The Catholic Church celebrated Mother Teresa in her life and in her death. Criticism of the Mother was often directed against the Church, too. Through her canonisation, "the Church is only publicly stating that her way of life is a heroic model for every human being on the way of becoming really human," says Fr Paul Thelakat. Excerpts from an interview:
Some say the Mother nurtured a poverty industry as the popularity of her activities was directly linked with the prevalence of poverty.
Preaching these wonderful pro-poor ideological doctrines on poverty in front a poverty-stricken dying child or old person on the street is inhumane. Who are these who preach and do nothing to the poor suffering, near their end? There are social activists who do not want to give fish to the poor but teach fishing. Mother's answer is simple: "My poor people are too weak to hold the fishing rod themselves. But if they are ever well enough to hold a fishing rod, then our critics can go ahead and teach them how to fish". She was not against social activism. Activism against poverty must go hand in hand with love for the poor. It was not hatred towards the rich that moved the Mother but love for the poor and she was ready to receive help from any side as a mother who loves her children. She was most friendly with Marxist Chief Minister of West Bengal, the late Jyoti Basu, too.
The Mother had no qualms in accepting money from tainted persons, including notorious individuals such as Jean-Claude Duvalier, the former dictator of Haiti, who tortured and killed thousands.
There are tainted persons but they are not devils incapable of doing anything good and becoming better; we are not to judge. Money given to help the poor is not tainted money. It is definitely wrong to divide people as good and evil and be always on the side of the saintly elect. Such dialectical pharisaic Gnosticism is not Christianity. Perhaps she answers to her critics in her words: "I accept no salary, no government grant, no church funding, nothing. I do not ask for money. But people have a right to give"
The complete opposition of Mother towards medical termination of pregnancy was against individual liberty, especially freedom and equality of women?
Mother was very concerned with the life of a child in womb; it is human life and she firmly believed that nobody shall kill it as the Catholic Church teaches. Your liberty to live is constrained by the liberty of the child to exist. You have no freedom to kill; freedom to kill the child by the mother is not freedom but monstrosity. So Mother Teresa said: "Abortion kills twice. It kills the body of the baby and it kills the conscience of the mother. Abortion is profoundly anti-woman".
Were the Mother and her cult a carefully orchestrated campaign using media?
The Church is only publicly stating that her way of life is a heroic model for every human being on the way of becoming really human. Her story has to be retold to enrich us in our pursuit of becoming divine. Her story became sacred history where God's presence was so tangible in her. It is not a propaganda machine that made Mother Teresa; it is sheer goodness of men and women. It was a spontaneous outpouring of unbounded humanism that anointed her 'Mother'.
She had no qualms in enjoying very sophisticated medical facilities while denying basic facilities to inmates?
Human life was precious for her and she tried to protect life as much as she could. She used whatever medical facilities she could to protect and nurture life. Her 758 convents still remain the only abode of the castaways. Her 5,150 sisters remain missionaries of charity irrespective of caste, creed and nationality in 139 countries. She made us aware of the dignity of each person, of the value of human life from conception to natural death, that is, to love until it hurts, to make God present where you live.
(The author is editor, Light of Truth)
