ISBN 185984054X
- Susan Shields, "Mother Teresa's House of Illusions". Free Inquiry Magazine, Volume 18, Number 1. Online copy (http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/shields_18_1.html).
- Kathryn Spink, Mother Teresa: A Complete Authorized Biography. ISBN 0062508253.
- Mother Teresa et al, Mother Teresa: In My Own Words. ISBN 0517201690.
- Walter Wüllenweber, "Nehmen ist seliger denn geben. Mutter Teresa - wo sind ihre Millionen?" Stern (illustrated German weekly), September 10, 1998. English translation. (http://are.berkeley.edu/~atanu/Writing/teresa.html)