Mother Teresa

Mother Teresa, real name: Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu, was an Albanian nun who, depending on your level of gullibility/cynicism, is one of the following:
*The most recent example of a saintly person,
*The greatest con artist, sham charity embezzler, and sadist the world has seen in the last 50 years, or
*A deeply misguided person who put the perceived spiritual needs of those she served over their real, tangible physical needs, or
*A very real, very human combination of some or all of the above.
==In the beginning==
The myth of Mother Teresa was created by journalist/propagandist Shortly after Muggeridge's conversion from agnosticism to Protestant Christianity in around 1969 (albeit a Protestantism that was peculiarly Catholic-supporting when it suited him),Jesus Rediscovered by Malcolm Muggeridge (1969) Family Library. exemplifying the zeal of the convert, Muggeridge co-starred with Teresa in a credulous BBC TV movie Something Beautiful for God in 1969.Something Beautiful for God (1969) IMDb. This was followed up by Muggeridge's book based upon the movie, Something Beautiful for God,Something Beautiful for God: Mother Teresa of Calcutta by Malcolm Muggeridge (1971) Harper & Row. ISBN 0060660430. which was very popular and translated into multiple languages. Upon Teresa's death, Catholic Times confirmed Muggeridge's responsibility for the PR campaign, "[But for Muggeridge] perhaps even now no one would have heard of her. Maybe she would have been like the vast majority of giving souls whose works are only known to 'clients' and to God."Mother Teresa: The Untold Story by Aroup Chatterjee (2016) Fingerprint!/Prakash Books India. ISBN 9788175993310.Catholic Times (12 October 1997) The foreigner-as-savior for the poor had fit in nicely with the widespread White Savior trope that has been common in the Western World, and so was ripe for confirmation bias.
==Protestant fundamentalism==
Teresa’s life is a great teaching aid for Protestant apologists, who point out that despite a lifetime of "good works", she is burning in Hell right now because she never said the magic words, "I Accept the Risen Jesus Christ as my Personal Lord and Savior!" Even did that before he died.Mother Teresa: In Heaven or Hell? by Don Boys (August 26, 2007) Christian Aggression (archived from June 15, 2010).Is Mother Teresa in Hell and Jeffrey Dahmer in Heaven? Yahoo Answers.Mother Teresa Sent To Hell In Wacky Afterlife Mix-Up (September 9, 1997) The Onion.
==Women's rights (specifically contraception and abortion)==
Mother Teresa opposed both contraception and abortion. She was an enemy of women's rights.Saint Cruelty by Ophelia Benson (Sep 12th, 2016) Butterflies & Wheels. She so successfully opposed the rights of women, that she effectively become the Excalibur of the Catholic Church's war on women.Mother Teresa is a weapon in the Vatican's war on women by Padraig Reidy (c. 2015) Little Atoms.
It was kind of sado-masochistic that she wished half of humanity, herself included, to be oppressed. However, one finds that she seems to make exemptions for masochism as one goes on.
==Closet atheism==
Mother Teresa could make herself look very sincere in her faith. In reality, she experienced a crisis of faith and became more like an atheist or agnostic, writing privately:
Teresa made the poor, helpless people in her institutions , but was not even certain if God/Jesus exists.
==Politicizing the Nobel==
She won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979.Which is given out by the Norwegians, not by the Swedes. Don't look at us! Being all modest and not wanting to take the money credit, she immediately thanked God for it and proceeded to characterise abortion as the greatest threat to world peace.Nobel Lecture by Mother Teresa (11 December, 1979) The Nobel Prize.
==Meet the stars!==
"What may be most telling about Mother Teresa is how often she ended up in front of the cameras. In pictures, she is either shaking the hand of someone powerful, glamorous, or ruthless — Ronald Reagan, Princess Diana, — or leaning over someone too weak to stand", according to Moira Donegan.Selling love by Moira Donegan (14 September 2016) LRB blog. Teresa was photographed with numerous world leaders, also including Yasser Arafat, Edward Kennedy, Indira Gandhi, V. P. Singh, and members of the British Royal Family. Media studies academic Gëzim Alpion wrote a book called Mother Teresa: Saint or Celebrity?, documenting her active fame-seeking.Mother Teresa: Saint or Celebrity? by Gëzim Alpion (2006) Routledge. ISBN 0415392470. Teresa's relationships with other dubious figures included the Haitian dictators François and Jean-Claude Duvalier and fraudster Charles Keating.Mother Teresa: Why the Catholic missionary is still no saint to her critics: Her reputation was undercut by persistent allegations of misuse of funds and poor medical treatments by Adam Taylor (18 December 2015 19:32) Independent.
==The Missionary Position==
In his book, author Christopher Hitchens — gasp! shock! horror! — dared to criticize Mother Teresa for her work. His accusations include that she was primarily a political opportunist, abusing her fame and charity to spread her religious message, rather than help her humanitarian work.
===Suffering for Jesus===
Mother Teresa allowed suffering in her institutions with such depressing regularity one would assume she was sure suffering in the name of Jesus is a good thing. Teresa was not even sure that God or Jesus exists:
Well-meaning people donate money to Mother Teresa's organisation and imagine that they are helping people. Few realise that donations sometimes help Mother Teresa's order of nuns to hurt people rather than help them. Hemant Mehta relates the following:
Donors expected what they gave would go to help poor people. It did not:The poor did not get their bread by Ophelia Benson (Sep 7th, 2016) Butterflies & Wheels.
While Mother Teresa was a sadist, she wasn't quite so masochistic when her own death was approaching:
Disturbingly, nuns who worked for the Missionaries of Charity were "expected to flog themselves regularly"New Revelations from Former Nuns Suggest Mother Teresa Lead a Cult by Hemant Mehta (May 22, 2021) Patheos. with a rope or chain. According to former member Mary Johnson, the whole thing was decidedly cult-like. 
Of course, Mother Teresa's devotees have rushed to defend their saint from such charges, stating that the Missionaries of Charity are "fully in line with the Universal Church".Debunking the Myth of a Mother Teresa Cult by Ines A. Murzaku (June 5, 2021) The Catholic Thing. "The Missionaries of Charity Society is clearly not a cult, and Mother Teresa was not a cult leader." Oh, and cancel culture is to blame too, apparently.Cancelling Mother Teresa? by Thomas Griffin (12/10/20) Empty Tomb Project.
===Support of Albanian nationalism===
Mother Teresa visited her ancestral homeland of Albania in August 1989, four years after the death of Enver Hoxha, a brutal Stalinist dictator who turned Albania into the "world's first atheist state". Rather than take this as an opportunity to denounce the Hoxha regime's suppression of religion and the murder of her own people, Mother Teresa practically endorsed it. She was received by Hoxha's widow, Nexhmije, who later described Mother Teresa as a "true patriot" and a "great Albanian" who "came with an open mind and praised our achievements".Talk of the Devil: Encounters with Seven Dictators by Riccardo Orizio (2003) Walker and Company. ISBN 0802776922. She subsequently laid a bouquet on Hoxha's grave, and placed a wreath on the statue of Mother Albania, which according to Hitchens:
Mother Teresa herself never offered any excuse for these actions, and had furthermore nothing to say when her portrait was being flouted by pro-Greater Albania zealots in Macedonia and Kosovo.
This criticism made Hitchens deeply unpopular with people who simply couldn't get their heads around the idea that Mother Teresa might be anything other than an absolutely perfect and spotless saint, even causing him to be angrily cut off during an interview on, of course, Fox News (so much for "Fair and Balanced").YouTube — Hitchens cut-off Criticisms similar to those made by Hitchens were made in the "Holier Than Thou" episode of Penn & Teller: Bullshit! in 2005 (Hitchens also appeared as a guest on this episode).
==Sainthood based on phony miracles==
She was canonized 4 September 2016, reigniting some of the debates about her "charities" and the value thereof. Gregory Clark said:
==External links==
*Stop the Missionaries of Charity
*A Critic’s Lonely Quest: Revealing the Whole Truth About Mother Teresa
*Mother Teresa Humanitarian Image A 'Myth,' New Study Says
*Academics suggest Hitch called it right on Mother Teresa
*Cartoon about Mother Teresa and the suffering she caused
==Notes==
==References==
Category:Anti-abortion activists
Category:Antifeminism
Category:Catholicism
Category:Catholics
Category:Cult leaders
Category:Pseudoscience promoters
Category:Saints
Category:Shysters
Category:We're on a mission from God