Mother Teresa's House of Illusions

Free Inquiry Magazine ^ | unknown | by Susan Shields

[jtminton]

A Mother Theresa hit piece. Now I've seen it all.

[Ursus arctos horribilis]

No good deed goes unpunished. RIP Mother T.

[Monterrosa-24]

I think the real motivation for attacking Mother Theresa is that she was Pro Life. That abortion culture has never forgiven her. When she accepted the Nobel Prize, she gave an uncompromising Pro Life pitch.

If you join an order where you take a vow of poverty, why complain about the lack of luxuries?

[petconservative]

From someone who worked closely with her, no less. An eye witness you could say.

[wideawake]

Translation: I couldn't hack my vocation. Rather than admit I'm a failure, I'll slander a dead woman who can't defend herself.

Pathetic.

It didn't work when Hitchens said less inflammatory garbage, and it certainly won't work when it comes from a disgruntled loser.

[Integrityrocks]

Satan won that unfortunate soul over. How sad. What a twisted view of the most basic of Christ's teachings. These "beliefs" weren't created by Mother Theresa.. they were established by Christ and she lived her life in "obedience" to Christ's teachings. This woman needs prayers in a big way.

[wideawake]

From someone who worked closely with her, no less.

No.

From someone who claims to have worked closely with her.

An eye witness you could say.,p>One could also a liar.

And the latter is more accurate.

[SunnySide]

"A Mother Theresa hit piece. Now I've seen it all."

And a hit piece after the Mother Theresa is dead. How convienent. Unreal. I read the whole article and didn't see anything wrong with Mother Theresas actions or beliefs. Strange

[RepoGirl]

It's not the first. Christopher Hitchens did one on her just after she died.

[wideawake]

What a twisted view of the most basic of Christ's teachings.

The giveaway is the lie in the first paragraph about Mother Teresa saying that suffering "gives you leverage over God."

She would never have said such a blasphemous thing.

She taught, of course, that suffering unites us more closely to Christ because he suffered for us.

[Past Your Eyes]

Wouldn't surprise me a bit.
Remember a few years back when Mother Theresa was speaking to a group that included the Clintons and Gores? She didn't mince words about abortion. For some reason, the aforementioned slimes found it necessary to inspect the tops of their shoes during most of that speech. I loved it.

[wideawake]

Yup. No matter how clearsighted he is on terrorism, I'll never forgive his punk ass for that one.

[fr_freak]

Our Constitution forbade us to beg for more than we needed, but, when it came to begging, the millions of dollars accumulating in the bank were treated as if they did not exist.

It is a good thing that people receiving millions of dollars in charitable donations would be resigned to a life of poverty. Otherwise, there would always be the temptation to spend some of that money on themselves, as this woman apparently wanted to do: "Why should we have to live like the peasants we're helping? We have millions of dollars!"

[NormB]

Ok, here we go….

Anybody who know anything about what nuns vows and practices are know that this piece is probably right on the money.
Self denial, mortification, renouncing pretty much every worldly connection, it is all factual representation of nun-life.

In that, I see nothing wrong with this article.

One might argue the efficacy of such a life, but the existence of it is undeniable...

[Gingersnap]

The author appears to be completely ignorant of Catholic religious life which is surprising.

A vow of poverty means the religious live in poverty. A vow of obedience means the religious defer to their superiors. Not because those superiors are always right but for the sake of practicing discipline.

Personally, I wouldn't join a group I understood so little about.

[fortunecookie]

The donations rolled in and were deposited in the bank, but they had no effect on our ascetic lives and very little effect on the lives of the poor we were trying to help. We lived a simple life, bare of all superfluities. We had three sets of clothes, which we mended until the material was too rotten to patch anymore. We washed our own clothes by hand. The never-ending piles of sheets and towels from our night shelter for the homeless we washed by hand, too. Our bathing was accomplished with only one bucket of water. Dental and medical checkups were seen as an unnecessary luxury. Mother was very concerned that we preserve our spirit of poverty. Spending money would destroy that poverty. She seemed obsessed with using only the simplest of means for our work.

She missed the point entirely and apparently her head was turned by the money. Mother Teresa wanted the sisters to live like the very poor of India that they helped, and it seems they do.

As a Missionary of Charity, I was assigned to record donations and write the thank-you letters. The money arrived at a frantic rate. The mail carrier often delivered the letters in sacks. We wrote receipts for checks of $50,000 and more on a regular basis.

Sounds like her head was turned by the money.

She became disillusioned and left the community. Only speaking out now long after Mother Teresa's death and shortly after Pope John Paul II's passing, he being a great friend of hers and admirer of her work. How cowardly. Truly someone who doesn't get it. And to slander Mother and her sisters so long after her death, at a time of increased violence against the Christians of India, wow. She has added to the misery of the poor Christians, and other poor, of India. Pathetic.

[zek157]

It sounds like this womans prayers were answered when she left that cult.

[Oztrich Boy]

Now I've seen it all.

Don't be surprised. Some people even try and slander Elron Hubbard and the Church of $cientology

[Mad Dawg]

What is the charge here? I don't get it. She professed poverty, she lived poverty. She professed monastic obedience, and she lived it. Her particular vocation and order is not for everyone, or the Church would require it of everyone.

It is about a particular vocation, and if you pretend you have a vocation when you don't, if you try to bamboozle God, you don't have a beef if it doesn't work out your way.

The real clue that this article is a venomous hit-piece is the line about suffering giving one leverage over God. If Mother Teresa really thought that (which clearly she didn't) she was a heretic. Nothing gives anyone "leverage" over the Almighty. But folks who bring misunderstanding to the table often walk away with what they brought. Um, that which goeth around cometh around, as the prophets have said ....