Saint Teresa

[Sriram]

Hi everyone,

Mother Teresa is now Saint Teresa of Calcutta.  Great!  Well deserved.

Cheers.

Sriram

[Aruntraveller]

Not deserved at all. A fraud.

Believed in keeping the poor, poor.

Her clinics were squalid despite receiving huge amounts of cash, yet when she needed treatment off to the best of California.

What a Saint. 

[wigginhall]

There are so many bad stories about her clinics, lack of hygiene (e.g. needles re-used without being sterilized), lack of pain relief.   It's almost as if she welcomed death, not for herself, but for others.   I suppose it illustrates some of the weirder aspects of Christianity, the role of suffering as holiness, for example.   I like some saints, but she is not my cup of tea.

[ippy]

Have a look at Chris Hitchens YouTube content about Teresa.

ippy

[Nearly Sane]

Of course, given that to become a saint, you need a couple of miracles under your belt, then this is positive proof for all that there are miracles. After all the Catholic Church must have a proper method for establishing this.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Have a look at Chris Hitchens YouTube content about Teresa.

ippy

And while you're at it have a look at Jim Bean's and Johnny Walker's youtube content on Chris Hitchens.

[Aruntraveller]

And while you're at it have a look at Jim Bean's and Johnny Walker's youtube content on Chris Hitchens.

I suppose nary a drop has passed your lips?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Which Teresa are we talking about here;
Teresa of Calcutta or Theresa de Compostaconservitaymanureybrexita ?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Of course, given that to become a saint, you need a couple of miracles under your belt, then this is positive proof for all that there are miracles.

What about the universe coming into being either by popping up out of nothing or being eternal and self perturbed?

[Brownie]

Which Teresa are we talking about here;
Teresa of Calcutta or Theresa de Compostaconservitaymanureybrexita ?

Teresa of Calcutta, Vlad.  I would have thought that was obvious.

She was certainly a controversial figure, someone who started something marvellous.  She was in charge for far too long and came to believe she was above reproach and could do no wrong.

Let that be a lesson to us all, no-one should be in such a powerful position for too long.

I don't believe it is at all appropriate for her to be canonised which does not take away from the good she did in the early days.  However I am strongly against canonisation anyway so it figures.  There are other ways to honour people without making them into 'Saints' (capital S).

[floo]

Hi everyone,

Mother Teresa is now Saint Teresa of Calcutta.  Great!  Well deserved.

Cheers.

Sriram

MT was certainly no saint. She was quite happy to let people die in agony without pain relief. Years ago I met someone who had worked with her, they didn't think much of the woman at all!

[Nearly Sane]

What about the universe coming into being either by popping up out of nothing or being eternal and self perturbed?

Or one man using all of the straw in the universe in one post?

[bluehillside Retd.]

CH's famous comment about her was that she loved poverty, not the poor.

[Brownie]

I suppose it's OK to love poverty for yourself though it seems a bit masochistic to me.  She made a choice to live in poverty (with massive security blanket), she could have left it behind at any time;  most don't have such choice and poverty is one helluva pain.  They spend all their time trying to ensure their offspring are better off, quite right too.

How can someone "love poverty" and not love the poor?

[Nearly Sane]

I suppose it's OK to love poverty for yourself though it seems a bit masochistic to me.  She made a choice to live in poverty (with massive security blanket), she could have left it behind at any time;  most don't have such choice and poverty is one helluva pain.  They spend all their time trying to ensure their offspring are better off, quite right too.

How can someone "love poverty" and not love the poor?

How can one love homosexuals and not love homosexuality?

[wigginhall]

It's a sharp comment (loving poverty not the poor), but I thought the same is true of suffering.   Did she love suffering in others, and therefore didn't do her best to alleviate it?   That's been an accusation leveled by people who worked with her.  It's when Christianity sinks into sadism.

[Brownie]

How can one love homosexuals and not love homosexuality?

Ooo-er NS, never thought of it like that.  Well done.

Far too many generalisations really.  I wonder if Mother Teresa ever actually said she loved poverty?  She probably said something like it held no terror for her.
When it came to poor people she undoubtedly loved (or liked) some, and was less keen on others; as human beings we all meet people with whom we gel and others we're not so fond of, but have to rise above personal feelings and treat everyone fairly. M Teresa was no different.

[jeremyp]

Ooo-er NS, never thought of it like that.  Well done.

Far too many generalisations really.  I wonder if Mother Teresa ever actually said she loved poverty?  She probably said something like it held no terror for her.

It's not about her words, it is about her actions. The point of the sound bite is that she thought that being poor is what Jesus wanted and and poor people were in some sense better placed for the next life, so she saw poverty as a virtue rather than something to be alleviated. Similar accusations have been levelled at her with respect to suffering, so her terminally ill patients didn't get modern pain relief.

[Brownie]

It's a great pity no-one brought her up to date, she was stuck in a time warp theologically.  What Catholics call, "A right winger".

[L.A.]

Have you ever dosed-off while listening to the radio and find that when you wake-up everything is mixed-up? I fell asleep during yesterdays news and awoke convinced that the Pope had made Therese May a saint

[Bubbles]

Mother Teresa on Poverty

Mother Teresa Quotes. "We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, naked and homeless. The poverty of being unwanted, unloved and uncared for is the greatest poverty."
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

For all the people who criticise her work, she still did much more for the poor in India than many of them.

What did Christopher Hitchens ever do for the poor of India? He made money out of it by attacking Mother Teresa.

He sold books, did the money go to help the poor there?

He made money out of writing about the poor, I don't see that he put his hand in his own pocket.

The man was a malicious drunk, he made money by slagging other's off.

Mother Teresa at her worst did more than he ever did.

Most people do far less for the poor in India, than Mother Teresa.

[Bubbles]

How my loathing of Mother Teresa turned to admiration
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/sep/04/mother-teresa-admiration-sainthood-dying-kolkata

From someone who met her.

Personally I'm not into saints and I find the woman on the weird side.

However most of us are not there to pick up nearly dead people from the streets and give them privacy and dignity, let alone administer pain relief.

Until we are, I feel it's inappropriate to be so hate filled over this nun.

She was there for those people, we aren't.

We just talk, or stick money in a charity box and walk away.

If we felt those people's pain we would be there for them.

We are not!

Something to bear in mind.

Being able to die off the streets is more than most of us actually offer those people, so who are we to criticise.


If we don't like the way Catholics help people, then it's up to us to organise an alternative.

But it didn't happen, did it?

No we just blamed this nun.

[jeremyp]

Mother Teresa at her worst did more than he ever did.

Mother Teresa, at her worst, tortured terminally ill patients. I'm pretty sure Christopher Hitchens never did anything that bad and he would probably argue that putting a stop to the things she did would have been better than letting her carry on and hence his book was an attempt to help the poor.

[Bubbles]

Mother Teresa, at her worst, tortured terminally ill patients. I'm pretty sure Christopher Hitchens never did anything that bad and he would probably argue that putting a stop to the things she did would have been better than letting her carry on and hence his book was an attempt to help the poor.

She arranged for nearly dead people to be taken off the street, Christopher Hitchins didn't.

As far as I am aware none of the proceeds of his books went to the poor in India.

He didn't benefit them in any way other than to malign those trying to help and making people desert the very poor and sick in India.

Some help is better than none.

Criticise the way it was done, by all means, but bear it in mind that the Catholics were the ones helping no one else was interested.

Christopher Hitches hasn't helped anyone, certainly not the very poor in India.

Spreading hatred doesn't help.

No one else bothered with any of these dying people.

That's the truth of it!

[jeremyp]

She arranged for nearly dead people to be taken off the street, Christopher Hitchins didn't.

She denied them basic pain relief.

Some help is better than none.

There's an argument that the high profile nature of her charity denied funds to other more humane charities.