No, Mother Teresa wasn’t just a ‘bitch.’ She performed some genuinely good acts, some of which required great courage and conviction, but her overall sainty reputation makes her more of a ‘fraud.’ She took money for her charities but more money appears to have gone toward convents where she taught new nuns to follow her particular approach to helping the suffering, which was: allow them to languish in more suffering, for, you see, it is only through our suffering that we come to Christ.
That was deceit, not an endearing personal flaw. People sent money to Teresa in India for the sick locals they saw her helping on the news, but the poor and sick under her care apparently continued to die slowly in soul-crushing poverty in her dingy hospices. (She reportedly discouraged staff from learning real medicine.) At least they weren’t alone and were given dignity by being allowed the rites of whatever religion they followed, and it’s very admirable that many of the sick she ‘tended’ were those no one else would touch at the time, like lepers and AIDS patients. On the other hand, one nun who left one of her convents in disillusionment described what Teresa had built as a cult of death. Her orphanages were also apparently in horrible neglect, with charges of physical and emotional neglect of their wards as well. That goes well beyond gossip about her personality.
Learning about her depression is interesting. If “religiously inclined people view it as the culmination of her spiritual journey” and “secular minded people think it’s a shame she wasn’t put on anti-depressants”, I guess I’m (presumptuously!) inclined to believe that her faithless depression at the end of her life was a culmination of her morbidly misguided and failed attempts to help people (I suspect early depression was what compelled her to want to help others in the first place, but her lack of experience in life — she went straight from sheltered family life to sheltered convent life, I think — meant she had no real idea how to do that, with only a regressive doctrinal worldview to guide her), and that it’s a shame she hadn’t found a way to help people that genuinely helped people because that might have lifted her spirits in a way her religion apparently didn’t.
Gianna, Yes, you are right about Mother Teresa. Actually, I liked her better when I found out she had flaws and was not an icon. I read the book, not because I was interested in sabotaging her reputation (which many people enjoy doing), but because I was seeking to understand her better.
I enjoyed the picture and quote, but you do know that Mother Teresa was terribly depressed for most of her adult life, don’t you? Recently, a book was published which contained many of the anguished letters that she had written to her confessor through the years. Many of them were heartbreaking.
There are two views on her depression, of course. Religiously inclined people view it as the culmination of her spiritual journey. A “dark night of the soul” that extended over thirty years. Secular minded people think it’s a shame she wasn’t put on anti-depressants.
I don’t know what I think. I have very few convictions these days.
I personally don’t care what people say about others…and no one is perfect. Wise words are wise words. No one will ever know Mother Teresa’s experience of her own life…I’ve heard she was bitch and treated people like shit before too…I call that gossip…
we are all imperfect. and famous people are targets of gossip more than anyone else…and completely fallible like everyone too…
If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other. —Mother Teresa
No, Mother Teresa wasn’t just a ‘bitch.’ She performed some genuinely good acts, some of which required great courage and conviction, but her overall sainty reputation makes her more of a ‘fraud.’ She took money for her charities but more money appears to have gone toward convents where she taught new nuns to follow her particular approach to helping the suffering, which was: allow them to languish in more suffering, for, you see, it is only through our suffering that we come to Christ.
That was deceit, not an endearing personal flaw. People sent money to Teresa in India for the sick locals they saw her helping on the news, but the poor and sick under her care apparently continued to die slowly in soul-crushing poverty in her dingy hospices. (She reportedly discouraged staff from learning real medicine.) At least they weren’t alone and were given dignity by being allowed the rites of whatever religion they followed, and it’s very admirable that many of the sick she ‘tended’ were those no one else would touch at the time, like lepers and AIDS patients. On the other hand, one nun who left one of her convents in disillusionment described what Teresa had built as a cult of death. Her orphanages were also apparently in horrible neglect, with charges of physical and emotional neglect of their wards as well. That goes well beyond gossip about her personality.
Learning about her depression is interesting. If “religiously inclined people view it as the culmination of her spiritual journey” and “secular minded people think it’s a shame she wasn’t put on anti-depressants”, I guess I’m (presumptuously!) inclined to believe that her faithless depression at the end of her life was a culmination of her morbidly misguided and failed attempts to help people (I suspect early depression was what compelled her to want to help others in the first place, but her lack of experience in life — she went straight from sheltered family life to sheltered convent life, I think — meant she had no real idea how to do that, with only a regressive doctrinal worldview to guide her), and that it’s a shame she hadn’t found a way to help people that genuinely helped people because that might have lifted her spirits in a way her religion apparently didn’t.
Gianna, Yes, you are right about Mother Teresa. Actually, I liked her better when I found out she had flaws and was not an icon. I read the book, not because I was interested in sabotaging her reputation (which many people enjoy doing), but because I was seeking to understand her better.
And, of course, the quote from her was wonderful.
cool…I agree it’s good to de-mystify people…but not denigrate them.
I enjoyed the picture and quote, but you do know that Mother Teresa was terribly depressed for most of her adult life, don’t you? Recently, a book was published which contained many of the anguished letters that she had written to her confessor through the years. Many of them were heartbreaking.
There are two views on her depression, of course. Religiously inclined people view it as the culmination of her spiritual journey. A “dark night of the soul” that extended over thirty years. Secular minded people think it’s a shame she wasn’t put on anti-depressants.
I don’t know what I think. I have very few convictions these days.
Saralynn
I personally don’t care what people say about others…and no one is perfect. Wise words are wise words. No one will ever know Mother Teresa’s experience of her own life…I’ve heard she was bitch and treated people like shit before too…I call that gossip…
we are all imperfect. and famous people are targets of gossip more than anyone else…and completely fallible like everyone too…