Friendly Atheist, Video on Why Mother Teresa Shouldn’t Be a Saint

By Suma Iyer (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0], via Wikimedia Commons
By Suma Iyer (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0], via Wikimedia Commons
The Friendly Atheist has published a video explaining the controversy surrounding Mother Teresa being made a saint.

If you asked 100 people to name somebody from the past 100 years who was as close to pure as possible, whose intentions and motives were completely selfless, Mother Teresa would be on the short list.

‘Friendly Atheist’ Video on Why Mother Teresa Shouldn’t Be a Saint[/tweetthis]

So her beatification set for September 4 of this year probably comes as no surprise to people in the Catholic Church and beyond.

However, there are many people with several accounts, examples, and reasons why Mother Teresa of Calcutta should not be made a saint by the Roman Catholic Church.

Hemant Mehta, who writes on Patheos as The Friendly Atheist and shares his opinions on YouTube, is rather adamant about Mother Teresa not becoming a saint, and considers her beatification to be a prime example of how corrupt the Catholic Church is.

[WARNING: Explicit Language]

To become a saint in the Catholic Church, there must be proof that one has played a role in two separate miracles. Mehta explains that the two miracles credited to Mother Teresa both happened posthumously — she died in 1997.

Pope John Paul II approved the first miracle, which transpired in 2003. A woman was cured of an abdominal tumor after a locket containing a picture of Mother Teresa was placed on her stomach.

The second miracle, which took place in 2008, occurred when a man was cured not only of disease but also sterility after his wife had prayed to Mother Teresa for many years. He was “back to normal” immediately after the surgery.

Mehta states that these miracles are harmful because others might abandon their medical treatment thinking that Mother Teresa will cure them.

Furthermore, he points to many claims that her work with the poor was nothing more than an attempt to convert them to Catholicism, and that her intervention actually perpetuated their bad fortune because she found virtue in a life of poverty.

This is not a new idea, and there were theories like this even before her death. In 1994, Christopher Hitchens’ documentary Mother Teresa: Hell’s Angel, used eye witness accounts of her charitable homes and came up with a laundry list of criticisms against her, including comparing these homes to Nazi Germany’s concentration camps.

Despite the opposition, Mother Teresa of Calcutta will become the newest saint in the Catholic Church late this summer.

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