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‘Mother Theresa’ (1986 Túrelio)

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Pope Francis set September 4, 2016 as the date for the canonization as a Catholic saint for the one called ‘Mother Theresa.’ In conjunction with this, the Vatican is planning on promoting her at the United Nations. Zenit.org, a pro-Vatican news source, reported the following:

Holy See at UN to Host Event on Mother Teresa

August 19, 2016

On 4 September in Rome, Pope Francis will declare Mother Teresa a saint. In celebration of this event, the Permanent Observer Mission of the Holy See to the United Nations, together with Alliance Defending Freedom, will host an exhibition dedicated to her words, witness, and works at the UN Headquarters in New York.

“‘Mother Teresa is the United Nations’ –  were the words used by UN Secretary General Pérez de Cuéllar in 1985 to introduce the Catholic nun before her speech in front of the General Assembly. Today, we commemorate her life with his exhibit, shown at the heart of the UN, to remind us of her wisdom, her outstanding work, and her radical love for every human being, the poor, the sick, the unborn, and the dying,” said ADF International Executive Director Doug Napier. https://zenit.org/articles/holy-see-at-un-to-host-event-on-mother-teresa/

It appears that the Vatican believes that this ‘canonization’ will help its standing in the world as well as push Pope Francis’  interfaith agenda. The United Nations supports that interfaith agenda (see United Nations: Humankind’s Last Hope or New World Order?), which is probably at least part of why it has agreed to let the Church of Rome promote ‘Theresa” at the UN.

The one commonly called ‘Mother Theresa’ was originally named Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu.

There have been various ones who have long opposed her path towards Roman Catholic sainthood. Basically, they claim she was a publicity hound, was hypocritical, had various character flaws, and was not truly interested in helping the poor.

Notice something a biographer wrote about her:

She cultivated her celebrity.

Teresa was famous first in India, then worldwide, partly through the efforts of British journalist Malcolm Muggeridge and partly due to another gift. “The way she spoke to journalists showed her to be as deft a manipulator as any high-powered American public relations expert,” noted Irish rocker/philanthropist Bob Geldof. …

“The silence and the emptiness is so great,” she wrote, “that I look and do not see– the tongue moves (in prayer) but does not speak.”

Critics like the late Christopher Hitchens said the correspondence proved Teresa was just a “confused old lady.” But the letters were issued by her postulator, the Vatican-appointed advocate for her sainthood. http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/09/10/my-take-the-mother-teresa-you-dont-know/comment-page-21/

Notice also the following:

While she worked with the poor, Mother Teresa was adamant that any type of evangelism was unnecessary. In her book, Life in the Spirit: Reflections, Meditations and Prayers, she says:

“We never try to convert those who receive [aid from Missionaries of Charity] to Christianity but in our work we bear witness to the love of God’s presence and if Catholics, Protestants, Buddhists, or agnostics become for this better men — simply better — we will be satisfied. It matters to the individual what church he belongs to. If that individual thinks and believes that this is the only way to God for her or him, this is the way God comes into their life — his life. If he does not know any other way and if he has no doubt so that he does not need to search then this is his way to salvation.” (Pages 81-82)

With such a statement we can only be left believing that she was more than a Catholic, but was a Universalist, believing essentially that all religion leads to the same God. Time and again we see her expounding such universalist beliefs. In an interview with Christian News a nun who worked with Mother Teresa was asked the following in regards to the Hindus they worked with, “These people are waiting to die. What are you telling them to prepare them for death and eternity?” She replied candidly, “We tell them to pray to their Bhagwan, to their gods.” …

The six steps to peace taught by Mother Teresa are silence, prayer, faith, love, service, and peace. For anyone who was unsure of what they believed, she suggested starting with small acts of love towards others. She includes three pages of sample prayers and prefaces them by saying that if you are not a Christian you could replace the name “Jesus” with “God.” (Page 35). Through the entire book there is never a hint that she relies on Christ alone for her salvation. Rather we read things like, “I’ve always said we should help a Hindu become a better Hindu, a Muslim become a better Muslim, a Catholic become a better Catholic” (Page 31).

Consider also the following quote from another source, “I love all religions. … If people become better Hindus, better Muslims, better Buddhists by our acts of love, then there is something else growing there.” Or in another place, “All is God — Buddhists, Hindus, Christians, etc., all have access to the same God.”

We see, then, that Mother Teresa held beliefs that contradict many Biblical principles. Chief among these principles is that Christ is the only means of salvation. In John 14:6 Jesus states, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” By teaching that all religion could bridge the gap between man and God, Mother Teresa taught principles completely opposed to the Bible. http://www.challies.com/articles/the-myth-of-mother-teresa

So, is telling Hindus to pray to their god (Bhagwan) something a Christian saint would do?

Of course not.

She was truly a promoter of an interfaith agenda that does not square with the Bible. Notice several of her statements:

“If in coming face to face with God we accept Him in our lives, then we are converting. We become a better Hindu, a better Muslim, a better Catholic, a better whatever we are …. What God is in your mind you must accept” (from Mother Teresa: Her People and Her Work, by Desmond Doig, [Harper & Row, 1976, p.156]).

“I convert you to be a better Hindu or a better Muslim or a better Protestant. Once you’ve found God, it’s up to you to decide how to worship him.” (“Mother Teresa Touched Other Faiths,” AP, Sept. 7, 1997).

“I’ve always said we should help a Hindu become a better Hindu, a Muslim become a better Muslim, a Catholic become a better Catholic” (A Simple Path, p. 31).

If the individual thinks and believes that his or her way is the only way to God, then that is their way of salvation” (pp. 74-75). (Mark Michael Zima, Mother Teresa: The Case for the Cause)

“At the word of a priest, that little piece of bread becomes the body of Christ … Then you give this bread to us, so that we too might live and become holy …” (Mother Teresa’s speech made at the Worldwide Retreat for Priests, Oct. 1984)

“So let us ask the help of our Lady! She is a Mother full of grace, full of God, full of Jesus. Let us ask her to be our Mother, guiding us and protecting us …. It is true that we are already being helped by our tremendous devotion to Mary. She is our patroness and our Mother, and she is always leading us to Jesus” (Mother Teresa, Be Holy, p. 75).

A co-worker of Mother Teresa’s was asked this question: “These people are waiting to die. What are you telling them to prepare them for death and eternity?” Mother Teresa’s co-worker (a nun) stated, “We tell them to pray to their Bhagwan, to their gods.” (Interview with Christian News)

The April 7-13, 1990, issue of Radio Times tells the story of Mother Teresa taking care of a dying Hindu priest. “She nursed him with her own hands and helped him to die reconciled with his own gods. (http://www.evangelicaloutreach.org/motherteresasc.htm accessed 03/15/16)

She also did not seem to actually believe in God as some of her own writings confirm that she lost faith:

“I am told God lives in me — and yet the reality of darkness and coldness and emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul,” she wrote at one point. “I want God with all the power of my soul — and yet between us there is terrible separation.” On another occasion she wrote: “I feel just that terrible pain of loss, of God not wanting me, of God not being God, of God not really existing.” http://www.foxnews.com/story/2007/08/24/mother-teresa-did-not-feel-christ-presence-for-last-half-her-life-letters.html

“I spoke as if my heart was in love with God – tender, personal love,” she wrote to another adviser, wondering if she was involved in “verbal deception” of the millions who followed her every act as proof of God’s existence.

“If you were there, you’d have said: ‘What hypocrisy.'” http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-477573/Did-Mother-Teresa-believe-God.html#ixzz42zl1O1hC

So, she promoted Hinduism, didn’t really believe in God, and felt that people who understood her would consider her as a hypocrite.

So, the Church of Rome plans to officially declare her one of their saints. Theresa’s theology fits well with the Vatican’s interfaith plan. This also seems to fit in with a Hindu prophecy related to the Bhagwan as well (see India and the Beast of Revelation 13).

Now, let’s look at the Roman Catholic and biblical criteria for sainthood.

For a time, the Church of Rome allegedly wanted to see evidence that the bodies did not decay (so called ‘incorruptibility’) for someone to be declared a saint after death, but they do not do that now (though they still consider ‘incorruptibility’ as a potential miracle).

The current Vatican procedure for making one a saint seems to be that the person be well-known, that people pray to the individual after he/she died, and that two reported ‘miracles’ (normally claimed healings) take place after the death credited to the potential saint, which the Vatican makes some attempts to verify.

As far as the somewhat traditional Vatican criteria for declaring sainthood compared to the biblical criteria, there are a few points to mention (and I have chosen to use Catholic translations of the Bible to demonstrate that even their versions of the Bible support my points here).

First of all, one does not BECOME a saint after one dies. The Apostle Paul clearly referred to saints that were alive in his writings. Here are few examples:

21 Salute ye every saint in Christ Jesus. 22 The brethren who are with me, salute you. All the saints salute you; especially they that are of Caesar’s household. (Philippians 4:21-22, DRB)

1 Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the will of God, to all the saints who are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus. (Ephesians 1:1, DRB)

15 And I beseech you, brethren, you know the house of Stephanas, and of Fortunatus, and of Achaicus, that they are the firstfruits of Achaia, and have dedicated themselves to the ministry of the saints: (1 Corinthians 16:15, DRB)

The Bible does not endorse the Pope nor anyone else being able to canonize someone as a saint after death. One becomes a saint, a firstfruit, by becoming a real Christian. Only God, not any man like a pontiff, can make anyone else a saint (cf. Romans 8:9).

There are literally dozens of scriptures that use the term saints for people living at the time the New Testament was written.

Another point to make is that there is one mediator, and that is Jesus, and no one else:

5 For there is one God, and one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus: (1 Timothy 2:5, DRB)

People are not to pray to dead people. There is no verse in the Bible that shows that any of God’s people ever did that. There is no hint in the Bible that Christians are to pray to dead people.

Notice also something that the Apostle Peter stated:

10…the name of our Lord Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God hath raised from the dead, even by him this man standeth here before you whole.

11 This is the stone which was rejected by you the builders, which is become the head of the corner.

12 Neither is there salvation in any other. For there is no other name under heaven given to men, whereby we must be saved. (Acts 4:10-12, DRB)

Notice that Peter did not claim he could heal anybody. Furthermore, he would not allow people to bow down before him:

25. And it came to pass, When Peter was come in, Cornelius came to meet him, and falling at his feet adored. 26. But Peter lifted him up saying, Arise, myself also am a man. (Acts 10:25-26, DRB)

Christians are not supposed to pray to dead humans for intercession.

Notice what the Bible teaches that the sick are to do:

¹⁴ Any one of you who is ill should send for the elders of the church, and they must anoint the sick person with oil in the name of the Lord and pray over him.

¹⁵ The prayer of faith will save the sick person and the Lord will raise him up again; and if he has committed any sins, he will be forgiven. (James 5:14-15, NJB)

Those who pray to the dead for healing are not in obedience to these biblical instructions.

As far as ‘Mother Theresa’ herself goes, consider the following:

5 Be sure of this, that no fornicator or impure man, or one who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. 6 Let no one deceive you with empty words, for it is because of these things that the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. (Ephesians 5:5-6, RSV-Catholic edition)

As a lifelong idolater, Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu does not meet the biblical requirements to be in the kingdom of God, hence was not a saint when she lived nor will she be a real one on or after the Vatican makes a formal declaration on September 4th.

It is my view that the usual criteria for sainthood by the Vatican gets people to look away from what the Bible actually teaches and puts too great of emphasis on signs that appear to be ‘lying wonders’ which deceive many (cf. Matthew 24:11; 2 Thessalonians 2:9).

And this general emphasis towards the pointing to signs and wonders will be a factor in the rise of the Beast and Antichrist, and possibly will involve a female appearing figure (cf. Isaiah 47; Revelation 17 & 18).

Yet true Christians are to “walk by faith, and not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7). In my view, Pope Francis is walking by signs, wonders, and politics and not biblical criteria and getting others to accept that. This does not bode well for the world.

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This entry was posted on Saturday, August 20th, 2016 at 7:45 am and is filed under Doctrine, Religious News.

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