Mother’s Day at the Vatican

HT, 4 Sep 2016, Kolkata: Pope Francis on Saturday denounced what he called the modern-day sin of indifference to hunger, exploitation and other suffering, while commending the example of Mother Teresa on the eve of a sainthood ceremony for the nun from Kolkata.

“Tomorrow, we’ll have the joy of seeing Mother Teresa proclaimed a saint,” Pope Francis told thousands of volunteers in St Peter’s Square at a special gathering to stress the need for more mercy and caring in the world. “She deserves it,” the Pope said, referring to Mother Teresa. The Pope will lead a Sunday morning canonisation ceremony in the square which is expected to draw huge crowds of faithful and other admirers of Mother Teresa.

Cheering the pontiff in Saturday’s crowd were many nuns from Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity order, each wearing the characteristic white sari trimmed in blue that makes them easily identifiable worldwide where they care for the needy. Francis greeted a group of these nuns as he was driven through the square in his popemobile, and one of the nuns put a blue-and-white garland around his neck.

“There will be other canonisations, but this (is) perhaps the key canonisation in what is the key year, the Year of Mercy,” said Vatican spokesman Greg Burke.

With more than 100,000 people expected to jam St Peter’s Square on Sunday, including at least 13 heads of state or government, security is an obvious concern given that the Islamic State group has said Rome is their ultimate target as it is the seat of Christianity. For months now, police have closed to traffic the main boulevard leading to the Vatican. In anticipation of the throngs expected on Sunday, Rome police have added an extra 1,000 officers, many of them anti-terrorism teams, to a law enforcement force that has already been beefed up by 2,000 for the Jubilee year.

The security plan calls for the area around St Peter’s to be divided into three areas with reinforced controls starting on Saturday night and lasting through Sunday. The airspace over the Vatican and surrounding areas will also be closed. H umanity has no ideology. The legendary Marxist Chief Minister Jyoti Basu admired the Catholic missionary Mother Teresa. No wonder, when she died on September 5, 1997, Jyoti Basu made a special concession for the Missionaries of Charity (MC) and allowed the Saint of the Gutter to be buried inside the Mother House at 54 A, AJC Bose Road. It was the longest night when the then Kolkata Municipal Commissioner Asim Barman, along with the late MC Superior General Sister Nirmala, stood at the prayer hall as the gravediggers went about digging the grave of the century’s one of most loved, admired, criticised and controversial personality.

Miles away, Vatican under Pope John Paul II held a special prayer. The Pope was fond of Mother Teresa and praised the life of holiness she lived. Most importantly, he felt Mother Teresa should be canonised. And Church believed Pope John Paul II would put Mother Teresa on the fast track to sainthood. The mandatory ten-year wait before the Cause of Canonisation is started was set aside for her by Pope John Paul II. “Saints do not demand applause from us, but want us to follow them,” the Pope said. And five years after her death, Vatican began the process of sainthood for the Albanian nun who put Kolkata on the world map.

Nineteen years after her death, Mother Teresa is Saint Teresa of Kolkata. “We will put up a big canonisation picture of the Vatican inside Mother House and another outside the building,” said Sister Blesilla of MC. “In fact, in recent times, this is one of the fastest sainthood given by Vatican. Pope Jonh Paul II became a saint in nine years and Mother Teresa in 19 years,” added Archbishop Thomas D’Souza. In her lifetime and after her death, critics never spared Mother Teresa. But no amount of criticism derailed the champion of the downtrodden and the destitute. And every time critics struck, Mother would say, “God loves all.” The recent attack on Mother Teresa came when RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat fired that the service rendered by Mother Teresa was good but there was a motive behind such social service and that the motive was to convert those she served to Christianity. The remark shocked the Catholic Church and rocked Parliament. But MC Superior General Sister Mary Prema maintained silence.

Sunita Kumar, who worked with Mother Teresa and MC for 50 years, said the RSS chief was misinformed. “Mother Teresa served the poor, the dying, the destitute and the sick irrespective of their religion. Mother Teresa accommodated everyone. I have not seen a single case wherein people were asked to convert to Christianity. Mother never imagined becoming a saint,” claimed Sunita Kumar. Superior General of MC Fathers in Tijuana, Mexico, Father Brian Kolodiejchuk said: “Mother Teresa believed conversion is a work of God and that faith is a gift. She respected every person, including atheists or agnostics, and respected the faith they had or even lacked.”

Father Brian, who was the Postulator for the Cause of Mother Teresa’s Canonisation, said, the Constitution of the MC states: “We shall not impose our Catholic Faith on anyone, but have profound respect for all religions, for it is never lawful for anyone to force others to embrace the Catholic Faith against their conscience.” “This is very much in accord with the thought of Mother Teresa herself,” added Father Brian. Even former Chief Election Commissioner of India and biographer of Mother Teresa, Navin B Chawla, observed: “Although staunchly and devoutly Catholic, she reached out to people of all denominations irrespective of their faith, or even lack of it. She did not believe that conversion was her work. That was god’s work, she said.”

It was Malcolm Muggeridge in his BBC documentary Something Beautiful For God who first told the world about Mother Teresa’s work in Kolkata in 1964. But with praise, controversy hounded Mother Teresa. Arguably the most celebrated woman of the Catholic Church in the 20th century, she faced a good share of criticism in her lifetime.

From Professor Serge Larivie to Christopher Hitchens to Tariq Ali to Robin Fox and Mohan Bhagwat — all have criticised Mother Teresa “for her rather dubious way of caring for the sick, her shady political contacts, her suspicious management of huge funds and donations, her alleged involvement in conversion and her dogmatic views on abortion, contraception and divorce”.

After Mother Teresa died on September 5, 1997, Pope John Paul II put her Cause for beatification and canonsiation on a fast track. Pope John Paul II beatified Mother Teresa on October 19, 2003.

The church took 400 years to canonise Joan of Arc and 40 years to make Polish priest Maximillian Maria Kolbe a saint. After Pope John Paul II, the Cause of Mother Teresa was put on a backburner. Nevertheless, the Archdiocese of Kolkata believed God would provide the miracles for her sainthood. Father Brian Kolodiejchuk submitted his report on Mother’s life to Vatican. According to him, the MC always prayed for cases strong enough to pass the medical board of the Congregation of the Cause of Saints at Vatican. The beatified Mother Teresa was called Blessed Teresa of Kolkata. And she needed another miracle to become a saint and that happened in Brazil.

In 1994, two British journalists Christopher Hitchens and Tariq Ali produced a critical documentary Hell’s Angel on Mother Teresa on British Channel 4. Former Vanity Fair writer Christopher Hitchens launched a scathing attack on Mother Teresa in his book The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice.

Subsequently, Christopher Hitchens criticised Mother Teresa’s beatification process in an article in Slate. He said: “It’s the sheer tawdriness that strikes the eye first of all. It used to be that a person could not even be nominated for ‘beatification’, the first step to ‘sainthood’, until five years after his or her death. This was to guard against local or popular enthusiasm in the promotion of dubious characters. The Pope nominated MT a year after her death in 1997.”

“As for the ‘miracle’ that had to be attested what can one say? Surely any respectable Catholic cringes with shame at the obviousness of fakery… Monica Besra claims a beam of light emerged from a picture of MT and relieved her of a cancerous tumour. Her physician Dr Ranjan Mustafi said she didn’t have a cancerous tumour in the first place and the tubercular cyst she had was cured by a course of prescription of medicine. Was he interviewed by Vatican investigators? No,” argued Christopher Hitchens. He claimed there was an attempt by Pope John Paul II to make Mother Teresa a saint during his lifetime, but the Vatican turned it down.

According to Professor Larvie, the hallowed reputation of Mother Teresa does not stand up to scrutiny on many counts. Mother Teresa faced serious criticism for taking donation from Haitian dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier, who stole millions of dollars from the poor country. She was nailed for taking funds from British publisher Robert Maxwell, who embezzled millions of pounds from employees’ pension funds. Mother Teresa also faced flak for demanding leniency in Charles Keating of Lincoln Savings and Loan case. Keating gave huge donation to Mother Teresa and a private jet when she visited the USA. “She was a friend to the worst of the rich, taking misappropriated money from the atrocious…Where did that money and all other donations go?” asked Christopher Hitchens.

However, Navin Chawla says Mother was actually given $1,000 by Duvalier’s daughterin-law and not millions. When Chawla asked Mother why she took money from shady characters like Duvalier, she replied: “In charity, everyone has a right to give. I have no right to judge them. God alone has that right. I accept no salary, no grant, no government or church funds, nothing. I do not ask for money. But people have a right to give.” Meanwhile, medical journal The Lancet criticised the quality of medical care provided to the terminally ill at her homes. In 1991, editor of The Lancet Robin Fox visited her homes. He observed that the MC did not distinguish between curable and incurable patients and those who could otherwise survive were at the risk of dying from infection and lack of treatment. He was appalled by the manner in which MC nuns attended to the wounds and provided pain management to patients. In fact, German magazine Stern criticised Mother for using donations to expand her convents but not alleviating the condition of the poor in her homes. “Also, Mother Teresa’s position on abortion, divorce and contraception was ultra-reactionary and fundamentalist even in orthodox Catholic terms,” said Christopher Hitchens. He also ridiculed her stand that abortion was “the greatest destroyer of peace”.

But despite a slew of criticisms that she faced in her lifetime, Mother Teresa and MC never reacted to the diatribes. With 754 homes in 130 countries, the ever-expanding MC is grateful to Pope Francis for recognising the contribution of Mother Teresa and her Catholic Order. “She was saint even before being recognised by Vatican. See the number of pilgrims who visit Mother House every day,” claimed Sister Blesilla.

Meanwhile, Archbishop Thomas D’Souza, under whose archdiocese Mother Teresa is being canonised, is happy. “Her sainthood would inspire people to lead a good life and encourage them to serve the poor and sick. Sainthood proves the quality, virtues and holiness of Mother Teresa’s life,” he said.