The myth of altruism and generosity surrounding Mother Teresa is dispelled in a paper by Serge Larivée and Genevieve Chenard of University of Montreal’s Department of Psychoeducation and Carole Sénéchal of the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Education.
The paper will be published in the March issue of the journal Studies in Religion/Sciences religieuses and is an analysis of the published writings about Mother Teresa. Like the journalist and author Christopher Hitchens, who is amply quoted in their analysis, the researchers conclude that her hallowed image—which does not stand up to analysis of the facts—was constructed, and that her beatification was orchestrated by an effective media relations campaign.
“While looking for documentation on the phenomenon of altruism for a seminar on ethics, one of us stumbled upon the life and work of one of Catholic Church’s most celebrated woman and now part of our collective imagination—Mother Teresa—whose real name was Agnes Gonxha,” says Professor Larivée, who led the research. “The description was so ecstatic that it piqued our curiosity and pushed us to research further.”
As a result, the three researchers collected 502 documents on the life and work of Mother Teresa. After eliminating 195 duplicates, they consulted 287 documents to conduct their analysis, representing 96% of the literature on the founder of the Order of the Missionaries of Charity (OMC). Facts debunk the myth of Mother Teresa
In their article, Serge Larivée and his colleagues also cite a number of problems not take into account by the Vatican in Mother Teresa’s beatification process, such as “her rather dubious way of caring for the sick, her questionable political contacts, her suspicious management of the enormous sums of money she received, and her overly dogmatic views regarding, in particular, abortion, contraception, and divorce.”
‘The sick must suffer like Christ on the cross’
At the time of her death, Mother Teresa had opened 517 missions welcoming the poor and sick in more than 100 countries. The missions have been described as “homes for the dying” by doctors visiting several of these establishments in Calcutta. Two-thirds of the people coming to these missions hoped to a find a doctor to treat them, while the other third lay dying without receiving appropriate care. The doctors observed a significant lack of hygiene, even unfit conditions, as well as a shortage of actual care, inadequate food, and no painkillers. The problem is not a lack of money—the Foundation created by Mother Teresa has raised hundreds of millions of dollars—but rather a particular conception of suffering and death: “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,” was her reply to criticism, cites the journalist Christopher Hitchens. Nevertheless, when Mother Teresa required palliative care, she received it in a modern American hospital.
Mother Teresa’s questionable politics and shadowy accounting
Mother Teresa was generous with her prayers but rather miserly with her foundation’s millions when it came to humanity’s suffering. During numerous floods in India or following the explosion of a pesticide plant in Bhopal, she offered numerous prayers and medallions of the Virgin Mary but no direct or monetary aid. On the other hand, she had no qualms about accepting the Legion of Honour and a grant from the Duvalier dictatorship in Haiti. Millions of dollars were transferred to the MCO’s various bank accounts, but most of the accounts were kept secret, 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?”
The grand media plan for Mother Teresa’s holiness
Despite these disturbing facts, how did Mother Teresa succeed in building an image of holiness and infinite goodness? According to the three researchers, her meeting in London in 1968 with the BBC’s Malcom Muggeridge, an anti-abortion journalist who shared her right-wing Catholic values, was crucial. Muggeridge decided to promote Teresa, who consequently discovered the power of mass media. In 1969, he made a eulogistic film of the missionary, promoting her by attributing to her the “first photographic miracle,” when it should have been attributed to the new film stock being marketed by Kodak. Afterwards, Mother Teresa travelled throughout the world and received numerous awards, including the Nobel Peace Prize. In her acceptance speech, on the subject of Bosnian women who were raped by Serbs and now sought abortion, she said: “I feel the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a direct war, a direct killing—direct murder by the mother herself.”
Following her death, the Vatican decided to waive the usual five-year waiting period to open the beatification process. The miracle attributed to Mother Theresa was the healing of a woman, Monica Besra, who had been suffering from intense abdominal pain. The woman testified that she was cured after a medallion blessed by Mother Theresa was placed on her abdomen. Her doctors thought otherwise: the ovarian cyst and the tuberculosis from which she suffered were healed by the drugs they had given her. The Vatican, nevertheless, concluded that it was a miracle. Mother Teresa’s popularity was such that she had become untouchable for the population, which had already declared her a saint. “What could be better than beatification followed by canonization of this model to revitalize the Church and inspire the faithful especially at a time when churches are empty and the Roman authority is in decline?” Larivée and his colleagues ask.
Positive effect of the Mother Teresa myth
Despite Mother Teresa’s dubious way of caring for the sick by glorifying their suffering instead of relieving it, Serge Larivée and his colleagues point out the positive effect of the Mother Teresa myth: “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.”
About the study
The study was conducted by Serge Larivée, Department of psychoeducation, University of Montreal, Carole Sénéchal, Faculty of Education, University of Ottawa, and Geneviève Chénard, Department of psychoeducation, University of Montreal.
The printed version, available only in French, will be published in March 2013 in issue 42 of Studies in Religion / Sciences religieuses.
If our reporting has informed or inspired you, please consider making a donation. Every contribution, no matter the size, empowers us to continue delivering accurate, engaging, and trustworthy science and medical news. Independent journalism requires time, effort, and resources—your support ensures we can keep uncovering the stories that matter most to you.
Join us in making knowledge accessible and impactful. Thank you for standing with us!
Shame on YOU!! This is not news. She was exposed a long time ago by Christopher Hitchens and Aroup Chatterjee. The latter work is far more comprehensive and detailed about her work in India (or lack of it). Hitchens commentary is more personal and witty. It is truly amazing what the indoctrinated will do to deny the truth.
People are never as big as life as their personal myths. I think what she did in India was wrong but she had her reasons. What happened to all the money she got? She could have used it to bring up the lifestyle of that whole country. It’s obvious she didn’t spend it on herself by the looks of things. I guess the church got it. As for the teachings about a “Satan” they are wrong. Satan was an angel and never evil. It is a misconception of Christians unfortunately. Who knows what this woman was really like but she was old and set in her ways and believed mostly like the church and probably like her denomination. Some believe there should be suffering to rise one up to the divine. For me it is a delusional idea like flagellation but to each their own. It doesn’t mean she was a bad person. She might have been a bit senile.
People who are dishonest believe in religion. GOD can not be foolish like people. He or she or it did not create Bible. It is is a repeatedly rewritten vision of people who want the best for the humanities, but high jacked by religious fanatics like Catholics, Muslims, Jews et al. No religion wants you be a fool and meta physical world can not be controlled by fools. The decline of West has started when the Churches punished scientists, yet all these holly grails are using every modern facility adding to their comfort. The want to control the people and keep them as slaves, but it is too late and the young generation knows about these crooks. While science is not answering every thing, it is providing methods and procedures to enhance our knowledge. GOD wants that because we are his or her image and children.
I love this. She’s not who we thought because some of the people she was helping in third world countries didn’t get the same type of help that they would in the states. That’s a fair comparison.
Then she’s a terrible person because she atated that she doesn’t believe it’s ok to kill a baby just because it originated from rape WHILE ACCEPTING THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE.
great study here folks
This is such garbage, shame on you
Here’s the thing that the religiously blinded just don’t get. MOTHER TERESA IS NOT THE ENTIRETY OF YOUR RELIGION. It’s possible to look at this woman in an honest and factual light without disproving or insulting your entire religion. You don’t have to defend this woman to the grave simply because her beliefs were tangentially related to yours. Writing a research paper using over 200 verified biographical documents as a source isn’t being a “liar” or an attempt at slandering the dead. It’s the TRUTH. What would you rather they do? Lie to make you feel better?
@Jody
The bible is a book – it’s sole purpose is to blind and enslave, by purporting to enlighten and free. If no-one examines the past for truth or deceit – we are doomed to learn nothing, and lose everything. Basing your personal judgement of the world on that book is silly, using it to condemn others is shortsighted and petty.
Good luck with the whole religion thing – it numbs the mind to reality, and forgives the unforgivable (for a fee).
LRH was right – religion IS like getting a licence to print money, with no real product sold, no money back offers, and no customers rising from the dead to confirm the hoax.
FSM. Ramen…
You’re a real class action idiot. Is this what proponents of science are the most busy at doing these bad mouthing the dead? Especially those who dovoted their lives helping the poor?
The bible is quite correct when it describes with such vehemence what liars are and who their father is…satan himself…the accuser of brethren. This garbage of an articles is certainly the best example of it I have seen. It reads just like something from the “Screw Tape Letters” written by CS Lewis.
shame…write something worthwhile next time
@Longval
Where you one of the que docs demanding $600 per diem to volunteer in Haiti after quake?
Je me souviens – indeed
Gotcha – now let’s see what kind of fun we can have w/ you…
L8R H8R
@MichaelLongval
sukmydik…
My handle is joke nick – JK’s is an homage. Yours is going into google, and WE will talk later (as soon as you pry your face outta some clerics crotch).
Zealot – wake up and smell the incense.
@WallStreet:
“…the irony is palpable…”
..so is your handle where you say to “F’ the corporate religious machine”.
Man up and use your real name.
To our self proclaimed most educated and open minded authors of this expose on Mother Teresa you have raised many questions in my mind, here are the first two: (1)how much of your wealth you have donated to the poor on this earth?(2) When you both travel to the steamy slums of Calcutta to cradle the sick and dying in your arms, will you allow me to accompany you?
@JackKerouac – badmouthing Hitchens, while using the handle of a semi-closeted gay, serial drunk, woman abusing “bad boy”???
The irony is palpable
Until now, I’ve always thought of Mother Teresa as a struggling parishioner with inadequate funding and resources trying to relieve the dying masses of their suffering … after reading this, I’m starting to think she was a religiously motivated psychopath who reveled in the pain of the unfortunate …
Christ, you’re quoting that anti-Semite Christopher Hitchens? Way to face plant your article in one paragraph or less. Hitchens, the publicity seeking, alcoholic, serial lying anti-religious zealot. Yeah, I believe what that guy has to say about Mother Theresa.
And this isn’t a research study; at BEST it’s a literature review and a half-assed one at that. Have you seen the rest of this guys work? Ha!
Everyone who has given this article a ‘woo hoo’ or other such approving nonsense is exactly what is wrong with the world today.
What possible credit or notoriety would the author hope to gain
in publishing an alleged smear campaign on Mother Theresa?
“a thieving fanatical Albanian dwarf” as described by Christopher Hitchens…
I loved this article – if you are going to kick a sacred cow, this is a big one…
F’ the corporate religious machine, F’ the hypocrisy of golden churches and starving (but breeding) serfs, F’ the whole “sainthood” ploy to gild a troll.
Her nuns may have good hearts, but that little parasite was in it for her ladder to god.
I dont see how these publications can leave something constructive to our society. Pointing out certain “facts” that – whether they’re true or not – can only lead to conclude that Mother Teresa, who is a motivational source for millions, should stop been seen as an encouraging example for those who tend to share their prosperity with others.
I honestly don’t see the purpose of some great academics to focus on something that can only affect people desire to improve as human beings.
What’s your point, Mr. Chartrand? That atheists are liars?
I think they are liars, all the ones I have encountered were slanderers.