Mother Teresa - a church made saint

Canadian researchers, Serge Larivée and Genevieve Chenard of University of Montreal's Department of Psycho education and Carole Sénéchal of the University of Ottawa's Faculty of Education, have conducted a study on the Late saintly figure of Mother Teresa and revealed very interesting facts.

According to Researchers, she was a media propaganda and, the altruism and generosity which was surrounding her was a myth. The paper will be published in the March issue of the journal Studies in Religion/Sciences. Researchers have collected 502 documents on the life and work of Mother Teresa in which they found very vulnerable facts related to her work.

In their report, Serge Larivee and his colleagues cited number of problems associated with Mother Teresa and said that Church used her as a character of its plan to re-establish its values.

Professor Larivée said Agnes Gonxha, real name of Mother Teresa, had many questionable political contacts. Also her rather dubious way of caring for the sick, her suspicious management of the enormous sums of money she received, and her overly dogmatic views regarding, in particular, abortion, contraception, and divorce were highly questionable.

Till the time of her death, Mother Teresa had opened 517 missions known as "Homes of Dying" in more than 100 countries, welcoming sick and poor. But on the contrary, two-third people who came to these missions only hoped to find a doctor to treat them and the other one-third died without receiving any proper care. The reason was not lack of money, but the doctor observed that due to improper hygiene and unfit conditions situation got worst. While on the other hand, the foundation was able to raise millions of dollars.

Mother Teresa also had a very dubious view towards sick and suffering people. She said, "There is something beautiful in seeing the poor accept their lot, to suffer it like Christ's Passion. The world gains much from their suffering."

On the other side when she required palliative care, she received it in a modern American Hospital.

Mother Teresa was generous with her prayers but no direct monetary aid was offered by her. Larivée says. "Given the parsimonious management of Mother Theresa's works, one may ask where the millions of dollars for the poorest of the poor have gone?"

Discovering the power of mass media Muggeridge, an anti-abortion journalist who shared her right-wing Catholic values, made a eulogistic film promoting her by attributing her the first photographic miracle and marketed by Kodak.

Following her death, Church did the beatification process and highlighted the healing of woman name, Monica Besra, who was suffering from intense abdominal pain. The woman testified that a medallion placed on her abdomen blessed by Mother Teresa cured her. Though doctors thought that the drugs they had given her healed the ovarian cyst and the tuberculosis from which she suffered. While the Vatican concluded that, it was a miracle.

In the research papers it is concluded that the Roman authority was declining therefore, they followed this beatification process in order to re-establish their faith and made Mother Teresa an extraordinary figure.

On a positive side Serge Larivée and his colleagues pointed out that, "If the extraordinary image of Mother Teresa conveyed in the collective imagination has encouraged humanitarian initiatives that are genuinely engaged with those crushed by poverty, we can only rejoice. It is likely that she has inspired many humanitarian workers whose actions have truly relieved the suffering of the destitute and addressed the causes of poverty and isolation without being extolled by the media. Nevertheless, the media coverage of Mother Theresa could have been a little more rigorous."

Not the first time religion played with sentiments of people. Rather, religion is alive due to sentiments and so as their said protectors. This study has revealed a classic example of the same. But, how does it help? Can we come out this religious tragic situation? Most of us follow religion as a path of spirituality and kindness, but we need to embrace us with the reality of being spiritual without being religious.