The Late Mother Teresa's Order Involved in Child Trafficking in India

Roxxsmom

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Covid 19 dominates the news cycle these days, but this caught my attention.

India has ordered its state governments to inspect child care facilities run by the Missionaries of Charity — the Roman Catholic order founded by Mother Teresa — after arrests of a nun and a worker accused of baby trafficking.

Earlier this month, Indian authorities shut down a shelter home for pregnant, unmarried women run by the order in Ranchi, a city in the eastern state of Jharkhand, after discovering that four infants had been sold, including a 6-month-old boy who changed hands for 50,000 rupees ($730).

A nun, identified as Sister Koncilia, and a staff member, Anima Indwar, were arrested in connection with trafficking. According to The Times of India, Indwar confessed to selling the children.

https://www.npr.org/2018/07/17/6296...Zp4sI6cHykot1t4BpHf1s0a-glk9LARc0iajLkD0q1gXU

Will people finally stop using her name as a synonym for virtue?
 

mccardey

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Yes - this does not shock me as much as it might. Not a huge fan, frankly, and I agree - it's so irritating when you see the name stand for saintly and wonderful.
 

Kjbartolotta

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Eeek. I guess there's no way she could be directly responsible for this, in full agreement about frustrating it is that she's become such an icon of virtue. The article seems to downplay the criticisms of her, reducing them to more-or-less 'Hitchens didn't like her'.

The process of her canonization has been...messy.
 

Introversion

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Yes - this does not shock me as much as it might. Not a huge fan, frankly, and I agree - it's so irritating when you see the name stand for saintly and wonderful.

No one should be a fan. She was a con-woman, really.
 

mccardey

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I'm not a huge fan of all things Hitchins, and I don't know if I'd call her a con-woman, because I'm not sure she planned to benefit financially. Most of what I know about her I've read from women who joined her order while she was there and then left: she reminds me of a terribly sanctimonious woman I knew who would sacrifice anything to enhance her position as "devout" (for which I think she always read "saintly"). I think rather like her, Theresa went for the easy target and didn't care at all that she was doing real harm to health and heart.

Those people are so very dangerous. Narcissists usually are, and narcissists who also bully, always are.
 

Alessandra Kelley

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She seems to have been a dreadful person who made the afflicteds' lives more afflicted for her own personal self gratification, poverty porn if you will.

This sounds horrible too.
 

Kjbartolotta

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I'm not a huge fan of all things Hitchins, and I don't know if I'd call her a con-woman, because I'm not sure she planned to benefit financially.

Yeah, FWIW I don't view her as someone going for the straight grift so much as convinced of the righteousness of her actions and one thing led to another. Fanaticism and grift tend to make cozy bedfellows tho.
 

Roxxsmom

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I'm not a huge fan of all things Hitchins, and I don't know if I'd call her a con-woman, because I'm not sure she planned to benefit financially. Most of what I know about her I've read from women who joined her order while she was there and then left: she reminds me of a terribly sanctimonious woman I knew who would sacrifice anything to enhance her position as "devout" (for which I think she always read "saintly"). I think rather like her, Theresa went for the easy target and didn't care at all that she was doing real harm to health and heart.

Those people are so very dangerous. Narcissists usually are, and narcissists who also bully, always are.

Yeah, Hitchins is problematic in his own way.

I agree with what you've said here. I have issues over her stance on things like contraception and abortion, which would do so much to reduce suffering. It seems that she was more about glorifying suffering than actually alleviating it. A lot of that is not just her, though, but reflective of the Church's overall positions on these matters.

We live in a world where people who take that hard-headed, self promoting approach to things are rewarded. I imagine there are lots of people, religious and non religious, including other Roman Catholics, who have lived humble lives of quiet service to the poor and downtrodden without being shrewd business people or good at self promotion, but they don't end up in the history books or being canonized, either officially or in the courts of public opinion.

There's also a serious issue with people wanting children and being willing to pay large amounts of money to bypass the normal processes and wait lists for foreign or domestic adoptions. So these trafficked babies are not likely going to lives of slavery or exploitation. It's still a crime, though, to bypass the normal process involved in putting kids up for adoption and to profit from this. It'se that has become increasingly problematic in our world. And of course the mothers of these babies don't get anything, when their kids are sold in this way.
 
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mccardey

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A lot of that is not just her, though, but reflective of the Church's overall positions on these matters.

What was just her, though, was that she wouldn't allow women in the order to have nursing or medical education - they had to stay "humble" like the people they "served". It still infuriates me that at a time when good people with medical backgrounds were trying their damnedest to improve health and living standards for the poor, the poor were encouraged instead to carry their ill and dying (often literally and for days) to the "holy sisters" in hopes of (let's face it) some quasi-religious magical cure.
 

Roxxsmom

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What was just her, though, was that she wouldn't allow women in the order to have nursing or medical education - they had to stay "humble" like the people they "served". It still infuriates me that at a time when good people with medical backgrounds were trying their damnedest to improve health and living standards for the poor, the poor were encouraged instead to carry their ill and dying (often literally and for days) to the "holy sisters" in hopes of (let's face it) some quasi-religious magical cure.

That really pisses me off, because it sounds like she was essentially saying that humble people don't deserve cutting-edge health care.

That comes back to the whole, "Suffering builds character" thing. Even if that's true, life has plenty of suffering, even with the best care available. Especially for the poor.
 

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What was just her, though, was that she wouldn't allow women in the order to have nursing or medical education - they had to stay "humble" like the people they "served".

To me, it sounds more like she didn't want competition. Women that the others might look up to because of their knowledge or skills. She clawed her way to the top, and she wasn't giving up her position.
Given her time and place of birth, there probably weren't a lot of opportunities. Even rising through the ranks of a convent was probably reserved for the daughters of well-off or well-connected families. So, she found herself a niche.
And later, fought to defend it. A strong person, not necessarily a nice one.
 

mccardey

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So, she found herself a niche.
And later, fought to defend it. A strong person, not necessarily a nice one.
Possibly part of it, but not all of it. She says herself that she never intended to improve the lot of the poor. She intended to bring more souls to Christ. She was a firm believer in suffering as being Christ-like and valuable and not to be interefered with (except when she had her own heart problems). The problem is that people who were supporting her efforts clearly had misread her intentions - and she didn't make much of an effort to put them straight.
 
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cornflake

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She started the order but they keep her campaign of horror up pretty well on their own.

To me, it sounds more like she didn't want competition. Women that the others might look up to because of their knowledge or skills. She clawed her way to the top, and she wasn't giving up her position.
Given her time and place of birth, there probably weren't a lot of opportunities. Even rising through the ranks of a convent was probably reserved for the daughters of well-off or well-connected families. So, she found herself a niche.
And later, fought to defend it. A strong person, not necessarily a nice one.

Her niche was torturing the sick for her own glory, while using the best for herself.

Has anyone ever located the billions that order has taken in, but never spent?
 

Roxxsmom

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Possibly part of it, but not all of it. She says herself that she never intended to improve the lot of the poor. She intended to bring more souls to Christ. She was a firm believer in suffering as being Christ-like and valuable and not to be interefered with (except when she had her own heart problems). The problem is that people who were supporting her efforts clearly had misread her intentions - and she didn't make much of an effort to put them straight.

And that's what really ticks me off. I'm not a Christian (was never Christened or baptized, family never attended church) and wasn't raised in any faith tradition beyond the generic "we celebrate 'Christmas' with a tree and presents and 'Easter' with an egg hunt when the kids are little" thing, so maybe I'm not the best authority here. But that attitude doesn't sound Christlike at all, since Jesus himself allegedly cured lepers and cured the sick, didn't he.

In any case, even if suffering makes people virtuous (and I've seen little evidence this is generally true--otherwise people would have been paragons of virtue in the days before modern medicine) there's enough suffering in the world already, much of it beyond anyone's help, even if we alleviate what we can.

In any case, the notion that she was some kind of saint who healed the sick and eased their suffering is culturally entrenched. It's annoying, but I don't know what we can do about it.
 
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Introversion

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In any case, the notion that she was some kind of saint who healed the sick and eased their suffering is culturally entrenched. It's annoying, but I don't know what we can do about it.

Tell the truth. Some people (I was one) are shocked when they hear it, will verify, and revise their opinion of MT.

Others will dig down and reject your “fake news”. They’re unreachable, so are out of our circle of control, so not worth wasting time on.
 

mccardey

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Tell the truth. Some people (I was one) are shocked when they hear it, will verify, and revise their opinion of MT.
Me, too. I was raised a Catholic and she was an icon to us. We were given Holy Cards with her picture on them, and gloried in the story of her saintliness.

I heard an interview on the radio about a book that was coming out and couldn't believe that the writer would malign her. Got the book from the library, read it and looked for another book by a member of the order that would refute it. Prolly read about four or five books before I changed my thinking. (I was young and believed all the best of the Church in those days).