Calcutta, India AP by Chandra Banerjee - September 6, 2001 - The Tampa Tribune - Mother Teresa had an exorcism performed on her while hospitalized in 1997, the Archbishop of Calcutta said Wednesday.

The disclosure by Archbishop Henry D'Souza came as hundreds of people in this eastern Indian city paid homage to the renowned care giver on the fourth anniversary of her death.

The Rev. Richard McBrien, a Notre Dame theology professor, called the exorcism and the archbishop's explanation for it "bizarre."

D'Souza said the exorcism would not affect the nun's candidacy for sainthood. "No way. Mother was not possessed... it did not hurt her sanctity," D'Souza said. He said the need for the exorcism was a sign of her human side.

"Human dimension in a saint is quite normal," he said. He said the exorcism took place in a hospital where the nun was admitted because of heart trouble before her death on Sept.5, 1997, at age 87.

The doctor treating Mother Teresa reported that she was having trouble sleeping, he said. "There was no medical reason for that," the archbishop said."It struck me that there could be some evil spirit which was trying to disturb her." He said he asked - with the nun's consent - for a priest in one of the churches to perform an exorcism.

Along with the priest, Mother Teresa participated in a "prayer of protection: and "slept peacefully after that," he said. Catholic experts said it would be highly unusual for Mother Teresa to have undergone an exorcism. McBrien, who teaches at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind. said exorcism is used only when the person is thought to be possessed by the devil.

"I cannot believe they would have allowed that to happen," McBrien said. "They could have performed the rite of the anointing of the sick. That's one of the sacraments. Exorcisms aren't sacraments."

For more information click on this URL: http://www.albanian.com/main/culture/famous/teresa.html

Albanians want Mother Teresa to be buried in her homeland: Kosovo. For more information click on URL:

http://archive.nandotimes.com/newsroom/nt/906homeland.html

25 percent of the Albanian population is Roman Catholic. For more information click on URL:

http://www.srpska-mreza.com/ddj/Kosovo/articles/8Myths.html

 

Mother Teresa Approaches New York Mayor On Parking Issue

NEW YORK (CWN) JUNE 24, 1997- Mother Teresa approached New York Mayor Rudolph Guiliani on Monday, asking the Catholic politician to make more street parking permits available for nuns of her order in the city.

During their private meeting, Guiliani said the 86-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winning nun told him that nuns drive a priest from their South Bronx convent to a chapel in the Garment District in Manhattan every day to celebrate Mass but often can't find a place to park.

Guiliani, who has had a public battle with the United Nations over diplomats who illegally park and ignore tickets, told reporters: "I would give Mother Teresa anything she wanted. She wants parking spaces, she gets parking spaces." In contrast to the diplomats, he added: "Mother Teresa does not get tickets."

The Mother of All Myths

 

Chapter 1 - She rushes in to places where we would never go

Mother Teresa herself was far too busy for such mundane happenings in Calcutta, for the United States was preparing for presidential elections, and in May 1996, she again found herself in Washington D.C. On 1 June 1996, she met the  Republican candidate Bob Dole (the US Catholics' consensus candidate) to exhort him to run the election on an extreme anti-abortion platform. The intimate details of this private (but no doubt political) meeting have not been made public, but Mr Dole found the living saint "inspirational" and in possession of  "a good sense of humour", and of  "not a bad business card".  Mother Teresa gave Mr Dole, his wife Elizabeth, and his daughter Robin "miraculous medals", and also a card..

Click here for the full chapter 1

 

Chapter 2 - Fictions of Glory

Shortly after her Nobel, she told her friend and biographer Kathryn Spink: "In Calcutta alone we cook for 7000 people everyday and if one day we do not cook they do not eat".3 This was a voracious claim -- at the time the Missionary of Charity kitchens cooked for at the most 500 people a day, and that included their vast army of nuns, novices and Brothers, most of whom do not have any charitable function. The "7000 people" story was part of a fairly lengthy parable, similar to the one with "loaves and fishes" of Jesus. Mother retold it numerous times, in various parts of the world, but never in Calcutta itself. Almost certainly, it will be invoked as a "miracle" during her beatification process.

 

Click here for the full chapter 2

 

Chapter 10 - The Politics of Mother Teresa

Having given up on contraception and abortion in India, Mother chose instead to concentrate her political brief on Catholicism. Although her comment "I help Hindus to become better Hindus, Muslims better Muslims ...[etc.]" is regularly vaunted by the media, it is well known to those close to her that she had an (entirely understandable) sense of unfulfilment owing to the utter lack of impact Catholicism had made in India during her lifetime.

 

Click here for the full chapter 10