James Martin has come to the rescue of Mother Teresa in the OpEd section of the NY Times. Worth reading, to be sure. Whether she needs to be rescued is another matter. In the meantime, I suppose we have to wait for the publication of the book. Here's some more rescuing. Andrew Greeley in the Chicago Sun-Times has a good take:-
I suspect that some Catholic source tried to explain these matters to the ABC reporter, but the reporter's paradigm for all things Catholic is scandal and had been given that paradigm by his news editor, who already had the lead for the story in mind. How could the clip have begun with ''Catholic experts on sanctity said today that the revelation of the secret letters of Mother Teresa of Calcutta were simply one more proof that she indeed was a saint and a very great saint at that.''
His conclusion:-
Catholic nuns are interesting only when they become cops or bricklayers or baggage handlers at the airports or other weird jobs. In part it is the fault of the church leadership, which avoids transparency like it was the bubonic plague, and has been known on some occasions to short-circuit the canonization process. And, anyway, how do you explain to a religiously illiterate, secularist reporter about the Dark Night?
UPDATE
Five letters to the Times reacting to James Martin's piece.
1 comment:
It sounds like a clear description of the Dark Night to me! (Though I realize that "clear" and "dark night" aren't quite right together.) This actually makes Mother Teresa much more sympathetic. I have in recent years gotten irritated with James Martin's writings, but he's got it right this time.
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