Mother Teresa: A Biography (15 page)

Each week it seemed a new group left Motherhouse bound for some destination where they were needed. As Mother Teresa once remarked, “If there are poor on the moon, we shall go there too.”1

THE FIRST VOLLEY

One of the first and fiercest attacks on Mother Teresa’s work came during a crisis in the newly formed country of Bangladesh. Between 1947 and 1971, before gaining its independence, Bangladesh formed the eastern B L E S S I N G S A N D B L A M E

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part of Pakistan and was called East Pakistan. Before the partition of India into independent India and Pakistan in 1947, the area that now forms Bangladesh, or the “land of Bengal,” had been the eastern part of the Bengal province.

In December 1971 fighting broke out on the Indo-Pakistan border in the west. The Indian army also invaded East Pakistan and in two weeks had control of the country. The Bangladesh government-in-exile established itself in Dhaka on December 22, 1971, but in January 1972, the leaders returned to the country to begin governing the new nation.

But independence for Bangladesh came at a high price. In the nine months of fighting, three million Bengalis had died and over one million homes had been destroyed. Many of the people killed were professionals—

teachers, doctors, lawyers, skilled workers, and engineers. Tea plantations and many jute mills were damaged. Added to this vast physical destruction, including the great damage to the transportation system, was the social disruption of the country. Many of the ten million refugees returned to find their homes in ruins. Some sought shelter in the nearest sewer pipe.

In addition, the country suffered great internal strife. Though much of the destruction had been the direct result of actions taken by the Pakistani army, many non-Bengalis in East Pakistan, the Biharis, had played a role as a paramilitary force, working with the Pakistani army against the Bengalis. After the war, many of the Biharis were placed in camps, and some were killed. The atrocities did not end there. Pakistani troops reportedly raped 4,000 women, though some place the number as high as 200,000.

On January 14, 1972, Mother Teresa announced that she was going to Bangladesh with 10 of her nuns to assist the rape victims, many of whom were now in the advanced stages of pregnancy. Traveling to Khulna, Pabna, Rajshahi, and Dhaka, Mother Teresa and her nuns sought out these women, in the hope of arranging adoptions for as many as possible.

Because rape is a very serious crime in Islam, the victim is often ostracized by her family, friends, and perhaps even an entire village. For many women, giving up any children who might have been conceived as a result of the rape was the only option.

In Dhaka, the nuns were given the use of an old convent as a home for the women. But there were few who came seeking help. Some victims did not conceive, while others tried to terminate their pregnancies themselves. Eventually, the convent was turned into another Shishu Bhavan for orphaned and abandoned children.

As altruistic as Mother Teresa’s motives may have been, there was at least one person who did not view her actions in Bangladesh in the same 1 1 2

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light. Australian feminist and writer Germaine Greer, a Roman Catholic, reported in an article written for the magazine the
Independent
in 1990, another purpose behind Mother Teresa’s humanitarian mission: When she went to Dacca two days after its liberation from the Pakistanis in 1972, 3,000 naked women had been found in the army bunkers. Their saris had been taken away so that they would not hang themselves. The pregnant ones needed abortions. Mother Teresa offered them no option but to bear the offspring of hate. There is no room in Mother Teresa’s universe for the moral priorities of others. There is no question of offering suffering women a choice.2

But Greer wasn’t done yet. She went on to write that, according to lay workers with whom she had spoken at the time, pregnant women suffering from complications attributed to both physical abuses and malnutrition—as well as women who had miscarried—were turned away from Mother Teresa’s clinics. According to Greer, the women had been accused by the Missionaries of Charity working at the clinics of trying to abort their unborn children. Further, when the new Bengali government banned the export of Bengali orphans, Mother Teresa, through some means, was allowed to place Bengali babies with Catholic families abroad.

And, according to Greer’s sources, no one at the Family Planning Association who knew of the incidents was allowed to say anything critical of Mother Teresa or her actions.

THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE

By the 1970s, Mother Teresa had emerged as a powerful human-interest story for newspapers and magazines around the world. This tiny nun, barely over five feet tall, had a number of powerful leaders and politicians as her friends. In spite of the growing number of financial donations made to the Missionaries of Charity, Mother Teresa refused to allow herself any indul-gences that would interfere with her vow of poverty. And, though small in stature, she clearly wielded considerable power.

One of the more interesting stories that was done on her during this period came from
Time
magazine. In December 1975, the magazine not only devoted a long article to her, but also chose her for the cover of the magazine. Mother Teresa explained that she only agreed to sit for the photographer after having prayed at mass that morning. She asked God, that for every picture the photographer took, one soul be released from purgatory.

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The article “Saints among Us,” besides providing an overview of Mother Teresa’s work, also suggested that many supporters considered her a living saint, a title Mother Teresa herself rejected. The article also discussed the qualities that made a saint. For instance, many saints lived their lives outside of conventional society and were often considered mis-fits. People, then, who tended to conform to cultural norms rarely went on to exhibit saintly qualities. As one theology professor noted, saints tend to be on the outer edge along with the maniacs, geniuses, and idiots. Saints also broke the rules of society in order to carry out their work.

The
Time
magazine article highlighted not only Mother Teresa’s saintly qualities, but also her shrewd sense of organization and her great compassion for the poor. However, the article also went on to point out that there were a number of individuals who had also devoted their lives to the poor, but who were not as well known as Mother Teresa. These included Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker Movement; the Norwegian medical missionary Annie Skau, who lived and worked in Hong Kong; Dr.

Cicely Saunders, founder of the Hospice movement; and the Coptic monk Matta el Meskin, also known as Matthew the Poor.

By this time, Mother Teresa had received numerous accolades and awards. Still, there were many who believed that she was overlooked and wished her to receive what they considered to be the most important and prestigious award in the world: the Nobel Peace Prize.

Those who select nominees for the Nobel Peace Prize may be from one of seven categories, including members of the International Court of Arbitration in The Hague; active and former members of the Nobel Committee of the Norwegian Parliament; advisors appointed by the Norwegian Nobel Institute; university professors of political science, law, history, and philosophy; and lastly, those who have won the prize themselves.

Mother Teresa had first been nominated for the prize in 1972, but no prize was awarded that year. Many of her supporters, among them Malcolm Muggeridge, again put her name in nomination in 1975. This time her nomination was supported by a number of important and influential individuals including Senator Edward Kennedy; Robert McNamara, then head of the World Bank; the National Council of Catholic Women; the Mayor of Addis Ababa; the head of the UN Disaster Relief Organization, Faruk Berkol; and a number of nuns in Spain.

But the prize eluded her again and went instead to Andrei Sakharov, the noted Russian scientist and human rights advocate. In 1977, Mother Teresa’s name was put forth yet another time. Again the Nobel committee passed her over for the award, which was instead given to the organi-1 1 4

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zation Amnesty International for championing human rights around the world. She later joked that the prize would only come to her when Jesus thought it was time.

Then, in 1979, her name was put forward again, only with much less fanfare. Although the name of the person who put forward Mother Teresa’s name has never been publicly acknowledged, it is thought to have been Robert McNamara. McNamara had known Mother Teresa for almost two decades and was very familiar with her work with the poor. He had also worked with her on occasion in the Food for Peace program. In 1975, writing about Mother Teresa and her work, McNamara stated: More important than the organisational structure of her work is the message it conveys that genuine peace is not the mere absence of hostilities, but rather that tranquility that arises out of a social order in which individuals treat one another with justice and compassion. The long history of human conflict suggests that without greater recognition of that fact—a fact which Mother Teresa’s concern for the absolute poor strikingly so illustrates—the prospects for world peace will remain per-ilously fragile.3

Then, on October 16, 1979, came the announcement that many had waited for: the Nobel committee awarded the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize to Mother Teresa. In the wake of the pronouncement, some nagging questions remained. Why, for instance, did the committee choose Mother Teresa this time and not others? Who had, in fact, nominated her? But because the committee’s meetings are kept secret, no one will ever know what took place during the deliberations for the award.

Meanwhile, in Calcutta, Mother Teresa was mobbed when the news was announced. Journalists and photographers jostled one another as they tried to talk to Mother Teresa to get her reaction to the good news. Standing in front of the Motherhouse, she spoke to the gathering media about the news, stating “I am unworthy. I accept the prize in the name of the poor. The prize is the recognition of the poor world. . . . By serving the poor I am serving him.” A reception was held in her honor in which one official proclaimed, “You have been the mother of Bengal and now you are the mother of the world.”4 That same day, a small abandoned baby girl was brought into the Shishu Bhavan in Calcutta. She was named Shanti, which means “Peace” in Hindi, in honor of Mother Teresa’s award.

The celebrations had just begun. Over the next few days, Mother Teresa received more than 500 telegrams from heads of state all over the B L E S S I N G S A N D B L A M E

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world. Letters of praise and congratulations also poured in. Many people stopped by Motherhouse to offer their congratulations and best wishes.

Many in India rejoiced that the prize had once again come to their country; six decades earlier, the Nobel committee had awarded the same prize to Mahatma Gandhi. The government also issued a commemorative postage stamp in Mother Teresa’s honor. Many people rejoiced around the world, that, for once, the Nobel committee had put politics to the side and picked a true humanitarian, one who easily matched the stature of previous winners such as Albert Schweitzer, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Other people believed that by winning the Nobel Peace Prize, Mother Teresa had enhanced the prestige of the award.

Still, there were detractors. Some of the most vocal dissent came from an extremist anti-Gandhian group that published an article “Nothing Noble about the Nobel”:

For when all is said and done, she is a missionary. In serving the poor and the sick, her sole objective is to influence people in favour of Christianity and, if possible to convert them. Missionaries are instruments of Western imperialist countries—

and not innocent voices of God.5

Another critic wrote to
The New York Times
stating that his understanding of the Nobel Peace Prize was that it was to be given to an individual who made important contributions to world peace, not to someone who merely helped individuals in distress. Another article, in the
National
Catholic Reporter,
suggested that Mother Teresa and her Missionaries of Charity merely covered the wounds left by capitalism and that they did little in the way of actually helping to change the conditions that make people poor. In general, the hubbub over Mother Teresa’s winning of the prize overshadowed the winners of the other Nobel prizes that year.

ON TO OSLO

In December 1979, Mother Teresa, accompanied by four other nuns, traveled to Oslo to receive the Nobel Prize medal and a check for

£90,000 (appx. $161,000). In addition, there was another check of

£36,000 (appx. $64,000) awaiting her, which was a donation raised by the young people of Norway. Another £3,000 (appx. $5,300) was later presented to her after she requested that the monies spent on the cus-tomary banquet given in honor of the recipient instead be given to those who needed a meal more.

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It was a bitterly cold day and many people in the audience were bundled up in fur coats and hats in the Aula Magna of Oslo University where Mother Teresa was slated to give her remarks and receive her prize. In the crowd were the king and crown princess of Norway, along with many other world dignitaries. The stage was banked with lush floral arrangements; nearby, a symphony orchestra played selections from Edvard Grieg, the great Norwegian composer. Wearing only a gray cardigan sweater and black coat over her thin cotton sari, Mother Teresa made her way to the podium. After asking her audience to join her in prayer, she then began her speech. According to the reporter for the magazine
National Review,
Mother Teresa’s speech was not only on the poor, but on abortion, stating that nations who allowed legalized abortions are really the poorest of all. She further argued that the most horrendous crime of all existed “against the innocent unborn child.”6