Talk:Public image of Mother Teresa/Archive 1

Archive 1

[Untitled]

Moved from Mother Teresa. -Frazzydee|✍ 00:42, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Moved back, see my reasoning on Talk:Mother Teresa. Splitting an article based on POV is a bad idea, IMO. Bryan 02:06, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I've restored the article and linked it to the Mother Teresa article. A second article can go into much more detail about criticism without making the main article over long. I've now got a long job ensuring material isn't duplicated, I'll try to get that done within a week. Proxima Centauri (talk) 09:26, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

I considered moving this to my sandbox but decided against for the following reasons:-

1. This looks like an earlier version of the criticism section in the main article, though it’s generally inferior there is quite a bit of information that is no longer in the main article and readers may like to read that information.
2. If I move this to my sandbox few ordinary Wikipedian will notice it there but some Roman Catholics in Seminaries etc. with professional skills defending their religion will certainly notice it. Later when I return the finished article to main space potential defenders won’t have noticed it but I fear an onslaught from experienced, capable Roman Catholics, probably mostly male but possibly female as well.

If other Wikipedians disagree please tell me. Proxima Centauri (talk) 11:58, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Transparency section

Text says: "A report in German magazine Stern, revealed that in 1991 only seven percent of the donations received at Missionaries of Charity were used for charity." Truer (from the cited source) would be: A 2010 Forbes.com article cites an undated Stern magazine article as saying that 'in 1991 only seven percent of the donation received at Missionaries of Charity was used for charity'.

So it is a quote of a quote. We don't get to see the Stern article, so we don't get the context, scope, time period, or evidence on which the original article was based, and we do not know the author, date, or title of the Stern article (so we do not know, for example, that the author was NPOV). And did the original article reveal that only 7 percent..., or claim it? Does the reveal word come from Forbes, or Stern? 'claimed' has the element of doubt, 'revealed' is like exposing some undeniable truth - but without the original article and the methodology, time span, evidence, scope, etc that it was based on, we cannot know which.

Note that Wikipedia policy is that exceptional claims require exceptional sources, i.e. any exceptional claim requires multiple high-quality sources. The 7% claim is exceptional (for any charity to use only that much of its income for charitable work is exceptional), so one quote-of-a-quote will not do as a suitable source.

I suggest it needs a better source cited, or deleting.

The title of the section also is wrong. The quote is about allocation of funds, not transparency.

Jinlye (talk) 22:40, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

I agree, for those and other reasons. Fundamentally, the Stern point needs deleting because it is contrary to wiki-principles to promote disinformation and misinformation (the project exists to disseminate true and verifiable information).

The "criticism" in the Stern article relates to the year 1991: it is said that only 7% of donations made to the Missionaries of Charity in England in 1991 were expended in 1991. But what is the precise objection? All charities in England and Wales are obliged to file annual accounts with the Charity Commission, and equivalent obligations no doubt apply in most civilised countries. There is no obligation upon a charity to expend any of its income in any given year (undoubtedly, if a charity never ever spent any of its money it could be accused of violating its charitable purposes - but that is far from the claim in Stern). And why did Stern, in 1998, only publish the 1991 figures? Presumably because the figures from the intervening years were not so striking. In any case, it is entirely normal for an English charity to refrain from large expenditure from time to time. Consider these other English charities (figures taken from the online data base on the Charity Commission's website, rounded to nearest thousand):-

• Daft as a brush Cancer Patient Care: registered as a charity (under a different name) in 1989, in its financial year ending 2010 its income was £2.6m and its expenditure was £78,000 (3%); over a 5-year period to 2012, its total expenditure was 15% of its £3.67m gross income.
• Pargiter Trust (relief of the elderly): reg. Feb. 2006, in 2010 its income was over £10m of which it spent £7,627 (0.7%); over the same 5-year period it spent altogether 7.4% of its gross income.
• International ECO Fund: reg. July 2006, in 2010 its income was £2.3m of which it spent £8,000 (0.35%); over the 5-year period 2009-2013 its total expenditure was 2.35% of its gross income of £4.47m.
• The South Street Green Room Foundation: reg. August 2007 (such charitable purposes as the trustees in their absolute discretion think fit - area of activity, England and India), received £13.6m in 2010 of which it spent £28,000 (2%); over the 5-year period 2008-2012 it spent 12.6% of its gross income of £13.68m.
• BHP Billiton Sustainable Communities: reg. August 2009 (includes disaster relief and donations to other charities in countries where BHP Billiton conducts and manages its mining activities), in 2010 it spent 1.4% of its £93m income in that year; in the first three years of its existence it spent 20% of gross income of £154m.

Quite obviously, different factors are in play here - newly-established charities, exceptionally large donations in one particular year, and so on - but it would be easy to pick one year for each of these charities and make a far more impressive "criticism" than Stern attempted against Mother Teresa and her Order.

A whole other issue attaches to the cost of fund-raising. To take a case at random, the Florence Nightingale Hospice Charity was registered in June 2007. In the 5-year period 2009 to 2013 its annual income fluctuated between £1.3m and £1.6m, which it mostly spent year by year (although in each year a surplus was retained). The more significant fact is that in 2012 the hospice charity spent £343,000 on fund-raising activities to stimulate "voluntary income" which realised a gross £737,000 (in 2013 the comparables are £250,000 and £502,000). The term of art "voluntary income" excludes profit from trading activities and (in this specific case) the proceeds of a lottery. The bigger the charity the bigger the expenses, but the outlay still averages between 1/3 and 1/2 of the total voluntary receipts every year. As to that, see figures from one of the biggest UK charities, Macmillan Cancer Support: in 2012 it spent £50m in order to raise a gross "voluntary income" of £152m (of which the balance was spent on its charitable activities). The Missionaries of Charity never spend a penny on raising funds. Ridiculus mus (talk) 12:19, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

Proposal to shorten article by removing purely religious criticism material

The section devoted to Mother Teresa's opposition to abortion and contraception in strict fidelity to her religion is senseless. She was not just a known Catholic but a nun! The same criticism could be made against any Catholic who actually takes the religion seriously. Would such be appropriate for a "Criticism of Bing Crosby" article?

These criticisms might well be appropriate in a "Criticism of Catholicism" article, but not in one singling out one particular member of the faith.

To me, this is a "no brainier" and I will eliminate this section if after a reasonable period of time no one objects or if a consensus can otherwise be achieved. Please note that my comments here are strictly objective and take no position on the morality of abortion or contraception. I'm simply stating that to claim that criticism of a devout Catholic for holding Catholic theological positions Is noteworthy is just plain absurd.

Thank you.HistoryBuff14 (talk) 22:51, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

The same argument (which I endorse for the reasons given) applies with equal force to the criticism of medical care at the House of the Dying in 1994 since the attitude to analgesics (essentially a criticism of the lack of opiates) reflected standard practice throughout India - especially in West Bengal (where Calcutta is).

With reference to India generally, see, e.g., Rajagopal MR and and Joranson DE, "India: Opioid availability - An update", The Journal of Pain Symptom Management, Vol. 33 (2007) 615-622, passim. As late as 2001, researchers could write that "pain relief is a new notion in [India]", and "palliative care training has been available only since 1997" - Rajagopal MR, Joranson DE, and Gilson AM (2001), "Medical use, misuse and diversion of opioids in India", The Lancet, Vol. 358, July 14, 2001, pp. 139-143 at p.139.

With reference to West Bengal specifically, it was only in 2012 that the state government finally amended the applicable regulations simplifying "the process of possession, transport, purchase, sale and import of inter-state of morphine or any preparation containing morphine by 'Recognized Medical Institution'." See: International Association for Hospice & Palliative Care, Newsletter, 2012 Vol. 13, No. 12 (December); and for a brief regulatory overview for the previous year, see M.R. Rajagopal interview with the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, April, 2011 India: The principle of balance to make opioids accessible for palliative care.

Even in the USA in 2000 it was reported (C Macpherson, "Undertreating pain violates ethical principles", Journal of Medical Ethics, Vol. 35, No. 10 (October 2009), pp. 603-606) that ". . access to pain relief is limited by socioeconomics, politics, culture and gender. Additionally, many physicians have taboos against opioids, and unduly restrictive regulations limit their prescription for medical use . . access to and standards of palliation vary widely even among prestigious institutions . . In 2000, only 0.3% of primary care physicians in the USA were certified in palliative medicine". Ridiculus mus (talk) 05:06, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for your support on the "Stance on Abortion" section. If no significant contrary discussion ensues, I shall delete the section entirely in a week.

Regarding your most interesting comments on Mother Teresa's order's lack of strong analgesics in treating patients, you make a very strong case in defense of the order. However, I feel the criticism is valid (though not necessarily justified) as it forms such an integral part of Christopher Hitchens's polemic regarding Mother Teresa, and he was probably her best known critic.

In the case of abortion, I do not feel that recounting her views on abortion within the article are valid for the reasons stated and therefore have no place in the article. The article is not a debate on abortion and Wikipedia already has such an article. Her critics make a valid point regarding her views on palliative care though, as I said, not necessarily a justified one, and I think you make an excellent case refuting such criticism. Although I cannot support expunging such criticism from the article, I would encourage you to incorporate (in a summarized form) within the article your material as written here for the sake of pointing out that valid opinions refuting such criticism can and are made. A "Criticism of..." article should include valid rebuttals as well.

Thank you very much for your input which is most appreciated.HistoryBuff14 (talk) 17:16, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

The first thing that strikes me is that the section on abortion lacks verifiable sources and appears to be based on a weaving of opinion with synthesis. If there exists noteworthy coverage of critics' reactions to her position on abortion, and if such coverage could reconcile it with her field methods or could at least relate it to her as a lightning rod for the Catholic church, then this could remain as a worthwhile section. Otherwise, it serves only as a non-substantive proxy to Catholic Church and abortion and should probably go. A simple 'see also' for that article might suffice. —Waldhorn (talk) 20:28, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

Irrational and Bogus article

First, this entire article should be in the main article (if it is to be anywhere at all).

Given that it is a separate article, it still does not warrant off topic attacks. Specifically, the article devotes itself to the zealous followers (Fanboys) of Mother Theresa. But the article is not TITLED "Criticism of Fanboys of Mother Teresa". Re-title it or stick to allegations of wrongdoing by Mother Teresa.

Please return this article to NPOV by eliminating unsubstantiated allegations and name calling. If you don't like Mother Teresa, that's your right; just don't junk up Wikipedia. Here's but one example where in fact, no "criticism of Mother Teresa" is made. Even if this were an article about Mother Teresa's Fanboys, there is NO DATA PRESENTED supporting the claim that Fanboys aren't aware of the "claims about (her)".

"Hitchens said Mother Teresa is widely and falsely seen as selflessly devoted to serving mankind and that people fail to examine claims about Mother Teresa because she is considered holy"

Wikipedia says let the facts speak for themselves. Where are any facts presented, other than we learn about the opinion of Christopher Hitchens - which would be ok in an article about "Opinions of Christopher Hitchens". N0w8st8s (talk) 10:47, 13 June 2013 (UTC)n0w8st8s

If it is to be anywhere at all? Yeah, you are exactly the kind of objective voice we should be listening to in regards to how this article should be edited. And if one were to remove criticisms that had, at their base, someone's opinion, we would have to gut the criticism sections of virtually every public figure on this site. Most criticisms contain at their heart someone's opinion of a particular individual's actions. Just because that statement contains an opinion from Hitchens, doesn't it make it any less valid of a point. The views of prominent journalists and writers are pertinent to this entry. That you don't like statements that are unflattering in regards to Mother Teresa doesn't change that fact.74.138.45.132 (talk) 20:23, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

Indeed, and some statements rebound on those who make them. There is surely room somewhere in this article for antidotes such as this comment in a NYT book review:- "Spink, the author of previous books on Mother Teresa, gently acknowledges and plausibly rebuts criticisms from people 'uncomfortable with goodness, skeptical of simplicity'." Yup, that does it (even though Hitchens isn't named). Will do. Ridiculus mus (talk) 09:05, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

Oppose moving or merging this article. The second most prominent critic of Mother Teresa (and the far more carefully documented critic) certainly deserves his own entry. The tone here seems fairly NPOV to me. jackbrown (talk) 14:40, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

I think you'll find that one of the reasons this has it's own article was because the Criticisms section in the main Mother Theresa article began reading like a apologetics section and the length of the defence and reaction to the criticisms presented resulted in a section of disproportionate size.Tarquin Q. Zanzibar (talk) 14:28, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Finances/ donations

These are grave allegations and they require proper corroboration, not off-the-cuff remarks which might simply be recycled stories with no genuine basis in fact. The section identifies three donors. Ideally, the information for each tainted donor should identify the amounts and the dates when they were given, with adequate information about what it was that made the donor "disreputable", including the time from which he were known to be so. I take the three in reverse order.

The Robert Maxwell case :-

(1) No source is given for the allegation that MT received donations from him. The only reference is to a newspaper report giving information about a successful claim against Bank of America which, undoubtedly, was in some sense (they say innocently) involved in Maxwell's depradations.

(2) Hitchens mentions Maxwell and MT on the same page (p. 64), but he says nothing about Maxwell making any donation to MT.

• Conclusion: It is and is likely to remain unsubstantiated. If it is not urgently addressed (I added the cite request yesterday) I shall delete the reference tomorrow if no citation is forthcoming - the seemingly bogus claim has been up far too long as it is (I have tracked back as far as February 2012, where it appears under the section "Questionable relationships").

The Baby Doc Duvalier case :-

(1) As of February 2012 there was no assertion in the wiki-article that MT received donations from Duvalier.

(2) I haven't checked forward to see when the first edit was made introducing it, but the date of the source cited in support - a book review by Philip Delves Broughton originally published in the Financial Times and republished in the LA Times - is 18 September 2011. The phrasing of the first sentence in the wiki-article is copied from the cited source.

(3) Nothing to this effect appears in Hitchens (who would not have overlooked it) and the allegation is wholly innocent of detail. No mention is made of the date or dates of the gifts or of the amounts, nor does Broughton offer a source.

(4) His source, though, is the book he was reviewing : Mother Teresa, CEO: Unexpected Principles for Practical Leadership by Ruma Bose and Louis Faust III, Berrett Koehler Publishers, Inc. SF, 2011. There we read, on page 29 under the cross-heading "The Devil":

Mother Teresa and the Missionaries of Charity accepted money from the notorious Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier, the ruler of Haiti. Baby Doc was driven into exile because of his repressive regime and the brutal treatment of the people of his country

Endnote 5 is attached to the former sentence. The endnotes appear on page 115. I observe, with a shudder, that endnotes 2 and 3 are to wikipedia Missionaries of Charity and Mother Teresa respectively. Endnote 4 is to www.motherteresa.org. None of the websites are cited with an access date. But that is by the by, and this laxity in citing sources is carried over to endnote 5 which cites only Hitchens' book, with no page reference. Hitchens' book not only says nothing about any donations from Baby Doc (or from Mrs Baby, come to that) but nowhere associates MT directly with him either.

• Conclusion: The claim in Mother Teresa CEO is not supported. No doubt it was made in good faith by the authors since they exonerate MT from any taint attaching to it (a point made in the body of the wiki-article), but it was made carelessly nevertheless. The source cited in the wiki-article (Broughton's review) derives from Mother Teresa CEO. The claim in the wiki-article is therefore unsupported. I have already challenged the equivalent claim in Mother Teresa and await some verifiable source, failing which it must be deleted.

The problems with the Keating case have been largely demonstrated in an edit I made to the Criticism section of Mother Teresa and I shall not rehearse them here, save to say that the claim is that MT accepted money knowing it to be the fruit of fraud (strong version), or from a known fraudster (weak version). Neither version has been sustainable since 1999/2000 when all the securities fraud convictions against Keating were overturned. The facts are stated at Charles Keating but (until today, that is) never made it as far as Mother Teresa, Criticism of Mother Teresa, or The Missionary Position.

Short outcome: barring surprises, the section here needs to be deleted or (my preference) re-written as a cautionary tale about how (whether through malice or gullibility) base and unsupported allegations swirling around MT continue to feed on each other. Or how about a new article Unjustified criticisms of Mother Teresa? ^-^ Ridiculus mus (talk) 13:53, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

I think that there are two tacks that an encyclopedia might take. One is as you list above and I don't disagree with the substance of it. I don't think, however, that deletion is warranted. I think re-writing might be in order as the other method is to make note of the fact that the accusations exists: they were made and publicly. To include a review of their veracity and/or applicability is appropriate. This is an analysis, and I think it wholly fair and entirely scholarly. The problem being that deletionistas at WP will tend to see that as 'original research'.... so there's a balance to be drawn. The intro section, you may note, includes a reference to criticism of evangelical endeavors. A sentence of analysis was added making note of the fact that this criticism is fairly widespread over many religions and is not particular to MT. Almost, every missionary who ever tried to comfort the afflicted was accused of evangelizing in some way. Some were even guilty. The point is, the intro notes that the accusation was made. And it notes that it is often made in similar circumstances. That's a fair analysis and summary, I think. So I would say to go ahead and re-write. But be careful to note the accusations and to note where they may be off base but not to fall into polemic TreebeardTheEnt (talk) 22:34, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the measured input. May I remind you that these involve claims of fraud and extortion in which MT is made to seem complicit. Thus it is clearly a case, to my mind, of exceptional claims require exceptional sources. Independently even of that, the Maxwell case raises WP:VERIFY issues, so I see no deletionist issue arising there. Duvalier and Keating differ, and in different ways. Let me review the cases again :-

• (1) There is no in-line ref to a donation by Maxwell leaving it vulnerable to summary deletion as per WP:VERIFY.
• (2) A slightly different problem exists with the Duvalier claim: here we have an in-line ref to a single tertiary source - (i) a review of (ii) a book which erroneously cites (iii) Hitchens' book in support of an assertion not found there. The case falls squarely under exceptional claims etc.. One option would be to note that some people erroneously attribute to Hitchens' book a statement which does not appear there. That point can fairly be made in the distinct article The Missionary Position, but it seems too convoluted to keep it in this precise place (but see below).
• (3) On Keating I agree with you that the criticism has been made - and, indeed, was in some sense justified down until 1996 when the convictions were overturned. I say "in some sense" because there is no hint in any source as to when MT received donations from Keating, but I imagine it was at a time when investors were still piling into Lincoln S&L bonds (the bubble burst in April 1989) - so if they didn't have any suspicions about Keating it is unfair to assume MT must have had any.

A coherent approach needs to be taken across all three articles on this topic of donations and finances. I shall therefore be editing The Missionary Position at some stage, as well as Mother Teresa where I recently received support here for pruning the Criticism section there. As for this article, I believe there is room for a section discussing the proliferation of false and unsubstantiated criticisms of MT, partly based on errors of fact and partly based on nothing, relating to donations (both her sources, and the uses to which she put them). In every case, I shall first put my work up on my user page for comment. I hope you will agree that this is an appropriate way to move the debate forward. I certainly have no plan to be polemical in my editing, but gentle reminders such as yours are always salutary and are taken in good part. Thanks Ridiculus mus (talk) 10:36, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

Why are you censoring the article? It's about criticisms; we know that there are various criticisms and allegations in the public domain, and Wikipedia should report that, it's not the job of Wiki to make arbitrary judgements of the public opinion, nor to hide the fact that these opinions proliferate. You don't even appear to be trying to hide the fact that apologetics, not criticism, is your mission. You may be somewhat more artful in utilising Wiki procedures, but as far as I can see what you are doing still amounts to Wiki vandalism.Tarquin Q. Zanzibar (talk) 14:38, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Relevance of material rebutting criticism of Mother Teresa

Picking up the point made by HistoryBuff14 under the previous topic as to the pertinence of material addressing and even rebutting criticisms in an article such as this, and having regard to the invitation by HistoryBuff14 to work up the material I referenced above, I would just observe that when I made my first edit to this article (diff) on 25 January 2014 it already contained a rebuttal of Fox's view (his being the only sourced criticism). By an edit on 19 February 2014 (diff) I enlarged the scope of this rebuttal (which was generalised) by drawing attention to the specific constraints applicable in India and West Bengal in particular (the point I made above). All this material in rebuttal on the topic of medical care was summarily deleted by an anonymous editor on 8 March 23014 (diff) who also removed all rebuttal material addressing criticism of her association with politicians and financiers.

I had previously sketched on my user page two possible presentations of criticism of Mother Teresa. The first gave an overview of the origins of critical appraisal and categorised the various heads of criticism (most of them unjustified and even spurious in some cases). The second attempted a complete synthesis, including rebuttals, with much of the detailed argument relegated to footnotes.

The determination of other editors to present the article as pure criticism disposed me to conserve my energy. I am very glad that HistoryBuff14 is giving attention to the article and I shall await developments with lively interest. Ridiculus mus (talk) 15:46, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

The existing section on quality of medical care depends almost entirely upon the views expressed by Robin Fox. There is a reference to "other reports documenting inattention to medical care in the order's facilities", but no details are given and no sources offered.

The material attributed to Fox extends beyond what he actually wrote in his Lancet piece, including what pretends to be a quote ("disturbingly lacking"), and the section omits almost everything favourable that Fox wrote about the Home. Quite apart from that structural bias, I note the following errors, additions and misrepresentations:-

(1) To say, as the section does, that Fox "specifically held Mother Teresa responsible for conditions in this home", implies a uniform indictment which Fox's article does not offer.

(2) Treatment of patients:

(a) Fox wrote "There are doctors who call in from time to time but usually the sisters and volunteers (some of whom have medical knowledge) make decisions as best they can". The re-write of this in the section:-

(i) eliminates the occasional presence of doctors;

(ii) converts Fox's positive ("some of whom have medical knowledge") to negative ("some of whom had no medical knowledge");

(iii) deletes the adverb "usually", to make it seem Fox was describing the invariable situation; and

(iv) describes the Home as a "hospice" whereas Fox concludes the Home is "clearly separate from the hospice movement".

(b) The alleged consequence flowing from the lack of a means of discriminating between curables and incurables ("people who could otherwise survive being at risk of dying from infections and lack of treatment") is an editorial supposition absent from Fox's piece.

(3) Fox did not say the Sisters' approach to managing pain was "disturbingly lacking". He wrote that he was "disturbed to learn that the formulary includes no strong analgesics".

(4) Nothing in the sentence beginning "Fox also wrote that needles" and ending "tuberculosis" derives from Fox's piece.

The section is not only a travesty of Fox's piece, but, through the editing out of all context relative to the use of strong analgesics in India, is profoundly unbalanced, merely perpetuating Hitchens' odious and misconceived attack in pages 37-41 of his pamphlet. For comparison, Hitchens' equally odious and ideological attack on Mother Teresa's condemnation of abortion occupies most of pp. 50-59. Ridiculus mus (talk) 16:55, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

@Ridiculus mus: I would encourage you to make the corrections and add the context that you suggest. All criticism must strictly and accurately reflect what the sources state. --Zfish118 (talk) 16:37, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

Though given your rather apparent partisan stance, I would expect any amendments made by you to be removed/corrected pretty quickly. Be mindful that this is not a forum for opinion. Tarquin Q. Zanzibar (talk) 13:31, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

Used as a source

This article is used as a source for http://www.historyandheadlines.com/history-october-17-1979-mother-teresa-wins-nobel-prize-deserve/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.112.201.254 (talk) 04:06, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

Re: removed reference to Legion D'Honneur/Haiti/Duvalier

I just noticed this sentence:

In 1981, Teresa flew to Haiti to accept the Legion d'Honneur from the right-wing dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier, who years later, after his ousting, was found to have stolen millions of dollars from the impoverished country.

was taken out about MT accepting the Legion D'Honneur from the dictator Duvalier (along with a shed load of cash). Was it removed because of the lack of citation? It's here: http://www.economist.com/node/156844 and it also appears in Aroup Chatterjee's book Mother Theresa: The Final Verdict in an expanded form in chapter 9 which i'm happy to put in and reinstate the sentence if there is a consensus. Christopher Hitchens also wrote about in The Missionary Position which shouldn't be difficult to find. Tagging @MagicatthemovieS: Mramoeba (talk) 23:29, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

POV Dispute

Having read this article, what jumps out at me is the large and detailed sections representing criticism against the subject, and the one throwaway line at the very bottom about the rebuttal to said criticism.

In other words, it looks and smells a lot like agenda pushing, even if it's all completely factual, just due to the asymmetric volume of information.

I'm a bit new to wikipedia, but this seems like it's what the neutral point of view policy was meant to address.

Thoughts?

4.53.14.4 (talk) 15:43, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

The article is about criticisms of this public figure, its asymmetric by nature. You are looking for balance where there isn't going to be any.--2606:A000:4504:AC00:41DA:1EF4:C8DE:F5C5 (talk) 17:36, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

As the above user said, the article is called Criticisms of Mother Theresa, not "Debate about whether Mother Theresa was a good person" Air♠Combat_Talk! 08:30, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

The article is indeed called Criticisms of Mother Theresa (and I have no particular objection to that if the length of the main article objectively requires a spin-off, though this one has the whiff of a POV device), but it is not an article about the criticisms, it just consists of the criticisms themselves - perhaps it should be List of criticisms of Mother Theresa. The lead may say that it "examines some of the criticism against her", but there is precious little examination that I can see (and notice the "some" - wink-wink, there are more criticisms that we haven't mentioned). I have looked at a few other ad-hominem "Criticism of..." pages but none of them are anything like this hatchet job. Section 9 is a cynical disgrace. Davidships (talk) 18:03, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

Which ones have you looked at? For example, Criticism of Noam Chomsky is also just a collection of prominent critiques of a famous person and any responses. Admittedly, there aren't as many notable replies here as there, but maybe he and his supporters reply to criticism more often. I

We aren't supposed to do more than the describe the referents. We can't editorialize. Chrisrus (talk) 18:27, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

You cited a poor example as Criticism of Naom Chomsky was deleted in 2011. You must have a persistent eidetic memory that you are recalling from or maybe you mean a different page? 97.85.173.38 (talk) 17:58, 22 September 2016 (UTC)

Well, actually it is a very good example of why POV forks, like this one, would rarely be justified. I appreciate that this one is not a BLP matter, but it suffers from "pile it in" and is very poorly cited. Davidships (talk) 10:12, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

I expanded lede which now summarizes activity and criticism of Mother Teresa. The article is now more balanced. Ktrimi991 (talk) 16:32, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

I'm failing to see what relevance expanding her congregation and the date of her feast day has to the page entitled Criticism of Mother Teresa. A lede is not for information which has no relevance to, and is not expanded, in the body of the article. Have you considered better pages to add this information to, such as page about feast days or the page Mother Teresa? I welcome other editors views and perhaps we can take a consensus view on its relevance here. Mramoeba (talk) 15:15, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

Also tagging a more experienced editor @Continentaleurope: for my comment above. Mramoeba (talk) 05:56, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

• Since the article is about criticism the only thing that needs to be watched is not to turn the article into an attack page, even if the person is now dead. This would be considered not neutral on the main page about her and hence this page serves for unbalanced views - the person in question is controversial and was a subject of religious agenda during the child abuse scandals, and her canonization took a speedy lead (probably for the church to divert the people from the periodic media-reported scandals of the time), that even changed the way how the process itself and her sainthood usually use to be. The article should >>include balance views of her and the people, institutions around her even if it is about her criticism, since most criticism is devoted towards the reaction about her relationship with the rest of the world<< which her real life is/was unknown..wikipedia serves to inform what may not be known, and stricly what can be verified by reliable sources. Therefore "truth is not a democracy, it stands by itself." It is all what is known about the subject irrelevant on which side we know more. Avoid quoting as this may lead to "pick and choose" what to promote.Continentaleurope (talk) 12:08, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

Class reevaluation

This seems a rather lengthy article to be Start class. How does this get re-evaluated? RobP (talk) 23:45, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

Hitchens and Hoxha pseudo-controversy

I think this "controversial people" section needs to be looked at again for NPOV violations. It, of course, comes from the poisoned pen of Christopher Hitchens who had a habit of talking out of both sides of his arse at the same time (Teresa of Calcutta was bad because she visited the communist leader Enver Hoxha's grave and at the very same time was bad because she was associated with the anti-communist Pope John Paul II).

"In Hell's Angel and The Missionary Position, Hitchens leveled criticism at what he perceived to be Mother Teresa's endorsement of the regime of Enver Hoxha in Socialist Albania. She had visited Albania in August 1989, where she was received by Hoxha's widow, Nexhmije, Foreign Minister Reis Malile, Minister of Health, Ahmet Kamberi, the Chairman of the People's Assembly Petro Dode, and other state and party officials. She subsequently laid a bouquet on Hoxha's grave, and placed a wreath on the statue of Mother Albania."

Christopher Hitchens, before becoming a hardcore neoconservative Zionist, was an adherent of Trotskyism, a political sect which is deeply hostile to the anti-revisionist Marxist-Leninist tendency upheld by Enver Hoxha. The section of the article doesn't say why Hoxha is supposed to be bad, other than that Hitchens said so and that is supposed to be enough. This isn't good enough. Any political figure can be considered controversial, from Ghandi, to Churchill, to Reagan, depending on who wants to find it so. Hitchens political sectarianism has more to do with this than anything. So this stuff needs to be looked at again more carefully. Claíomh Solais (talk) 01:06, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

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Baptism of the unwilling

The article already discusses how Teresa both performed, and instructed her staff to perform, secret baptism of dying patients of other religions without the patients' knowledge or consent. I have no problem with the article's inclusion of this deeply immoral action.

However, the article then quotes Simon Leys' wrongheaded and fundamentally flawed defense of the practice. "Either baptism means you go to heaven", Leys argued, "which is good, or there's no effect whatsoever, in which case why would anyone be upset?" This is the same flaw inherent in Pascal's Wager, in that it assumes that either there's the Catholic version of Jehovah, or there's nothing. It completely ignores that other religions may have equal — or greater — validity. In the words of Homer Simpson, "what if we've picked the wrong religion? Every week we're just making God madder and madder."

Leys is dead and cannot learn from his mistakes. We don't need repeat his fatally-flawed argument here: 'yes, Mother Theresa practiced forced conversion, but either it's a good thing or there's no god anyway so why should you care', because it applies equally to all forms of forced conversion, from the Goa Inquisition to the Mortara case to the Orphans' Decree to the Jewish orphans controversy, and if you're going to argue that it doesn't really matter anyway, why don't you say the Shahada right this instant?

Richard Dawkins was sexually molested as a child, but refuses to condemn it, on the grounds that it didn't do him any lasting harm. Would you advocate including Dawkins' statement in the Wikipedia article about child sexual abuse? It's a notable person making a widely publicized comment which would provide balance! DS (talk) 20:48, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

... um, so my point is, we should remove Leys' apologia from the article. DS (talk) 20:49, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

It's been nine days. Anyone? DS (talk) 15:47, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

If nobody objects within the next 24 hours, I'll remove it. DS (talk) 03:01, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

Okay. It's been two weeks since I made this proposal. Nobody has objected or commented. I will therefore comment out Leys' apologia. DS (talk) 17:25, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

Sorry, that's not how WP:NPOV works. It was a prominent defense, made by a major Roman Catholic public intellectual, in an important media organ. Wikipedia editors' own opinions about whether the argument is a good one or not, according to which standards, are WP:Original research. If it's a bad argument, so much the worse for Teresa's reputation, but not everyone might think so. FourViolas (talk) 04:15, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

To answer your challenge, child sexual abuse has been written about in shelves full of scholarly books; a single celebrity's personal feelings about an event in his life are UNDUE. Teresa's legacy has been much more lightly discussed, so that every in-depth argument made by a public intellectual in an important media organ is worth mentioning. The actual merit of the argument, which is what you challenge in your original justification for removal above ("wrongheaded and fundamentally flawed"), is none of our business per WP:NPOV: Keep in mind that, in determining proper weight, we consider a viewpoint's prevalence in reliable sources, not its prevalence among Wikipedia editors. FourViolas (talk) 02:30, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

Merge proposal

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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It is suggested that the article should be merged with Mother Teresa#Criticism as it has no significance without main page. Manupriy Ahluwalia (talk) 13:46, 10 March 2019 (UTC)

• No - - Why? That's not a policy based rationale, at all. This passes GNG in its own accord and an upmerge is nonfeasible for reasons of size. ∯WBG^converse 15:07, 10 March 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose. This is standalone article, passes WP:GNG and significant in its own right. That is how articles work, we follow policy that has consensus rather than personal preference. Mramoeba (talk) 16:36, 10 March 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose. It was there in the first place, and moved out. I expect it would only get moved out again, if only for size. Mannanan51 (talk) 17:07, 9 April 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose. It's not possible to merge the article for the sheer size without cutting out significant portion of it. Thanks. - St.teresa (talk) 07:55, 25 April 2019 (UTC)
• Agreed - oppose. DS (talk) 22:40, 25 April 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose - Per what all others have said.★Trekker (talk) 09:57, 20 June 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose - Passes GNG; much material in the public domain about this and it does not appear to have been thoroughly debunked. Too large to merge. Does not seem susceptible to much cutting without removing content needed for completeness. If the article lacks balance or there are facts or interpretations that can be added to either refute or balance any of the points made, they can be added in this article. Of course, citations to reliable, verifiable sources should be added to existing content if needed and to new content. After one reading it seems to me that current content is reliably sourced although I cannot attest to the accuracy of any of it, especially to the extent any of it is only interpretation or opinion. This does not mean wholesale additions from the article should be made if they do not relate to the criticisms. These considerations lead me to oppose the merger proposal. Donner60 (talk) 06:00, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Requests for Citations

To the extent that this article is criticized for lack of citations or quotations, it should be remembered that the Missionaries of Charities has millions of dollars, received through contributions, and that it would be a simple matter for that organization to make any corrections, and provide any supporting information, that might be necessary to correct any inaccurate statements about Mother Teresa. To the extent that it does not do so, that should be regarded as a tacit validation of any critical statement that is made.71.209.198.57 (talk) 15:10, 12 July 2019 (UTC)