WHY MOTHER TERESA SHOULD NOT BE A SAINT

mirror.co.uk ^ | Jan. 13, 2003 | Christopher Hitchens

[Nachum]

In the good old/bad old days, the procedure for making a former human being into a saint was well understood.

There had to be an interval of at least seven years after the death before beatification - the first stage in the process - could even be proposed. (This was to insure against any gusts of popular enthusiasm for a local figure who might later prove to be a phoney.)

There had to be proof of two miracles, attributable to the intercession of the deceased.

And there had to be a hearing, at which the advocatus Diaboli, or Devil's Advocate, would be appointed by the Church to make the strongest possible case against the nominee.

I am not a Roman Catholic and the saint-making procedures of the Vatican are really none of my business. But it strikes me as odd that none of the above rules have been followed in the case of the newly-beatified woman who called herself "Mother" Teresa of Calcutta.

She was first put forward for beatification only four years after her death. Only one miracle has been required of her, and duly found to have been performed.

And, instead of appointing a Devil's Advocate, the Vatican invited me to be a witness for the Evil One, and expected me to do the job pro bono.

Their reason for asking was that I made a documentary called Hell's Angel, and wrote a short book entitled The Missionary Position, in which I reviewed Mother Teresa's career as if she had been an ordinary person.

I discovered that she had taken money from rich dictators like the Duvalier gang in Haiti, had been a friend of poverty rather than a friend of the poor, had never given any account of the huge sums of money donated to her, had railed against birth-control in the most overpopulated city on the planet and had been the spokeswoman for the most extreme dogmas of religious fundamentalism.

Actually, it's boasting to say that I "discovered" any of this. It was all there in plain sight for anyone to notice. But in the age of celebrity, nobody had troubled to ask if such a global reputation was truly earned or was simply the result of brilliant public relations.

"Wait a minute," said a TV host in Washington a few nights ago, when I debated all this with Mr John Donahue of the Catholic Defence League. "She built hospitals." No, sir, you wait a minute.

Mother Teresa was given, to our certain knowledge, many tens of millions of pounds. But she never built any hospitals. She claimed to have built almost 150 convents, for nuns joining her own order, in several countries. Was this where ordinary donors thought their money was going?

Furthermore, she received some of this money from the Duvaliers, and from Mr Charles Keating of the notorious Lincoln Savings and Loan of California, and both these sources had acquired the money by - how shall I put it? - borrowing money from the poor and failing to give it back.

How could this possibly be true? Doesn't everyone know that she spent her time kissing the sores of lepers and healing the sick? Ah, but what everyone knows isn't always true. You were more likely to run into Mother Teresa being photographed with Nancy Reagan, or posing with Princess Diana, or in the first-class cabin of Air India (where she had a permanent reservation).

You could see her in Ireland, campaigning against a law which would permit civil divorce and remarriage (though she publicly defended Princess Diana's right to be divorced).

You could encounter her on the podium in Stockholm, accepting yet another huge cheque and telling the Nobel audience that the greatest threat to world peace was... abortion. (Since she added that contraception was morally as bad as abortion, she essentially held the view that condoms and coils were a deadly threat to world peace. The Church does not insist on that degree of fundamentalism.)

And when she got sick, she would check herself into the Mayo Clinic or some other temple of American medicine. As one who has visited her primitive "hospice" for the dying in Calcutta, I should call that a wise decision. Nobody would go there except to check out, in one way or another.

"Give a man a reputation as an early riser," said Mark Twain "and that man can sleep till noon." Give a woman a reputation for holiness and compassion and apparently nothing she does can cause her to lose it.

Of Albanian descent and a keen nationalist, she visited the country when it was still a brutal dictatorship and "the world's first atheist state" to pay tribute to its grim Stalinist leader.

She fawned upon her shrewd protector Indira Gandhi at a time when the Indian government was imposing forced sterilisations. Above all, she urged the poor to think of their sufferings as a gift from God.

And she opposed the only thing that has ever been known to cure poverty - the empowerment of women in poor countries by giving them some say in their own reproduction.

Now, so they tell us, a woman in Bengal has recovered from a tumour after praying to Mother Teresa. I have received information from both the family and the physicians that says it was good medical treatment that did the job. Who knows?

I must say that I don't believe in miracles but if they do exist there are deserving cases which don't, in spite of fervent prayers, ever benefit from them.

When Mr Donahue was asked if he believed the statutory second miracle would occur, he said that he thought it would. I said that I thought so, too.

But I have already seen a collective hallucination occur as regards Mother Teresa, though it was produced by the less supernatural methods of modern, uncritical mass media.

Christopher Hitchens is a columnist for Vanity Fair.

[Cvengr]

Yes, upon yielding His Spirit to the Father, and the bodily death or separation of soul from body of the Savior, His soul descended to Hades, to Abraham's Bosom, through the Torments, even to the depths of hell and he then ascended, for though He was but a while a bit lower than the angels, He was found worthy as the Son of the Father and was raised from the dead, ascended and resurrected in the body and the Spirit again attached with the soul, then seated on the right hand of the Father.

He is one with the Father and with the Spirit, and has suffered the first death, which we have not.

Perhaps you are correct, but this means this portion of the Law is no longer valid, yet I understand he came not to dispense with the law but to fulfill it.

Theologically, if we have been indwelt by the Holy Spirit and remain in fellowship with Him, thereby not quenching the Spirit, but allowing Him to fill us with the Spirit, then why would we consort with others separated from their bodies from the first death, rather than first placing our whole faith in Him and remain one with Him? By consorting with the dead, we quench the Spirit because we have placed others before Him. I might not clearly understand more advanced doctrine on the matter, but these seem to be valid points, would they not?

[Joshua]

"We prefer old Roman garb to geneva gowns and Tv evangelists who bore us with their fake tears of repentance. Mind you, I think no better of bishops who do the same. "

I don't watch TV evangelists but you seem to be up on their latest attire.

Does your bishop know what you're up to? Do you go to confession and tell him you have strayed from EWTN to TBN and now you're dreaming of Jan Crouch?

[Joshua]

"Besides, they hear with their hearts, not their ears. "

That's good to know. It would be kind of tacky to wear a miracle ear in heaven don't you think?

[Joshua]

"Where in the Bible does it enumerate all the hoops one must jump through to become a Saint? " Repent and believe ... "

That says it all sister...

[Texas Eagle]

All throughout, simply return to Him so he may return to you, and sin no more. If one does sin, as everybody does, continue to confess those sins to Him in repentence and remain in fellowship with Him,...and viola,..you're a saint.

Well, heck.....then I don't think Mother Teresa will have any problem becoming a Saint.

Since the only person who discerns that is God, then it really doesn't concern us.

Hallelujah! A breakthrough! God doesn't give a flying fig who The Pope or a bunch of Cardinals and Bishops thinks ought to be Saints!

Glory to God, but boy I love leading people to the truth as much as I love leading them to The Truth.

[RobbyS]

We think that consorting with the saints is a reflection indivisible unity of the Church, what the creed means by the communion of saints.

[RobbyS]

I don't have a clue who Jan Crouch is, but when you throw in the initials you really lose me.

[RobbyS]

God is good about that: he gives them the equipment they need to do their jobs.

[Cvengr]

So you believe in consorting with familiar spirits? This seems to be rather shakey ground.

[RobbyS]

Familar spirits sounds like ghosts. I don't believe in ghosts.

[mdmathis6]

Matthew 16:18 "....You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church." He did not say "on you I will build my church" in the specific sense. The commentaries and my pastors have told me that Jesus was juxtaposing and expanding on an Idea that a foundation was being laid using the old testament prophets and apostles by which the Eternal transtemporal church was being built and is continuing to be built on such that are being saved daily. As futher support of this view...look at Ephesians 2:19-22."Now there-fore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the Saints and members of the house hold of God, having been built on the FOUNDATION OF THE APOSTLES AND PROPHETS, Jesus Christ Himself being THE CHIEF CORNER-STONE, in WHOM the whole building, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you are also being built together for a habitation of GOD IN THE SPIRIT."

That's what I really meant when I said the connotations of "rock" were different when Christ spoke to Peter, there was a break in the ideas discussed...that didn't translate very well into English from the original sources. Christ in other passages called himself "the stone the builders rejected, has become the chief corner-stone" Christ was the new Paradigm...Peter, Paul, and all the apostles and OT prophets were the main foundations thru which Christ was "joined" in building his church. The Bible refers to all Christians as "living stones" making up his church. This is the true church, existing across space and time, not some pretended entity in Rome.

I realize Christ probably didn't speak Greek with his disciples ( Greek WAS the international Language of the time and he would have a working knowledge of it, most likely....as Jesus was also God...he would know all languages...Remember the conversation he had with the Sydonian GREEK woman who asked for a miracle...:JC:It is not meat that food meant for the children should be fed to dogs....SG:Yes, but the dogs are fed by the crumbs that fall off of the Master's table! Jesus was said to have marveled at her faith and granted her request.)(Remember also Pontius Pilate, who had inscribed on the cross this inscription in Greek, Latin, and Aramaic..."The King of the Jews" Do we really know what language Pontius had his conversation with Jesus with...was it Greek, was it Latin, or Aramaic?...we don't know if a translator was used...may-be it was the language being used that partly had Pontius spooked concerning Jesus)

[mdmathis6]

See my further reply at post 111...

[mdmathis6]

Churches fall into error when they lose their first love, and lose track of track of their original commission, which was to teach the good news of Christ crucified and resurrected for our sins. That is the primacy of the mission of the church, to make disciples of Christ from all nations. That is the one mission that Satan always tries to turn the church from.

And it was the arguement over the Apostolic succession that the Orthodox split with Rome over. See my post 111. I don't know that heresies were the particular province of the Orthodox churches, the heretics themselves rejected all of the accepted doctrines of the day, Roman or Orthodox.

As for Mary, she was a simple woman, a kinsman of David, thru the lineage of Nathan("as was supposed", as Luke states,"thru Joseph"...Matthew gives another lineage thru Joseph). She refers to Jesus in her womb as "the lord of HER Salvation", there-fore self admitting her sinful status. Mark chapter 6 refers to brothers and sisters of Jesus, so she was not the for-ever virgin...but so what, she is still worth remembering.

As for "new wine"...it refers to the ripening power of the Holy Spirit in individual's lives...the inner man must be made anew and the institutions that God raises up are made to be able to handle the power of the Spirit. New wine will break open old wine-sacks as it ferments because they have LOST THEIR ELASTICITY! So will individuals and CHURCH INSTITUTIONS if they are not made anew! I suspect that is what happened with the coming of the Reformation, and the arise of the new Protestantism, God began pouring out his Spirit to break up the moribund and corrupt Church that was preventing his message of Salvation from going out into the world and was locking people up into a new kind of Pharisaical temple worship, where people lived under condemnation of the Law and not under grace! That which would not be renewed was broken apart and shattered.
God is concerned with building up his church and setting up a witness for him-self in every nation before Christ's return...a church drawn from believers of EVERY DENOMINATION! A church that exists beyond space and time....or Rome!

[mdmathis6]

Not all protestant churches have surround sound though many have choirs, large or small. I have to laugh really at your post because I built such a system for my church( I designed and built the speakers and subwoofer..ect...its amazing what God can inspire with 700 dollars) and the board of trustees is asking me to research and purchase a Projection system...apparently we had money donated for that purpose from an unknown source...we're no mega church by any means...well God wills...
The ancient Temple of Israel had quite a sophisticated choir and orchestra...many of the strange symbols of the Psalms and Old Testaments were musical notations...and discoveries by a musicologist in France in how to decode the musicality of many of the passages of the old testament(much of it could be and was "sung" apparently), led many to conclude that the music in the old Testament times was actually quite modern and contemporary in sound(well over the last 200-300 years or so any-way).

[mdmathis6]

Well, 1 Peter 3:18-22, describes Christ"dead in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit" as being very busy in Hell for three days, "preaching to the spirits in prison" who were there from the time of Noah....

[mdmathis6]

"In HIM we LIVE and MOVE and HAVE our BEING!...God is never very far from any of us"

[Cvengr]

Familar spirits sounds like ghosts. I don't believe in ghosts. All who believe in Him are indwelt by the Holy Ghost. Rather than debating, you might find a very rewarding study in the etymology of 'spirit' and 'soul' by studying the Hebrew and Greek words used in their transliteration throughout Scripture. Check out http://bible1.crosswalk.com/InterlinearBible/bible.cgi

[Aquinasfan]

Plus don't tell me there weren't different kinds of "churches" even in the first couple of centuries. Revelations itself lists 7 churches that existed at the end of the 1st century, each having its own character, though.

Paul wrote letters to many "churches." Did he have authority over them?

If not, why did he write the letters?

If not, why would the letters bind us today?

If so, where did Paul's authority come from if the New Testament was yet to be written and canonized? (Matt 18:17)

[Aquinasfan]

Seven different angels for seven different "churches"

When Paul wrote letters to various churches, did he have authority over them?

[RobbyS]

The Holy Spirit is God.