Mother Teresa: Whose Legacy? R L Francis

The procedure for the canonisation of Mother Teresa is going full steam in the Vatican. It will be a triumph for the Roman Catholic Church and Pope John Paul II. But the Pope and Catholic theologians do not realise they are interfering with the innate religious sense of Indian people. Western newspaper highlights ‘what the hand of the infallible person in Rome is going to achieve’’. The procedure of waiting for five years after the death of saintly person has been waived. A great roman concession!

As the editor of church restoration. P B Lomeo said in his editorial (September 2001) “Mother Teresa’s sainthood causes sufferers the humiliation of standing in line and toeing the grand roman tradition of sainthood”. This is what hurts the innate religious sense of Indian people the most. Rome is virtually dethroning the mother and giving her over to the universal catholic church for a mere two per cent. Canonisation will be a pyrrhic victory for the Catholics. At the height of Dalit Christians demands for reservation Christian cleverly got Mother Teresa to join their massive dharna in Delhi in 1995. The press noticed this sectarianism and Mother Teresa too later apologised for appearing for a mere Christian cause. The pope’s conferment of sainthood on Mother Teresa. Casting aside the innate religious sense of millions of Indians who venerate her is an instance of avoidable duplication.

Church history will repeat itself. When the pope canonises the founder saint of a religious order. The fallout is catastrophic a grave spiritual degradation. It should be recalled here that St Francis of assist founded the capuchin order. St Ignatius of powerful Jesuits and St Don bosco the Silesians. Today the members of respective orders numbering thousands in India are reduced to mere good Samaritans or worse still are reduced to greedy Zacheaus. The true Zacheaus of the bible readily gave half their wealth to the poor (LK 19:8). But today the capuchins, Jesuits and Silesians have been the major cause of agony and discrimination of over two crores dalit Christian. When a pious founder of a congregation is canonised it means a licence raj licence to do anything with impurity. Whatever the pope binds on earth is bond in haven. And what he has lessened on earth will be lessened in heaven ironically the pope is authorised to degrade the salt of the earth the true distinguishing marks of all the Christians.

Another upshot for the missionaries of charity will be that the sisterhood involved in charity enjoying the good will of the people will get a more circumspect response. For the common people. Mother Teresa and her sisters are saintly. Most of the missionaries of charity sisters are poor tribal. It is thus the poor who save the poor. By rising the status of Mother Teresa. The roman church and the pope have depredated her sainthood is in soldiery with her poor living sisters. It is they who carry out her mission for the poorest of the poor.

Mother Teresa is projected as the uncrowned, ‘rashtra mata’ by the Catholic Church and its supporters. They argued that after Mahatma Gandhi there is no single person recognized and acknowledged as sant or mahatma as mother Teresa. The Indians have their own time tested and infallible religious sense. Over millennia hundreds of persons. Saints and sages have been engraved in their hearts. After Mother Teresa is declared a saint, the Catholic Bishops' Conference of India (CBCI) the pope’s extension service will have greater cause for celebration than the one for the millennium. New churches will mushroom under the name of saint mother Teresa costly statues will be erected in churches and caplets in India and abroad millions of pictures of Mother Teresa will be printed and sold. Foreigners will flock to India. Many will give financial help and Samaritan greed will creep into one saintly Mother Teresa congregation.

St Mother Teresa will be private limited owned by a mere two per cent of the Indian population. Worse she will belong solely to the CBCI known to the tormentor of the Dalit Christians. Soon the infallible one at Rome is to give Indians and the world this dead document and dethrone the living mother from the hearts of millions of Indians. No one dares challenge Pope John Paul II he or his successor will pronounce the canonisation of mother Teresa thus beginning the process of her dethronement and the disintegration of her wonder band of missionaries of charity equally living saints.

I know Mr R L Francis personally for many years. He is from our diocese and has always been very frank and forthright in his  comments, specially on the church and the position of the Dalits/Tribals. He himself has been a victim in the past when his child was not admitted to a convent though he lived  less than a kilometer away from the school and was a member of the same parish.

One may or may nit agree with Mr Francis but there is need to introspect.

There needs also be a little caution lest our anger be used against us.

That also happens

God bless

john Dayal

Dear Francis,

Well written article. Thought provoking. 

Vincent Bagul