# 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:** 6
**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:** [February 25, 2010, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-mother-theresa/530194/101 "2010-02-25T13:18:59Z")
This board’s language is English. Couldn’t you dig up some cites in English? As it is, you’ve proved nothing. You provided some articles I can’t read. You provided a list of houses whose existence was never in question. You provided no proof those houses actually provide any help. ---
**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:** [February 25, 2010, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-mother-theresa/530194/102 "2010-02-25T13:51:44Z")
> [@DocCathode](#): > > Not all of Mother Theresa’s detractors are atheists. > > When I first heard some of these allegations, I was shocked. Surely MT was a shining example of human goodness. Then, people came up with cites and facts. > > She misused funds. As others have said, she ran dying houses rather than hospitals. The lack of medications meant they didn’t even qualify as proper hospices. > > Presented with proof she’d been given stolen money, she refused to give it back. > > This is not, IMO, the behavior of a proper saint. > > BTW > > You want a saint who gets respect among Dopers? Go with Jon Von Neumann. He had a very fine mind and was reportedly fun at parties too. We have dying houses in nearly every city, they are called Hospice. If you have nothing to give the dying, you can give nothing. I think the idea of bashing Mother Teresa comes from people that never got their hands dirty helping anyone. Finally do you have cites to back up your claims. People who help others nearly always become the target of those who do nothing. It is called guilt. ---
**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:** [February 25, 2010, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-mother-theresa/530194/103 "2010-02-25T13:57:57Z")
> [@lekatt](#): > > We have dying houses in nearly every city, they are called Hospice. Hospices provide palliative care. That is, they comfort the dying with a hell of a lot of pain relieving medicines. MT’s dying houses provided no such medicine. IIRC You have done a lot of hospice work. You should see the cruelty in not providing the best possible comfort and care for the dying. > [@](#): > > If you have nothing to give the dying, you can give nothing. I think the idea of bashing Mother Teresa comes from people that never got their hands dirty helping anyone. How do you know I’ve never got my hands dirty helping anybody? > [@](#): > > Finally do you have cites to back up your claims. Give me a minute to search the other MT threads and cites will be forthcoming. ---
**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:** [February 25, 2010, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-mother-theresa/530194/104 "2010-02-25T14:01:52Z")
> [@DocCathode](#): > > Hospices provide palliative care. That is, they comfort the dying with a hell of a lot of pain relieving medicines. MT’s dying houses provided no such medicine. IIRC You have done a lot of hospice work. You should see the cruelty in not providing the best possible comfort and care for the dying. > > How do you know I’ve never got my hands dirty helping anybody? > > Give me a minute to search the other MT threads and cites will be forthcoming. You are talking about Hospice in America, I am talking about Hospice in India among the poorest of the poor. If She had medicines she would have given them out. How cruel can you be. > **[BBC ON THIS DAY | 5 | 1997: Mother Teresa dies](http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/september/5/newsid_2499000/2499693.stm)** > > Mother Teresa, the Nobel Peace Prize winner who devoted her life to helping the sick and the poor, dies at the age of 87. Remember I am not a religious person, belong to no religious organization, but I can tell when someone has been a positive force in the world. ---
**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 25, 2010, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-mother-theresa/530194/105 "2010-02-25T14:07:09Z")
> [@lekatt](#): > > You are talking about Hospice in America, I am talking about Hospice in India among the poorest of the poor. If She had medicines she would have given them out. How cruel can you be. I’ve already seen more than one cite in this thread claiming that she didn’t have the medicine for what appears to be religiously motivated reasons. ---
**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:** [February 25, 2010, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-mother-theresa/530194/106 "2010-02-25T14:09:21Z")
> [@lekatt](#): > > If She had medicines she would have given them out. That is one of the points under debate. ---
**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:** [February 25, 2010, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-mother-theresa/530194/107 "2010-02-25T14:18:01Z")
Check out this post [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=6199946&postcount=16](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=6199946&postcount=16) for a cite that MT did not provide pain relieving medications. ---
**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 25, 2010, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-mother-theresa/530194/108 "2010-02-25T14:48:21Z")
> [@lekatt](#): > > You are talking about Hospice in America, I am talking about Hospice in India among the poorest of the poor. If She had medicines she would have given them out. How cruel can you be. That’s just it. Her operations were NOT poor. She had millions of dollars with which to buy medicines, but refused to do so because she thought it was important for people to suffer. She intentionally withheld painkillers and palliative care because she WANTED people to suffer. She got off on it. She had a fetish for it. She was a sicko. She refused to even provide adequate nutrition or hygene. She refused to even give them separate beds. She had plenty of money to do all those things but refused. How cruel is THAT? ---
**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:** [February 25, 2010, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-mother-theresa/530194/109 "2010-02-25T14:48:27Z")
> [@DocCathode](#): > > Check out this post [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=6199946&postcount=16](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=6199946&postcount=16) > > for a cite that MT did not provide pain relieving medications. She had no reservations about giving medications, the article you provided clearly states there were no meds available. Try to remember these were the poorest of the poor nobody gave a damn about them. She did what she could with the resources available to her. The same anyone else would have done. To bash someone because they are poor is just not intelligent. It is cruel. Easy for some rich guy to stand back and criticize to poor without raising a hand to help. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2010, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-mother-theresa/530194/110 "2010-02-25T14:51:15Z")
> [@lekatt](#): > > If you have nothing to give the dying, you can give nothing. Sure. But the point that’s being made here is that **Mother Theresa had a hell of a lot of resources that she COULD have given the dying**. Certainly nobody would fault an impoverished charitable organization for not providing care and treatment that it simply can’t afford. But Mother Theresa’s organization, in the last decades of her life, was anything but impoverished. She was mega-rock-star famous, and well-meaning people poured donations upon her. Well-meaning people gave her lots of money in the expectation that it would be directly used to help the poor and suffering. Instead, Mother Theresa seems to have let most of that money go into general Church funds while she continued to run her charities as though they had only the scantiest resources. _Her personal vision of lowliness, poverty and suffering as spiritual necessities for the religious life predominated over the goal of helping the poor and sick as effectively as possible._ Now, I agree that that certainly doesn’t make her evil, and that her work doubtless helped a lot of people, even if only a little bit. But I do think that it’s a major flaw in her concept of charity, and one that goes almost entirely unrecognized in the popular media legend of her beneficence. ---
**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:** [February 25, 2010, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-mother-theresa/530194/111 "2010-02-25T14:52:44Z")
> [@lekatt](#): > > She had no reservations about giving medications, the article you provided clearly states there were no meds available. Because the order hadn’t bought any meds- and they had plenty of money to do so. > [@](#): > > Try to remember these were the poorest of the poor nobody gave a damn about them. She did what she could with the resources available to her. MT had millions and possibly billions. Why didn’t she buy pain meds? > [@](#): > > The same anyone else would have done. To bash someone because they are poor is just not intelligent. It is cruel. Easy for some rich guy to stand back and criticize to poor without raising a hand to help. You accuse me of not caring about the poor or trying to help them. I demand a cite, or a retraction and apology. ---
**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 25, 2010, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-mother-theresa/530194/112 "2010-02-25T14:53:07Z")
> [@lekatt](#): > > She had no reservations about giving medications, the article you provided clearly states there were no meds available. Try to remember these were the poorest of the poor nobody gave a damn about them. She did what she could with the resources available to her. The same anyone else would have done. To bash someone because they are poor is just not intelligent. It is cruel. Easy for some rich guy to stand back and criticize to poor without raising a hand to help. Her operations had millions of dollars in the bank. She DID have the resources. She simply refused to use them. She specifically said that she WANTED people to suffer. You do not have your facts right. ---
**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 25, 2010, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-mother-theresa/530194/113 "2010-02-25T14:54:56Z")
> [@lekatt](#): > > She had no reservations about giving medications, the article you provided clearly states there were no meds available. Try to remember these were the poorest of the poor nobody gave a damn about them. She did what she could with the resources available to her. The same anyone else would have done. To bash someone because they are poor is just not intelligent. It is cruel. Easy for some rich guy to stand back and criticize to poor without raising a hand to help. So an organization that took in probably hundreds of millions of dollars over the years and has hospices set up specifically to tend to the dying has no strong pain killers. Why do you think that is? Sure you can make the argument that it’s better than doing nothing. But you can’t make the claim that “She had no reservations about giving medications” since she could very easily have provided those meds/pain killers. Seems that it was more important to be washing the bed sheets and begging for food in the street than to put that money to a good use. ---
**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:** [February 25, 2010, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-mother-theresa/530194/114 "2010-02-25T15:35:49Z")
> [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](#): > > Sure you can make the argument that it’s better than doing nothing. I’m not sure if you can. If they were allowing transmission of contagious diseases like tuberculosis, if, indeed, their methods led to the deaths of people who didn’t have to die, I don’t see it as being better than nothing. People doing the best with what they have deserve praise. If MT had done the best with what she had, the results would have been very different indeed. The more resources someone has, the more I expect of them. ---
**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:** [February 25, 2010, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-mother-theresa/530194/115 "2010-02-25T15:56:58Z")
> [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](#): > > So an organization that took in probably hundreds of millions of dollars over the years and has hospices set up specifically to tend to the dying has no strong pain killers. Why do you think that is? > > Sure you can make the argument that it’s better than doing nothing. But you can’t make the claim that “She had no reservations about giving medications” since she could very easily have provided those meds/pain killers. Seems that it was more important to be washing the bed sheets and begging for food in the street than to put that money to a good use. Maybe you didn’t read the article that clearly states she had no meds. As for the hundreds of millions of dollars (big laugh) show me the cite that proves that. She was on the edge of want all her life. ---
**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:** [February 25, 2010, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-mother-theresa/530194/116 "2010-02-25T16:00:33Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > I’m not sure if you can. If they were allowing transmission of contagious diseases like tuberculosis, if, indeed, their methods led to the deaths of people who didn’t have to die, I don’t see it as being better than nothing. > > People doing the best with what they have deserve praise. If MT had done the best with what she had, the results would have been very different indeed. The more resources someone has, the more I expect of them. Do you really believe that: those with contagious diseases would not have any contact with well people if she had not been there. Time for a reality check. If she had not been there the poor would have died on the streets or on the piles of garbage they collected in order to live. Just as they had done before she came. ---
**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 25, 2010, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-mother-theresa/530194/117 "2010-02-25T16:05:50Z")
She refused to BUY meds. The cites for the untold millions of dollars she had access to have already been provided. She was never on the edge of any want. Her ascetic choices were voluntary and religious (except when she was flying around in private jets to collect more cash from dictators). She also made sure she got plenty of cushy care for HERSELF when she was sick, so she was a hypocrite in that regard as well. It was important to her that OTHER people suffer, but not herself. I remember being shocked when I first heard that Christopher Hitchens had gone on a rant about Mother Tersa after she died, but after I actually read his column, and did a little research about her, I realized he was right. She was purely a product of PR and hype. There was no substance to her, and her sadism towards the suffering was unforgivable. This is something Hitchens really deserves credit and praise for. He went after one of the world’s most sacred cows and exposed her for what she really was. It took some guts for him to do that. That’s a journalist for you. ---
**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:** [February 25, 2010, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-mother-theresa/530194/118 "2010-02-25T17:42:24Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > She refused to BUY meds. The cites for the untold millions of dollars she had access to have already been provided. She was never on the edge of any want. Her ascetic choices were voluntary and religious (except when she was flying around in private jets to collect more cash from dictators). She also made sure she got plenty of cushy care for HERSELF when she was sick, so she was a hypocrite in that regard as well. It was important to her that OTHER people suffer, but not herself. > I remember being shocked when I first heard that Christopher Hitchens had gone on a rant about Mother Tersa after she died, but after I actually read his column, and did a little research about her, I realized he was right. She was purely a product of PR and hype. There was no substance to her, and her sadism towards the suffering was unforgivable. > > This is something Hitchens really deserves credit and praise for. He went after one of the world’s most sacred cows and exposed her for what she really was. It took some guts for him to do that. That’s a journalist for you. Pure BS. Brought on by one person, and a bunch of gullible followers. Try reading the books wrote about her and her own books for a change of pace. As I said before anyone that tries to help others and do some good becomes a target for those who do nothing. Next you will be telling be Jesus was rich and drunk all the time. I put this kind of nonsense in with those who will believe anything bad about anybody. ---
**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 25, 2010, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-mother-theresa/530194/119 "2010-02-25T17:44:50Z")
I don’t know anything about Jesus, but Mother Teresa was a nutcase who got off on forcing people to suffer. ---
**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 25, 2010, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-mother-theresa/530194/120 "2010-02-25T17:46:48Z")
> [@lekatt](#): > > Maybe you didn’t read the article that clearly states she had no meds. And had you read the paragraph you quoted, you would have noticed that I was asking you **why she had no meds**. > [@](#): > > As for the hundreds of millions of dollars (big laugh) show me the cite that proves that. She was on the edge of want all her life. Bull crap. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-mother-theresa/530194.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-mother-theresa/530194.md?page=7)