Mother Teresa: good or evil? Debate (part 1)

friend to the rich famous and frankly dubious but also friend to the poor and dying of Calcutta mother Teresa has become the stuff of legend controversy and myth does she deserve sainthood dr. Chatterjee now you actually were you testified yes against Mother Teresa's beatification in 2003 with with Christopher Hitchens who's written about this now she's seen as I said an icon of caring a sort of a benchmark of compassion mother Teresa but there are aspects of her life and work that trouble a lot of people what troubles you well I mean where do you start I mean practically anything that's known about her is shouting shrouded in mystery and myth you know what she apparently she had two runs a home for the dying if you have you don't have to go there just look at pictures of the home for the dying the people there don't even have proper beds I mean they're made to lie on these hammocks called pallets they're not allowed to get up and during mother Teresa is a lifetime there was an efficient policy can you imagine an official policy to reuse needles over and over again and this was when aids for HIV first came out and the absolutely no compassion that what's a very very limited resources oh well on other words and mother tries to took them out because she said that people who were suffering would be closer to God if the suffered that's not comforting the dying that's actually making things worse what about have you ever heard of a hospice where their relatives relatives and friends are not allowed to visit they're not allowed to get up and walk there's no yard to walk it's it's it's a brutalization was she a hypocrite I was so completely yes of course she was she run these places then when she was dying she went to the most expensive clinic in Switzerland and had to say - they aren't treatment not only when she was dying she had any treatment I'll show you pictures you want this is the this is the real Heart Institute in Calcutta itself where she had numerous angioplasties and heart treatments she went recovery see them on a television word for it but she for for minor ailments she went to the Scripps Clinic in La Jolla California go she went on religious active she kept her money in the Vatican Bank why and once she minded the Vatican Bank it's absolutely riddled with scandal you know the it had this connection with the Banco Ambrosiano of Naples or one of the Italian banks and there were killings mafiosi dealings there were money laundering tainted money the absolute end money and we don't know where the money is you know the Charles Keating the the fraudster big a true biggest froster in US history until then he gave her we know that he gave her 1.25 million thousands of other people given loads of money and they're all spent either there languish in the banks or they are spent on religious activities and she had connections with dictators did she I don't mind if you had connection with dictators but she spent her money you know for fruitfully and to the benefit of the poor you were she's a market Forrester do you recognize his country I'm very surprised at some of the things you have to say mother Teresa was loved in action at the heart of the world I think really her her life and her work speaks for itself in almost every country on the planet to respond to some of things you're saying well why did she suck up to swindlers and tyrants like Charles Keating in the Duvalier's for example that's one of the charges actually mother Teresa like like all religious took three vows of poverty obedience and charity and chastity in her order they took a fourth foul of charity which she took very very seriously and that to her was not simply about someone who's dying in the gutter it was charity towards everyone now when someone came and gave her money she said look I don't have the right before God to judge them do you do not and that I just finished kind of finish and that receiving their money was giving them the gift a peace of mind and heart okay but do you deny that having worked there that you know the she said many many times including in a Nobel Prize speech that she would go around the city looking for death just to pick up and bring to the homes her homes whatever defecation that is not something she did you know that if you took a child a very poor destitute child to orphanage to her home they returned away because they would say this is not how we all see said I never turned a child that's what you said what leave that abortion was the worst a little in Italy a place I'm not an abortion Antonio an actual child and she actually said I will never I would never ever turn a child well maybe come on to the book that's an unborn child but not actually a child shot but it but she has a home there in Calcutta which I went to myself heart filled with children yeah but mentally disabled it's a few if you brought a child to her doors they would be turned away because they had so many conditions and you know the rules that they would want us that you had to work with them within the limits of the resources that she what did she mean why did she say that we never turn everybody away we she didn't do you know let me ask this as well because it's another important point in it you know in our time yeah here she said I think it is very beautiful for the poor to accept their lot yeah what did she mean what she meant by that I believe is that in in the in the poverty she found Christ she saw Christ there he and she she believed that when when she was working with the poor when she was touching them she was actually touching Christ and she stands in complete contradiction really to the modern mentality that all suffering is bad it was a lot she was she she actually said look suffering is transformative it in itself is evil but we can work to transform next month's of the year she was spent abroad outside of Calcutta so when was the last a tree to actually touch tap or can you tell me have you ever seen you have seen we have seen millions of pictures of her and I'm interested in this idea too so because I saw Kate trying to come in there and I know how exercised you are about this but Kate suffering is transformative isn't this is just a case there isn't there's some beauty in that now what we're looking at with Mother Teresa is a woman who was by I mean of course when we grew up we were all taught that she was this sort of perfect thing in fact it was almost like a watchword for all that was good and wonderful but a natural fact mothers raised it was a religious fundamentalist she believed in religion and God above all else above comforting human suffering above improving human life improving human condition or getting people to her see people believed only in religion and when that meant increasing people's suffering she went out and did it she fought tooth and nail against contraception against abortion and against things which would have helped him out of poverty and improved as community no scribsy militaries have believed in love and she believes that abortion contraception and usual even aging a better way than a dying person has loved because I done I just finished kind of son of she believes she believes she believed in in the power of love which in her view I think to understand her work who she is as a person first of all as well as her work you almost need to have some sort of natural instinct for the spiritual because this she saw it as not her work at all it was God's work through using an anti needle of twenty people his love I think I think it looks really chance for two Catholic couples for 100,000 rupees is love there is a man called Jonathan Powell in Belgium he has come on TV and he's made it public that he was sold to a Catholic couple in Belgium with one hundred thousand rupees and this is a man who has appeared on mentor in Catholic TV in 1988 that happened you say that Mother Teresa's sold another her order it was rampant in those days now the government even is clamped down and I think I mean before I prefer er to come to that I would really like to have really all the evidence are and speak about it when they do this is a conversation and debate which will carry on through through lunch I fear Lou

Channel: mateyboy07

Views: 313,476

Keywords: Mother, Teresa, debate, aroup, chatterjee, benjamin, zephaniah, louise, bagshawe, kate, smurthwaite, christopher, hitchens, catholic, catholicism

Id: UdYKsiredbM

Length: 7min 59sec (479 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 18 2009