Mother Teresa: A Biography (18 page)

Hitchens maintained that such blatant and deliberate disregard for the truth on Mother Teresa’s part was not a sign of naiveté or even stupidity, but rather arrogance. Claiming to be above politics, Mother Teresa also

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had the benefit of an almost unprecedented public forum. But while speaking out against abortion in Great Britain, Ireland, and the United States, she remained noticeably silent on the topics of unlawful deaths, murders, and oppression in such political hotspots as Ethiopia, Haiti, and Albania, where she kissed the hands of ruling dictators and willingly took their money and their awards.

Her refusal to acknowledge the deep problems of poverty emerged in Hitchens’s description of a 1981 visit that Mother Teresa made to Anacostia, an African American ghetto in Washington, D.C. At that time, the Missionaries of Charity intended to establish some sort of operation there, though many of the area’s residents did not want to give the impression that their neighborhood was helpless and poor like many of the Third World areas in which Mother Teresa worked. Just before a press conference, a group of African American men visited Mother Teresa: They were very upset. . . . They told Mother that Anacostia needed decent jobs, housing and services—not charity.

Mother didn’t argue with them; she just listened. Finally one of them asked her what she was going to do here. Mother said:

“First we must learn to love one another.” They didn’t know what to say to that.7

Hitchens’s book, like the film, had its detractors and admirers. George Sim Johnston, writing for the American conservative publication
The
National Review,
called Hitchens’s work “unresisting imbecility,” and added that “the only good that will come from this book is the prayers the nuns of Mother Teresa’s order are no doubt saying for its author.”8
The
New York Times Book Review
found that Hitchens’s book is, “zealously overwritten, and rails wildly in defense of an almost nonsensical proposi-tion: that Mother Teresa of Calcutta is actually not a saint but an evil and selfish old woman.” Yet the reviewer concluded that Hitchens had a point: “Ultimately, he argues, Mother Teresa is less interested in helping the poor than in using them as an indefatigable source of wretchedness on which to fuel the expansion of her fundamentalist Roman Catholic beliefs.”9 The
Sunday Times
was even more succinct: “Veteran lefty kicks old nun; old nun forgives; lefty doesn’t want to be forgiven.”10

Mary Poplin, a journalist writing for
Commonweal
magazine, visited Calcutta in 1996. She was there to write about Mother Teresa and her work; she also took the opportunity to ask Mother Teresa about the Hitchens’s book. According to Poplin’s account, when questioned about the charge that Mother Teresa was one of the wealthiest women in the 1 3 0

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world, and that she certainly did not need any more money, Mother Teresa, after a puzzled look, replied, “Oh yes, the book. I haven’t read it but some of the sisters have. It matters not, he [Hitchens] is forgiven.”

Poplin laughed and then said, “Yes, Mother, in the end of the book, he says he knew you said you forgave him and he’s irate because he says he didn’t ask you to forgive him and he didn’t need it.” She looked at me as though I hadn’t understood, then gently and confidently instructed me,

“Oh, it is not I who forgives, it is God, it is God. God forgives.”11

A GROWING MINORITY

The bitter arguments over Hitchens’s charges in both
Hell’s Angel
and
The Missionary Position
might have ended there, if it had not been for other, more moderate voices also coming forward with their criticisms of Mother Teresa. Dr. Robin Fox, a thoracic specialist and editor of the highly respected medical journal, the
Lancet,
wrote in 1994 of the poor medical facilities found at Nirmal Hriday in Calcutta. According to Fox, he was astonished to find that there were no simple testing procedures implemented to distinguish an incurable from a curable disease: “Such systematic approaches are alien to the ethos of the home. . . . Along with the neglect of diagnosis, the lack of good analgesia marks Mother Teresa’s approach as clearly separate from the hospice movement. I know which I prefer.”12 Further, although it appeared that the poor in the facilities that the Missionaries of Charity operated could not receive even basic treatment, Mother Teresa herself had access to the most modern medical treatment in the world, especially when her heart problems came to light.

Not long after Dr. Fox’s criticism appeared, a thoughtful piece by Clifford Longley, a writer and former religious affairs correspondent for the London
Times,
warned of Mother Teresa’s reverence for death. Such an emphasis, Longley feared, threatened to turn suffering into a goal. In addition, many health workers who visited the clinics and listened to Mother Teresa’s views on abortion wondered how anyone who concerned themselves with the problems of the poor could not also be concerned with the problems of fertility, overpopulation, and other questions of re-productive health. The furor over
Hell’s Angel
had in fact opened up the debate over Mother Teresa’s work during the last 50 years; for the first time, opposition to her seemed to be emerging and hardening. Was Mother Teresa’s way of dealing with the poor outmoded as some of her critics charged, or, as some of her supporters suggested, would there always be the need for the kind of Christian charity Mother Teresa exemplified?

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In her article “No Humanitarian,” Mary Poplin who spent two months working as a volunteer, described the rough conditions of Mother Teresa’s medical facilities:

Like many Western visitors, I initially found the experience disorienting. Despite Mother Teresa’s repeated reminders that the order’s mission is religious, not social work, most Westerners who visit the homes for sick and handicapped children expect them to look like medical clinics or hospitals. They don’t.

Most shocking is the absence of hospital-like procedures and equipment. This can be particularly disconcerting for people who have worked in hospital settings in America and Europe. . . . Surely, given Mother Teresa’s fame, such equipment was available?. . . . The Missionaries of Charity, one learns, resist owning anything, even medical equipment that is not widely available to the poor.13

PUTTING HER HOUSE IN ORDER

By the mid-1990s, Mother Teresa was fighting not only ill health but also the growing criticism of her mission. Any ideas she may have had about retiring were now out of the question. Her seemingly contradictory actions and world fame had put her in an uncomfortable position. Yet, she also relied more fully on the advice and support of the other sisters, some of whom believed that Mother Teresa was trying to get her affairs in order.

In May 1993, Mother Teresa traveled to Belgium where she was to help celebrate a gathering of Co-Workers. Because so many volunteers were going to attend the meeting in Antwerp, they decided to hold a meeting of the governing body to discuss a Co-Worker chapter that had been planned for San Diego the following year. Many believed the gathering in Antwerp would be a good opportunity to address the organization about some of her concerns.

Mother Teresa was scheduled to speak on May 8; however, the evening before, Brother Geoff, General Servant of the Missionary Brothers, announced to the assembly that allegations had been made against the Co-Workers for misuse of funds; monies that should have gone to the poor were thought instead to have been spent on Co-Workers’ travel expenses, newsletters, and postage. He then informed the stunned audience that Mother Teresa was going to dissolve the Co-Workers organization the next day and cancel the San Diego chapter.

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The announcement came as a terrible shock to the group. But for those who had been with Mother Teresa almost from the beginning, her actions were in character. For those volunteers, working with Mother Teresa had always been a bit of a balancing act: on one hand, she could raise enormous amounts of money for the poor; on the other, she had no problem telling the Co-Workers that they could not make Christmas cards in order to raise money. This attitude formed the crux of Mother Teresa’s own concern over money; namely that it would become too central a preoccupa-tion for the organization and its volunteers. First and foremost, the work was always to be about the poor. In the end, with the help of Brother Geoff, the Co-Workers convinced Mother Teresa not to disband the group.

Plagued by her physical ailments, Mother Teresa battled memory lapses, confusion, and a growing dependency on others. She no longer was as accessible as she had been in years past. For many volunteers, there was the question of whether these changes were hampering her judgment and influencing what they perceived as erratic behavior and inconsistent decisions. Her supporters, however, maintained that Mother Teresa was simply reminding her volunteers not to lose track of their priorities: to live a simple life and maintain a deep spirituality and faith in God.

In September 1993, Mother Teresa received sad news; Father Van Exem, the priest who had reluctantly agreed to serve as her spiritual advisor over 50 years ago, had died. His death was a terrible blow to Mother Teresa for the two had become close friends. Because she was still recovering from her own illness, she could not attend his funeral, but watched sadly from her bedroom window as the funeral procession made its way to St. John’s Cemetery for burial.

Shortly before his death, Father Van Exem wrote to Mother Teresa, telling her that he would be offering his prayers for the following inter-cessions: that she would recover from her latest illness of a blocked heart vessel without surgery; that she would travel to China by October of that year; and that God would take him, instead of her. And so it was at the end of October that Mother Teresa arrived in China to arrange for the opening of a home for children. Her visit was a quick one; she stopped in Shanghai and Beijing before going to Rome and then to Poland. She returned to China once more in March 1994 with the hope of opening a house for handicapped children. Her wish to establish the Missionaries of Charity failed; China, by 1994, was becoming less open and Mother Teresa turned her energies elsewhere.

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MORE CONTROVERSY

Mother Teresa’s final years were touched by controversy. In February 1994, she attended a National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C. She did so reluctantly, having been invited by then-President Bill Clinton. She had been asked to speak and did so with much of her speech focusing on the topic of abortion. However, when she was finished, no one at the top table where the president was sitting applauded, though President Clinton later apologized. Mother Teresa did meet Hillary Clinton, who traveled with her daughter, Chelsea, to Calcutta the following year to visit one of the Missionary of Charity homes. With Mrs. Clinton’s help, a children’s shelter operated by the order opened in Washington in June 1995.

Two other unhappy events in Calcutta ensnared Mother Teresa. In September 1995, a 15-year-old girl who lived on the city streets was cooking a meal. She overturned the fire and was badly burned. A local doctor found her some days later lying outside with third-degree burns and severe damage to one arm. He managed to get the young woman into a state hospital, but it became difficult to obtain the right medications for her.

Her relatives removed her and she went back to living on the street. After a month, her wounds became severely infected and so her relatives searched for another facility.

By this time, the local press had gotten wind of the story. The Missionaries of Charity were contacted and they agreed to send an ambulance for the girl. She was first taken to Nirmal Hriday, but was turned away because she was not dying. The next stop was to Shishu Bhavan, where she was turned away again, having been told that she was not an orphan and moreover was married with a child. Her next destination was Prem Dan, but again she was refused admission because she was not suffering from tuberculosis nor was she insane. In the end, the burn victim was deposited back on the street.

The story was a sensation and marked the first time any reporting carried a strong bias against Mother Teresa. One reporter asked Mother Teresa about the young woman’s predicament. To his astonishment, Mother Teresa said that she would not discuss the issue. Some told the reporter that the girl should have been in a hospital, not in one of Mother Teresa’s homes. But, as the reporter later stated, his intent was never to ask Mother Teresa to take the girl, but to ask her why—when she had pur-portedly never refused anyone care or help—she would not admit the girl to one of her facilities. The young girl was eventually taken to another state hospital, but the story had done damage and for many caused con-1 3 4

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siderable disillusionment with both Mother Teresa and the Missionaries of Charity.

Not more than two months later, Mother Teresa again became em-broiled in controversy, this time of a political nature. This incident also was the first time Church officials in India publicly criticized her, and where she faced the most sustained opposition to her work and philosophy. The situation was one of the few times in which Mother Teresa became involved in a contentious row that had severe international repercussions.

MOTHER TERESA AND THE DALITS

On November 18, 1995, Mother Teresa held special prayers at the Sacred Heart Cathedral in New Delhi. The occasion was to launch a two-week fast and protest campaign demanding scheduled caste recognition for Christian Dalits. Caste is an important part of Indian society; it is not only a declaration of social status, it determines the course of a person’s life. People born into the highest caste of Indian society were those with property, money, education, and opportunities. The lowest level of Indian society were the Dalits or “untouchables.”