Controversy and critics
Christopher Hitchens and Aroup Chatterjee
Christopher Hitchens is a British-born journalist now living in
Washington, D.C.. He described Mother Teresa's organization as a
cult which promoted suffering and did not help those in need. In Hitchens' interpretation, Mother Teresa's own words on poverty proved that "her intention was not to help people." He quoted Mother Teresa's words at a 1981 press conference in which she was asked: "Do you teach the poor to endure their lot?" She replied: "I think it is very beautiful for the poor to accept their lot, to share it with the passion of
Christ. I think the world is being much helped by the suffering of the poor people."
Hitchens further alleged that Mother Teresa lied to donors about what their contributions were to be used for. Donors, he says, were told that the money went to aid and the construction of healthcare facilities in India and elsewhere. Evidence points to it instead being spent largely on missionary work and that Mother Teresa was actually the controller of some of the funds. No hospitals were ever built. In 1994, Hitchens published an article in
The Nation entitled "The Ghoul of Calcutta".
Hitchens, with British journalist
Tariq Ali, co-produced a
television documentary for the
UK's Channel 4 called
Hell's Angel, which was based on Aroup Chatterjee's work. Although he has never disputed the documentary's conclusions, Chatterjee criticized what he called the "sensationalist" approach of the film. The next year Hitchens published
The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice, which contained much of the same content, though with more references.
Dr. Aroup Chatterjee is the author of
"Mother Teresa: The Final Verdict" (2003). Dr. Chatterjee maintains that the public image of Mother Teresa as a helper of the poor, the sick, and the dying was misleading and overstated; the number of people who are served by even the largest of the homes is not nearly as large as westerners are led to believe.
[1]
Chatterjee alleged that many operations of the order engage in no absolutely charitable activity at all, but instead use their funds for missionary work. He stated, for example, that none of the eight facilities that the Missionaries of Charity run in
Papua New Guinea have residents living there; their sole use is converting people to Catholicism. Some defenders of the order argue that missionary activity already declared in the name of the order was a central part of Mother Teresa's calling.
[2] In an open letter to Mother Teresa
[3] Chatterjee asked for clarification. In the letter, he quotes her as having given numbers of 57,000 helped at a single facility, 250,000 helped at another, thousands helped daily at another. He is most highly critical of the informality of the numbers she uses.
[4] According to a
Stern magazine report about Mother Teresa, the
Protestant-aligned
Assembly of God charity serves 18,000 meals daily in Calcutta, many more than all the Missionaries of Charity's homes combined.
Chatterjee has stated that although he was responsible for Christopher Hitchens becoming involved with this cause, he is critical of Hitchens for what Chatterjee refers to as Hitchens' "sensationalist" approach and regrets Hitchens' involvement because he undermines the cause of making the truth known.
[5]
Chatterjee contends that families of the residents of its homes were not allowed to visit their loved ones and that, among India's charitable organizations, Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity is the only one which refuses to release a public financial account. Hitchens asserts, "I would say it was a certainty that millions of people died because of her work, and millions more were made poorer, stupider, more sick, more diseased, more fearful, and more ignorant".
Susan Shields
Susan Shields is a former member of Mother Teresa's order who is now critical of her, especially regarding the following of monastic tradition and vows of poverty and obedience to the Catholic church. Shields also questions whether being poor is the best way to help other poor, and if redemptive suffering is really conducive in helping them. Having been in Mother Teresa's order for ten years, she states that large transactions of cash occurred; most were deposited in the Vatican Bank. Shields claims she has no knowledge how this money was used, but believes Mother Teresa did a disservice to the poor and unsuspecting nuns in the order.
[6]
Criticism for baptisms
In addition to these primary critics Mother Teresa has garnered criticism for her encouragement of sacramental baptisms being performed on the dying (a majority of which were
Hindus and
Muslims) into the Catholic faith. These were done without regard to the individuals' religion. In a speech at the Scripps Clinic in
San Diego,
California in January, 1992, she said, "Something very beautiful... not one has died without receiving the special ticket for
St. Peter, as we call it. We call baptism 'a ticket for St. Peter.' We ask the person, do you want a blessing by which your sins will be forgiven and you receive God? They have never refused. So 29,000 have died in that one house [in Kalighat] from the time we began in 1952."
Criticism of medical care provided
In 1991, Dr. Robin Fox, then editor of the British medical journal The Lancet, visited the Home for Dying Destitute in Calcutta and described the medical care the patients received as "haphazard". He observed that sisters and volunteers, some of whom had no medical knowledge, had to make decisions about patient care, because of the lack of doctors in the hospice. Dr. Fox specifically held Teresa responsible for conditions in this home, and observed that her order did not distinguish between curable and incurable patients; people who could otherwise survive their ordeals would be at a heightened risk of dying from infections and lack of treatment.
Fox conceded that the regimen he observed included cleanliness, the tending of wounds and sores, and kindness, but he noted that the sisters' approach to managing pain was "disturbingly lacking". The formulary at the facility Fox visited lacked strong
analgesics which he felt clearly separated Mother Teresa's approach from the
hospice movement. Fox also wrote that needles were rinsed with warm water, which left them inadequately sterilized, and the facility did not isolate patients with
tuberculosis.
There have been a series of other reports documenting inattention to medical care in the order's facilities. Similar points of view have also been expressed by some former volunteers who worked for
Teresa's order.
