OVO

Mother Teresa did good things as an individual, and good things have been done in her name. In the balance of life, I’d say she’s a good person. She stood up for providing care for people with AIDS at a time when the majority of her religion either ignored the problem or thought it was the action of a benevolent deity. But sometimes bad things happen in the name of good people.

Bengali tribeswoman Monica Besra was diagnosed with and treated for tubercular adenitis by medical professionals. Later she developed a tubercular cyst in her abdomen; this is a sympton of the disease that can be mistaken for a tumour. Her medical care lasted for nine months, and included taking medicine that had measured positive effects on her health. But eventually her family could no longer afford medical care and she was transferred to Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity.

My source is unclear as to what kind of medical care she got from the Missionaries of Charity. But my source does state that the people who worked there tied a magic rock (“a medallion”) to her stomach and – poof! – the “tumor” vanished the next day. A miracle! Never mind the nine months of treatment that had occured before then… the magic rock made the imaginary cancer go away.

Her hustband was skeptical about the magic rock. But “after the family converted to Roman Catholicism, their children were given school places, and their fortunes rose after months of crippling medical bills, he, too, became a supporter of the miracle theory.” Is this sentence making the claim that Roman Catholics advanced their children in school and gave them money to be heard to claim to believe in magic rocks? It certainly could be read to make that claim.

Others who were skeptical about the magic rock were the doctors who treated Monica Besra. “There is no question of a miracle as far as this case is concerned. It was purely by virtue of modern science” [...] “She was on the drugs for nine months and it was those that led to the shrinking and final disappearance of the cyst.” Fortunately for the magic rock salemen, the doctors were not consulted in the matter.

Well, that’s not entirely true. As part of the process of making Mother Teresa’s ghost a super-duper-ghost (a “saint”), “The priest from the church that ran the hospital came to me months after and asked me for a cerficate to say I has been treating her for tuberculosis. Only later did I realise they were pitching the cure as a miracle by Mother Teresa.” Religion loves science when it seems to prove the claims of religion, but not so much when it makes claims of its own (say, that condoms can prevent the spread of HIV).

But what’s the harm? Depends on whether one wants to reward honesty or dishonesty, and whether healthy skeptical people are better than gullible dead people, and whether it is better to use ones’ limited rescources to support medical hospitals that cure people or to support magic rock salesmen. One of the doctors said “It is very dangerous for the Vatican to beatify Mother Teresa. In India, hundreds of thousands of people get tuberculosis. If the miracle was reality, all of them would be cured by tying Mother Teresa medallions around their affected body parts.”

My source states: “Ms Besra’s healing may be the only ‘miracle’ needed to get Mother Teresa beatified but at least one more is needed for her to attain sainthood, something that the Pope would fervently like to see before he dies. The prospect of nuns tying hundreds more medallions to their patients’ bodies to effect another miracle remains real.”

And that just seems cruel. The Vatican is not about to go broke any time soon. It has money and power to spare. But it is more in favor of selling magic rocks that will definitely not help people than it is in funding medicine that definitely will help people. What a waste. What a shame to piss away all those resources, and in the name of someone who actually did do some good in the world.

Dr Mustaphi said: “They can say what they like; I know what the truth is. It was no miracle.”