Skip to main content

Did Mother Teresa trivialise poverty? 'You are suffering, that means Jesus is kissing you'

By Harsh Thakor* 
The world commemorated the 25th death anniversary of Mother Teresa on September 5. Whatever her flaws, she rendered service to humanity in regions almost untranscended, resembling the relentless spirit of the waves of an ocean. Irrespective of community or religion, she offered her service.
Even those not drawn by sainthood revere the role of Mother Teresa. For 68 years, she had worked selflessly and tirelessly in India and elsewhere in the world, taught the destitute, healed the sick, fed and clothed the poor, cared for abandoned children, housed lepers and those afflicted with HIV/AIDS and offered dignity in death to desolate persons abandoned by family and society.
Mother Teresa was born in Skopje in 1910 to an Albanian family as Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu. She became wedded to religious vows at an early age and moved to India to join the missionary work of the Catholic Church. Heartshaken by the misery faced by the Indian masses, in 1950 she set up her own Missionaries of Charity, and began giving medical treatment to the dying poor of Calcutta.
It could be interpreted that Mother Teresa’s philosophy, which asked the poor to passively accept their fate, paved the way for the rich and the powerful to enslave the oppressed. Quoting Teresa, “there’s something beautiful in seeing the poor accept their lot, to suffer it like Christ’s Passion”, left people bewildered: did she trivialise poverty?
She once comforted a sufferer, with the line: “You are suffering, that means Jesus is kissing you.” The infuriated man screamed, “Then tell your Jesus to stop kissing me.” Yet as a Christian in a Hindu majority country, such Teresa words left people mesmerised.
Today the Hindu right-wing forces have launched a vendetta against Mother Teresa and Christian missionaries, resorting to persecution at times. Secular people oppose conversion but that does not mean that the social contribution of nuns towards the poor should not be recognised.
True, Mother Teresa befriended some of the world’s most savage dictators and received lavish donations from all sorts of gangsters and oligarchs. In 1981 she travelled to Haiti to be awarded the “Légion d’Honneur” by the corrupt, brutal dictator Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier. During her visit, Teresa remarked that she “had never seen poor people being so familiar with their head of state”. This head of state, so familiar with his people, would be overthrown five years later in a popular insurrection.
She also received donations, titles, and ovations from the likes of Ronald Reagan, who was colluding in the murder of socialist Catholic priests in El Salvador at the time, or the Guatemalan military junta. When Teresa visited Guatemala in 1979, the dictatorship was conducting a savage counterinsurgency campaign against the communist guerrillas and genocide against the indigenous population.
When asked about her visit, her only comment was, “Everything looked peaceful in the places we went to. I don’t get myself involved in that type of politics.” Teresa also received enormous donations from gangsters and crooks like arch-conservative financier and Nixon advisor Charles Keating, involved in a major fraud scandal.
Many questioned how she could ethically take money from the world’s most obnoxious dictators. Why was she silent about unjust wars and oppression?
Prestigious medical journals such as "The Lancet" have reported that, despite the generous funding of Teresa’s foundation, these centres were (and are) known for negligence of basic standards of hygiene, by overcrowding, by the disregard for modern medical protocols, and by an under qualified staff. She was a campaigner against women’s rights, as well as opposing birth control and abortion.
Such criticism is valid. However, on balance, thousands of Indians lives improved because of the work of Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity as compared with how they would have fared in the absence of their work. Her good outweighed whatever harm she might have created. Such drawbacks cannot deny her rendering selfless service to mankind.
Mother Teresa resurrected the spirit of a Tolstoy or a Gandhi. Her work was manifestation of the teachings of Christ
Mother Teresa didn’t deserve the unscathing attack of Marxist intellectuals like Cristopher Hitchens or of Marxist groups. Her work lit a spark to turn serving humanity or spirit of compassion into prairie fire. Mother Teresa resurrected the spirit of a Tolstoy or a Gandhi, and her work was manifestation of the teachings of Christ.
Progressives should deny miracles but should not deny Mother Teresa’s role in touching the inner spirit. Even atheists, rationalists and Marxists cannot deny her relentless dedication to serve the poor, on the lines of a social reformer. Marxists should recall the similarities of teachings of Christianity in serving the poor. Even in the colonial days we have striking examples of selfless work by missionaries.
Although she staunchly remained a Catholic, her brand of religion was not exclusive. Convinced that each person was a manifestation of Christ in suffering, she reached out to people of every faith. Her's was not the 19th-century brand of imperial evangelism. Unlike most in the Church, she understood the environment in which she lived and worked.
Jyoti Basu, that indomitable chief minister of West Bengal, on being asked what he, as a Communist and atheist, could possibly have in common with Mother Teresa, for whom God was everything, with a smile replied, “We both share a love for the poor.”
When asked how she and her mission could care for hundreds of thousands of destitute persons, and what made this possible, she explained simply but meaningfully: “You can, at best, look after a few loved ones in your family. My sisters and I can look after everyone, because for us they are all God”.
So, the leprosy-affected man bounded by his brothers in a hut, the infant left under a truck and saved just in time from prowling dogs, the woman dumped on a rubbish heap by her own son and left to die because he had now secured her property, were manifestations of her God in suffering.
Perhaps the most succinct summing up of Mother Teresa’s life and work was made by the chairman of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee, John Sannes. In his speech at the Nobel prize ceremony in Oslo in 1979, he said:
“The hallmark of her work has been respect for the individual and the individual’s worth and dignity. The loneliest and the most wretched, the dying destitute, the abandoned lepers have all been received by her and her sisters with warm compassion, devoid of condescension, based on her reverence for Christ in man.This is the life of Mother Teresa and her sisters — a life of strict poverty and long days and nights of toil, a life that affords little room for other joys but the most precious.”
It is also useful to recall what arch-atheist Karl Marx had to say about religion: "Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions."
---
*Freelance journalist who has covered mass movements around India and researched on social liberation

Comments

scoophindi said…
your this articles is very intresting and giving me good information related to mother teresa

TRENDING

'Very low rung in quality ladder': Critique of ICMR study on 'sudden deaths' post-2021

By Bhaskaran Raman*  Since about mid-2021, a new phenomenon of extreme concern has been observed throughout the world, including India : unexplained sudden deaths of seemingly healthy and active people, especially youngsters. In the recently concluded Navratri garba celebrations, an unprecedented number of young persons succumbed to heart attack deaths. After a long delay, ICMR (Indian Council for Medical Research) has finally has published a case-control study on sudden deaths among Indians of age 18-45.

Savarkar in Ahmedabad 'declared' two-nation theory in 1937, Jinnah followed 3 years later

By Our Representative One of the top freedom fighters whom BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi revere the most, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, was also a great supporter of the two nation theory for India, one for Hindus another for Muslims, claims a new expose on the man who is also known to be the original proponent of the concept of Hindutva.

Reject WHO's 'draconian' amendments on pandemic: Citizens to Union Health Minister

By Our Representative  Several concerned Indian citizens have written to the Union Health Minister to reject amendments to the International Health Regulations (IHR) of the World Health Organization (WHO) adopted during the 75th World Health Assembly (WHA75) in May 2022, apprehending this will make the signatories surrender their autonomy to the “unelected, unaccountable and the whimsical WHO in case of any future ‘pandemics’.”

A Hindu alternative to Valentine's Day? 'Shiv-Parvati was first love marriage in Universe'

By Rajiv Shah*   The other day, I was searching on Google a quote on Maha Shivratri which I wanted to send to someone, a confirmed Shiv Bhakt, quite close to me -- with an underlying message to act positively instead of being negative. On top of the search, I chanced upon an article in, imagine!, a Nashik Corporation site which offered me something very unusual. 

Swami Vivekananda's views on caste and sexuality were 'painfully' regressive

By Bhaskar Sur* Swami Vivekananda now belongs more to the modern Hindu mythology than reality. It makes a daunting job to discover the real human being who knew unemployment, humiliation of losing a teaching job for 'incompetence', longed in vain for the bliss of a happy conjugal life only to suffer the consequent frustration.

Buddhist shrines were 'massively destroyed' by Brahmanical rulers: Historian DN Jha

Nalanda mahavihara By Our Representative Prominent historian DN Jha, an expert in India's ancient and medieval past, in his new book , "Against the Grain: Notes on Identity, Intolerance and History", in a sharp critique of "Hindutva ideologues", who look at the ancient period of Indian history as "a golden age marked by social harmony, devoid of any religious violence", has said, "Demolition and desecration of rival religious establishments, and the appropriation of their idols, was not uncommon in India before the advent of Islam".

Union Health Ministry, FSSAI 'fail to respond' to NHRC directive on packaged food

By Our Representative  The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has expressed deep concern over the adverse health effects caused by packaged foods high in salt, sugar, and saturated fats. Recognizing it as a violation of the Right to Life and Right to Health of Indian citizens, the quasi-judicial body called for a response from the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) regarding its selection of front-of-pack labels aimed at providing consumers with information to make healthier choices.

Why is electricity tariff going up in India? Who is the beneficiary? A random reflection

By Thomas Franco*  Union Ministry of Power has used its power under Section 11 of the Electricity Act, 2003 to force States to import coal which has led to an increase in the cost of electricity production and every consumer is paying a higher tariff. In India, almost everybody from farmers to MSMEs are consumers of electricity.

SC 'appears to foster' culture of secrecy, does not seek electoral bond details from SBI

By Rosamma Thomas*  In its order of November 2, 2023 on the case of Association for Democratic Reforms vs Union of India contesting constitutional validity of electoral bonds, the Supreme Court directed all political parties to give particulars of the bonds received by them in sealed covers to the Election Commission of India. SC sought that information be updated until September 2023. 

British companies export 'deadly' asbestos to India, other countries from offshore offices

Inside a UK asbestos factory in 1994 before the mineral was banned By Rajiv Shah “The Sunday Times”, which forms part of the powerful British daily, “The Times”, has raised the alarm that though the “deadly” asbestos is banned in Britain, companies registered in United Kingdom, and operating from other countries, “are involved in shipping it to developing nations”, especially India. India, Brazil, Russia and China account for almost 80% of the asbestos consumed globally every year, it adds.