Pope Francis declares Mother Teresa a saint

[webfact]

Pope Francis declares Mother Teresa a saint

 

 

ROME: -- Mother Teresa, the revered nun known for her work with the destitute in India, has been elevated to sainthood by Pope Francis.

 

Amid tight security, tens of thousands of pilgrims attended Sunday morning’s canonisation mass in St. Peter’s Square in Rome. During the service, the head of the Catholic church paid tribute to Teresa, declaring her a model of mercy.

 

She becomes a saint after two miraculous cures of the sick were attributed to her following her death in 1997. A Nobel Prize winner, she founded her order the Missionaries of Charity, on the streets of Kokata.

 

But Teresa is not without critics. They have accused her, among other things, of patient neglect, poor hygiene and taking money from dictators. Atheist writer Christopher Hitchens made a documentary about her called ‘‘Hell’s Angel’‘.

 

By historical standards, mother Teresa’s sainthood has been fast-tracked, a process which began after she was beatified by Pope John Paul in 2003.

 

-- © Copyright Euronews 2016-09-05

[webfact]

Mother Teresa: 'Saint of the gutters' canonized at Vatican

By NICOLE WINFIELD

 

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Elevating the "saint of the gutters" to one of the Catholic Church's highest honors, Pope Francis on Sunday praised Mother Teresa for her radical dedication to society's outcasts and her courage in shaming world leaders for the "crimes of poverty they themselves created."

 

An estimated 120,000 people filled St. Peter's Square for the canonization ceremony, less than half the number who turned out for her 2003 beatification. It was nevertheless the highlight of Francis' Holy Year of Mercy and quite possibly one of the defining moments of his mercy-focused papacy.

 

Francis has been dedicated to ministering to society's most marginal, from prostitutes to prisoners, refugees to the homeless. In that way, while the canonization of "St. Teresa of Kolkata" was a celebration of her life and work, it was also something of an affirmation of Francis' own papal priorities, which have earned him praise and criticism alike.

"Let us carry her smile in our hearts and give it to those whom we meet along our journey, especially those who suffer," Francis said in his homily.

 

Born Agnes Gonxhe Bojaxhiu on Aug. 26, 1910, Teresa came to India in 1929 as a sister of the Loreto order. In 1946, she received what she described as a "call within a call" to found a new order dedicated to caring for the most unloved and unwanted, the "poorest of the poor" in the slums of her adopted city, Kolkata.

 

The Missionaries of Charity order went on to become one of the most well-known in the world, with more than 4,000 sisters in their trademark blue-trimmed white saris doing as Teresa instructed: "small things with great love."

 

At the order's Mother House in Kolkata, hundreds of people watched the Mass on TV and clapped with joy when Francis declared her a saint.

 

They gathered around Teresa's tomb which was decorated with flowers, a single candle and a photo of the wrinkled saint.

 

"I am so proud to be from Kolkata," said Sanjay Sarkar, a high school student on hand for the celebration. "Mother Teresa belonged to Kolkata, and she has been declared a saint."

 

For Francis, Teresa put into action his ideal of the church as a "field hospital" for those suffering both material and spiritual poverty, living on the physical and existential peripheries of society.

 

In his homily, Francis praised her as the merciful saint who defended the lives of the unborn, sick and abandoned, recalling her strong opposition to abortion which often put her at odds with progressives around the world.

 

"She bowed down before those who were spent, left to die on the side of the road, seeing in them their God-given dignity," he said.

 

Teresa's most famous critic, Christopher Hitchens, has accused her of taking donations from dictators — charges church authorities deny. Francis chose to emphasize her other dealings with the powerful.

 

"She made her voice heard before the powers of the world, so that they might recognize their guilt for the crimes of poverty they themselves created," he said, repeating for emphasis "the crimes of poverty."

 

Hundreds of Missionaries of Charity sisters had front-row seats at the Mass, alongside 1,500 homeless people and 13 heads of state or government and even royalty: Queen Sofia of Spain. For the homeless, Francis offered a luncheon afterward in the Vatican auditorium, catered by a Neapolitan pizza maker who brought his own ovens for the event.

 

"Her heart, she gave it to the world," said Charlotte Samba, a 52-year-old mother of three who traveled with a church group from Gabon for the Mass. "Mercy, forgiveness, good works: It is the heart of a mother for the poor."

 

While big, the crowd attending the canonization wasn't even half of the 300,000 who turned out for Mother Teresa's 2003 beatification celebrated by an ailing St. John Paul II. The low turnout suggested that financial belt-tightening and security fears in the wake of Islamic extremist attacks in Europe may have kept pilgrims away.

 

Those fears prompted a huge, 3,000-strong law enforcement presence to secure the area around the Vatican and close the airspace above. Many of those security measures have been in place for the duration of the Jubilee year, which officially ends in November.

 

While Francis is clearly keen to hold Teresa up as a model for her joyful dedication to the poor, he was also recognizing holiness in a nun who lived most of her adult life in spiritual agony, sensing that God had abandoned her.

 

According to correspondence that came to light after she died in 1997, Teresa experienced what the church calls a "dark night of the soul" — a period of spiritual doubt, despair and loneliness that many of the great mystics experienced. In Teresa's case, it lasted for nearly 50 years — an almost unheard of trial.

 

For the Rev. Brian Kolodiejchuk, the Canadian priest who spearheaded Teresa's saint-making campaign, the revelations were further confirmation of Mother Teresa's heroic saintliness. He said that by canonizing her, Francis is recognizing that she not only shared the material poverty of the poor but the spiritual poverty of those who feel "unloved, unwanted, uncared for."

 

"If I'm going to be a saint, I'm going to be a saint of darkness, and I'll be asking from heaven to be the light of those who are in darkness on Earth," she once wrote.

 

Francis has never publicly mentioned this "darkness," but he has in many ways modeled his papacy on Teresa and her simple lifestyle and selfless service to the poor: He eschewed the Apostolic Palace for a hotel room, made welcoming migrants and the poor a hallmark and has fiercely denounced today's "throwaway" culture that discards the unborn, the sick and the elderly with ease.

 

Teresa's Missionaries of Charity went on to become a global order of nuns, priests, brothers and lay co-workers. She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 and died in 1997. Soon thereafter, John Paul placed her on the fast-track for sainthood.

 

Francis has confessed that he was somewhat intimidated by Teresa, knowing well she was as tough as she was tender. He quipped during a 2014 visit to Albania that he would never have wanted her as his superior because she was so firm with her sisters.

 

But on Sunday, he admitted that even he would find it hard to call her "St. Teresa," since her tenderness was so maternal.

 

"Spontaneously, we will continue to say 'Mother Teresa,'" he said to applause.

___

Associated Press writer Bernat Armangue in Kolkata, India, contributed to this report.

 

-- © Associated Press 2016-09-05

 

[ukrules]

Ugh, I guess the value of being a 'saint' has now been greatly diluted.

[Sphere]

 

[ukrules]

Haha, Christopher Hitchens pretty much summed it up years ago.

[Ulysses G.]

I know very little about Mother Teresa, but I do not find the arguments presented here, by her detractors, very compelling. For example, the place for the dying held a LOT of people. It would have been too expensive to provide them all with Western beds and Western living conditions. They were dirt poor. They were not used to that anyway.

[PremiumLane]

3 minutes ago, Ulysses G. said:

I know very little about Mother Teresa, but I do not find the arguments presented here, by her detractors, very compelling. For example, the place for the dying held a LOT of people. It would have been too expensive to provide them all with Western beds and Western living conditions. They were dirt poor. They were not used to that anyway.

 

Yet she collected millions of dollars from dictators and dodgy business people - to provide them with an air of legitimacy. Very little of that money went to providing for the people in her 'care' - she even said herself that their suffering was a blessing from Christ. 

 

She also campaigned against contraception and women's health care. She had no interest in making the lives of poor people better, just in seeing them suffer. 

 

How the poor being 'used to it' is a way to justify the conditions they were kept under, is beyond me. 

[Ulysses G.]

I really do not care who she hit up for money, if it was for a good cause. 

Obviously, you can help lot more people, if you spend less money per person. If the poor people are used to sleeping on the floor, big Western mattresses that take up a lot of space would not be spending the money wisely.

I am no fan of this woman, but I hate to see her demonized unfairly because she is Christian.

Edited September 5, 2016 by Ulysses G.

[klauskunkel]

Beatified, sanctified, canonized, idolized, cryptified and deified.

The Catholic church..., nothing better to do.

[helpisgood]

Below is a short, informative and entertaining video (includes coarse language) of Mother Teresa from Penn & Teller.  It includes short interviews from Hitchens and a nun who used to work for Mother Teresa.  From what I have gleaned from this interview and others you can google is that it appears that Mother Teresa was more interested in building her own fiefdom within Roman Catholicism than in actually helping the poor and suffering.   

 

 

Edited September 5, 2016 by helpisgood

[GOLDBUGGY]

I have lived in India once and have seen the slums in Bombay. Any person like Mother Teresa who can work in slums in Calcutta and Bombay to help the needy and poor, is a Saint in My Book. She was a wonderful and kind woman with a Golden Heart. 

 

Having said that I am not so sure I would go to  St. Peter’s Square in Rome anymore. Seems like this place would be a prime target for a Terrorist. Especially when the Square is full of Christians and the largest church of all being the Vatican. 

[Ulysses G.]

28 minutes ago, helpisgood said:

Below is a short, informative and entertaining ( coarse language) of Mother Teresa from Penn & Teller. 

 

 

It was already posted a few posts back and we have been discussing it.

[helpisgood]

Just now, Ulysses G. said:

 

It was already posted a few posts back and we have been discussing it.

 

Yeah, I have just noticed that.  Thanks and sorry!  It did not download the first time I scrolled down. 

[PremiumLane]

2 hours ago, Ulysses G. said:

I really do not care who she hit up for money, if it was for a good cause. 

Obviously, you can help lot more people, if you spend less money per person. If the poor people are used to sleeping on the floor, big Western mattresses that take up a lot of space would not be spending the money wisely.

I am no fan of this woman, but I hate to see her demonized unfairly because she is Christian.

 

But she didn't spend the money on a good cause, that is the point. She spent money on spreading anti-contraception propaganda and religious stuff, - the poor? She let them suffer in her 'Houses of the Dying" without even basic medical care to relieve pain, because she believed in the suffering of the poor.  

 

Stop with the fixation of big Western mattresses, how about basic health care and medicine, which were not provided - she basically set up places where poor people would be taken to die in pain, and then collected money under the pretense of being a champion of the poor - if that isn't the definition of a crook and charlatan, then I don't know what is.

[soalbundy]

I agree with 'bitch slap Hitchens' but one thing must be realized, she actually did something in the slums and although much was misguided,no doubt due to being a christian extremist, some good came about. Calling her a saint is OTP and in some cases she could be called criminally negligent.

[spidermike007]

I had the good fortune of meeting Mother Theresa in Calcutta in 1976. I just showed up at her Missionary of Charity, and asked if I could see her. She had just returned from a tour of South America. They said I should wait and they would see if she was available. Within 10 minutes she comes strolling out, and very matter of factly asks me what she can do for me. I told her I was facing some spiritual dilemmas, and asked her advice. Though she did not give me the advice I was looking for what she told me was very wise, and astute. 

 

I have followed her since, and definitely regard her as a saint. At this time there are few saints around, and she most definitely made the world a better place. Unlike the Catholic Church, I do not need evidence for such a judgment. 

 

Hitchens is a very bitter man, and there will always be detractors. It means nothing to me. It meant nothing to her either. There will always be a percentage of the population that disagrees with the way she conducted her ministry, and her mission. Does that mean anything? Only to those who disagree. 

[OMGImInPattaya]

Obviously never read Hitch's book "The Missionary Position"  

[PremiumLane]

1 hour ago, spidermike007 said:

I had the good fortune of meeting Mother Theresa in Calcutta in 1976. I just showed up at her Missionary of Charity, and asked if I could see her. She had just returned from a tour of South America. They said I should wait and they would see if she was available. Within 10 minutes she comes strolling out, and very matter of factly asks me what she can do for me. I told her I was facing some spiritual dilemmas, and asked her advice. Though she did not give me the advice I was looking for what she told me was very wise, and astute. 

 

I have followed her since, and definitely regard her as a saint. At this time there are few saints around, and she most definitely made the world a better place. Unlike the Catholic Church, I do not need evidence for such a judgment. 

 

Hitchens is a very bitter man, and there will always be detractors. It means nothing to me. It meant nothing to her either. There will always be a percentage of the population that disagrees with the way she conducted her ministry, and her mission. Does that mean anything? Only to those who disagree. 

 

Yeah, those pesky things called facts getting in the way of nice cuddly feelings.

 

You know she was an advocate for the Catholic Church, right? 

[PremiumLane]

1 hour ago, soalbundy said:

I agree with 'bitch slap Hitchens' but one thing must be realized, she actually did something in the slums and although much was misguided,no doubt due to being a christian extremist, some good came about. Calling her a saint is OTP and in some cases she could be called criminally negligent.

 

I agree she did do somethings in the slums, like campaigning against real health care that would have helped poor women, like contraception.... so yeah, are really great woman

[KKr]

A tough manager? Sure, how else to keep order in a growing organisation that, moreover, is accepting donations.
Taking money from "wrong" sources?
As long as she did not promise (a letter of) pardon in return, as in the pre-reformation days, I see nothing wrong with that. Pecunia non Olet.
And I wonder, how much time and / or money the critics have spent helping such causes rather than making money of it.
Having seen the slums in India and South America, even if briefly, my opinion is that a person who chooses to allocate most of his or her life to advancing the people there, deserves respect from ALL. 
Not only from the catholic church, that she happened to be born into.

[ukrules]

That she 'did something' in the slums is undeniable but it was about as helpful as me opening a high end restaurant in the middle of the same slum.

 

It's worth noting that when this woman became ill herself she didn't go and lie on one of the sufffering beds and wait to die as you would expect from someone so eager to feel the pain. That wasn't for her, she went to private hospitals for the best treatment money could buy.

 

[Jingthing]

Perhaps another case of saint inflation. Or saintflation.

[Mansell]

Wow! There are some really bitter people on this forum....Surprise!

somebody commits her life to help the less fortunate and everybody with an axe to grind crawls out of the woodwork. How many of you have ever got your hands dirty helping the less fortunate? How many of you walked in her sandals? How many of you met her? How many of you have had a disabled poor person urinate on you and not give it a second thought as you helped them? As I thought, not many. Instead of slamming others for what they have done.....get off your pretentious fat arse and do something to help others in stead of belittling others work. I don't remember Mother Teresa having a yacht.....her own jet.....going to parties and drinking all night....eating in the best restaurants.....dining with the Queen every weekend...

.....I remember her working in the slums of Calcutta with the poorest of the poor. I don't remember seeing you there working alongside her.......Oh that's right, you weren't there. And before the attack dogs gather against me......I was the one holding the disabled person, but this is nothing compared to what that lady did. 

[spidermike007]

6 hours ago, PremiumLane said:

 

Yeah, those pesky things called facts getting in the way of nice cuddly feelings.

 

You know she was an advocate for the Catholic Church, right? 

 

 

Of course I know that. It was the Catholic Church that beautified her. But, that is not even a concern of mine. It is simply whether or not her actions and life's work merited this honor. I believe it did. I consider her greatness to be rather unparalleled in the past couple of generations. Please name a few that you consider worthy of this honor. 

[spidermike007]

19 minutes ago, Mansell said:

Wow! There are some really bitter people on this forum....Surprise!

somebody commits her life to help the less fortunate and everybody with an axe to grind crawls out of the woodwork. How many of you have ever got your hands dirty helping the less fortunate? How many of you walked in her sandals? How many of you met her? How many of you have had a disabled poor person urinate on you and not give it a second thought as you helped them? As I thought, not many. Instead of slamming others for what they have done.....get off your pretentious fat arse and do something to help others in stead of belittling others work. I don't remember Mother Teresa having a yacht.....her own jet.....going to parties and drinking all night....eating in the best restaurants.....dining with the Queen every weekend...

.....I remember her working in the slums of Calcutta with the poorest of the poor. I don't remember seeing you there working alongside her.......Oh that's right, you weren't there. And before the attack dogs gather against me......I was the one holding the disabled person, but this is nothing compared to what that lady did. 

 

 

Well put. It is so easy to cut off the head of another, to make oneself appear to be taller. I doubt there is a single person on this forum that has done 1/10th the good work she performed in her lifetime. You can argue with her methods, or her politics, or her willingness to support Catholic dogma. But, you cannot argue with her body of work. I was there. I saw what she was doing, firsthand. It was astonishing. 

 

Guys like Hitchins are bitter men, who have done very little in the way of positive work to benefit mankind, within their lifetime. 

[ddavidovsky]

I'm no particular fan of hers, but I always distrust vitriol and those criticisms seem quite cynical.

If she took money from disreputable people - I say, good.

If she didn't provide state of the art medical facilities - I guess she thought the place wasn't a hospital but provided an old-style spiritual kind of healing/sanctuary. It's probably because she was a throw-back to the old era that she made an impression.

 

Canonisation is just catholic mumbo-jumbo but let them have their games if they want. In any case, after listening to all the arguements I now hold this woman in somewhat higher estimation - precisely because she didn't do things the conventional way.

 

Penn & Teller on the other hand, have sank in my estimation.

[Jingthing]

I'm sure she did a lot of great work and also had lots of human flaws.

However, I don't believe she was a saint.

Because I don't believe anyone was a saint.

Because I ain't Catholic! 

I do believe Catholics have a tradition of elevating people to the sainthood. Doesn't make it real. 

[DM07]

Astonishing, how low some sink, to defend this old vile hag!

Oh...she had her picture taken with you and she spoke to you for a bit!

Then you sure are more knowledgeable than Hitchens, who researched, interviewed or followed the money!

She made/ let people suffer, because it was her idea of being closer to Zombie- Jesus!

We are not talking about spending the money on orthopedic beds, buckets of morphine or feeding the needy with lobster- tails. 

Normal beds, maybe airconditioning, a doctor or two, to look after the sick and some trained nurses, to care for the dieing!

But thet would not have provided the "needed" suffering!

For #@$%! sake, syringes and dirty clothes were washed (WASHED...not sterilized!) in the same water.

Needles were used multiple times...

 

Religion may help in some cases- not in this one!

[PremiumLane]

1 hour ago, spidermike007 said:

 

 

Of course I know that. It was the Catholic Church that beautified her. But, that is not even a concern of mine. It is simply whether or not her actions and life's work merited this honor. I believe it did. I consider her greatness to be rather unparalleled in the past couple of generations. Please name a few that you consider worthy of this honor. 

 

Sainthood? None, it is a load of superstitious rubbish.

 

If you think greatness means a fixation on poverty and keeping people poor, sick and/or in pain, then we have very different views of what makes a person great. I will leave it at that. 

[PremiumLane]

1 hour ago, Mansell said:

Wow! There are some really bitter people on this forum....Surprise!

somebody commits her life to help the less fortunate and everybody with an axe to grind crawls out of the woodwork. How many of you have ever got your hands dirty helping the less fortunate? How many of you walked in her sandals? How many of you met her? How many of you have had a disabled poor person urinate on you and not give it a second thought as you helped them? As I thought, not many. Instead of slamming others for what they have done.....get off your pretentious fat arse and do something to help others in stead of belittling others work. I don't remember Mother Teresa having a yacht.....her own jet.....going to parties and drinking all night....eating in the best restaurants.....dining with the Queen every weekend...

.....I remember her working in the slums of Calcutta with the poorest of the poor. I don't remember seeing you there working alongside her.......Oh that's right, you weren't there. And before the attack dogs gather against me......I was the one holding the disabled person, but this is nothing compared to what that lady did. 

 

It is not being bitter, it is a legitimate criticism of someone who wasn't who she claimed to be. 

 

We can't criticize because she claimed to help the poor? Because she was religious? A nice old lady? 

 

She did nothing to help the poor, in fact she actively campaigned against programs that would help poor women, get it?

 

And what I do or anyone else who criticizes her has nothing to do with it - if you see a man beating a dog, would you not speak out against it because you didn't do anything good yourself recently? 

Edited September 5, 2016 by PremiumLane
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