DISPATCHES FROM STEPHEN LENDMAN
Charity, even when well executed (which Theresa’s was not) is rarely a match for the gravity of systemic problems that only revolution can cure.
Christopher Hitchens wrote a scathing exposé of this fraud in his controversial The Missionary Position. [CC BY-NC by Thomas Hawk]
Awarded a Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 for “humanitarian work” and “spiritual inspiration,” her legacy is notably unsaintly.
Instead of caring for the sick and needy, she hobnobbed with the world’s rich, famous and infamous, accepting large donations from dubious sources, including convicted savings & loan crook Charles Keating, Haitian dictator “Baby Doc” Duvalier, and other notorious tyrants.
After a promising beginning that aroused expectations in many quarters, Francis has shown himself to be a conventional Pope, with a lengthening roster of misfires. The fast-track canonization of a sham saint ratifies he is no enemy of the status quo. CC BY-NC-ND by Martin Schulz – EP President
Her so-called hospitals were human warehouses. Hunger and malnutrition were widespread. Sick and dying patients got little medical care from untrained nuns and other personnel – poor food and mistreatment instead under deplorable unsanitary conditions, conducive to serious illnesses and diseases.
Journalist/documentary filmmaker Donal Macintyre witnessed firsthand what went on. “Rescued” orphans were crammed into tight spaces with “hardly a breath of air between their bare metal bed frames,” he said.
Some children were strapped to beds or otherwise restrained. They had “their mouths gagged open to be given medicine, their hands flaying in distress, visible testimony to the pain they were in.”
“Tiny babies were bound with cloths at feeding time. Rough hands wrenched heads into position” to ingest deplorable food. Horrific mistreatment was commonplace, an affront to human dignity, Macintyre explained.
Cold water substituted for warm and hot. Soap and disinfectants were in short supply. “Workers washed down beds with dirty water and dirty cloths.” Macintyre “witnessed barbaric treatment of the most vulnerable.”
Mother Teresa and her staff dispensed inhumane and degrading treatment. She was a sinner, not a saint, traveling the world in luxury, indulging in undeserved celebrity.
Claiming she fed thousands daily in Calcutta, it was scores at most. Alleging her school taught 5,000 children, its enrollment was less than 100.
Saying she had 102 family assistance centers in Calcutta, none existed. During area cholera epidemics and floods, she provided virtually no help for desperate people.
She spent most of her time abroad, jet-setting to Western capitals, enjoying luxuries, mindless of the suffering of sick and needy Calcutta residents she claimed to be helping.
Michael Parenti earlier called her “a paramount example of the kind of acceptably conservative icon propagated by an elite-dominated culture, a ‘saint’ who uttered not a critical word against social injustice, and maintained cozy relations with the rich, corrupt, and powerful.”
“She claimed to be above politics when in fact she was pronouncedly hostile toward any kind of progressive reform.”
Her public persona was one thing, reality entirely different, awarding her sainthood another black mark defining longstanding deplorable Vatican policy.
STEPHEN LENDMAN lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. His new book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III." ( http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html ) Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.
=SUBSCRIBE TODAY! NOTHING TO LOSE, EVERYTHING TO GAIN.=
free • safe • invaluable
As is the case for christian missionaries – her goal was not to help the poor, but to exploit and profit from their misery. Just as Pope Francis, another front for wealth and acquisition for the Vatican, speaks of compassion for animals, yet had aspirations for being a butcher and dined on the pale pink flesh of a calf raised and slaughtered for his pleasure. Such are the inconsistencies of dominion – as invoked by the three semitic religions: judaism, christianity and islam. “The dominion religions are full of inconsistencies because they are political and not spiritual. . politics is… Read more »