Most say they are not trying to damage the Order St Teresa of Kolkata (Mother Teresa) founded. Rather, they want to help it become the best version of itself.

Allegations

Power and authority are abused in the Order, the former sisters claimed.

There is a climate of excessive control and unthinking obedience.

A podcast in 2021, "The Turning: The Sisters Who Left", describes many former sisters' experiences.

They spoke of depression, sexual abuse, feeling trapped and suicidal thoughts.

Sisters' lives are isolated, with little family contact. Superiors keep sisters' passports, review mail and supervise phone calls.

Boundary violations in terms of physical contact were tolerated or explained away, they said.

Sexual abuse could unfold over considerable periods without being detected or punished.

Alleged perpetrators were sometimes transferred rather than held accountable; alleged victims were encouraged to remain silent.

The former sisters describe attempting to bring these problems to the attention of authorities, inside the Order and in the Vatican.

There was generally no response.

Reasons for leaving

Many former sisters cited abusive behaviour within the order and lack of action to resolve it as their reasons for leaving the Order.

One spoke of the Order's unhealthy attachment to suffering and harmful penances including daily self-flagellation.

Several said they were given little help when they left. Some were given as little as $500 after decades of service.

Years of Complaints

Former members say their attempts to bring concerns to church authorities, including the Vatican, yielded no concrete results for years.

As an example, one spoke of making a complaint at the Vatican around the time of Mother Teresa's death in 1997.

She wrote to Pope Francis in 2018, insisting the issues she'd perceived two decades before were still present.

Shortly afterwards, she had a phone call and later a meeting with Archbishop José Rodríguez Carballo from the Vatican's Dicastery for Religious.

Carballo said he was "very concerned" about the issue and feared a potential public scandal, given the Missionaries of Charity society's global fame.

He said taking action was difficult as many sisters don't want to write things down.

Some told him they prefer to use the confessional to discuss any problems they face.

Several former sisters said they have been in touch with Carballo's successor at the Dicastery. Dialogue about problems within the Order is ongoing, they said.

"I believe that the pope should choose a person, or more people, to help the sisters to change and update their constitution or ways of life according to the Second Vatican Council" a former sister said.

Reaction

A spokesman for the Missionaries of Charity said the claim of an internal culture of abuse and neglect within the Missionaries "is patently false".

The complaints are "repeats of old grievances from a determined, small group of former members, nearly all of whom left the Missionaries of Charity a decade or decades ago".

Source

• CruxNow

The nuns and their 60 guests, most of whom are disabled and handicapped, are trapped in the facility without food, water, medicine, electricity or gas, according to Sr Chiara.

The "whole area" where the nuns' facility is located "is surrounded by the Israeli army" said Fr Francis Xavier Rayappangari.

"Communications with the outside world have been cut off" said Fr Rayappangari, Commissary of the Holy Land in India.

"Sometimes, some generous and courageous people bring something to eat. Whatever they receive from outside, the sisters serve their guests first. If there is anything left, they eat that. Sometimes they only have one meal a day."

The convent of the Sisters of Mother Teresa and the Holy Family parish are near the al-Shifa hospital. The hospital has been under siege by Israeli forces for days.

Local sources report that the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) gave the nuns an opportunity to be evacuated, but not the disabled and the remaining staff.

The nuns declined to leave.

Hamas deny building tunnels

The IDF are hunting for Hamas members and weapons in the underground tunnels. The hunt has worsened the humanitarian crisis, with doctors and patients under attack, including children.

The intense combat in the area has affected not only the nearby Holy Family Catholic Church, the lone Catholic parish in Gaza, but also the small Missionaries of Charity convent.

Rayappangari also said witnessing the horrors of war has become a daily occurrence not only at the convent but also at the nearby parish, where an estimated 700 people have sought refuge from the shelling and combat.

"One lady wanted to go home in order to take a bath" Fr Rayappangari said, recounting a story he heard from the sisters. "As she stepped out of the campus, she was shot and died bleeding.

"May the Prince of Peace give peace to this land" he said.

Sources

Asia News

Crux Now

Premier Christian News

"Making it possible to participate in this performance is a way to give a few hours of contentment to those who are confronted with a hard life and need help to nurture hope," Pope Francis' almoner, Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, said this week in an announcement about the initiative.

The Vatican said volunteers, including sisters from the Missionaries of Charity, will accompany the circus guests, some of whom are homeless and either living on the streets or in a shelter.

Prisoners, refugees, and families with children from Ukraine, Syria, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Sudan were also invited, together with several families living in some of Rome's illegally occupied apartment buildings.

Read More

Dedicated to serving the poorest of the poor, the Missionaries of Charity are among 101 non-governmental organisations the legislator wants to close.

Some of the other Catholic NGOs in for the chop include the Catholic Foundation for Human Development Assistance for Nicaraguans, the Spirituality Foundation for Children of Nicaragua, the My Childhood Mothers Foundation and the Diriomito Children's Care Home Association.

Filiberto Rodríguez has prepared an order to shut down the NGO. He presented the order in a June 22 letter to the country's legislature.

The text, which includes several allegations against NGOs, could be debated by the National Assembly in the coming days. It alleges for example that the Missionaries of Charity order "has failed to comply with its obligations".

These obligations are set out in legislation regulating nonprofit organisations, money-laundering, financing terrorism and financing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

According to Daniel Ortega's government, the Missionaries of Charity in Nicaragua are not accredited "by the Ministry for the Family to function as a nursery-centre for childhood development, a home for girls and a home for the elderly."

Neither "do they have an operating permit from the Ministry of Education to provide remedial education for students".

Furthermore, their "financial statements reported to the Ministry of the Interior don't agree" with other documents presented for review.

The Missionaries of Charity Association in Nicaragua was opened in the late 1980s.

They work with a range of people in need. In the city of Granada, for instance, they take in abandoned adolescents and victims of abuse. Besides providing spiritual and psychological help, minors receive regular classes in music, theatre, sewing, beauty and other trades.

In the capital, Managua, the sisters run a nursing home providing the elderly with food, clothing and other care.

The Missionaries of Charity also provide remedial education for minors at risk and run a nursery for poor children. These children are mostly children of single mothers and street vendors.

While the National Assembly still has to approve the order to close, Ortega's political party holds 75 out of the 90 seats. Approval is expected.

Managua Auxiliary Bishop Silvio José Báez, who has been living in exile at the request of Pope Francis since April 2019 due to numerous death threats, deplored the situation.

He wrote on Twitter from Miami: "It makes me very sad that the dictatorship has forced the Missionaries of Charity of Teresa of Calcutta to leave the country. Nothing justifies depriving the poor of charitable care."

During the past four years, the Catholic Church in Nicaragua has been the target of 190 attacks and desecrations. These include a fire in the Managua Cathedral as well as police harassment and persecution of bishops and priests.

Source

• Catholic News Agency

After alleging charges of "religious conversion" the prosecution admitted in Court there was no serious basis to proceed against them.

The case followed a police probe against the nuns in the Indian state of Gujarat last December. They were acting on a complaint alleging the girls in the nuns' care were made to wear a cross around their necks and read a Bible kept in the storeroom.

The home the nuns run houses 48 girls, including 22 who are mentally and physically challenged.

Following the police "investigation" the nuns were charged with allegedly "hurting Hindu religious sentiments" and luring young girls to Christianity.

Baseless charges

When it came to fronting up in court, the prosecution could not justify the charges, so kept seeking adjournments.

On 23 February, the Court directed the prosecution to submit a written reply explaining the legal basis on which the case was registered against the nuns.

After admitting it had no grounds to charge the nuns under the Gujarat Freedom of Religion Act 2003, the prosecution gave the Court a written undertaking that it would not pursue the case any further.

Despite this, the first information report written by police to set the investigation in motion has not been quashed.

Reputation restored

The prosecution's undertaking means an end to the adverse publicity and unnecessary harassment the Mother Teresa nuns have been enduring.

Besides the publicity and harassment issues and the legal battle they were facing, access to the funds the nuns needed to support their charitable work was cut.

This was because in December the Indian federal government refused to renew the congregation's license for receiving and utilising foreign funds, citing "adverse inputs" as the reason for this.

The federal government restored the licence with retrospective effect on 8 January.

Source

• UCA News
• Image: NBC News

Barnabite Father Giovanni Scalese, head of the Catholic mission in Afghanistan, along with five Missionaries of Charity nuns and 14 orphans in their care, landed in Rome on Aug 25.

The orphans are between the ages of 6 and 20, and some of them are in wheelchairs, which created a challenge for Scalese and the sisters in transporting them safely to the airport.

"We thank the Lord for the success of the operation," Father Giovanni Scalese, 66, said in a Facebook post soon after his arrival in Rome .

"I said it and I have done it," Scalese told Italian newspaper La Repubblica. "I would have never returned to Italy without these children. We couldn't leave them there."

"I thank all of you who in these days have raised incessant prayers to Him on our behalf. Those prayers were obviously fulfilled," Scalese wrote in the post. "Continue to pray for Afghanistan and for its people."

Scalese told SIR, the news agency of the Italian bishops' conference, that although he "felt concerned" after the Taliban took over the capital, he felt safe being inside the embassy.

"Outside the gates of our embassy were Taliban who, if they had wanted to harm us, could have done so. But absolutely nothing happened," he recalled. "I was more worried about the (Missionaries) of Charity. They had remained in their homes and were, therefore, more exposed and afraid."

Nevertheless, Scalese said that while waiting to board the next available flight, "we never felt alone," and both church and state authorities were in constant contact with them.

Pope Francis "was interested in the matter and followed it," he said.

The Italian priest was appointed by Pope Francis in 2014 as the superior of the Catholic Church's mission in Afghanistan. St. John Paul II established the mission in Afghanistan in 2002, led by the Clerics Regular of St Paul, known as the Barnabites.

"Our center is no longer open. It is closed and we are destroyed," a Missionary of Charity nun from Madagascar told La Repubblica. "It is done, there is no hope in Kabul."

"We continue to pray for Afghanistan. But, we cannot abandon this country and its suffering people," Scalese told SIR.

Sources

Crux

Washington Post

The orphanage was shut down 16 months ago as police began probing baby-selling charges against the nuns.

The orphanage is attached to a care centre the nuns run for unwed mothers.

The government closed the orphanage after police arrested Sister Concilia Baxla on charges of selling a baby for money.

The 22 children in the children's' home were moved to government shelter homes.

Sister Baxla, 62, was released on bail on September 27.

However, soon after her release two similar cases of baby-selling were filed against the nuns' centre; the latest in November.

Police continue to investigate.

Father Anand David Xalxo, spokesperson of Ranchi Archdiocese said the nuns are ready to help the needy and reopen the orphanage.

However, "We need more clarification from the government before we reopen the shelter home," he told ucanews on Nov. 25.

"On one hand, the government wants us to start adoption, and on the other police file false cases against the nuns, with stinging allegations such as child trafficking".

"How can we function under such circumstances?" he asked.

The state's Child Welfare Committee request to reopen the orphanage comes a week after Auxiliary Bishop Theodore Mascarenhas of Ranchi intervened seeking federal investigation of the committee's role in the alleged cases of baby selling.

Mascarenhas said the nuns gave all three babies for adoption with the consent of the Child Welfare Committee and complied with all rules and regulations.

He says they also have documents to prove it.

The bishop wanted police to investigate the Child Welfare Committee, not the nuns.

"The nuns did everything as per the law and approval of the Child Welfare Committee. But the officials of the government body are spared and only the nuns are being harassed".

"We need to know the truth," he said.

Mascarenhas also sought the whereabouts of 22 children forcefully taken away from the nun's care last year.

Child Welfare Committee chairperson Rupa Verma said the government agency was facing problems to shelter children of single parents and it wants the shelter to reopen.

With an election underway, the Christian vote is seen as crucial for the electoral success of the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party; the party collaborating with Christians in social projects.

Source

• UCANews

Fr Tom Uzhunnalil was freed on Tuesday. He is staying with a Salesian community in Rome for a few days before going home to India.

He met Pope Francis on Thursday morning.

At the meeting Francis embraced and encouraged him, assuring him he would continue to pray for him as he had done during his captivity.

Tom thanked Francis, saying he had "prayed every day for him, offering his own suffering for his mission and for the good of the Church."

In discussions about his ordeal, Tom said although he was not able to celebrate the Eucharist, every day, he repeated all the words of the celebration in his heart.

The L'Osservatore Romano report of the meeting said the Pope was "visibly moved, and blessed him."

Another report said: "The Holy See fervently thanks all those who worked for his release, and especially His Majesty the Sultan of Oman and the competent authorities of the Sultanate".

Tom has promised to continue to pray for all who had supported him spiritually and says he remembers in particular the four sisters of the Missionaries of Charity and the twelve people killed at the time of his abduction.

Source

• National Catholic Register
• Zenit
• Zenit
• CBN
• Image: The New Indian Express

The Vatican declared her a patron of the city on Wednesday.

"We are very happy the Archdiocese of Kolkata has declared her as its patron, acknowledging her great work for the people," said Sister Prema.

Prema is the head of Missionaries of Charity, the order of nuns started by Mother Teresa in 1950.

The archbishop of Kolkata, Thomas D'Souza, said every diocese in the world has a patron saint and since Mother Teresa belonged to the city, "we decided to declare Mother our patron.

The honour came 16 months after Pope Francis declared Mother Teresa a saint.

About 500 people attended the Mass at a cathedral where Vicar General Dominique Gomes read the decree instituting her as the second patron saint of the archdiocese.

Mother Teresa's name will be mentioned whenever people under the archdiocese pray or a Mass is held, alongside co-patron St. Francis Xavier.

Catholics in Kolkata say they are delighted with the Vatican's decision.

"We are very happy that our Mother Teresa, who has done so much service for the poor and destitute in the city, irrespective of religion, caste or creed, has been made the patron of the Archdiocese of Calcutta," one said.

Source

• VOA News
• CNA
• VOA News

Although it was never officially announced, the copyright had been granted the same day as Mother Teresa's Sept. 4, 2016 canonization as the culmination of a three year legal process. Continue reading

This does the saints a disservice as it dehumanises them; it does us a disservice as they seem too far removed from our own lives for us to imitate them.

David Scott's The Love That Made Saint Teresa is refreshing for this reason.

He ponders aspects of the life of Mother Teresa of Calcutta (as she is generally known) which are often glossed over, such as the 18 years she spent in the privileged surroundings of the Loreto Convent in Calcutta, during which she barely mentioned the misery beyond the convent gates.

"Her conversion to the poor came slowly," he suggests.

More extraordinary are the details Scott gives which have only come to light since Mother Teresa's death in 1997: her 50-year long dark night of the soul, and her initial visions of Jesus and His Mother in 1947 which led to her new vocation to the poor and the dying.

Although she destroyed her notes and diaries, a small cache of letters written to her spiritual directors during that momentous year reveals that for some time she resisted Jesus' explicit request for "Missionary Sisters of Charity, who would be my fire of love amongst the very poor - the sick, the dying, the little street children."

Jesus told her she was "the most incapable person, weak and sinful, but just because you are that, I want to use you for my glory! Wilt thou refuse?"

Mother Teresa describes how she disputed with this urgent request "and told [Jesus] to find somebody else, that she was frightened of the hardship and the ridicule she would have to endure. She promised to be a good nun if only he would let her stay put in her comfortable convent.

But he kept cajoling her, challenging her with the refrain: ‘Wilt thou refuse to do this for me?'" Continue reading

Sources

• Francis Phillips, writing for the Catholic Herald
• Image: Archdiocese of Brisbane

An image of the nuns was posted on Instagram last week and the Sex Party released it and another photograph to the media on Friday.

Sex Party leader Fiona Patten said the pair of sisters seemed "hell-bent" on tearing down the words "tax the church" from a pole in Collingwood.

"Our policy to tax the Church is fair and reasonable, especially where it applies to the Church's profit-making businesses," Ms Patten said on Friday.

"If the nuns would like to visit me and confess, that will be an end to it."

The Sex Party said the sisters also tore a poster calling for legalised medical marijuana.

The Catholic archdiocese of Melbourne's media and communications director, Shane Healy, said interfering with election posters could not be condoned.

"[But] no one should be at all surprised that sisters of the Missionaries of Charity, established by Mother Teresa of Calcutta to feed and support the poorest of the poor, would be taking offence at the policies of the Sex Party," he said.

Sex Party Senate candidate Meredith Doig said the whole act was "pathetic".

"It's a bit of a flashback to the past of some sort of sanctimonious 19th century era women's temporary union," Dr Doig said.

"Honestly, in this day and age, you got to think about what's going through their minds and how engaged they are with society."

During the New South Wales state elections last year, Sex Party signs were removed from a church that was being used as a polling booth.

This was reportedly because church workers believed they were the work of the devil.

Sources

• The Guardian
• SBS
• Stuff.co.nz
• Image: SBS

In a message signed by Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state, Pope Francis called the attack an "act of senseless and diabolical violence."

Report said that four gunmen entered a center run by the Missionaries of Charity sisters in the city of Aden and handcuffed the victims before shooting them in the head.

It was the second attack on the missionary sisters. In 1998, three sisters were beaten to death when the Church of the Holy Family in Aden was attacked.

A Catholic church was burned, a Christian cemetery was vandalized, and an abandoned church was blown up in the country in the past 12 months

In the Vatican statement, Pope Francis prayed "that this pointless slaughter will awaken consciences, lead to a change of heart, and inspire all parties to lay down their arms and take up the path of dialogue."

The pontiff also appealed for an end to the conflict in Yemen, calling for all parties to "renounce violence, and to renew their commitment" to the people, particularly those most in need.

Sources

AP/ABC News
AP/Time
America Magazine
Crux
Image: AFP/Time

The court also ordered the release of Sr Mary's passport and all documents of the Prem Nivasa (House of Love) convent seized for the purposes of an investigation into alleged irregularities at the home for pregnant mothers.

Allegations surround suspicions that the sisters harboured girls who had become pregnant aged under 16 - the age of consent - and also that money may have corruptly changed hands for the adoption of babies.

The sisters strenuously denied the allegations, however the head of the convent, Sr Mary Eliza was imprisoned pending the outcome of and investigation.

The allegations came after a raid on Prem Nivasa last month organised by the National Child Protection Authority (NCPA), also involving the Criminal Investigation Department.

Prior to the court's ruling, Father Cyril Gamini, the parish priest of the nearby St Joseph's Church described the allegations as "rubbish".

Hiranthi Wijemanne, a former chairperson of the NCPA, however said that the raid on the convent took place because of a tip-off from somebody who has not been publicly named.

Throughout the ordeal the sisters continue to spend much time in prayer, and said they want to continue their ministry to the poor.

Sr Mary Eliza is the first sister of Missionaries of Charity to ever be imprisoned. She enjoyed the support of the head of the order who came to Sri Lankaha during the distress.

Sources

• BBC
• Sri Lankan Guardian
• Image: Sri Lankan Guardian