25 Photographs of Mother Teresa and Her Cult of Suffering

25 Photographs of Mother Teresa and Her Cult of Suffering

Jacob Miller - July 26, 2017

Mother Teresa was an Albanian-Indian Roman Catholic nun and missionary. In 1950 she founded the Missionaries of Charity, a religious congregation which had over 4,500 sisters and was active in 133 countries by 2012. The congregation manages hospices, soup kitchens, offers family counseling programs, orphanages, and schools. Members take vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience, and to give “wholehearted free service to the poorest of the poor.”

Teresa received the Ramon Magsaysay Peace Prize in 1962, the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979, and was eventually canonized as a saint in 2016.

Teresa has also been heavily criticized for propagating a “cult of suffering” by glorifying illness instead of treating it. Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya, the mayor of Kolkata from 2005-2010 stated that “[Teresa] had no significant impact on the poor of the city.” Secretary Giriraj Kishore said, of Teresa that “her first duty was to the Church and her social service was incidental,” accusing her of favoring Christians and conducting ‘secret baptisms’ of the dying. In 2015, Mohan Bhagwat, leader of the Hindu organization Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, said that Teresa’s objective was “to convert the person, who was being served, into a Christian.”

Teresa’s clinics received millions of dollars in donations but lacked medical care, systematic diagnosis, necessary nutrition and sufficient painkillers to treat those in pain. Teresa believed that the sick must suffer like Christ on the cross. One woman Teresa spoke with “was dying of cancer in a most terrible condition. And [Teresa] told her, ‘You know, this terrible pain is only the kiss of Jesus — a sign that you have come so close to Jesus on the cross that he can kiss you.’ And she joined her hands together and said, ‘Mother Teresa, please tell Jesus to stop kissing me.”

English journalist Christopher Hitchens wrote “This returns us to the medieval corruption of the Church, which sold indulgences to the rich while preaching hellfire and continence to the poor. [Mother Teresa] was not a friend of the poor. She was a friend of poverty. She was a fanatic, a fundamentalist, and a fraud“. She said that suffering was a gift from God. She spent her life opposing the only known cure for poverty, which is the empowerment of women and the emancipation of them from a livestock version of compulsory reproduction.”

Hemley Gonzalez, a migrant from Cuba, was inspired after reading a biography of Mother Teresa. In 2008, he went to Kalighat, where the Pure Heart Home for the Dying and Destitute is, and volunteered for two months.

“I was shocked to see the negligence. Needles were washed in cold water and reused and expired medicines were given to the inmates. There were people who had a chance to live if given proper care,” says Gonzales. He spoke of incidents of an untrained volunteer wrongly feeding a paralyzed inmate, who choked to his death; and another where an infected toe of an inmate was cut without anesthesia.

Gonzales has decided to go back to Kolkata to start a charity called ‘Responsible Charity.’ Each donation is made public and professional medical help is given.

Questions are often raised as to why donations can’t be used to improve the service at the homes run by the sisters. “Even the inmates’ soiled and infected clothes are washed by hands. Why can’t they buy a washing machine?”

When asked about how much money the Charity gets annually, the then superior general Sister Nirmala in a rare media interview a few years ago remarked “Countless.” When asked how much it was, she answered, “God knows. He is our banker.”

25 Photographs of Mother Teresa and Her Cult of Suffering
Mother Teresa (left) is seen with Hillary Clinton, who was first lady at the time, at the opening of a home for infants in Washington, D.C., in 1995 PHOTO:CBC
25 Photographs of Mother Teresa and Her Cult of Suffering
Mother Teresa at one of her hospitals. Doctors have described as deficient in hygiene, care, nutrition, and painkillers. exchristian
25 Photographs of Mother Teresa and Her Cult of Suffering
Mother Teresa conferred with Founders Award posthumously in UK. The Indian Express
25 Photographs of Mother Teresa and Her Cult of Suffering
Mother Teresa at the home for the Dying, Mother Teresa’s Missions of Charity, Calcutta, India, 1980. CNN
25 Photographs of Mother Teresa and Her Cult of Suffering
Pope John Paul II greets Mother Teresa of Calcutta. Deccan Chronicle
25 Photographs of Mother Teresa and Her Cult of Suffering
Mother Teresa in India. Pinterest
25 Photographs of Mother Teresa and Her Cult of Suffering
November 26, 1996 shows Mother Teresa being transferred on a stretcher, with plenty of top medical care. gulfnews
25 Photographs of Mother Teresa and Her Cult of Suffering
In the washing room nuns gather up rags and sheets to boil in vats in the rear. The white door leads to the morgue, where the body of the man at right will be delivered. maryellenmark
25 Photographs of Mother Teresa and Her Cult of Suffering
Mother Teresa became a saint in 2016 for her work with Missionaries of Charity. Nyoooz
25 Photographs of Mother Teresa and Her Cult of Suffering
Mother Teresa meeting Princess Diana during a visit to a convent in Rome. Daily Mail
25 Photographs of Mother Teresa and Her Cult of Suffering
Mother Teresa was a Nobel peace prize winner and was widely viewed as a symbol of kindness and charity during her lifetime. Daily Mail
25 Photographs of Mother Teresa and Her Cult of Suffering
Mother Teresa with a sickly child. whatsmovingindia
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