Neither Paul nor Cephas
McCarthy, Abigail
Of several minds: Abigail McCarthy NEITHER PAUL NOR CEPHAS DIVISION OVER MOTHER TERESA IN THIS WHICH may well be the end of times, when our leaders discuss limited nuclear war (as if such a thing...
...Activists have criticized contemplatives...
...But the question may legitimately be raised as to whether Mother Teresa's way is not being presented as the better way, even the only way...
...and I of Apollos...
...And her way of living out that affirmation has been colorful and draniatic...
...And the world has suffered...
...The question is - how be a Christian now...
...Let the saints do it, they are saying...
...But since Mother Teresa is a human being living within the limits of her own history and ours, and since she is often under pressure by the press, she sometimes is called to comment on things beyond her wisdom...
...It's highly unlikely that we will get back to choosing bishops that way but we do seem to be getting back to that way of deciding who is or is not a saint...
...But the real problem in the choosing of only one way or another is that those who do so are refusing to be whole, refusing to be totally informed about the world we live in, refusing to take personal responsibility...
...It is worth noting, however, that the dissenting voices - some of them rather churlish - do not so much attack Mother Teresa herself...
...Mother Teresa is not given to such analysis...
...it is necessary to pursue world justice...
...The elaborate process of canonization which has evolved through the centuries often presents us with models of lives lived in situations which no longer exist...
...They have been doing it ever since Paul the apostle wrote in anguish to the Corinthians who were riven by contention...
...And it is to invite the wrath of the devoted...
...It is just that it is an unfortunate fact of human nature that people do...
...Every-bne seemed to join the chorus, two popes, the curmudgeonly born-again Christian, Malcolm Muggeridge, William Buckley, Barbara Walters, thirdworld conferences, the Nobel Peace Committee...
...The reports of Mother Teresa's were spread by a world-wide communications system...
...And approval and fame were almost instantaneous...
...We have always known in a vague way of those others...
...That is not her mission...
...To say this is painful for a writer who finds Mother Teresa lovable and admirable...
...If, in the simplest sense, a saint is someone raised up to bear witness and whose way of life is to be emulated, this makes sense...
...He could, of course, but the effect would not be very far-reaching...
...Of several minds: Abigail McCarthy NEITHER PAUL NOR CEPHAS DIVISION OVER MOTHER TERESA IN THIS WHICH may well be the end of times, when our leaders discuss limited nuclear war (as if such a thing were possible), surely Christians should be speaking to the world with one clear voice...
...When she and the sisters who followed her donned white, blue-bordered saris and went out into the streets of one of the world's most teeming cities to gather the dying from the streets, they appealed powerfully to the imagination...
...But in Mother Teresa charity has a face...
...There was a time when bishops and saints were made so by acclamation and popular accord...
...Almost in passing, he commented on what an Indian bishop had said to him, "Could you not tell your people of all the others working here, priests and sisters doing just as good work, people just as self-sacrificing, but who are hidden and unknown...
...Reports of unusual holiness among the early Christians spread by word of mouth...
...Abigail McCarthy Abigail McCarthy...
...The controversy this past summer about Mother Teresa of Calcutta is a glaring example...
...Is Christ divided, he asked them angrily...
...She symbolizes the ideal...
...and I of Cephas...
...There is, of course, no need to take sides...
...Instead we seem to be having at each other in absurd division...
...It was probably inevitable that dissenting voices would eventually be raised...
...I heard a pastor who had carried his parishioners' contribution for Mother Teresa (some tens of thousands of dollars) to India tell of his journey...
...Mother Teresa implying criticism of other women who seek to wrestle with the system which condemns millions to lifelong wretchedness is another...
...Mother Teresa performing luminous acts of personal charity is one thing...
...Through the media Mother Teresa became known worldwide in a way that seemed almost mysterious and magical...
...Our society demands unremitting analysis if Christians are to redeem it...
...It is not enough to support the saintly in the corporal works of mercy...
...Moreover there is implicit in her way of doing things the old and comforting teaching - not everyone is called to heroic virtue...
...Through the centuries the so-called saintly and their adherents have contended with each other...
...What is asked of most of us is prayer and support...
...Therefore, it is begging the question to characterize those who say that Mother Teresa's is not the only way - as one of her defenders has - as people who are in love with "grand solutions...
...scholars have criticized missionaries...
...Mother Teresa succoring the dying and taking in orphans in India is one thing, Mother Teresa defending a tyrannical Indira Gandhi is another...
...One can more or less dismiss the snide attacks of television personalities and others whose only criterion is whether someone prominent in the churches supports abortion or not...
...Christ divided cannot heal it...
...And her strong worn face - surely the way a saint should look - her message of love, her adherence to the traditional in prayer and rule were comforting in a time of unprecedented change...
...But not to say it is to be false to an equally admirable woman - Barbara Ward, dying of cancer and using her last strength to try to explain (in a pamphlet written for the English Catholic Bishops' Conference) the issues involved in redressing the economic imbalance between rich and poor nations...
...The quarrel is with the way she is presented...
...They were saying, he had heard - "I am of Paul...
...I suppose the simplest explanation for the great popularity of Mother Teresa is that, in a world of structures and technology in which no one person seems to matter very much, she has reaffirmed the preciousness of each human life...
...Nor should she be...
...and I of Christ...
Vol. 108 • September 1981 • No. 17
