BLESSINGS AND BLAME
Thanks to the amazing success of the documentary Something Beautiful for God, Mother Teresa no longer just belonged to Calcutta or to India. She belonged to the world. Malcolm Muggeridge, the journalist who now emerged as one of Mother Teresa’s most vocal and supportive champions, went on to write a book published under the same title in 1971. Using the transcript from the film as the basis of the text and incorporating many black and white photographs, the book illustrated Mother Teresa’s work and life. Muggeridge also included nine pages of Mother Teresa’s sayings, stating that, since Mother Teresa would never write about herself or her work, there should be a record of her own words.
The book enjoyed phenomenal success. It has rarely gone out of print, and over 30 years, has sold more than 300,000 copies. It has been reprinted 20 times and has been translated into 13 languages. Upon his death in 1990, Muggeridge donated the royalties from the book to Mother Teresa, the sum of which is about £60,000.
Between the film, the book, and Mother Teresa’s own globe-trotting, both she and her order were very much in the public eye. Although that visibility was beneficial, particularly as Mother Teresa was trying to raise funds and awareness of the world’s poor, it also left her vulnerable to grow- ing dissent, criticism, and accusations. Despite Muggeridge’s predictions that Mother Teresa would one day be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, her application for the coveted award was rejected three times.
NEW ADVENTURES
During the 1970s Mother Teresa continued her travels, both speaking and opening new homes for the Missionaries of Charity. The decade opened with a home established in Amman, Jordan. In December 1970, a novitiate, or center to train newcomers, opened in England; homes for the Missionaries opened in London’s Paddington District and the Bronx, New York City in 1971. Mother Teresa and her Missionaries did not shy away from the world’s troubled spots: in 1972, a new foundation opened in Belfast, Northern Ireland; in 1973, Mother Teresa opened another foun- dation working with the 380,000 Arab refugees who lived and worked in the Israeli-occupied Gaza strip. And so it continued throughout the de- cade with the high point coming in 1979 when the Missionaries of Char- ity opened 14 new foundations. As her missions spread across the world, Mother Teresa enjoyed the support of many world leaders. In the United States alone, she counted among her champions the wealthy Democratic Kennedy family and former Republican president Richard M. Nixon.
She also began receiving a number of honors. Her first came in 1962 when she was awarded the Magsaysay Award for International Un- derstanding. That same year she received the Padma Shri, known as the Magnificent Lotus, India’s second highest award. First, after hearing the news that she won, Mother Teresa would not accept it. However, after re- ceiving permission, she traveled to New Delhi to accept the award from the president of India at that time, Dr. Rajendra Prasad.
In many cases, the awards came with substantial cash prizes. For in- stance, the money received from the Magsaysay award was used to pur- chase a home for children. In January 1971, Mother Teresa traveled to Rome where she accepted a check from Pope Paul VI for £10,000 (appx.
$17,000) after being awarded the first Pope John XXIII Peace Prize. That money was directed toward the building of a leper colony on land donated by the Indian government. In 1971, she again traveled to New Delhi to accept from the Indian government the Nehru Award for International Understanding. In 1973, Mother Teresa became the first recipient of the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion. She was chosen out of a field of 2,000 nominations by a panel of judges representing the world’s major religions including Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, and Hinduism. In every case, Mother Teresa graciously accepted each award in the name of the world’s poor.
BATTLING SPIRITUAL POVERTY
Mother Teresa was most familiar with the conditions of the poor in Third-World countries; however, when confronted with the poverty in Western countries, she was not only shocked but appalled. On more than one occasion, she noted with some irony how people in the West sent donations to her to help the poor in India, when at the same time they turned their backs on those in their own countries who were suffering and forgotten. In many areas, the Missionaries of Charity opened up Homes of Compassion for the destitute men and women living on the streets. The nuns also made a point of checking on the elderly and lonely who had no one to look after them.
For Mother Teresa, the poverty that confronted her in such societies as the United States and Great Britain was more a poverty of the spirit. It came in the form of loneliness and being unwanted, plaguing the homeless, the drifters, the alcoholics, and the mentally ill left to fend for themselves. What Mother Teresa found so troubling, as she travelled through the rough neighbourhoods of London or New York City, was society’s response to these people: shunning them, abandoning them, or leaving them at the mercy of those who were stronger.
Yet, Mother Teresa did not pass judgment on those societies. Instead, she tried to point out as gently as she could that God did not make the poor people in the world, nor did he create poverty and disorder. Rather, it was because people did not share enough with one another that some had plenty and others went without. When faced with the criticism that helping all the needy in the world was a never-ending and hopeless task, she replied that she and her sisters used themselves to save whom they could, when they could. If pressed hard to reason out her mission as a result of that first foray into the Calcutta slums over 20 years before, she might have been astounded to learn that she and her order had saved tens of thousands of lives. But numbers were meaningless to Mother Teresa; for her, each small act, each kindness extended toward those in need, was done in the name of Christ. That was all.
LEADING BY EXAMPLE
As the number of foundations grew, Mother Teresa’s schedule became more hectic. Because she kept a close watch on the order, leading by example, it was important that she visit every motherhouse she could to check on the day-to-day goings-on. For instance, she believed that the sisters must not waste any donations because others had sacrificed in order that they have them. Medicine and food were to be distributed as soon as possible to prevent spoilage. She asked that the priests who assisted in the spiritual welfare of the sisters not interfere in the internal affairs of the houses, particularly when it came to observing their vows of poverty. At no time should a congregation raise its standard of living; this meant going without simple things such as curtains for the motherhouse or bed spreads, which were invariably given away. Donations of washing machines, carpets, or other creature comforts were also given away. As Mother Teresa continually reminded her sisters, the poor did without and so must they.
She wrote to each house as often as possible offering advice, wisdom, and comfort to her growing number of sisters. She wrote to parents thank- ing them for their daughters who had given their lives in service to God. She reminded her nuns to be cheerful and smile, as God needed and loved those who gave of themselves cheerfully. A cheerful disposition also attracted those who might be seeking a vocation with the Missionaries of Charity. She shared news of her travels, her visits with dignitaries, and humorous incidents that had occurred.
Even as she was becoming more well known, Mother Teresa remained as unobtrusive as possible. She commonly slept in the luggage racks of third-class train compartments or shared a seat on a train or a bus between the wife of a farmer and some livestock. On those occasions when she had a seat to herself, she made the most of it, using the time for reflection, often writing small notes or letters to her sisters and benefactors.
Yet, she declined the offers of regular income that were beginning to arise more frequently. She emphasized repeatedly that fund-raising was not her work, fearing that the Missionaries of Charity would become a business rather than a labor of love. She squarely placed her life and that of her congregations in God’s hands, fully trusting that Providence would provide for her needs in helping the poor. Her rejections of some dona- tions were on the face of it astounding, yet completely in character. Once she rejected an offer from New York City’s Cardinal Terence Cooke, which would provide $500 a month for each Sister working in Harlem, asking him if he believed that God was going to be bankrupt in New York City.
LOSS AND FAILINGS
The 1970s were an extraordinary period of growth for the Missionaries of Charity and of growing recognition for Mother Teresa. Still, the decade was not without its low points as Mother Teresa suffered both personal losses and public failures. She may also have come to realize that not all things were possible through faith and love alone.
The year 1970 began with a troubling letter from her sister Aga, who was living with their mother in Tirana, Albania. Drana was in ill health and her condition was worsening. On top of that, life under communist rule was extremely difficult and the two were having a hard time making ends meet. For Mother Teresa, this was a bitter blow; her divine Providence, which had made possible the impossible, seemed strangely absent now. But she took the news with a strong heart, yet sad that there was nothing she could do to help her mother and sister when she had found ways to help so many others around the world.
Yet, in June 1970, Mother Teresa had a bittersweet homecoming. The Red Cross extended an invitation to her to visit Yugoslavia. From there she made the journey to Prizren, where her family originated, and then travelled to Skopje, the city of her birth. Here she met with the local bishop and visited the shrine at Letnice, where she had often visited to pray and meditate as a young girl. She made it known that she hoped one day to return to Skopje to open a Missionary of Charity home.
Later that year, Drana wrote to her son Lazar stating that her only wish was to see him, his family, and her daughter Gonxha before she died. Both Lazar and Mother Teresa worked hard to bring Aga and Drana to Italy for a reunion. At one point, Mother Teresa, while on a visit to Rome, paid a visit to the Albanian embassy seeking permission to bring her mother and sister to Italy. Lazar, though limited in what he could do, tried working with Catholic Relief Services to help relocate Aga and Drana in the event that they would be allowed to leave. These attempts proved futile: the Al- banian government refused to permit either Aga or Drana to leave the country.
Mother Teresa then thought about travelling to Albania. But, to her dismay, she learned that while she might be allowed to enter the country, communist authorities could very well prevent her from leaving. Finally, on July 12, 1972, Mother Teresa received word that her mother had died. Not more than a year later, on August 25, 1973, more sad news came, when she learned that her sister Aga had also died. Mother Teresa’s pain and grief were not so much for herself, but for the mother and sister who suffered.
The Missionaries of Charity also suffered severe setbacks during the 1970s. In 1971, after much fanfare, the order opened a house in Belfast, Northern Ireland, in the Catholic ghetto of Ballymurphy. Belfast was, at the time, a city under siege, as Catholic and Protestant factions engaged in almost daily violence. Mother Teresa sent four sisters who came with a violin and two blankets each. The house where they were to live had been previously occupied by a priest who had been shot just as he had finished administering last rites to a wounded man. The house was completely empty and had been the target of vandals. Undaunted, the sisters began working with a small group of Anglican nuns in the hope of helping to end strife in the city.
After only 18 months in Belfast, the sisters left, stating that they were unwanted and saw no need to risk further danger to themselves. Mother Teresa preferred to see their leaves, however, not as a failure, but as a call, for the sisters were obviously needed somewhere else. She sent them to Ethiopia where they were to help victims of a terrible drought that ravaged the country.
During the 1980s, the Missionaries of Charity experienced more bad luck, when in March 1980 someone set a fire at a home for destitute women run by the order in Kilburn, London. Ten residents of the shelter and one volunteer died in the blaze. The arsonist was never found. In 1986, two sisters were drowned in Dehra Dun, India, when a wooden bridge collapsed during heavy rain, sending their ambulance into the river below. Although Mother Teresa offered prayers for the dead, no doubt both incidents weighed heavily upon her.
Even more painful for Mother Teresa was the number of professed sisters choosing to leave the Missionaries of Charity. Of the original 12 women who became the order’s first nuns, two eventually left, as well as a small number of others over the years. Their reasons for leaving were many: some chose to serve God in another way, others wished to leave because of ill health. Some even fell in love and wished to marry and raise families. Mother Teresa did not resent the women’s choices; in fact, she often thanked them for their time and effort in their service to the order. Still, it clearly saddened her to lose members.
Despite these setbacks, the Missionaries of Charity continued to grow. By 1979, there were 158 foundations established throughout the world. There were 1,187 professed sisters, 411 novices, and 120 postulants. What was perhaps most amazing about the continued growth of the order was that it came at a time when religious vocations for the Church were generally on the decline. It appeared that the total commitment to a life of poverty and the complete surrender of the self in the service of God held tremendous appeal for women everywhere. For Mother Teresa, the continued arrival of newcomers ready to work for the poor was heartwarming. Each week it seemed a new group left Motherhouse bound for some destination where they were needed. As Mother Teresa once remarked, “If there are poor on the moon, we shall go there too.”1
THE FIRST VOLLEY
One of the first and fiercest attacks on Mother Teresa’s work came during a crisis in the newly formed country of Bangladesh. Between 1947 and 1971, before gaining its independence, Bangladesh formed the eastern part of Pakistan and was called East Pakistan. Before the partition of India into independent India and Pakistan in 1947, the area that now forms Bangladesh, or the “land of Bengal,” had been the eastern part of the Bengal province.
In December 1971 fighting broke out on the Indo-Pakistan border in the west. The Indian army also invaded East Pakistan and in two weeks had control of the country. The Bangladesh government-in-exile established itself in Dhaka on December 22, 1971, but in January 1972, the leaders returned to the country to begin governing the new nation.
But independence for Bangladesh came at a high price. In the nine months of fighting, three million Bengalis had died and over one million homes had been destroyed. Many of the people killed were professionals— teachers, doctors, lawyers, skilled workers, and engineers. Tea plantations and many jute mills were damaged. Added to this vast physical destruction, including the great damage to the transportation system, was the social disruption of the country. Many of the ten million refugees returned to find their homes in ruins. Some sought shelter in the nearest sewer pipe. In addition, the country suffered great internal strife. Though much of the destruction had been the direct result of actions taken by the Pakistani army, many non-Bengalis in East Pakistan, the Biharis, had played a role as a paramilitary force, working with the Pakistani army against the Bengalis. After the war, many of the Biharis were placed in camps, and some were killed. The atrocities did not end there. Pakistani troops reportedly raped 4,000 women, though some place the number as high as 200,000.
On January 14, 1972, Mother Teresa announced that she was going to Bangladesh with 10 of her nuns to assist the rape victims, many of whom were now in the advanced stages of pregnancy. Travelling to Khulna, Pabna, Rajshahi, and Dhaka, Mother Teresa and her nuns sought out these women, in the hope of arranging adoptions for as many as possible. Because rape is a very serious crime in Islam, the victim is often ostracized by her family, friends, and perhaps even an entire village. For many women, giving up any children who might have been conceived as a result of the rape was the only option.
In Dhaka, the nuns were given the use of an old convent as a home for the women. But there were few who came seeking help. Some victims did not conceive, while others tried to terminate their pregnancies themselves. Eventually, the convent was turned into another Shishu Bhavan for orphaned and abandoned children.
As altruistic as Mother Teresa’s motives may have been, there was at least one person who did not view her actions in Bangladesh in the same light. Australian feminist and writer Germaine Greer, a Roman Catholic, reported in an article written for the magazine the Independent in 1990, another purpose behind Mother Teresa’s humanitarian mission:
When she went to Dacca two days after its liberation from the Pakistanis in 1972, 3,000 naked women had been found in the army bunkers. Their saris had been taken away so that they would not hang themselves. The pregnant ones needed abortions. Mother Teresa offered them no option but to bear the offspring of hate. There is no room in Mother Teresa’s universe for the moral priorities of others. There is no question of offering suffering women a choice.2
But Greer wasn’t done yet. She went on to write that, according to lay workers with whom she had spoken at the time, pregnant women suffering from complications attributed to both physical cases of abuse and malnutrition—as well as women who had miscarried—were turned away from Mother Teresa’s clinics. According to Greer, the women had been accused by the Missionaries of Charity working at the clinics of trying to abort their unborn children. Further, when the new Bengali government banned the export of Bengali orphans, Mother Teresa, through some means, was allowed to place Bengali babies with Catholic families abroad. And, according to Greer’s sources, no one at the Family Planning Association who knew of the incidents was allowed to say anything critical of Mother Teresa or her actions.
THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE
By the 1970s, Mother Teresa had emerged as a powerful human-interest story for newspapers and magazines around the world. This tiny nun, barely over five feet tall, had a number of powerful leaders and politicians as her friends. In spite of the growing number of financial donations made to the Missionaries of Charity, Mother Teresa refused to allow herself any indulgences that would interfere with her vow of poverty. And, though small in stature, she clearly wielded considerable power.
One of the more interesting stories that were done on her during this period came from Time magazine. In December 1975, the magazine not only devoted a long article to her but also chose her for the cover of the magazine. Mother Teresa explained that she only agreed to sit for the photographer after having prayed at mass that morning. She asked God, that for every picture the photographer took, one soul be released from purgatory.
The article “Saints among Us,” besides providing an overview of Mother Teresa’s work, also suggested that many supporters considered her a living saint, a title Mother Teresa herself rejected. The article also discussed the qualities that made a saint. For instance, many saints lived their lives outside of conventional society and were often considered misfits. People, then, who tended to conform to cultural norms rarely went on to exhibit saintly qualities. As one theology professor noted, saints tend to be on the outer edge along with the maniacs, geniuses, and idiots. Saints also broke the rules of society in order to carry out their work.
The Time magazine article highlighted not only Mother Teresa’s saintly qualities but also her shrewd sense of organization and her great compassion for the poor. However, the article also went on to point out that there were a number of individuals who had also devoted their lives to the poor, but who were not as well known as Mother Teresa. These included Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker Movement; the Norwegian medical missionary Annie Skau, who lived and worked in Hong Kong; Dr. Cicely Saunders, founder of the Hospice movement; and the Coptic monk Matta el Meskin, also known as Matthew the Poor.
By this time, Mother Teresa had received numerous accolades and awards. Still, there were many who believed that she was overlooked and wished her to receive what they considered to be the most important and prestigious award in the world: the Nobel Peace Prize.
Those who select nominees for the Nobel Peace Prize may be from one of seven categories, including members of the International Court of Arbitration in The Hague; active and former members of the Nobel Committee of the Norwegian Parliament; advisors appointed by the Norwegian Nobel Institute; university professors of political science, law, history, and philosophy; and lastly, those who have won the prize themselves.
Mother Teresa had first been nominated for the prize in 1972, but no prize was awarded that year. Many of her supporters, among them Malcolm Muggeridge, again put her name in nomination in 1975. This time her nomination was supported by a number of important and influential individuals including Senator Edward Kennedy; Robert McNamara, then head of the World Bank; the National Council of Catholic Women; the Mayor of Addis Ababa; the head of the UN Disaster Relief Organization, Faruk Berkol; and a number of nuns in Spain.
But the prize eluded her again and went instead to Andrei Sakharov, the noted Russian scientist and human rights advocate. In 1977, Mother Teresa’s name was put forth yet another time. Again the Nobel committee passed her over for the award, which was instead given to the organization Amnesty International for championing human rights around the world. She later joked that the prize would only come to her when Jesus thought it was time.
Then, in 1979, her name was put forward again, only with much less fanfare. Although the name of the person who put forward Mother Teresa’s name has never been publicly acknowledged, it is thought to have been Robert McNamara. McNamara had known Mother Teresa for almost two decades and was very familiar with her work with the poor. He had also worked with her on occasion in the Food for Peace program. In 1975, writing about Mother Teresa and her work, McNamara stated:
More important than the organisational structure of her work is the message it conveys that genuine peace is not the mere absence of hostilities, but rather that tranquillity that arises out of a social order in which individuals treat one another with justice and compassion. The long history of the human conflict suggests that without greater recognition of that fact—a fact which Mother Teresa’s concern for the absolute poor strikingly so illustrates—the prospects for world peace will remain perilously fragile.3
Then, on October 16, 1979, came the announcement that many had waited for: the Nobel committee awarded the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize to Mother Teresa. In the wake of the pronouncement, some nagging questions remained. Why, for instance, did the committee choose Mother Teresa this time and not others? Who had, in fact, nominated her? But because the committee’s meetings are kept secret, no one will ever know what took place during the deliberations for the award.
Meanwhile, in Calcutta, Mother Teresa was mobbed when the news was announced. Journalists and photographers jostled one another as they tried to talk to Mother Teresa to get her reaction to the good news. Stand- ing in front of the Motherhouse, she spoke to the gathering media about the news, stating “I am unworthy. I accept the prize in the name of the poor. The prize is the recognition of the poor world By serving the poor
I am serving him.” A reception was held in her honour in which one official proclaimed, “You have been the mother of Bengal and now you are the mother of the world.”4 That same day, a small abandoned baby girl was brought into the Shishu Bhavan in Calcutta. She was named Shanti, which means “Peace” in Hindi, in honour of Mother Teresa’s award.
The celebrations had just begun. Over the next few days, Mother Teresa received more than 500 telegrams from heads of state all over the world. Letters of praise and congratulations also poured in. Many people stopped by Motherhouse to offer their congratulations and best wishes. Many in India rejoiced that the prize had once again come to their country; six decades earlier, the Nobel committee had awarded the same prize to Mahatma Gandhi. The government also issued a commemorative postage stamp in Mother Teresa’s honour. Many people rejoiced around the world, that, for once, the Nobel committee had put politics to the side and picked a true humanitarian, one who easily matched the stature of previous winners such as Albert Schweitzer, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Other people believed that by winning the Nobel Peace Prize, Mother Teresa had enhanced the prestige of the award.
Still, there were detractors. Some of the most vocal dissents came from an extremist anti-Gandhian group that published an article “Nothing Noble about the Nobel”:
For when all is said and done, she is a missionary. In serving the poor and the sick, her sole objective is to influence people in favour of Christianity and, if possible to convert them. Missionaries are instruments of Western imperialist countries— and not innocent voices of God.5
Another critic wrote to The New York Times stating that his understanding of the Nobel Peace Prize was that it was to be given to an individual who made important contributions to world peace, not to someone who merely helped individuals in distress. Another article, in the National Catholic Reporter, suggested that Mother Teresa and her Missionaries of Charity merely covered the wounds left by capitalism and that they did little in the way of actually helping to change the conditions that make people poor. In general, the hubbub over Mother Teresa’s winning of the prize overshadowed the winners of the other Nobel prizes that year.
ON TO OSLO
In December 1979, Mother Teresa, accompanied by four other nuns, travelled to Oslo to receive the Nobel Prize medal and a check for £90,000 (appx. $161,000). In addition, there was another check off £36,000 (appx. $64,000) awaiting her, which was a donation raised by the young people of Norway. Another £3,000 (appx. $5,300) was later presented to her after she requested that the monies spent on the customary banquet given in honour of the recipient instead be given to those who needed a meal more.
It was a bitterly cold day and many people in the audience were bundled up in fur coats and hats in the Aula Magna of Oslo University where Mother Teresa was slated to give her remarks and receive her prize. In the crowd were the king and crown princess of Norway, along with many other world dignitaries. The stage was banked with lush floral arrangements; nearby, a symphony orchestra played selections from Edvard Grieg, the great Norwegian composer. Wearing only a grey cardigan sweater and a black coat over her thin cotton sari, Mother Teresa made her way to the podium. After asking her audience to join her in prayer, she then began her speech. According to the reporter for the magazine National Review, Mother Teresa’s speech was not only on the poor but on abortion, stating that nations who allowed legalized abortions are really the poorest of all. She further argued that the most horrendous crime of all existed “against the innocent unborn child.”6
Another journalist wrote that Mother Teresa went on to state: I feel that 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 but for me to kill you and you to kill me—there is nothing in between.7
Mother Teresa also spoke of the great spiritual poverty of the West: Around the world, not only in the poor countries, I found the poverty of the West so much more difficult to remove a person that has been thrown out from society—that poverty is so hurtful and so much, that I find it very difficult. Our Sisters are working amongst that kind of people in the West.8
Even though the Norwegian paper Aftenposten commented how the press was spellbound by the tiny nun who won the award, there were numerous others who were critical of her remarks. In the aftermath of her speech, one thing was clear: Mother Teresa had not only stated her view of abortion but also made it clear she would not change her views. And when given the opportunity, she would speak out on the subject to any who would listen.
As if the abortion issue were not controversial enough, Mother Teresa disappointed many Albanians with her comments on the religious persecution in Albania. When asked by a reporter for her thoughts on the subject, Mother Teresa demurred, stating that she could not say much because she did not know what was going on. But, as more than one critic has pointed out, the fact that she was in contact with her mother and sister until they died, along with her repeated attempts to get them out of the country, or at least to gain permission to visit, demonstrate that Mother Teresa, in fact, knew well the conditions present in the country. In addition, earlier that year, Mother Teresa had met with the widow of the Albanian king, Queen Geraldine, when the country’s predicament surely would have been discussed.
In the wake of the Nobel Prize ceremonies, many of Mother Teresa’s supporters stated that she did not comment on the Albanian question because she refused to become involved in any controversial political stances, as that was incompatible with her primary mission: helping the poor. But her detractors point out that, by making her comments on abortion, Mother Teresa was in fact involving herself in what was clearly one of the most heated political arguments of the day.
DAPHNE RAE AND LOVE UNTIL IT HURTS
Following Mother Teresa’s winning of the Nobel Prize, activity at the Motherhouse at 54A Lower Circular Road picked up considerably. Offers and donations poured in from all over the world, as many companies and individuals offered to help the Missionaries of Charity. From Bata Shoe Company came leather for leprosy patients to make shoes. Help the Aged, a nonprofit organization based in England, donated money for meals. An international organization, the Rotary Club, also pledged money and help for Mother Teresa. Also aiding Mother Teresa in her work were many wealthy individuals who gave both time and money for the poor.
One of these volunteers was Daphne Rae, who came to Calcutta to work in the slums. Rae was the wife of the headmaster of Westminster, one of the best schools in England. Rae, originally from Srilanka, converted to Catholicism in 1977 and came to Calcutta in 1979, leaving her husband and six children to work with Mother Teresa. Altogether, she travelled to the city three times in order to work with the Missionaries of Charity. She brought with her large donations of medical supplies and medicines and spent much of her time at Nirmal Hriday and the children’s home. But, suddenly, Rae stopped working with Mother Teresa, and instead devoted her energy to working with lesser-known organizations also dedicated to helping India’s poor.
Although she never publicly stated why she no longer worked with the Missionaries of Charity, Rae’s 1981 book, Love until It Hurts: Mother Teresa and Her Missionaries of Charity offer some clues about her change of heart. Rae, who had previously worked with the terminally ill and dying, was no stranger to places such as Nirmal Hriday. However, she was distressed that while helping Mother Teresa, she saw disposable hypodermic needles used over and over again; in some cases as many as 40 or 50 times.
Rae, who was also a passionate opponent of abortion, was bothered by the approach the nuns took toward single, pregnant mothers at the Shishu Bhavan. For a young, unmarried Hindu girl to become pregnant was a scandal, and for many, abortion was often seen as the only solution. For those unwilling to terminate their pregnancy, there was the possibility of the sanctuary at the Shishu Bhavan. Often these girls were taken in by the nuns with the understanding that they would receive a place to sleep, medical care, and help in placing the infant up for adoption in return for helping with domestic chores. According to Rae, these arrangements in fact often resulted in the girls being treated as the lowliest form of servant with only the barest of necessities provided for them. She also found a kind of moral superiority on the part of the nuns, certainly not in keeping with the charitable expressions toward unmarried women espoused in public by the order.
A WOMAN IN DEMAND
Beginning in the 1980s, Mother Teresa stepped up her visits, travelling all over the world to meet with world leaders or to open another foundation somewhere for the Missionaries of Charity. Her travels kept her away from Motherhouse even more; it was usual for her to be gone for 10 months out of every year. At the behest of Pope John Paul II, with whom she developed a very close relationship, Mother Teresa used her travels and the media attention to air her views, giving her a platform second to none among religious leaders.
The new decade opened with Mother Teresa travelling again to her hometown of Skopje as a guest of the city. Months earlier, she also had the opportunity to open a house for the elderly in Zagreb, Croatia, marking the first time the Missionaries of Charity had opened one of their homes in a communist country. She attended a conference on family life in Guatemala; then went to visit the desperately poor island of Haiti, where she met the then-president Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier and his wife. From Haiti, she travelled to Egypt where, much to the Egyptian government’s dismay, she urged Egyptian housewives to have many children. The government, which had just finished producing a series of short films that urged families to limit the number of children, could do nothing.
In addition to Mother Teresa’s travelling, the Missionaries of Charity opened a number of new facilities throughout the world. In 1980, 14 new homes were opened; in 1981, 18. Twelve Missionaries of Charity foundations opened in 1982; in 1983, the number rose to 14. At the beginning of the decade, the Missionaries of Charity established 140 slum schools, a daily meal program that fed nearly 50,000 persons at 304 centres. There were 70 Shishu Bhavans, which took care of approximately 4,000 children, out of which 1,000 adoptions were arranged. There were 81 homes for the dying and 670 mobile clinics that had treated some 6 million patients. Although the Missionaries of Charity were going global with their work, the bulk of their endeavours was still based in India.
Mother Teresa also continued to show little regard for her own personal safety as she ventured into many of the world’s hotspots. In 1982, she went to West Beirut where the area’s hospitals had been shelled by Israeli artillery. While there, she took 37 children who had been stranded in a mental hospital on a Red Cross convoy into East Beirut and safety. In 1984, she travelled to Bhopal, India, where a poisonous gas leak at a Union Carbide plant killed thousands of people and left many others in terrible health. During this period, Mother Teresa also plunged into the growing AIDS crisis. She opened a hospice in Greenwich Village in New York City to care for patients who were suffering from what she termed as the new leprosy of the West. Among her first patients were three convicts suffering from the disease in the notorious Sing-Sing Prison near New York City. But despite her willingness to tackle the deadly disease and provide hospice care, Mother Teresa was criticized for her handling of AIDs patients. According to one account, a doctor who was also working at the hospice was appalled by how little the nuns knew about the disease. The doctor told Mother Teresa that simply wearing a crucifix around her neck offered her no protection from the disease. To this, Mother Teresa replied that God would take care of her. But for critics, this argument was flawed at best, and dangerous at worst, as the account illustrates: “God never pro- vides knowledge or skill. God in fact is never enough.... [T]he teresan community sees it [AIDS] as a sickness that can be assuaged with loving words and a little hot soup.”9
THE SAINT AND THE SINNER
In 1985 came one of the oddest pairings the world had seen: that of a young, anti-Catholic Irish rock musician and the tiny nun who worked with the world’s poor. On the face of it, the idea of rock star Bob Geldof, lead singer of the Boomtown Rats, meeting with Mother Teresa not only seemed odd; it was completely incongruous. But the two actually had something in common: working to help the poor.
Geldof, an Irish Catholic who had little use for the Church of his youth, had come to the forefront during 1984 for his concert Band Aid to raise money for the poor in Africa. In 1985, he was travelling to Ethiopia to help distribute the funds raised. He met Mother Teresa at the Addis Ababa airport in January 1985. Geldof remembered, upon greeting her, how tiny she was. He towered more than two feet above her. He described her as a battered, wizened woman whose most striking characteristic was her feet. Mother Teresa’s sandals were beaten up pieces of leather; her feet were gnarled and misshapen. When Geldof tried to kiss her, Mother Teresa bowed her head quickly so that he could only kiss the top of her wimple. This bothered Geldof a great deal. He later found out that she only let lepers kiss her.
As photographers snapped their picture, Mother Teresa and Geldof began talking, she about the Missionaries of Charity, he about his band, the Boomtown Rats. He even offered to arrange a benefit concert for her work. But she gently refused him, stating that God would provide for her. As Geldof later recounted, he had an opportunity to see Providence in action. Upon arriving in the city, Mother Teresa had seen some vacant buildings and asked if she could have the buildings to use as orphanages. Flummoxed government officials, not wanting to turn her down, clearly did not know what to do. But it was clear that Mother Teresa knew about the buildings beforehand. When the official told her he would find her a building for her orphanages, she reminded him that she needed two buildings for two orphanages, not one.
When asked later for his impression of Mother Teresa, Geldof replied that she was the embodiment of moral good, but also added that there was nothing otherworldly about her. She showed herself fully capable of handling the media and could manipulate them easily. He also found her de- void of any false modesty or pretence; she was totally selfless in her work and seemed genuine to care about the people she was helping.
In 1986, Mother Teresa made further headlines when she travelled to the Soviet Union to meet with government officials. Two years later, she returned with four nuns to begin working in a Moscow hospital helping victims of an earthquake. Her visit was unprecedented and marked the first time that a religious mission was allowed to open a house since the Russian Revolution in 1917.
AN UNHAPPY VISIT
In 1988, Mother Teresa travelled to London to visit with Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. She also visited Cardboard City, the site of the city’s homeless. She asked Thatcher for help in setting up a hostel for them, but Thatcher pointed out that there were voluntary organizations in the city that specifically worked with the homeless, and there was no need for Mother Teresa’s help.
There were other problems as well. Mother Teresa’s trip coincided with a hearing in Parliament for a bill that would reduce the time limit for al- lowing abortions from the current 28 weeks to 18 weeks. Mother Teresa again went to Thatcher asking her to support the bill. Again she was refused. At a conference in Oxford, Mother Teresa told the audience that couples who used contraception other than the rhythm method, as al- lowed by the Catholic Church, would not be accepted as potential adoptive parents for any children coming from the Missionaries of Charity homes.
Shortly afterwards, Mother Teresa met with Robert Maxwell, the Australian owner of the London newspaper the Daily Mirror. Maxwell, already known for his dubious business dealings, offered to help raise money for a new Missionaries of Charity home in London. Maxwell loved the publicity, and Mother Teresa, either in the dark about Maxwell’s personal business dealings or refusing to acknowledge them, accepted his offer. It also allowed her a chance to do something without going through government channels. In all, £169,000 (appx. $302,000) was raised and de- posited in an account held by Maxwell and the paper. In addition, another £90,000 (appx. $160,000) was raised by the readers of a Scottish paper to be used for Mother Teresa’s efforts. With the funds, she hoped to set up two facilities for the homeless in London.
But Mother Teresa never saw the money. Some speculated that Maxwell had appropriated the funds. A spokesman for the Daily Mirror later charged that Mother Teresa never seemed to find an appropriate home or piece of land to suit her purposes. He further denied that any of the money was missing. There was also the stigma attached of having accepted the money in the first place from a man who was a known swindler and unsavoury businessman. If Mother Teresa had any regrets about any of her actions, her association with Maxwell was one. Finally, though, in 1993, a 35-room hostel was opened in London for the Missionaries of Charity. Mother Teresa came for the opening ceremony and once again thanked readers of the Daily Mirror for their generosity. Mother Teresa complained, though, that officials of the British government did little to ease the suffering of homeless in their country, despite her offers of help. Although the last 20 years had brought great recognition for Mother Teresa and her organization, it was also a period of loss, regret, and controversy. With a new decade looming before her, Mother Teresa, at the age of 80, showed no signs of slowing down. However, the coming years would be less than kind to her, both personally and professionally, as she strove to continue her work with the poor.
NOTES
- Kathryn Spink, Mother Teresa (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1997), p. 102.
- Germaine Greer, “Heroes and Villains,” Independent, September 22, 1990.
- Raghu Rai and Navin Chawla, Mother Teresa: Faith and Compassion (Rock- port, Mass.: Element, 1992), p. 184; Anne Sebba, Mother Teresa: Beyond the Image (New York: Doubleday, 1997), p. 100.
- Eileen Egan, Such a Vision of the Street: Mother Teresa—The Spirit and the Work (Garden City, N.Y.: Image Books, 1986), p. 396.
- Egan, Vision, p. 398.
- “The Week,” National Review, January 4, 1980, p. 12.
- Nobel Foundation, “Mother Teresa Nobel Lecture,” Lecture of Mother
- Nobel Foundation, “Mother Teresa Nobel Lecture,” Lecture of Mother Teresa (accessed November 19, 2003).
- Anthony Burgess, “Mother Teresa,” Evening Standard, January 3, 1992.