Mother Teresa born
Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu , was a Roman Catholic nun of
AlbanianAlbanians are a nation and ethnic group native to Albania and neighbouring countries. They speak the Albanian language. More than half of all Albanians live in Albania and Kosovo...
ethnicity and
IndiaIndia , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
n citizenship, who founded the
Missionaries of CharityMissionaries of Charity is a Roman Catholic religious congregation established in 1950 by Mother Teresa of Calcutta, which consists of over 4,500 sisters and is active in 133 countries...
in Calcutta, India, in 1950. For over 45 years, she ministered to the poor, sick, orphaned, and dying, while guiding the Missionaries of Charity's expansion, first throughout India and then in other countries. Following her death, she was
beatifiedBeatification is a recognition accorded by the Catholic Church of a dead person's entrance into Heaven and capacity to intercede on behalf of individuals who pray in his or her name . Beatification is the third of the four steps in the canonization process...
by
Pope John Paul IIBlessed Pope John Paul II , born Karol Józef Wojtyła , reigned as Pope of the Catholic Church and Sovereign of Vatican City from 16 October 1978 until his death on 2 April 2005, at of age. His was the second-longest documented pontificate, which lasted ; only Pope Pius IX ...
and given the title
Blessed Teresa of Calcutta.
In the 1970s, she became well-known internationally for her humanitarian work and advocacy for the rights of the poor and helpless.
Malcolm MuggeridgeThomas Malcolm Muggeridge was an English journalist, author, media personality, and satirist. During World War II, he was a soldier and a spy...
documented this favourably and wrote a book
Something Beautiful for God. Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity continued to grow during her life-time, and at the time of her death, had 610 missions in 123 countries, including hospices and homes for people with
HIVHuman immunodeficiency virus is a lentivirus that causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome , a condition in humans in which progressive failure of the immune system allows life-threatening opportunistic infections and cancers to thrive...
/
AIDSAcquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...
, leprosy and tuberculosis, soup kitchens, children's and family counselling programs, orphanages, and schools. Governments, charity organisations and prominent individuals have been inspired by her work. She received numerous awards, including the Indian government's
Bharat RatnaBharat Ratna is the Republic of India's highest civilian award, awarded for the highest degrees of national service. This service includes artistic, literary, and scientific achievements, as well as "recognition of public service of the highest order." Unlike knights, holders of the Bharat Ratna...
(1980) and the
Nobel Peace PrizeThe Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes bequeathed by the Swedish industrialist and inventor Alfred Nobel.-Background:According to Nobel's will, the Peace Prize shall be awarded to the person who...
in 1979. She remains, on the whole, one of the most admired figures in recent history, with even such religiously indifferent figures as
Scott AdamsScott Raymond Adams is the American creator of the Dilbert comic strip and the author of several nonfiction works of satire, commentary, business, and general speculation....
and
Dave BarryDavid "Dave" Barry is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American author and columnist, who wrote a nationally syndicated humor column for The Miami Herald from 1983 to 2005. He has also written numerous books of humor and parody, as well as comedic novels.-Biography:Barry was born in Armonk, New York,...
using her as an archetype of virtue. In 2010 on the 100th anniversary of her birth, she was honoured around the world, and her work praised by Indian President
Pratibha PatilPratibha Devisingh Patil is the 12th President of the Republic of India and first woman to hold the office. She was sworn in as President of India on 25 July 2007, succeeding Dr. A.P.J...
. Mother Teresa's philosophy and implementation have faced some criticism. Catholic newspaper editor
David ScottDavid Scott is an author with a special interest in religion and culture. He has published several books, including studies of Mother Teresa of Calcutta and Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker movement...
wrote that Mother Teresa limited herself to keeping people alive rather than tackling poverty itself.
Early life
Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu (
gonxha meaning "rosebud" or "little flower" in Albanian) was born on 26 August 1910, in Üsküb,
Ottoman EmpireThe Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
(now
SkopjeSkopje is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Macedonia with about a third of the total population. It is the country's political, cultural, economic, and academic centre...
, capital of the
Republic of MacedoniaMacedonia , officially the Republic of Macedonia , is a country located in the central Balkan peninsula in Southeast Europe. It is one of the successor states of the former Yugoslavia, from which it declared independence in 1991...
). Although she was born on 26 August, she considered 27 August, the day she was baptized, to be her "true birthday". She was the youngest of the children of a family from
ShkodërShkodër , is a city located on Lake of Shkoder in northwestern Albania in the District of Shkodër, of which it is the capital. It is one of the oldest and most historic towns in Albania, as well as an important cultural and economic centre. Shkodër's estimated population is 90,000; if the...
,
AlbaniaAlbania , officially known as the Republic of Albania , is a country in Southeastern Europe, in the Balkans region. It is bordered by Montenegro to the northwest, Kosovo to the northeast, the Republic of Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south and southeast. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea...
, born to Nikollë and Drana Bojaxhiu. Her father, who was involved in Albanian politics, died in 1919 when she was eight years old. After her father's death, her mother raised her as a Roman Catholic. Her father, Nikollë Bojaxhiu (his name means 'painter') was of Kosovar Albanian origin possibly stemming from
PrizrenPrizren is a historical city located in southern Kosovo. It is the administrative center of the eponymous municipality and district.The city has a population of around 131,247 , mostly Albanians...
,
KosovoKosovo is a region in southeastern Europe. Part of the Ottoman Empire for more than five centuries, later the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija within Serbia...
while her mother's origin was possibly from a village near Đakovica,
KosovoKosovo is a region in southeastern Europe. Part of the Ottoman Empire for more than five centuries, later the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija within Serbia...
.
According to a biography by Joan Graff Clucas, in her early years Agnes was fascinated by stories of the lives of missionaries and their service in
BengalBengal is a historical and geographical region in the northeast region of the Indian Subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal. Today, it is mainly divided between the sovereign land of People's Republic of Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal, although some regions of the previous...
, and by age 12 was convinced that she should commit herself to a religious life. Her final resolution was taken on August 15, 1928, while praying at the shrine of the
Black MadonnaA Black Madonna or Black Virgin is a statue or painting of the Virgin Mary in which the Virgin Mary is black. The term was especially applied to those created in Europe in the medieval period or earlier...
of Letnice, where she often went on pilgrimage.
She left home at age 18 to join the
Sisters of LoretoThe Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary, more commonly known as the Loreto Sisters , is a women's Catholic religious order founded by an Englishwoman, Mary Ward, in 1609 at Saint-Omer in northern France...
as a missionary. She never again saw her mother or sister.
Agnes initially went to the Loreto Abbey in
RathfarnhamRathfarnham or Rathfarnam is a Southside suburb of Dublin, Ireland. It is south of Terenure, east of Templeogue, and is in the postal districts of Dublin 14 and 16. It is within the administrative areas of both Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown and South Dublin County Councils.The area of Rathfarnham...
,
IrelandIreland , described as the Republic of Ireland , is a sovereign state in Europe occupying approximately five-sixths of the island of the same name. Its capital is Dublin. Ireland, which had a population of 4.58 million in 2011, is a constitutional republic governed as a parliamentary democracy,...
, to learn English, the language the Sisters of Loreto used to teach school children in India.
She arrived in India in 1929, and began her
novitiateNovitiate, alt. noviciate, is the period of training and preparation that a novice monastic or member of a religious order undergoes prior to taking vows in order to discern whether they are called to the religious life....
in
Darjeeling, near the Himalayan mountains, where she learnt
BengaliBengali or Bangla is an eastern Indo-Aryan language. It is native to the region of eastern South Asia known as Bengal, which comprises present day Bangladesh, the Indian state of West Bengal, and parts of the Indian states of Tripura and Assam. It is written with the Bengali script...
and taught at the St. Teresa’s School, a schoolhouse close to her convent. She took her first
religious vowsReligious vows are the public vows made by the members of religious communities pertaining to their conduct, practices and views.In the Buddhist tradition, in particular within the Mahayana and Vajrayana tradition, many different kinds of religious vows are taken by the lay community as well as by...
as a nun on 24 May 1931. At that time she chose to be named after
Thérèse de LisieuxSaint Thérèse of Lisieux , or Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face, born Marie-Françoise-Thérèse Martin, was a French Carmelite nun...
, the patron saint of missionaries, but because one nun in the convent had already chosen that name, Agnes opted for the Spanish spelling
Teresa.
She took her solemn vows on 14 May 1937, while serving as a teacher at the Loreto convent school in Entally, eastern Calcutta. Teresa served there for almost twenty years and in 1944 was appointed headmistress.
Although Teresa enjoyed teaching at the school, she was increasingly disturbed by the poverty surrounding her in Calcutta.
The
Bengal famine of 1943The Bengal famine of 1943 struck the Bengal. Province of pre-partition India. Estimates are that between 1.5 and 4 million people died of starvation, malnutrition and disease, out of Bengal’s 60.3 million population, half of them dying from disease after food became available in December 1943 As...
brought misery and death to the city; and the outbreak of
Hindu/Muslim violence in August 1946Direct Action Day , also known as the Great Calcutta Killings, was a day of widespread riot and manslaughter in the city of Calcutta in the Bengal province of British India...
plunged the city into despair and horror.
Missionaries of Charity
On 10 September 1946, Teresa experienced what she later described as "the call within the call" while traveling by train to the
Loreto conventLoreto Convent is an English-medium high school in the town of Darjeeling, West Bengal, India. The school is run by Loreto Education Society of Darjeeling.The school is affiliated to the ICSE and ISC boards of Delhi.-History:...
in
Darjeeling from Calcutta for her annual retreat. "I was to leave the convent and help the poor while living among them. It was an order. To fail would have been to break the faith." As one author later noted, "Though no one knew it at the time, Sister Teresa had just become
Mother Teresa".
She began her missionary work with the poor in 1948, replacing her traditional Loreto habit with a simple white cotton
sari decorated with a blue border. Mother Teresa adopted Indian citizenship, spent a few months in
PatnaPaṭnā , is the capital of the Indian state of Bihar and the second largest city in Eastern India . Patna is one of the oldest continuously inhabited places in the world...
to receive a basic medical training in the
Holy Family Hospital and then ventured out into the slums. Initially she started a school in Motijhil (Calcutta); soon she started tending to the needs of the destitute and starving. In the beginning of 1949 she was joined in her effort by a group of young women and laid the foundations to create a new religious community helping the
"poorest among the poor".
Her efforts quickly caught the attention of Indian officials, including the prime minister, who expressed his appreciation.
Teresa wrote in her diary that her first year was fraught with difficulties. She had no income and had to resort to begging for food and supplies. Teresa experienced doubt, loneliness and the temptation to return to the comfort of convent life during these early months. She wrote in her diary:
Teresa received
VaticanThe Holy See is the episcopal jurisdiction of the Catholic Church in Rome, in which its Bishop is commonly known as the Pope. It is the preeminent episcopal see of the Catholic Church, forming the central government of the Church. As such, diplomatically, and in other spheres the Holy See acts and...
permission on 7 October 1950 to start the diocesan congregation that would become the Missionaries of Charity. Its mission was to care for, in her own words, "the hungry, the naked, the homeless, the crippled, the blind, the lepers, all those people who feel unwanted, unloved, uncared for throughout society, people that have become a burden to the society and are shunned by everyone."
It began as a small order with 13 members in Calcutta; by 1997 it had grown to more than 4,000 nuns running orphanages, AIDS hospices and charity centers worldwide, and caring for refugees, the blind, disabled, aged, alcoholics, the poor and homeless, and victims of floods, epidemics, and famine.
In 1952 Mother Teresa opened the first Home for the Dying in space made available by the city of Calcutta. With the help of Indian officials she converted an abandoned
HinduHinduism is the predominant and indigenous religious tradition of the Indian Subcontinent. Hinduism is known to its followers as , amongst many other expressions...
temple into the
Kalighat Home for the DyingKalighat, the Home of the Pure Heart is a hospice for the sick, destitute and the dying in Kalighat, Kolkata , India, established by Mother Teresa. The building was an old abandoned Hindu temple to the goddess Kali, the Hindu goddess of time and change, before she sought permission to use it...
, a free hospice for the poor. She renamed it Kalighat, the Home of the Pure Heart (Nirmal Hriday). Those brought to the home received medical attention and were afforded the opportunity to die with dignity, according to the rituals of their faith; Muslims were read the Quran, Hindus received water from the Ganges, and Catholics received the Last Rites. "A beautiful death," she said, "is for people who lived like animals to die like angels—loved and wanted."
Mother Teresa soon opened a home for those suffering from Hansen's disease, commonly known as leprosy, and called the hospice Shanti Nagar (City of Peace). The Missionaries of Charity also established several leprosy outreach clinics throughout Calcutta, providing medication, bandages and food.
As the Missionaries of Charity took in increasing numbers of lost children, Mother Teresa felt the need to create a home for them. In 1955 she opened the Nirmala Shishu Bhavan, the Children's Home of the Immaculate Heart, as a haven for orphans and homeless youth.
The order soon began to attract both recruits and charitable donations, and by the 1960s had opened hospices, orphanages and leper houses all over India. Mother Teresa then expanded the order throughout the globe. Its first house outside India opened in Venezuela in 1965 with five sisters. Others followed in Rome, Tanzania, and Austria in 1968; during the 1970s the order opened houses and foundations in dozens of countries in Asia, Africa, Europe and the United States.
The Missionaries of Charity Brothers was founded in 1963, and a contemplative branch of the Sisters followed in 1976. Lay Catholics and non-Catholics were enrolled in the Co-Workers of Mother Teresa, the Sick and Suffering Co-Workers, and the Lay Missionaries of Charity. In answer to the requests of many priests, in 1981 Mother Teresa also began the Corpus Christi Movement for Priests, and in 1984 founded with Fr. Joseph Langford the Missionaries of Charity Fathers to combine the vocational aims of the Missionaries of Charity with the resources of the ministerial priesthood. By 2007 the Missionaries of Charity numbered approximately 450 brothers and 5,000 nuns worldwide, operating 600 missions, schools and shelters in 120 countries.
International charity
In 1982, at the height of the
Siege of BeirutThe Siege of Beirut took place in the summer of 1982, as part of the 1982 Lebanon War, which resulted from the breakdown of the cease-fire effected by the United Nations...
, Mother Teresa rescued 37 children trapped in a front line hospital by brokering a temporary cease-fire between the Israeli army and Palestinian guerrillas. Accompanied by Red Cross workers, she traveled through the war zone to the devastated hospital to evacuate the young patients.
When Eastern Europe experienced increased openness in the late 1980s, she expanded her efforts to Communist countries that had previously rejected the Missionaries of Charity, embarking on dozens of projects. She was undeterred by criticism about her firm stand against abortion and divorce stating, "No matter who says what, you should accept it with a smile and do your own work." She visited the Soviet republic of Armenia following the 1988 Spitak earthquake, and met with
Nikolai RyzhkovNikolai Ivanovich Ryzhkov was a Soviet official who became a Russian politician following the dissolution of the Soviet Union. He served as the last Chairman of the Council of Ministers or Premier of the Soviet Union from 1985 to 1991...
, the
ChairmanThe office of Premier of the Soviet Union was synonymous with head of government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics . Twelve individuals have been premier...
of the Council of Ministers.
Mother Teresa traveled to assist and minister to the hungry in Ethiopia, radiation victims at
ChernobylChernobyl or Chornobyl is an abandoned city in northern Ukraine, in Kiev Oblast, near the border with Belarus. The city had been the administrative centre of the Chernobyl Raion since 1932....
, and earthquake victims in Armenia. In 1991, Mother Teresa returned for the first time to her homeland and opened a Missionaries of Charity Brothers home in Tirana, Albania.
By 1996, she was operating 517 missions in more than 100 countries. Over the years, Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity grew from twelve to thousands serving the "poorest of the poor" in 450 centers around the world. The first Missionaries of Charity home in the United States was established in the South Bronx, New York; by 1984 the order operated 19 establishments throughout the country.
Declining health and death
Mother Teresa suffered a heart attack in Rome in 1983, while visiting
Pope John Paul IIBlessed Pope John Paul II , born Karol Józef Wojtyła , reigned as Pope of the Catholic Church and Sovereign of Vatican City from 16 October 1978 until his death on 2 April 2005, at of age. His was the second-longest documented pontificate, which lasted ; only Pope Pius IX ...
. After a second attack in 1989, she received an
artificial pacemakerA pacemaker is a medical device that uses electrical impulses, delivered by electrodes contacting the heart muscles, to regulate the beating of the heart...
. In 1991, after a battle with
pneumoniaPneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung—especially affecting the microscopic air sacs —associated with fever, chest symptoms, and a lack of air space on a chest X-ray. Pneumonia is typically caused by an infection but there are a number of other causes...
while in Mexico, she suffered further heart problems. She offered to resign her position as head of the Missionaries of Charity, but the nuns of the order, in a
secret ballotThe secret ballot is a voting method in which a voter's choices in an election or a referendum are anonymous. The key aim is to ensure the voter records a sincere choice by forestalling attempts to influence the voter by intimidation or bribery. The system is one means of achieving the goal of...
, voted for her to stay. Mother Teresa agreed to continue her work as head of the order.
In April 1996, Mother Teresa fell and broke her collar bone. In August she suffered from
malariaMalaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease of humans and other animals caused by eukaryotic protists of the genus Plasmodium. The disease results from the multiplication of Plasmodium parasites within red blood cells, causing symptoms that typically include fever and headache, in severe cases...
and failure of the left heart ventricle. She had
heart surgeryCardiovascular surgery is surgery on the heart or great vessels performed by cardiac surgeons. Frequently, it is done to treat complications of ischemic heart disease , correct congenital heart disease, or treat valvular heart disease from various causes including endocarditis, rheumatic heart...
but it was clear that her health was declining. She was treated at a California hospital, too, and this has led to some criticism. The Archbishop of Calcutta, Henry Sebastian D'Souza, said he ordered a priest to perform an
exorcismExorcism is the religious practice of evicting demons or other spiritual entities from a person or place which they are believed to have possessed...
on Mother Teresa with her permission when she was first hospitalised with cardiac problems because he thought she may be under attack by the devil.
On 13 March 1997, she stepped down from the head of Missionaries of Charity. She died on 5 September 1997.
At the time of her death, Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity had over 4,000 sisters, and an associated brotherhood of 300 members, operating 610 missions in 123 countries. These included hospices and homes for people with HIV/AIDS, leprosy and tuberculosis, soup kitchens, children's and family counseling programs, personal helpers, orphanages, and schools. The Missionaries of Charity were also aided by Co-Workers, who numbered over 1 million by the 1990s.
Mother Teresa
lay in reposeLying in repose is a term used to describe when a deceased person, often of some stature, is available for public viewing. "Lying in repose" is different from the formal honor of "lying in state", which is generally held at the principal government building of the country and often accompanied by...
in
St Thomas, KolkataSt. Thomas's Church in Kolkata, India, is a Roman Catholic, Latin Rite church. It is one of the colonial style buildings of the city. It is located in Middleton Row, Park Street. Mother Teresa lay in state in this church for one week prior to her funeral, in September 1997....
for one week prior to her
funeralA funeral is a ceremony for celebrating, sanctifying, or remembering the life of a person who has died. Funerary customs comprise the complex of beliefs and practices used by a culture to remember the dead, from interment itself, to various monuments, prayers, and rituals undertaken in their honor...
, in September 1997. She was granted a
state funeralA state funeral is a public funeral ceremony, observing the strict rules of protocol, held to honor heads of state or other important people of national significance. State funerals usually include much pomp and ceremony as well as religious overtones and distinctive elements of military tradition...
by the Indian government in gratitude for her services to the poor of all religions in India. Her death was mourned in both secular and religious communities. In tribute,
Nawaz SharifMian Mohammad Nawaz Sharif is a Pakistani conservative politician and steel magnate who served as 12th Prime Minister of Pakistan in two non-consecutive terms from November 1990 to July 1993, and from February 1997 to October 12, 1999...
, the
Prime Minister of PakistanThe Prime Minister of Pakistan , is the Head of Government of Pakistan who is designated to exercise as the country's Chief Executive. By the Constitution of Pakistan, Pakistan has the parliamentary democratic system of government...
said that she was "a rare and unique individual who lived long for higher purposes. Her life-long devotion to the care of the poor, the sick, and the disadvantaged was one of the highest examples of service to our humanity." The former U.N. Secretary-General
Javier Pérez de CuéllarJavier Pérez de Cuéllar y de la Guerra is a Peruvian diplomat who served as the fifth Secretary-General of the United Nations from January 1, 1982 to December 31, 1991. He studied in Colegio San Agustín of Lima, and then at Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú. In 1995, he ran unsuccessfully...
said: "She is the United Nations. She is peace in the world."
In India
Mother Teresa had first been recognised by the Indian government more than a third of a century earlier when she was awarded the
Padma ShriPadma Shri is the fourth highest civilian award in the Republic of India, after the Bharat Ratna, the Padma Vibhushan and the Padma Bhushan...
in 1962 and the Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International Understanding in 1969. She continued to receive major Indian rewards in successive decades including, in 1972, in 1980, India's highest civilian award, the
Bharat RatnaBharat Ratna is the Republic of India's highest civilian award, awarded for the highest degrees of national service. This service includes artistic, literary, and scientific achievements, as well as "recognition of public service of the highest order." Unlike knights, holders of the Bharat Ratna...
. Her official biography was authored by an Indian civil servant,
Navin ChawlaNaveen , a controversial Indian bureaucrat , is a retired chief election commissioner of India. As Chief Election Commissioner, Navin Chawla oversaw the last 4 phases of Indian general election to Loksabha in April–May 2009...
, and published in 1992.
On 28 Aug 2010, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of her birth, the government of India issued a special 5 Rupee coin, being the sum she first arrived in India with. President
Pratibha PatilPratibha Devisingh Patil is the 12th President of the Republic of India and first woman to hold the office. She was sworn in as President of India on 25 July 2007, succeeding Dr. A.P.J...
said of Mother Teresa, "Clad in a white sari with a blue border, she and the sisters of Missionaries of Charity became a symbol of hope to many - the aged, the destitute, the unemployed, the diseased, the terminally ill, and those abandoned by their families."
Indian views on Mother Teresa were not uniformly favourable. Her critic
Aroup ChatterjeeAroup Chatterjee is the author of the book Mother Teresa: The Final Verdict, a work which challenges the widespread regard of Mother Teresa as a symbol of philanthropy and selflessness....
, who was born and raised in Calcutta but lived in London, reports that "she was not a significant entity in Calcutta in her lifetime". Chatterjee blames Mother Teresa for promoting a negative image of his home city. Her presence and profile grated in parts of the Indian political world, as she often opposed the
Hindu RightHindu nationalism has been collectively referred to as the expressions of social and political thought, based on the native spiritual and cultural traditions of historical India...
. The
Bharatiya Janata PartyThe Bharatiya Janata Party ,; translation: Indian People's Party) is one of the two major political parties in India, the other being the Indian National Congress. Established in 1980, it is India's second largest political party in terms of representation in the parliament...
clashed with her over the Christian
DalitDalit is a designation for a group of people traditionally regarded as Untouchable. Dalits are a mixed population, consisting of numerous castes from all over South Asia; they speak a variety of languages and practice a multitude of religions...
s, but praised her in death, sending a representative to her funeral. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad, on the other hand, opposed the government's decision to grant her a state funeral. Its secretary
Giriraj KishoreGiriraj Kishore is an Indian activist and politician. He belongs to kayastha community.He serves as the senior vice-president of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, International wing of the Hindu nationalist Sangh Parivar.Kishore is from state of Uttar Pradesh...
said that "her first duty was to the Church and social service was incidental" and accused her of favouring Christians and conducting "secret baptisms" of the dying. But, in its front page tribute, the Indian fortnightly
FrontlineFrontline is a fortnightly English language magazine published by The Hindu Group of publications from Chennai, India. Narasimhan Ram is the editor-in-chief of the magazine. As a current affairs magazine, it covers domestic and International news. Frontline gives a prominent place to various...
dismissed these charges as "patently false" and said that they had "made no impact on the public perception of her work, especially in Calcutta". Although praising her "selfless caring", energy and bravery, the author of the tribute was critical of Mother Teresa's public campaigning against abortion and that she claimed to be non-political when doing so.
In the rest of the world
In 1962, Mother Teresa received the Philippines-based
Ramon Magsaysay AwardThe Ramon Magsaysay Award is an annual award established to perpetuate former Philippine President Ramon Magsaysay's example of integrity in government, courageous service to the people, and pragmatic idealism within a democratic society. The Ramon Magsaysay Award is often considered Asia's Nobel...
for International Understanding, given for work in South or East Asia. The citation said that "the Board of Trustees recognizes her merciful cognizance of the abject poor of a foreign land, in whose service she has led a new congregation". By the early 1970s, Mother Teresa had become an international celebrity. Her fame can be in large part attributed to the 1969
documentaryDocumentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
Something Beautiful for God, which was filmed by
Malcolm MuggeridgeThomas Malcolm Muggeridge was an English journalist, author, media personality, and satirist. During World War II, he was a soldier and a spy...
and his 1971 book of the same title. Muggeridge was undergoing a spiritual journey of his own at the time. During the filming of the documentary, footage taken in poor lighting conditions, particularly the Home for the Dying, was thought unlikely to be of usable quality by the crew. After returning from India, however, the footage was found to be extremely well lit. Muggeridge claimed this was a miracle of "divine light" from Mother Teresa herself. Others in the crew thought it was due to a new type of ultra-sensitive Kodak film. Muggeridge later converted to Catholicism.
Around this time, the Catholic world began to honor Mother Teresa publicly. In 1971, Paul VI awarded her the first
Pope John XXIII-Papal election:Following the death of Pope Pius XII in 1958, Roncalli was elected Pope, to his great surprise. He had even arrived in the Vatican with a return train ticket to Venice. Many had considered Giovanni Battista Montini, Archbishop of Milan, a possible candidate, but, although archbishop...
Peace Prize, commending her for her work with the poor, display of Christian charity and efforts for peace. She later received the
Pacem in Terris AwardThe Pacem in Terris Peace and Freedom Award is a Catholic peace award which has been given annually since 1964, in commemoration of the 1963 encyclical letter "Pacem in Terris" of Pope John XXIII...
(1976). Since her death, Mother Teresa has progressed rapidly along the steps towards sainthood, currently having reached the stage of having been
beatifiedBeatification is a recognition accorded by the Catholic Church of a dead person's entrance into Heaven and capacity to intercede on behalf of individuals who pray in his or her name . Beatification is the third of the four steps in the canonization process...
.
Mother Teresa was honoured by both governments and civilian organisations. She was appointed an honorary Companion of the
Order of AustraliaThe Order of Australia is an order of chivalry established on 14 February 1975 by Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia, "for the purpose of according recognition to Australian citizens and other persons for achievement or for meritorious service"...
in 1982, "for service to the community of Australia and humanity at large." The United Kingdom and the United States each repeatedly granted awards, culminating in the
Order of MeritThe Order of Merit is a British dynastic order recognising distinguished service in the armed forces, science, art, literature, or for the promotion of culture...
in 1983, and honorary citizenship of the United States received on 16 November 1996. Mother Teresa's Albanian homeland granted her the Golden Honour of the Nation in 1994. Her acceptance of this and another honour granted by the
HaitiHaiti , officially the Republic of Haiti , is a Caribbean country. It occupies the western, smaller portion of the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antillean archipelago, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. Ayiti was the indigenous Taíno or Amerindian name for the island...
an government proved controversial. Mother Teresa attracted criticism from a number of people for implicitly giving support to the
DuvalierDuvalier is a surname, and may refer to:* François Duvalier , nicknamed "Papa Doc", President of Haiti * Jean-Claude Duvalier , nicknamed "Baby Doc", son of François Duvalier and President of Haiti...
s and to corrupt businessmen such as
Charles KeatingCharles Humphrey Keating Jr. is an American athlete, lawyer, real estate developer, banker, and financier, most known for his role in the savings and loan scandal of the late 1980s....
and
Robert MaxwellIan Robert Maxwell MC was a Czechoslovakian-born British media proprietor and former Member of Parliament , who rose from poverty to build an extensive publishing empire...
. In Keating's case she wrote to the judge of his trial asking for clemency to be shown.
Universities in both the West and in India granted her
honorary degreeAn honorary degree or a degree honoris causa is an academic degree for which a university has waived the usual requirements, such as matriculation, residence, study, and the passing of examinations...
s. Other civilian awards include the
Balzan PrizeThe International Balzan Prize Foundation awards four annual monetary prizes to people or organisations who have made outstanding achievements in the fields of humanities, natural sciences, culture, as well as for endeavours for peace and the brotherhood of man.-Rewards and assets:Each year the...
for promoting humanity, peace and brotherhood among peoples (1978), and the
Albert SchweitzerAlbert Schweitzer OM was a German theologian, organist, philosopher, physician, and medical missionary. He was born in Kaysersberg in the province of Alsace-Lorraine, at that time part of the German Empire...
International Prize (1975).
In 1979, Mother Teresa was awarded the
Nobel Peace PrizeThe Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes bequeathed by the Swedish industrialist and inventor Alfred Nobel.-Background:According to Nobel's will, the Peace Prize shall be awarded to the person who...
, "for work undertaken in the struggle to overcome poverty and distress, which also constitutes a threat to peace." She refused the conventional ceremonial banquet given to laureates, and asked that the $192,000 funds be given to the poor in India, stating that earthly rewards were important only if they helped her help the world's needy. When Mother Teresa received the prize, she was asked, "What can we do to promote world peace?" She answered "Go home and love your family." Building on this theme in her Nobel Lecture, she said: "Around the world, not only in the poor countries, but I found the poverty of the West so much more difficult to remove. When I pick up a person from the street, hungry, I give him a plate of rice, a piece of bread, I have satisfied. I have removed that hunger. But a person that is shut out, that feels unwanted, unloved, terrified, the person that has been thrown out from society—that poverty is so hurtable [sic] and so much, and I find that very difficult." She also singled out abortion as 'the greatest destroyer of peace in the world'.
During her lifetime, Mother Teresa was named 18 times in the yearly Gallup's most admired man and woman poll as one of the ten women around the world that Americans admired most, finishing first several times in the 1980s and 1990s. In 1999, a poll of Americans ranked her first in Gallup's List of Most Widely Admired People of the 20th Century. In that survey, she out-polled all other volunteered answers by a wide margin, and was in first place in all major demographic categories except the very young.
Towards the end of her life, Mother Teresa attracted some negative attention in the Western media. The journalist Christopher Hitchens has been one of her most active critics. He was commissioned to co-write and narrate the documentary
Hell's Angel about her for the British
Channel 4Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
after
Aroup ChatterjeeAroup Chatterjee is the author of the book Mother Teresa: The Final Verdict, a work which challenges the widespread regard of Mother Teresa as a symbol of philanthropy and selflessness....
encouraged the making of such a program, although Chatterjee was unhappy with the "sensationalist approach" of the final product. Hitchens expanded his criticism in a 1995 book,
The Missionary PositionThe Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice is a book by Christopher Hitchens about Mother Teresa's life and work. The book criticizes Teresa as a political opportunist who adopted the guise of a saint in order to raise money and spread an extreme religious ideology...
.
Chatterjee writes that while she was alive Mother Teresa and her official biographers refused to collaborate with his own investigations and that she failed to defend herself against critical coverage in the Western press. He gives as examples a report in
The GuardianThe Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
in Britain whose "stringent (and quite detailed) attack on conditions in her orphanages ... [include] charges of gross neglect and physical and emotional abuse", and another documentary
Mother Teresa: Time for Change? broadcast in several European countries.
The German magazine
SternStern is a weekly news magazine published in Germany. It was founded in 1948 by Henri Nannen, and is currently published by Gruner + Jahr, a subsidiary of Bertelsmann. In the first quarter of 2006, its print run was 1.019 million copies and it reached 7.84 million readers according to...
published a critical article on the first anniversary of Mother Teresa's death. This concerned allegations regarding financial matters and the spending of donations. The medical press has also published criticism of her, arising from very different outlooks and priorities on patients' needs. Other critics include prominent Marxist,
Tariq AliTariq Ali , , is a British Pakistani military historian, novelist, journalist, filmmaker, public intellectual, political campaigner, activist, and commentator...
, a member of the editorial committee of the
New Left ReviewNew Left Review is a 160-page journal, published every two months from London, devoted to world politics, economy and culture. Often compared to the French-language Les Temps modernes, it is associated with Verso Books , and regularly features the essays of authorities on contemporary social...
, and the Irish investigative journalist
Donal MacIntyreDonal MacIntyre is an Irish investigative journalist, specialising in investigations, undercover operations and television exposés. His work is in the area of care homes for the elderly and the learning disabled...
.
She has also been criticized for her view on suffering. She felt that suffering would bring people closer to Jesus.
Sanal EdamarukuSanal Joseph Edamaruku is the founder-president of Rationalist International. He is also the president of the Indian Rationalist Association. He is the editor of the internet publication Rationalist International, author of 25 books and numerous articles....
, President of Rationalist International, criticised the failure to give painkillers, writing that in her Homes for the Dying, one could "hear the screams of people having maggots tweezered from their open wounds without pain relief. On principle, strong painkillers are even in hard cases not given. According to Mother Teresa's philosophy, it is 'the most beautiful gift for a person that he can participate in the sufferings of Christ'."
The quality of care offered to terminally ill patients in the Homes for the Dying has been criticised in the medical press.
The LancetThe Lancet is a weekly peer-reviewed general medical journal. It is one of the world's best known, oldest, and most respected general medical journals...
and the
British Medical JournalBMJ is a partially open-access peer-reviewed medical journal. Originally called the British Medical Journal, the title was officially shortened to BMJ in 1988. The journal is published by the BMJ Group, a wholly owned subsidiary of the British Medical Association...
reported the reuse of hypodermic needles, poor living conditions, including the use of cold baths for all patients, and an approach to illness and suffering that precluded the use of many elements of modern medical care, such as systematic diagnosis. Dr. Robin Fox, editor of
The LancetThe Lancet is a weekly peer-reviewed general medical journal. It is one of the world's best known, oldest, and most respected general medical journals...
, described the medical care as "haphazard", as volunteers without medical knowledge had to take decisions about patient care, because of the lack of doctors. He observed that her order did not distinguish between curable and incurable patients, so that people who could otherwise survive would be at risk of dying from infections and lack of treatment. Dr. Fox makes it a point to contrast
hospiceHospice is a type of care and a philosophy of care which focuses on the palliation of a terminally ill patient's symptoms.In the United States and Canada:*Gentiva Health Services, national provider of hospice and home health services...
, on the one hand, with what he calls "Mother Teresa's Care for the Dying" on the other hand; noting that, while hospice emphasizes minimizing suffering with professional medical care and attention to expressed needs and wishes of the patient, her approach does not.<
Colette Livermore, a former Missionary of Charity, describes her reasons for leaving the order in her book
Hope Endures: Leaving Mother Teresa, Losing Faith, and Searching for Meaning. Livermore found what she called Mother Teresa's "theology of suffering" to be flawed, despite being a good and courageous person. Though Mother Teresa instructed her followers on the importance of spreading the Gospel through actions rather than theological lessons, Livermore could not reconcile this with some of the practices of the organization. Examples she gives include unnecessarily refusing to help the needy when they approached the nuns at the wrong time according to the prescribed schedule, discouraging nuns from seeking medical training to deal with the illnesses they encountered (with the justification that God empowers the weak and ignorant), and imposition of "unjust" punishments, such as being transferred away from friends. Livermore says that the Missionaries of Charity "infantilized" its nuns by prohibiting the reading of secular books and newspapers, and emphasizing obedience over independent thinking and problem-solving.
Christopher HitchensChristopher Eric Hitchens is an Anglo-American author and journalist whose books, essays, and journalistic career span more than four decades. He has been a columnist and literary critic at The Atlantic, Vanity Fair, Slate, World Affairs, The Nation, Free Inquiry, and became a media fellow at the...
and the German magazine
SternStern is a weekly news magazine published in Germany. It was founded in 1948 by Henri Nannen, and is currently published by Gruner + Jahr, a subsidiary of Bertelsmann. In the first quarter of 2006, its print run was 1.019 million copies and it reached 7.84 million readers according to...
have said Mother Teresa did not focus donated money on alleviating poverty or improving the conditions of her hospices, but on opening new convents and increasing missionary work. Mother Teresa accepted donations from the autocratic and corrupt
Duvalier familyDuvalier is a surname, and may refer to:* François Duvalier , nicknamed "Papa Doc", President of Haiti * Jean-Claude Duvalier , nicknamed "Baby Doc", son of François Duvalier and President of Haiti...
in Haiti and openly praised them. She also accepted 1.4 million dollars from
Charles KeatingCharles Humphrey Keating Jr. is an American athlete, lawyer, real estate developer, banker, and financier, most known for his role in the savings and loan scandal of the late 1980s....
, involved in the fraud and corruption scheme known as the
Keating FiveThe Keating Five were five United States Senators accused of corruption in 1989, igniting a major political scandal as part of the larger Savings and Loan crisis of the late 1980s and early 1990s. The five senators – Alan Cranston , Dennis DeConcini, John Glenn , John McCain , and Donald W. Riegle,...
scandal and supported him before and after his arrest. The Deputy District Attorney for Los Angeles, Paul Turley, wrote to Mother Teresa asking her to return the donated money to the people Keating had stolen from, one of whom was "a poor carpenter". The donated money was not accounted for, and Turley did not receive a reply.
Spiritual life
Analyzing her deeds and achievements, John Paul II asked: "Where did Mother Teresa find the strength and perseverance to place herself completely at the service of others? She found it in prayer and in the silent contemplation of Jesus Christ, his Holy Face, his Sacred Heart." Privately, Mother Teresa experienced doubts and struggles over her religious beliefs which lasted nearly fifty years until the end of her life, during which "she felt no presence of God whatsoever", "neither in her heart or in the eucharist" as put by her
postulatorThe person who guides a Cause for beatification or canonization through the judicial processes required by the Roman Catholic Church is known as the postulator. The qualifications, role and function of the postulator are spelled out in the Norms to be Observed in Inquiries made by Bishops in the...
Rev.
Brian KolodiejchukFather Brian Kolodiejchuk, MC, Ph.D. is the postulator of the Cause of Beatification and Canonization of Mother Teresa of Calcutta and director of the Mother Teresa Center. He edited and wrote the commentary for the book Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light, published by Doubleday, on September 4,...
. Mother Teresa expressed grave doubts about God's existence and pain over her lack of faith:
With reference to the above words, the Rev. Brian Kolodiejchuk, her
postulatorThe person who guides a Cause for beatification or canonization through the judicial processes required by the Roman Catholic Church is known as the postulator. The qualifications, role and function of the postulator are spelled out in the Norms to be Observed in Inquiries made by Bishops in the...
(the official responsible for gathering the evidence for her sanctification) indicated there was a risk that some might misinterpret her meaning, but her faith that God was working through her remained undiminished, and that while she pined for the lost sentiment of closeness with God, she did not question his existence. and that she may have experienced something similar to what is believed of Jesus Christ when crucified who was heard to say "Eli Eli lama sabachthani?" which is translated to "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" Many other saints had similar experiences of
spiritual drynessIn Catholic spirituality, spiritual dryness or desolation is a lack of spiritual consolation in one's spiritual life. It is a form of spiritual crisis experienced subjectively as a sense of separation from God or lack of spiritual feeling, especially during contemplative prayer...
, or what Catholics believe to be spiritual tests ("passive purifications"), such as Mother Teresa's namesake, St. Therese of Lisieux, who called it a "night of nothingness." Contrary to the mistaken belief by some that the doubts she expressed would be an impediment to canonization, just the opposite is true; it is very consistent with the experience of canonized mystics.
Mother Teresa described, after ten years of doubt, a short period of renewed faith. At the time of the death of Pope Pius XII in the fall of 1958, praying for him at a requiem mass, she said she had been relieved of "the long darkness: that strange suffering." However, five weeks later, she described returning to her difficulties in believing.
Mother Teresa wrote many letters to her confessors and superiors over a 66-year period. She had asked that her letters be destroyed, concerned that "people will think more of me—less of Jesus."
However, despite this request, the correspondences have been compiled in
Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light (Doubleday). In one publicly released letter to a spiritual confidant, the Rev. Michael van der Peet, she wrote, "Jesus has a very special love for you. [But] as for me, the silence and the emptiness is so great, that I look and do not see,—Listen and do not hear—the tongue moves [in prayer] but does not speak ... I want you to pray for me—that I let Him have [a] free hand."
Many news outlets have referred to Mother Teresa's writings as an indication of a "crisis of faith." Christopher Hitchens wrote: "So, which is the more striking: that the faithful should bravely confront the fact that one of their heroines all but lost her own faith, or that the Church should have gone on deploying, as an icon of favorable publicity, a confused old lady who it knew had for all practical purposes ceased to believe?" However, others such as Brian Kolodiejchuk,
Come Be My Light's editor, draw comparisons to the 16th century mystic St. John of the Cross, who coined the term the "
dark night of the soulDark Night of the Soul is a treatise by Saint John of the Cross containing a commentary explaining his poem of the same name.-Poem and treatise by Saint John of the Cross:...
" to describe a particular stage in the growth of some spiritual masters. The Vatican has indicated that the letters would not affect her path to sainthood. In fact, the book is edited by the Rev. Kolodiejchuk, her postulator.
In his first encyclical
Deus Caritas EstDeus Caritas Est is a 2006 encyclical—the first written by Pope Benedict XVI, in large part derived from writings by his late predecessor, Pope John Paul II. Its subject is love, as seen through a Christian perspective, and God's place within all love...
, Benedict XVI mentioned Teresa of Calcutta three times and he also used her life to clarify one of his main points of the encyclical. "In the example of Blessed Teresa of Calcutta we have a clear illustration of the fact that time devoted to God in prayer not only does not detract from effective and loving service to our neighbour but is in fact the inexhaustible source of that service." Mother Teresa specified that "It is only by
mental prayerMental prayer is a form of prayer recommended in the Catholic Church whereby one loves God through dialogue, meditating on God's words, and contemplation of his face. It is a time of silence focused on God...
and
spiritual readingSpiritual reading is a practice of reading books and articles about spirituality with the purpose of growing in holiness.Spiritual reading is devoted to the reading of lives of saints, writings of Doctors and the Fathers of the Church, theological works written by holy people, and doctrinal...
that we can cultivate the gift of prayer."
Although there was no direct connection between Mother Teresa's order and the Franciscan orders, she was known as a great admirer of St. Francis of Assisi. Accordingly, her influence and life show influences of Franciscan spirituality. The Sisters of Charity recite the peace prayer of St. Francis every morning during
thanksgiving after CommunionThanksgiving after Communion is a spiritual practice among Christians who believe in the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist they receive during Holy Communion, maintaining themselves in prayer for some time to thank God for what they believe to be the great gift of receiving God Himself...
and many of the vows and emphasis of her ministry are similar. St. Francis emphasized poverty, chastity, obedience and submission to Christ. He also devoted much of his own life to service of the poor, especially lepers in the area where he lived.
Miracle and beatification
After Mother Teresa's death in 1997, the
Holy SeeThe Holy See is the episcopal jurisdiction of the Catholic Church in Rome, in which its Bishop is commonly known as the Pope. It is the preeminent episcopal see of the Catholic Church, forming the central government of the Church. As such, diplomatically, and in other spheres the Holy See acts and...
began the process of
beatificationBeatification is a recognition accorded by the Catholic Church of a dead person's entrance into Heaven and capacity to intercede on behalf of individuals who pray in his or her name . Beatification is the third of the four steps in the canonization process...
, the third step toward possible
canonizationCanonization is the act by which a Christian church declares a deceased person to be a saint, upon which declaration the person is included in the canon, or list, of recognized saints. Originally, individuals were recognized as saints without any formal process...
. This process requires the documentation of a
miracleA miracle often denotes an event attributed to divine intervention. Alternatively, it may be an event attributed to a miracle worker, saint, or religious leader. A miracle is sometimes thought of as a perceptible interruption of the laws of nature. Others suggest that a god may work with the laws...
performed from the
intercessionIntercession is the act of interceding between two parties. In both Christian and Islamic religious usage, it is a prayer to God on behalf of others....
of Mother Teresa.
In 2002, the Vatican recognized as a miracle the healing of a tumor in the abdomen of an Indian woman, Monica Besra, after the application of a locket containing Mother Teresa's picture. Besra said that a beam of light emanated from the picture, curing the cancerous tumor. Critics—including some of Besra's medical staff and, initially, Besra's husband—insisted that conventional medical treatment had eradicated the tumor. Dr. Ranjan Mustafi, who told
The New York Times he had treated Besra, said that the cyst was not cancer at all but a cyst caused by tuberculosis. He insisted, "It was not a miracle.... She took medicines for nine months to one year." According to Besra’s husband, “My wife was cured by the doctors and not by any miracle.”
An opposing perspective of the claim is that Besra's medical records contain sonograms, prescriptions, and physicians' notes that could prove whether the cure was a miracle or not. Besra has claimed that Sister Betta of the
Missionaries of CharityMissionaries of Charity is a Roman Catholic religious congregation established in 1950 by Mother Teresa of Calcutta, which consists of over 4,500 sisters and is active in 133 countries...
is holding them. The publication has received a "no comments" statement from Sister Betta. The officials at the Balurghat Hospital where Besra was seeking medical treatment have claimed that they are being pressured by the Catholic order to declare the cure a miracle.
Christopher HitchensChristopher Eric Hitchens is an Anglo-American author and journalist whose books, essays, and journalistic career span more than four decades. He has been a columnist and literary critic at The Atlantic, Vanity Fair, Slate, World Affairs, The Nation, Free Inquiry, and became a media fellow at the...
was the only witness called by the
VaticanThe Holy See is the episcopal jurisdiction of the Catholic Church in Rome, in which its Bishop is commonly known as the Pope. It is the preeminent episcopal see of the Catholic Church, forming the central government of the Church. As such, diplomatically, and in other spheres the Holy See acts and...
to give evidence against Mother Teresa's
beatificationBeatification is a recognition accorded by the Catholic Church of a dead person's entrance into Heaven and capacity to intercede on behalf of individuals who pray in his or her name . Beatification is the third of the four steps in the canonization process...
and
canonizationCanonization is the act by which a Christian church declares a deceased person to be a saint, upon which declaration the person is included in the canon, or list, of recognized saints. Originally, individuals were recognized as saints without any formal process...
process, because the Vatican had abolished the traditional "devil's advocate" role, which fulfilled a similar purpose. Hitchens has argued that "her intention was not to help people," and he alleged that she lied to donors about the use of their contributions. “It was by talking to her that I discovered, and she assured me, that she wasn't working to alleviate poverty,” says Hitchens. “She was working to expand the number of Catholics. She said, ‘I'm not a social worker. I don't do it for this reason. I do it for Christ. I do it for the church.’”
In the process of examining Teresa's suitability for
beatificationBeatification is a recognition accorded by the Catholic Church of a dead person's entrance into Heaven and capacity to intercede on behalf of individuals who pray in his or her name . Beatification is the third of the four steps in the canonization process...
and
canonizationCanonization is the act by which a Christian church declares a deceased person to be a saint, upon which declaration the person is included in the canon, or list, of recognized saints. Originally, individuals were recognized as saints without any formal process...
, the
Roman CuriaThe Roman Curia is the administrative apparatus of the Holy See and the central governing body of the entire Catholic Church, together with the Pope...
(the Vatican) pored over a great deal of documentation of published and unpublished criticism of her life and work. Vatican officials say Hitchens's allegations have been investigated by the agency charged with such matters, the
Congregation for the Causes of SaintsThe Congregation for the Causes of Saints is the congregation of the Roman Curia which oversees the complex process that leads to the canonization of saints, passing through the steps of a declaration of "heroic virtues" and beatification...
, and they found no obstacle to Mother Teresa's beatification. Because of the attacks she has received, some Catholic writers have called her a
sign of contradictionA sign of contradiction, in Catholic theology, is someone who, upon manifesting holiness, is subject to extreme opposition. The term is from the biblical phrase "sign that is spoken against", found in and in , which refer to Jesus Christ and the early Christians...
. The beatification of Mother Teresa took place on 19 October 2003, thereby bestowing on her the title "
BlessedBeatification is a recognition accorded by the Catholic Church of a dead person's entrance into Heaven and capacity to intercede on behalf of individuals who pray in his or her name . Beatification is the third of the four steps in the canonization process...
." A second
miracleA miracle often denotes an event attributed to divine intervention. Alternatively, it may be an event attributed to a miracle worker, saint, or religious leader. A miracle is sometimes thought of as a perceptible interruption of the laws of nature. Others suggest that a god may work with the laws...
is required for her to proceed to
canonizationCanonization is the act by which a Christian church declares a deceased person to be a saint, upon which declaration the person is included in the canon, or list, of recognized saints. Originally, individuals were recognized as saints without any formal process...
.
Commemoration
Mother Teresa inspired a variety of commemorations. She has been memorialized through museums, been named patroness of various churches, and had various structures and roads named after her, including Albania's international airport. In 2009 the Memorial House of Mother Teresa was opened in her hometown
SkopjeSkopje is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Macedonia with about a third of the total population. It is the country's political, cultural, economic, and academic centre...
, in the
Republic of MacedoniaMacedonia , officially the Republic of Macedonia , is a country located in the central Balkan peninsula in Southeast Europe. It is one of the successor states of the former Yugoslavia, from which it declared independence in 1991...
.
Mother Teresa Women’s University,
Kodaikanal-Climate:Kodaikanal has a monsoon-influenced subtropical highland climate . The temperatures are cool throughout the year due to the high elevation of the city.-Economy:...
,
Tamil NaduTamil Nadu is one of the 28 states of India. Its capital and largest city is Chennai. Tamil Nadu lies in the southernmost part of the Indian Peninsula and is bordered by the union territory of Pondicherry, and the states of Kerala, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh...
, has been established in 1984 as a public university by
government of Tamil NaduThe Government of Tamil Nadu, headquartered at Chennai is the governing authority for the Indian State of Tamil Nadu. It is seated at the Fort St. George...
, India.
Mother Theresa Post Graduate and Research Institute of Health Sciences, Pondicherry has been established in 1999 by Government of Pondicherry, India.
Various tributes have been published in Indian newspapers and magazines authored by her biographer, Navin Chawla.
Indian RailwaysIndian Railways , abbreviated as IR , is a departmental undertaking of Government of India, which owns and operates most of India's rail transport. It is overseen by the Ministry of Railways of the Government of India....
introduced a new train, "Mother Express", named after Mother Teresa, on 26 August 2010 to mark her birth centenary.
Tamil NaduTamil Nadu is one of the 28 states of India. Its capital and largest city is Chennai. Tamil Nadu lies in the southernmost part of the Indian Peninsula and is bordered by the union territory of Pondicherry, and the states of Kerala, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh...
State government organised centenary celebrations of Mother Teresa on 4 December 2010 in
ChennaiChennai , formerly known as Madras or Madarasapatinam , is the capital city of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, located on the Coromandel Coast off the Bay of Bengal. Chennai is the fourth most populous metropolitan area and the sixth most populous city in India...
, headed by Tamil Nadu chief minister M Karunanidhi.
Film and literature
Mother Teresa is the subject of the 1969
documentary filmDocumentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
and 1972 book
Something Beautiful for God, a 1997 Art Film Festival award winning film starring
Geraldine ChaplinGeraldine Leigh Chaplin is an English-American actress and the daughter of Charlie Chaplin.Chaplin first came to prominence for her Golden Globe-nominated role of Tonya in David Lean's Doctor Zhivago . She received her second Golden Globe nomination for Robert Altman's Nashville...
called
Mother Teresa: In the Name of God's PoorMother Teresa: In the Name of God's Poor is a 1997 film directed by Kevin Connor. It stars Geraldine Chaplin as Mother Teresa. Mother Teresa herself had approved the script but withdrew her imprimatur shortly before her death...
, a 2003 Italian miniseries titled
Mother Teresa of CalcuttaMother Teresa of Calcutta is a 2003 biographical television film based on the life of Mother Teresa, the founder of the Missionaries of Charity religious order. The film stars Olivia Hussey in the title role and received a CAMIE award in 2007...
, (which was re-released in 2007 and received a
CAMIE awardThe CAMIE Awards, sometimes known as the CAMIEs, are awards for outstanding, uplifting films emphasizing character and morality. They are awarded annually by CAMIE Awards, Inc.-Overview:...
,) and was portrayed by
Megan FoxMegan Denise Fox is an American actress and model. She began her acting career in 2001 with several minor television and film roles, and played a regular role on Hope & Faith. In 2004, she launched her film career with a role in Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen...
in a satirical film-within-a-film in the 2007 movie
How to Lose Friends and Alienate People. Hitchen's 1994 documentary about her, "
Hell's AngelHell's Angel is a 1994 Channel 4 television documentary about Mother Teresa by Christopher Hitchens, a precursor to his book, The Missionary Position. The film claims that she urged the poor to accept their fate, while the rich are portrayed as being favored by God. Hitchens and Tariq Ali wrote...
", claims that she urged the poor to accept their fate, while the rich are portrayed as being favored by God.
See also
- Christopher Hitchens's critiques of public figures#Mother Teresa
- List of female Nobel laureates
Further reading
- Alpion, Gezim. Mother Teresa: Saint or Celebrity?. London: Routledge Press, 2007. ISBN 0-415-39247-0
- Benenate, Becky and Joseph Durepos (eds). Mother Teresa: No Greater Love (Fine Communications, 2000) ISBN 1-56731-401-5
- Chatterjee, Aroup. Mother Teresa: The Final Verdict (Meteor Books, 2003). ISBN 81-88248-00-2, introduction and first three chapters of fourteen (without pictures). Critical examination of Agnes Bojaxhiu's life and work.
- Chawla, Navin. Mother Teresa. Rockport, Mass: Element Books, 1996. ISBN 1-85230-911-3
- Chawla, Navin. Mother Teresa: The Authorized Biography, Diane Pub Co. (March 1992), ISBN 978-0756755485.
- Chawla, Navin. The miracle of faith, article in the Hindu dated 25 August 2007 " The miracle of faith"
- Chawla, Navin. Memories of Mother Teresa, article in the Hindu dated 26 August 2006 " Memories of Mother Teresa"
- Chawla, Navin. Touch the Poor... – article in India Today dated 15 September 1997 " Touch the Poor..."
- Chawla, Navin. The path to Sainthood, article in The Hindu dated Saturday, 4 October 2003 " The path to Sainthood "
- Chawla, Navin. In the shadow of a saint, article in The Indian Express dated September, 05, 2007 " In the shadow of a saint "
- Chawla, Navin. Mother Teresa and the joy of giving, article in The Hindu dated 26 August 2008 " Mother Teresa and the joy of giving"
- Clucas, Joan. Mother Teresa. New York: Chelsea House, 1988. ISBN 1-55546-855-1
- Dwivedi, Brijal. Mother Teresa: Woman of the Century
- Greene, Meg. Mother Teresa: A Biography, Greenwood Press, 2004. ISBN 0-313-32771-8
- Hitchens, Christopher
Christopher Eric Hitchens is an Anglo-American author and journalist whose books, essays, and journalistic career span more than four decades. He has been a columnist and literary critic at The Atlantic, Vanity Fair, Slate, World Affairs, The Nation, Free Inquiry, and became a media fellow at the...
. The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and PracticeThe Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice is a book by Christopher Hitchens about Mother Teresa's life and work. The book criticizes Teresa as a political opportunist who adopted the guise of a saint in order to raise money and spread an extreme religious ideology...
. London: Verso, 1996. ISBN 1-85984-054-X
- Le Joly, Edward. Mother Teresa of Calcutta. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1983. ISBN 0-06-065217-9.
- Muggeridge, Malcolm
Thomas Malcolm Muggeridge was an English journalist, author, media personality, and satirist. During World War II, he was a soldier and a spy...
. Something Beautiful for God. ISBN 0-06-066043-0.
- Muntaykkal, T.T. Blessed Mother Teresa: Her Journey to Your Heart. ISBN 1-903650-61-5. ISBN 0-7648-1110-X. .
- Scott, David. A Revolution of Love: The Meaning of Mother Teresa. Chicago: Loyola Press, 2005. ISBN 0829420312.
- Sebba, Anne. Mother Teresa: Beyond the Image. New York: Doubleday, 1997. ISBN 0-385-48952-8.
- Slavicek, Louise. Mother Teresa. New York: Infobase Publishing, 2007. ISBN 0791094332.
- Spink, Kathryn. Mother Teresa: A Complete Authorized Biography. New York: HarperCollins, 1997. ISBN 0062508253
- Teresa, Mother et al., Mother Teresa: In My Own Words. Gramercy Books, 1997. ISBN 0-517-20169-0.
- Teresa, Mother & Kolodiejchuk, Brian, Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light, New York: Doubleday, 2007. ISBN 0385520379.
- Williams, Paul. Mother Teresa. Indianapolis: Alpha Books, 2002. ISBN 0-02-864278-3.
- Wüllenweber, Walter. "Nehmen ist seliger denn geben. Mutter Teresa—wo sind ihre Millionen?" Stern (illustrated German weekly), 10 September 1998. English translation.
- Navin Chawla
Naveen , a controversial Indian bureaucrat , is a retired chief election commissioner of India. As Chief Election Commissioner, Navin Chawla oversaw the last 4 phases of Indian general election to Loksabha in April–May 2009...
. Mother Teresa: The Authorized Biography. Diane Pub Co. (March 1992). ISBN 978-0756755485. First published by Sinclair-Stevenson, U.K. (1992), since translated into 14 languages in India and abroad. Indian languageThe languages of India belong to several language families, the major ones being the Indo-European languages—Indo-Aryan and the Dravidian languages...
editions include HindiStandard Hindi, or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi, also known as Manak Hindi , High Hindi, Nagari Hindi, and Literary Hindi, is a standardized and sanskritized register of the Hindustani language derived from the Khariboli dialect of Delhi...
, BengaliBengali or Bangla is an eastern Indo-Aryan language. It is native to the region of eastern South Asia known as Bengal, which comprises present day Bangladesh, the Indian state of West Bengal, and parts of the Indian states of Tripura and Assam. It is written with the Bengali script...
, GujaratiGujarati is an Indo-Aryan language, and part of the greater Indo-European language family. It is derived from a language called Old Gujarati which is the ancestor language of the modern Gujarati and Rajasthani languages...
, MalayalamMalayalam , is one of the four major Dravidian languages of southern India. It is one of the 22 scheduled languages of India with official language status in the state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Pondicherry. It is spoken by 35.9 million people...
, TamilTamil is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It has official status in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and in the Indian union territory of Pondicherry. Tamil is also an official language of Sri Lanka and Singapore...
, TeluguTelugu is a Central Dravidian language primarily spoken in the state of Andhra Pradesh, India, where it is an official language. It is also spoken in the neighbouring states of Chattisgarh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Orissa and Tamil Nadu...
, and KannadaKannada or , is a language spoken in India predominantly in the state of Karnataka. Kannada, whose native speakers are called Kannadigas and number roughly 50 million, is one of the 30 most spoken languages in the world...
. The foreign language editions include FrenchFrench is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, GermanGerman is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
, DutchDutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
, SpanishSpanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
, ItalianItalian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
, PolishPolish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...
, Japaneseis a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
, and ThaiThai , also known as Central Thai and Siamese, is the national and official language of Thailand and the native language of the Thai people, Thailand's dominant ethnic group. Thai is a member of the Tai group of the Tai–Kadai language family. Historical linguists have been unable to definitively...
. In both Indian and foreign languages, there have been multiple editions. The bulk of royalty income goes to charity.
- Eileen Egan
Eileen Egan was a journalist, Roman Catholic pacifist and activist, and co-founder of the Catholic peace group, American PAX Association and its successor Pax Christi-USA, the American branch of International Pax Christi...
and Kathleen Egan, OSB. Prayertimes with Mother Teresa: A New Adventure in Prayer, Doubleday, 1989. ISBN 978-0385-26231-6.
- Brian Kolodiejchuk
Father Brian Kolodiejchuk, MC, Ph.D. is the postulator of the Cause of Beatification and Canonization of Mother Teresa of Calcutta and director of the Mother Teresa Center. He edited and wrote the commentary for the book Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light, published by Doubleday, on September 4,...
(ed.). Mother Teresa: Come be My Light, Doubleday, 2007, ISBN 978-0385-52037-9.
- Raghu Rai
Raghu Rai is an Indian photographer and photojournalist. A protege of Henri Cartier-Bresson who appointed Rai, then a young photojournalist to Magnum Photos in 1977, which he co-founded....
and Navin Chawla. Faith and Compassion: The Life and Work of Mother Teresa. Element Books Ltd. (December 1996). ISBN 978-1852309121. Translated also into Dutch and Spanish.
- Vimla Mehta & Veerendra Raj Mehta, ‘’Mother Teresa Inspiring Incidents’’, Publications division, Ministry of I&B, Govt. of India, 2004, ISBN 81-230-1167-9.
External links
- Mother Teresa of Calcutta Center, India – Official Site
- Missionaries of Charity Brothers (Active Branch)
- Mother Teresa and her patron saint, St. Therese of Lisieux
- Mother Teresa Memorial Page
- Mother Teresa Women`s University, Kodaikanal, Tamil Nadu, India – Official site
- Nobel Laureate Biography (Nobel Foundation)
- Complete Mother Teresa Quotations
- The TIME 100: The Most Important People of the Century – Mother Teresa
- Missionaries of Charity Fathers (MC Fathers / MC Priests) – Official Website: Biography of Mother Teresa
- Mother Teresa's Crisis of Faith (TIME.com)
- Speech at National Prayer Breakfast, Washington, D.C. 3 February 1994
- Peggy Noonan, "Still, Small Voice," Crisis, 1 February 1998 (account of the National Prayer Breakfast speech)
- Missionaries of Charity Active and Contemplative Sisters with U.S. contact information (CMSWR member page)
- India to give Mother Teresa state funeral, CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
- "Mother Teresa of Calcutta" Website of Sally Warner
- "Mother Teresa, John Paul II, and the Fast-Track Saints" by Michael Parenti
Michael Parenti is an award-winning, internationally known American political scientist, historian, and culture critic who has been writing on a wide range of both scholarly and popular subjects for over forty years. He has taught at several universities and colleges and has been a frequent guest...
, CommonDreams.org, 22 October 2007
- Biography: Mother Teresa
- "The Illusory vs The Real Mother Teresa", by Michael Hakeem, is a review of Christopher Hitchens
Christopher Eric Hitchens is an Anglo-American author and journalist whose books, essays, and journalistic career span more than four decades. He has been a columnist and literary critic at The Atlantic, Vanity Fair, Slate, World Affairs, The Nation, Free Inquiry, and became a media fellow at the...
' The Missionary Position.
- Christopher Hitchens' article: "Mommie Dearest" in Slate
Slate is a US-based English language online current affairs and culture magazine created in 1996 by former New Republic editor Michael Kinsley, initially under the ownership of Microsoft as part of MSN. On 21 December 2004 it was purchased by the Washington Post Company...
, 20 October 2003
- "The squalid truth behind the legacy of Mother Teresa" by Donal MacIntyre in the New Statesman
New Statesman is a British centre-left political and cultural magazine published weekly in London. Founded in 1913, and connected with leading members of the Fabian Society, the magazine reached a circulation peak in the late 1960s....
, 22 August 2005
- "Mother Teresa: Where are her millions?", Stern
Stern is a weekly news magazine published in Germany. It was founded in 1948 by Henri Nannen, and is currently published by Gruner + Jahr, a subsidiary of Bertelsmann. In the first quarter of 2006, its print run was 1.019 million copies and it reached 7.84 million readers according to...
10 September 1998.
- "Mother Teresa's House of Illusions" by Susan Shields