# 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:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2010, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-mother-theresa/530194/41 "2010-02-24T14:01:09Z")
I, personally, along with many other Indians, do not like her for the birth control thing. We have no stigma like the Catholic Church against birth control in the Hindu religion. We don’t believe in abortion either, but planned families are expected. We didn’t need more people having children willy-nilly in India. And I have believed for a long time there really isn’t any moral justification for proselytization. Is it Ok for a Hindu priest to come to the States and do their best to convert everybody, meanwhile doing all of the good things she did? There would be an uproar like you can’t believe. But because it’s Christianity it’s considered Ok, and even moral, to upset people’s lives, draw them away from their families, and change everything they ever believed. As you can see, this gets me upset. In my family and circle of friends in India, Christianity is pretty much regarded as a weird cult. ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2010, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-mother-theresa/530194/42 "2010-02-24T14:01:55Z")
> [@jinty](#): > > Got a question- why is [argumentum ad populum](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum) a valid argument in MT’s case? Because I think perhaps the Nobel Committee, the Government of India, & those liberal pro-choice politicians who still showed her respect may actually know more about her than her handful of detractors. ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2010, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-mother-theresa/530194/43 "2010-02-24T14:06:31Z")
Upon reading the thread in more detail, I have a couple of things to add. I think I certainly do have a vested interest. I don’t particularly care that the Catholic church saint-ified her; nor that the Indian government gave her a state funeral. The first was religiously motivated; the second, politically. The fact is, I can see that she tried to help but it was deluded. As a counter-example - Ask most Indians of my parents’ age and most Indians born there what they think about the British occupation. You’ll get a lot of grumbling but also an acknowledgement that they did some things right. Everyone gets some things right and I don’t really think any humans are perfectly evil. What gets my goat about MT - it’s not my business to talk about her but it was her business, somehow, to go to MY country and inflict her brand of Catholicism on people? Look, Hindus already believe everybody’s going to be a Hindu some day, as well as a Christian. I wish she had just stayed out. Like all missionaries. Go and “mission” to your own people and butt out of other religions and cultures, I say. ---
**Author:** ![code\_grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f4b2a3/32.png) [@code\_grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/code_grey)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2010, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-mother-theresa/530194/44 "2010-02-24T14:37:38Z")
> [@Anaamika](#): > > And I have believed for a long time there really isn’t any moral justification for proselytization. Is it Ok for a Hindu priest to come to the States and do their best to convert everybody, meanwhile doing all of the good things she did? There would be an uproar like you can’t believe. But because it’s Christianity it’s considered Ok, and even moral, to upset people’s lives, draw them away from their families, and change everything they ever believed. > > As you can see, this gets me upset. In my family and circle of friends in India, Christianity is pretty much regarded as a weird cult. you must be joking, right? You never heard of Buddhist or Hindu-inspired sects in America started by preachers from South Asia? Does Maharishi Mahesh Yogi of TM ring a bell? Or maybe A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada of ISKCon (many of their American college kids converts dropped out of college and spent their time doing street preaching of the one true doctrine)? And before you start using the “true Scottsman” argument, notice that we ignorant Westerners have trouble distinguishing who is the saint and who is the heretic in a foreign religion that has no meaningful central authority - so they all look like Hindu gurus to us. ---
**Author:** ![jinty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/dbc845/32.png) [@jinty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jinty)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2010, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-mother-theresa/530194/45 "2010-02-24T14:51:31Z")
> [@FriarTed](#): > > Because I think perhaps the Nobel Committee, the Government of India, & those liberal pro-choice politicians who still showed her respect may actually know more about her than her handful of detractors. In other words [Quote=Wikipedia] When an argument uses the appeal to the beliefs of a group of supposed experts, it takes on the form of an appeal to authority. [/Quote] ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2010, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-mother-theresa/530194/46 "2010-02-24T15:06:15Z")
Whether or not you accept the claims for a first century A.D. Christian presence in India, courtesy of St. Thomas, Christianity isn’t exactly a new upstart there. And where on Earth do people get the notion that proselytization/evangelization/missionary work is NOT an innate part of the Christian Faith going back to the words attributed to JC himself? One lady Doper positively had the vapors at the concept in another thread! You might not like it, but to act like it somehow is some strange notion that was added on later is just silly. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2010, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-mother-theresa/530194/47 "2010-02-24T15:13:14Z")
> [@FriarTed](#): > > Because I think perhaps the Nobel Committee, the Government of India, & those liberal pro-choice politicians who still showed her respect may actually know more about her than her handful of detractors. On the other hand, the “detractors” are merely pointing out that the emperor is naked. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2010, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-mother-theresa/530194/48 "2010-02-24T15:29:30Z")
> [@Todderbob](#): > > I’m a humanitarian. Anyone who has the capability to ease suffering and actively avoids doing it, or puts forth an agenda which allows it to continue or encourages it to continue (the latter being my understand of what she did) is doing a great injustice. So why aren’t you in India handing out condoms instead of wasting time on the Internet? Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Gagundathar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a183cd/32.png) [@Gagundathar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gagundathar)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2010, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-mother-theresa/530194/49 "2010-02-24T15:29:54Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > [Mother Teresa Sent To Hell In Wacky Afterlife Mix-Up](http://www.theonion.com/content/news/mother_teresa_sent_to_hell_in) > [@](#): > > Speculation varies as to what could have caused such a miscarriage of heavenly justice. While some contend that Mother Teresa’s policy of not administering medication to the sick and dying in her clinics may have caused some in Heaven to doubt her true compassion, others believe that her constant speeches against birth control—a contributing factor to mass overpopulation, poverty and starvation throughout the Third World—may be to blame. Sometimes, The Onion is quite trenchant in its analysis. ---
**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:** [February 24, 2010, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-mother-theresa/530194/50 "2010-02-24T15:41:26Z")
> [@Friar Ted](#): > > And where on Earth do people get the notion that proselytization/evangelization/missionary work is NOT an innate part of the Christian Faith going back to the words attributed to JC himself? Just because it’s an innate part of Christianity doesn’t mean it’s not obnoxious. Mother Teresa was basically a fraud and a product of hype and self-promotion, not genuine good work. She used the poor to raise untold millions of dollars, but refused to use it to help those she was ostensibly raising it for. Her hospices were digusting, rat infested shit holes, where victims were crowded by pairs into beds and given no treatment, or even basic nutrition and hygene. This wasn’t because of lack of money, but because MT thought they needed to suffer. Probably the single worst thing about her was that she refused to give them painkillers, no matter how much agony they were in. She was not helping these people. She was just a fanatic who got off on the idea that suffering had some kind of spiritual, transcendent quality. It was a sublimated sort of sadism and masochism. I think the masure of a saint is whether they did anything to reduce suffering in the world. Mother Teresa not only did not rduce suffring, she _refused_ to reduce suffering even when she had a great ability do so. She _wanted_ people to suffer, and _forced_ them to suffer for own fucked up gratification. Her critics aren’t her critics just because she was “conservative” (which is not actually accurate since she had some positions conventionally identified as “liberal.” She was opposed to the US invasion of Iraq, for instance, and was against the death penalty), or because she was opposed to birth control (though the latter position is not exactly an _admirable_ one to take in Calcutta), but because she was a _fraud_. She didn’t really help the poor, and the sick and the dying, she just stockpiled them in filthy shacks, prayed at them refused them treatment and waited for them to die. ---
**Author:** ![Icerigger](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icerigger/32/432_2.png) [@Icerigger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icerigger)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2010, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-mother-theresa/530194/51 "2010-02-24T16:14:54Z")
Again back to Hitchens. He was called upon by the Catholic Church as a literal “Devils Advocate” to give testimony regarding her canonization. He related the priests did admit that “Mother could be…difficult at times”. Perhaps after she died her outfit now follows different more noble practices. ---
**Author:** ![Blalron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2010, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-mother-theresa/530194/52 "2010-02-24T16:26:00Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > So why aren’t you in India handing out condoms instead of wasting time on the Internet? The point is that Mother Theresa not only didn’t help people, but she actively diverted resources away from helping people. If more people knew she was such a fraud, they would have likely donated to real charity instead. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2010, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-mother-theresa/530194/53 "2010-02-24T16:58:11Z")
> [@Blalron](#): > > The point is that Mother Theresa not only didn’t help people, but she actively diverted resources away from helping people. If more people knew she was such a fraud, they would have likely donated to real charity instead. The point remains nonetheless - if it is morally wrong not to use your resources to hand out condoms, then it is morally wrong to use your resources to post on the Internet. Mother Teresa did a heck of a lot more good than ill - certainly far more than you or I or the OP. From her Nobel biography - > [@](#): > > Although she had no funds, she depended on Divine Providence, and started an open-air school for slum children. … > > The Society of Missionaries has spread all over the world, including the former Soviet Union and Eastern European countries. They provide effective help to the poorest of the poor in a number of countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, and they undertake relief work in the wake of natural catastrophes such as floods, epidemics, and famine, and for refugees. The order also has houses in North America, Europe and Australia, where they take care of the shut-ins, alcoholics, homeless, and AIDS sufferers. > [@Time Magazine](#): > > Her care of lepers changed the mind of many Calcuttans. Young physicians, one of them the uncle of a classmate, began to sign up as volunteers. [Cite.](http://205.188.238.181/time/time100/heroes/profile/teresa03.html) > [@](#): > > In 1982, at the height of the Siege of Beirut, Mother Teresa rescued 37 children trapped in a front line hospital by brokering a temporary cease-fire between the Israeli army and Palestinian guerrillas.[40] Accompanied by Red Cross workers, she traveled through the war zone to the devastated hospital to evacuate the young patients.[41] [Cite.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Teresa) _:shrugs:_ I suppose it is pointless to try to deny today’s Two Minute Hate. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2010, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-mother-theresa/530194/54 "2010-02-24T17:04:55Z")
Chatterjee says at the start of the first chapter of his book: > [@](#): > > In Calcutta, she was known to undertake small niche activities, for which she was generally liked and her order is well regarded. As I see it, the central problem with Mother Theresa, as **Icerigger** has noted, was the disconnect between her private activities and her public image, and I’m not disputing that she was largely to blame for that disconnect. Her own vision of ministry was focused on a very spartan program of material assistance and an emphasis on the spiritual benefit of suffering. Well, even that minimal aid was more than many of her recipients managed to get anywhere else, and even her critics acknowledge that it was seen as a positive contribution by the locals. The trouble is that religious leaders and religious groups in the West (assisted by PR efforts) built up a highly inflated image of the scope and importance of her work in providing material assistance to the sick and poor. As a result, she became a magnet for millions of dollars in donations that could have been more usefully directed to organizations that would have used them directly in meeting the needs of the poor, as the donors generally intended and expected. > [@Icerigger](#): > > Again back to Hitchens. He was called upon by the Catholic Church as a literal “Devils Advocate” to give testimony regarding her canonization. Okay, I gotta say that that is pretty effing cool. I personally feel that this whole notion of canonization by establishment of posthumous miracles is nutty as a pecan tree, and that the saintliness of Mother Theresa in particular was wildly overhyped by her media phenomenon, but talk about bending over backwards to hear both sides of the story. Roman Rota rocks. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Ca3799](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9f8e36/32.png) [@Ca3799](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ca3799)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2010, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-mother-theresa/530194/55 "2010-02-24T17:22:22Z")
I just always wondered why she went to the hospital so much with her heart problems and not one of her own clinics, which I understood to be fairly spartan. I understood that to mean she didn’t have much faith in her own clinics. ---
**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:** [February 24, 2010, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-mother-theresa/530194/56 "2010-02-24T17:27:15Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > The point remains nonetheless - if it is morally wrong not to use your resources to hand out condoms, then it is morally wrong to use your resources to post on the Internet. This is retarded. Passing out condoms in India is not the only way to be humanitarian, and attacking this poster does not absolve your nun from being a moral fraud. > [@](#): > > Mother Teresa did a heck of a lot more good than ill. I don’t think I agree with this, but even if it were the case, that wouldn’t be saying much. I’ve done more good than bad too. Most people have. That’s not a qualification for sainthood. ---
**Author:** ![Icerigger](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icerigger/32/432_2.png) [@Icerigger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icerigger)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2010, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-mother-theresa/530194/57 "2010-02-24T17:29:11Z")
Alas, since Hitchens gave testimony the CC has abolished the long tradition of “Devil’s Advocate”. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2010, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-mother-theresa/530194/58 "2010-02-24T17:35:50Z")
> [@Icerigger](#): > > Alas, since Hitchens gave testimony the CC has abolished the long tradition of “Devil’s Advocate”. Did they actually use that term? Kinda poisons the well, I would think: _And hear, speaking on Lucifer’s behalf, is…_ ---
**Author:** ![Keweenaw](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/da6949/32.png) [@Keweenaw](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Keweenaw)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2010, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-mother-theresa/530194/59 "2010-02-24T17:36:11Z")
> [@Icerigger](#): > > OK, What specifically did she do to help those in need? Remember ten of millions of dollars were donated. How did the poor benefit from her millions? Please give examples. [Mother Teresa Opens Home For Infants](http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-840086.html) [Mother Teresa Opens Center for Poor in El Salvador](http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1356&dat=19880707&id=9tgTAAAAIBAJ&sjid=5gYEAAAAIBAJ&pg=2442,1740956) [Mother Teresa established the first hospice for AIDS victims in New York](http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2199&dat=19860105&id=PPwxAAAAIBAJ&sjid=FOUFAAAAIBAJ&pg=6986,960282) Where she specifically said “Each one of them is Jesus in a distressing disguise” [Time Magazine, 1986](http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1074920-2,00.html) Plus hundreds of others. Just use Google. > [@panache45](#): > > She glorified suffering, rather than trying to alleviate it . . . except her own suffering, of course. > > And very early in the AIDS crisis, she was asked whether she thought AIDS was God’s punishment for homosexuals. She replied: “Yes, that sounds like something God would do.” > > Bitch. Can’t seem to find this quote anywhere. curious… I did find this supposed quote on several atheist websites "“It is a just retribution for improper sexual misconduct” Although I couldn’t find when and where this is attributed to her. Here is an actual quote from her book “A Simple Path” on the judgement of others. [QUOTE=Mother Teresa] People often ask me what I think of homosexuals, for example and I always answer that I don’t judge people. [/QUOTE] ---
**Author:** ![Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8edcca/32.png) [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superfluous_Parentheses)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2010, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-mother-theresa/530194/60 "2010-02-24T17:38:42Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > I don’t think I agree with this, but even if it were the case, that wouldn’t be saying much. I’ve done more good than bad too. Most people have. That’s not a qualification for sainthood. To be fair though, that _was_ the question I posted in the OP. I’m coming to the opinion that though the claims of good MT did were at least wildly overstated - and her beatification can probably be considered part of that. Looks to me she was out to do good for the afterlife/god (and at least some of that in a matter that doesn’t appeal to me at all) much more than to improve the lives of the people she was seen as helping (which is IMHO the only relevant criterium, though I’m sure some people disagree). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-mother-theresa/530194.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-mother-theresa/530194.md?page=4)