RationalWiki is unabashedly biased – towards rationality – and for that reason very, very useful and very, very non-stupid. Sometimes wrong, perhaps (though I have yet to encounter a single instance), but never stupid.
Actually, Hitchens was called in by the Catholic Church, if not as formal “Devil’s Advocate”, then at least to present evidence against here, something which he certainly did:
Aroup Chatterjee, known for his own anti-Mother Teresa book, also presented evidence against her (although Hitchens was apparently either unaware of this, or did not mention it):
So there were what amounted to “Devil’s Advocates” in her case. The Vatican certainly heard the other side of the argument.
This one I do not count. Many saints and holy people of all religions have had crises of faith and got over it, and I am not convinced that she never did. It’s subjective and not irreversible and she went on to persevere in her deeds and words. Unless the argument is that she psychopathically continued to do all this knowing it was for nothing.
Actually wrong things done in the name of the faith, OTOH, can be judged on the facts of the deeds.
So where did the money go, then? Did they just burn it for fuel? It isn’t like after her death they found out she secretly had mansions in three continents and her own fleet of private jets or anything. You don’t embezzle “multi millions” just to go to the Mayo Clinic.
There appear to be two broad ways (no pun intended) to construe the claims here:
Mother Teresa did horrible disgusting things, and the Church should not recognize her sainthood, because the Church opposes those things she did,
Or
Mother Teresa did horrible disgusting things that the Church should oppose but does not, and therefore the Church should not recognize her sainthood because of reasons.
In my view, the second category is weak. That is, you might say, as the Université de Montréal scholars did, that she was a negative influence because of her overly dogmatic views regarding abortion, contraception, and divorce. But surely you understand that since the Catholic Church does not share the views supporting abortion, contraception, and divorce, it is an absurd argument to inveigh against sainthood for Mother Teresa and list those as reasons.
So I would be interested in specific criticisms of Mother Teresa that show she violated Catholic doctrine or practice. (Category 1 above). Complaints in the Category 2 box are essentially tautological.
It doesn’t? Then what are the Church’s actual, official views? (I’m pretty sure the RCC has actual official views on practically everything of any arguable moral relevance.)
There’s nothing secret about it: The money went to the Catholic Church, which has priceless mansions on six continents and its own personal bank system, and who, “coincidentally”, are the ones continuing to promote Mother Theresa and are soliciting donations in her name.
It’s also true that the RCC does not claim sainthood = perfection. We are all sinners, and the sainthood is a thing separate and apart from any sins the person might have committed on earth. We just went through this same thing in CA concerning Fr. Junipero Serra. AFAIAC, it’s their club, they can do whatever they want. I’m not a member, so it’s nothing to me.
And, btw, does anyone know that George Washington owned slaves!!! What is he doing on Mt Rushmore and on our currency???
I ask because I am surprised that you have lived however many years as you have without encountering the views of the Roman Catholic Church on the issues of abortion, contraception, and divorce.
Briefly, the Church considers abortion to be a grave sin, contraception a sin when it refers to an artificial barrier being used to prevent the creation of new life during the marital sex act, and divorce to be a meaningless concept when applied to the existence of a valid sacramental marriage.
There are some nuances associated with each view. For example, a marriage may appear to have been valid but, upon investigation, be revealed to have suffered some defect of form or substance; in such cases, the Church will issue a decree of nullity. This is not a divorce, but a recognition that the marriage never existed, prior appearances notwithstanding. And the Church recognizes that the civil process of divorce may be necessary under some circumstances in which the spouses separate, but this is not a dissolution of the otherwise valid sacramental bond.
Well, a person can rack up millions of dollars in end of life expenses at the Mayo Clinic where unlike her “clinic” state-of-the-art medical technology is combined with ground breaking research by some of the finest medical minds in the world. While bare cots without air conditioning was fine for the patients of her “clinic” she had life support equipment that matched what is available to heads of state and royalty. A lot of the money is frankly not-accounted for. There needs to be a serious audit by neutral if not hostile party. I’ve always had the nasty suspicion that some of it has no doubt been filtered into the funds used as hush money to the victims of clerical abuse.