Mother Teresa & Abortion

[BlueInPhilly]

After hearing Mother Teresa's 1994 quote, re-phrased & quoted a thousand times to Sunday (pun intended), I've been wondering if she really affirmed peace or destroyed it... Because we know the wars that have been fought since then.

We are talking of love of the child, which is where love and peace must begin.

But I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a war against the child - a direct killing of the innocent child - murder by the mother herself. And if we accept that a mother can kill her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another?

How do we persuade a woman not to have an abortion? As always, we must persuade her with love. The father of that child, whoever he is, must also give until it hurts. By abortion, the mother does not learn to love, but kills even her own child to solve her problems. And by abortion, the father is told that he does not have to take any responsibility at all for the child he has brought into the world.

Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching the people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want. That is why the greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion.

http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/articles4/MotherTeresaAbortion.php

[cali]

1. what a craptastic statement that is.

I never had any use for her.

[a geek named Bob]

2. I'll risk speaking heresy here

I don't really care what a dead nun thinks.

[Zalatix]

3. I could at least respect her if she had included POVERTY in that statement.

Her Catholic teachings aside, she should never have listed abortion as being worse than poverty as a destroyer of peace.

[Cleita]

4. Mother Teresa cared for the destitute and was considered a saint because

of her work. But that statement is pure Catholic Church doctrine that recently evolved less than two hundred years ago, and she was a good Catholic in spite of her confession that she had doubts about her faith. It only proves she was human and vulnerable to human faults. Following the leader blindly is a mistake many humans make.

I don't know why there are these hit pieces on Mother Teresa always on DU who did more good in her lifetime than some misinformed opinions she made. I don't think she is responsible for wars fought. That is a huge stretch of logic and to say so is really mean spirited.

[BlueInPhilly]

7. I was just wondering... not attributing wars to MT

Because I heard this quote as recently as a few weeks ago, at church. My (ultra-conservative) nun friend also said this to me many many times. MT was a lot of things - but she did not cause the wars, her words did, and the "faithful" who considered it their battlecry.

[Cleita]

9. Yes, your nun friend.

*yawn* A conservative nun would not have said that. I lived in convent boarding schools back before the reforms when they were semi-cloistered and very conservative. I got to know nun thinking very well. So stop making things up.

[BlueInPhilly]

11. Before the reforms...

Do you mean Vatican II? Well, no MT back then to quote, but for you to accuse me of making things up shows what kind of person you are. And you just failed the nuns at the convent boarding school who "taught" you, wherever they are.

PS - I was still "in the mind of God" before the "reforms", so I wouldn't know anything about it.

[Cleita]

14. There are nuns all over the world who try against great odds to do the good

Mother Teresa did. They aren't famous, like Mother Teresa, but they try to reach out to the least among us as Jesus Christ purportedly taught. But they also follow the church's teachings on what is frankly a misogynist doctrine against women. To sweep away all the sacrifice and accomplishments these women do for very little personal reward, because you don't like what they believe, is really mean spirited.

Those nuns who taught me would never have done that to a fellow worker among the poor, no matter how much they may have disagreed with their religion. On Saturday mornings we left the campus we lived in with the nuns and went to the poorest neighborhoods of the city to give away food and clothing to the very poor, especially to women with babies, stuff like diapers and Gerbers that they couldn't afford. Sure we probably should have distributed condoms as well, but it was against our religion so we didn't. So according to you, all the food, clothing and diapers count for nothing because we didn't distribute condoms as well.

[Heather MC]

5. People love to quote Mother Teresa but they never want to repeat her actions

Mother Teresa also said, "Don't Abort your babies give them to me I will find good homes for them"
and she worked tirelessly to save the lives of over 3500 babies.

She was also a SOLUTION not just an Opponent to the problem

So they can quote her words, but I don't see them trying to live her life. They need to take a _/ and STFU!

[Cleita]

6. Exactly. I don't see any of her critics

trying to live her life.

[JNelson6563]

8. Oh my.

Criticize her and get a STFU!1!

A very grown up approach to differing opinions.

Julie

[Cleita]

10. Criticism is one thing.

An unbalanced hit piece is another. Here's another STFU.

[BlueInPhilly]

12. Didn't take your meds again this morning?

N/T

[Cleita]

17. When you don't have anything else to say,

just hurl the insults. How juvenile.

[Heather MC]

18. If you happen to be someone that

Quotes Mother Teresa and wants to make Abortions illegal, but don't wish to provide any support or plan to help women who find themselves pregnant with no help, then my STFU was directed at you
However,
If you don't feel that way then
My STFU was not Directed at you.
but last I checked on DU I can have my opinion and you are free to have yours.
Peace and love

And to your point about being Grown up. I don't believe making Abortions Illegal is a grown approach to the issue
a grown up approach would be to keep Abortion
but provide the proper support in our commuity and Government that would help women not feel so burdened down by having another mouth to feed
for example Affordable Quality daycare so women can afford to go back to work.
Affordable prenatal and postnatal care
Better Adoption Process
Community Support, no shunning no name calling
Better laws to make if harder for baby daddies to hit the witness protection program
Better Child support collection process.
and of course better access to birth control, and Safe sex education for teens boys and girls
but still allow women the dignity of a safe abortion if that's what she decides

There was I grown up enough for you? Honestly all that typing hurt my fingers, typing STFU is just easier

[Cleita]

20. Thank you or as the Clinton administration said.

Abortions should be legal, safe and infrequent. This is done by giving women all the support they need to plan their families and control their fertility. Yet, the right wing constantly attacks Planned Parenthood that does just that.

[Heather MC]

29. it's called backassward politics

Take away the cure but keep the diease!!



And before anyone gets offended Insurance companies classify Pregnancy as a disease. I know because I got my license to sell insurance when I was 8 months pregnant. it was an appauling to think of my little parasite as a disease at the time

[joeybee12]

13. Ever wonder why no one lined the streets for her funeral...

Because in Calcutta they didn't know who the phuck she was...lots of PR to make folks here feel good about themselves since we would welcome and get all giggly over this "saint."

[Cleita]

16. I actually watched her funeral, which was televised live, and there were so many people,

it was hard to get her funeral procession through the crowd. Princess Diana died about the same time and her funeral was televised live as well. Mother Teresa got almost as big a send up. So I don't know why you can make that statement.

[joeybee12]

35. I saw something different than you...lots of curiosity from locals

About why so many international journalists were there. Mothere Teresa's was nothing like Proncess Di's...not even close...don't see how you can even compare them.

[Cleita]

36. I don't think they were curious about a bunch of

ferriners with cameras.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

27. hmmmm

i think your deep hatred is showing your ignorance...



sP

[janlyn]

15. First off,

she does NOT state that she believes abortion should be illegal !!!!

Secondly,she practiced what she preached..in her lifetime she did incredible good for children that nobody wanted !!

She and her fellow nuns DID a HUGE amount of good in her lifetime and beyond!!!

The difference to me is the hypocrisy of the RW that wants to make it illegal,offers no alternate solutions to the problem and tries to legislate morals...

They are NO better than their extremist muslim counterparts who want to intertwine THEIR faith with politics !!!

[cthulu2016]

23. Some would question whether crusading against birth control in Indian slums

constitutes doing immense good.

[Cleita]

26. She was wrong about that, but no different than what happens

in poor enclaves of our country by the fundamentalist churches. I mean you have heard of the Duggers haven't you? I just saw a headline recently that they are trying for another baby, the twentieth, if I'm correct.

[DURHAM D]

19. Never liked her.

[emilyg]

21. Always liked her and admired her.

[cthulu2016]

22. The late Christopher Hitchens covered Mother Teressa pretty well

She was a net cause of human misery, and loved poverty more than she loved the poor.

[Cleita]

24. Hitchen's is such an authority on nuns and how they think.

He must have gotten slapped a lot with a ruler in his school days. I read his hit pieces and they were definitely not fair or balanced and frankly just his opinion.

[chloes1]

49. Well of course!

Christopher Hitchens wrote opinion pieces. He never claimed to work for Faux News! The nice thing about opinion pieces is that the writer doesn't have to fair or balanced; one needs to have an opinion is all that is required.

[Cleita]

50. So therefore they have no credibility as facts to back

up a supposition.

[Brickbat]

25. I found her ideas about redemption through suffering to be odd and distasteful.

She did some good work, but her attitudes were also outdated, IMO.

[Cleita]

30. Outdated. I think that's the operative word.

She was just following the doctrine from the Vatican. It should not detract from the fact that she really tried to reach out to the poorest of the poor, those people who were dying in the streets of Calcutta, and alleviate their suffering. She really was a hospice worker taking on the dying so their final days weren't excruciatingly awful. However, when a person is bigger than life, the critics will find all their faults to magnify and excoriate them, while ignoring the good they tried to achieve. It happens all they time. Shit, look at what the freepers do to President Obama.

Just because abortion is again becoming an issue in an election, surprise, surprise, doesn't mean that we have to trash the dead because they had some opinion on it. The redemption through suffering crap is mainstream Catholic Church thinking. It's all about making sacrifices and offering up your suffering to God as a way to purchase some kind of ticket into Heaven.

[Alduin]

28. Yawn.

I never liked her.

[frogmarch]

31. My fav Mother Teresa quote:

“Pain and suffering have come into your life, but remember pain, sorrow, suffering are but the kiss of Jesus - a sign that you have come so close to Him that He can kiss you.”

A cousin of mine was a nun - a mother superior at a convent in the Himalayas - and she did not care for some of Mother Teresa's ways.

[Cleita]

32. Surprise, surprise.

Imagine people having differences with their fellows who are in the same business. I guess that NEVER happens in the secular world.

[frogmarch]

41. Yes, there are bound to be differences

of opinion with one’s boss, especially if the boss considers suffering a good thing and the worker doesn’t. After many years of service, both as a Missionary of Charity and later as the head of a convent, my cousin left the sisterhood.



from Wiki page about Mother Teresa:

Colette Livermore, a former Missionary of Charity, describes her reasons for leaving the order in her book Hope Endures: Leaving Mother Teresa, Losing Faith, and Searching for Meaning. Livermore found what she called Mother Teresa's "theology of suffering" to be flawed, despite being a good and courageous person. Though Mother Teresa instructed her followers on the importance of spreading the Gospel through actions rather than theological lessons, Livermore could not reconcile this with some of the practices of the organization. Examples she gives include unnecessarily refusing to help the needy when they approached the sisters at the wrong time according to the prescribed schedule, discouraging sisters from seeking medical training to deal with the illnesses they encountered (with the justification that God empowers the weak and ignorant), and imposition of "unjust" punishments, such as being transferred away from friends. Livermore says that the Missionaries of Charity "infantilized" its sisters by prohibiting the reading of secular books and newspapers, and emphasizing obedience over independent thinking and problem-solving.

...

Mother Teresa accepted donations from the autocratic and corrupt Duvalier family in Haiti and openly praised them. She accepted $1.25 million from Charles Keating, involved in the fraud and corruption scheme known as the Keating Five scandal and supported him before and after his arrest. The Deputy District Attorney for Los Angeles, Paul Turley, wrote to Mother Teresa asking her to return the donated money to the people Keating had stolen from, one of whom was "a poor carpenter". The donated money was not accounted for, and Turley did not receive a reply.

Mother Teresa is not idolized by everyone in India.

[Cleita]

42. What your cousin says is true for most religious organizations, both for nuns and monks

within the Catholic Church. Your cousin said:

Livermore found what she called Mother Teresa's "theology of suffering" to be flawed, despite being a good and courageous person. Though Mother Teresa instructed her followers on the importance of spreading the Gospel through actions rather than theological lessons, Livermore could not reconcile this with some of the practices of the organization

I had seven friends from school who entered the convent. Only one is still a nun today. They cited reasons similar to your cousin but what it all really comes to is not being suitable for the religious life. They left the convent for various reasons and at various times but to a one it sort of boiled down to this. The vows of poverty and chastity were easy to keep. It was the vow of obedience that was the deal breaker.

Absolute obedience to your mother superior does not make for a democratic institution and those who question the flawed decisions of the Queen so to speak will become disillusioned. Those people are not suitable for the religious life. They can't accept unquestioned dictates to their actions. Yes, it could be considered infantilization, but it's how the system works. Mother Teresa's organization is no different than most of the other religious orders around the world. It doesn't mean that the good done, often with tremendous sacrifice, both individually and collectively, should be dumped in the trash.

As far as taking money from questionable sources, I don't think there is a charity or church in the universe that doesn't.

Many religious organizations do wonderful work but are often flawed in the way they go about it.

[MichiganVote]

33. Same kind of "logic" priest perp's use on their victims

and which also rationalizes the life state of unending poverty. Useless.

[Cleita]

38. This is mainstream Catholic thinking, not a way for

pervs to use on victims. Also, the church taught the life state of unending poverty because they knew that kings back in the Dark Ages didn't give a crap about their subjects financial circumstances. It gave the poor some hope that at least their was a better after life to look forward to, and it kept them from rising up in rebellion. The Papacy was no different than the kings in this respect.

[MichiganVote]

39. Sorry, but I've had a lot of experience w/victims of priests and this is exactly

the way they talk to their victims. Giving hope is not the same as reducing one's right and responsibility to rise up against tormentors. That may be the "Catholic" way, but it is not a healthy way of dealing with, as opposed to merely accepting, adversity.

[Cleita]

40. I didn't say that. I'm sure they use this as a ploy.

Last edited Sat Aug 25, 2012, 04:42 PM - Edit history (1)

What I said is that it was mainstream Catholic thinking and that thinking probably made it more successful for those pervs when they used it. I agree it's not a healthy way of dealing with issues, however, that doesn't change the fact that this is what the Church teaches.

[MichiganVote]

43. Understood. However the mainstream Catholics I know, don't t think this way.

The church teaches it but they think otherwise. They are far less judgmental than the church.

[Cleita]

44. Remember there is a difference between the laity and the clergy.

They believe different things often and the clergy sometimes allows a little laxity among the laity because they need the coins in the collection box to maintain the church.

[mmonk]

37. I have found negative judgement of others

without common experience to be closer to a destroyer of peace.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

45. She is, of course, entitled to her opinion...

and I applaud all people who live their life according to the moral standards that they set for themselves.

But when you start demanding that I live my life according to the moral standard that you set for yourself, then we're going to have problems.

[Cleita]

48. Yes, people like Mother Theresa shouldn't

involve themselves in politics and I don't believe she did. She just preached to the politicians.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

52. And I reallly don't have a problem with that...

It's like "working the refs" during a football or basketball game.

I'm a life-long Christian, but I don't want my religion playing an active role in my politics. Or as I've often said, "I love dark chocolate and I love pickled herring, but I really don't love them together."

[kathman-duzi]

46. Well I don't buy this thread. Anyone

who know of someone in their family/extended family that had an abortion knows how hard that decision was and the heart retching decisions to be made. A strong republican friend in the late 60's went to Mexico for an abortion and it cost her the ability to have future children after she obtained her degree. I know of a family member that tried to self abort.

These are decisions made out of desperation. These are strictly personal decisions between a woman and her doctor.

Regulate Wall Street not my vagina nor my social agenda! Reformed Christian sorry to say.

[Cleita]

47. I had a friend that had to do the same thing in Mexico

in the 60s with the same result. She never could have children of her own after that. They must have gone to the same clinica.

Welcome to DU!

[spanone]

51. religion and medicine is as dangerous as religion and government

[TwilightGardener]

53. A Catholic nun who thinks abortion is immoral? Get out!!