Mother Teresa (Blackbird books) - Softcover

Anne Sebba

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0862030641 ISBN 13: 9780862030643

Publisher: Julia Macrae, 1982

Synopsis

Mother Teresa of Calcutta--no figure alive today has received the adulation that she has, and she is frequently cited as the living embodiment of Christian kindness. Recipient of numerous humanitarian awards, including the Nobel Peace Prize, she had been characterized as a living saint and commands unrivaled international attention, even at the highest levels. Yet the respect she has received has not been unanimous, and since 1990 serious criticisms have been directed at this modern icon, who had once seemed beyond reproach.
In this fascinating biography Anne Sebba reveals the truth behind Mother Teresa and her Missionaries of Charity. She considers her attitudes toward abortion (women who have had abortions are hailed as murderers), rape (women who have been raped are given no help in terminating their pregnancy), her association with dictators such as the Duvaliers in Haiti, her medical negligence (inadequate use of painkillers, reuse of unsterilized needles), her ethics (she accepted hundreds of thousands of stolen dollars from S&L financier Charles Keating).
Alongside these unflattering aspects, this work also considers the highlights of her dedication to the sick, dying and destitute, and looks at the motivation that drives Mother Teresa. Hers is an extraordinary life, full of paradox. She has enormous courage, love and determination, and her work poses some of the most profound questions of our age.

About this title

Review

Neither hatchet job nor hagiography, this biography of the Nobel Peace Prize laureate was completed before Mother Teresa's death in September 1997. It includes a chronological account of Albanian-born Agnes Bojaxhiu's early years before she founded the Missionaries of Charity in 1947. But it focuses primarily on "compelling issues which arise from her work," including a judicious evaluation of charges that Mother Teresa accepted money from dictators and that her order sometimes provided inadequate medical treatment. Anne Sebba also probes with perception the social forces underpinning Mother Teresa's lionization in the West. This is an exceptionally well-balanced assessment of Calcutta's "saint of the gutters."

From Kirkus Reviews

This surprisingly nuanced biography of the international icon of humanitarianism, neither shies away from nor revels in controversy. Sebba, a British journalist and author of a children's book on Mother Teresa, has laced this biography with thought-provoking ethical questions. Though the book jacket promises to reveal ``the truth'' about Mother Teresa's friendly relations with the Duvaliers of Haiti, her unscrupulous financial dealings, and other salacious tidbits, the book itself intelligently transcends the genre of the muckraking biography. Part I is a straightforward chronological narrative of Mother Teresa's childhood in Albania, her early association with the Loreto order, and her 1947 exodus from it to found the Missionaries of Charity. Part II outlines some of the criticisms the order has endured in the last decade; political and fiscal dealings aside, some of the most damning charges have been lodged by the international medical community regarding the quality of care provided in Mother Teresa's facilities. Stories of unhygienic conditions abound. One volunteer reported seeing a nurse using the same filthy rag to wipe the bottom of one baby, then the nose of another; the same needles reportedly provide injections to multiple patients; and painkillers are often not prescribed, even to the terminally ill. Sebba probes beneath the surface of these allegations to discover their root in Mother Teresa's theology of suffering. The nun has indicated repeatedly that she finds a redemptive value in suffering, and Sebba sees this as a potentially dangerous sentimentalization. She also discusses Mother Teresa's much-publicized opposition to abortion and contraception, and ultimately concludes that her absolutist stance against contraception makes her social ministries more of a Band-Aid than a cure. Finally, Sebba dares to ask why Mother Teresa has been so lionized in the West, suggesting that her apotheosis has much to do with assuaging white guilt for India's grinding poverty. (16 pages b&w photos) (Author tour) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Julia Macrae
• Publication date: 1982
• ISBN 10: 0862030641
• ISBN 13: 9780862030643
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 48