Mother Teresa's miraculous path to sainthood

When I read the news that Mother Teresa is on her way to becoming a catholic saint, I couldn't decide whether to feel happy or sad. I am a great admirer of her humanitarian work which she did in India, and her work speaks for itself about her greatness, so I wonder why she needed these random incidents under the name of miracles to get the title of "saint." Wasn't her social work enough to call her a saint? But it seems a minimum of two miracles are required to be declared as a catholic saint, I don't know on what basis they came up with the number 2, but that seems to be the criteria. So, even after all that great work that she did most of her life, it was not good enough to qualify her to become a saint, and now finally she got that dearly required second miracle recently which cleared her path to become a catholic saint. Seriously? Mr. Pope, do you need such trivial miracles which are just random incidents that happen every day somewhere in the world to declare someone like her a saint? I am really stunned to know that church authorities need some sort of nonreproducible random incidents (so-called miracles) to declare someone like Mother Teresa a saint. Can they please explain why her exemplary work is not enough for that? I feel astonished by all this because I come from the part of India which has produced many sants (equivalent of saint in Marathi) like, Dyaneshwar, Tukaram, Eknath, Namdev and many others. Actually, to be fair to Vatican people there are some miracles attributed to some of these people which according to me are clearly works of fiction. Miracles are attributed just to emphasize their greatness to some people who may not be able to understand the real importance of their work. That is why according to me all of them are not saints because they did some miracles, but for their scholarly work in the field of devotional literature, for carrying out social reforms, or for their humanitarian work. Miracles don't exist and no one can perform them. Maybe many centuries back people needed some fictional stories about different miracles to understand the greatness of someone, but in today's world why do we need such things which we know are some random incidents. Today how believable is the news that someone with multiple brain tumors prayed for her and got cured? Now for a moment let's assume that this is really true, then is it recommended for all those who are undergoing medical treatments for similar diseases to stop those treatments and start praying to her or someone else to get cured. If not, why not? Actually, people do pray whenever they are in deep trouble or when they see no other option, but they do this for their mental satisfaction there is not much logic behind this as there is no data to prove that prayers are as effective as medicines. But people do have the habit of praying and many also feel that their prayers produce desired results, but there is no proof for these things. Such a psychological boost can work in some cases, in medical science, there is a phenomenon called the "placebo effect" which is a similar scenario, but it is not a miracle, there is a rationale and logical explanation behind it.

I wrote one blog post about her many months back, even though I am an admirer of her work, her intentions and motives behind her work are questioned by some people. These questions or objections might sound unreasonable to her admirers like me, but they are there and one needs to acknowledge their existence. But my main objection to this miracle thing is what is the real purpose behind attributing such lame miracles to anyone? Don't they know that such things spread superstition among people? Especially those who are very vulnerable to believe in such things, for such people anything coming from their religious authority is absolute truth and this is dangerous. Superstition is already a huge problem in many societies and if powerful religious institutions like the catholic church are instrumental in spreading these things so blatantly, then I wonder how a society can dream of getting rid of these social evils? I absolutely have no problem with declaring Mother Teresa a saint or God or angel or whatever they want, but I have a strong objection to the so-called miracles attributed to her. This is a very clear case of superstition, just because something happened randomly doesn't mean it is a miracle. Many years back things like lunar eclipses or even rainbows were considered as miracles done by some God, but not anymore. I think it is the responsibility of any responsible and powerful institution not to propagate the culture of falsehood and superstition. This drama of miracle is really not necessary for giving sainthood to a great lady like Mother Teresa, people like her or Baba Amte are great human beings. We can call them saints, gods, or angels just because of their amazing work, they don't need any crutches of miracles to prove their greatness. I hope people understand this and give well-deserved respect to these individuals which they totally deserve because of their superb work, and not based on some stupid miracles.

Thanks for reading and please share your views on this topic.

[Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing]

Links:

1. Mother Teresa to become a saint after Pope Francis recognizes 2nd miracle

Mother Teresa - a true social worker or just a missionary?

Recently I read a book "The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice" by Christopher Hitchens. The book makes very controversial allegations about Mother Teresa and her NGO. While I was writing this, another report came in the media about the study conducted by Canadian researchers who called Mother Teresa "anything but a saint." While reading all this news it reminded me few discussions that I had with my dad about Mother Teresa. He never accepted that she was just a social worker and even today, he argues that her real intention behind doing all this social work was to convert people to her faith (Christianity). I never agreed with his logic and still don't believe that it was the only reason she was involved in humanitarian work but there is enough scope to conclude that this might have been one of the reasons why she was so passionate about this work. I might be wrong but all these reports and the book by Hitchens point towards this direction.

Her work in Kolkata (Calcutta) is phenomenal. The work she did for leprosy patients, homeless, poor, and sick people is really admirable. Her work provided shelter and food to millions of people who otherwise would have died a very miserable death. She gave them shelter, food, education, and a place to die for sick people. I personally have huge respect for her and her social work. It's not that easy to dedicate one's entire life to social work. But at the same time, there is another side of this story where one can see she accepted donations from people with very questionable backgrounds. Not only she accepted donations from such people but she also tried to defend a few of them when they asked for her support. She also criticized abortion from whatever platform she could (including in her Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech). It seems she glorified suffering because she thought that's the closest one can get to God. There are allegations that people in her clinic got the treatment but not the proper treatment which could help them to cure in spite of the availability of money and resources.

As far as her social work is concerned there are many people who have done similar or even more work in the same area but for some reason, they didn't get as much recognition as she got all over the world. Maybe being associated with Christianity (which is the most popular religion on our planet) and the church gave her an extra advantage. One such person who immediately comes to my mind who has done monumental work in the same area is the late Mr. Baba Amte. I don't think anyone in India needs any introduction about this man. He fought against all odds and dedicated his entire life not only to serving leprosy patients, sick and poor but at the same time helped them to earn self-respect and dignity and taught them self-reliance. He did all this just to serve those people, not to serve any God or propagate the values of any particular religion. That's why his work is unique and stands out for me. I have huge respect for this man and his dedication towards reforming the mindset of society. I am not trying to compare him with Mother Teresa but just trying to present two very similar cases where two people who did more or less similar work with similar impact on society but one got preferential treatment just because of her religious affiliation and her work gets highlighted more.

Whether Mother Teresa was a saint or not doesn't matter to me. I don't believe in miracles so I don't even care about the miracle attributed to her. But her one-sided views about abortion, her love for poverty just because it gave her an opportunity to serve her God and her association with some people with questionable backgrounds always puzzled me. I personally know people who lived in some hostels run by her NGO, they all were thankful that they got a place to stay and food to eat but at the same time, they had to follow a strict Christian code of conduct (like no bindi on the forehead which is one of the typical tradition followed by Hindu women) which I think is a bit too extreme. You can not take the freedom of people away in exchange for help, food, or medical treatment offered to them. You should not coerce people directly or indirectly to the religious path in which you believe. This clearly puts a question mark on a person's intentions behind helping them. I have huge respect for her social work but if whatever is written in these books or articles is true then it's another example of what too much focus on religion can do to even to people with very good intentions.

Thanks for reading and please share your views about this topic.

Links:
1. http://www.motherteresa.org/
2. The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice
3. Mommie Dearest- Christopher Hitchens
4. Mother Teresa on Trial-Daniel Scott Lintott
5. Was Mother Teresa not so saintly after all?
6. Mother Teresa Humanitarian Image A 'Myth,' New Study Says 
7. The mystery of Mother Teresa-Navin Chawla
8. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baba_Amte
9. Maharogi Sewa Samiti
10. Anandwan- Forest of Joy

(Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing)