Mother Teresa.

Turtwig

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Teresa

Ok, this one has come as a bit of a shock to me, but somehow I ended up having a discussion about Mother Teresa today (something to do with some secular US group opposing her name in a stamp) and I said she did tonnes of humanitarian work. It occurred to me after to saying it, that I didn't really know what she actually did. However, even so, I was surprised with the reaction I got, my friend, (who for all intensive purposes is someone I consider to be very rational) just looked at me as if to say "You can't be serious" and said "You really ought to read up on her - Google her."

Wikipedia was the first choice and I noticed it mentioned some criticism of her. So, my next step was to get a gauge of the sentiment A&As here have towards her and take it from there on where to go next.
(Basically you guys have been really really resourceful:))

Dades

Her faith, or lack of, has in the past been the subject of a tug-of-war between Christians and non-believers.

Turtwig

Dades wrote: »

Her faith, or lack of, has in the past been the subject of a tug-of-war between Christians and non-believers.

Lack of faith? Now that is new. I thought they were making her a saint. An atheist saint??

Rev Hellfire

I'm surprised anyone would be surprised that a religious person would have a crisis of faith.

As for the criticisms levelled against her, well my view is even if they have some truth to them; she still managed to do more good than those who vilified her. So the balance is on her side.

Anyway she's dead, does it really matter ?

eightyfish

You should read this little book.

pH

Yes, Hitchen's point is that she's not quite the saint we've been led to believe.

• She supported/associated with some quite horrible people.
• Little of the money went to poor, it built more religious orders.
• Her hospices were dreadful places, she gathered the poor and dying and let them suffer for the glory of God. By all accounts she felt that the more they suffered the better off they'd be in the next life.

stevejazzx

Hitchens is ruthless on this subject but I'd class it as one of his misfires.
He goes a bit ott on the criticism. She was for all intent and purposes a good enough woman but Hitchens slates her on everything he can get his hands on including issues like her not being a friend of the poor but rather of 'poverty'. Thats the kind of odd political attack he makes on her person that I find a bit uneasy even if they are, on a technical level, true.
He proudly attests to the fact that he played devils advocate after her nomination of beatification.

I 'm a fan of Hitchens but I think someone of his considerable energies should be attacking the more formidable enemies of reason (which he does of cours) as much as he can.

In saying all that, it was however declared recently that she couldn't find it within herself to believe in a God. Quite remarkable really when you think about it.

Wacker

stevejazzx wrote: »

In saying all that, it was however declared recently that she couldn't find it within herself to believe in a God. Quite remarkable really when you think about it.

Here's what Sam Harris has to say on this point:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ran37Njz8Wg

Also, here is the first part of a documentary made by the Hitchster on Mother Teresa:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WQ0i3nCx60

Hell's Angel is the name of it. Very harsh title.

iUseVi

stevejazzx wrote: »

I 'm a fan of Hitchens but I think someone of his considerable energies should be attacking the more formidable enemies of reason (which he does of cours) as much as he can.

As the world's biggest Hitchens fan I'm interested to know why you think so? Do you think hes exaggerating a bit?

Plowman

This post has been deleted.

aidan24326

stevejazzx wrote: »

In saying all that, it was however declared recently that she couldn't find it within herself to believe in a God. Quite remarkable really when you think about it.

It's not entirely surprising that someone who surrounded herself with so much poverty, hunger and misery would have some doubts about the existence of a compassionate and benevolent god.

rubensni

The Hitch was way off on Mother Teresa. She was an incredible person.

strobe

Plowman wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

I'd have to agree, I saw the Hitchens documentary a while ago and was quite shocked by his conclusions as I had the same opinion as Malty T, I'd heard some vague critisisms of her over the years but thought it was generally accepted by most people that she was a good egg. So I did quite a bit of reading up on her, including a couple of bio's and some criticisms of her from other sources. My conclusion is that she wasn't pefect and the praise she recieved in her life and death was probably over the top, but at the end of the day what she was was a woman who gave up a reasonably comfortable lifestyle and instead dedicated the majority of her life to trying to help some of the poorest people in the world and did indeed help many many people who otherwise would have recieved no help whatsoever from anyone.

I like a lot of Hitchens work but quite frankly I don't think he would have had anywhere near as bad a picture of her to paint of her is she hadn't been a nun who also spread her religion (something that's pretty much right there in her job description) by helping people that needed help. This kind of stupid carry on is detrimental to proactive atheism in the extreme.

pH

Plowman wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

By this tortured logic, Concern shouldn't send a cent to help anyone until they've accumulated enough cash to become a mega-corp.

This is easy to say comfortably ensconsed in the prosperous West. If by "dreadful" you mean unhygenic and not particularly nice or comfortable, then you are probably right. But for penniless ill locals the choice is most likely between there and an over-populated even dirtier street. And many of them probably can do little more than suffer - not because Mother Teresa's order is some malevolent institution, but because the necessary funding, infrastructure, facilities, etc are lacking.

Honestly, that character assassination by Hitchens is just gratuitous and offensive.

This returns us to the medieval corruption of the church, which sold indulgences to the rich while preaching hellfire and continence to the poor. MT was not a friend of the poor. She was a friend of poverty. She said that suffering was a gift from God. She spent her life opposing the only known cure for poverty, which is the empowerment of women and the emancipation of them from a livestock version of compulsory reproduction. And she was a friend to the worst of the rich, taking misappropriated money from the atrocious Duvalier family in Haiti (whose rule she praised in return) and from Charles Keating of the Lincoln Savings and Loan. Where did that money, and all the other donations, go? The primitive hospice in Calcutta was as run down when she died as it always had been—she preferred California clinics when she got sick herself—and her order always refused to publish any audit. But we have her own claim that she opened 500 convents in more than a hundred countries, all bearing the name of her own order. Excuse me, but this is modesty and humility?

The rich world has a poor conscience, and many people liked to alleviate their own unease by sending money to a woman who seemed like an activist for "the poorest of the poor." People do not like to admit that they have been gulled or conned, so a vested interest in the myth was permitted to arise, and a lazy media never bothered to ask any follow-up questions. Many volunteers who went to Calcutta came back abruptly disillusioned by the stern ideology and poverty-loving practice of the "Missionaries of Charity," but they had no audience for their story. George Orwell's admonition in his essay on Gandhi—that saints should always be presumed guilty until proved innocent—was drowned in a Niagara of soft-hearted, soft-headed, and uninquiring propaganda.
http://www.slate.com/id/2090083/

Gratuitous and offensive it may be, but true.

eightyfish

strobe wrote: »

This kind of stupid carry on is detrimental to proactive atheism in the extreme.

You have a good point. However, she amassed large ammounts of cash, and it would have been better spent on hospitals for the sick rather than homes for the dying. From the wiki:

[Hitchens] argues that Teresa's own words on poverty proved that her intention was not to help people, citing a 1981 press conference in which she was asked: "Do you teach the poor to endure their lot?" She replied: "I think it is very beautiful for the poor to accept their lot, to share it with the passion of Christ. I think the world is being much helped by the suffering of the poor people."

She wasn't the devil, but she wasn't a saint either. I guess somebody just had to be the one to say it, and that was Hitchens.

Antbert

Dawkins isn't too keen on her either. I've been meaing to read that Hitchens book since he referenced it in The God Delusion.

She was very very anti-abortion as far as my limited knowledge tells me. Unsurprising of course, but not a trait I like in people.

Naz_st

Sam Harris wrote about Mother Teresa briefly in an article for the Washington Post entitled "The Sacrifice of Reason" (he referenced this in the video posted earlier). This is what he had to say:

And now we learn that even Mother Teresa, the most celebrated exponent of this dogmatism in a century, had her doubts about the whole story—the presence of Christ in the Eucharist, the existence of heaven, and even the existence of God:


"Lord, my God, who am I that You should forsake me? The Child of your Love — and now become as the most hated one — the one — You have thrown away as unwanted — unloved. I call, I cling, I want — and there is no One to answer — no One on Whom I can cling — no, No One. — Alone ... Where is my Faith — even deep down right in there is nothing, but emptiness & darkness — My God — how painful is this unknown pain — I have no Faith — I dare not utter the words & thoughts that crowd in my heart — & make me suffer untold agony.

So many unanswered questions live within me afraid to uncover them — because of the blasphemy — If there be God — please forgive me — When I try to raise my thoughts to Heaven — there is such convicting emptiness that those very thoughts return like sharp knives & hurt my very soul. — I am told God loves me — and yet the reality of darkness & coldness & emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul. Did I make a mistake in surrendering blindly to the Call of the Sacred Heart?"

— addressed to Jesus, at the suggestion of a confessor, undated


Teresa's recently published letters reveal a mind riven by doubt (as it should have been). They also reveal a woman who was surely suffering from run-of-the-mill depression, though even secular commentators have begun to politely dress this fact in the colors of the saints and martyrs. Teresa's response to her own bewilderment and hypocrisy (her term) reveals just how like quicksand religious faith can be. Her doubts about God's existence were interpreted by her confessor as a sign that she was sharing Christ's torment upon the cross; this exaltation of her wavering faith allowed Teresa "to love the darkness" she experienced in God's apparent absence. Such is the genius of the unfalsifiable. We can see the same principle at work among her fellow Catholics: Teresa's doubts have only enhanced her stature in the eyes of the Church, having been interpreted as a further evidence of God's grace.

Ask yourself, when even the doubts of experts are thought to confirm a doctrine, what could possibly disconfirm it?

aidan24326

Malty_T wrote: »

...and I said she did tonnes of humanitarian work. It occurred to me after to saying it, that I didn't really know what she actually did.

I suspect most people don't know a whole lot about what she actually did, the media always portrayed her as something akin to a walking saint and people bought into that. I would imagine she was probably well-intentioned in alot of what she was trying to do, but misguided in how she was going about it. So probably not quite the evil witch that Hitchens would have us believe, but not quite the supersaint that popular culture portrayed her as either.

jhegarty

pH wrote: »

Yes, Hitchen's point is that she's not quite the saint we've been led to believe.

• She supported/associated with some quite horrible people.
• Little of the money went to poor, it built more religious orders.
• Her hospices were dreadful places, she gathered the poor and dying and let them suffer for the glory of God. By all accounts she felt that the more they suffered the better off they'd be in the next life.

[*] Any names ?

[*] Not sure what you mean by that. The Sisters of the order live in the same conditions as the people they help. How was this money spent ?

[*] They got to die in a bed indoors instead of on the street. Don't know about you , but I know which I would choose. What suffering do you suggest she inflicted ?

Byron85

jhegarty wrote: »

[*] Any names ?
[*] Not sure what you mean by that. The Sisters of the order live in the same conditions as the people they help. How was this money spent ?
[*] They got to die in a bed indoors instead of on the street. Don't know about you , but I know which I would choose. What suffering do you suggest she inflicted ?

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Keating

2. "Hitchens condemns Teresa for having used contributions to open convents in 150 countries rather than establishing a teaching hospital, the latter being what he implies donors expected her to do with their gifts."

3. "Do you teach the poor to endure their lot?" She replied: "I think it is very beautiful for the poor to accept their lot, to share it with the passion of Christ. I think the world is being much helped by the suffering of the poor people."


That's just from a 30 second search online.

ChocolateSauce

My opinion of her is that she was a scumbag, devoid of morals or compassion. Her so-called "humanitarian" work involved raising money in Africa and taking it to India, where she spent it on building religious buildings where people could die under the supervision of the Catholic Church; where they were not allowed to see their relatives, and were prayed over in a foreign language in a religion which was not their own.

Did she spend the African's money on medicine? No. Did she use the wealth of the Church to alleviate suffering? No. She took money from the dirt poor and used it to enrich the Church and spread the Catholic faith. She believed (or wanted to believe) that being around the suffering of others brought her closer to god.

A throughly horrible wretch who deserves her name to live on in infamy.

Muppet Man

I believe her heart was in the right place, but her execution was definitely misguided.

who for all intensive purposes is someone I consider to be very rational

Sorry, pet hate of mine, http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Is_the_saying_'all_intents_and_purposes'_or_'all_intense_purposes'

Muppet Man

Turtwig

Muppet Man wrote: »

Sorry, pet hate of mine, http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Is_the_saying_'all_intents_and_purposes'_or_'all_intense_purposes'

Muppet Man

I love it when people correct me on this sort of stuff! So no need to apologise.

dvpower

Malty_T wrote: »

I love it when people correct me on this sort of stuff! So there is no need to apologise.

FYP


I've gone too far

sink

dvpower wrote: »

FYP!


I've gone too far.

:P

branie

I believe that mother Teresa helped the poor and suffering in India, but that 's just my opinion.

panda100

The Western media makes it impossible for anyone to criticise this 'modern day saint' but Its only when you start reading direct quotes from the women herself that you see how warped her outlook on society was.

She wrote and spoke extensively against abortion. The language she uses against abortion is horrifically strong and she firmly believed it was the root of all evil in this world, that It was abortion that was the greatest destroyer of peace in the world?? I mean, FFS, in a country where 42% live in dire poverty, female infanticide and FGM is rampant, where women are seen as an economic burden because of the lack of access they have to education?? And abortion is the root of all evil?

To me this sends out huge warning signs of Mother Tereas outlook on Indian society and the world in general. That someone can be so vicious about a women right to choose and yet not even make refrence to the gross,gross inequalitys that face a county where the goldfish in the fish tanks of hotels frequented by Westerners have far more food to eat than the millions of people living in slums.

It scares me that a person so heralded as a modern day saint can attack so viciously womens rights, but remain silent on the obscene inequality around her.
While she may have provided transient housing for the milllions of Indians poor, she aided in keeping the unequal social strata's firmly in place by praising poverty,targetting womens rights and remaining silent and peversly admiring the minority that accumulate obscene wealth. She seemed more than willing to keep an oppressed majority permanetly oppressed by citing their poverty as some divine right from God.

reprazant

pH wrote: »

By this tortured logic, Concern shouldn't send a cent to help anyone until they've accumulated enough cash to become a mega-corp.


[

No, by that logic, Concern should open up many charity houses in many poor areas around the world, which is what she did.

T.W.H Byron wrote: »

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Keating

He donated money to her charity.

Is she a bad person for accepting money for a person who in later years turned out to be a bit of a crook? I guess that means most charities associate with terrible people.

allisbleak

She was the religious poster girl. Like all religion it was based on a false image and lies. I thought it was hilarious that Diana was killed the same week and stole all the publicity. Bet the church didn't see that.

Nodin

The first words I ever heard against MT were many years ago, by an Indian gentleman, who had never heard of her until he came to the West on buisiness. He happened to mention he was from Calcutta and it thus arose. He decided to investigate on his return and was unimpressed with what he found. He made - in somewhat less hysterical tones than Hitchens - much the same points.

From a personal perspective, what I found hard to take was the repeated reports and evidence of the condition of the hospices and the lack of pallative care, versus the conditions of the nunnerys, despite the money being channelled there. This isn't expecting them to be anywhere near the level found in the West either, or expecting the Nuns to live in squalor.

bnt

jhegarty wrote: »

[*] Any names ?

Here's a name: "Baby Doc" Duvalier of Haiti, who gave Teresa an award, and money stolen from the people of Haiti. But hey, their current suffering is all for a greater cause ... right?

Here's another name: Robert Maxwell - though this time the money was going in the other direction! (The full extent of Maxwell's embezzlement wasn't known until later, after his death.)

minusorange

Rev Hellfire wrote: »

I'm surprised anyone would be surprised that a religious person would have a crisis of faith.

As for the criticisms levelled against her, well my view is even if they have some truth to them; she still managed to do more good than those who vilified her. So the balance is on her side.

Anyway she's dead, does it really matter ?

I've heard of another dead person, who's name you may be familiar with, whose life on earth has proved to be of significant importance. Her life is probably more important now, ironically, than when she was alive.

minusorange

iUseVi wrote: »

As the world's biggest Hitchens fan I'm interested to know why you think so? Do you think hes exaggerating a bit?

Exaggerating isn't the right word, But it should be noted that there isn't a single footnote in his book, "The Missionary Position". As a Hitchens fan, I find it quiet annoying to find such a capable academic resort to this type of journalistic writing, when it is the exact type of thing he would criticise a pro-religion author for.

--amadeus--

It wasn't just abortion she opposed she was anti-contraception as well:

Mother Teresa was fervently opposed to contraception and abortion. She told an Oxford conference in 1988 that she would never allow a child entrusted to her care to be adopted by a woman who had an abortion or used contraceptives. "Such a woman cannot love," she said

(link)

An odious little woman who used the moral high ground to shell any social libertarians to pieces.

minusorange

--amadeus-- wrote: »

It wasn't just abortion she opposed she was anti-contraception as well:

(link)

An odious little woman who used the moral high ground to shell any social libertarians to pieces.

I agree, but it's a topic worthy of an academic focus. Hitchens book doesn't do it any justice. Typical Hitchens rant.

MrPudding

minusorange wrote: »

I've heard of another dead person, who's name you may be familiar with, whose life on earth has proved to be of significant importance. Her life is probably more important now, ironically, than when she was alive.

Princess Diana?

MrP

minusorange

MrPudding wrote: »

Princess Diana?

MrP

Ha! I was thinking more of the alleged Jesus Christ...

DogmaticLefty

Wow. Just wow. The historical reverse engineering ('hacking' is a better word actually) is pathetic. Next you'll be denying the Holocaust.

iUseVi

DogmaticLefty wrote: »

Wow. Just wow. The historical reverse engineering ('hacking' is a better word actually) is pathetic. Next you'll be denying the Holocaust.

I've got you this time smelly evil atheists! Mwahahhaha. You are all anti-semetic holocaust deniers!!!!

Contribute or GTFO, some of us enjoy this forum.

Zillah

Muppet Man wrote: »

Sorry, pet hate of mine, http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Is_the_saying_'all_intents_and_purposes'_or_'all_intense_purposes'

Fuck yes. I could think of nothing but this while reading this thread. INTENSIVE PURPOSES.

Right. Mother Theresa. Not much worse than the other six billion or so people who do nothing to make practical improvements in the lives of others. Though at least most people aren't held up as paragons of virtue. I'd direct more criticism at the church and media for portraying her as they did.

Zillah

DogmaticLefty wrote: »

Wow. Just wow. The historical reverse engineering ('hacking' is a better word actually) is pathetic. Next you'll be denying the Holocaust.

Seriously can we please get rid of this guy? He was entertaining at first but every single post is a ridiculous and pointless one liner. It's becoming irritating. We can go a dozen pages with Jakkass because he can at least contribute more than "Aha! Bad atheists are bad robots!"

Irlandese

I just came across this thread and had to comment:
Hitchens own quoted comments and very restrained film clip are very very tame in comparison to remarks made to me and to others by other internationalhumanitarian volunteers who had seen at first hand and for years what this woman was responsible for. She was a major con-woman with a penchant for the high life while parading the suffering bodies of India's poor, like any street corner beggar camping up their ailments, often spurious. Their ailments were not, her presummed charity was.
Lets leave aside the facts that she spent nearly all of her own personal time touring the world and visiting mega-rich "donors" who laid on every conceivable luxury for their "little saint". Lets leave aside her close personal association with the Marcos's and her glowing endorsements of numerous other world despots and mega-criminals. Lets leave aside her insistence on using sick poor people as "PR props" in her carefully staged films and documentaries designed to pull in more wealth for her and her personal cult, with only a fraction going on actual "services". Remember instead her refusal to let the money be used for relatively simple life-saving operations for these poor people. Remember her insistence on having them lie and die without medical services but with plenty of camera flashes to light up their trip to heaven, even if they did not really need to die at all, if they were in any other type of "health care establishment", with even a fraction of the gold garnered by this con-woman.
Remember her opposition to contraception and abortions for the hundreds of thousands of low-caste women condemned to prostitution in the slums by economic disadvantage, while she happily went on TV with some of the politicians and others who were benefitting directly and indirectly from the exploitation of these women.
Let us remember her eyes, just like the eyes of Cardinal Cathal daly.
The eyes never lie.
I am so glad I did not have to look up into those eyes.....ever.

DogmaticLefty

iUseVi wrote: »

Contribute or GTFO, some of us enjoy this forum.

That's the sad thing. You get kicks out of knocking other people's good works. Trying to distort history so as to suit your current agenda is really sad. You guys might want to save up to pay for a centre for atheist studies so you can churn out lies to your hearts content. But I doubt you have either the money or the conviction to do so.

DogmaticLefty

Irlandese wrote: »

I just came across this thread and had to comment:
Hitchens own quoted comments and very restrained film clip are very very tame in comparison to remarks made to me and to others by other internationalhumanitarian volunteers who had seen at first hand and for years what this woman was responsible for. She was a major con-woman with a penchant for the high life while parading the suffering bodies of India's poor, like any street corner beggar camping up their ailments, often spurious. Their ailments were not, her presummed charity was.
Lets leave aside the facts that she spent nearly all of her own personal time touring the world and visiting mega-rich "donors" who laid on every conceivable luxury for their "little saint". Lets leave aside her close personal association with the Marcos's and her glowing endorsements of numerous other world despots and mega-criminals. Lets leave aside her insistence on using sick poor people as "PR props" in her carefully staged films and documentaries designed to pull in more wealth for her and her personal cult, with only a fraction going on actual "services". Remember instead her refusal to let the money be used for relatively simple life-saving operations for these poor people. Remember her insistence on having them lie and die without medical services but with plenty of camera flashes to light up their trip to heaven, even if they did not really need to die at all, if they were in any other type of "health care establishment", with even a fraction of the gold garnered by this con-woman.
Remember her opposition to contraception and abortions for the hundreds of thousands of low-caste women condemned to prostitution in the slums by economic disadvantage, while she happily went on TV with some of the politicians and others who were benefitting directly and indirectly from the exploitation of these women.
Let us remember her eyes, just like the eyes of Cardinal Cathal daly.
The eyes never lie.
I am so glad I did not have to look up into those eyes.....ever.

Wow. That's quite a rant there. Your true colours certainly show through.

ChocolateSauce

DogmaticLefty wrote: »

Wow. That's quite a rant there. Your true colours certainly show through.

Yeah, I hate people who are compassionate and care about women forced into prostitution.

DogmaticLefty

ChocolateSauce wrote: »

Yeah, I hate people who are compassionate and care about women forced into prostitution.

Prostitutes with bumps on their bellies don't do much business for their pimps - no wait, you force them to abort their own child in that case.

MrPudding

DogmaticLefty wrote: »

That's the sad thing. You get kicks out of knocking other people's good works. Trying to distort history so as to suit your current agenda is really sad. You guys might want to save up to pay for a centre for atheist studies so you can churn out lies to your hearts content. But I doubt you have either the money or the conviction to do so.

Why would atheists have money? There is no group. What are atheist studies? We don't own huge tracts of land or billions of pounds worth of building and art. We don't have the power to get the police to look the other way when we do anything wrong.

We are a bunch of individuals that share one opinion in common. No doubt we share other ideas in common as well, but only one is relevant to us being called atheists.

Your term "distorting history" implies that you think something being said is incorrect. Do you have evidence that any of the negative things said about Mother Teresa are incorrect? I understand that hearing that one of the people you perhaps held in high regard was actually kind of a bit evil can be difficult. But then, as a catholic, I presume, you should be well used to that, what with all the child rape and everything.

I understand that it must be frustrating for you to see all these people that just don't seem to be able to get what you get. I'm sorry about that. I just can't get over the fact that your religion and your beliefs appear to be utter, utter sh1t. They make no sense at all. I disbelieve this rubbish so much that I have made a living will that ensures that in the event of my suddenly finding a god or religion I will be sent for a brain scan and a psychiatric evaluation. Such is my disbelief for the rubbish you believe that I am 100% positive that if I ever come to believe it the only possible cause will be a brain tumour or injury or a neuro-chemical imbalance.

MrP

MrPudding

ChocolateSauce wrote: »

Yeah, I hate people who are compassionate and care about women forced into prostitution.

I heard a nun on Newstalk106 a few years ago that works with prostitutes. She was saying that first holy communion is one of the biggest drivers for prostitution in Ireland. Apparently during "the season" the number of women who have to resort to prostitution rises dramatically.

She personally felt the priests were much to blame for this. Apparently it would be well within their power to decide that the kids should wear their school uniform for the ceremony. These women are not going on the game to pay for parties for 100 guests, but simply for the basic stuff like a nice outfit for the kids. Easily tackled.

Kind of ironic I thought...

MrP

DogmaticLefty

MrPudding wrote: »

I disbelieve this rubbish so much that I have made a living will that ensures that in the event of my suddenly finding a god or religion I will be sent for a brain scan and a psychiatric evaluation. Such is my disbelief for the rubbish you believe that I am 100% positive that if I ever come to believe it the only possible cause will be a brain tumour or injury or a neuro-chemical imbalance.

Fair play to ye.

DogmaticLefty

MrPudding wrote: »

I heard a nun on Newstalk106 a few years ago that works with prostitutes. She was saying that first holy communion is one of the biggest drivers for prostitution in Ireland. Apparently during "the season" the number of women who have to resort to prostitution rises dramatically.

She personally felt the priests were much to blame for this. Apparently it would be well within their power to decide that the kids should wear their school uniform for the ceremony. These women are not going on the game to pay for parties for 100 guests, but simply for the basic stuff like a nice outfit for the kids. Easily tackled.

Kind of ironic I thought...

MrP

Apparently...

panda100

Irlandese wrote: »

Lets leave aside the facts that she spent nearly all of her own personal time touring the world and visiting mega-rich "donors" who laid on every conceivable luxury for their "little saint".

I think this is what I have the problem with. The adulation and respect she gave the richest of the rich,despite taking a vow of poverty for her God. Then treating those who choose to take control of their sexual health by using contraception as the scum of all the earth.
I can see a Christian saint by that logic but not a women or a saint that I would look up to by my own moral standards.

I would agree with a previous poster that its more the media to blame than the church for the fact that a women like this is put onto a pedestal, especially considering the amount of social activist groups in India that do enormous,life altering work to change the situation for India's poor.