General Chat

And your point is?

and the alternative view

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2003/10/mommie_dearest.html

Mother Teresa: ‘An extraordinary witness to fidelity’
01 September 2016 | by James Martin |

Most people assume that saints are sustained by their vibrant faith, which carries them through toil and trouble. Mother Teresa worked heroically, despite letters revealing her secret ‘dark night’ of the soul

Mother Teresa – baptised Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu – was born in Albania in 1910. Her mother, Drana, used to care for an old woman living nearby who was ravaged by alcoholism and covered with sores. Drana washed and cooked for her. Years later, Mother Teresa would say that the woman suffered as much from her crushing loneliness as from her illnesses.

A Jesuit priest’s talk about the work of Catholic missionaries struck a chord in Agnes, who had dreamed of a religious vocation as early as the age of 12.

In October 1928, at the age of 18, she entered the novitiate of the Loreto Sisters in Dublin. Three months later, Sr Mary Teresa set sail for India. She would spend the rest of her life there.

The moral of the story is that a pretty face will get you a long way.

I think the moral of the story is they were just people, humans. Mind, I would class doubting as a worthy attribute :)

Oh yes, some very dodgy characters became saints.


Peter had a temper;

Paul was a murderer;

Thomas was doubter;

Augustine was a hedonist - "Grant me chastity, but not just yet."

Thomas Becket was obscenely wealthy and mean;

Francis was a renowned drinker and partygoer.

The list goes on......

There is a book entitled 'Saints Behaving Badly' where the distinctly unsavoury and deviant lives of some who eventually acquired sainthood are described.


There is an old saying.... “Every saint has a past, every sinner has a future."


:-D

Kense I agree. Totally. It's like saying just because its in a book doesn't mean it's true. Absolutely correct. Let evidence be the arbiter.

There is ample evidence to show that the Albanian nun was not a nice person by any standards you might care to apply. I wouldn't dispute that she did some things that were good, but the balance must be tipped by her fund raising for the Vatican and the calculated and deliberate infliction of suffering when there was no need, purely in the furtherance of her beliefs.

KENSE is quite right there has been any amount of well documented "fact" which has transpired to be wrong. That applies 100x over for anything to do with religion. OTOH mythology is mostly more interesting than facts.

"Something being well documented doesn't mean it is true."

Of course it is when the source is reliable. Evidence in her own words.

I have to agree with Guinevere she was not the saintly person she was sold as to the Catholic population.

Ensuring poverty through dubious applications of cruel compliance to obey orders ensured she was kept in a job!

Something being well documented doesn't mean it is true.

It's very well documented, Dermot, certainly not apocryphal.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/krithika-varagur/mother-teresa-was-no-saint_b_9470988.html

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

Now the miracles? That's apocryphal.

Re: St Teresa: - Apocryphally. (of a story or statement) of doubtful authenticity, although widely circulated as being true.

She also didn't approve of adequate pain care for the dying, believing they should 'suffer like Jesus'. :-(

She made people converts on their death beds when they had no clue what was going on. And that wasn't the worst thing about her.

People need to read up on this "saint" before praising her.

I agree Eldrick - but its a fact - certainly wasn't my choice!!

She also wasn't (in my view - nor Christopher Hitchens') the nicest person on the planet.

via the benefit of a couple of highly dubious and dodgy miracles! John Paul made more saints than any other pope for 500 years. Who says the age of miracles is dead lol

Funny enough you're right Maggie, since last year.

I thought she was already a Saint - Saint Teresa of Calcutta.

Mother Theresa is being asked to carry out two miracles ( sort the Irish border and get a red white and blue brexit deal out of stony faced Eurocrats) without the advantages of working from the celestial sphere.

The Pope should give her a break.