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Mother Teresa and the USS Intrepid
I shouldn't be surprised; we're often hit with bizarre news. But doings around Mother Teresa's 100th birthday takes grotesquery to a new level. Seems there's a political ruckus in New York City about how to honor her on August 26th. Anyone with a little sense knows the appropriate thing: reassign funds for war and military recruitment to house the homeless and feed the poor.
This would be especially fitting in Manhattan, because by lifting rent control, the borough has been systematically evicting the poor for years and catering to its growing number of millionaires.
Some Catholics have been pressing to illuminate the Empire State Building, in Mother Teresa's honor, in white and blue. The Empire State Building refused, citing a policy against honoring religious figures. Not to worry: the U.S.S. Intrepid caught wind of the news and thought, here's a ripe moment for good press. And so they offered to do the honors.
The
aircraft-carrier-turned-war-
According to the Daily News on June 14th, the city is pleased. "We're thrilled to be able to light up the ship," said Susan Marenoff, executive director of the war museum. "It is a proper representation of public service, as we parallel the public service efforts she did."
As we parallel the public service efforts she did. What sheer ignorance! Has Ms. Marenoff ever studied the life of Mother Teresa, or served the poor, or studied the Gospel of Jesus? With this statement, she betrays any knowledge of true public service or Gospel peacemaking. Either she is ignorant or the war museum is embezzling Mother Teresa's good name.
Contrary to what Ms. Marenoff believes, the U.S.S. Intrepid does not serve the public. It hurts the public. It serves the myth and culture of war. It teaches people, especially the thousands of school children who tour the "museum of death" each month, that mass murder is a legitimate means to resolve conflict. Like the Atomic Museum in Albuquerque, N.M. or the Bradbury Museum in Los Alamos which celebrate nuclear weapons, the U.S.S. Intrepid promotes Death as a social methodology. It is antithetical to the Gospel of life, love and peace. The very things Mother Teresa expended her life on.
Mother Teresa taught and lived the works of mercy and peace--feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, shelter the homeless, heal the sick, visit the imprisoned, and care for the dying. The Intrepid upholds the opposite: the works of mercilessness and war--starve the enemy, destroy crops and homes, spread disease, poison the land, make people sick, imprison people, torture, bomb and kill people. She insisted that Matthew 25 is true: whatever we do to our sisters and brothers around the world, especially to the poor and the enemy, we do to Jesus.
The only way the Intrepid can participate in honoring Mother Teresa is to close its doors, clear its decks of its warlike exhibits and convert itself into a floating shelter for the homeless and needy.
I knew her well enough to understand that Mother Teresa was adamantly committed to peace and life. On many occasions we spoke on the phone, and as I languished in jail for symbolically beating a hammer against a F15 jet in North Carolina, she offered to pay me a visit. I also knew her as a woman of enormous strength. She tried to stop every effort to use her image. Were she still alive, she would appalled and saddened by our blindness.
Since this "museum of death" opened in 1982, my friends and I have regularly called for its closing just outside its gangplank. And just as regularly hauled to jail. Fr. Daniel Berrigan, age 89, was just tried last month for his arrest there on Good Friday. It never ceases to shock us to see hordes of school children traipsing on board under the tutelage of teachers and curators. As if this were legitimate education. We hurt these children by teaching them that war brings peace. That war is honorable. That war is moral, noble. We should bring them on board to mourn, to teach them never to allow war to happen again.
In the spring of 1997, while teaching freshman theology for a semester at the Jesuit's Fordham University, the senior class booked its graduation dance on board the Intrepid. When I heard, I lobbied hard against it. I met with the administration, Jesuit superiors, and senior class representatives. I wrote editorials in the school newspaper and was invited to speak to dozens of classes and student groups. Don't dance around the "Golden Calf," I urged the students-an allusion to idolatry Catholic students would be well acquainted with. Boycott the Senior Ball, I said. Soon, the New York Times picked up the story, and wondered aloud about those high Ignatian ideals of "the faith that does justice."
Despite my best efforts, the dance was held there, as dozens of us, including several Jesuits, kept vigil outside. The Fordham administration later announced they would never again allow a school-sponsored dance on the Intrepid.
A wan victory, but I was gratified. I was all the more gratified by this small victory when I learned that, to convert the Intrepid from air craft carrier to museum, the city had dipped into funds allocated for low-income housing and for poor schools in the Bronx. The museum, from its inception, hurt "the least of these." And it hurt "the least of these" during its active time in the fleet of the Pacific. Mother Teresa had a heart for "the least of these." The Intrepid stands against all that she lived for.
I hope people will boycott the U.S.S. Intrepid, and any museum that glorifies warfare. Further, this August 26th, I invite us to remember Mother Teresa by sharing what we have with those in need and performing some work of mercy and peace. That's the best way to celebrate and honor her life.
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36 Comments so far
Show AllWell, i am prepared to be bashed here. But in 100 degrees, who cares!?
Mother Teresa.....I read chris hitchens piece years ago in Vanity Fair "Hell's Angel". That is when he was a leftist. She didn't even allow condoms in India and then worked with AIDS' victims. She was a right winger who hung out with the likes of Poppa Doc in Haiti.
Enough said. Sorry John, dear. And when are you gonna say something to the Vatican about raping children? Interesting that people who live in glass houses.............
Peace out.
You have my support. MT did have a dark side in her support for the Christian missionaries against the Hindus.
"...her support for the Christian missionaries AGAINST the Hindus", Demolition Man?
Are you sure you are not influenced by your own religious affinity and by the Hindu right-wing in the USA? I'm sure you'll agree that there is a Hindu right-wing (Hindutva brigade) that is engaged in a great deal of revisionist activities in India as well as in the USA. I have seen them EXTREMELY active on the internet. Ironically, it's their aggressive stance and willingness to lie that puts off people who are otherwise familiar with the great wisdom contained in some Hindu teachings.
I don't support the rightwing faction of Hindus but they're not a threat compared to the evangelical wing of the Christians giving good Christians a bad name.
If you are talking about India, I would like to see both the Hindutva right-wing AND the evangelical Christian missionaries with their overzealous efforts at converting people to just shut up and keep their religious beliefs private. I think both are fouling the public sphere.
Ghandi said that the greatest evil in the world is evangelism.
"The Intrepid upholds the opposite: the works of mercilessness and war--starve the enemy, destroy crops and homes, spread disease, poison the land, make people sick, imprison people, torture, bomb and kill people...."
Given that Mother Teresa was a representative of a church guilty of all these offenses, including genocide, sexism, and sexual abuse, one could argue that the Intrepid is actually a fitting institution for honoring a famous colonizer and missionary. An aircraft carrier possesses at least the virtue of being up front about its warlike intentions. Missionaries are no less an instrument of empire than bombs and planes.
I understand what motivates this article of protest, but "charity begins at home," doesn't it?
And just what is your claim to fame?
Amen, Dr.!!!
Indeed. Good comment, Doc.
Oh, Kassandra........We are now in the middle ages again?
You don't want to go back to that time and the 'Church', now do you? I know about the new jersey scandal.....Why are you bringing up the "Jews"? Interesting. Very interesting......In fact, some of my best friends are ex-Jesuit priests. That happens to be true.
The Patriarchy of all patriarchies dies hard. But it does die.
Peace.
rita
"Remarkable no one ever brings up the rabbi and his orthodox associates who were selling human organs allegedly stolen from the Palestinian victims of Israeli violence."
Great. Thanks. Glad to know about that atrocity.
Service to the poor only counts for something if you are also going to work for the empowerment of the poor. Otherwise you are only perpetuating poverty, and you are effectively just working as an agent for their oppressors who will hypocritically preach about how poverty and humility is so virtuous while they amass great wealth, power and arrogance.
SaboCat....Kudos!
Mother Theresa used her fame and connections for the poor.
She was an extremely shy woman, who lived the simplest of lives, refusing the creature comforts that other officials of the church demanded.
Yes, she visited with Papa Doc in Haiti where the Duvalier family owned everything including the church. The Cardinal was a Duvalier and most health and education was provided through the Duvalier family. If you wanted to achieve any thing in Haiti, it had to be through the Duvalier family.
But, Mother Theresa did not ask for assistance to the church; she asked for assistance to the poor.
She was not a grandstander, like Bono, who hung with the dignataries to futher his image as an activist rocker.
She was more like Bob Geldorf, who refused to pander to world leaders, unless he could get concessions for the poor
In 1986, Mother Theresa visited Ethiopia at the height of the Ethiopian Famine.She did not go to the Addis Hilton to hang with the NY Times journalists. She spent her time at the feeding centers set up by the Missionaries of Charity.
Mengistu Haile Mariam, the communist dictator of Ethiopia tracked her down and took her for a ride through Addis. When they were passing the Imperial Palce of Haile Selassie, she asked what the building was.
Mengistu explained that it had been the palace of Haile Selassie and that it was now the people's palace. Mother Theresa turned and stated that it would be a wonderful hospital for dying children. Mengistu was blown away.
I had the privillege of working with Mother Theresa and the Missionaries of Charity in Rwanda, Tanzania and Ethiopia.
I seriously doubt that Christopher Hitchens has ever seen or experienced the conditions Mother Theresa embodied.
Her reaction to the air craft carrier would be to turn it into a health facility for juvenile aids. And yes, she advocated against condoms since she truly believed all children were a gift from God.
The Catholic Church is filled with pedophiles, dictators and father rapers. Mother Theresa, however, used the church, and dedicated her life to the victims of the church and the modern world.
9/11 murdered irony.
Ironic, isn't it?
The use of a big aircraft carrier in memorializing her does seem ironic.
Or is it?
Don't you find it odd how much the powerful and especially reactionary right-wing Catholics like my family liked mother Teresa - in contrast to, say, Archishop Romero, the numerous martyred nuns and Catholic workers in El Salvador, the thousands of martyrs in Colombia - plus still-living saints like Fr. Miguel D'Escoto, Bishop Carlos Belo (E. Timor); bishop Desmond Tutu, (albeit Anglican, not Catholic). Weren't they also helping the poor? Oh wait... while helping the poor, they also questioned why there were so many poor, and encouraged the poor themselves to take matters into their hands and do something about it.
They have or or will, die in relative obscurity or under heaps of criticism.
Did Mother Theresa even speak out against war? Hell, considering all the virtuous, ticket-to-heaven-suffering that war causes, she probably rather liked war.
After reading some of the real history, I realized that indeed Mother Theresa is not the hero that the mythology makes her out to be. I have no big objection to the values expressed by the author of this piece. But I just think, again, that a mythology has been built around Mother Theresa which is contradicted by a rather unsavory history. Check out this provocative article by Michael Parenti.
http://michaelparenti.org/motherteresa.html
I just finished arguing with some Dalai Lama-bashers on a different story:
http://www.commondreams.org/further/2010/07/06-4
There too, someone had posted some critique of Dalai Lama by Micahel Parenti, and I had posted excerpts from a rebuttal - that clearly showed that Parenti had relied on highly questionable sources for his essay:
"A Lie Repeated - The Far Left’s Flawed History of Tibet"
http://studentsforafreetibet.org/article.php?id=425
Here too, someone has posted a link to some Parenti article on Mother Teresa. And guess what? The primary sources listed in that article are Christopher Hitchens and an Indian doctor working in the UK - both of whom I find less than objective, and with clearly agendas of their own.
I am NOT an apologist for the Catholic church - in fact, that would be THE WORST insult that someone could throw at me. And I couldn't care less if she is a saint or not - because I think the whole concept of "beatification" is idiotic and presumptuous, not to mention manipulative. But I don't look at Mother Teresa as a Catholic nun alone - something that seems to be the problem with Micharel Parenti and Christopher Hitchens. These guys obviously could not get beyond their pet biases and hatreds in this case.
The Indian doctor, Aroup Chatterjee, also seems to be having his own axe to grind. His biggest peeve seems to be that Mother Teresa has "unfairly damaged the reputation of the city of Kolkata (Calcutta)". That is understandable, because "Chatterjees" are Bengalis, and Calcutta is the capital of Bengali pride. It is also literally the capital of the state called "West Bengal" in India. It is one of the two states in India that consistently elects communist governments to the state assembly. In other words, Calcutta is a communist bastion within India. But that doesn't automatically make Bengalis socialist or egalitarian by any stretch of the imagination. To this day, the caste system is alive and well there - as in the rest of India. To be sure, that region has produced some great thinkers and great leaders dating back to the freedom movement against the British. And it is my impression - based on several interactions with Bengali people - that they are immensely proud of their identity. However, the fact also remains that Calcutta is also a city with lots and lots of poor and destitute people - people who have obviously been neglected by the state. Despite having had communist governments for decades, Calcutta was the LAST big city in India to get rid of hand-rickshaws - long after other states had replaced them first with cycle rickshaws and later with other automobiles. I consider this as an example of the callousness of the state government that claims to be communist.
I have a strong suspicion that this guy Aroup Chatterjee was primarily provoked due to his Bengali pride, and possibly due to Marxist sympathies. Provoked enough into writing a book - and to this day that seems to be his only claim to fame.
There are also many religious bigots in India who dislike Mother Teresa for their own reasons. Mother Teresa was by no means perfect, and I wish she had been more flexible with her views and that she had made use of more professional expertise in the running of her institutions. But the fact remains that there was a need to attend to people who were suffering, who were otherwise neglected by those around them - for whatever reason. It's the neglect by society that needs to be addressed.
I agree that the lives of people in public life deserve to be scrutinized. But it is becoming a little tiresome that so much of this scrutiny is driven by ideology - the same ideology that obviously seems to blind people to other atrocities elsewhere, over the years and decades.
Alcyon, i shall only say this much, because you have made very thoughtful points here.
A woman who denies people access to condoms and claims to care about those with AIDS is no humanitarian in my book. She was, in fact, creating her own clientelle. To me it is like being a heroine dealer while creating drug rehab clinics.
readytotransform, picture this: she was basically a person with strong religious beliefs when she started out. She did not start out to be famous, and I'm not at all convinced that the she lived a life of luxury even after becoming famous. From what I heard, she continued with a rigorous routine, physically pushing herself to the max. The fact remains that from the beginning, she was attending to people - the sick and the dying - who were left uncared for by a society that was not so rich, not so egalitarian, and somewhat callous too - when it came to taking care of its weaker members. And that continues even to THIS day. I want to ask the rich, educated people in India and those outside who get all worked up - what have they done to take care of the weaker and poorer members of their society? So, there is a need for care, and she set out to provide that care. It so happened that her organization grew big.
Also keep in mind that though she was a Catholic nun, she was not part of the hierarchy in any sense. It's true she did not give up her faith, or some of her views clearly emanating from her faith. I guess she did not have enough time or the inclination to check out other religious or spiritual ideas that might have provided her with a flexible world-view. That is really too bad, because she was already in India, and there is so much variety to choose from there. So, are you ready to disregard and discard her entire life's work and the work of others who were touched by her sincerity and who in turn decided to dedicate their own life to service - just because she held some ideas arising from her religious beliefs? Gandhi too held some beliefs and convictions which some may find odd. But to disregard someone's entire life's work just because we disagree with some of their beliefs?
Like I said, I wish Mother Teresa had used more professional expertise in her later years to run her institutions. Or better yet, she could have spent most of her life to fund-raising and creating awareness and let professionally trained people to do the caring of the sick and the dying. In fact, I wish more people who have the resources would decide to share what they have, WITHOUT any religion being involved at all. Or work to reform the society that lets people to suffer uncared for in the first place. This is especially true in India, the land of Gandhi, where there are literally millions and millions of people living in miserable conditions, while those with the means continue their pursuit of the American dream.
I cannot imagine that MT did all this work in order to get saint-hood or some such stupid title. In fact, there is no evidence that she even cared much for the Catholic church's hierarchy. It is the church that is trying to use her name and fame. Now, that is the real mischief here.
Deleted duplicate post.
Whenever someone justifies an aids patient using condoms to save another life(no life of a child involved) the right wing Catholics say the ends do not justify the means. When Sr. McBride was excommunicated for saving a woman's life in the only way possible by terminating her pregnancy right wing Catholics say the ends do not justify the means. When there is poverty and wars due to overpopulation and women are dying because they do not have access to prenatal care, sex education, contraception, abortions, treatments for venerable disease, or reproductive health care,the right wing Catholics say the ends do not justify the means and protest Reproductive Health Clinics. But when Mother Teresa befriends corrupt dictators and U.S. business men, to get money for her charity, then the right wingers say the ends justify the means. I love John Dear for his work for justice and peace and MT may have told him she was against war but I never heard her denounce war publicly. That would decrease donations to her charity and the end justifies the means. Where is the Catholic Hierarchy's comment on this topic? They do not denounce war either because it might decrease donations to the church. The Vatican needs all the money it can get to pay it's victim's law suits. The end justifies the means.
This is horrible but I like our military exhibits. So much money spent, nice to finally see a finished product. Of course, you could argue that the finished product is actually a film at the bottom of a bomb crater. I actually think its possible to project oneself into both realities. Even the most die-hard of MIC defenders accepts at face value that peace should be our goal.
But, we need to cut the MIC in half, and we need more in our society that promotes actual peace. And the idea that Mother Teresa should be associated with the USS Intrepid is abominable. It should be protested by everyone, not least the soldiers who understand the true mission of the military.
Mother Teresa loved the sensation being compassionate brought her...She sought out suffering to obtain that pleasurable sensation. Phillip Adams (Austraian) interviewed her :
P.A. "Mother Teresa, why did God allow suffering?"
M.T. "So that there may be compassion."
Take from that what you will.. I do not like the sensation of feeling compassionate bring me... it means that someone is suffering.
And what did Mother Teresa say about Bhopal? Dow? "Forgive."
MT was a media hound who always went first class, on money provided by right wing millionaires. She and her minions do nothing for the poor.
I would suggest to Father Dear that his admiration for Mother Teresa is much less than universal.
Very true. I usually like Fr. Dears commentaries. Owtwardly, the idea of a humanitarian worker being honored by the military is vile. But in this case, once the question: "but why are they honoring this particular humnitarian worker?" is asked, the whole story peels apart like an onion.
from MT's diary: "People think my faith, my hope and my love are overflowing and that my intimacy with God and union with his will fill my heart. If only they knew."
Please do not use military weaponry to honor Mother Teresa!
Start a universal program to allow and promote the use of condoms in third world countries in the name of humanity.
Indeed, Chuck. And she will be turning even more so in her proverbial grave.
Regardless of the reality, for many people the name, "Mother Teresa," will always be associated with the image of a selfless person helping the poor and she will remain a symbol of compassion.
To commemorate her life by shining her colors on an aircraft-carrier museum is truly bizarre, but very fitting for a society addicted to war.
I agree with this comment. I imagine most if not all of the others who have commented with criticisms of the real Mother Theresa would agree as well.
While I do not have a high opinion of MT, people who do hold her in high regard usually do so because of a belief (though incorrect) that she defended the interests of the poor, peace, etc.
I must say, i appreciate your sincerity and magnanamous spirit, bradj2424...However, false mythologies are the core of what creates a schizophrenic society.
Perhaps, domisol, it is even more proundly bizarre, in that it may actually be fitting, when considering the the deeper reality here.