British Author Questions Mother Teresa’s Sainthood and Nobel

India-born physician Aroup Chatterjee with social worker Hemley Gonzalez at the release of Mother Teresa The Untold Story in Kolkata, on June 13. (Photo: IANS)

Aroup Chatterjee, a Britain-based author, has in his writings questioned the basis of Mother Teresa’s service in Kolkata, for which she received the Nobel Peace Prize.

In an updated version of his book, Mother Teresa - The Untold Story, Chatterjee – a self-proclaimed “militant atheist” writes:

Mother’s sainthood is in an ‘uncharted’ place as a retraction or denial of a ‘miracle’ by the ‘cured’ has never before happened in the history of the Catholic Church.

The reference is to Monica Besra, a tribal living in a remote village about 500 km from Calcutta (as the author consistently refers to the city rather than Kolkata). It was claimed that on September 6 1998 – a day after the first anniversary of Mother Teresa’s death – she had been cured of a massive tumour after two nuns tied on her body an aluminium medal that had been in contact with the Mother’s dead body, and prayed all night.

Soon after Mother Teresa’s beatification on 19 October 2003, Besra challenged the miracle and said she was cured by medicine.

After the retraction, Chatterjee writes, he sent messages to the postulator of Mother Teresa’s cause, Fr. Brian Kolodiejchuk, “asking how the Vatican would deal with this conundrum. I suggested that they should start afresh with a new ‘miracle’.” Chatterjee remarks:

Despite the unprecedented rejection of the miracle by the ‘cured’ and by every other quarter, including doctors and the government, the Vatican gave two fingers to Indian opinion and secretly proceeded with canonisation.

In December 2015, the Vatican announced that Mother Teresa was well on her way to becoming a saint in September 2016 as a second ‘miracle’ was proven – a Brazilian man had been cured of brain tumour when his wife is said to have prayed to her.

Chatterjee says:

As I had expected, this time they chose a different hemisphere and a different continent. Also, the identity of the cured will be kept a secret till the last moment, though the ‘cure’ happened in 2008. The Vatican does not want to repeat the mistakes it made with Besra.

Worthy of Nobel Prize?

Chatterjee says the selection process for the Nobel Peace Prize is “deeply flawed”.

Although the Peace Prize has had some worthy recipients, especially the institutional ones... I believe the award is deeply flawed. Being opaque and beyond criticism has made it even more susceptible to influences. I am not convinced that it has an effective fact-checking machinery either, as its methods are somewhat quaint.

Aroup Chatterjee

For instance, Mother Teresa’s year of birth. It is one the few things in her life “that is not shrouded in mythology, but the Nobel Committee has got that wrong,” he says.

(Published in arrangement with IANS.)