Mother Teresa and Sainthood

We the Rationalists and Humanists of India want to clear our stand regarding Mother Teresa and her proposed sainthood. In the wake of the recent discovery of Teresa’s letters proclaiming her spiritual doubts we feel that our views have a greater relevance at the moment.

Mother’s was strong personality combined with deep compassion and an immense ability to work with singular determination. She justly got the Nobel Peace Prize and we express our respect for her.

Mother Teresa and Sainthood

She worked for the spread of Christianity under the guidance of Vatican; if Vatican decides to confer ‘sainthood’ to her, we should have nothing to say. But, the criterion required for formally calling her a ‘saint’ calls for ‘miracles’ attributed to her. In the name of a great worker if we proclaim and establish the occurrence of miracles in this 21st century, it would be ethically wrong.

We are fighting for the last more than 20 years for the spread of scientific spirit and rational thought process. We have seen that belief in ‘miracles’ and supernatural powers do immense harm to people. We have investigated into the ‘miracle cure’ of Monica Besra of West Bengal in 2003 claimed by Missionaries of Charity and found it baseless. Monica was treated in Balurghat Hospital and was under medication for 9 long months. She was not cured by Mother’s picture. This false propaganda was a criminal act (The Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940), seriously damaging to our society.

Hence, our request to the honorable Pope is to desist from this farce of ‘sainthood’ and stop spreading false stories of magic cure which would only mislead our poor common people.