for Last Half of Her Life, Letters Reveal

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,294395,00.html

Quote :

"Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who has been put on the “fast track” to sainthood, was so tormented by doubts about her faith that she felt “a hypocrite,” it has emerged from a book of her letters to friends and confessors. Shortly after beginning her work in the slums of Calcutta, she wrote: “Where is my faith? Even deep down there is nothing but emptiness and darkness. If there be a God — please forgive me.” In letters eight years later she was still expressing “such deep longing for God,” adding that she felt “repulsed, empty, no faith, no love, no zeal.”"

I don't post this to mock Mother Teresa, I don't know enough about the woman to do that, and she certainly posesses far more dedication, to whatever it was that motivated her, that I will ever posess, but I do think this raises some interesting questions and observations.

8/24/2007 3:50:48 PM

damn

8/24/2007 3:54:17 PM

that people are searching? that they grasp for something greater than they are? that even the most amazing people can feel empty?


This is human nature, my friend, and not profound in the slightest.

8/24/2007 4:06:08 PM

I consider it a good thing. It shows she was doing good b/c it was the right thing to do, not b/c of religion.

I am interested to see how the church receives her now.

8/24/2007 4:10:16 PM

Quote :

"It shows she was doing good b/c it was the right thing to do, not b/c of religion."

Or because she was afraid of looking like a fraud in the eyes of the church after committing to the lifestyle.

I'm just playing devils advocate here. I really do respect the hell out of her.

8/24/2007 4:12:00 PM

^good pt, but If she was at the point in her life where she didn't believe, would she really care about the church seeing her as a fraud?....

8/24/2007 4:26:14 PM

Mother Teresa was a fucking bitch from all accounts. She was incredibly cruel and mean to those around her, and her entire order was big into the whole suffering thing. Not to even mention her being a big ass fraud:

http://www.slate.com/id/2090083/

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/10/22/1066631499641.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8q1m-8npkJ4&mode=related&search

8/24/2007 4:40:42 PM

Most pastors will tell you that it is only natural for Christians to go through periods of their life when they question both the church and their own faith. Particularly those who serve the church since they are always giving but may not be as well "spiritually fed" as those who receive.

Burn out and questioning of motivation is only natural to those who continuously serve. Think of social workers.

Quote :

"I consider it a good thing. It shows she was doing good b/c it was the right thing to do, not b/c of religion."

If you want to be REALLY cynical about it, one could say that she kept doing what she was doing not out of religion or because "its the right thing to do" but because its all she knew or had to do during the waning years of her life. I certainly hope its not the case though.

[Edited on August 24, 2007 at 4:45 PM. Reason : Added the last sentence.]

8/24/2007 4:45:12 PM

This is a much better story on it...
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1655415,00.html?xid=site-cnn-partner

This book actually has the Church excited. It shows even those considered modern day saints struggle with their faith, that it is not supposed to be easy.

Quote :

"America's Martin wants to talk precisely in religious terms. "Everything she's experiencing," he says, "is what average believers experience in their spiritual lives writ large. I have known scores of people who have felt abandoned by God and had doubts about God's existence. And this book expresses that in such a stunning way but shows her full of complete trust at the same time." He takes a breath. "Who would have thought that the person who was considered the most faithful woman in the world struggled like that with her faith?" he asks. "And who would have thought that the one thought to be the most ardent of believers could be a saint to the skeptics?" Martin has long used Teresa as an example to parishioners of self-emptying love. Now, he says, he will use her extraordinary faith in the face of overwhelming silence to illustrate how doubt is a natural part of everyone's life, be it an average believer's or a world-famous saint's."

And don't think this book is some sort of tabloid approach...

Quote :

"The book is hardly the work of some antireligious investigative reporter who Dumpster-dived for Teresa's correspondence. Kolodiejchuk, a senior Missionaries of Charity member, is her postulator, responsible for petitioning for her sainthood and collecting the supporting materials. (Thus far she has been beatified; the next step is canonization.) The letters in the book were gathered as part of that process."

8/24/2007 4:59:47 PM

Quote :

"Ytsejam : Mother Teresa was a fucking bitch from all accounts. She was incredibly cruel and mean to those around her, and her entire order was big into the whole suffering thing."

WTF are you going on about?

two of those links are the exact same article, and does not say anything about her "being a bitch" or being "cruel"

Mother Teresa spent her entire life helping the poorest of the poor in Calcutta India and other places, the last 15 years devoted to helping people dying of AIDS or other infectious diseases to die with dignity, rather than in the sewage gutters.

the only thing one could take exception to regarding MT is that she was unapologetically anti-abortion. Funny how Catholic Nuns are like that.

so how is she a fraud? she is not the one leading the charge for her canonization. shes not the one making claims about "beams of light" or "healing cancer".

whether you believe in the miracles of Catholic sainthood or not, is irrelevant. Mother Teresa was certainly not a fraud, and was a far better person than you'll ever hope to achieve in your miserable little shit smear of a life.

8/24/2007 5:43:24 PM

Quote :

"And she was a friend to the worst of the rich, taking misappropriated money from the atrocious Duvalier family in Haiti (whose rule she praised in return)"

Yes she was fucking awesome. I meant to post another Hitchens article, not the same. Oh well.

So how does taking money, and then praising, from a tyrannical butcher of his own people make you a fucking good person? Or not allowing the families to visit the sick and dieing under your care?

She made things WORSE. But of course you can't comprehend that. Because she has become synonymous with good and caring in pop culture. Heaven forbid you actually look at what she fucking did.

And what's with the personal attack? Trolling as usual.

8/24/2007 5:55:08 PM

Mother Teresa was apolitical to the extreme. she did not concern herself with who was in power in what country. she stayed completely out of all politics.

if someone gave her money to support her hospitals, she was thankful for it. plain and simple.

and as far as not letting the relatives visit her sick and dying patients, that's bullshit. there may have been restrictions in place to limit it to certain hours of the day... and if someone DIDNT WANT to see their family -- families who, by and large, had already abandoned most of the people she cared for -- then, no, she wouldnt let them in.

so what is your point? she voluntarily took on the hardest, dirtiest, least respectable job of caring for the lowest of the low, the sickest of the sick and the poorest of the poor, when NOBODY else would, not even the government.

And I didnt miss your "pop culture" reference or your suggestion that I had no idea what she was doing until after she died. FTR I have, to some small amount, been paying attention to her mission and her life since I first heard of her some 15 years ago.

I remember when she died, just days after Princess Diana, that the timing was ironic cosmic justice. Princess Di's tragic death consumed the world in a frenzied media spectacle, and Mother Teresa's passing was by and large a silent, barely noticed, footnote. Its somewhat fitting that in her death, the media ignored her like they ignored her life for so long. Far more appropriate than having a bunch of talking head pundits wax philosophic about her life and deeds just to generate some media ratings during what would have otherwise been a slow news week.

I was also glad that she wouldn't be turned into a pop icon, so I wouldn't have to listen to a bunch of inane nonsense from more people like you.




[Edited on August 24, 2007 at 6:51 PM. Reason : ]

8/24/2007 6:38:58 PM

Ytsejam is a faggot-faced asshole

Thats all I have to say

8/24/2007 7:10:25 PM

She didn't feel his presence.........







she felt his balls.

8/24/2007 8:18:32 PM

this isn't the first i've heard of mother teresa not being as nice as she seems. i have no idea if those portrayals of her are true or not. i never met the woman.

8/24/2007 10:48:27 PM

Quote :

"And I didnt miss your "pop culture" reference or your suggestion that I had no idea what she was doing until after she died. FTR I have, to some small amount, been paying attention to her mission and her life since I first heard of her some 15 years ago."

No, it has nothing to do with you personally, but rather that when you ask the person on the street, "Was Mother Teresa good?" They will automatically say yes without knowing anything about her. As in, most people judge her by her reputation and not by her deeds.

Sorry if you don't agree that taking money from Papa Doc and saying good things about him is in any way saintly or good. Sure he just murdered ten's of thousands of his own people, we will just overlook that so we can take his money. Ends don't justify the means.

Oh, if you don't know, her order is the only large charity in India that doesn't make its financial records public. I'm sure there is a good reason for that.

She thought suffering was a gift from God. If you don't find that just a bit fucked up...

8/25/2007 1:55:40 AM

Quote :

"that people are searching? that they grasp for something greater than they are? that even the most amazing people can feel empty? This is human nature, my friend, and not profound in the slightest."

The emptiness isn't profound in and of itself, we all feel that, but that she felt it so consistently while she was supposedly doing the work of the very being she felt isolated from . . . that is the difference here.

That people dedicate themselves to a life of suffering to help others is noble. The fact that people dedicate themselves to a life of suffering for a God, whose presence they hardly feel for 50 years is puzzling. The fact that someone embraces suffering, and encourages it, as a means of unity with a deity whose presence they don't feel is disturbing.

I'm no consumer of hedonistic earthly pleasures, but if God is Love and she didn't feel it, then what was her motivation?

It still raises more questions than I can answer.

[Edited on August 27, 2007 at 10:50 AM. Reason : .]

8/27/2007 10:50:04 AM

I read that TIME article and a lot of those letters are really melodramatic, at least that's how it sounds to me.

Quote :

"Lord, my God, who am I that You should forsake me? The Child of your Love — and now become as the most hated one — the one — You have thrown away as unwanted — unloved. I call, I cling, I want — and there is no One to answer — no One on Whom I can cling — no, No One. — Alone ... Where is my Faith — even deep down right in there is nothing, but emptiness & darkness — My God — how painful is this unknown pain — I have no Faith — I dare not utter the words & thoughts that crowd in my heart — & make me suffer untold agony. So many unanswered questions live within me afraid to uncover them — because of the blasphemy — If there be God — please forgive me — When I try to raise my thoughts to Heaven — there is such convicting emptiness that those very thoughts return like sharp knives & hurt my very soul. — I am told God loves me — and yet the reality of darkness & coldness & emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul. Did I make a mistake in surrendering blindly to the Call of the Sacred Heart?"

I find it puzzling as well that she should endure such 'suffering' for so long. True Christian charity is supposed to be a very fulfilling thing.

Fifty years is a long time to do a thankless job. Hell, ONE YEAR is a long time.

[Edited on August 27, 2007 at 12:21 PM. Reason : emails? wtf]

8/27/2007 11:59:31 AM

Quote :

"Mother Teresa was apolitical to the extreme. she did not concern herself with who was in power in what country. she stayed completely out of all politics."

apolitical? That is complete Bullshit.

Do you call this apolitical?

Quote :

"Regarding her practice, I couldn't help but notice that she had rallied to the side of the Duvalier family in Haiti, for instance, that she had taken money - over a million dollars - from Charles Keating, the Lincoln Savings and Loans swindler, even though it had been shown to her that the money was stolen; that she has been an ally of the most reactionary forces in India and in many other countries; that she has campaigned recently to prevent Ireland from ceasing to be the only country in Europe with a constitutional ban on divorce, that her interventions are always timed to assist the most conservative and obscurantist forces."

http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/hitchens_16_4.html

That isn't apolitical. That is political as it gets.

8/28/2007 12:01:22 PM

hmm.

interesting.

i shall ponder this.

8/28/2007 1:21:59 PM

I should apologize to Yjetsam for the undeserved ad hominem attacks.

there are a few times where someone on TWW has altered my opinion. this might be one of them. it took nutsmackr's credibility to concur with a second opinion before i really looked into this.

I can't say I'm completely swayed, but Hitchen's investigation is pretty damning.

Quote :

"Free Inquiry: You point out that, although she is very open about promoting Catholicism, Mother Teresa has this reputation of holiness amongst many non-Catholics and even secular people. And her reputation is based upon her charitable work for the sick and dying in Calcutta. What does she actually do there? What are her care facilities like? HITCHENS: The care facilities are grotesquely simple: rudimentary, unscientific, miles behind any modern conception of what medical science is supposed to do. There have been a number of articles - I've collected some more since my book came out - about the failure and primitivism of her treatment of lepers and the dying, of her attitude towards medication and prophylaxis. Very rightly is it said that she tends to the dying, because if you were doing anything but dying she hasn't really got much to offer. This is interesting because, first, she only proclaims to be providing people with a Catholic death, and, second, because of the enormous amounts of money mainly donated to rather than raised by her Order. We've been unable to audit this - no one has ever demanded an accounting of how much money has flowed in her direction. With that money she could have built at least one absolutely spanking new, modern teaching hospital in Calcutta without noticing the cost. The facilities she runs are as primitive now as when she first became a celebrity. So that's obviously not where the money goes. FI: How much money do you reckon she receives? HITCHENS: Well, I have the testimony of a former very active member of her Order who worked for her for many years and ended up in the office Mother Teresa maintains in New York City. She was in charge of taking the money to the bank. She estimates that there must be $50 million in that bank account alone. She said that one of the things that began to raise doubts in her mind was that the Sisters always had to go around pretending that they were very poor and they couldn't use the money for anything in the neighborhood that required alleviation. Under the cloak of avowed poverty they were still soliciting donations, labor, food, and so on from local merchants. This she found as a matter of conscience to be offensive. Now if that is the case for one place in New York, and since we know what huge sums she has been given by institutions like the Nobel Peace committee, other religious institutions, secular prize-giving organizations, and so on, we can speculate that if this money was being used for the relief of suffering we would be able to see the effect. FI: So the $50 million is a very small portion of her wealth? HITCHENS: I think it's a very small portion, and we should call for an audit of her organization. She carefully doesn't keep the money in India because the Indian government requires disclosure of foreign missionary organizations funds. I think the answer to questions about her wealth was given by her in an interview where she said she had opened convents and nunneries in 120 countries. The money has simply been used for the greater glory of her order and the building of dogmatic, religious institutions. "

8/30/2007 2:04:17 AM

I complete agree with Ytsejam on this. Joe_schmoe, you should really do some more reading.

She was NOT a good person, by any personal accounts. The glorification of Mother Teresa was done largely by the Church, not by her immediate peers. I saw the documentary and spent a few days reading up on it, the woman was pretty insufferable and by most accounts an extreme sado-masochist (not sexually motivated, but theologically motivated), believing in and practicing almost all forms mortification.

8/30/2007 1:51:03 PM

^ in case you missed it, right above you i conceded that I was wrong, and that Yjetsam had exposed some valid criticism. I didnt take his Salon article seriously until nutsmackr reposted similar stuff from the well-regarded "secularhumanism" library.

i can admit when I'm wrong, and yes, although this is a topic I felt like I "knew a little bit" about, I obviously need to do some more reading.

8/30/2007 2:39:50 PM

oh im not trying to dig it in or anything. just adding a little bit of summary from my own research.

BTW after the whole mother teresa thing, I ended up on Ghandi next, and he didn't fare much better. kind of sucks finding out these childhood figures for such good deeds were really nut jobs and pedophiles.

8/30/2007 4:41:36 PM

Unfortunately you'll find a good majority of histories heroes and heroines to be a bit nutty.

8/30/2007 4:48:40 PM

I probably came off a bit "rough" in my criticism. It's just she has become linked with goodness, charity, etc... and it just doesn't seem right. There are tons of people out there who are more deserving of being called a saint than her.

Gandhi is weird. He was pretty racist in regards to Africans, but this mellowed out as he got older. The sleeping with young girls thing was just strange (he did so to see if he could resist the temptation). But if I recall correctly they were pubescent. Which, as offensive as we find it, sleeping with a 12-14 year old girl wasn't that strange until very recently in our history. And he did make a huge difference in getting India its independence without fighting the British, though he did fail at the partition and the bloodshed that involved. He produced tangible, real results that helped people make a better future. Mother Teresa didn't. Oh well.

8/30/2007 5:03:46 PM

history's, by the way.

8/30/2007 5:36:26 PM

Its a matter of culture. There are still 3rd world countries that marry off their 10-12 year olds and sometimes younger to wealthier men so that they can get a education and a better life.

8/30/2007 6:36:06 PM

Quote :

"He was pretty racist in regards to Africans, but this mellowed out as he got older."

It didn't mellow, he just stopped explicitly writing about it. And I don't care what you rational for sleeping with extremely young girls is, that shit is creepy as hell.

8/30/2007 7:15:41 PM

^to us yes, but in other cultures and other times in history girls that age would be already giving birth.

8/30/2007 9:40:29 PM

The thing is, you're average middle of the road personality just does not posses the constitution to act upon their dreams the way these people do. What makes them great (in stature, if not morals) is precisely what causes them to do things we'd often rather forget.

8/30/2007 11:39:04 PM

Tyler I don't know how to research this but I think there were probably some states that tolerated 14-15 year olds being married in the early 20th century here in the US as well.

8/31/2007 12:35:20 AM

right now, in Arkansas, two children can get married at any age. 12, 8, 4 years old.... as long as they have parents permission. a 16 year old can marry a 4 year old. just as long as the girl isn't pregnant. that's the only restriction.

it's true. And the Arkansas governor says he "isn't concerned"

8/31/2007 12:48:47 AM

^ and ^^

That's not my point. I don't doubt the cultural acceptance or even possible legality. My point is the man is hailed as a near saint /demigod. The reality is, whether acceptable or not, he had a predilection toward very young girls. It in no way takes away from all of the good he did, but it certainly brings him back down to humanity.

8/31/2007 11:42:55 AM

Quote :

"It didn't mellow, he just stopped explicitly writing about it. And I don't care what you rational for sleeping with extremely young girls is, that shit is creepy as hell."

Not writing about it is mellowing in my mind. Keeping that shit to yourself is better than writing it down and publishing it.

And I wasn't trying to justify his sleeping with young girls, just giving in a frame of reference. Contemporary sensibilities on it have changed a lot in the past century.

8/31/2007 1:40:36 PM

Pope comments: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070901/wl_nm/pope_teresa_dc

Quote :

""All believers know about the silence of God," he said in unprepared remarks. "Even Mother Teresa, with all her charity and force of faith, suffered from the silence of God," he said. He said believers sometimes had to withstand the silence of God in order to understand the situation of people who do not believe."

Seems to be grasping at straws here.

9/2/2007 10:50:10 AM

^ meh. that's standard response.

but who gives a rat's ass what ol' Joe Ratzinger has to say anyhow.

I've been reading more about MT. She really was a twisted fuck. Thank you Ytsejam, for bringing this to my attention.

I've even converted my wife. she used to be an MT fan.

9/2/2007 12:03:28 PM

can you post some of the links of those things? i'm interested in reading it too...

9/2/2007 1:30:25 PM

There should never be a time for complacency and being a human being doing God's work, I would say her reaction to her task is rather normal. Is this not how humble people usually feel about their work, less than perfect and always needing completeness.
I think there is a point that God's love just needs to be embraced and accepted as a christian but there should always be a healthy assessment of who you are before and without God. She definitely was nothing without God, but she was everything with God.

Something that urks me is she does not get the 10 year memorial special that Princess Di got. Where's her special TLC?

[Edited on September 5, 2007 at 12:39 PM. Reason : ...]

9/5/2007 12:37:23 PM

Quote :

" MOTHER TERESA : WHERE ARE HER MILLIONS? by Walter Wuellenweber Stern Magazine, 10 September 1998 copy at http://members.lycos.co.uk/bajuu/ The Angel of the poor died a year ago. Donations still flow in to her Missionaries of Charity like to no other cause. But the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize vowed to live in poverty. What then, happened to so much money? If there is a heaven, then she is surely there: Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu from Skopje in Macedonia, better known as Mother Teresa. She came to Calcutta on the 6th of Januray 1929 as an 18 year old sister of the Order of Loreto. 68 years later luminaries from all over the world assembled in Calcutta in order to honour her with a state funeral. In these 68 years she had founded the most successful order in the history of the Catholic church, received the Nobel Peace Prize and became the most famous Catholic of our time. Are doubts permitted, regarding this "monument"? In Calcutta, one meets many doubters. For example, Samity, a man of around 30 with no teeth, who lives in the slums. He is one of the "poorest of the poor" to whom Mother Teresa was supposed to have dedicated her life. With a plastic bag in hand, he stands in a kilometre long queue in Calcutta's Park Street. The poor wait patiently, until the helpers shovel some rice and lentils into their bags. But Samity does not get his grub from Mother Teresa's institution, but instead from the Assembly of God, an American charity, that serves 18000 meals here daily. "Mother Teresa?"says Samity, "We have not received anything from her here. Ask in the slums -- who has received anything from the sisters here -- you will find hardly anybody." Pannalal Manik also has doubts. "I don't understand why you educated people in the West have made this woman into such a goddess!" Manik was born some 56 years ago in the Rambagan slum, which at about 300 years of age, is Calcutta's oldest. What Manik has achieved, can well be called a "miracle". He has built 16 apartment buildings in the midst of the slum -- living space for 4000 people. Money for the building materials -- equivalent to DM 10000 per apartment building -- was begged for by Manik from the Ramakrishna Mission [a Indian/Hindu charity], the largest assistance-organisation in India. The slum-dwellers built the buildings themselves. It has become a model for the whole of India. But what about Mother Teresa? "I went to her place 3 times," said Manik. "She did not even listen to what I had to say. Everyone on earth knows that the sisters have a lot of money. But no one knows what they do with it!" In Calcutta there are about 200 charitable organisations helping the poor. Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity are not amongst the biggest helpers: that contradicts the image of the organisation. The name "Mother Teresa" was and is tied to the city of Calcutta. All over the world admirers and supporters of the Nobel Prize winner believe that it must be there that her organisation is particularly active in the fight against poverty. "All lies," says Aroup Chatterjee . The doctor who lives in London was born and brought up in Calcutta. Chatterjee who has been working for years on a book on the myth of Mother Teresa, speaks to the poor in the slums of Calcutta, or combs through the speeches of the Nobel Prize winner. "No matter where I search, I only find lies. For example the lies about schools. Mother T has often stated that she runs a school in Calcutta for more than 5000 children. 5000 children! -- that would have to be a huge school, one of the biggest in all of India. But where is this school? I have never found it, nor do I know anybody who has seen it!" says Chatterjee. Compared to other charitable organisations in Calcutta, the nuns with the 3 blue stripes are ahead in two respects: they are world famous, and, they have the most money. But how much exactly, has always been a closely guarded secret of the organisation. Indian law requires charitable organisations to publish their accounts. Mother Teresa's organisation ignores this prescription! It is not known if the Finance Ministry in Delhi who would be responsible for charities' accounts, have the actual figures. Upon STERN's inquiry, the Ministry informed us that this particular query was listed as "classified information". The organisation has 6 branches in Germany. Here too financial matters are a strict secret. "It's nobody's business how much money we have, I mean to say how little we have," says Sr Pauline, head of the German operations. Maria Tingelhoff had had handled the organisation's book-keeping on a voluntary basis until 1981. "We did see 3 million a year," she remembers. But Mother Teresa never quite trusted the worldly helpers completely. So the sisters took over the financial management themselves in 1981. "Of course I don't know how much money went in, in the years after that, but it must be many multiples of 3 million," estimates Mrs Tingelhoff. "Mother was always very pleased with the Germans." Perhaps the most lucrative branch of the organisation is the "Holy Ghost" House in New York's Bronx. Susan Shields served the order there for a total of nine and a half years as Sister Virgin. "We spent a large part of each day writing thank you letters and processing cheques," she says. "Every night around 25 sisters had to spend many hours preparing receipts for donations. It was a conveyor belt process: some sisters typed, others made lists of the amounts, stuffed letters into envelopes, or sorted the cheques. Values were between $5 and $100.000. Donors often dropped their envelopes filled with money at the door. Before Christmas the flow of donations was often totally out of control. The postman brought sackfuls of letters -- cheques for $50000 were no rarity." Sister Virgin remebers that one year there was about $50 million in a New York bank account. $50 million in one year! -- in a predominantly non-Catholic country. How much then, were they collecting in Europe or the world? It is estimated that worldwide they collected at least $100 million per year -- and that has been going on for many many years. While the income is utter secret, the expenditures are equally mysterious. The order is hardly able to spend large amounts. The establishments supported by the nuns are so tiny (inconspicuous) that even the locals have difficulty tracing them. Often "Mother Teresa's Home" means just a living accommodation for the sisters, with no charitable funstion. Conspicuous or useful assistance cannot be provided there. The order often receives huge donations in kind, in addition to the monetary munificence. Boxes of medicines land at Indian airports. Donated foodgrains and powdered milk arrive in containers at Calcutta port. Clothing donations from Europe and the US arrive in unimaginable quantities. On Calcutta's pavement stalls, traders can be seen selling used western labels for 25 rupees (DM1) apiece. Numerous traders call out, "Shirts from Mother, trousers from Mother." Unlike with other charities, the Missionaries of Charity spend very little on their own management, since the organisation is run at practically no cost. The approximately 4000 sisters in 150 countries form the most treasured workforce of all global multi-million dollar operations. Having taken vows of poverty and obedience, they work for no pay, supported by 300,000 good citizen helpers. By their own admission, Mother Teresa's organisation has about 500 locations worldwide. But for purchase or rent of property, the sisters do not need to touch their bank accounts. "Mother always said, we don't spend for that," remembers Sunita Kumar, one the richest women in Calcutta and supposedly Mother T's closest associate outside the order. "If Mother needed a house, she went straight to the owner, whether it was the State or a private person, and worked on him for so long that she eventually got it free." .... "

[Edited on September 5, 2007 at 1:06 PM. Reason : ]

9/5/2007 1:00:37 PM

Quote :

" ... (continued, part 2) Her method was also successful in Germany.In March the "Bethlehem House" was dedicated in Hamburg, a shelter for homeless women. Four sisters work there. The architecturally conspicuous building cost DM2.5 million. The fortunes of the order have not spent a penny toward the amount. The money was collected by a Christian association in Hamburg. With Mother T as figure head it was naturally short work to collect the millions. Mother Teresa saw it as as her God given right never to have to pay anyone for anything. Once she bought food for her nuns in London for GB£500. When she was told she'd have to pay at the till, the diminutive seemingly harmless nun showed her Balkan temper and shouted, "This is for the work of God!" She raged so loud and so long that eventually a businessman waiting in the queue paid up on her behalf. England is one of the few countries where the sisters allow the authorities at least a quick glance at their accounts. Here the order took in DM5.3 million in 1991. And expenses (including charitable expenses)? -- around DM360,000 or less than 7%. Whatever happened to the rest of the money? Sister Teresina, the head for England, defensively states, "Sorry we can't tell you that." Every year, according to the returns filed with the British authorities, a portion of the fortune is sent to accounts of the order in other countries. How much to which countries is not declared. One of the recipients is however, always Rome. The fortune of this famous charitable organistaion is controlled from Rome, -- from an account at the Vatican bank. And what happens with monies at the Vatican Bank is so secret that even God is not allowed to know about it. One thing is sure however -- Mother's outlets in poor countries do not benefit from largesse of the rich countries. The official biographer of Mother Teresa, Kathryn Spink, writes, "As soon as the sisters became established in a certain country, Mother normally withdrew all financial support." Branches in very needy countries therefore only receive start-up assistance. Most of the money remains in the Vatican Bank. STERN asked the Missionaries of Charity numerous times for information about location of the donations, both in writing as well in person during a visit to Mother Teresa's house in Calcutta. The order has never answered. "You should visit the House in New York, then you'll understand what happens to donations," says Eva Kolodziej. The Polish lady was a Missionary of Charity for 5 years. "In the cellar of the homeless shelter there are valuable books, jewellery and gold. What happens to them? -- The sisters receive them with smiles, and keep them. Most of these lie around uselessly forever." The millions that are donated to the order have a similar fate. Susan Shields (formerly Sr Virgin) says, "The money was not misused, but the largest part of it wasn't used at all. When there was a famine in Ethiopia, many cheques arrived marked 'for the hungry in Ethiopia'. Once I asked the sister who was in charge of accounts if I should add up all those very many cheques and send the total to Ethiopia. The sister answered, 'No, we don't send money to Africa.' But I continued to make receipts to the donors, 'For Ethiopia'." By the accounts of former sisters, the finances are a one way street. "We were always told, the fact that we receive more than other orders, shows that God loves Mother Teresa more. ," says Susan Shields. Donations and hefty bank balances are a measure of God's love. Taking is holier than giving. The sufferers are the ones for whom the donations were originally intended. The nuns run a soup kitchen in New York's Bronx. Or, to put in straight, they have it run for them, since volunteer helpers organise everything, including food. The sisters might distribute it. Once, Shields remembers, the helpers made an organisational mistake, so they could not deliver bread with their meals. The sisters asked their superior if they could buy the bread. "Out of the question -- we are a poor organisation." came the reply. "In the end, the poor did not get their bread," says Shields. Shields has experienced countless such incidents. One girl from communion class did not appear for her first communion because her mother could not buy her a white communion dress. So she had to wait another year; but as that particular Sunday approached, she had the same problem again. Shields (Sr Virgin) asked the superior if the order could buy the girl a white dress. Again, she was turned down -- gruffly. The girl never had her first communion. Because of the tightfistedness of the rich order, the "poorest of the poor" -- orphans in India -- suffer the most. The nuns run a home in Delhi, in which the orphans wait to be adopted by, in many cases, by foreigners. As usual, the costs of running the home are borne not by the order, but by the future adoptive parents. In Germany the organisation called Pro Infante has the monopoly of mediation role for these children. The head, Carla Wiedeking, a personal friend of Mother Teresa's, wrote a letter to Donors, Supporters and Friends which ran: "On my September visit I had to witness 2 or 3 children lying in the same cot, in totally overcrowded rooms with not a square inch of playing space. The behavioural problems arising as a result cannot be overlooked." Mrs Wiedeking appeals to the generosity of supporters in view of her powerlessness in the face of the children's great needs. Powerlessness?! In an organisation with a billion-fortune, which has 3 times as much money available to it as UNICEF is able to spend in all of India? The Missionaries of Charity has have the means to buy cots and build orphanages, -- with playgrounds. And they have enoungh money not only for a handful orphans in Delhi but for many thousand orphans who struggle for survival in the streets of Delhi, Bombay and Calcutta. Saving, in Mother Teresa's philosophy, was a central value in itself. All very well, but as her poor organisation quickly grew into a rich one, what did she do with her pictures, jewels, inherited houses, cheques or suitcases full of money? If she wished to she could now cater to people not by obsessively indulging in saving, but instead through well thought-out spending. But the Nobel Prize winner did not want an efficient organisation that helped people efficiently. Full of pride, she called the Missionaries of Charity the "most disorganised organisation in the world". Computers, typewriters, photocopiers are not allowed. Even when they are donated, they are not allowed to be installed. For book-keeping the sisters use school notebooks, in which they write in cramped pencilled figures. Until they are full. Then everything is erased and the notebook used again. All in order to save. For a sustainable charitable system, it would have been sensible to train the nuns to become nurses, teachers or managers. But a Missionary of Charity nun is never trained for anything further. Fueled by her desire for un-professionalism, Mother Teresa decisions from year to year became even more bizarre. Once, says Susan Shields, the order bought am empty building from the City of New York in order to look after AIDS patients. Purchase price: 1 dollar. But since handicapped people would also be using the house, NY City management insisted on the installation of a lift (elevator). The offer of the lift was declined: to Mother they were a sign of wealth. Finally the nuns gave the building back to the City of New York. .... "

9/5/2007 1:04:14 PM

Quote :

" ... (continued, part 3) While the Missionaries of Charity have already withheld help from the starving in Ethiopia or the orphans in India -- despite having received donations in their names -- there are others who are being actively harmed by the organisation's ideology of disorganisation. In 1994, Robin Fox, editor of the prestigious medical journal Lancet, in a commentary on the catastrophic conditions prevailing in Mother Teresa's homes, shocked the professional world by saying that any systematic operation was foreign to the running of the homes in India: TB patients were not isolated, and syringes were washed in lukewarm water before being used again. Even patients in unbearable pain were refused strong painkillers, not because the order did not have them, but on principle. "The most beautiful gift for a person is that he can participate in the suffering of Christ," said Mother Teresa. Once she had tried to comfort a screaming sufferer, "You are suffering, that means Jesus is kissing you." The sufferer screamed back, furious, "Then tell your Jesus to stop kissing me." The English doctor Jack Preger once worked in the home for the dying. He says, "If one wants to give love, understanding and care, one uses sterile needles. This is probably the richest order in the world. Many of the dying there do not have to be dying in a strictly medical sense." The British newspaper Guardian described the hospice as an "organised form of neglectful assistance". It seems that the medical care of the orphans is hardly any better. In 1991 the head of Pro Infante in Germany sent a newsletter to adoptive parents:"Please check the validity of the vaccinations of your children. We assume that in some case they have been vaccinated with expired vaccines, or with vaccines that had been rendered useless by improper strotage conditions." All this points to one thing, something that Mother Teresa reiterated very frequently in her speeches and addresses -- that she far more concerened with life after death than the mortal life. Mother Teresa's business was : Money for a good conscience. The donors benefitted the most from this. The poor hardly. Whosoever believed that Mother Teresa wanted to change the world, eliminate suffering or fight poverty, simply wanted to believe it for their own sakes. Such people did not listen to her. To be poor, to suffer was a goal, almost an ambition or an achievement for her and she imposed this goal upon those under her wings; her actual ordained goal was the hereafter. With growing fame, the founder of the order became somewhat conscious of the misconceptions on which the Mother Teresa phenomenon was based. She wrote a few words and hung them outside Mother House: "Tell them we are not here for work, we are here for Jesus. We are religious above all else. We are not social workers, not teachers, not doctors. We are nuns." One question then remains: For what, in that case, do nuns need so much money? "

NOTE:

The preceding article appeared in Germany's STERN magazine on 10 September 1998 on occasion on Mother Teresa's 1st death anniversary.

It is worth pointing out here that STERN, one of Europe's highest selling magazines, is a conservative organ, not known for its anti-Catholic bias.

taken from : http://members.lycos.co.uk/bajuu/

9/5/2007 1:05:59 PM

WOW...I don't know what to think of these post. I usually am all about some joe_schmoe but I would have to see more evidence. granted I am not catholic and I usually don't hold this group of people in high esteem, but credible things I have read about her say something different-that is the only reason for my skepticism.

9/6/2007 9:20:59 PM

^

I understand your skepticism. This whole issue has blown apart my preconceptions.

until just very recently, I was completely convinced of the righteousness and the benevolence of Mother Teresa's life and mission. To me, she was a shining example of how -- even though most organized religions were a scam and a sham -- pious and devout individuals really could have a tremendously positive effect on the world around us.

granted, i had zero first-hand knowledge of anything Mother Teresa's order was doing... but everything I read in the media over the years just cemented this image of her as a living saint.

earlier in this very thread, i recoiled with reactionary vitriol at the suggestion that Mother Teresa could somehow be a cruel charlatan and self-serving fraud. Even though I'm not religious at all (I'm most definitely agnostic), at some unconscious level it offended my religious sensibilities that someone would dare attack this little nun who seemed to honestly be doing what could be described as the "work of god"

The fact is, i really just wasnt aware of any criticism -- but I also didn't care to look. It was a comfort, i guess, to believe a lie because it gives hope for the goodness of humanity in the face of all the bullshit we see or hear about on a daily basis.

Unfortunately, if you look for criticism of Mother Teresa, it's very easy to be found. And the criticism isn't just limited to the examples such as in her Nobel Prize acceptance speech, where she said "abortion is the single greatest threat to world peace" ... or that she campaigned to keep divorce a criminal offense in Ireland ... or that she accepted money from and then publicly praised rulers who engaged in genocidal murder campaigns against their ethnic enemies.

If it was just those things, i could overlook them as political inexperience of an apolitical nun.

but its much more nefarious than that.

9/7/2007 5:14:04 PM

Quote :

" Mother Teresa's House of Illusions : How She Harmed Her Helpers As Well As Those They 'Helped' by Susan Shields Some years after I became a Catholic, I joined Mother Teresa's congregation, the Missionaries of Charity. I was one of her sisters for nine and a half years, living in the Bronx, Rome, and San Francisco, until I became disillusioned and left in May 1989. As I reentered the world, I slowly began to unravel the tangle of lies in which I had lived. I wondered how I could have believed them for so long. Three of Mother Teresa's teachings that are fundamental to her religious congregation are all the more dangerous because they are believed so sincerely by her sisters. Most basic is the belief that as long as a sister obeys she is doing God's will. Another is the belief that the sisters have leverage over God by choosing to suffer. Their suffering makes God very happy. He then dispenses more graces to humanity. The third is the belief that any attachment to human beings, even the poor being served, supposedly interferes with love of God and must be vigilantly avoided or immediately uprooted. The efforts to prevent any attachments cause continual chaos and confusion, movement and change in the congregation. Mother Teresa did not invent these beliefs - they were prevalent in religious congregations before Vatican II - but she did everything in her power (which was great) to enforce them. Once a sister has accepted these fallacies she will do almost anything. She can allow her health to be destroyed, neglect those she vowed to serve, and switch off her feelings and independent thought. She can turn a blind eye to suffering, inform on her fellow sisters, tell lies with ease, and ignore public laws and regulations. Women from many nations joined Mother Teresa in the expectation that they would help the poor and come closer to God themselves. When I left, there were more than 3,000 sisters in approximately 400 houses scattered throughout the world. Many of these sisters who trusted Mother Teresa to guide them have become broken people. In the face of overwhelming evidence, some of them have finally admitted that their trust has been betrayed, that God could not possibly be giving the orders they hear. It is difficult for them to decide to leave - their self-confidence has been destroyed, and they have no education beyond what they brought with them when they joined. I was one of the lucky ones who mustered enough courage to walk away. It is in the hope that others may see the fallacy of this purported way to holiness that I tell a little of what I know. Although there are relatively few tempted to join Mother Teresa's congregation of sisters, there are many who generously have supported her work because they do not realize how her twisted premises strangle efforts to alleviate misery. Unaware that most of the donations sit unused in her bank accounts, they too are deceived into thinking they are helping the poor. 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. Sometimes a donor would call up and ask if we had received his check, expecting us to remember it readily because it was so large. How could we say that we could not recall it because we had received so many that were even larger? When Mother spoke publicly, she never asked for money, but she did encourage people to make sacrifices for the poor, to "give until it hurts." Many people did - and they gave it to her. We received touching letters from people, sometimes apparently poor themselves, who were making sacrifices to send us a little money for the starving people in Africa, the flood victims in Bangladesh, or the poor children in India. Most of the money sat in our bank accounts. The flood of donations was considered to be a sign of God's approval of Mother Teresa's congregation. We were told by our superiors that we received more gifts than other religious congregations because God was pleased with Mother, and because the Missionaries of Charity were the sisters who were faithful to the true spirit of religious life. Most of the sisters had no idea how much money the congregation was amassing. After all, we were taught not to collect anything. One summer the sisters living on the outskirts of Rome were given more crates of tomatoes than they could distribute. None of their neighbors wanted them because the crop had been so prolific that year. The sisters decided to can the tomatoes rather than let them spoil, but when Mother found out what they had done she was very displeased. Storing things showed lack of trust in Divine Providence. 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. Was this in the best interests of the people we were trying to help, or were we in fact using them as a tool to advance our own "sanctity?" In Haiti, to keep the spirit of poverty, the sisters reused needles until they became blunt. Seeing the pain caused by the blunt needles, some of the volunteers offered to procure more needles, but the sisters refused. We begged for food and supplies from local merchants as though we had no resources. On one of the rare occasions when we ran out of donated bread, we went begging at the local store. When our request was turned down, our superior decreed that the soup kitchen could do without bread for the day. It was not only merchants who were offered a chance to be generous. Airlines were requested to fly sisters and air cargo free of charge. Hospitals and doctors were expected to absorb the costs of medical treatment for the sisters or to draw on funds designated for the religious. Workmen were encouraged to labor without payment or at reduced rates. We relied heavily on volunteers who worked long hours in our soup kitchens, shelters, and day camps. A hard-working farmer devoted many of his waking hours to collecting and delivering food for our soup kitchens and shelters. "If I didn't come, what would you eat?" he asked. 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. For years I had to write thousands of letters to donors, telling them that their entire gift would be used to bring God's loving compassion to the poorest of the poor. I was able to keep my complaining conscience in check because we had been taught that the Holy Spirit was guiding Mother. To doubt her was a sign that we were lacking in trust and, even worse, guilty of the sin of pride. I shelved my objections and hoped that one day I would understand why Mother wanted to gather so much money, when she herself had taught us that even storing tomato sauce showed lack of trust in Divine Providence. For nearly a decade, Susan Shields was a Missionaries of Charity sister. She played a key role in Mother Teresa's organization until she resigned. -- Free Inquiry 18:1 http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/shields_18_1.html "

9/7/2007 5:23:37 PM