Talk:Public image of Mother Teresa

Healing or miracle?

This post was written by someone who has clearly demonstrated religious reasons to have this article be treated as false, and should therefore be discarded, per their own allegations of bias invalidating information.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1006:B100:902D:241F:E829:E6AC:7D13 (talk)

In article is written:

In 2003, after Teresa was beatified by John Paul II, Hitchens continued his criticism, calling her "a fanatic, a fundamentalist, and a fraud." He further criticised the Catholic Church for attributing the recovery of a patient to a miracle, and for ignoring the testimony of the patient's doctor, who attributed the recovery of his patient to modern medicine. Chatterjee and Hitchens were called by the Vatican to present evidence against Teresa during her canonisation process.

1. Speaking like that of Hitchens shows that he cannot be a neutral source, but knows neither the Catholic faith nor the basic rules of monasticism. In addition, he is also void of hatred towards the Catholic Church, and perhaps ignorance is also behind it. Therefore, he cannot be a credible source for criticism because his point of view is biased. Similarly, all Catholic rites, teaching and practice could be criticized in this way, which is probably not the scope of this article.
2. From some opinions about miracles, it would appear that the Catholic Church is so naive that it will immediately declare any cure from the flu or from covid as a miracle. Anyone who carefully studies the causes of the saints will be able to admit that the truth is just the opposite: when it comes to healing research, the Church is rather too strict and rigorous than lax and gullible. These researches in the case of beatification can be compared with the criteria according to which the Church or the local bishop declares that a healing, for example in Lourdes, was miraculous.
3. Dr. A. Olivieri writes in the book Y a-t-il encore des miracles à Lourdes? that every year around 30 miraculous healings take place in Lourdes. Still, he prefers to call these miracles just healings. This is what he says:

Une moyenne de 30 guérisons par an (French original)

An average of 30 cures per year (English translation)

En Moyenne, chaque année, une trentaine de malades se déclarent guéris et viennent me trouver au Bureau Médical. J'ai parlé de „guérisons” et non de „miracles”. Cette distinction est capitale. Elle n’est faite que rarement, même par des personnes au courant du fait de Lourdes. Dès le temps des Apparitions de Lourdes, il y a eu des guérisons á Lourdes. Le Docteur Dozous en a enregistré plus d’une centaine pour l’année 1858; mais sur le nombre, 7 cas seulement ont été retenus comme „miraculeux”.

On average, each year, about thirty patients declare themselves cured and come to see me at the Medical Office. I spoke of „healings” and not of „miracles”. This distinction is crucial. It is done only rarely, even by people aware of the fact of Lourdes. From the time of the Lourdes Apparitions, there have been healings in Lourdes. Doctor Dozous recorded more than a hundred for the year 1858; but on the number, only 7 cases were retained as "miraculous".

1. Critics who express themselves so negatively about the work of the Sisters of Charity, however, became silent when the Indian nationalist government made charity impossible for the sisters, as a result of which the Indian people suffer damage: certainly greater than the alleged medical errors they committed sisters. Is the situation any better for the sick and poor in India now that the anti-Christian and anti-Muslim government "forbade" (!) the sisters to receive any help!? But where are these many "objective" critics now? They have a whole barrage of (criminal) criticism against the sister and her nuns, who sacrifice themselves for the most abandoned, against the (Indian) government, which does nothing to improve healthcare and a higher standard for the poor, as well as against the injustice of the caste division, in addition to and this is prevented by charitable activity - doesn't all this deserve objective criticism and condemnation? Or against the Yemeni Muslims who killed all the sisters working there in two deadly attacks? And why? Because they were disturbed by the testimony of selfless love, through which, the local residents came to know Jesus Christ and his goodness.
2. The article in its current form therefore speaks too much of anti-Catholic hatred and underestimation of everything Catholic, besides describing unproven things and attributing bad intentions to the sisters. But where are the objective sources that are needed for such one-sided claims? I would venture to say that this makes it not up to Wikepedia's standards and should therefore be thoroughly reworked. If the article wanted to be objective, we should ask the other side about these matters, that is, the sisters themselves, what they think about these serious accusations.
3. As for beatification and canonization, at least one proven miracle is really needed for both; but the miracle is not the main criterion of holiness, but a virtuous life in the heroic degree. Because of very precise and critical scientific research, the Church or the Pope rarely recognize any healing as a miracle; nevertheless, we must note that the Pope is not bound by a miracle in the proclamation, and therefore it is not so important whether a certain healing was ordinary or miraculous. Indeed, if the Pope considers a person suitable for proclamation, the lack of miracles is not the worst obstacle; so I read that the Pope declared a native North American woman a saint, although there was no expected miracle at her intercession. Finally, Christians are not called to perform miracles, but to live holy lives in peace and love, and to transmit this witness to today's world: which is a greater miracle than being cured of cancer, AIDS or leukemia.--Stebunik (talk) 00:27, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
4. Now I read the article again carefully, and I noticed that it has many good points, as it also responds to various criticisms, exactly in the sense that I expressed my expectation. This is of course commendable for the article, but I think that the responses to the criticisms are too few and too short. I would just like to mention here that the criticism of Christian missionary work, saying that it is a kind of colonialism, is completely out of place. Instead, the authors of such incitements should examine what Christianity really teaches. How can such people not be bothered by the much larger Arab colonialism, when over the centuries, through warfare, they turned many nations not only into Muslims, but also into Arabs. A similar answer would be given regarding baptism. To this, Mother Teresa replied that she is not a social worker, but first and foremost a missionary, and what is more important for a missionary than to open heaven to people? Of course, anyone who doesn't believe in heaven or angels, or hell and devils, to him it's all just folklore. We Christians, however, believe that Christ died and rose from the dead for every person, and it would be irresponsible of us not to communicate this to others and enable them to be saved. I think that this teaching is more important, because according to it all people are equal, but not the same as the agnostics want to forcefully convince us: that there is no more father and mother, nor man and woman, that God does everything wrong, but man does himself God and that therefore he is allowed to perform abortions, artificial insemination and sex reassignment, and finally to kill all the old and disabled by euthanasia as if we are no longer smart Earthlings but stupid Martians.--Stebunik (talk) 01:31, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

   You're literally putting everyone who isn't Christian or Catholic into the same basic and calling us murderers and eugenicists because you PERSONALLY think that we "don't see everyone as equal."

   And yet, we can look at the most famous events of Eugenics and realize that religion— particularly Christianity and Catholicism— has far stronger ties to the implementation of eugenic policies. Nazi Germany was Christian, USSR at the time of their genocide of their subjugated satellite states was Christian, those in the USA who implementated eugenics were primarily Christian.

   Not to mention the fact that the concept inscribed within the Bible itself that decries any and all with disabilities as being sinners— John 9:1-3, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?"

   This entry has been used for centuries, if not millenia, by the church in order to justify the abuse and social exile of those who are ill or disabled. It has lead to unknown numbers of people being kurdered for disabilities.

   Your attempts to claim that objective statements about her horrific behavior are made up are rather comical, given the hypocrisy of trying to claim that a group with no unified belief somehow all has the same belief.

   There are other issues with your claim of "the bible says everyone is equal," such as the fact that the Bible states, repeatedly, that women are to be treated as inferior, with such absurd things as being treated as "dirty" for menstruation, giving birth to a son, or— even worse— giving birth to a daughter.

   The connection between religious missionaries and Imperialism and colonialism has been proven over and over again.

   In general, it's not an effective idea to say that people are just bullying your religion by calling out very real immoral behaviors, by then calling everyone who disagrees with you a eugenicist. 2600:1006:B100:902D:241F:E829:E6AC:7D13 (talk) 22:10, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

References

Value of criticisms.

This pages is filled with a ridiculous amount of commentary criticism that has zero informational value.

Germaine Greer for instance is making a complaint that could be levelled at any famous historical white figure and is more a commentary about ideals of colonialism, so what does that have to do with Mother Theresa particularly?

And Hitchens, who at least has some specificity, still is inundated with commentaries with no direct criticisms relating to particular events and could be simply prefaced with a dislike of any religious figures.

This is supposed to be a encyclopaedia. Not a soap box.

This article has barely any value as it is except to lend credence to otherwise worthless commentators that are as educationally relevant as tik tok influencers. 49.181.138.34 (talk) 08:22, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

Miracle

In article is written:

In 2003, after Teresa was beatified by John Paul II, Hitchens continued his criticism, calling her "a fanatic, a fundamentalist, and a fraud." He further criticised the Catholic Church for attributing the recovery of a patient to a miracle, and for ignoring the testimony of the patient's doctor, who attributed the recovery of his patient to modern medicine. Chatterjee and Hitchens were called by the Vatican to present evidence against Teresa during her canonisation process.

References

Christopher Hitchens

Article places much weight on Christopher Hitchens' work, with citations just being his own work. Are these criticisms actually that notable? Or should they be condensed?

From what I can find I'm leaning towards condense. Tomorrow and tomorrow (talk) 04:06, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

And I'm leaning towards leaving it as is. HiLo48 (talk) 05:01, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

Maybe we could collate all of his criticisms into one section? Call it something like "views of Christopher Hitchens", make it clear they are coming from one man? Tomorrow and tomorrow (talk) 00:10, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

Bad sources

"Seton Hall University academic Dr Ines Murzaku says that accusations of forced conversion by the Missionaries of Charity are unfounded and are used by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to persecute Indian Christians" The source used for this claim is an opinion piece not a analysis of Tersa's actions are only made up of quotes by Tersa herself and bible verses, it also lacks any primary sources to back anything up. The bulk of the well sourced arguments in this article are to do with the BJP's poor relationship with missionaries and even still it fails to draw any connection between this claims of forced conversion and the BJP outside of an inquiry made by government officials. Dr Ines Murzaku doesn't really seem to be relevant or reliably sourced enough to keep on this page. This article really needs some clean up and I highly recommend starting with getting rid of this to start with. Clubspike2 (talk) 07:12, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

The source used for this claim is an opinion piece - yes that is why the sentence starts with "Seton Hall University academic Dr Ines Murzaku says".

it also lacks any primary sources to back anything up - yes that is because it is a primary source showing the writings of an academic.

This source is just as relevant or reliably sourced as Hitchens' comments about forced baptisms, in that they both consist of statements made by people who have investigated Mother Teresa's actions and then formulated and presented their views on her, with Wikipedia's reference to these individuals' opinions being cited by the individual's own published writings. Tomorrow and tomorrow (talk) 10:04, 11 September 2023 (UTC)