O Canada! > Canadian > Canadian Chat > "Mother Theresa: Anything but a Saint"

Styvas it is also important to see what the people she minstered to think of her... they loved her

Dr. Mark Buntain (a Pentecostal working in Calcutta before he died) had praise of her work among the poor (as did she for him)

Who cares?

Why do people insist on trashing others to justify their own insecurities or make a name for themselves.

Look at this airhead in London,Hillary Mantel.........attacking a pregnant Kate.............have you seen the pictures of this supposed woman?

Scarey!

Do I think she was perfect?? By no means... but I do think that Hitchens had an agenda (and by using him extensively so do the authors).

As it stands she isn't a saint, though her church is busy ramming ahead with the process ignoring both evidence and facts to reach a pre-drawn conclusion that she must become a saint.

Serge Larivee, Professor, Department of Psychoeducation, University of Montreal, and colleagues Carole Sénéchal and Genevieve Chenard, in the context of a scientific paper to be published in the March issue of the journal Studies in Religion / Religious Studies , provide an analysis of the published literature on Mother Teresa which debunks the myth of altruism and generosity attached to the character. Like the journalist and author Christopher Hitchens, quoted extensively in their analysis, they conclude that the construction of a haloed figure of holiness - which resists, however, to analyze the facts - and whose beatification was orchestrated by an effective media relations operation.

"While we were looking for documentation on the phenomenon of altruism in a seminar on ethics, one of us fell on the life and work of one of the most acclaimed female of the Catholic Church and now part of our collective imagination: Mother Teresa, whose real name was Agnes Gonxha says Professor Larivée. The description made was so ecstatic that it piqued our curiosity and made us want to push our research further. '
The three researchers consulted 502 works devoted to the life and work of Mother Teresa. After eliminating 195 duplicates, the they consulted 287 books to carry out their analysis work, which represents 96% of the literature on the founder of the Order of the Missionaries of Charity (MC).

Facts debunking the myth of Mother Teresa
In their article, Serge Larivee and colleagues also reported a number of problems, including facts the Vatican has not taken into account in the process of beatification of Mother Teresa, including "her peculiar way of caring for the sick , questionable political contacts, her curious management of astronomical sums of money she had received and excessive dogmatism when it came to abortion, contraception and divorce."

Patients must suffer like Christ on the cross
At the time of her death, Mother Teresa opened 517 missions, welcoming the poor and sick in more than 100 countries. These missions were described by physicians who visited several of these facilities in Calcutta. Two-thirds of people attending these missions were hoping to find a doctor to be treated and the other third was dying without receiving appropriate care. The physicians observed a significant lack of hygiene in the premises, even unhealthy, a shortage of actual care, inadequate diet and lack of painkillers. It is not a lack of money that is at stake - the Foundation set up by Mother Teresa had raised hundreds of millions of dollars - but a particular conception of suffering and death: "There is something nice to see the poor to accept their lot, to suffer as Christ's passion. The world makes a lot of their suffering." And yet, when Mother Teresa needed palliative care, it is in a modern American hospital that she received them.

Questionable political contacts and obscure accounting
Mother Teresa was very generous with her prayers, but sparing millions of its foundation under the sufferings of humanity. At many major floods in India and in the explosion of a pesticide plant in Bhopal, she offered her prayers and medals of the Blessed Virgin, but no direct help or money. She had no problem accepting the Legion of Honor and a grant from the Duvalier dictatorship in Haiti. Millions of dollars transited across various bank accounts of many MC, but most accounts were kept secret, Serge Larivee says. Given the "parsimonious character of the management of Mother Teresa's works, one may ask where are the millions for the poorest of the poor?" the researchers wondered.

A great media plan to holiness
Despite these disturbing facts, how did Mother Teresa succeeded to build an image of holiness and infinite goodness? According to the three academic meeting in London in 1968 by Malcolm Muggeridge the BBC journalist anti-abortion sharing the values ​​of the right-wing Catholic, is crucial. He decides to promote the religious discovers the effectiveness of mass media. In 1969 he made a film on the dithyrambic missionary and he promotes saying that we can see the "first photographic miracle," which he attributed to Mother Teresa when it should be attributed to the new film marketed by Kodak. Consequently many trips to religious on five continents, numerous awards, the most prestigious Nobel peace. In his acceptance speech, on the Bosnian Serbs and raped by seeking an abortion, she said: "I feel the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, Because it is a live war, has direct killing - direct murder by the mother herself . '

Following her death, the Vatican decided not to wait the usual five years before opening the beatification. The miracle attributed to her is the healing of a woman, Monica Besra, suffering from intense pain in the abdomen. The application on the abdomen of a medal blessed by Mother Teresa would have healed the woman. However, doctors say otherwise: ovarian cyst she suffered from tuberculosis were cured by the medicines they had given her. The Vatican still concludes miracle. Mother Teresa's popularity was such that it became an untouchable for the population, which had declared itself holy. For the Vatican, what better than the beatification and canonization "of this model to revitalize the Church and inspire the faithful especially at a time when the churches are empty and the Roman authority declines," the researchers suggest.

The positive effect of the myth of Mother Teresa
Despite its dubious way of caring for the sick glorifying their suffering rather than relieving, Serge Larivee and colleagues point out the positive effect of the myth of Mother Teresa: "If the extraordinary figure of Mother Teresa sent to the imagination collective sparked initiatives of humanitarian authentically engaged with people crushed by poverty, we can only rejoice. "" It is very likely that she has inspired many humanitarian workers whose actions helped relieve the suffering of the truly poor and tackling the causes of poverty and isolation, and without that they are brought acclaimed by the media, says Serge Larivee. Nevertheless, it would have been the media who covered the work of Mother Teresa exercise more rigor, "he concludes.

References on the study
Article The dark side of Mother Teresa of Serge Larivee, School of Psychoeducation, University of Montreal, Carole Sénéchal, Faculty of Education, University of Ottawa, and Genevieve Chenard, the School of Psychoeducation, University of Montreal, is available online on the website of Studies in Religion / Religious Studies.

The printed version will be published in March 2013 in issue 42 Studies in Religion / Religious Studies.

This research has not been grants or special funding.

Not sure how old you are but it was a societal conclusion before whatever silly notions you have about the church popped into your head. She's been featured on the covers of every major magazine from Time to National Geographic with plenty of factual accountings of the work she'd done. Let's not forget she was bestowed a Nobel Peace Prize, probably before you were born... the money of which she donated to the poor.

It's irrelevant what people like Hitchens and others think about her and her work. What's important is what the Church thinks.

Obama has also done both, shall we Canonize him once he dies?

Why not actually educated yourself on the canonization process

And the canonization of a person by the Roman Catholic Church has its own process, unrelated to your or my understanding of "historical accuracy" or "scientific accuracy". Our categories and opinions are irrelevant.

Like the journalist and author Christopher Hitchens, quoted extensively in their analysis, they conclude that the construction of a haloed figure of holiness - which does not hold up when the facts are looked upon - and her beatification were orchestrated by an effective media relations operation."