Mother Teresa: fraud, fanatic and fundamentalist

Mother Teresa, or Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhui as was her birth name, “was a fraud, fanatic and fundamentalist” according to Christopher Hitchens, and I definitely agree with him.

She was a demagogue and obscurantist, who did very little to help the impoverished of the world as she and the Catholic Church so portrayed her work. She took from the rich to facilitate the Catholic agenda across the world, whilst convincing the less fortunate that poverty and suffering were virtuous and greatly needed attributes to become closer with Jesus. Thus, she became obsessed with suffering and poverty. The Pope might as well have put a hungry wolf in charge of protecting his flock of sheep…

She fought viciously against abortion, contraception and the empowerment of women. Three things that would undoubtedly have worked to lift many of the world’s inhabitants out of the depths of poverty. However, that clearly wasn’t her message or agenda.

For her work this evil woman won the nobel peace prize alongside 124 different international prizes… She reportedly raised more than 50 million dollars on her worldly travels, taking money from the rich to ‘give back to the poor’. It wasn’t above her to take money from criminals either, she took 1 million dollars from Charles Keating, who ripped off 21,000 old folk of their life savings. For this he received a personal crucifix from Teresa as well as her serving as a character witness in his trial. (When asked if she’d return the money she received from Keating, Teresa never replied.)

So where’d all this money go anyway? Well surprise surprise, it never made it to the hands of those poor, such as the 100s of deathly indians on the floor of her “Home for the Dying” in Calcutta. Where did it go? Take one guess. Straight into the Vatican’s pocket.

Home for the Dying

That’s right. The majority of all her funds was spent on religious activities, not on the poor at all. Unless you regard opening more than 100s of convents in numerous countries around the world, where you teach the poor and destitute to ‘forgive’ and accept suffering as a path to heaven, as giving them back wealth. Well the wealth that was taken from these people in the first place… More sickening is the fact that about half of these convents in Teresa’s organisation are used as homes for nuns and brothers, not for the poor or sick.

It was never about helping the poor, helping the destitute. Who knows how many could have survived and enjoyed a healthy life if they were given decent medical treatment, instead of a daily dose of prayer. Teresa and her Catholic hoard of nuns, as well as her reverent followers, used these impoverished people like a fat person uses MacDonalds, for personal gratification. It always was, and still is, all about the Western World patting themselves on the back for the ‘charity’ handed out by religious organisations, whilst really doing nothing to help anyone. It was a morale boost, nothing more. As pious bedfellows, we used her to make ourselves feel like we cared, like we were helping others. And she used us to raise money for the Catholic Church, and to spread its influence and increase its power. It seems everyone BUT the poor got something out of the arrangement. All the while she was considered a ‘living saint’ and was put on the fast-track to canonisation by Pope John Paul II for her not-so-charitable work.

The poor and destitute have merely been used as kindling, thrown ever so hastily into the furnace to fuel the ravenous fire that is ‘religious charity’. Anyone who condones such efforts like that of ‘Mother’ Teresa should be ashamed of themselves, the Catholic Church, and of her.

Both she and the Catholic church have the pain, suffering and blood of countless people on their hands. If there is a hell, I would hope she was enjoying its luxuries well.

I think the church back in my home town got the maths wrong on their billboard. It’s “Good + God = 0″.

Christopher Hitchen’s Hell’s Angel: ‘Mother’ Teresa documentary.