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Mother Teresa Of Calcutta: Was She A Saint Or Mentally Ill?

By Daniel Ketchum
Published on: 07:56 PST, Sep 5, 2016

The recent elevation of Mother Teresa to sainthood by the Catholic Church is seen as a cause for celebration among many of her supporters and most Catholics in general. Her designation as a saint is intended by the church to recognize her life as highly spiritual and meaningful in a way that transcends ordinary secular definitions of goodness and generosity.

However, Mother Teresa, now St. Teresa, was not without her critics. While we know she suffered from depression, there are reasons to think she might have had a more serious mental illness.

Taken at face value, Mother Teresa set up hundreds of establishments around the world that were supposedly dedicated to assisting the poor. But many have questioned whether the Missionaries of Charity she founded actually helped the poor in any meaningful way.

Some former volunteers who worked with Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity reported that the poor who came to these missions received incredibly substandard care. To these critics, it often seemed as though the workers were more concerned with commiserating with the poor and praying for them than with actually helping them in any tangible way.

Charity worker Mother Teresa (1910-1997), seen in her hospital. [Photo by Mark Edwards/Keystone Features/Getty Images]

Catholicism and many other faiths have a tradition of honoring or even admiring “noble suffering.” But in the case of Mother Teresa, this admiration for noble suffering seems to of been projected onto others. So instead of attempting to solve the problems the poor were facing, Mother Teresa appears to have been far more interested in poverty itself and its spiritual meaning.

This is one of the reasons that the city of Calcutta and its government were far less enthusiastic about Mother Teresa than were people outside of India. In their view, Mother Teresa took advantage of the poor in their city for her own purposes. The fact that sums of money – millions of dollars – that were donated to her organization seem to have never made their way to the poor themselves only makes the Missionaries of Charity organization all the more suspect.

If all of this money was not being funneled to the poor and was instead going into the coffers of the Catholic Church, it throws Mother Teresa and her sainthood into a very different light. But assuming that the Missionaries of Charity wasn’t just a means for the Catholic Church to gather additional funds, what precisely was it that did motivate Mother Teresa?

As pointed out by the Baltimore Sun, Mother Teresa is acknowledged to have suffered from severe bouts of depression for many years. In fact, such melancholy and existential angst are considered part and parcel of being a saint. But looking at it from a secular perspective, it’s not uncommon for people who have one mental disorder to also suffer from another.

Given the fact that Mother Teresa seemed to admire suffering in others and also enjoyed tremendous respect for her activities with the poor, it’s not inconceivable that she may have suffered from a form of Munchausen by Proxy, or MbP. MbP usually affects young mothers and is a condition in which they, through neglect or actual abuse, create medical conditions in their children so they can garner attention for themselves.

As CNN reports, some of those Mother Teresa cared for tended to view her literally as a “mother figure.” If she thought of herself in the same way – even subconsciously – then despite being a nun she would have still have had “children.” These children, serving as a substitute for biological children, could then be impacted by Mother Teresa’s actions if she did suffer from MbP.

First lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, right, looks on as John Cardinal Hickey of Washington talks to Mother Teresa. [Photo by Greg Gibson/AP Images]

It’s important to keep in mind that Munchausen by Proxy is not the same thing as sadism or intentionally taking pleasure in the suffering of others. MbP is a genuine psychological condition in which the individual afflicted with it is insecure, depressed and desperately in need of attention and praise. Given that Mother Teresa is no longer with us, it’s likely we will never know for sure whether she suffered from a form of MbP or not.

[Photo by Eddie Adams/AP Images File]

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