Any definitive claims about the finances are not really supported by facts. We know that Teresa wasn’t living high on the hog. If anyone has followed the Vatican itself and its finances in the past 15 years you’d know that the Catholic Church has a long history of financial mismanagement, the Missionaries of Charity are/were no different.
Some countries like the United States Catholic organizations are ran pretty well, because they are subject to laws on non-profits and the tax code generally. But say, the Vatican’s bank, subject only to the laws of the Vatican–not so much. Or a Catholic Charity in a country like India with historically lax financial regulations, also you’re not going to see very professional finance.
What exactly do you guys think the sisters are likely to have spent money on other than outreach to the poor and missionary work? It’s really the latter that some people have issue with, but I don’t really understand how you can donate to a missionary and expect none of your money will go to proselytizing.
As for the quality of care, I’ve yet to see anyone present real evidence that she was denying people access to opiates because she wanted them to be “glorified by suffering”, you’re taking one statement she made about how suffering can be glorified and then making claims that is why she didn’t have opiates at her hospices, even though there is no clear link between the two. Her hospice facilities were incompetently ran–criminally incompetently by Western medical standards. But we can’t judge them by Western standards. Everything I’ve seen suggests the Indians would’ve died at home or in the street with no care at all if not for these hospices. These people were not choosing her hospices over modern, 21st century western hospice. I also find it specious people claim she “easily could have” gotten doctors and pharmacists on staff to dispense and administer opiates. I don’t know if that’s true or not true, but I know that most Indian doctors are seen as upper class, and upper class Indians, particularly in the mid-20th century in which the majority of Teresa’s life happened, wouldn’t be interested in working a slum.
I’m starting to think a lot of you people don’t have a clear understanding on how many people live in India and how poor some of them are. I’m not talking 1975 India but 2014 India it was reported that 600m Indians had essentially no access to medical care at all. Lack of access to medical care is the number one reason, in estimates I’ve seen, that have Indian life expectancy lacking Western levels. So yeah, I’m sure Mother Teresa is so damn rich and powerful she could’ve easily gotten tons of doctors to her slums to work when you know, the government of India can’t do it for 2x as many people as live in the United States.
To me the only clearly objectionable stuff about Teresa are her religious beliefs. But the organization canonizing her is a religious organization. I found it particularly hilarious when a recent review of her works condemned her “harsh” views on abortion, divorce or etc–views that if she did not hold she could’ve been disallowed running a Catholic Charity, and in theory could’ve been excommunicated (she would’ve been in fact, had she expressed such views too publicly.) This is the Catholic Church, they don’t believe in abortion, they don’t believe (generally) in divorce. The worst thing she did theologically is the baptism of dying Hindus and Muslims, ignorant of the significance of the act. That goes against general morality and also the actual laws of the Church, and would actually in my opinion be the strongest grounds theologically for opposing her canonization.