Mother Theresa - Servant of the Devil?

[Mystical]

It's simple elementary economics, really. You raise 15million dollars then spend a minute amount of that buying cots and slums and ropes to tie disturbed people up to trees: You're for profit.

[Minimalist]

Next time we need a pope I'll direct them to you as the authoritive "head" for who NOT to chose.

Let it be soon. Eventually you'll run out of fuckheads. You must be on the list to get a shot.

[Mystical]

I'm pRetty certain there's a fuckhead factory, so I doubt that the world will ever run out without cutting off the source ingredients like they did with quaaludes.

[Cato]

I don't think running a non-profit organization that has problems or doesn't get enough funding makes you a bad person. All organizations have problems.

Are you that fucking stupid? Mother T built a profitable reputation; too bad her 'patients' weren't recipients of the generosity.

[jstrodel]

I don't think running a non-profit organization that has problems or doesn't get enough funding makes you a bad person. All organizations have problems.

Are you that fucking stupid? Mother T built a profitable reputation; too bad her 'patients' weren't recipients of the generosity.

Read what I wrote again. If you can honestly say that what I wrote matches what you wrote, you are a dishonest person and you don't care about anything other than advancing atheism.

Can you produce a shred of evidence that says that problems in mother theresa's organization was due to intentional mismanagement of the money?

[Mystical]

It took two years of research, writing and peer review before three Canadian academics came up with their scathing paper, ‘Les cotes tenebreux de Mere Teresa’ (The Dark Side of Mother Teresa), which has triggered a fresh appraisal of the lady known as the Saint of the Gutters. The study—authored by Professors Serge Larivee and Genevieve Chenard of the University of Montreal along with Carole Senechal of the University of Ott­awa—was published in the March edition of the academic journal, Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses. In a telephonic interview with Anirudh Bhattacharyya, one of the authors—Genevieve Chenard, a professor at the University of Montreal’s Department of Psycho Education—discusses the findings:

What we learned is that there was about $5 million in all the accounts. She raised almost $100 million before 1980. What happened is that around 5 to 7 per cent went to the charity for medicines, things like that. The other money went to build some houses for the missionaries. Just five per cent went to the cause.

"The Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta possess a small fleet of 'ambulances', many of them donated by businesses and individuals. These vehicles are painted to appear as ambulances and are fitted with red beacons; they are exempt from traffic regulations. But their main or sole function is to provide a taxi service for the nuns.

Written by doctor Aroup Chatterjee, native Kolkata resident and author of Mother Teresa: The Final Verdict.
The following is merely chapter TWO highlights. I'm tired, so, that's all you're gettin. Visit the book itself if you're interested in it, the sources are majorly catholic for Teresa's quotes and/or her Nobel Peace Prize speech.
http://www.meteorbooks.com/chap2.html

No doubt the media exaggerated and often invented tales about Mother Teresa, but most often it originated from her. Let us take for instance her comment that 'on the ground floor of Shishu Bhavan [her orphanage in Calcutta] there are cooking facilities to feed over a thousand people daily.'4 That there are, but are the facilities used for the purpose of a soup kitchen? They are not - although, one would infer from her statement that she was serving a thousand meals daily from Shishu Bhavan to the public.
Quote: Lucinda Vardey, Mother Teresa, A Simple Path (London: Rider, 1995), p. 118

I have spent days on end in front of Shishu Bhavan with a video camera and I know what goes on there. The soup kitchen at Shishu Bhavan feeds about 70 people a day, and that too 5 days a week. The daily turn out is about 50 people for lunch and 20 for dinner, but charity does not come easy for the poor - they need to possess a 'food card' in order to get their gruel. However, the handful of Catholic families in Dnarapara, who cannot be called 'poorest of the poor' by any stretch of the imagination, have all got cards. They often do not use them.

She said it in her acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize: 'We have a home for the dying in Calcutta, where we have picked up more than 36,000 people only from the streets of Calcutta, and out of that big number more than 18,000 have died a beautiful death. They have just gone home to God.' Mother's 'big number' was wrong, but more importantly, her basic premise of 'picking up' people is entirely false.

The Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta possess a small fleet of 'ambulances', many of them donated by businesses and individuals. These vehicles are painted to appear as ambulances and are fitted with red beacons; they are exempt from traffic regulations. But their main or sole function is to provide a taxi service for the nuns. In my time, I have never seen an 'ambulance' carry a patient or a destitute. Indeed, most of them do not have the provision to carry a stretcher, for the rails on the floor have been removed. The seats on the sides have been replaced by patterned sofas for the nuns to sit on.

I have therefore tape recorded numerous telephone conversations with the Missionaries of Charity at their world famous home for the dying at Kalighat in Calcutta. These conversations were all recorded during 1995 and 96. Here is one typical such conversation:-

Me: There is a man [sometimes I changed it to a woman] lying in front of Ashutosh College; he is seriously ill...He is probably going to die. [Ashutosh College is fairly close to the home - walking distance in fact]

Nun: Yes, we have beds. Ring the Corporation ambulance - they'll bring him to us.

Me: Yes,...but...the line is busy. I've been trying for some time.

Nun: They are always busy. You just have to keep trying ringing 102.

Me: Can you not send an ambulance? - he is not very far from you.

Nun: We don't send out ambulances. We use the Corporation ambulances.

Me: Can you not help him out this time?

Nun: Look, I have told you, WE DO NOT HAVE AMBULANCES. (The voice becomes louder and the temper slightly frayed. At this juncture the nun would usually disconnect the phone.)

It is not true that they do not provide a 'pick up' service at all for destitutes - they do in Rome, where most evenings a couple of nuns set out in a van, scouring the streets of Rome for destitutes and prostitutes. They at first befriend these people and gain their trust, before inviting them for a meal or a berth - usually on a later date. Very noble act indeed - but does not happen in Calcutta.

Shortly after her Nobel, she told her friend and biographer Kathryn Spink: 'In Calcutta alone we cook for 7,000 people everyday and if one day we do not cook they do not eat.'5 This was a voracious claim - at the time the Missionary of Charity kitchens cooked for at the most 500 people a day, and that included their vast army of nuns, novices and Brothers, most of whom do not have any charitable function. Quote source: Kathryn Spink, For the Brotherhood of Man under the Fatherhood of God, Mother Teresa of Calcutta (Colour Library International,1981),p. 88

During the course of a decade, roughly between 1975-85, many a time did Mother Teresa recount the story about the government miraculously sending her bread on account of the schools closing; the body of the story remained the same, but the opening line would change - 'In Calcuta we feed 7,000 people daily' would sometimes become '4,000 people daily', then change back to '7,000' again. Here is how, on one occasion, she told the parable with a '4000' figure: 'We were feeding 4000 people each day and these were people who simply would not eat unless the Sisters fed them. But we had nothing. Then, about 9.00 a.m. on Friday'...etc. - the rest about the government schools shutting suddenly and the bread miraculously coming to the Missionaries of Charity would now follow.7

In a programme entitled Meet Mother Teresa, recorded in 1982 for Scottish Television - the video has been widely distributed in Catholic circles - she told Ian Gall, 'We cater for 7,000 people everyday but we never had to say no...'

On one occasion the 'number of people that would not eat unless we fed them' reached 9000: 'You must know just in Calcutta we feed 9000 people daily.’8 This claim caused a whiff of embarrassment in even the devoted José Luis González-Balado, who quickly added, 'Mother Teresa is among those who least worry about statistics. She has repeatedly expressed that what matters is not how much work is accomplished but how much love is put into the work.'9
This was however not the end of the matter - a few years later the same González-Balado edited a book of Mother's sayings, wherein he recounts, in Mother's words, the miracle of the bread and schools, thus: 'In Calcutta alone we feed about ten thousand people every day. This means if one day we do not cook ten thousand people will not eat. One day the Sister in charge came to tell me...' etc.
It is interesting that González-Balado, who had earlier been embarrassed about the '9,000' claim, had become emboldened with time to go a step further. I can see why - the Teresa cult has come to realise that whatever outlandish they say about Mother Teresa in the positive, and whatever bizarre negatives they say about Calcutta, both would be accepted as gospel truth by the world. And their main justification (to themselves) in carrying on this game of deceit is that they are not doing it for their own personal gain, but for the propagation of their faith. They also believe that if you repeat a lie thousands of times, it comes to be regarded as the truth - in achieving this end they have been successful.

During the 1970s and 80s, Mother Teresa's soup kitchens in Calcutta fed not more than 150 people daily (six days a week); indeed, the total number of people fed daily by the Missionaries of Charity kitchens in that period was not more than 500 - this included her vast number of nuns, novices, and Brothers, most of whom do not have any charitable functions.

The figure '5,000' has a particular fascination for Mother, no doubt because of its Biblical connotation. She once said, 'Today there is a modern school in that place [in Motijheel slum] with over 5000 children in it.'10 This appears in a book published in 1986. Earlier, in 1969-70, she had told Malcolm Muggeridge, '...if we didn't have our schools in the slums - they are nothing, they are just little primary schools where we teach the children to love the school and be clean and so on -- if we didn't have these little schools, those children, those thousands of children, would be left in the streets.'11
10. David Porter, Mother Teresa The Early Years (SPCK, 1986), p.7
11. Malcolm Muggeridge, Something Beautiful for God (Fount, 1971) p. 119

In 1969-70, Mother Teresa's primary schools catered for not more that 200 (a generous overestimate) in Calcutta - the figure is not much more today. Nonetheless, I was prepared to overlook her 'thousands of children' as a figure of speech - saints are allowed to get carried away, like the rest of us. But '5000 children' was a calculated lie, especially as the school in Motijheel has less than 100 pupils. I do not think that there is any school in the world which caters to 5,000 children from a single site - Calcutta is of course, extra worldly.

Apart from the myth of regularly 'picking up' people from the streets, the other serious misinformation she spread in her Nobel speech was about the number of babies born less because of her programme of natural contraception. She claimed that 61,273 fewer babies were born in Calcutta in the previous six years because she was promoting natural contraception among the poor and the slum-dwellers. This figure was pure invention. She also said that she was supplying fertility thermometers and temperature charts to the poor. Patently untrue, but even if she was, none of the thousands of journalists present had the courage to ask her how many of the slum-dwellers could read and plot graphs in English.

The figure of 61,273 became 134,00022 in June 1981 in Washington D.C. In 1982, during the Ian Gall interview for Scottish Television, when Mr Gall pinned her down (albeit with great deference) on her views on artificial contraception and an absolute opposition to abortion, she blithely came out with the monstrous lie: 'In last 10 years we had 1 million babies less in Calcutta [due to my method].' The lie shut Mr Gall up, much to her satisfaction.

It would therefore seem strange that she took almost a punitive line against those poor people who sought her help but who had family of any kind, however distant or however poor.

Me: Well, err..., she is my kind of aunt...a distant relative in fact.

Nun: SORRY, WE DON'T TAKE FAMILY CASES. SHE CAN'T COME HERE. (The voice becomes loud and irritated)

Me: But she is homeless and poor. I myself am pretty hand to mouth; I don't have the resources to look after her.

Nun: That does not matter. Our rule is, we do NOT take family cases.[b]

Me: But,...will you not consider?

Nun: I'm telling you, we do NOT take family cases whether she's poor or not.

Me: What if I make a small payment?

Nun: We don't have that system. We can't help you. (At this juncture she would usually disconnect the phone)
[b]
The system of not having anything to do with anybody who may be dying or suffering but who may have a putative family member of any kind is one of the founding principles of the Missionaries of Charity. The rule was formulated by Mother herself many years back. Many a time when I had rung the home for the dying in Calcutta, the very first question I had been asked was whether I was ringing about a relative. If the nun on the other side had not been satisfied that I was not, she would not continue the conversation any further. In Rome, on the other hand, it is not asked of the destitutes if they are a 'family case' - they would have to be unwanted, and that alone would suffice.

Audrey Constant's book on her life written for children is one of the manuscript she personally corrected and annotated - the author herself said so in a personal communication: 'Sadly I have not yet met her [Mother Teresa]...When I wrote the story (which I did with the help of the Sisters of Charity) Mother Teresa herself amended the manuscript and she wrote in a copy of the book and sent it to me. I will always treasure it.'23

This book makes some bizarre claims about the charitable functions of the Missionaries of Charity including that they have '122 leprosy clinics'.24 In Calcutta they have a single leprosy clinic, an open air one, which runs weekly on Convent Road - average attendance is about 60. The book also describes Calcutta as a city so overwhelmed by lepers that a special church has to earmarked for them: 'They have their own church.'25 There is no such church.

In 1979, Mother Teresa wrote a famous letter to Morarji Desai, when Mr Desai was (briefly) the Prime Minister of India. In her letter, Mother severely upbraided Mr Desai for not outlawing abortion and then she went on to say, 'In Calcutta alone we have 102 centres where families are taught self control out of love.'26 - meaning of course, natural family planning centres.

Whatever could she mean by '102 centres'? - I have thought very long and very hard but could not fathom the basis of the claim, especially as her order does not have a single such centre.

London on 13 July, 1977. She said, 'We spend Rs 20,000 a week just on food for the 59 centres we have in Calcutta.'28 This was not just a slip of the tongue, as the '59 centres' recurred, in this way: 'They [Sisters] go all over the city (in Calcutta alone we have 59 centres, the home for the dying is only one of them). The Sisters travel everywhere with a rosary in their hands.'29
Speech by Mother Teresa to Co-Workers on 13 June 1977 at the Brompton Oratory, as quoted in One Heart Full of Love, p. 61

In 1977 Mother Teresa had 4 centres in Calcutta, and presently her order has 8 - not counting her 3 large nunneries in the city. So what should we make of her '59 centres'?

She said in Carmelite Church in Dublin in 1979, she said, 'The Sisters go out at night to work, to pick up people from the streets...'38 They do not. Such statements are so untrue one is at a loss to address them. Sisters retire early - about 8 p.m., and a major earthquake will not bring them to the doors, at least not in Calcutta. I have numerous recorded telephone conversations where I was trying to have somebody admitted to the home for the dying in Calcutta in the middle of the night, and the Sisters kept insisting that I brought the person at 9 a.m. the following morning. (I am not saying if I turned up at the door with the man, he would have been turned away.) Indeed, until a few years back, the home for the dying did not even have a nun staying there overnight - the building was left to the mercy of sweepers and local anti socials. Mother agreed to provide two nuns for the night after intense agitation by some volunteers.

When, for instance, Edward Le Joly, first wanted to write a book on her, she erupted:

[size=medium]"Do it, do it. We are misunderstood, we are misrepresented, we are misreported. We are not nurses, we are not doctors, we are not teachers, we are not social workers. We are religious, we are religious, we are religious."[medium]

Angelo Devananda, Daily Prayers with Mother Teresa (Fount, 1987), p. 91

Mother Teresa said, and has been quoted frequently as having said, 'We depend solely on providence. We don't accept government grants. We don't accept church donations...'34 In the Scottish Television interview, she made the same claim.

This is a very incredible statement indeed. 95% or more of the buildings of the Missionaries of Charity have been donated by either governments or by the Catholic church.

Kathryn Spink admits in her book, 'They [Corporation] granted her, provisionally, a monthly sum of money and the use of the pilgrims' dormitories attached to the Kali temple.'35

Muggeridge's book Something Beautiful for God - on page 32, Muggeridge says, '...she has never accepted any government grants in connection with her medical and social work', only to quote her on page 103, 'We are trying to build a town of peace on the land that the government gave us some years back, 34 acres of land.'

Indeed, Mother herself made a similar slip-up. On 14 January 1992, in a video-taped (and widely distributed) speech to staff at the Scripps Clinic, California she said, 'We don't accept government grant, we don't ask the church for maintenance, we're completely dependent on divine providence.' But in the course of the same speech about twenty minutes later she said, 'With the help of government we are creating rehabilitation centres for them [lepers]. Government gives me land, I buy material for building...and I pay them to build their own homes...' I do not think Mother Teresa ever gave any money to any poor or needy - it was against her principle.

[ronedee]

Who here is the better person in deeds, and able to judge Mother Teresa of Calcutta?

[genkaus]

Who here is the better person in deeds, and able to judge Mother Teresa of Calcutta?

Going by the most recent post, I'd say most of us here.

[ronedee]

Who here is the better person in deeds, and able to judge Mother Teresa of Calcutta?

Going by the most recent post, I'd say most of us here.

That is about the most asinine thing I've heard here!

Then I could tell you pretty much anything...concerning bad press and you'd believe that wholeheartedly?

But, all the volumes written about her helping the poor, sick and dying over 60 years would just fly out the window as a result....am I right?

Sheeesh...talk about condeming oneself! Good luck on Judgement Day there bub!

[Mystical]