Bad Press For Saints
The account of the first Easter, nearly 2,000 years ago in Jerusalem, has its fair share of characters. It is a ‘no brainer’ that Judas Iscariot is the ‘Bad Guy’ – committing perjury and betraying his guru and master, Jesus, for just thirty silver coins. Perhaps this was several months’ wages, but hardly the cost of setting in motion an execution.
Thomas enjoys a good track record for three years, one of the in-crowd with Jesus, before succumbing to a portfolio of doubts on Easter Sunday – so much so that he has become a figure of the English language as the original ‘doubting Thomas’. Not only does he doubt, but his sainthood is equally in doubt as a result. He must have been thankful that the Jerusalem Post was not in print two millennia ago. Despite his bad press he recovers and ends up in South India spending a significant chunk of his life trying to sort out India’s problems – although the North-South divide had not yet been invented and his life was cut short in Mylapore (Chennai). Had he been around longer, he might have had a far greater impact (and a better press). Today Manmohan Singh and the UPA ‘et al’ could make good use of his saintly status and wisdom.
Sainthood offers little protection when the opposition is getting desperate. A recently published paper by Canadian academics seeking to ‘expose’ Mother Theresa and enjoying some opportunist support from Christopher Hitchens (one of Mother Theresa’s most vitriolic critics) has led a limited few in the press in India to create headlines such as “Saint or Spinner’ and ‘Mother Inferior?’
OUTLOOK magazine last week carried a raft of letters from its readers following an article detailing the Canadian criticisms including financial mismanagement, secret bank accounts and refusal to allow patients to seek hospital treatment when death seemed imminent. One NRI, based in Europe, asked the question “Will this evidence, (from Canada) be enough for Indians, most of whom simply assume anything connected with religion in general and Christianity in particular is above criticism”.
What made fascinating reading was the overwhelming majority of readers who felt strongly enough to write in defence of Mother Theresa and at the same time to make the point that they themselves continue to follow the faith of their fathers, be they Hindu, Muslim, or of no faith. It is no secret that Jyoti Basu, that indefatigable Communist, committed to secularism and non appeasement of religious groups, the strong man of Kolkata, had no issues with this saintly Christ follower. In fact he extended to her both moral and government help. As one correspondent wrote “They had only one problem: they refused to accept her so-called miraculous powers”.
As one who has visited the ‘House of the Dying’ but has only seen Mother Theresa across the crowds in an airport terminal, I believe the greatest testimony of her sainthood and the real power of faith is the young women especially from India who, long after Mother Theresa’s passing from this world, willingly and joyfully follow her footsteps and join the Missionaries of Charity. Whilst academics may research and rail, did they ever bother to ask the destitute and dying in the Indian street, who still today experience the touch of Christ Jesus, through the hands of her successors?
Paul East
New Delhi
