Mother Teresa - The Mother of All Myths?

Question

What is it with all the ongoing M. Teresa bashing? I've found a collection of websites criticizing her. Was she really what we thought she was? Or was she...

1- A Buddha Worshipper? http://www.traditioninaction.org/RevolutionPhotos/A067rcMadreTeresaBudha.htm

2- Saint to the Rich?
http://www.salon.com/sept97/news/news3.html

3- Child Torturer?
http://www.holysmoke.org/sdhok/shields.htm

4-Illusory?
http://ffrf.org/fttoday/1996/august96/hakeem.html

Answer 1

You should read Hitchens' book, the Missionary Position.

Answer 2

Mother Teresa was a terrible person. She's been described as being the biggest con artist of the 20th century. In addition to the links you gave, you can catch the Bullshit! episode linked to in my source for a more visual look into the kind of person she REALLY was (the episode also talks about Gandhi and the Dalai Lama, so you can skip those parts if you want, though the whole episode is interesting).

Answer 3

There are sick and twisted people everywhere. Don't listen to them. The only negative thing that could really be said is that some think that the RC church used her to foster some of their own ideas that keep women down.

I was in Rome once when she was visiting one of her convents. I was staying in the same building as a matter of fact. I did not get to talk with her, but I think that she was a very good woman. And the work that her order was doing there was very worthwhile. People said that when in her presence you could feel the love of Christ around her.

Answer 4

All the copy stuff aside, she undoubtedly did more harm than good.... she should have been helping those women to not have all those babies... to them, she brought more misery than good.

How would you like to raise 9 children --- the average number of pregnancies/children in the cities in which she worked. I know I wouldn't want nine..... What, to populate heaven with souls?? give me a break

Answer 5

I think it is so sad that people can take someone as good and as loving and caring as Mother Teresa and tell such horrific lies about them. That is against the commandment "Do not bear false witness against your neighbor." People should be using her as an example and should be trying to achieve her level of goodness rather than trying to make her look bad.

God bless,
Stanbo

Answer 6

These answers above are sick.

Mother Teresa was an Albanian Roman Catholic nun who founded the Missionaries of Charity and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 for her humanitarian work. For over forty years, she ministered to the needs of the poor, sick, orphaned, and dying of Calcutta . As her religious order grew she expanded her ministry to other countries. By the 1970s she had become internationally famed as a humanitarian and advocate for the poor and helpless, due in part to a documentary, and book, Something Beautiful for God by Malcolm Muggeridge.

Following her death she was beatified by Pope John Paul II and designated Blessed Teresa of Calcutta. However, she and the order she founded have attracted criticism in latter years with respect to care of the sick and destination of financial contributions.

Mother Teresa's work inspired other Catholics to affiliate themselves with her order. The Missionaries of Charity Brothers was founded in 1963, and 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,[44] and in 1984 founded with Fr. Joseph Langford the Missionaries of Charity Fathers to combine the beauty of the vocation of the Missionaries of Charity with the resources of the ministerial priesthood.[45] Today over one million workers worldwide volunteer for the Missionaries of Charity.

During her lifetime and after her death, Mother Teresa was consistently found by Gallup to be the single most widely admired person in the U.S., and in 1999 was ranked as the "most admired person of the 20th century" by a poll in the U.S. Notably, Mother Teresa out-polled all other volunteered answers by a wide margin, and was in first place in all major demographic categories except the very young.



Spread love everywhere you go: first of all in your own house. Give love to your children, to your wife or husband, to a next door neighbor... Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier. Be the living expression of God's kindness; kindness in your face, kindness in your eyes, kindness in your smile, kindness in your warm greeting. ”
—Mother Teresa[

Answer 7

I've heard some nasty things about her healing places. She turns out to be a complete nutjob.