Mother Teresa
Mother Teresa of Calcutta,
OM, (born
Agnes Gonxhe Bojaxhiu August 27,
1910 in
Skopje in today
Republic of Macedonia â€"
September 5,
1997), was an
Albanian Catholic nun who founded the
Missionaries of Charity in
India. Her work among the
poverty-stricken of
Kolkata (Calcutta) made her one of the world's most famous people, and she was
beatified by
Pope John Paul II in October 2003. Hence, she may be properly called
Blessed Teresa by
Catholics.
At the age of 18 she left home to join the Sisters of Loretto. In 1971, she was awarded the
Pope John XXIII Peace Prize. Teresa was also awarded the
Templeton Prize in 1973, the
Nobel Peace Prize in 1979, and
India's highest civilian award, the
Bharat Ratna, in 1980. She was awarded the Legion d'Honneur from Jean-Claude Duvalier in 1981. She was presented with the
Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1985 and was made an
Honorary Citizen of the United States in 1996. She was the first and only person to be featured on an Indian postage stamp while still alive. Her supporters sometimes referred to her as the "Angel of Mercy" and "Saint of the Gutter."
Teresa was also known for her books about
Christian spirituality and
prayer, some that were written together with her close friend
Frère Roger.
While many Catholics and others considered Teresa the embodiment of a "living
saint," critics have raised questions about her public statements, working practices, political connections, and the use of funds donated to her
charity.Quite often people get confused about her nationality.That is because while she was a nun she said, "By blood, I am Albanian. By citizenship, an Indian. By faith, I am a Catholic nun. As to my calling, I belong to the world. As to my heart, I belong entirely to the Heart of Jesus. "Small of stature, rocklike in faith, Mother Teresa of Calcutta was entrusted with the mission of proclaiming God's thirsting love for humanity, especially for the poorest of the poor. "God still loves the world and He sends you and me to be His love and His compassion to the poor." She was a soul filled with the light of Christ, on fire with love for Him and burning with one desire: "to quench His thirst for love and for souls."
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Mother Teresa's Home for the Dying in Kolkata (Calcutta) |
In October, 1950 Teresa received
Vatican permission to start her own order, which the Vatican originally labeled as the
Diocesan Congregation of the Calcutta Diocese, but which later became known as the
Missionaries of Charity, whose mission was to care for (in her own words) "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." It began as a small Order with 12 members in Calcutta; today it has more than 4,000 nuns running orphanages, AIDS hospices, and charity centres worldwide, and caring for refugees, the blind, disabled, aged, alcoholics, the poor and homeless and victims of floods, epidemics and famine in Asia, Africa, Latin America, North America, Poland, and Australia.
With the help of Indian officials she converted an abandoned
Hindu temple into the
Kalighat Home for the Dying, a free
hospice for the poor. She soon after opened another hospice, Nirmal Hriday (Pure Heart), a home for
lepers called Shanti Nagar (City of Peace), and an orphanage. The order soon began to attract both recruits and charitable donations, and by the 1960s had opened hospices, orphanages and leper houses all over India.
In 1965, by granting a
Decree of Praise,
Pope Paul VI granted Mother Teresa's request to expand her order to other countries. Teresa's order started to rapidly grow, with new homes opening all over the globe. The order's first house outside India was in
Venezuela, and others followed in
Rome and
Tanzania, and eventually in many countries in
Asia,
Africa, and
Europe, including
Albania. In addition, the first Missionaries of Charity home in the
United States was established in the
South Bronx,
New York. By 1996, she was operating 517 missions in more than 100 countries. Today over one million workers worldwide are employed by the Missionaries of Charity.
A day after the death of Teresa,
John Paul II said: "Missionary of Charity: this is what Mother Teresa was in name and in fact". And on her beatification, he developed this idea further. "First and foremost a missionary: there is no doubt that the new Blessed was one of the greatest missionaries of the 20th century. The Lord made this simple woman who came from one of Europe's poorest regions a chosen instrument (cf. Acts 9: 15) to proclaim the Gospel to the entire world, not by preaching but by daily acts of love towards the poorest of the poor. A missionary with the most universal language: the language of love that knows no bounds or exclusion and has no preferences other than for the most forsaken."
Analyzing her deed and achievements, John Paul II asked: "Where did Mother Teresa find the strength to place herself completely at the service of others? She found it in prayer and in the silent contemplation of Jesus Christ, his Holy Face, his Sacred Heart."
In his first encyclical
Deus Caritas Est,
Benedict XVI mentioned Teresa of Calcutta three times and he also used her life to clarify one of his main points of the encyclical. "In the example of Blessed Teresa of Calcutta we have a clear illustration of the fact that time devoted to God in prayer not only does not detract from effective and loving service to our neighbour but is in fact the inexhaustible source of that service."
Believing that: "And whosoever will be first among you shall be the servant of all"
Mk10: 44 Mother Teresa put great emphasis on service to others. She believed in submission to God and Christ and the Catholic Church. Her service to the poor was a reflection of her desire to do what Christ required and to see 'christ' in the eyes of all she served.
[BEATIFICATION OF MOTHER THERESA OF CALCUTTA]; A Franciscan influenceAlthough there was no direct connection between Mother Teresa's order and the Franciscan orders, she was known as a great admirer of
St. Francis of Assisi.
[Mother Teresa of Calcutta Pays Tribute to St. Francis of Assisi]Accordingly her influence and life show influences of Franciscan spirituality.
Her sisters say the peace prayer of St. Francis every morning before breakfast and many of the vows and emphasis of her ministry are similar. St. Francis emphasized poverty, chastity, obedience and submission to Christ. He also devoted much of his own life to service of the poor, especially lepers in the area where he lived.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_of_assisi]; In her own wordsMother Teresa was famous for her many quotes. The following quote attempts to express her spirituality; as such it is not untypical of the many others available.
[Mother Teresa - The Path of Love: Divine Call]He is the Life that I want to live,
:He is Light that I want to radiate.
:He is the Way to the Father.
:He is the Love with which I want to love.
:He is the Joy that I want to share.
:He is the Peace that I want to sow.
:Jesus is Everything to me.
:Without Him, I can do nothing.
In 1952 the first Home for the Dying was opened in space made available by the City of Calcutta. Over the years, Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity grew from 12 to thousands serving the "poorest of the poor" in 450 centers around the world. Mother Teresa created many homes for the dying and the unwanted from Calcutta to New York to Albania. She was one of the first to establish homes for AIDS victims. For more than 45 years, Mother Teresa comforted the poor, the dying, and the unwanted around the world.
Mother Teresa's work inspired other Catholics to affiliate themselves with her order. The Missionaries of Charity Brothers was founded in 1963, and a contemplative branch of the Sisters followed in 1976. Lay Catholics and non-Catholics were enrolled in the Co-Workers of Mother Teresa, the Sick and Suffering Co-Workers, and the Lay Missionaries of Charity. In answer to the requests of many priests, in 1981 Mother Teresa also began the Corpus Christi Movement for Priests.
By the early 1970s, Mother Teresa had become an international celebrity. Her fame can be in large part attributed to the 1969
documentary Something Beautiful for God by
Malcolm Muggeridge and his 1971 book of the same title, which is still in print. During the filming of the documentary, footage taken in poor lighting conditions, particularly the Home for the Dying, was thought unlikely to be of usable quality by the crew. After returning from India, however, the footage was found to be extremely well-lit. Muggeridge claimed this was a miracle of "divine light" from Mother Teresa herself. Others in the crew thought it more likely ascribable to a new type of
Kodak film. Muggeridge later converted to Catholicism.
In 1971 Paul VI awarded her the first
Pope John XXIII Peace Prize. Other awards bestowed upon her included a Kennedy Prize (1971), the
Balzan prize (1978) for humanity, peace and brotherhood among peoples, the
Albert Schweitzer International Prize (1975), the
United States Presidential Medal of Freedom (1985) and the
Congressional Gold Medal (1994), honorary citizenship of the United States (
November 16,
1996), and honorary degrees from a number of universities. In 1972 Mother Teresa was awarded the Nehru Prize for her promotion of international peace and understanding.
In 1979, Mother Teresa was awarded the
Nobel Peace Prize, "for work undertaken in the struggle to overcome poverty and distress, which also constitute a threat to peace." She refused the conventional ceremonial banquet given to laureates, and asked that the $6,000 funds be diverted to the poor in Calcutta, claiming the money would permit her to feed hundreds of needy for a year. She is stated to have said that earthly rewards were important only if they helped her help the world's needy. When Mother Teresa received the prize, she was asked, "What can we do to promote world peace?" Her answer was simple: "Go home and love your family." In the same year, she was also awarded the
Balzan Prize for promoting peace and brotherhood among the nations.
In 1982, Mother Teresa persuaded Israelis and Palestinians, who were in the midst of a skirmish, to cease fire long enough to rescue 37 mentally-handicapped patients from a besieged hospital in
Beirut.
When the walls of Eastern Europe collapsed, she expanded her efforts to communist countries that had rejected her, embarking on dozens of projects. She was undeterred by criticism about her firm stand against abortion and divorce saying, "No matter who says what, you should accept it with a smile and do your own work."
Mother Teresa traveled to help the hungry in
Ethiopia, radiation victims at
Chernobyl, and earthquake victims in
Armenia.
In 1991, Mother Teresa returned for the first time to her native region and opened a Missionaries of Charity Brothers home in
Tirana,
Albania.
During her lifetime and after her death, Mother Teresa was consistently found by
Gallup to be the single most widely
admired person, and in 1999 was ranked as the "most admired person of the 20th century." Notably, Mother Teresa out-polled all other volunteered answers by a wide margin, and was in first place in all major demographic categories except the very young.
In 1983 Teresa suffered a heart attack in
Rome, while visiting
Pope John Paul II. After a second attack in 1989 she received a
pacemaker. In 1991, after a battle with
pneumonia while in
Mexico, she had further heart problems.
She offered to resign her position as head of the order. A secret ballot vote was carried out, and all the nuns, except herself, voted for Mother Teresa to stay. Mother Teresa agreed to continue her work as head of the Missionaries of Charity.
In April 1996, Mother Teresa fell and broke her
collar bone. Later that year, in August, she suffered from
malaria, and failure of the left
heart ventricle. She underwent
heart surgery, but it was clear that her health was declining. On
March 13,
1997 she stepped down from the head of Missionaries of Charity and died on
September 5,
1997, just 9 days after her 87th birthday.
The Archbishop of Calcutta, Henry Sebastian D'Souza, says he ordered a priest to perform an
exorcism on Mother Teresa shortly before she died because he thought she was being attacked by the devil. Catholic experts agree that, while exorcisms remain an important but rare part of the church's work, the Archbishop may have overreacted in ordering the ceremony.
[ Archbishop: Mother Teresa underwent exorcism. CNN, September 7, 2001]At the time of her death, Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity had over 4,000 sisters, an associated brotherhood of 300 members, and over 100,000 lay volunteers, operating 610 missions in 123 countries. These included hospices and homes for people with
HIV/AIDS,
leprosy and
tuberculosis,
soup kitchens, children's and family counseling programs,
orphanages, and schools.
Mother Teresa was granted a full
state funeral by the
Indian Government, an honor normally given to
presidents and
prime ministers, in gratitude for her services to the poor of all religions in India. Her death was widely considered a great tragedy within both secular and religious communities. The former
U.N. Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, for example, said: "She is the
United Nations. She is peace in the world."
Nawaz Sharif, the
Prime Minister of Pakistan said that Mother Teresa was "A rare and unique individual who lived long for higher purposes. Her life-long devotion to the care of the poor, the sick, and the disadvantaged was one of the highest examples of service to our humanity."
Following Teresa's death in 1997, the
Holy See began the process of
beatification, the second step towards possible
canonization, or
sainthood. This process requires the documentation of a
miracle performed from the
intercession of Mother Teresa. In 2002, the Vatican recognized as a miracle the healing of a
tumor in the abdomen of an Indian woman, Monica Besra, following the application of a locket containing Teresa's picture. Monica Besra said that a beam of light emanated from the picture, curing the cancerous tumor.
The issue of the alleged miracle proved controversial in India around the time of Mother Teresa's beatification.
Teresa was formally beatified by
Pope John Paul II on
October 19,
2003 with the title
Blessed Teresa of Calcutta. A second miracle is required for her to proceed to canonization.
According to
The Daily Telegraph, Besra's husband initially said that the tumor was cured by medical treatment. He is quoted as saying: "This miracle is a hoax. It is much ado about nothing. My wife was cured by the doctors." He later changed his mind, however, and told an interviewer: "It was her miracle healing that cured my wife. Our situation was terrible and we didn't know what to do. Now my children are being educated with the help of the nuns and I have been able to buy a small piece of land. Everything has changed for the better."
According to Monica Besra in
TIME Asia,
records of her treatment were removed by a member of the order from the hospital and are now with a nun. The doctors who treated Monica Besra denied the claims of a miracle healing and said that they had come under pressure from the Missionaries of Charity to acknowledge that the healing process was the result of a miracle.
Mother Teresa frequently spoke against
abortion and artificial
contraception in meetings with high level government officials. In her
Nobel Prize acceptance speech, she declared, "I feel the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a direct war, a direct killing - direct murder by the mother herself ... Because if a mother can kill her own child - what is left for me to kill you and you kill me - there is nothing between."
[http://nobelprize.org/peace/laureates/1979/teresa-lecture.html]On
February 3,
1994 at a National Prayer Breakfast, sponsored by the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, in Washington, DC, Mother Teresa challenged the audience on such topics as family life and abortion. She said, "Please don't kill the child. I want the child. Please give me the child. I am willing to accept any child who would be aborted and to give that child to a married couple who will love the child and be loved by the child."
[http://www.priestsforlife.org/brochures/mtspeech.html]In the aftermath of the
Bangladesh Liberation War, it was determined that more than 450,000 women in
East Pakistan (now
Bangladesh) had been systematically
raped, giving birth to a few thousand war-babies. She asserted her rejection of abortion by publicly renouncing abortion as an option and by calling upon the women left behind to keep their unborn children. She characterized her views later when asked in 1993 about a 14-year-old rape victim in
Ireland, "Abortion can never be necessary... because it is pure killing."
While this stance is in line with that of the
Roman Catholic Church, which asserts
natural family planning is the only acceptable form of
birth control,
[ENCYCLICAL OF POPE PAUL VI ON THE REGULATION OF BIRTH] her critics assert that Teresa dogmatically refused to acknowledge the related problems of
overpopulation, especially in cities like Calcutta.
[http://www.usccb.org/prolife/programs/rlp/03ruse.htm]Teresa also campaigned tirelessly against
divorce, which she understood to be an immoral abomination in accordance with the teaching of her faith, insisting it should be made illegal; she organized an unsuccessful campaign to keep the
Irish ban on divorce in 1996. However, some believe she contradicted this belief when she told the
Ladies Home Journal that with respect to Prince Charles and Princess Diana, "It is a good thing that it is over. Nobody was happy anyhow."
Teresa believed firmly in
forgiveness. As she once said "I once picked up a woman from a garbage dump and she was burning with fever; she was in her last days and her only lament was: ‘My son did this to me.' I begged her: You must forgive your son. In a moment of madness, when he was not himself, he did a thing he regrets. Be a mother to him, forgive him. It took me a long time to make her say: ‘I forgive my son.' Just before she died in my arms, she was able to say that with a real forgiveness. She was not concerned that she was dying. The breaking of the heart was that her son did not want her. This is something you and I can understand."
Teresa also believed in
ecumenism, as she stated "There is only one God and He is God to all; therefore it is important that everyone is seen as equal before God. I've always said we should help a Hindu become a better Hindu, a Muslim become a better Muslim, a Catholic become a better Catholic. We believe our work should be our example to people. We have among us 475 souls - 30 families are Catholics and the rest are all Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs â€" all different religions. But they all come to our prayers." The Roman Catholic view on ecumenism is that unity must be viewed in the context of trying to bring all people into the fullest of unity with Christ and the one true Catholic Church that He founded.
[http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15132a.htm]Christopher Hitchens and Aroup Chatterjee
Christopher Hitchens is a British-born journalist now living in
Washington, D.C.. He described Mother Teresa's organization as a
cult which promoted suffering and did not help those in need. In Hitchens' interpretation, Mother Teresa's own words on poverty proved that "her intention was not to help people." He quoted Mother Teresa's words at a 1981 press conference in which she was asked: "Do you teach the poor to endure their lot?" She replied: "I think it is very beautiful for the poor to accept their lot, to share it with the passion of
Christ. I think the world is being much helped by the suffering of the poor people."
Hitchens further alleged that Mother Teresa lied to donors about what their contributions were to be used for. Donors, he says, were told that the money went to aid and the construction of healthcare facilities in India and elsewhere. Evidence points to it instead being spent largely on missionary work and that Mother Teresa was actually the controller of some of the funds. No hospitals were ever built. In 1994, Hitchens published an article in
The Nation entitled "The Ghoul of Calcutta".
Hitchens, with British journalist
Tariq Ali, co-produced a
television documentary for the
Channel 4 called
Hell's Angel, which was based on Aroup Chatterjee's work. Although he has never disputed the documentary's conclusions, Chatterjee criticized what he called the "sensationalist" approach of the film. The next year Hitchens published
The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice, which contained much of the same content, though with more references.
Dr. Aroup Chatterjee is the author of
"Mother Teresa: The Final Verdict" (2003). Dr. Chatterjee maintains that the public image of Mother Teresa as a helper of the poor, the sick, and the dying was misleading and overstated; the number of people who are served by even the largest of the homes is not nearly as large as westerners are led to believe. [
1]
Chatterjee alleged that many operations of the order engage in no absolutely charitable activity at all, but instead use their funds for missionary work. He stated, for example, that none of the eight facilities that the Missionaries of Charity run in
Papua New Guinea have residents living there; their sole use is converting people to Catholicism. Some defenders of the order argue that missionary activity — already declared in the name of the order — was a central part of Mother Teresa's calling. [
2] In an open letter to Mother Teresa [
3] Chatterjee asked for clarification. In the letter, he quotes her as having given numbers of 57,000 helped at a single facility, 250,000 helped at another, thousands helped daily at another. He is most highly critical of the informality of the numbers she uses. [
4] According to a
Stern magazine report about Mother Teresa, the
Protestant-aligned
Assembly of God charity serves 18,000 meals daily in Calcutta, many more than all the Missionaries of Charity's homes combined.
Chatterjee has stated that although he was responsible for Christopher Hitchens becoming involved with this cause, he is critical of Hitchens for what Chatterjee refers to as Hitchens' "sensationalist" approach and regrets Hitchens' involvement because he undermines the cause of making the truth known. [
5]
Chatterjee contends that families of the residents of its homes were not allowed to visit their loved ones and that, among India's charitable organizations, Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity is the only one which refuses to release a public financial account. Hitchens asserts, "I would say it was a certainty that millions of people died because of her work, and millions more were made poorer, stupider, more sick, more diseased, more fearful, and more ignorant".
Criticism for baptisms
In addition to these primary critics Mother Teresa has garnered criticism for her encouragement of sacramental
baptisms being performed on the dying (a majority of which were
Hindus and
Muslims) into the Catholic faith. These were done without regard to the individuals' religion. In a speech at the Scripps Clinic in
San Diego,
California in January, 1992, she said, "Something very beautiful... not one has died without receiving the special ticket for
St. Peter, as we call it. We call baptism 'a ticket for St. Peter.' We ask the person, do you want a blessing by which your sins will be forgiven and you receive God? They have never refused. So 29,000 have died in that one house [in Kalighat] from the time we began in 1952."
Criticism of medical care provided
In 1991, Dr. Robin Fox, then editor of the British medical journal
The Lancet, visited the Home for Dying Destitute in Calcutta and described the medical care the patients received as "haphazard". He observed that sisters and volunteers, some of whom had no medical knowledge, had to make decisions about patient care, because of the lack of doctors in the hospice. Dr. Fox specifically held Teresa responsible for conditions in this home, and observed that her order did not distinguish between curable and incurable patients; people who could otherwise survive their ordeals would be at a heightened risk of dying from infections and lack of treatment.
Fox conceded that the regimen he observed included cleanliness, the tending of wounds and sores, and kindness, but he noted that the sisters' approach to managing pain was "disturbingly lacking". The formulary at the facility Fox visited lacked strong
analgesics which he felt clearly separated Mother Teresa's approach from the
hospice movement. Fox also wrote that needles were rinsed with warm water, which left them inadequately sterilized, and the facility did not isolate patients with
tuberculosis.
There have been a series of other reports documenting inattention to medical care in the order's facilities. Similar points of view have also been expressed by some former volunteers who worked for
Teresa's order.
Attitude toward political leaders
Mother Teresa made some public statements regarding political leaders that have produced controversy. After Indian Prime Minister
Indira Gandhi's suspension of civil liberties in 1975, Mother Teresa said: "People are happier. There are more jobs. There are no strikes." These approving comments were seen as a result of the friendship between Teresa and the
Congress Party. These comments were criticized even in Catholic media. (Chatterjee, p. 276). In 1981 she made a trip to
Haiti to accept an honor from
Jean-Claude Duvalier, who was notorious as a repressive
kleptocrat, and praised the Duvalier family as friends of Haiti's poor. In 1989, she travelled to Albania and laid a wreath at the grave of
Enver Hoxha, the small nation's
Cold War-era leader who had outlawed religion and sometimes brutally repressed religious liberty.
Mother Teresa, who viewed abortion as a form of
genocide, met with former
president Bill Clinton, who is pro-choice, and criticized him for not supporting a ban on abortion, but encouraged him to seek peaceful solutions to problems. [
6]
The Catholic Church's official analysis of criticisms
In the process of examining Teresa's suitability for beatification and canonization, the Roman Curia pored over a great deal of documentation of published and unpublished criticisms against her life and work. Documents and interviews were scoured and debated. Vatican officials say Hitchens' allegations have been investigated by the agency charged with such matters, the
Congregation for the Causes of Saints, and they found no obstacle to Mother Teresa's
canonization.
*
Missionaries of Charity*
Kalighat Home for the Dying* Becky Benenate, Joseph Durepos (eds)
Mother Teresa: No Greater Love (Fine Communications, 2000) ISBN 1567314015
* Aroup Chatterjee: Mother Teresa.
The Final Verdict (Meteor Books, 2003). ISBN 8188248002,
introduction and first three chapters on fourteen (without pictures). Critical examination of Agnes Bojaxhiu's life and work.
* Bijal Dwivedi,
Mother Teresa: Woman of the Century*
Christopher Hitchens:
The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice (Verso, 1995) ISBN 185984054X. Plus a debate in the
New York Review of Books:
Defense of Mother Teresa,
Hitchens' answer,
Leys' reply.
*
Malcolm Muggeridge Something Beautiful for God ISBN 0060660430
*
T.T.Mundakel,
Blessed Mother Teresa: Her Journey to Your Heart. ISBN 1903650615. ISBN 076481110X.
Book Review.
* Susan Shields, "Mother Teresa's House of Illusions".
Free Inquiry Magazine, Volume 18, Number 1.
Online copy.
* Kathryn Spink,
Mother Teresa: A Complete Authorized Biography. ISBN 0062508253.
* Mother Teresa et al,
Mother Teresa: In My Own Words. ISBN 0517201690.
* Walter Wüllenweber, "Nehmen ist seliger denn geben. Mutter Teresa â€" wo sind ihre Millionen?"
Stern (illustrated German weekly), September 10, 1998.
English translation.
*
Vatican Biography*
Mother Teresa Memorial Page*
Mother Teresa: The Angel of Mercy*
Mother Teresa - The Path of Love*
Nobel Laureate Biography (Nobel Foundation)*
Nobel Lecture, December 11, 1979*
Mother Teresa (The Nobel Prize Internet Archive)*
Mother Teresa: Angel of Mercy (CNN)*
The TIME 100: The Most Important People of the Century - Mother Teresa*
Listen to Mother Teresa pray her daily prayer*
Speech at National Prayer Breakfast, Washington, D.C., February 3, 1994*
Peggy Noonan, "Still, Small Voice," Crisis, 1 February 1998 (account of the National Prayer Breakfast speech)
*
Mother Teresa (Internet Movie Database)*
Missionaries of Charity Active and Contemplative Sisters with U.S. contact information (CMSWR member page)*
Branches of the Missionaries of Charity - Sisters, Brothers, Fathers, Lay Missionaries, Volunteer Co-workers, and Sick and Suffering Co-workers*
"Baptism," Catholic Encyclopedia (1907); Critics
*
Christopher Hitchens' criticisms of Mother Teresa*
Sally Warner: Mother Teresa of Calcutta*
An open letter to Mother Teresa, from Aroup Chatterjee*
Donal MacIntyre: The squalid truth behind the legacy of Mother Teresazh-yue:å¾·è˜ä¿®å¥³
