Missionaries of Charity
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Missionaries of Charity is a Catholic religious order established in 1950, which consists of over 4,500 nuns and is active in 133 countries. Members of the order designate their affiliation using the order's initials, "MC." Member nuns must adhere to the vows of chastity, poverty and obedience, and the fourth vow, to give "Wholehearted and Free service to the poorest of the poor". The Missionaries of Charity Brothers was founded in 1963, and a contemplative branch of the Sisters followed in 1976. The Missionaries of Charity Fathers was founded by the Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta with Fr. Joseph Langford in 1984, to combine the vocation of the Missionaries of Charity with the ministerial priesthood. Lay Catholics and non-Catholics constitute the Co-Workers of the Blessed Mother Teresa, the Sick and Suffering Co-Workers, and the Lay Missionaries of Charity.
Missionaries care for those who include refugees, ex-prostitutes, the mentally ill, sick children, abandoned children, lepers, AIDS victims, the aged, and convalescent. They have schools run by volunteers to educate street children, they run soup kitchens, as well as many other services as per the communities needs. They have 19 homes in Calcutta alone which include homes for women, orphaned children, the dying, an AIDS hospice, a school for street children, and a leper colony. These services are provided to people regardless of their religion.
In 1990, the Blessed Mother Teresa asked to resign as head of the Missionaries, but was soon voted back in as Superior General. On March 13, 1997, six months before Mother Teresa's death, Sister Mary Nirmala Joshi was selected the new Superior General of the Missionaries of Charity.
[edit] Foundation
In October 1950, the Blessed Mother Teresa received Vatican permission to start her own order, which the Vatican originally labeled as the Diocesan Congregation of the Calcutta Diocese, but which later became known as the Missionaries of Charity, whose mission was to care for (in Mother Theresa's words) "the hungry, the naked, the homeless, the crippled, the blind, the lepers, all those people who feel unwanted, unloved, uncared for throughout society, people that have become a burden to the society and are shunned by everyone." It began as a small Order with 12 members in Calcutta, and today it has over 4,500 nuns running orphanages, AIDS hospices, charity centres worldwide, and caring for refugees, the blind, disabled, aged, alcoholics, the poor and homeless and victims of floods, epidemics and famine in Asia, Africa, Latin America, North America, Europe and Australia.
With the help of Indian officials she converted an abandoned Hindu temple into the Kalighat (Nirmal Hriday) Home for the Dying, a free hospice for the poor. Also established was a home for lepers called Shanti Nagar (City of Peace) in Titagarh, and an orphanage. The order soon began to attract both recruits and charitable donations, and by the 1960s had opened hospices, orphanages and leper houses all over India.
In 1965, by granting a Decree of Praise, Pope Paul VI granted Mother Teresa's request to expand her order to other countries. Teresa's order started to rapidly grow, with new homes opening all over the globe. The order's first house outside India was in Venezuela, and others followed in Rome and Tanzania, and eventually in many countries in Asia, Africa, and Europe, including Albania. In addition, the first Missionaries of Charity home in the United States was established in the South Bronx, New York. By 1996, she was operating 517 missions in more than 100 countries and today is assisted by over one million co-workers worldwide.
[edit] Criticisms
The Missionaries of Charity do not disclose either the sources of their funds or details of how they are spent. A 1998 article in the popular German Stern weekly quoted a witness account according to which the order received about US$50 million a year in donations on its New York account alone. Other journalists have given estimates of US$100 million a year for its global operations. Critics have argued that these sums far exceed the modest needs of the order.
[edit] Further reading
- Missionaries of Charity Fathers - ' Missionaries of Charity Priests Official Website'
- Frontline - Mother Teresa of Calcutta article
- Mother Teresa biography at the Nobel Prize foundation site has some information on the history and activities of the Missionaries of Charity.
- Christopher Hitchens: The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice (Verso, 1995) ISBN 1-85984-054-X. Plus a debate in the New York Review of Books : Defense of Mother Teresa, Hitchens' answer, Leys' reply.
- Susan Shields, "Mother Teresa's House of Illusions". Free Inquiry Magazine, Volume 18, Number 1. Online copy.
- Vatican - Letter by Pope John Paul II on the 50th anniversary of the order, in the year 2000
- Eternal Word Television Network - History of the order and bio of Sister Nirmala
