Should Mother Teresa be canonized?

I feel I may be opening a can of worms here, but I think that it might be worth it to bring up this important topic. I have been motivated to write on Mother Teresa after reading some of Athanasius' posts on the late John Paul II. There, Athanasius posited the argument that though nobody doubted the sincerity and virtue of the late Pontiff, his failures in his role as shepherd and guardian of the deposit of faith make him an unsuitable candidate for canonization. I here propose a similar assertion for Mother Teresa: while nobody doubts the goodness of her deeds working among the poor in Calcutta, her statements about God in reference to non-believers, are extremely problematic. This is especially troubling since missionary work was her primary goal (ie, the conversion of souls to the true faith for love of God). In looking at her cause for sainthood, the problem lies in the matter of faith, the first and most important of the heroic virtues necessary to be proclaimed a blessed.

Before I go on, let me warn you against having a knee-jerk reaction against what I am about to say. "How can you say that about Mother Teresa? She did so much good - you don't know her heart!" True - she did more good than I'll ever do. But this isn't about "knowing her heart"; it's about reading some very troubling statements she made in writing. So, if you want to accuse me of arrogance or foolishness in stating that she should not be a saint, please direct your comments towards the actual words of Mother Teresa, which are the subject of this post.

So, what did Mother Teresa do that was so suspect to sound doctrine? Take this quote, taken from her her authorized biography:

"I would die for my Catholic faith but I would never try to force it upon any one. We never know how God is speaking to a person. I hope to help Muslims become better Muslims, Hindus better Hindus, Christians better Christians." (Symbol of Selflessness, World, Vol. 12, No. 18 (Sept. 20, 1997), 11.

Make "Hindus better Hindus?" How about making Hindus into Catholics! Working among the poor is great, but if it does not lead to conversions, then you are wasting your time in ministering only to the bodily needs while neglecting the more weighty matters of the soul. "Better to enter enter eternal life maimed than to have your whole body cast into hell..."Nor is this an isolated statement of Mother Teresa. Here is a similar quote:

"There is only one God and He is God to all; therefore it is important that everyone is seen as equal before God. I’ve always said we should help a Hindu become a better Hindu, a Muslim become a better Muslim, a Catholic become a better Catholic. We believe our work should be our example to people. We have among us 475 souls - 30 families are Catholics and the rest are all Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs—all different religions. But they all come to our prayers." (http://www.ewtn.com/motherteresa/words.htm)

In fact, this seems to be something she likes to repeat again and again. Elsewhere, in Mother Teresa: Her People and Her Work (by Desmond Doig, Harper & Row, NYC, 1976, p.156), Mother Teresa affirms, “If in coming face to face with God we accept Him in our lives, then we are converting. We become a better Hindu, a better Muslim, and a better whatever we are.... What God is in your mind you must accept”. "What God is in your mind you must accept"? That sounds like the God of alcoholics anonymous, not of Catholicism. Not only was she looking to make "better Muslims", but she herself frequently allowed her sisters to participate in the idolatrous worship of false religions. Take this quote from one of her recollections:

“We went every day to pray in some temple or church. The Archbishop gave us permission to do so. We prayed with the Jews, the Armenians, the Anglicans, the Jains, the Sikhs, the Buddhists, and the Hindus. It was extraordinary. All hearts united in prayer to the one true God” (Proclaiming the Gospel, April 1997).

"Hearts united in prayer to the one true God"? Hinduism has an estimated 330 million Gods. Which of these 330 million was Mother Teresa praying to, and how did she know that it was synonymous with the "one true God?" This is my main problem with her: Mother Teresa seems to have been a believer in syncretism, that all religions basically worship the same God and that they are all equally valid paths to Him. This she proclaims in a letter written to the Indian President: “Some call Him Ishwar, some call Him Allah, some simply God, but we have to acknowledge that it is He who made us for greater things: to love and be loved. What matters is that we love. We cannot love without prayer, and so whatever religion we are, we must pray together.” For any traditional Catholic, the idea that the Trinitarian God is the same as Allah or Ishwar is blasphemous.

Furthermore, her one "miracle" is weakly attested. In 2002 the Vatican recognized one miracle, the cure of Monica Besra, a 35-year-old villager from northern India cured of an ovarian tumor. Besra and the Missionaries of Charity claim that the tumor vanished in September 1998 when a medallion with an image of the late Albanian nun was applied to the site of her pain.

However, Dr. Ranjan Mustafi, chief gynecologist who treated the woman at Balurghat District Hospital in West Bengal, says that it was quite possible that his patient was cured by four anti-TB drugs she was taking at the time, which could have dissolved the tumor. He said he admires Mother Teresa greatly and thinks she should be beatified for her work among the poor. But not for this case. “She [Besra] had a medical disease which was cured by medical science, not by any miracle,” he says. His hospital superiors back him up, saying that records show she responded to the treatment steadily. Five doctors in Rome consulted by the Vatican on the case disregarded this scientific probability and hastily agreed there was no medical explanation for the cure. Mustafi said he was never contacted by the Vatican.

Monica Besra, of course, believes in the miracle (by the way, her own husband disbelieves in the miracle and attributes the healing to the doctors), but admits that she was receiving medical treatments from the doctors at the state-run Balurghat Hospital at that time. “Those who love Mother will believe,” she says simply. That she loves Mother Teresa there is no doubt. But it is not sentiment that determines the value of a miracle in the normal processes of the Catholic Church…

This is a far cry from the kind of scrupulous verification that went into determining the authenticity of the Lourdes miracles in 1858. How can the Vatican approve a miracle when they never even contacted the doctor in the case? Besra's statement that "Those who love Mother will believe" sounds a lot like the Medjugorje enthusiasts who blindly defend Medjugorje no matter what facts present themselves that the supposed apparitions are fraudulent. So in this case: the woman appeals to emotion and "love" over the head of careful inquiry and scrupulous analysis.

I do not think Mother Teresa deserves to be raised to the altars. Do I believe she is in Heaven? I think she is absolutely on her way there. She loved Jesus passionately and exercised heroic virtue when it came to serving men. But she unfortunately did this at the expense of the pure truth of the faith. As Athanasius says about John Paul II, I will pray for Mother Teresa, but not to her.

We should also ask, how many conversions did she affect in India? St. Vincent Ferrer is said to have converted over 50,000 Muslims. We hear so many stories of Mother Teresa's acts of compassion and love and how people were changed by her; how many conversions have the Sisters of Charity recorded? I haven't heard any numbers on this. My guess is because there aren't many. Why would there be? After all, Mother Teresa herself said, "It is important that everyone is seen as equal before God. I’ve always said we should help a Hindu become a better Hindu, a Muslim become a better Muslim."

Mother Teresa is a wonderful role model for serving the poorest of the poor. But let us reject all forms of sycretism and remember the words of Sacred Scripture: "All the gods of the heathen are demons, but the Lord made the heavens" (Psalm 95:5).