Mother Teresa Controversy

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Mother Teresa is widely praised for doing charitable works, caring for the sick, and condemning abortion. She founded the Missionaries of Charity, a religious congregation that cares for people dying of leprosy, tuberculosis, and HIV/AIDS. The congregation also runs soup kitchens, mobile clinics, orphanages, and schools. Mother Teresa recently became a saint of the Roman Catholic Church, 19 years after her death. Pope Francis has proclaimed her a saint on September 4 in front of Saint Peter’s masses but this canonization reignited criticisms of Mother Teresa and her congregation.

Mother Teresa lived with compassion and strong dedication to her calling of aiding impoverished people all around the world. With her skills, she managed to build …show more content…

After her death, the rumors that had only murmured until then finally broke the surface. Mother Teresa has become an exemplary figure of the power of media. As many of her critics are quick to start on, was she not built purely on myth and word alone? Mother Teresa rose to prominence because of the widespread attention the media and the Vatican had endowed her. Teresa mastered the art of marketing: carefully cultivating her image in a sea of politicians and UN leaders with her fastly growing empire. If anything, it was the greatest means of income and advertisement of the Church. The greatest problem with such a move is that her institutions failed at becoming a substantial or truly meaningful movement. Reports of appalling neglect, horrible conditions, and inhumane treatment quickly sprang out in criticism of her legendary altruism. Her fanaticism led to this kind of treatment, quickly backed up with her words: “There is something beautiful in seeing the poor accept their lot, to suffer it like Christ’s passion. The world gains much from their suffering.” As she wholly believed that to suffer was to become closer to Christ, those “saved” by her charity suffered inefficient and inattentive care; left to be jabbed by unsterilized, recycled needles; to starve rotten on beds; and left in agonizing pain as the “Houses of the Dying” lacked strong analgesics. Both the …show more content…

She not only accepted donations from infamous characters such as Robert Maxwell, a British publisher convicted for embezzlement, Fraud artist Charles Keating, and Haitian dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier but she supported and lauded them as well. She protected the likes of pedophile priest Donald McGuire, bluntly ignoring and washing away his gross acts because of his holiness. The outright mismanagement of funds was clearly seen in the piteous conditions of her hospices whilst billions poured in- and simply did not appear again. While she loved the idea of suffering and poverty with zeal, she relegated these to the people that she was meant to help. Teresa herself received the best medical attention in her last years, zipping in private jets with the blessing of corrupt cronies. As a staunch fundamentalist, she rejected the ideas that could save and solve the problems of the poor such as the empowerment of women, in the form of contraception and abortion. Being a proud Catholic, she disregarded the wishes and beliefs of the dying, baptizing and granting only the Catholic final rites on them. This only highlighted that Teresa did not do it out of the pure goodness of her heart but held ulterior motives; one of which can be clearly identified as forceful Catholic

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