Missionaries of Charity

Missionaries of Charity's Mother House (Headquarters) in Kolkata

On October 7, 1950,[3] Mother Teresa and the small community formed by her former pupils was labelled as the Diocesan Congregation of the Calcutta Diocese, and thus received the permission from the Diocese of Calcutta to identify as a Catholic organization. Their mission was to care for (in Mother Teresa'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 community with 12 members in Calcutta (now Kolkata), and in 2020 had 5,167 members serving in 139 countries in 760 homes, with 244 of these homes in India.[4] The sisters run orphanages, homes for those dying of AIDS, charity centres worldwide, and care 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. They have 19 homes in Kolkata (Calcutta) alone which include homes for women, orphaned children and homes for the dying; a school for street children, and a leper colony.

In 1963, Brother Andrew (formerly Ian Travers-Ballan) founded the Missionary Brothers of Charity in Australia along with Mother Teresa.[5]

In 1965, by granting a Decree of Praise, Pope Paul VI granted Mother Teresa's request to expand her congregation to other countries. The Congregation started to grow rapidly, with new homes opening all over the globe. The congregation's first house outside India was in Venezuela, others followed in Rome and Tanzania and worldwide.

In 1979 the contemplative branch of the Brothers was added and in 1984 a priest branch, the Missionaries of Charity Fathers,[6] was founded by Mother Teresa with Fr. Joseph Langford, combining the vocation of the Missionaries of Charity with the Ministerial Priesthood. As with the Sisters, the Fathers live a very simple lifestyle without television, radios or items of convenience. They neither smoke nor drink alcohol and beg for their food. They make a visit to their families every five years but do not take annual holidays.[7] Lay Catholics and non-Catholics constitute the Co-Workers of Mother Teresa, the Sick and Suffering Co-Workers, and the Lay Missionaries of Charity.

The first home of the Missionaries of Charity in the United States was established in the South Bronx,[8] New York, where in 2019 they had convents for both their active and contemplative branches,[9] and had placed 108 sisters in their province that stretches from Quebec to Washington, DC.[10] Their first rural mission in the United States, in 1982, was in one of the poorest, former coal mining areas of Kentucky, where they still serve.[11][12] In the US, the Missionaries of Charity are affiliated with the Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious, a body of female religious, representing 20% of American religious sisters. They are identified by the wearing of religious habits, and loyalty to church teaching. By 1996, the organisation was operating 517 missions in more than 100 countries.[13]

In 1990, 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 elected the new Superior General of the Missionaries of Charity. In April 2009, Sister Mary Prema was elected to succeed Sister Nirmala, during a general chapter held in Kolkata.[14]

The quality of care offered to terminally ill patients in the Home for the Dying in Calcutta was the subject of discussion in the mid-1990s.[15] Some British observers, on the basis of short visits, drew unfavourable comparisons with the standard of care available in hospices in the United Kingdom. Remarks made by Dr. Robin Fox relative to the lack of full-time medically-trained personnel and the absence of strong analgesics were published in a brief memoir in an issue of The Lancet in 1994. These remarks were criticised in a later issue of The Lancet on the ground that they failed to take account of Indian conditions, specifically the fact that government regulations effectively precluded the use of morphine outside large hospitals.[16]

In Phoenix, Arizona, the sisters' accommodation for 40 homeless men is funded by a clothier, featured in Vogue, who grew up within a few blocks of Mother Teresa's original home for the dying destitute in Kalighat, Calcutta.[17]

Princess Diana, who was very close to Mother Teresa, wrote that she found in her "the direction I've been searching for all these years".[18]

The Missionaries of Charity sisters were particularly hard hit by the 2020 outbreak of COVID-19, as in places they continued to distribute food and minister to the poor who had been affected.[19][20][21]

In April 2022, Sister Mary Joseph was elected to succeed Sister Mary Prema as superior general of the order, with Sister Mary Christie elected as assistant superior general.[1]

It takes nine years to become a full-fledged Missionary of Charity. An initial short-term "come-and-see" period is available. Those considered possible candidates by the Congregation may enter Aspirancy, focused on learning English (which is the community language) for those who are not from English-speaking countries and religious studies. It is followed by Postulancy (introduction into the study of Scripture, the Constitutions of the Society, Church history, and theology). If found suitable, they enter the Novitiate, the beginning of the religious life. Novices wear white cotton habits with a girdle, and white saris without the three blue stripes. In the first year (called canonical), they undertake more religious study and learn about life as a Missionary of Charity, the second year is more focused on practical training for the mission life. After two years, they take temporary vows for one year, which are renewed annually, for five years in total. They also receive a metal crucifix and a sari whose three blue stripes stand for their vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience.[11] In the sixth year, they travel to Rome, Kolkata or Washington D.C. for "Tertianship", further religious study, at the end of which they make their final profession.

Mother Teresa's home for the dying destitute Nirmal Hriday at Kalighat, Kolkata.

A British former volunteer at the Home, Robin Fox (now editor of the British medical journal The Lancet) disclosed in 1994 that syringes were rinsed in cold water and reused; that inmates were given cold baths; and that aspirin was administered to people with terminal cancer.[27] Fox also noted, however, that the residents were "eating heartily and doing well", and that the sisters and volunteers focused on cleanliness, tending wounds and sores, and providing loving kindness.[28] The controversy remains due to the use of unsterilized needles and the failure to make proper diagnoses, as put by Dr. Jack Preger: "If one wants to give love, understanding and care, one uses sterile needles."[29]

In 2018, all child care homes in India run by the Missionaries of Charity were inspected by the Ministry of Women and Child Development following allegations that two staff members at a Jharkhand home sold babies for adoption. A sister and a social worker employed there were arrested. Sister Konsalia Balsa and social worker Anima Indwar were accused of having already sold three babies from the home, which provides shelter for pregnant, unmarried women, and of trying to sell a boy baby for roughly £1,325.[30] The Missionaries of Charity had discontinued its participation in adoption services in India three years earlier over religious objections to the country's new adoption rules.[31] In December 2021, Ministry of Home Affairs (India) refused to renew the registration under Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) of Missionaries of Charity along with 6000 other charity organizations, which is mandatory for charities, NGOs and any non-profit organizations receiving foreign funding in India registration .[32][33] The decision was subsequently reverted in the first week of January 2022.[34]

• González-Balado, José Luis; Teresa (1997). Mother Teresa: in my own words. New York: Gramercy Book. ISBN 0-517-20169-0.
• Brian Kolodiejchuk; Mother Teresa (2007). Mother Teresa: come be my light: the private writings of the "Saint of Calcutta". Garden City, N.Y: Doubleday. ISBN 978-0-385-52037-9.
• Muggeridge, Malcolm. Something Beautiful for God. London: Collins, 1971. ISBN 0-06-066043-0.
• 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.
• Mary Johnson (2011). An Unquenchable Thirst: Following Mother Teresa in Search of Love, Service, and an Authentic Life. ISBN 978-0385527477.

• Mother Teresa Of Calcutta Center
• Missionaries of Charity Brothers (active branch)
• Mother Teresa biography at the Nobel Prize foundation site has some information on the history and activities of the Missionaries of Charity.
• Time Magazine 100 Most Important People of the Century
• Eternal Word Television Network – History of the order and bio of Sister Nirmala
• Letter by Pope John Paul II on the 50th anniversary of the order in 2000
• Teresa's volunteers – Photo document on volunteers working at Nirmal Hriday in Calcutta, by photographer Wim Klerkx, 1998
• "Volunteering for Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity", New York Times – one volunteer's experience]
• Missionaries of Charity Fathers Website