# The case against Mother Theresa **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 23, 2010, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-mother-theresa/530194 "2010-02-23T23:47:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 11
**Author:** ![Perciful](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b38774/32.png) [@Perciful](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Perciful)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2010, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-mother-theresa/530194/201 "2010-03-01T14:04:45Z")
> [@x-ray\_vision](#): > > You wrote something about hospices and pain management that my wife, a trained professional, could weigh in on and tell you that you’re wrong. Correcting bullshit is part of what this site’s about. It seemed more apropos since you were telling someone else that they knew nothing about hospices and were passing yourself off as an expert because you “worked at one.” > > Again, as other keep having to remind you, part of this thread is determining whether or not she had the money to pay for appropriate pain relief. Since others have shown that she did and that she admitted that the suffering was good, I’ve got enough information to form a conclusion. Since you’re still claiming that you don’t, you’ve proven that not only atheists can have agendas. Why are you speaking for your wife? Because she knows something about Hospice she could weigh in? You should speak only for yourself. You are starting to sound cuckolded. I am a trained professional and speaking only for myself I can say that what we have for pain management in the US compared to third world countries is vastly different. In the US pain management is overseen by the DEA and every drug has to be accounted for and administered by a nurse and ordered by doctor. In a third world country only the rich could afford these drugs which was not the focus of Mother Teresa or her mission. Your point is Mother Teresa had money to pay for pain relief but didn’t pay doctors and nurses to administer it? Mother Teresa was a nun not a nurse and she took in people that were dying and too poor to go to the hospital. She would send people in need of pain care to to the hospital if they wanted to go. You say: “Since others have shown that she did and that she admitted that the suffering was good, I’ve got enough information to form a conclusion. Since you’re still claiming that you don’t, you’ve proven that not only atheists can have agendas”. So are you saying that Mother Teresa has an agenda other then love and service to the dying? That she wanted to see them suffer in the name of religion? Please cite. ---
**Author:** ![x-ray\_vision](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/x-ray_vision/32/351_2.png) [@x-ray\_vision](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/x-ray_vision)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2010, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-mother-theresa/530194/202 "2010-03-01T14:54:03Z")
> [@Perciful](#): > > Why are you speaking for your wife? Because she knows something about Hospice she could weigh in? Wasn’t it obvious? I didn’t speak for her, btw. I let her type a few sentences of her own. > [@](#): > > You should speak only for yourself. You are starting to sound cuckolded. WTF are you talking about? It seems like my wife cheats on me because she was in the next room while I was reading a thread on the SD and asked her for her professional opinion? > [@](#): > > I am a trained professional What is your profession? > [@](#): > > In the US pain management is overseen by the DEA and every drug has to be accounted for and administered by a nurse and ordered by doctor. So what? She was running what she claimed were hospices. She could have given pain meds. Instead, she thought suffering was better. > [@](#): > > In a third world country only the rich could afford these drugs which was not the focus of Mother Teresa or her mission. That’s the point. It should be the focus of a mission of anyone running hospices. Her focus instead was to allow them to suffer because it was good for their soul and be more concerned with their conversion. > [@](#): > > You say: > > “Since others have shown that she did and that she admitted that the suffering was good, I’ve got enough information to form a conclusion. Since you’re still claiming that you don’t, you’ve proven that not only atheists can have agendas”. > > So are you saying that Mother Teresa has an agenda other then love and service to the dying? That she wanted to see them suffer in the name of religion? Why don’t you read my post again in context to who I was replying to and why and maybe it will become clear to you what I was saying. > [@](#): > > Please cite. Are you kidding? Re-read this thread again if you need evidence. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2010, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-mother-theresa/530194/203 "2010-03-01T15:43:28Z")
> [@Perciful](#): > > You are starting to sound cuckolded. Leave the personal comments out of this. They’re not allowed in this forum. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2010, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-mother-theresa/530194/204 "2010-03-01T15:56:35Z")
> [@Perciful](#): > > Why are you speaking for your wife? Because she knows something about Hospice she could weigh in? You should speak only for yourself. You are starting to sound cuckolded. 😕_Cuckolded_?!?? 😕 > [@xray vision](#): > > WTF are you talking about? I second that. Actually, I’m guessing that **Perciful** meant to say something like “henpecked” (i.e., trying to imply that you’re just meekly repeating what your wife says), and confused the two terms: hen -\> henpecked -\> bird metaphor for marital situation -\> cuckoo -\> cuckold > [@Marley23](#): > > Leave the personal comments out of this. Aw c’mon Mod, at least let **Perciful** explain what s/he was trying to say! Now how’m I supposed to get any sleep? ---
**Author:** ![x-ray\_vision](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/x-ray_vision/32/351_2.png) [@x-ray\_vision](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/x-ray_vision)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2010, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-mother-theresa/530194/205 "2010-03-01T16:23:17Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Aw c’mon Mod, at least let **Perciful** explain what s/he was trying to say! Now how’m I supposed to get any sleep? **Perciful** can always come back to explain what he was trying to say. Even if he’s clueless to the definitions of the words he chooses to use, it was a personal attack with no merit. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2010, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-mother-theresa/530194/206 "2010-03-01T16:58:38Z")
**Perciful** is a she, and I concur with the guess that she thought “cuckolded” meant something like nagged or henpecked (pssst… **Perciful** …“cuckolded,” means having a wife that cheats on you). ---
**Author:** ![Perciful](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b38774/32.png) [@Perciful](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Perciful)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2010, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-mother-theresa/530194/207 "2010-03-01T19:02:27Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > **Perciful** is a she, and I concur with the guess that she thought “cuckolded” meant something like nagged or henpecked (pssst… **Perciful** …“cuckolded,” means having a wife that cheats on you). Really, I always thought it was a henpecked man. Thanks Diogenes for correcting me on that. Ok, Back to this topic, > [@](#): > > Wasn’t it obvious? I didn’t speak for her, btw. I let her type a few sentences of her own. Well, I’m impressed. > [@](#): > > WTF are you talking about? It seems like my wife cheats on me because she was in the next room while I was reading a thread on the SD and asked her for her professional opinion? I’m not touching that with a ten foot pole. > [@](#): > > So what? She was running what she claimed were hospices. She could have given pain meds. Instead, she thought suffering was better. She was not running a hospice but a home for the dying. She can’t administer drugs because she is not qualified. I disagree that Mother Teresa dedicated her life to making people suffer. It would not be allowed for a nun to hurt the people she is trying to help. > [@](#): > > That’s the point. It should be the focus of a mission of anyone running hospices. Her focus instead was to allow them to suffer because it was good for their soul and be more concerned with their conversion. What conversion? She took in any race, creed or color. She respected the religions of the people she cared for. > [@](#): > > Why don’t you read my post again in context to who I was replying to and why and maybe it will become clear to you what I was saying. Ok so you said: > [@](#): > > Originally Posted by x-ray vision > You wrote something about hospices and pain management that my wife, a trained professional, could weigh in on and tell you that you’re wrong. Correcting bullshit is part of what this site’s about. It seemed more apropos since you were telling someone else that they knew nothing about hospices and were passing yourself off as an expert because you “worked at one.” > > Again, as other keep having to remind you, part of this thread is determining whether or not she had the money to pay for appropriate pain relief. Since others have shown that she did and that she admitted that the suffering was good, I’ve got enough information to form a conclusion. Since you’re still claiming that you don’t, you’ve proven that not only atheists can have agendas. She had a modest amount of money to house and feed the nuns and the dying. She also ran an orphanage. Taking an oath of poverty means just that. The money in her order was not hers to spend but to take care of the Sisters Of Charity and the people in their care. Again, I don’t see why pain relief was such a big issue. She did relieve a lot of these peoples pain by bringing them in off the sidewalks and washing them and feeding them and showing them some love before they died. She refered some people to hospitals that had families to pay for treatment. She was not set up as a hospital. Calcutta has hospitals. So not only atheists can have agendas? I think her agenda was a very humanitarian one. If she wanted for these destitute dying men and women to suffer she would have left them on the street and stayed in her convent and prayed. She didn’t. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2010, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-mother-theresa/530194/208 "2010-03-01T19:47:25Z")
> [@Perciful](#): > > She was not running a hospice but a home for the dying. She can’t administer drugs because she is not qualified. > [snip] > She had a modest amount of money to house and feed the nuns and the dying. She had millions of dollars. If she wasn’t qualified, she could have hired someone who was. Millions of dollars. That isn’t “modest” by any stretch. Millions of damned dollars. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2010, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-mother-theresa/530194/209 "2010-03-01T19:49:38Z")
> [@Perciful](#): > > What conversion? She took in any race, creed or color. She respected the religions of the people she cared for. We’re talking about the _famous_ Mother Teresa. Which one are _you_ talking about? ---
**Author:** ![Perciful](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b38774/32.png) [@Perciful](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Perciful)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2010, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-mother-theresa/530194/210 "2010-03-02T02:52:12Z")
Found written on the wall in Mother Teresa’s home for children in Calcutta: People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered. Forgive them anyway. If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Be kind anyway. If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies. Succeed anyway. If you are honest and sincere people may deceive you. Be honest and sincere anyway. What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight. Create anyway. If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous. Be happy anyway. The good you do today, will often be forgotten. Do good anyway. Give the best you have, and it will never be enough. Give your best anyway. In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway. Mother Teresa ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2010, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-mother-theresa/530194/211 "2010-03-02T03:20:47Z")
**Perciful** , I don’t think anybody here is seriously arguing that Mother Teresa didn’t sincerely believe she was doing good for others, or didn’t embrace Christian doctrines about universal love and compassion. You don’t have to persuade anybody that she was very vocal about the importance of compassion and charity and very dedicated to spreading her ideas about them. We already know it. The topic under debate here is whether Mother Teresa’s personal ideas of Christian charity, because of their heavy emphasis on humility, self-abasement and the sanctity of suffering rather than on maximizing material assistance to the charity recipients, seriously undermined her potential effectiveness as a force for good in the world. Yes, I know that she’s viewed by many people as inspirational and that her popular image as a selfless saint is widely revered and held up as a role model. But that doesn’t answer the question of whether the efficacy of her practical charitable efforts was significantly diminished by her insistence on the importance of austerity and suffering even when they served no practical purpose. No amount of sentimental glurge about her appreciation of pop-culture religious precepts will answer that question. (And by the way, the particular item of glurge that you just posted as attributed to Mother Teresa is [claimed by Kent M. Keith as the “Paradoxical Commandments” of his own composition](http://www.kentmkeith.com/mother_teresa.html).) ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2010, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-mother-theresa/530194/212 "2010-03-02T06:02:30Z")
> [@FriarTed](#): > > Got a question- why is it that the Government of India gave her a state funeral, the Nobel committee gave her the Peace Prize (OK, they also gave it to Arafat, but still…), and even pro-choice liberal politicians lauded her? Were they all deluded as to how horrible she was? This deserves comment. _Ad hominem_ arguments are never strong ones, but they merit consideration: it doesn’t seem plausible that the Nobel Committee simply had its head up its posterior. I think they made a good choice - in 1979, when the award was made. Grant a Nobel prize and both attention and copious funding will follow. How did Mother Teresa manage that windfall? Bill Gates (and Warren Buffet) deserve credit not only for giving away billions of dollars, but also for working hard to measure the effectiveness of their donations. Quality and innovation is often more important that quantity. I’m afraid that Mother Teresa falls short in this regard. She didn’t appear to follow the low cost- high volume hospice model, as she only established some 300 sanctuaries. And their care seems to have reflected some of her idiosyncratic theology. Don’t get me wrong: I think she was a woman of high accomplishment. And lots of Catholic Saints have done far less. But is she the Babe Ruth or Michael Jordan of sainthood, as the media seems to suggest? I think not. What was MT’s legacy? Rosemary Dew, former FBI agent and certified hospice nurse wrote [In Mother Teresa’s House: A Hospice Nurse In The Slums Of Calcutta](http://www.amazon.com/Mother-Teresas-House-Hospice-Calcutta/dp/1419631306/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1267508337&sr=8-1), a book covering her 2004 visit. It’s a sympathetic portrait. But it seems that MT’s notions of the nobility of suffering continue to this day, which I find unfortunate: > [@Rosemary Dew](#): > > At _Kalighat_ they gave …Valium for severe pain. The Indian doctor told me this was because he thought strong analgesics, such as morphine, would addict the patients. While a huge body of research disagrees with this opinion, I was bothered more by his assumptions than his ignorance of what causes addiction. …he added that most of the patients had been addicts before they came in. If that were the case, I wonder why I never saw a case of withdrawal… > [Valium] has no analgesic effect, except to relax muscle spasms, but does calm the patients and often makes them sleep, so it’s better than nothing… > From a practical standpoint, however, if the Missionaries of Charity had narcotics in the house, it would be a sure invitation to robbers. They already couldn’t stock the supply cabinets with a lot of extras because the ambulance drivers stole things. Then again, the author also noted that “…love, compassion and human touch do ease suffering.” The Catholic Church runs many fine hospitals. The Missionaries of Charity might benefit from an outside review conducted by a team familiar with pain management and third world medical care. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2010, 6:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-mother-theresa/530194/213 "2010-03-02T06:11:09Z")
So they had the personnel, expertise and money to administer Valium and _chose_ not to administer pain meds. Thanks very much for the cite. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2010, 7:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-mother-theresa/530194/214 "2010-03-02T07:19:07Z")
> [@Measure for Measure](#): > > Don’t get me wrong: I think she was a woman of high accomplishment. And lots of Catholic Saints have done far less. I agree, and I deplore the negative hyperbole about Mother Teresa even more than the positive exaggerations. There really seems no reason to think that she personally was consciously a crook or a fraud or a hypocrite in any way, or that she wasn’t dedicated to what she perceived as her divine mission of helping the poor _from the vantage point of one of the poor._ She seems to have seen herself and her Sisters almost as a [mendicant order](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mendicant_orders) of religious beggars, voluntarily devoting themselves to lives of material impoverishment and endurance. Mendicant religious orders helped the involuntarily impoverished as best they could with self-sacrificing service and by begging on their behalf, but with very limited material resources of their own. But this “mendicant mindset”, as it were, seems to have rendered Mother Teresa incapable of coping with the fact that she **did** have vast resources available. She was very good at enlisting charitable support for the scanty material needs that she and her Sisters couldn’t do without; what she wasn’t good at was actually **using** the resources at her disposal for efficient administration of charitable services. It is dismaying to read [accounts of the institutional inertia](http://agrasen.blogspot.com/2009/08/who-was-mother-teresa.html) which afflicted the Missionaries of Charity when confronted with money: > [@](#): > > From the German periodical [STERN](http://german.about.com/cs/zeitschriften/a/stern.htm), 10 September 1998: > > 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 $100000. 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 accomodation for the sisters, with no charitable function. […] > > 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. […] > > 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. […] > > 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. […] > > “You should visit the House in New York, then you’ll understand what happens to donations,” sayssays 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’.” […] > > 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. […] > > 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. […] > > [T]here 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. […] > > 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”. […] > > With growing fame, the founder of the order became somewhat conscious of the misconceptioons 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.” Now, I can respect the desire of Mother Teresa and her Sisters to be nuns, and to make their vision of a mendicant-style life of hardship, humility and devotion their first priority. But if it’s a question of giving my money to help the poor, I want the money to go to organizations for whom efficient administration of effective services is the first priority. It is heartbreaking to think of how much generous zeal and, in many cases, personal sacrifice went into so many of those donations to Mother Teresa’s institutions that were never spent to serve poor people at all. ---
**Author:** ![lekatt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lekatt/32/7269_2.png) [@lekatt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lekatt)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2010, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-mother-theresa/530194/215 "2010-03-02T14:10:03Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > We’re talking about the _famous_ Mother Teresa. Which one are _you_ talking about? It is an impossible effort to change the minds of the opposition. Like trying to get a Republican to vote for something the Democrats want. Skeptics will always be skeptics, just change the words near death experiences to Mother Teresa on the quote below. [[REMOVED BLOG LINK]] ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2010, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-mother-theresa/530194/216 "2010-03-02T14:52:21Z")
**lekatt** , you’ve been told I don’t know how many times that you cannot use this forum to promote your blog. I removed a link from your last post. This is a formal warning not to do it again. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2010, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-mother-theresa/530194/217 "2010-03-02T16:53:50Z")
Admittedly, not all the fault lies with Mother Teresa herself. For all that she was the head of her order, she was still a nun and likely took her vows seriously. If the Pope or College of Cardinals had ever ordered her to use the money for its intended purpose, she would likely have complied (after much grumbling and sulking, if her portrayal in biogs is accurate). So some blame attaches to her higher-ups, for using her as a cash cow. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-mother-theresa/530194.md?page=10)