Washington, Mar 2 (ANI): The myth of altruism and
generosity surrounding Mother Teresa has been
dispelled by a group of researchers, who claim that her hallowed
image-which does not stand up to analysis of the facts-was
constructed, and that her beatification was orchestrated by an
effective media relations campaign.
Serge Larivee and Genevieve Chenard of
University of Montreal's Department of Psychoeducation and Carole
Senechal of the University of Ottawa's Faculty of Education have
made the claims.
"While looking for documentation on the phenomenon of altruism
for a seminar on ethics, one of us stumbled upon the life and work
of one of Catholic Church's most celebrated woman and now part of
our collective imagination-Mother Teresa-whose real name was Agnes
Gonxha," Professor Larivee, who led the
research said.
"The description was so ecstatic that it piqued our curiosity
and pushed us to research further," Larivee said.
As a result, the three researchers collected 502 documents on
the life and work of Mother Teresa.
After eliminating 195 duplicates, they consulted 287 documents
to conduct their analysis, representing 96 percent of the
literature on the founder of the Order of the Missionaries of
Charity (OMC). Facts debunk the myth of Mother Teresa.
In their article, Larivee and his colleagues also cite a number
of problems not take into account by the Vatican in Mother Teresa's
beatification process, such as "her rather dubious way of caring
for the sick, her questionable political contacts, her suspicious
management of the enormous sums of money she received, and her
overly dogmatic views regarding, in particular, abortion,
contraception, and divorce."
At the time of her death, Mother Teresa had opened 517 missions
welcoming the poor and sick in more than 100 countries.
The missions have been described as "homes for the dying" by
doctors visiting several of these establishments in Calcutta.
Two-thirds of the people coming to these missions hoped to a
find a doctor to treat them, while the other third lay dying
without receiving appropriate care.
The doctors observed a significant lack of hygiene, even unfit
conditions, as well as a shortage of actual care, inadequate food,
and no painkillers.
The problem is not a lack of money-the Foundation created by
Mother Teresa has raised hundreds of millions of dollars-but rather
a particular conception of suffering and death.
"There is something beautiful in seeing the poor accept their
lot, to suffer it like Christ's Passion. The world gains much from
their suffering," was her reply to criticism, cites the journalist
Christopher Hitchens.
Nevertheless, when Mother Teresa required palliative care, she
received it in a modern American hospital.
Mother Teresa was generous with her prayers but rather miserly
with her foundation's millions when it came to humanity's
suffering.
During numerous floods in India or following the explosion of a
pesticide plant in Bhopal, she offered numerous prayers and
medallions of the Virgin Mary but no direct or monetary aid, the
researchers said.
On the other hand, she had no qualms about accepting the Legion
of Honour and a grant from the Duvalier dictatorship in Haiti.
Millions of dollars were transferred to the MCO's various bank
accounts, but most of the accounts were kept secret, Larivee
said.
"Given the parsimonious management of Mother Theresa's works,
one may ask where the millions of dollars for the poorest of the
poor have gone?" Larivee said.
Despite these disturbing facts, how did Mother Teresa succeed in
building an image of holiness and infinite goodness? According to
the three researchers, her meeting in London in 1968 with the BBC's
Malcom Muggeridge, an anti-abortion journalist who shared her
right-wing Catholic values, was crucial.
Muggeridge decided to promote Teresa, who consequently
discovered the power of mass media.
In 1969, he made a eulogistic film of the missionary, promoting
her by attributing to her the "first photographic miracle," when it
should have been attributed to the new film stock being marketed by
Kodak.
Afterwards, Mother Teresa travelled throughout the world and
received numerous awards, including the Nobel Peace Prize.
In her acceptance speech, on the subject of Bosnian women who
were raped by Serbs and now sought abortion, she said: "I feel the
greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a
direct war, a direct killing-direct murder by the mother
herself."
Following her death, the Vatican decided to waive the usual
five-year waiting period to open the beatification process.
The miracle attributed to Mother Theresa was the healing of a
woman, Monica Besra, who had been suffering from intense abdominal
pain.
The woman testified that she was cured after a medallion blessed
by Mother Theresa was placed on her abdomen.
Her doctors thought otherwise: the ovarian cyst and the
tuberculosis from which she suffered were healed by the drugs they
had given her.
The Vatican, nevertheless, concluded that it was a miracle.
Mother Teresa's popularity was such that she had become untouchable
for the population, which had already declared her a saint.
"What could be better than beatification followed by
canonization of this model to revitalize the Church and inspire the
faithful especially at a time when churches are empty and the Roman
authority is in decline?" Larivee and his colleagues said.
Despite Mother Teresa's dubious way of caring for the sick by
glorifying their suffering instead of relieving it, Serge Larivee
and his colleagues point out the positive effect of the Mother
Teresa myth.
"If the extraordinary image of Mother Teresa conveyed in the
collective imagination has encouraged humanitarian initiatives that
are genuinely engaged with those crushed by poverty, we can only
rejoice. It is likely that she has inspired many humanitarian
workers whose actions have truly relieved the suffering of the
destitute and addressed the causes of poverty and isolation without
being extolled by the media. Nevertheless, the media coverage of
Mother Theresa could have been a little more rigorous," they
said.
The research is set to be published in the journal Studies in
Religion/Sciences religieuses. (ANI)