Oh mother...By: Mayank Shekhar

[cfcoelho]

Oh mother...
 
 By: Mayank Shekhar
   October 22, 2003
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Blessed’ Mother will turn ‘Saint’ Teresa come ‘second miracle’ ordained from heaven — where she surely is (if there is a ‘heaven’).

It is Vatican’s business who they canonise — grant ‘sainthood’ to. It is the present Pope’s business that he has bestowed this status on 476 mortals and beatified (like the Mother) 1,318 human beings in 25 years. That beats all the Popes in the past four centuries combined. Yes, that’s Vatican’s business, not ours.

My concern though is the brouhaha generated over a globally televised, mother of all shows on Sunday — to celebrate obscurantism and superstition.

Let’s face it. The reason more than a quarter million — Indian tricolour-holders included — flocked to the St Peter’s Square, Vatican City, vis-à-vis Mother Teresa, was not her birth/death anniversary.

The reason was a tribal woman Monica Besra who had approached the sisters of the Missionaires of Charity with a stomach tumour. The sisters had apparently pressed a religious medallion to Besra’s abdomen. Five hours later, the malignant tumour was gone.

So let’s glue to our TV sets, scour the sudden heap of newsprint on the Mother and let’s sing for her. Because the Mother posthumously performed a ‘miracle’ and hence is getting beatified (read be-ye-tified, if you slept through the weekend). And hence the jamboree.

Ignore Monica’s doctors who insist the tumour was treated using drugs for nine months. If untrue, a larger crowd should gather outside Missionaires offices in 132 countries, since they possess the ‘holy medallion’ — the ultimate cure for cancer — which we just celebrated. Christopher Hitchens’s film Hell’s Angels based on his 1996 controversial book showed scenes of the Mother hobnobbing with the Haitian dictator/mass murderer Jean Claude Duvalier (Baby Doc). Hitchens spoke of her associations with racketeer Charles Keating and disgraced tycoon Robert Maxwell to obtain funds for her organisation.

The film was banned from Kolkata’s recent Mother Teresa film festival, on the Vatican pretext that “simple people believe every book or film as gospel truth.” The church however never denied Hitchens’s charges, so they are true. As are evidences that her institutions offered rudimentary services to the poor, despite vast available funds. We’re aware of the Mother’s staunch position on family planning, ironical, given that she belonged to a congested Calcutta that can do with contraception, like the rest of this country.

Yet, no one in the world denies that the Macedonian-born Mother, by virtue of her contribution towards the poverty stricken was a great human being. Greater perhaps, than the greatest. Yet; a human being. So, as her detractors showed, not infallible.

We felt happy when she bagged the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979, though one may ignore her acceptance speech exhort: “the greatest threat to world peace is abortion.” We cheered for her Bharat Ratna, the highest civilian honour in India she deserved.

But a “fast track to sainthood”? It only does two things. One, ordinary do-gooders cease to aspire to work hard and become another ‘Mother Teresa’, since she was a ‘saint’, not ‘one of us’ to emulate.

Second, it gives unnecessary credence to her critics who swore she was more her religion’s preserve, than a straight and   simple-looking one, whose heart bled for the poor.

The Mother must have ‘turned in her grave’ of late. She abhorred being centre of attention, her interviewer Massie once noted. When Massie wanted to raise funds for her, she asked him not to use her name to generate publicity. Contrast this to the ongoing Mother Teresa rock show, film festival, exhibitions, musical… at Kolkata. ‘Mother’ mementos on Rome’s streets. Or tour operators who charged up to $3,000 to witness the ‘saint of gutters’ beatification ceremony.  

When the Mother’s interviewer Massie once introduced someone to her, the visitor bent to kiss her hand. The nun quickly held the crucifix, so that the man paid homage to it, not her. Contrast this to the latest ‘sainthood’ charade. Her sisters on earth must now produce second evidence of a miracle performed from heaven — the Pope’s pre-condition. If and when that happens (surely it will) non-believers, believers, ignoramuses, don’t-cares at Kolkata, India or the globe won’t stop to question it.

This time, they will just go berserk.

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DEAR MELODY MAKERS IN CHRIST JESUS,

ANOTHER BLASPHEMY IN THE PRESS .LET ME HAVE YOUR COMMENTS ON THE ABOVE COLUMN.

BE BLESSED,GOD LOVES YOU

COLIN FELIX COELHO

[Melody]

Ah Colin!

You asked for my comments on the articles, so I must give it. Though truth be told, I much rather ignore articles like these!

The writer himself tries to get so many different points of view in the article that it comes across as sketchy to say the least. Is he against Mother Teresa?  He obviously tries hard to show he's not, by praising her in the last two paras, yet he also not so subtly mentions the ‘Hell's Angel’ film & it contents. Is he against the church? He starts the article trying to show neutrality "It is Vatican’s business who they canonize" yet he still questions the Pope's decision.

The question as I see it is not "Is Mother Teresa saint worthy?" rather "Who decides someone is saint worthy?". In the Catholic Church we believe that someone is the Pope (not a newspaper columnist!). And our present Pope has decided that Mother Teresa is saint worthy. Matter closed.

All this article does is defame Mother Teresa. Jesus warned us about this when He said "Then you will be handed over to be persecuted... you will be hated...because of me." (Math 24:9)  Mother Teresa was indeed a living saint, as she bore such persecutions during her lifetime (which continue even after her death!) and still lived only to love Jesus and serve Him through her fellow beings.

If that's not something to emulate, I don't know what is.

[Seeker]

Very perceptive Melody!  The author makes his real motives known with such statements as "to celebrate obscurantism and superstition", "the latest ‘sainthood’ charade", "The church however never denied Hitchens’s charges, so they are true."

A few other things the author says are either speculation or a misunderstanding of what it means for someone to be a saint.

Because the Mother posthumously performed a ‘miracle’ ...

The Church never claimed Blessed Mother Teresa performed the miracle.  It was through her prayerful intercession that God performed the miracle.

Ignore Monica’s doctors who insist the tumour was treated using drugs for nine months.

The Vatican investigates thoroughly every angle of a "miracle" to make sure there is no natural explanation.  It's not in their (and our) best interest that they claim a miracle has occurred if it hasn't.  Surely, if Mayank Shekhar knows about the doctors claims of treating Monica Besra's tumor, the Vatican would have looked into it and their experts would have determined whether that could have possibly been the cause of the tumor disappearing so quickly.  My understanding is that the Vatican is very careful to investigate all possibilities before claiming there is no natural explanation for something and that it must have been a miracle.

Christopher Hitchens’s film Hell’s Angels based on his 1996 controversial book showed scenes of the Mother hobnobbing with the Haitian dictator/mass murderer Jean Claude Duvalier (Baby Doc). Hitchens spoke of her associations with racketeer Charles Keating and disgraced tycoon Robert Maxwell to obtain funds for her organisation.

I don't know much about these claims by Hitchens.  I would look at it with a critical eye though.  It implies Mother Teresa obtained lots of money from criminals and was friends with a mass murderer.  Just because someone makes a movie, or writes a book doesn't mean that it is true, or that what it implies is true.  I would wonder what the context of her associations with these unsavory characters is.  Jesus' enemies used the fact that he ate with sinners against him.  Yet Jesus was there to teach sinners and exhort them to repentance.  Mother could have been doing the same thing as Jesus for all I know.  To me, this doesn't change anything about her personal holiness.

As are evidences that her institutions offered rudimentary services to the poor, despite vast available funds.

He says some nice things about Blessed Mother Teresa even while he accuses her of holding back funds from the poor.  What are these vast available funds the author's talking about and what were they used for instead of aiding the poor?  To make a claim like this without offering proof, is just plain wrong.

We’re aware of the Mother’s staunch position on family planning, ironical, given that she belonged to a congested Calcutta that can do with contraception, like the rest of this country.

This again shows the author's bias.  My understanding is that the Sisters taught Natural Family Planning.  She was, after all, a Catholic nun.  Why would the author hold it against her that she didn't push artificial contraception?  Mother was concerned most of all, for people's eternal salvation.  The truth is, artificial contraception would compound the problem by demeaning human life, but that is a topic for another thread.
 

We felt happy when she bagged the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979, though one may ignore her acceptance speech exhort: “the greatest threat to world peace is abortion.”

Another bias.  The wholesale destruction of innocents out of convenience is a threat to world peace as much as any act of genocide.  Besides, abortion is a symptom of a philosophy that demeans human life and is a real source of violence around the world.

But a “fast track to sainthood”? It only does two things. One, ordinary do-gooders cease to aspire to work hard and become another ‘Mother Teresa’, since she was a ‘saint’, not ‘one of us’ to emulate.

The author couldn't be more wrong!  Catholic saints are our real life heroes who's lives are there for us to emulate and model.  They show us the grace of God at work and inspire us to do more.  If you read the lives of the saints, you will see they struggled with the same things we do.  It is precisely because they are one of us that the Church holds them up as models.

The author finishes with examples of Mother's humility.  More reason that she is a model for all of us.

Just as Jesus' enemies did in the Bible, many will seek to tear down the holy.  They don't like the message.  So if they can somehow tear down the messenger, then they feel that they can show the message is wrong.  To me, the author admits that Mother did good things, only as a disguise to discredit her and her message.  Just my humble opinion.