# Mother Teresa - Saint or Scourge? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 18, 2015, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mother-teresa-saint-or-scourge/740792 "2015-12-18T18:11:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2015, 7:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mother-teresa-saint-or-scourge/740792/81 "2015-12-20T07:46:56Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > You just said it right there: People can defend her because she didn’t refuse help to the homeless, and ran facilities for people in need. Are you claiming that those are indefensible acts? If you run a service for people whose houses are on fire (let’s call it a “fire department”), collect donations from people thinking you put out fires but instead spend those donations on a shiny new Jaguar, that is an indefensible act. By collecting charitable donations, Mother Teresa created for herself an obligation that she spend those donations well, an obligation which she failed to fulfill. ---
**Author:** ![Robert163](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/4af34b/32.png) [@Robert163](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robert163)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2015, 8:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mother-teresa-saint-or-scourge/740792/82 "2015-12-20T08:13:47Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > If you run a service for people whose houses are on fire (let’s call it a “fire department”), collect donations from people thinking you put out fires but instead spend those donations on a shiny new Jaguar, that is an indefensible act. By collecting charitable donations, Mother Teresa created for herself an obligation that she spend those donations well, an obligation which she failed to fulfill. Not to disagree with you too much but a better example might be: “Mother” Theresa raises 10 million dollars to build a facility to “educate children”. She builds a large dormitory, with a library, with 2,000 books in the library. But, no teachers. So, yes, she did “technically” keep her promise. Of course, she now has about 9.5 million dollars left over… ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2015, 9:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mother-teresa-saint-or-scourge/740792/83 "2015-12-20T09:10:01Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Show me that she persuaded other charity workers not to give opiates to patients, show me that she went to government and persuaded them to channel all their welfare for sick impoverished folks through her, show me something like that, and I’ll agree. Well, she persuaded a lot of people to give money to her charity, instead of some other charity. I wonder how many of the donations she got might have gone somewhere else if the donors understood just how little she was really doing for people. ---
**Author:** ![botsgotme](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@botsgotme](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/botsgotme)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2015, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mother-teresa-saint-or-scourge/740792/84 "2015-12-20T14:26:36Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > Nonsense. The fact that we do not live up to someone’s good deeds does not remove our right to decry their misdeeds. Particularly if that person is being held up as a _literal saint_, and is often seen as a near-perfect human being. Particularly when their misdeeds throw fairly extreme shadows on their good deeds. The criticism of Teresa reflects _explicitly_ on her good deeds. The criticism is that her work to mitigate the suffering of humans was horribly misportrayed, and was nowhere near as positive as she is given credit for, or indeed for what we would expect, given the money she was given. Her organization provided comfort and love to people who were dying in the streets. To put it mildly, the Hindu idea about someone suffering a lonely death is that THEY DESERVED IT-in a previous life, they did something evil, and karma is a bitch. Whatever your ideas about Mother Teresa, she did give these dying people some love and final comfort, which means a lot (unless you are Christopher Hitchens). ---
**Author:** ![Robert163](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/4af34b/32.png) [@Robert163](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robert163)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2015, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mother-teresa-saint-or-scourge/740792/85 "2015-12-20T14:32:16Z")
> [@botsgotme](#): > > Her organization provided comfort and love to people who were dying in the streets. To put it mildly, the Hindu idea about someone suffering a lonely death is that THEY DESERVED IT-in a previous life, they did something evil, and karma is a bitch. Whatever your ideas about Mother Teresa, she did give these dying people some love and final comfort, which means a lot (unless you are Christopher Hitchens). How can you possibly make this statement with any sense or accuracy or confidence? We hope the nuns were loving and sympathetic, but, they could of been nervous, or reserved, or loving (as you say). ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2015, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mother-teresa-saint-or-scourge/740792/86 "2015-12-20T15:09:18Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Well, she persuaded a lot of people to give money to her charity, instead of some other charity. I wonder how many of the donations she got might have gone somewhere else if the donors understood just how little she was really doing for people. Agreed. The $10 million question seems to be, is this really what happened? The financial irregularity case against her charities appears fairly strong, but I’m not seeing a smoking gun. ---
**Author:** ![vivalostwages](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d07c76/32.png) [@vivalostwages](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vivalostwages)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2015, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mother-teresa-saint-or-scourge/740792/87 "2015-12-20T18:58:35Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > She was an asshole. [http://www.alternet.org/belief/mother-theresas-masochism-does-religion-demand-suffering-keep-people-passive](http://www.alternet.org/belief/mother-theresas-masochism-does-religion-demand-suffering-keep-people-passive) A saint, she ain’t. ---
**Author:** ![Subterraneanus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a183cd/32.png) [@Subterraneanus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Subterraneanus)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2015, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mother-teresa-saint-or-scourge/740792/88 "2015-12-20T19:20:21Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Why do you say “yes” to both those questions? Because it feels good. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2015, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mother-teresa-saint-or-scourge/740792/89 "2015-12-20T19:28:34Z")
> [@botsgotme](#): > > Her organization provided comfort and love to people who were dying in the streets. To put it mildly, the Hindu idea about someone suffering a lonely death is that THEY DESERVED IT-in a previous life, they did something evil, and karma is a bitch. Whatever your ideas about Mother Teresa, she did give these dying people some love and final comfort, which means a lot (unless you are Christopher Hitchens). That’s nice, but people gave money to her - _lots_ of money - under the assumption it was being used to treat the ill. Her organizations did not really pull through on this count, or at least it’s been severely called into question. Yes, I agree, the concept of Karma is _horrible_ and one of the most disgusting forms of social control I have ever seen, but this doesn’t mean we should settle for “slightly less disgusting”. With her resources, a _real_ charity, that actually cared about making life better for the downtrodden and destitute, could have actually done more than comfort the dying (in a strictly selfish and sectarian way, I might add). ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2015, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mother-teresa-saint-or-scourge/740792/90 "2015-12-20T19:30:16Z")
> [@Robert163](#): > > I’m sure they could of found at least one doctor. Why are you sure about that? Do you actually know anything about the availability of doctors in India during Mother Teresa’s lifetime? ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2015, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mother-teresa-saint-or-scourge/740792/91 "2015-12-20T19:45:18Z")
> [@vivalostwages](#): > > [http://www.alternet.org/belief/mother-theresas-masochism-does-religion-demand-suffering-keep-people-passive](http://www.alternet.org/belief/mother-theresas-masochism-does-religion-demand-suffering-keep-people-passive) > A saint, she ain’t. Not yet. It seems likely that she will be canonized. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2015, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mother-teresa-saint-or-scourge/740792/92 "2015-12-20T20:09:03Z")
Hitchens and others have expressed savage hatred of Mother Teresa for allegedly not using donations in a way that wasn’t very effective at helping the poor. Did Hitchens, or any other hater, ever express half as much hatred for the socialist government that made hundreds of millions of Indians dirt poor and wretched in the first place? ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2015, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mother-teresa-saint-or-scourge/740792/93 "2015-12-20T20:27:17Z")
I mean, that’s a good point. I seriously doubt there was more waste in the Missionaries of Charity than the Indian government that has left 600m people without access to medical care. From what I can tell, the people that have a problem with Mother Teresa hate her because she was an “unrepentant Catholic”, which means she was pro-life, anti-divorce and “not a political liberal.” Like all religious belief, I find her Catholicism silly and wrong. But I don’t believe in bashing people without evidence. You guys have no real hard evidence the money given to her was “misspent.” You all continue to ignore the fact that she **openly operated a missionary organization** and that **missionaries by design spend time trying to convert people to their religion**. No one here has access to the charitable organization’s books, but what we do know is that before Mother Teresa a lot of Indians in Calcutta had no access to hospices, a lot of orphans were on the streets who ended up in orphanages, alcoholics and people with HIV who were receiving no treatment began receiving some level of assistance. You guys are like someone criticizing a guy who gives a dying man a drink of water in the desert for giving him tap water and not giving him a drink of artisanal spring water instead. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2015, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mother-teresa-saint-or-scourge/740792/94 "2015-12-20T20:30:51Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > You guys are like someone criticizing a guy who gives a dying man a drink of water in the desert for giving him tap water and not giving him a drink of artisanal spring water instead. Personally, I feel like the guy baffled by all the accolades someone is getting for delivering artisinal spring water when all they really managed was tap water. ---
**Author:** ![Robert163](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/4af34b/32.png) [@Robert163](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robert163)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2015, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mother-teresa-saint-or-scourge/740792/95 "2015-12-20T20:37:28Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > You guys are like someone criticizing a guy who gives a dying man a drink of water in the desert for giving him tap water and not giving him a drink of artisanal spring water instead. A more accurate analogy would be that we are mad because she/they found some people dying of thirst in the desert and gave them a glass of water, after which, they still died of thirst, 5 days later. When, they had GALLONS of water and only choose to give them one glass. Of course, some people, all they needed was the one glass of water. After that they were able to crawl/limp to get their own water. Some people. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2015, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mother-teresa-saint-or-scourge/740792/96 "2015-12-21T01:09:08Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > I mean, that’s a good point. I seriously doubt there was more waste in the Missionaries of Charity than the Indian government that has left 600m people without access to medical care. It’s a terrible point, unless the socialist government managed somehow to take a country full of wealth and equality and turn it into a cesspool. Somebody, I think, hasn’t read their history. > [@](#): > > You guys are like someone criticizing a guy who gives a dying man a drink of water in the desert for giving him tap water and not giving him a drink of artisanal spring water instead. If she asked people for help giving water to those dying of thirst, and people gave her enough resources to build a water park, and instead she passed out sips, that’s a real problem. I’m not convinced that that’s what happened, but there’s some circumstantial evidence to suggest it is. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2015, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mother-teresa-saint-or-scourge/740792/97 "2015-12-21T01:28:52Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > If she asked people for help giving water to those dying of thirst, and people gave her enough resources to build a water park, and instead she passed out sips, that’s a real problem. I’m not convinced that that’s what happened, but there’s some circumstantial evidence to suggest it is. It’s not _just_ that, though - it’s that she somehow got the reputation as a builder of waterparks, indeed she’s used as the metaphorical gold standard of waterpark building. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2015, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mother-teresa-saint-or-scourge/740792/98 "2015-12-21T03:20:38Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > It’s not _just_ that, though - it’s that she somehow got the reputation as a builder of waterparks, indeed she’s used as the metaphorical gold standard of waterpark building. I guess I think that’s less important. If other folks deify someone (almost literally, here), that’s not on them; that’s on others. There are some scenarios here: -She was corrupt. That’d be pretty bad, but I don’t see evidence of corruption. -She was so blinded by ideology that she deliberately withheld care that she could have given to impoverished people, refusing to spend money she could have spent. Maybe? -Someone else was controlling her money for nefarious purposes. Maybe? -She was incompetent at handling money. Maybe? -The money was being spent well, and we’re missing some details. Does not seem likely. If she was deliberately not using resources that had been donated in order to reduce suffering, that’s awful. If she was incompetent, I’m not going to condemn her for that. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2015, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mother-teresa-saint-or-scourge/740792/99 "2015-12-21T03:57:30Z")
> [@Robert163](#): > > A more accurate analogy would be that we are mad because she/they found some people dying of thirst in the desert and gave them a glass of water, after which, they still died of thirst, 5 days later. When, they had GALLONS of water and only choose to give them one glass. > > Of course, some people, all they needed was the one glass of water. After that they were able to crawl/limp to get their own water. Some people. This is closer to the accusations I have heard. If she just gave out a lot of tap water, I don’t think anyone would have a problem with it. Well, not many people, anyhow. > [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > I guess I think that’s less important. If other folks deify someone (almost literally, here), that’s not on them; that’s on others. > > There are some scenarios here: > -She was corrupt. That’d be pretty bad, but I don’t see evidence of corruption. > **-She was so blinded by ideology that she deliberately withheld care that she could have given to impoverished people, refusing to spend money she could have spent. Maybe?** > -Someone else was controlling her money for nefarious purposes. Maybe? > -She was incompetent at handling money. Maybe? > -The money was being spent well, and we’re missing some details. Does not seem likely. > > If she was deliberately not using resources that had been donated in order to reduce suffering, that’s awful. If she was incompetent, I’m not going to condemn her for that. Bolded/Blue is the one closest to the accusations I’ve heard. The whole financial shenanigans claim is new to me as of this thread. ---
**Author:** ![the\_diego](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@the\_diego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_diego)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2015, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mother-teresa-saint-or-scourge/740792/100 "2015-12-21T04:46:20Z")
Ermmm, can’t you guys imagine an American doing what she did inside America? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mother-teresa-saint-or-scourge/740792.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mother-teresa-saint-or-scourge/740792.md?page=6)