The
Happy Heretic -Defending
Mother Teresa
By
Judith
Hayes MARCH 1998
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/judith_hayes/happy_heretic/1998/march.html
They say that imitation is the most sincere form of
flattery. But when it comes to writing anything controversial, your success can
probably be judged by the caliber of your critics. So I'm flattered.
On January 17, 1998, Clark Morphew, syndicated
columnist for Knight-Ridder, took aim at the winter issue of Free Inquiry
because of two articles it contained that were highly critical of the late
Mother Teresa. One was written by Susan Shields, a former Missionaries of
Charity sister who worked with Teresa. Shields revealed that part of her job was
to help keep track of the millions of dollars donated to Teresa's
"charity" work. Unfortunately, most of that money sat unused in
various bank accounts while the sisters had to beg for food from local
merchants. If the locals couldn't help out, the soup kitchens did without. This
is "charity?"
The other article was written by me. I compared the
late Carl Sagan's genuine, almost immeasurable contributions to humanity with
Teresa's contributions. Hers consisted of little more than telling people that
suffering was good for them, and prattling on inanely about how God will
provide, as starving children dropped like flies all around her. I also pointed
to the brazen hypocrisy of Teresa's denying her "patients" the most
rudimentary care, including simple comforts and pain killers, while she herself
checked into posh hospitals to have a pacemaker implanted and blood vessels
cleared. Her own health and comfort were apparently quite important to her.
Morphew was obviously upset with the articles, but his
defense of Teresa was surprisingly halfhearted and ambivalent. In his opening
paragraph Morphew predicts that criticism of Teresa will continue until
"some serious reform comes about." But if Teresa's generously financed
clinics were running smoothly, honestly and compassionately, why would any
reform be needed at all? Likewise, after describing Shields' knowledgeable
charges about the idle millions of dollars that helped no one, Morphew suggested
that since Sister Nirmala has taken the reigns, "grand changes could
happen." Again, why should they, unless something was wrong to begin with?
Seeming to want it both ways, Morphew presents Teresa
as "one of the most obvious candidates for sainthood," but then
concedes that among Tersa's beliefs were the ideas that suffering is good and
that despite staggering overpopulation, birth control is always wrong. He also
noted that wiping out poverty and illiteracy was not Teresa's focus. If all of
that is true, it places Teresa somewhere between sadistic and stupid. (Which,
interestingly, is where "saint" appears in the dictionary.) I have
never heard of a compassionate person who thought that human suffering was ever
a good thing, and I think compassion would be the bare minimum to expect in
anyone being considered for "sainthood."
Morphew also pointed out that Teresa "never
pretended to be a doctor who could wipe out or even soften the pain of
death." This I challenge fervently. So too would the Columbia University
Press Encyclopedia (1995) in which they say about Teresa: "In 1948 she
left the convent and founded the Missionaries of Charity, which now operates
schools, hospitals, orphanages, and food centers in more than 25
countries." How would Morphew define "hospital?" There is no
ambiguity whatsoever about the activities Teresa presented to the world as hers.
The problem is that what she said she was doing was not what she was doing.
If Teresa was offering spiritual comfort only, and not
trying to "soften the pain of death," (and why on earth not?!) there
should have been no drugs dispensed and no drug paraphernalia of any kind on
hand at her "clinics." But there were. Her employees and volunteers
used and reused un-sterilized syringes to administer ineffective drugs and mild
antibiotics to terminally ill people, who suffered the resulting agonies. This
is called practicing medicine, and why such malpractice was allowed to go on so
long, with no legal challenges, highlights the power, and abuse of power, that
is vouchsafed to organized religions. Especially the big ones with a lot of
money.
But if, as Morphew asserts, Mother Teresa never
intended to offer medical care to the ill, feed the poor, or educate the
illiterate, but rather planned only to offer spiritual solace to dying people,
then at the very least she was a fraud. Those millions of dollars were donated
by caring people to offer medical care to the ill, feed the poor, and educate
the illiterate-not to sit in bank accounts earning interest for the Roman
Catholic Church, which has been a multi-billion dollar enterprise for decades
now. And there are laws about raising charitable contributions for one thing and
then using the money for another-as Teresa did. Apparently her goal was to hoard
the money, like Midas and his gold. To what end, though, is anybody's guess.
There is a disquieting possibility, however, that
presents itself in hindsight. She collected her millions "in the name of
God." (And then promptly hid them away like a squirrel readying for
winter.) She also converted souls "in the name of God," many just
before they expired. I wonder, did she keep a rough tally of those souls? What
I'm getting at is I wonder if in her simplistic view of things, anything she did
for God would earn her big-time Brownie Points in the afterlife. For her,
perhaps, this world had no meaning whatsoever, and was just some sort of
challenging religious maze, designed by God to determine who gets the best bits
of Paradise. If so, it might explain, since nothing else can, how she could be
so callous as to sit on her millions while children, in her own part of India,
were dying of starvation. This defies rational explanation, and I challenge
anyone, from Morphew to the Pope himself, to explain it.
I am also very surprised that no one came forward
sooner to talk about Teresa's questionable practices-but then that's what
everyone said about priests raping little boys, isn't it? The Roman Catholic
Church's power is unbelievably intimidating.
Whatever the motives of the woman from Calcutta, I
have seen enough human suffering in loved ones to recoil in horror at the
thought of terminal, tormented people being told that their suffering is a good
thing. Suffering is never a good thing-except to sadists. Especially today, when
we have the capability to alleviate so much pain, the mental image of those
unfortunates who ended up in a Teresa "clinic" makes me cringe with
nausea.
(for the rest go to the above site)
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