Yes, the Pope announced today that old fraud, Agnes Gonxhe Bojaxhiu, otherwise known as Mother Teresa, will ascend to the pantheon of Roman Catholic saints on September 4. As CNN reports:
In December, Francis announced that Mother Teresa would become a saint after recognizing a second miracle attributed to her: the healing of a Brazilian man with multiple brain tumors after loved ones prayed to her to heal him, the Italian Catholic bishops’ association’s official newspaper Avvenire reported. That miracle occurred after her death.
The nun was beatified in October 2003 by now deceased Pope John Paul II. He approved a first posthumous miracle.
A 30-year-old woman in Kolkata said she was cured of a stomach tumor after praying to Mother Teresa. A Vatican committee said it could find no scientific explanation for her healing and declared it a miracle.
Bojaxhiu died in 1997, after long opposing birth control (in India!), and having run a string of institutions where dying people were given Jesus instead of medicines. On top of that, at least one of the two miracles required for sainthood was a hoax. As I discussed in Faith Versus Fact, the “cure” of the Indian woman Monica Besra, supposedly afflicted with ovarian cancer that regressed after she looked at a picture of Bojaxhiu, was actually a cure of a tubercular tumor, and her doctor, who gave her conventional medical treatment, took the credit. I know nothing about the other “miracle” (a cancer as well), but of course some cancers spontaneously regress.
Never mind: the Church needs saints to keep feeding its supplicants. If you want to know what Bojaxhiu was really like, read Christopher Hitchens’s The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice (great title!), or dig out the free 2013 paper (in French) by two Montreal researchers that pretty much comes to the same conclusion: Mother Teresa was a fraud, unworthy of even an encomium. (I have a summary in English here.)
Sainthood; a man-made construct on top of another man-made construct.
The only good thing about her canonization is that she’ll never know about it….cuz she’s dead.
Saints are all frauds. What’s one more?
St. Patrick did a fine job of ridding Ireland of snakes if you ignore the fact that Ireland didn’t have snakes when he got there.
Just like St George who, I am reminded on another thread, killed the last dragon in England.
cr
It is because of dudes like them that we have Red Books.
There’s no snakes in my house right now either and I can’t find a scientific explanation. Can I be a saint?
it would be because you found a snake, took it outside, cut the head off and burned it. Apparently it somehow lets the other snakes know your place is off limits, “you’ll never see another snake.”
This is what the nurse just told the doctor here at work. Unfortunately I am not joking, they both were very serious in this discussion.
Sigh. Hopefully they won’t be treating patients based on that sort of ‘evidence’. Definitely not the ‘A’ Team today.
True story–when I bought my house 10 years ago, there was a dead snake in the garbage can, apparently killed by the previous owner. Last fall, I saw a garden snake in the yard. I guess the mistake was not burning the previous dead snake. It is important to know that snakes have this level of reasoning. After all, Satan is a snake. But given that, why are they afraid of fire???
I spent a week in Sicily a few months ago. It included a visit to the venerated cathedral at Monreale. This was the first time that I have ever been in a Catholic church. I was appalled. Statues and images of saints were everywhere, adorned with candles in worship. This was a striking demonstration of idolatry, and left me staggered about how the Catholic church can possibly claim monotheism.
Quite easy. God is Da Boss. All the rest are just his soldiers.
cr
And Jesus is his caporegime.
Watching the respectful but very surprised reaction by the Iranian team visiting one of Montreal’s cathedrals while being tourists as part of the ’97 Chemistry Olympiad was interesting.
It is comical in its all-around absurdity.
How does the Pope know that is was her prayers that cured the man? Presumably he was praying, too, and probably some other family members were as well. If religion and science are compatible, can’t we get some stricter controls on these things? What they should have done was have each pray in turn, and then the one who prayed nearest to his remission would win the sainthood, as well as whatever money was in the pool.
Incipient saints have laser guided prayers.
The logic does imply that some prayers are answered to more than the rest, which were just wasted, doesn’t it?
Basically. Besides, it can’t be that everyone’s prayers are effective, or we would all be saints, and that’s just Protestantism. But don’t stop praying!! You, too, might be a saint, and even if you are not, participating makes you feel like you are part of something bigger, and isn’t that what religion is all about.
On the other hand, one of the most moving religious stories I’ve ever seen has this:
Sidney: Tell me, is it true that God answers all prayers?
Chandler: Yes. Sometimes the answer is no.
God: “Which part of the word ‘no’ did you not understand?”
Of course, how you can tell “No” from “I’m ignoring you” is not immediately apparent.
cr
I find the FSM often says no too. But tonight he let me partake in his earthly manifestation and he’s quite a bit tastier than Jesus. Couldn’t he have at least transmogrified into a tasty filet mignon or something?
Ramen.
“Of course, how you can tell “No” from “I’m ignoring you” from “I don’t exist” is not immediately apparent.”
FTFY
Actually, the same exact logic can be applied for differentiating these choices from when God supposedly says “yes.”
I misplaced my car keys the other day and found them without God’s help. My mother lost my son’s shoe the last time she was there and St. Anthony, the Patron Saint of Shit You Lose, apparently helped her find it. Mysterious ways…
True. 😀 I’ll be skeptical till God sends a bill.
The key is that there’s no scientific explanation. Obviously, you are looking for one which would negate the whole thing!
“…and then the one who prayed nearest to his remission would win the sainthood”
Well, since she was praying when she was dead, how could you ever prove she was not the one doing so “nearest to his remission?” Good thing we have Popes around who know how to ascertain such things.
A lesson for those who admire this pope. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
If Mother Teresa can do it, so can Donald Trump. I think Christopher Hitchens would agree.
I think it should be Saint Christopher Hitchens
Not until his face miraculously appears in a piece of toast.
I don’t know all the Catholic saints, but the concept of sainthood gives me the creeps. The whole of Catholicism is posited on lesser beings, “individuals”, not being able to intercede with god for themselves. Everything must be interpreted and mediated by the catholic church leadership, pope, bishops, priests, saints, etc.
Martyrs, slavers, killers of indigenous peoples and others have been made “saints”.
Sainthood has two functions:
1) Create enough demigods so that the Romans could accept a nominally monotheistic faith.
2) Be like the catholic powerball. If you keep playing you never know – you might get to be a saint.
Sainthood also has the virtue of enforcing a view of all reality as being a giant power hierarchy. Saints are like the secretaries who screen your access to the Authority. Or, perhaps, like a special “contact,” an insider who can get you favors if you flatter or bribe them enough, and in the right way.
Those who haven’s prayed to St. Fluorescentius for a successful immunofluorescent or FISH visualization, know nothing of the concept of saints.
Cf. Lovejoy’s classic, _The Great Chain of Being_.
Also, God clearly has no idea what to do without being told a million times by lesser beings.
DoH! You had to bring her up.
http://pictoraltheology.blogspot.com/2015/12/beatification-school-dropout.html
Another zinger, PtiB!
(I really love all your female protagonists as well.)
I feel bad for that cat!
Miracles are so easy to come by these days. Even hollow trees can do them.
+ 1
The Pope’s an intelligent man. He knows that these “miracles” are totally bogus, and that the wicked woman was destined for “sainthood” from the moment that she died. It’s all a gigantic con.
My guess is that Francis finds evidence for what he wants to believe, just like most people. Intelligence only makes this easier.
Ol’ MT done alright for herself, for somebody who didn’t even believe in God. Some people have a knack for working the long con.
The astonishing thing is that these revelations that she lacked inner faith only made people admire her AND her faith even more. Faith is faking faith even when it seems wrong!
Of course, this is one of the tried and true ways people use on their own doubts. Without doubt, faith isn’t possible! So it’s all good!
Took a special breed of con artist to keep the marks paying out long after she’s dead. Don’t know if religion ever gave her any inspiration, but it provided her the perfect cover story.
That’s just because so many desperately want to believe in the saintly story–the humble elderly nun selflessly saving the dregs of India–that info on what the real person was like just gets in the way. It’s easy to fool someone who so easily fools himself.
The less you believe it, the more religious you are!
Homeopathic religion!
Shhhh! Keep that quiet. Us atheists are already unfairly blamed for Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot, we don’t wanna add Bojaxhiu to the lineup!
cr
And the most amazing thing is that the author of that piece is faith-osculator, Andrew Brown. Brown, of course, has to take a cheap shot at Dawkins and remind us he is an anti-atheist bigot like much of the Guardian set.
🐱
Which is worse? Mother Theresa or the canonization a few months ago of Junipero Serra, who slaughtered Native Americans if they refused to convert?
Do we have to pick?
(‘Which would you rather have, cholera or a broken leg?’)
cr
” . . . the healing of a Brazilian man with multiple brain tumors after loved ones prayed to her to heal him….”
Surely they are bringing to bear their supplications on behalf of the microcephalic Brazilian infants.
When I decided to convert to the Catholic Church years ago, they felt they needed to stress to me their saints. One I remember had her breasts cut off. I had a bad feeling when I asked the priest how this suffering was put to good when so many humans had suffered for so many years before that, and yet we still see suffering now with no end in sight for so many years. I asked how much more will satisfy his need for suffering? How many need to suffer and die before he sends his son to judge the living and the dead? There are many many dead since he died and rose again. Not enough suffering yet?
What will satisfy this monster?
And did you then go ahead with the confirmation?
Indeed, she was a revolting fraud.
So why insult the felidae family by placing the face of a cat where that appalling human’s mug would be? Cats are better than humans. And most humans are better than Mother Theresa. The pcture does not follow.
I try to use Jorge Mario Bergoglio or Agnes Gonxhe Bojaxhiu rather than ‘the Pope’ or soon to be ‘Saint Teresa’.
People have criticised me for lacking ‘respect’ but I wouldn’t want to be guilty of cultural appropriation (at least when it lends inappropriate support).
Isn’t Teresa of Avila already a saint? What does one do then? It will be very interesting if the title is “… of India” or the like.