[barmar]

Winstonm, on 2015-January-07, 13:16, said:

All I'm saying is you have to be incredibly naïve to believe in miracles, and thus the ones who promote the idea that miracles occur or a person can be infallible in matters of faith cannot be above reproach themselves.

I'm mostly ignoring the "miracles" part of sainthood. I'm hoping that when they look around for candidates for sainthood, they build the short list based on people of great virtue. Then they whittle it down by waiting for miracles.

By proposing MT as a potential saint, the church is essentially endorsing the way she lived her life, saying that she was a wonderful person. This is akin to someone claiming that Nixon was one of our best Presidents.

[kenberg]

onoway, on 2015-January-08, 09:32, said:

The thing I find confusing is that supposedly people went to see what she was doing and it was pretty much only after she died that all this stuff came out. There were often photo ops of MT with various people and some of them were supposedly after taking a tour of some of her hospices....why didn't anyone say anything at the time? Supposedly security people check out these places before any of the hotshot bigwigs wander through on their publicity tours..again, how come nobody ever said anything about handicapped kids tied to beds and people screaming in pain with no relief? All the people who went to her, why did they go to her or take their family members there?

It's not that I am an advocate for her, like most people I accepted what information was put out there, but it always makes me wonder where all these people were when she was still alive. Perhaps then something positive could have been done about the situation rather than only after the fact when really all that can be done is diminish the faith that somewhere somebody is a good person doing good things.

This has occurred to me as well. In particular, she was given the Nobel Peace Prize. Of course so was Henry Kissinger. And Barak Obama. But still.
I wonder if any of the people on that awards committee have commented on whether they believe they were somehow duped, or if they stand by their decision, or just what they think. I suppose many are dead now.

I suppose that most people are not as good as their admirers claim, nor as bad as they are portrayed by their detractors. And India, back fifty years or so ago, was not an easy place to live. Or so I understood from various fellow grad students I knew who were looking for any option to not go back. But it does sound like her failings were on quite a scale. I don't plan to verify the details.

[Vampyr]

onoway, on 2015-January-08, 09:32, said:

The thing I find confusing is that supposedly people went to see what she was doing and it was pretty much only after she died that all this stuff came out. There were often photo ops of MT with various people and some of them were supposedly after taking a tour of some of her hospices....why didn't anyone say anything at the time? Supposedly security people check out these places before any of the hotshot bigwigs wander through on their publicity tours..again, how come nobody ever said anything about handicapped kids tied to beds and people screaming in pain with no relief? All the people who went to her, why did they go to her or take their family members there?

It's not that I am an advocate for her, like most people I accepted what information was put out there, but it always makes me wonder where all these people were when she was still alive. Perhaps then something positive could have been done about the situation rather than only after the fact when really all that can be done is diminish the faith that somewhere somebody is a good person doing good things.

Perhaps because she was lionised by the mass media. This article has a link to the interview of a volunteer. And contains a line which broke my heart:

Quote

Some qualitative improvements however have been made in the order's practices, such as letting orphans play with toys.

[barmar]

kenberg, on 2015-January-08, 14:16, said:

This has occurred to me as well. In particular, she was given the Nobel Peace Prize. Of course so was Henry Kissinger. And Barak Obama. But still.
I wonder if any of the people on that awards committee have commented on whether they believe they were somehow duped, or if they stand by their decision, or just what they think. I suppose many are dead now.

It seems like there was lots of propaganda about her spread by the church during her life. And everyone believed it, perhaps because they so much wanted to believe it. There's always a desire to believe that there are people who are like what she was portrayed as. And she wasn't the kind of self-aggrandizing celebrity that the media delights in taking down a peg.

[Vampyr]

barmar, on 2015-January-08, 14:28, said:

It seems like there was lots of propaganda about her spread by the church during her life. And everyone believed it, perhaps because they so much wanted to believe it. There's always a desire to believe that there are people who are like what she was portrayed as. And she wasn't the kind of self-aggrandizing celebrity that the media delights in taking down a peg.

Also I remember that one big thing was that she had free ambulances or the poor, which turns out to be untrue (but the many ambulances that were donated to her naturally led to that conclusion).

[mike777]

I don't know the facts around the ambulances. I expect she would sell them and most goods and convert them to cash.
She would not be able to use, drive or maintain modern stuff like that.

Keep in mind the Charity was 1950 and she was an Albanian Catholic Nun in a Hindu/Muslim country where they were killing each other. She was asked to step down in 1990 in her 80's.

[Vampyr]

mike777, on 2015-January-08, 16:36, said:

I don't know the facts around the ambulances. I expect she would sell them and most goods and convert them to cash.
She would not be able to use, drive or maintain modern stuff like that.

Of course she could have run an ambulance service. Apparently the ambulances were refitted and used as taxis for the nuns.

[mike777]

Vamp you expect her to be able to run an ambulance service and to have access to painkillers in your previous posts.

I don't know all the facts about the ambulances but clearly she did not have the access or ability for either. I don't see you provide any convincing evidence that she could. Clearly the fact you believe this stuff colors your opinion of her.

Just saying "of course she could" is not evidence. In fact the only evidence you quote is that the cars were used as a taxi service for the nuns to be driven around part time in. This is evidence they could not be used as an ambulance service at best they could be refitted and used as a taxi service by others to make money.


She could not drive or maintain them as an ambulance service.

btw2 just where the heck where all of these nuns going in the taxi? Now that sounds like a story!

[Vampyr]

mike777, on 2015-January-08, 17:09, said:

Vamp you expect her to be able to run an ambulance service and to have access to painkillers in your previous posts.

I don't know all the facts about the ambulances but clearly she did not have the access or ability for either. I don't see you provide any convincing evidence that she could. Clearly the fact you believe this stuff colors your opinion of her.

Just saying "of course she could" is not evidence. In fact the only evidence you quote is that the cars were used as a taxi service for the nuns to be driven around part time in. This is evidence they could not be used as an ambulance service at best they could be refitted and used as a taxi service by others to make money.


She could not drive or maintain them as an ambulance service.

btw2 just where the heck where all of these nuns going in the taxi? Now that sounds like a story!

777, why are your contributions so rarely valuable?

I am quite certain that ambulance providers in Calcutta, whether free or paid-for, operate on a tiny fraction of the resources MT had available.

Anyway, I remember the ambulances being a big part of the hype, they impressed me at the time.

[nige1]

The Internet said:

1910 27 Aug. Baptized Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu in Skopje Macedonia. Her mother Dranafile invited the city's poor to dine with the family, counseling her daughter "never eat a single mouthful unless you are sharing it with others." When asked who the guests were, Drana replied "Some of them are our relations, but all of them are our people."
1919. Her father died. Nikollë was a politician, businessman, and philanthropist.
1928. Joined Sisters of Dublin at Loreto Abbey in Rathfarnham, Ireland.
1929. Novitiate in Darjeeling. learnt Bengali and taught at the St. Teresa's School.
1931 May. First profession of vows, taking the name Mary Teresa (after Saint Thérèse of Lisieux). Afterwards she learnt Hindi and taught Geography and History to the poor at Saint Mary's High School for Girls, Calcutta.
1937 May 14. Final solemn vows at Loreto convent school in Entally, Calcutta, where she taught.
1944. Appointed headmistress.
1946. September 10. Received her "the call within the call" while travelling by train from Calcutta to the Loreto convent in Darjeeling for her annual retreat. "I was to leave the convent and help the poor while living among them." Obtained Bishop's permission.
1948. 6 months basic medical training in the Holy Family Hospital Patna, adopted Indian citizenship, and replaced her traditional Loreto habit with a white cotton sari decorated with a blue border. She started a school in Motijhil (Calcutta), tending to the needs of the destitute and starving.
1949. 12 young women joined her in creating a new religious community, helping the "poorest among the poor".
1950. October 9. Permitted to start the diocesan congregation that would become the Missionaries of Charity "to care for the hungry, the naked, the homeless, the crippled, the blind, the lepers, all those people who feel unwanted, unloved, uncared for throughout society, people that have become a burden to the society and are shunned by everyone."
1952. Opened the Kalighat Home for the Dying, a free hospice for the poor, converted from an abandoned Hindu temple. Patients received medical attention and were afforded the opportunity to die according to their religious rituals: Muslims were read the Quran, Hindus received water from the Ganges, and Catholics received the Last Rites. She said "A beautiful death is for people who lived like animals to die like angels - loved and wanted." She opened the Shanti Nagar (City of Peace) home for those with leprosy, supplying medication, bandages, and food. The congregation soon began to attract both recruits and charitable donations, and by the 1960s had opened hospices, orphanages and leper houses all over India.
1963. Founded the Missionaries of Charity Brothers.
1965. Pope Paul VI bestowed the Decree of Praise upon the Missionaries of Charity. Opened first house outside India opened in Venezuela with five sisters.
1976. Founded contemplative branch of the Sisters. Founded Lay Missionaries of Charity with Catholics and non-Catholics as Co-Workers
1979. Noble Peace Prize.
1982. India's highest civilian award, the Bharat Ratna. At the siege of Beirut, she brokered a cease-fire between the Israeli army and Palestinian guerrillas. Accompanied by Red Cross workers, she traveled through the war zone to rescue 37 children trapped in a devastated front line hospital.
1984. Founded Missionaries of Charity Fathers with Fr. Joseph Langford to combine the vocational aims of the Missionaries of Charity with the resources of the ministerial priesthood.
1988. Armenia: Earthquake victims. Ethiopia: famine. Chernobyl: radiation.
1989. Pacemaker after a 2nd heart-attack.
1991. Pneumonia in Mexico.
1992. Official biography by Navin Chawla, an Indian civil servant.
1997. September 5. Died, aged 87, from heart, lung and kidney problems. In its front page tribute, the Indian fortnightly Frontline dismissed most criticisms of her as "patently false" and said that they had "made no impact on the public perception of her work, especially in Calcutta". The obituary praised her selfless caring, energy and bravery but criticized her public campaign against abortion and her claim to be non-political. At her death, Missionaries of Charity had more than 4,000 sisters running orphanages, AIDS hospices and charity centres worldwide -- caring for refugees, the blind, disabled, aged, alcoholics, the poor and homeless, and victims of floods, epidemics, and famine.
2002. Vatican recognized as a miracle the healing of a tumor in the abdomen of an Indian woman, Monica Besra, after the application of a locket containing Mother Teresa's picture -- a claim disputed by Monica's husband and doctor.
2003. Her letters published revealing 50-year long crisis of faith. (She had asked that her letters not be published). After requesting and considering criticism by Hitchins and others, the Congregation for the Causes of Saints ratified Mother Teresa's beatification.

Mother Teresa shared the controversial views of her religion on abortion, contraception, and divorce. She was politically naive. She had no accountancy training and only 6 months medical training. But she was courageous, hard-working, frugal, and kind-hearted. Also, her caring, organizing and managing skills helped the poor. Finally, the Nobel Peace Prize Committee judged her to be OK.

IMO she was a good person. To become a saint, however, she may now have to work the kind of miracles that BBF devil's advocates seem to expect her to have performed during her life-time.

[mikeh]

nige1, on 2015-January-09, 23:03, said:

Mother Teresa shared the controversial views of her religion on abortion, contraception, and divorce. She was politically naive. She had no accountancy training and only 6 months medical training. But she was courageous, hard-working, frugal, and kind-hearted. Also, her caring, organizing and managing skills helped the poor. Finally, the Nobel Peace Prize Committee judged her to be OK.

IMO she was a good person. [size="2"]To become a saint, however, she may now have to work the kind of miracles that BBF devil's advocates seem to expect her to have performed during her life-time.

Well, a newspaper said that all criticisms of her were false! That couldn't possibly be a subjective, agenda-driven view. Plus the church weighed the criticisms of that favourite of religious thinkers, Hitchens, and rejected them and that was surely done objectively, in the same way that they paid no attention to the views of the husband and doctor of the woman so clearly and miraculously cured by the mere image of the would-be saint. Heck, why do doctors insist on expensive oncology machines when all they need is a locket containing an image of MT?

I wonder if members of that organization that approved her for sainthood have abandoned use of modern medicine and use only images of saints?

Clearly MT was a good person, based on your sources. No way could your sources have some other agenda.

[barmar]

mikeh, on 2015-January-10, 08:47, said:

I wonder if members of that organization that approved her for sainthood have abandoned use of modern medicine and use only images of saints?

I know you're being sarcastic, but it's really not appropriate. Even most ardent believers know that you can't depend on miracles. The exception seems to be Christian Scientists. Orthodox members do eschew modern medicine, believing that if God wants them to live, he'll cure them.

Discussions like this always remind me of the story of the drowning man. People expecting miracles don't realize how miraculous our ability to invent solutions to problems is.

[mike777]

Side note regarding miracles and being Catholic. Many who are not Catholic may not be aware that this is something priests(all males) do at every Mass. Nuns and perhaps MT attend Mass every day, almost every day, sometimes more than once a day.


Transubstantiation[edit]

http://en.wikipedia....Catholic_Church

According to the Catholic Church, when the bread and wine are consecrated by the priest at Mass, they cease to be bread and wine, and become instead the Most Precious Body and Blood of Christ. The empirical appearances and attributes are not changed, but the underlying reality is. The consecration of the bread (known afterwards as the Host) and wine represents the separation of Jesus' body from his blood at Calvary; thus, this separation also represents the death of Christ. However, since according to Catholic dogma Christ has risen, the Church teaches that his body and blood are no longer truly separated, even if the appearances of the bread and the wine are. Where one is, the other must be. This is called the doctrine of concommitance. Therefore, although the priest (or minister) says, "The body of Christ", when administering the host, and, "The blood of Christ", when presenting the chalice, the communicant who receives either one receives Christ, whole and entire— "Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity".

Transubstantiation (from Latin transsubstantiatio) is the change of the substance of bread and wine into that of the body and blood of Christ, the change that, according to the belief of the Catholic Church, occurs in the Eucharist. It concerns what is changed (the substance of the bread and wine), not how the change is brought about.
----------

After this "miracle" Catholics consume the body and blood of Christ.
For Protestants this is symbolic rather than an actual miracle and change.

[Vampyr]

mike777, on 2015-January-10, 19:25, said:

According to the Catholic Church, when the bread and wine are consecrated by the priest at Mass, they cease to be bread and wine, and become instead the Most Precious Body and Blood of Christ.

Before my First Communion I wondered what it was like to eat someone's body. I was rather disappointed that it turned out to be just a thin little bread wafer (I was seven).

[mike777]

Vampyr, on 2015-January-10, 20:32, said:

Before my First Communion I wondered what it was like to eat someone's body. I was rather disappointed that it turned out to be just a thin little bread wafer (I was seven).

Vampyr?

[gwnn]

If we are not allowed to criticise her because we're just on a bridge forum, why are you (nige1) allowed to praise her? Who cares what you copy and paste? Either engage the arguments or don't post at all. "xyz wrote in her obituary that the criticisms are false" is not an argument.

[Winstonm]

mike777, on 2015-January-10, 19:25, said:

Side note regarding miracles and being Catholic. Many who are not Catholic may not be aware that this is something priests(all males) do at every Mass. Nuns and perhaps MT attend Mass every day, almost every day, sometimes more than once a day.


Transubstantiation[edit]

http://en.wikipedia....Catholic_Church

According to the Catholic Church, when the bread and wine are consecrated by the priest at Mass, they cease to be bread and wine, and become instead the Most Precious Body and Blood of Christ. The empirical appearances and attributes are not changed, but the underlying reality is. The consecration of the bread (known afterwards as the Host) and wine represents the separation of Jesus' body from his blood at Calvary; thus, this separation also represents the death of Christ. However, since according to Catholic dogma Christ has risen, the Church teaches that his body and blood are no longer truly separated, even if the appearances of the bread and the wine are. Where one is, the other must be. This is called the doctrine of concommitance. Therefore, although the priest (or minister) says, "The body of Christ", when administering the host, and, "The blood of Christ", when presenting the chalice, the communicant who receives either one receives Christ, whole and entire— "Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity".

Transubstantiation (from Latin transsubstantiatio) is the change of the substance of bread and wine into that of the body and blood of Christ, the change that, according to the belief of the Catholic Church, occurs in the Eucharist. It concerns what is changed (the substance of the bread and wine), not how the change is brought about.
----------

After this "miracle" Catholics consume the body and blood of Christ.
For Protestants this is symbolic rather than an actual miracle and change.

Achemists used to believe that the magical transubstantiation of lead into gold could occur. We now know it cannot. Why doesn't the Catholic Church grasp that wine and bread cannot become blood and a body?

Doesn't one have to be naïve to believe in magic?

[Vampyr]

mike777, on 2015-January-10, 22:40, said:

Vampyr?

LOL I was not a Buffy fan then but vampires only drink blood!

[nige1]

gwnn, on 2015-January-11, 02:15, said:

If we are not allowed to criticise her because we're just on a bridge forum, why are you (nige1) allowed to praise her?

We're both entitiled to our views. What made gwnn imagine that he's not allowed criticise Morther Teresa? FWIW, I disapprove of censorship in this bridge forum and elsewhere. Je suis Charlie

gwnn, on 2015-January-11, 02:15, said:

Who cares what you copy and paste?

I care about what I copy and paste. I enjoyed doing it. After these efforts, I know much more about Mother Teresa's life.

gwnn, on 2015-January-11, 02:15, said:

Either engage the arguments or don't post at all. "xyz wrote in her obituary that the criticisms are false" is not an argument.

I've no 1st-hand information. To arrive at my my tentative assessment of Mother Teresa, I applied my judgement to the quoted biographical information from the internet. You might gather, from other threads, that I can't aspire to the reassuring certainties and blind faith of the fanatical atheist

[nige1]

Winstonm, on 2015-January-11, 10:25, said:

Alchemists used to believe that the magical transubstantiation of lead into gold could occur. We now know it cannot.

Supernovae (and neutron-star collisions) resent the aspersions cast by Winstonm on their abilities (although they might prefer other raw-materials to lead)