Mother Teresa made a 'saint'!

[Sunstone]

It's hard for me to get past the notion that Teresa refused pain medications to suffering people, and in other ways also promoted suffering; and that she saw suffering as somehow spiritually beneficial.

In that, she may have been expressing a commonplace attitude towards suffering, but if so, it is noteworthy that that attitude is spiritually bankrupt, and therefore foolish.

I believe that anyone who experiences suffering, and keeps an open, observant mind about it, can easily note that suffering focuses them on themselves, and is thus self or ego-aggrandizing.

And if they are lucky enough to have experienced at some time in their lives a certain kind of love, then they can further note that suffering does not teach them anything that can be called truly profound in comparison to what that love has taught them. In short, there are few or no spiritual benefits to suffering.

At least, that's how I see it based on my own experience.

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

No one can make some one a saint. You can recognise them to be a saint.

 

[metis]

BTW, the early church used the word "saint" quite a bit, believing that those who died believing in Jesus were saints, but also those that were living as well. Thus "the communion of saints" included the living praying for the dead and the dead praying for the living.

So, some question for yas: Do you believe in praying for people? Do you pray for the dead? Do you believe the dead can pray for you?

 

[Twilight Hue]

What does sinology have to do with the Catholic church?

Its the academic study of China!

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

BTW, the early church used the word "saint" quite a bit, believing that those who died believing in Jesus were saints, but also those that were living as well. Thus "the communion of saints" included the living praying for the dead and the dead praying for the living.

So, some question for yas: Do you believe in praying for people? Do you pray for the dead? Do you believe the dead can pray for you?

The word Saint has changed in meaning over time. The early church referred to themselves as saints. It was not a special higher status.
This is the same way that the Latter day saints use the term.

Perhaps a majority of christians pray for the souls of the departed. But it does depend somewhat on what you mean by pray.
I do not know if the departed ever pray, or need to, if they are in communion with God.
It is not quite like putting a good word in with the boss.

 

[metis]

The word Saint has changed in meaning over time. The early church referred to themselves as saints. It was not a special higher status.
This is the same way that the Latter day saints use the term.

Perhaps a majority of christians pray for the souls of the departed. But it does depend somewhat on what you mean by pray.
I do not know if the departed ever pray, or need to, if they are in communion with God.
It is not quite like putting a good word in with the boss.

How do you know "It is not quite like putting a good word in with the boss"? If I can pray for you and you can pray for me, and if one believes that the deceased are still very much alive but in a different way, why can't they pray for us?

BTW, I decided to start a new thread entitled "Can the living pray for the dead & vice versa"?

 

[Kelly of the Phoenix]

Jesus did say "leave the dead to bury the dead" and "the poor you will always have".

And it was just as cold-hearted when HE said it.

Everyone has an axe to grind, and thinks they can do a better job, even those close to her. Let's give the woman a break.

People died in horrible agony because of her?

And she actually seldom got credit for all the works she would do, even though she was somewhat famous. A lot was done in the shadows that never made "headlines".

I'm less interested in the fact she didn't get credit for things she did and that not enough "credit" is being given to the things she said she did but did not.

I am amazed, some have such hate of her and these same people admire phony politicians who are totally selfish and corrupt and actually call such elitist government class demons who have been looting the people for decades as "caring about the poor" or whatever.

I grew up thinking of her as a saint. Then the darker stuff started to come to light. I don't hate her as much as I'm severely disappointed whenever a hero goes down in flames (so to speak). Besides, I thought it was common knowledge that politicians are phony. Unless they're certain members of the GOP, they usually don't go around claiming to be saints sent by God or whatever.

I'm not a fan of her, myself. What a screwed up woman. The threshold for Sainthood appears quite low these days.

I'd rather have Mr. Rogers than her, to be honest.

I guess the question I have to ask to maybe a couple people here is what have you done that has contributed more than Mother Teresa?

As a nurse I don't actively try to keep people suffering. That automatically puts me above the bar she set for herself.

No one can make some one a saint. You can recognise them to be a saint.

According to Jesus, since she's been publically rewarded for her deeds, she now gets no reward for it in heaven.

 

[Jainarayan]

People died in horrible agony because of her?

Whatever she did for them was more than they were getting lying in the streets, starving and dying in horrible agony.

I personally don't care one way or another whether she was a saint or a demon, what chaps my butt is all the people sitting at their computers, reading books and magazine articles about a person they never met in a place they've never been to from people they never met and talking all high and mighty as if they had tea with her every day, or lurked behind doors as she drained people's blood and drank it.

 

[SkepticThinker]

Whatever she did for them was more than they were getting lying in the streets, starving and dying in horrible agony.

I personally don't care one way or another whether she was a saint or a demon, what chaps my butt is all the people sitting at their computers, reading books and magazine articles about a person they never met in a place they've never been to from people they never met and talking all high and mighty as if they had tea with her every day, or lurked behind doors as she drained people's blood and drank it.

Not really. They just ended up starving and dying in horrible agony indoors instead, in a pile of filth. I don't see anything saintly or noble in basically just forcing people to die in that sort of filth, especially if they had a curable illness that could have been healed had she just sent them to a real hospital.

 

[Servant_of_the_One1]

So they regard her forced conversions to be divine inspired?

 

[Jainarayan]

Not really. They just ended up starving and dying in horrible agony indoors instead, in a pile of filth. I don't see anything saintly or noble in basically just forcing people to die in that sort of filth, especially if they had a curable illness that could have been healed had she just sent them to a real hospital.

Do you know all this for a fact, or is it gleaned from those books and magazines I referred to? Again, I could not care less one way or another, but who on this forum was there to see it all to be speaking with such certainty?

 

[viole]

Ye gods that ghastly woman was no sort of saint! She would sooner see people suffer than allow them to have pain relief! I met someone years ago who had worked with her, they didn't think much of her!

Well, I share Hitchens view that Mother Teresa loved poverty, not the poor. After all, it seems plausible that Catholics would vanish without a reservoir of desperate people. Their irrational opposition to birth control seems to confirm that.

But I always wondered how it works. Metaphysically. Did she, Jesus, God and the Holy Spirit, wait for promotion until the pope decided so? Didn't they know already that she performed the minimum amount of miracles necessary to apply for the position?

Ciao

- viole

 

[Twilight Hue]

Whatever she did for them was more than they were getting lying in the streets, starving and dying in horrible agony.

I personally don't care one way or another whether she was a saint or a demon, what chaps my butt is all the people sitting at their computers, reading books and magazine articles about a person they never met in a place they've never been to from people they never met and talking all high and mighty as if they had tea with her every day, or lurked behind doors as she drained people's blood and drank it.

I think most people focus on the results as opposed to the person, and take it from there.

Best people to ask as I see it on such opinions, would actually be those who came directly under her care, taking any had survived their aliment and elaborated, and can provide insight as to exactly what the type of person she was in life.

It's actually turning out to be pretty hard to find names and first hand accounts of such people.

Either way, it's clear enough the Missionaries of Charity is not wildly regarded as being a proper medical facility.

Likely a core reason for most of the harshest critisim directed at the Mother as to why it was so, when her order had racked in millions of dollars that could have easily brought it up to a acceptable medical standard givin the plight and severity of patients under her watch.

Mother Theresa herself is said to have never underwent medical care at her own facility whenever the need requiring hospitalization arose.

People wonder about things like that.

 

[icehorse]

I don't get into whether she was a "saint" or not, but I have read enough about her over the years, including having an opportunity to meet and listen to some of the Sisters of Charity while they were visiting here in the States, and she's a "saint" in my book. Perfect, no; but she touched so many lives, including a priest that served at my wife's church and worked with her and her group for several months while in India.

I guess the question I have to ask to maybe a couple people here is what have you done that has contributed more than Mother Teresa? Just a reminder that, as the old adage goes, "talk is cheap".

The problem I see with this question is that it side-steps the "first do no harm" adage. So it could be that doing nothing would have been better than what she did.

 

[Jainarayan]

Either way, it's clear enough the Missionaries of Charity is not wildly regarded as being a proper medical facility.

No doubt.

Likely a core reason for most of the harshest critisim directed at the Mother as to why it was so, when her order had racked in millions of dollars that could have easily brought it up to a acceptable medical standard givin the plight and severity of patients under her watch.

You're probably right. And while she may have been the head of the hospital, in name, she certainly wasn't qualified as a doctor or nurse. She was a nun, from what was Yugoslavia, in one of the poorest sections of India, under the thumb of the RCC. What does that tell us?

 

[Jainarayan]

The problem I see with this question is that it side-steps the "first do no harm" adage. So it could be that doing nothing would have been better than what she did.

Primum non nocere, "first do no harm" is a credo of the medical community. She wasn't a medical professional. Further dissecting the maxim is that it is better to do nothing than to do something that will cause pain. And if that means letting a person die rather than prolonging their suffering, that's what you do. But the RCC will have none of that... keep 'em alive at all costs. And did you know it was a belief of the RCC (maybe it still is), that between a woman's life and a baby's life in childbirth, the baby's life was to be saved? The RCC taught that the mother lived her life and did her duty. That's pretty messed up. This is the loathsome stupidity Mother Theresa and her generation were indoctrinated with. So let's try not to muddy-up the issue with facts.

 

[SkepticThinker]

Do you know all this for a fact, or is it gleaned from those books and magazines I referred to? Again, I could not care less one way or another, but who on this forum was there to see it all to be speaking with such certainty?

It's gleaned from first hand accounts from those who have observed her "hospitals," from those who have worked with her and some from her own words. Where else should it come from?

 

[SkepticThinker]

I think most people focus on the results as opposed to the person, and take it from there.

Best people to ask as I see it on such opinions, would actually be those who came directly under her care, taking any had survived their aliment and elaborated, and can provide insight as to exactly what the type of person she was in life.

It's actually turning out to be pretty hard to find names and first hand accounts of such people.

Either way, it's clear enough the Missionaries of Charity is not wildly regarded as being a proper medical facility.

Likely a core reason for most of the harshest critisim directed at the Mother as to why it was so, when her order had racked in millions of dollars that could have easily brought it up to a acceptable medical standard givin the plight and severity of patients under her watch.

Mother Theresa herself is said to have never underwent medical care at her own facility whenever the need requiring hospitalization arose.

People wonder about things like that.

This ^^^

 

[Jainarayan]

Where else should it come from?

From people on this forum who actually worked with her and know so much about her. Even then I'd be skeptical because I don't know anyone here personally, nor do they know me.

Believe none of what you hear, and only half of what you see.

 

[SkepticThinker]

From people on this forum who actually worked with her and know so much about her. Even then I'd be skeptical because I don't know anyone here personally, nor do they know me.

Believe none of what you hear, and only half of what you see.

I'm pretty good at gathering information. But thanks.

Her words alone are enough to turn me off.