Mother Teresa: 'Saint of the gutters' canonized at Vatican

When you go into an impoverished country and tell women not to use birth control, you are doing more harm than good.

"Teresa’s most famous critic, Christopher Hitchens, has accused her of taking donations from dictators — charges church authorities deny. Francis chose to emphasize her other dealings with the powerful."

Hitchens wasn't the only one to point out that her work seemed more focused on the glorification of her and her church rather than dealing with the real needs of the poor. Crazy Joe already pointed out the plain irresponsible preachings against birth control and a celebration of poverty as something almost purifying.

Despite her "mercy", her philosophy was scary. Sure, she provided accommodations to many very sick, dying, poor people, but some who witnessed the conditions of her centers were horrified: no analgesics, no real medical care. Why? Because she believed, over everything else, that suffering is a straight path to the divinity.

In the 1980s, I and some other adults spent a week with a group of expat high children from Tokyo with Mother Teresa in Calcutta and it was an eye-opening experience for all of us, helping with mundane daily duties.

Mother Teresa did more to help impoverished people than every reader on Japan Today's discussion board combined. When some of you have held a leper in your arms, you'll learn a little more humility.

a nun who lived most of her adult life in spiritual agony, sensing that God had abandoned her.

There is something very strange and unhealthy (masochistic) about this. If you're sensing G-d is abandoning you, why persist along the same course?

"Mother Teresa did more to help impoverished people than every reader on Japan Today's discussion board combined"

There is an argument that the work of those who put dogma above practical solutions have done more to damage the situation of impoverished people than help them.

I'm sure many missionaries mean well but can anyone seriously say that what India needs is a campaign against birth control? You are not arguing that, are you?