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Mother Teresa | |
|---|---|
 Mother Teresa | |
| Born | 26 August 1910 |
| Died | 5 September 1997 (aged 87) |
| Occupation(s) | Roman Catholic nun, humanitarian[1] |
Mother Teresa (26 August 1910 – 5 September 1997), was an Albanian Roman Catholic nun who started the Missionaries of Charity and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 for her humanitarian work.[2] For over forty years, she cared for poor, sick, orphaned, and dying people in Calcutta (Kolkata), India. She was guided in part by the ideals of Saint Francis of Assisi. She was born in Skopje, Macedonia, and died in Calcutta.
As the Missionaries of Charity grew under her leadership, they expanded their ministry to other countries. By the 1970s Mother Teresa was well known internationally as an advocate for the poor and helpless. This was due in part to a movie and book called Something Beautiful for God by Malcolm Muggeridge.
Mother Teresa strongly opposed abortion. She once said: "The greatest destroyer of peace is abortion because if a mother can kill her child, what is left for me to kill you and you to kill me?".[3]
Following her death, Pope John Paul II first beatified Mother Teresa. Then on 4 September 2016, in a ceremony at Saint Peter's Church in Vatican City, he named her a saint. He also gave her the title Blessed Teresa of Calcutta.[4][5]
Saint Mother Teresa received many awards for her work. These included the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 and the Bharat Ratna (India's highest civilian award) in 1980.
Criticism
[change | change source]Both before and after her death, Mother Teresa received criticism, especially in recent years as debate about abortion grew.
In 1995 Christopher Hitchens wrote a very critical book about Mother Teresa called The Missionary Position.[6] In the book, he argued that instead of trying to help the poor, Mother Teresa encouraged them to endure pain and continue suffering.[7][8] He also suggested that she opposed ending poverty and raising women's social status.[9][10] Later, in a 2003 article for Slate, Higgins wrote: "Mother Teresa was not a friend of the poor. She was a friend of poverty. She said that suffering was a gift from God".[11]
References
[change | change source]- ↑ PBS Online Newshour (September 5, 1997).Mother Teresa Dies Archived 2013-10-29 at the Wayback Machine, www.pbs.org. Retrieved August, 2007
- ↑ "Mother Teresa - The Nobel Peace Prize 1979". Nobelprize.org. Retrieved 2009-09-03.
- ↑ "The greatest destroyer of peace..." BrainyQuote. Retrieved 2 June 2012.
- ↑ Associate Press, "Full house for Mother Teresa ceremony" Archived 2004-03-05 at the Wayback Machine October 14, (2003; retrieved from CNN Archived 2013-07-30 at the Wayback Machine on May 30, 2007.
- ↑ "Blessed Mother Teresa," in Encyclopædia Britannica (2007). Retrieved May 30, 2007, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online
- ↑ Hitchens, Christopher (1995). The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in theory and practice. Verso. ISBN 9781859840542.
- ↑ "Was Mother Teresa Evil? - Good and Evil: Empirical Studies". Evil and Good. Archived from the original on 18 December 2012. Retrieved 2 June 2012.
- ↑ "Was Mother Teresa Evil? - Good and Evil: Empirical Studies". Archived from the original on 2012-12-18. Retrieved 2012-06-02.
- ↑ Hitchens, Christopher (October 20, 2003). "The fanatic, fraudulent Mother Teresa". Slate Magazine. Retrieved 2 June 2012.
- ↑ Swomley, John M. (October 1996). "Exposing Mother Teresa". population-security.org. Retrieved 2 June 2012.
- ↑ Hitchens, Christopher (October 20, 2003). "The fanatic, fraudulent Mother Teresa". Slate Magazine. Retrieved 2 June 2012.
Other websites
[change | change source]- Mother Teresa of Kolkata information Archived 2014-02-01 at the Wayback Machine (in Spanish)
- Speech On Mother Teresa In English : Nobel Peace Prize Speech