It would be fair to say that Mother Teresa was rather revered during her time on earth for her selfless dedication to helping those less fortunate than herself. Born as Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu in Albania in 1910, eventually arriving in India in 1929, Teresa received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979.

She is still loved and respected by many and is due to be declared a saint in September of next year. Here’s IBT:

[She] will be  officially declared a saint in September 2016, Syro Malabar Church spokesperson Paul Thelekat said in Kochi…

“As a Christian, I am eagerly waiting for the canonisation of Mother Teresa. She has been a mother to millions of Indian especially the poorest of the poor and the underprivileged…”

However, since her death in 1997 many have come forward and criticised the notion that all her work was selfless. Some have pointed towards her actions being aimed at converting people to Christianity, a form of religious evangelicalism that resulted in misuse of funds and poor medical treatments in the facilities she championed.

One particularly vocal critic was renowned atheist Christopher Hitchens, who went to town on her in the video below entitled ‘Hell’s Angel’.

Here’s the Washington Post:

Hitchens concluded that Mother Teresa was “less interested in helping the poor than in using them as an indefatigable source of wretchedness on which to fuel the expansion of her fundamentalist Roman Catholic beliefs”…

[Other critics] found fault with “her rather dubious way of caring for the sick, her questionable political contacts, her suspicious management of the enormous sums of money she received, and her overly dogmatic views regarding, in particular, abortion, contraception, and divorce.”

I suppose there’s no use in saying ‘let’s let sleeping dogs lie’, and I imagine your views on this probably depend largely on where your religious beliefs tend towards.

Like all good religious debates we should probably have a few drinks before we get stuck in, I find it helps to loosen the tongue.

[sources:ibt&washingtonpost]