Mother Theresa was...

[Josquius]

It is an interesting case study of how a lot of people don't do the research and will believe the popular version of things.
Actually reading about her for an hour it does become clear that she isn't as positive as the popular impression would have it.
I don't think she actually meant bad. But certainly her religion led her to commiting harmful acts.

[The Larch]

There's a whole wikipedia page of criticism of Mother Theresa, for those interested:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Mother_Teresa

It boils down to:

- Accepting donations from unsauvory sources (Robert Maxwell and Charles Keating are the most often quoted names), as well as enjoying good relations with nasty regimes (Duvalier's Haiti, the Argentinian Junta of the late 70s, the Hoxha regime, Italian post-fascist groups...).
- The lack of almost any kind of medical care for her patients, without almost any qualified medical workers attending the sick and dying, with only aspirine being given to them and where hypodermic needles would be just washed and reused, and where people with curable diseases were left to die, all while she would fly to US hospitals when she had medical problems herself.
- That the establishments she ran didn't care for that many people, feeding only a few hundred people in her houses for the poor while other less media-friendly charities would care for several thousands.
- Not using the donations she received to improve conditions in her establishments but to expand her missionary network, perhaps deceiving her donors and/or mismanaging those funds.
- Her fundamentalistic/ultra-reactionary religious views (she was a huge opponent of the 2nd Vatican council, as well as any abortion, birth control, divorce...par for the course for a nun, I'd say, but I guess that she was still extreme inside that group). Her view of pain and suffering as a desireable thing in a religious context would also raise eyebrows, I guess.
- That on her establishments they'd routinely stealth-baptize dying people, which apparently greatly angered the Hindu and Muslim communities in Calcutta and other Indian cities where she operated.

This has been out in the open for decades already, AFAIK the facts are not in dispute and some of her criticism was directed at her during her lifetime. I guess that the only really eye opening stuff could be the fact that many people thought that their donations would serve to improve the living conditions of the people she "cared" for, rather than supporting her missionary network and religious fundamentalism. Her less than savoury relations with authoritarian regimes were well known in her lifetime, as well as her ultra conservative views, which are not far from the course from a hard core religious person. She had a public image of an saintly and compassionate agent for positive change amongst the most miserable people in the world, being given the Nobel Peace Prize for helping to overcome world poverty while she was rather a macabre fundamentalist that didn't lift a finger to alleviate poverty but thought that it was ok for poor people to resign themselves to their sorry lot on earth, whose suffering and hardships were seen by her as a positive thing.

[Berkut]

She had a public image of an saintly and compassionate agent for positive change amongst the most miserable people in the world, being given the Nobel Peace Prize for helping to overcome world poverty while she was rather a macabre fundamentalist that didn't lift a finger to alleviate poverty but thought that it was ok for poor people to resign themselves to their sorry lot on earth, whose suffering and hardships were seen by her as a positive thing.

This part is the key for me of actual legitimate horror with her as a person, in contrast to the perception of her that the public had...she was a fundy who thought that while it was noble and good to minister to the poor, the existence of abject poverty itself was not something to be fought against, but rather the normal and natural way the world was and ought to be...

[CountDeMoney]

Charity is a racket for suckers, we kinda knew that already.

[The Larch]

Much/most of his complaints really just boil down to disagreements with religion and catholicism, damning her for daring to believe in what catholics say they believe in.  What he ignores of course is that she really did take a vow of poverty throughout her entire life.  She was no champagne socialist attending $1000/plate fundraisers to help the poor - she really was in the front lines her entire life.

It's not about religion per se, she was very and extremely obviously a nun, I don't think that nobody would expect her to act in a way that would go agains catholicism. It's about presenting a public image of being an agent for helping the poorest of the poor when she actually not only didn't alleviate their suffering one bit but actually sought it. She was not helping the material conditions of the poor, she did not provide charity, she was in a fundamentalistic missionary quest seeking conversions. If her message had been "give me money so I can spread my missionary network to baptize dying miserable people in the 3rd world" I don't think she would have been that successful. It's not an anti-religious critique, it's an anti-fundamentalistic critique if anything.

And she might have taken poverty vows, but she was not against being flown around in a fraudster's private jet and being taken to exclusive US hospitals for her own treatments. You might disdain champagne socialists, but a single one of those $1000/plate events might have actually helped more people in a tangible way than Mother Theresa's entire endeavour.

[garbon]

I want to know why this was just deleted. Is anyone looking great with this?

[Martinus]

The biggest surprise is that Marti thinks that she's still alive.

Yes, hence "was".

[The Minsky Moment]

I want to know why this was just deleted.

Mother Superior jumped the gun?

[Martinus]

While I can appreciate the board's hostility against religion--particularly by our professionally cynical European Balls of Light--and as much as everyone would love to foster and nurture Marti's alt-right hate memes all day, we're keeping a cap on them.  Enough regular posters have left as it is--and you just can't blame them all on me.

Even though this is coming from Marty, it isn't just some "alt-right hate meme".  Beeb's version is the more charitable interpretation; here's the less charitable version from that hotbed of alt-right Trumptruppen, Patheos (including the video Hami linked).  The alt-right may have (unfortunately) glommed on to this, but this has been an issue for secular humanists for decades.  My wife and I personally come down between 3 and 4, rounded to 3, in Marty's poll.

It's just bizarre to link this thread to "alt-right memes". If anything, Breitbart idolizes her (probably mainly because they want to piss off the liberals who hate her). My leftist/progressive/anti-Christian friends think she was a devil.

For the record I voted no. 2 but was torn between than and no. 3.

Thanks for the intervention.

[Sheilbh]

Clearly a saint. Though always nice to see secularists united with Hindu nationalists at a non behaving like a Christian and actually practicing her beliefs.

[Razgovory]

It seems that the best possible result was if she never became a nun or helped anyone.  Far better to for people to starve to death than form a religious charity.  Feeding the hungry is only acceptable when it's inspired by secular motivations.

[The Larch]

I must say that I'm surprised about the poll results, given that we're hardly a pro-religious charitable audience.

For the record I voted 3, although I don't think that's the best possible wording.

[grumbler]

Clearly a saint.

  Duh!  One is clearly a saint, or clearly not, in the Catholic Church.  That's one advantage of bureaucracies.

Though always nice to see secularists united with Hindu nationalists at a non behaving like a Christian and actually practicing her beliefs.

It's always nice to see well-educated people reduced to mere assertions of the obvious when faced by a complex debate that would require some self-examination to participate in.

I've always thought that she was pretty much exactly what you would expect her to be, being what she was.  I suppose that you could ding her for accepting expensive medical treatments when her flock could not, but I can't get worked up about that.  All the stuff about her indulging in magical thinking is, to me, merely a description of what religious people do.  I don't think debates over which brand of magic is the right one, or that she believed in the wrong kind of magic, are useful.

[Razgovory]

Clearly a saint.

  Duh!  One is clearly a saint, or clearly not, in the Catholic Church.  That's one advantage of bureaucracies.

I love when he displays this powerful, raw ignorance.

[CountDeMoney]

I've always thought that she was pretty much exactly what you would expect her to be, being what she was.

Amen.