For decades, the name Mother Teresa was basically shorthand for "saint." If you did something nice, people compared you to her. If you were a jerk, they asked who you thought you were—Mother Teresa? She was the global icon of selfless devotion. Then, the vibe shifted. Hard. Suddenly, the internet was flooded with critiques calling her a "religious imperialist" or worse. People started asking: was Mother Teresa a bad person, or were we just looking at a complicated human through a lens that was way too blurry?
It’s a messy conversation. Honestly, it's one of those topics where two things can be true at the exact same time. She helped people no one else would touch. She also presided over facilities that medical professionals described as "houses of the dying" rather than hospitals. To understand why her reputation took such a massive hit, you have to look past the Nobel Peace Prize and the white-and-blue sari. You have to look at the theology, the money, and the specific ways she handled the suffering of the poor in Calcutta.
The Hitman of the Legend: Christopher Hitchens and the Early Critics
The backlash didn't come out of nowhere. It mostly started with a British-American journalist named Christopher Hitchens. He didn't just dislike her; he loathed what she represented. In his 1994 documentary Hell’s Angel and his book The Missionary Position, Hitchens argued that the world had been sold a total lie. He wasn't some lone crank, either. He worked with Dr. Aroup Chatterjee, a London-based physician who grew up in Calcutta and felt that Mother Teresa’s work was a massive PR stunt that actually harmed the city’s reputation.
Chatterjee's beef was specific. He interviewed hundreds of people involved with the Missionaries of Charity. He found a pattern of behavior that didn't match the "saintly" image. He described children being tied to beds and patients being given nothing but aspirin for terminal pain. Why? Because Mother Teresa believed there was something beautiful in the poor "accepting their lot" and suffering like Christ. To her, pain wasn't necessarily an evil to be cured; it was a gift to be offered to God.
That’s a tough pill to swallow if you’re the one in pain.
The Medical Reality Inside the Homes for the Dying
If you walk into a modern hospice, you expect palliative care. You expect morphine. You expect clean needles and doctors who know how to manage a crisis. Reports from the Missionaries of Charity facilities often painted a very different picture. In 1994, the editor of the prestigious medical journal The Lancet, Dr. Robin Fox, visited the Kalighat Home for the Dying. He was shocked.
He didn't find a hospital. He found a place where volunteers—many with no medical training—were making life-and-death decisions. They weren't testing for tuberculosis or identifying who had treatable illnesses versus who was actually dying. They were just... there. Fox noted that the sisters didn't distinguish between the curable and the incurable. Everyone got the same basic care. Or lack thereof.
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- Needles were rinsed in cold water and reused.
- Patients with gangrene sat next to patients with simple infections.
- The food was often basic, and the hygiene was, frankly, abysmal in some centers.
Critics point to this as the primary evidence when asking if she was a bad person. They argue that she had the money to build a world-class hospital. Instead, she built a conveyor belt for the afterlife.
Where Did the Money Go?
This is where the math gets weird. The Missionaries of Charity received millions upon millions of dollars in donations from all over the world. We’re talking massive checks from dictators and billionaires alike. Yet, the conditions in the Calcutta homes didn't seem to improve alongside the bank account.
Where was the cash? Much of it went toward opening new convents and religious houses in other countries. Mother Teresa wasn't trying to eradicate poverty in a social sense. She wasn't an activist. She was a missionary. Her goal was the salvation of souls through the Catholic Church. When you realize her primary motivation was religious expansion rather than medical excellence, the "bad person" label starts to feel more like a "misaligned expectations" label. But to the donor who thought they were buying medicine for a child, that distinction feels like a betrayal.
The "Friend of Dictators" Problem
Mother Teresa had a knack for showing up next to some pretty horrific people. She accepted the Legion of Honor from Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier, the brutal dictator of Haiti. She even praised the Duvaliers for being "close to the people." She laid a wreath at the grave of Enver Hoxha, the hardline communist dictator of Albania.
Was she being a savvy diplomat to ensure her sisters could work in those countries? Maybe. But she also took money from Charles Keating, the man behind the Lincoln Savings and Loan scandal that cost thousands of Americans their life savings. When Keating was on trial, she wrote to the judge asking for clemency, citing how much money he’d given the poor. The prosecutor, Paul Turley, actually wrote back to her. He suggested that if she really cared about the poor, she should return the stolen money Keating had given her.
She never replied. She kept the money.
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The Complicated Sainthood of a Human Being
It's easy to look at these facts and decide she was a villain. But if you talk to the people who were actually on the streets of Calcutta in the 1950s, the perspective shifts again. Before she started her work, people were literally dying in the gutters, their bodies being picked at by animals. She was the one who went out, picked them up, and gave them a place to die with some semblance of dignity.
She touched people with leprosy when everyone else ran away. She took in "untrustworthy" orphans. She worked 18-hour days well into her 80s. You can't fake that kind of stamina for a PR stunt.
The Dark Night of the Soul
In 2007, a book of her private letters was published, and it blew everyone's mind. For the last 50 years of her life, Mother Teresa felt... nothing. She felt no "presence of God." She wrote about a "deep longing" that was met with "blankness."
"The smile," she wrote, "is a mask or a cloak that covers everything."
This makes her more human, not less. It suggests that her work wasn't fueled by some constant, blissful divine connection. It was fueled by sheer, stubborn willpower. She kept doing the work even when she felt spiritually dead inside. Does a "bad person" spend half a century serving the dying while feeling completely abandoned by the God they’re doing it for? It’s a haunting question.
Addressing the "Was Mother Teresa a Bad Person" Verdict
So, what’s the final word? If you define a "good person" as someone who uses every resource at their disposal to scientifically alleviate suffering and advocate for systemic political change, then she fails the test. She was anti-feminist, she was against birth control (even in the face of overpopulation and poverty), and her medical standards were primitive.
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But if you define a "good person" as someone who sacrifices their entire life to be present with the marginalized, even if their methods are flawed and their theology is rigid, then she’s a saint in the literal and figurative sense.
She was a product of a very specific, traditional Catholic worldview. That worldview values suffering as a path to holiness. To a modern, secular person, that sounds like a horror movie. To a 20th-century nun, it was the highest form of love.
Moving Beyond the Icon
To really understand the legacy of Mother Teresa, you have to separate the woman from the brand. The "Brand" was a perfect, untouchable saint. The "Woman" was a tough, sometimes stubborn, politically savvy nun who prioritized the soul over the body.
What you can do now to get a clearer picture:
- Read the primary sources. Look up the letters in Come Be My Light. It’s the closest you’ll get to her actual thoughts.
- Watch the documentaries from both sides. Watch the hagiographies (the "pro-saint" films) and then watch Hell's Angel. The truth is usually vibrating somewhere in the middle.
- Research the Missionaries of Charity today. The organization has changed since her death in 1997. They’ve faced more scrutiny, and in some places, they’ve had to modernize their medical practices due to government pressure.
- Support modern NGOs in India. If you want to see what "good" looks like without the religious baggage, look at organizations like Goonj or the Akshaya Patra Foundation. They focus on systemic issues and modern efficiency.
Ultimately, Mother Teresa wasn't a cartoon character. She wasn't a perfect angel, and she wasn't a secret demon. She was a powerful woman who built a global empire on the idea that the dying deserve to be seen. Whether she did more harm than good depends entirely on whether you value the comfort of the body or the ritual of the spirit. The world is big enough for both perspectives, but it's important to know which one you're buying into before you put someone on a pedestal.