Not a Word from Big Daddy, Junior or The Spook
Published August 24th, 2007Imagine for a moment you have dedicated your life to a cause. Perhaps some charismatic individual is at the forefront, and you received a brochure about it. You devote your life to it, and the pay is miserable. You never meet the leader. You never even hear a word from him. You live basically in squalor, since that is what the brochure advises. All credit for what you do goes to this distant leader. In fact, no one has seen the leader. It’s just assumed he exists. That’s where the credit goes, that’s where all donations you collect go. Even though you doubt whether it was all worth it, whether your cause is real, whether you’ve wasted your life - you continue on, always keeping a smile and giving credit to the leader.
Sound like the story of a Saint? Or someone who is hopelessly delude, someone who lived a sad life of loneliness and misery. Should we emulate this person? Or feel sorry for them? I for one, feel sorry for Mother Teresa. Apparently for 50 years she toiled, fully aware that God was not there. I think Christopher Hitchens is right - she woke up one day and nothing made sense anymore, and she simply couldn’t let go of who she had become. This is a sad life. This is the person who goes to work every day empty inside.
How could someone who was so devoted to doing good end up in such a bad place? Well, this is one of those times I just have to say - religion is a bad, bad thing for almost everyone in it. I don’t know if everything Penn&Teller say about Teresa is true, but I do believe a few things. And some of the oddities of her life make more sense now. I do believe that most, if not nearly all, of the money she raised went to the Vatican, never to return. I do believe that her poorhouses were probably not much more than asylums for the dying. Once they went in, they were as good as dead. Why didn’t the church spend her money on building hospitals and health clinics? I don’t know. Why did she continue on as she did? Simply because, even though God wasn’t speaking to her, she believed He existed? I don’t know. I think she was on autopilot for a long time. Caught up in momentum of her own making. But I don’t agree with Hitchens when he says that Teresa basically caused greater poverty and more death and suffering than she caused. I don’t think she had much of an effect on that, either way. Those people would have been sick and dying anyway - but it sure seems like more could have been done for them.
There is some debate as to whether the Catholic Church is wealthy. In 1978 they had to go into debt to bury 2 Popes and hold 2 conclaves. So it is perhaps true that much of their wealth is in real estate and art - many of “priceless” value. But they collect a LOT of money, and have been doing so for 1500 years. Where did it all go? Was it just sitting there? Why was it not invested? -As an aside, wouldn’t it make sense for the church, all around the world, to invest in socially responsible (as defined by them) companies? Why is there not a “Vatican Fund” for every major economic market? Does this make sense only to me? It’s not about wealth - if they simply supported “good” companies and reinvested the returns or used it for charitable works, they could - literally - do a world of good. End aside…-
It seems to me that Teresa served a master she knew didn’t exist. She followed rules set down by a government that has no direction. It’s been living in the past for 500 years. It seems to me that it would be like living in the US if we only had one president (Washington) and the country was ruled by a dozen of the premier Washington scholars, all running the country based on how they think Washington would have run it. I’d be sitting here saying how absurd that is. Sure he was a great President - probably the greatest - but that’s no way to run a society.
So can we Saint someone who lived life accomplishing little other than PR for an organization headed by a dead person that she did not believe was there? Is that our definition of a modern saint? I don’t know. But it’s pretty amazing that Mother Teresa was an athiest. Because I’m sure you would have to ask - if God wouldn’t talk to someone who sacrificed everything for Him - who would he talk to?
I don’t think her writings say that she is an Athiest actually. An Athiest does not believe there is a God or Gods. In the few lines quoted in the Times article she speaks as if she still believes there is a God but that she has lost her connection to him/her.
An example is when she tells Van der Peet that, “Jesus has a very special love for you,” and later asks him to pray for her.
Just wanted to point that out even though ‘Mother Teresa was an Athiest!’ does make for a catchier story.
Sure, there’s some ambiguity - but I think she was really feeling like there was no God, but hoping, “praying” that she was wrong.
I mean, that’s pretty bad coming from someone who has devoted their life to God. Maybe not atheism, sure - but that’s the writings of a tortured agnostic if there ever was one. Fearing the answers because of blasphemy, answers that keep coming back no matter what, and calling the emptiness reality. Very interesting words from Mother Teresa.
The woman was beyond a crisis in faith, it lasted for 50 years until her death. She lost her faith. She lost her faith in God. Isn’t that one simple step away from atheism? If she can’t connect with God - then what is left to be theistic about? I don’t know.
I think Mother Teresa was a remarkable woman who did remarkable things. She gave a whole set of people dignity at a time in their lives that they’d lost it. Her motivations have no impact on that assessment.
People who don’t believe in God can still do remarkable things. The atheists should be pushing that. Think of it this way: one of the greatest human beings in the last century was one of you!
At the end of the day, this only proves thot a mythalogical figure was only human.
no argument there!