My opinion: Terrible woman who thought suffering was a gift from god.
Bad. She believed the poor should suffer, so no matter how many donations people gave her, she kept them in squalid conditions, not allowing the building of modern clinics.
Mother Teresa was a dangerous woman who forbade contraceptives, taught her patients that pain/suffering were ''godly.'' I've said this many times (and wasn't necessarily popular) but she was VERY MUCH into her own egotism.
She was a part of the Catholic machine. I would say "Bad"
Was gonna load this up till I saw you beat me to it. Love this documentary
@RobH86 I hope those who support her take the time to watch this.
@NoMagicCookie it changed my mind about her thats for sure
Well, I'd have to say that she wore the garb of the order and was a sociopathic bitch. There have been few folks with less empathy who have walked this Earth.
At best: Her Missions of Charity mismanaged donations. At worst: She conned millions of people.
I would say at worse she propagated death, misery and suffering. Much worse then conning a few million people.
@NoMagicCookie Ahhh...yes, of course! I constrained my reply to what she did to the public and didn't include those in her care. My bad.
@SamKerry You're good. I was also including her opposition to birth control that exacerbated overpopulation and lead to increased (more people sharing limited finite resources, more people die) death and misery of impoverished masses.
A fundamentalist, a fanatic and a fraud... Christopher Hitchens
You could use those 3 nouns on either...Mother T or Christopher Hitchens. He's not my favorite outspoken Atheist.
Cruel, twisted, evil. She believed people NEED to suffer and so she made sure that they did.
Bad? Try evil, sadistic fraud with delusions of grandeur.
Bad.
Mother Theresa did not believe suffering was a gift from God. That was her gimmick for attention, and possibly an angle that saved the church money from spending on people.
She had medical surgery where she recommended it against those in India who had similar ailments. She promoted poorness as a way of penance when she herself was getting a kickback from the church. Her behavior showed that she clearly thought of herself on a different level then the followers she was advising.
Not just evil, but, as British thespians pronounce it, EE-vee-ill. It needs three syllables to really bring out the degree to which she was harmful. (Of course those who know me know I wouldn't use a theologically loaded word like "evil" normally, but I'll make a stylistic exception in this case).
Look into it from sources not connected with the RCC's efforts to canonize / beatify her, and you'll quickly be aghast.
The only thing about her that gives me some compassion is that she was actually a very miserable human being, in the sense of abject personal suffering; early in her life she was motivated by a positive subjective personal experience of god, which left her and which she was never able to rekindle. In that sense, she's a poster child for Catholic self-loathing. She went through the motions of life, profoundly depressed, publicly putting on a brave front, and no one, not even Mother Theresa, should have to do that.
I rather think that some of her idiotic notions of Cathlic suffering porn and denial of pain killers to the dying and so forth, was probably some form of projection of her own personal issues. Sort of, "if I can't enjoy life, then neither can anyone else". Well okay, so then there goes my empathetic feelings again ...
Learned about her here from other site members. Not such a nice lady.
Evil bitch. Withheld medication from suffering poor, because it made them "closer to god." If there were a hell, she would be burning in it.
Mother Theresa no longer exists so totally inconsequential.
No, she doesn't. But her 'legend' does.
Her message lives on due to her fame. Good, or in this case bad, people's legacies out live them. The more extreme the longer the legacy.
Hitchen's documentary "Hell's Angel" was inspired by Aroup Chatterjee's book " Mother Teresa: The Final Verdict". I highly recommend it (Mr. Chatterjee's book), as it contains exensive documentation.
I don't think anyone has mentioned that Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu (I have a hard time calling her "Mother" ) hobnobbed with dictators like the Duvaliers of Haiti, and Charles Keating, who bilked 23,000 investors out of their savings and was a key figure in the Savings and Loan Scandal of the 80s and 90s.
The archabbot of the monastery where / when I was attending college knew Mother Theresa personally. A few years earlier, he had cancer and wrote to her asking for her prayers on his behalf as he underwent treatment. Her reply (in a letter that was on display for a time during my tenure) was, almost word for word, "Your illness is Christ kissing you from the cross. Would you have me ask him to stop kissing you?" The archabbot and many others at the monastery lauded this response, but one of my philosophy professors, though devoutly Catholic, was especially critical of her comments. In the years that followed, I learned of how she operated her mission and I recalled her letter, and I see it now in an even harsher light than I did at the time, because I recognize what a fetish she had for pain and suffering. I see just how much she believed that agony was critical for bringing people to the Church. I see her for the evil incarnate that she was. And, while it's true that she's dead, I don't agree with those who say it's of no consequence today. That's, to a lesser degree, like saying that Hitler's dead so it doesn't matter what he did regarding the Jews. We should learn from history, understand these motivations, and not allow similar movements to take root in the future. The fact is that Mother Theresa was and still is revered by Catholics, other Christians, and even the secular world, who believe her ministry was a force for good that alleviated suffering and poverty despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. And her ministry still exists, though I don't know how much has changed in their operations since her death. We should never allow ourselves to forget what horrific behavior can be tolerated or ignored just because someone pretends to be holy. This is that dangerous space where belief manifests as harmful action (or inaction, as the case may be), and we should always be on guard against that.
I find it hard to judge because you never really know what brought someone to that kind of conclusion - To me it sounds totally out of wack, but I am not religious and I can't really imagine anyone saying this unless it was a comfort to someone who was suffering and did have a god.
proseletysers seem to speak in a different language to the rest of us so maybe thats why we don't get the comfort that is only really in 'believer territory"