While reading 50 Reasons to Boycott the Catholic Church by Adam Lee, I followed a link to Tainted Saint: Mother Teresa Defended Pedophile Priest by Peter Jamison. I am no fan of Mother Teresa. I know the story of her love of suffering, which the world conveniently ignores. I did not know she was connected to the Catholic clergy sexual abuse scandal. This stunning new information (to me anyway) added another layer to complex tapestry of hatred, lies and misinformation that is Mother Teresa.
…Yet documents obtained by SF Weekly suggest that Mother Teresa knew one of her favorite priests was removed from ministry for sexually abusing a Bay Area boy in 1993, and that she nevertheless urged his bosses to return him to work as soon as possible. The priest resumed active ministry, as well as his predatory habits. Eight additional complaints were lodged against him in the coming years by various families, leading to his eventual arrest on sex-abuse charges in 2005.
The priest was Donald McGuire, a former Jesuit who has been convicted of molesting boys in federal and state courts and is serving a 25-year federal prison sentence…
The “she” referenced in the first paragraph of the quote is none other than Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu, better known to the world as Mother Teresa.
Mother Teresa goes on to directly intervene in the case, which leads to the reinstatement of Donald McGuire and the abuse of more children.
In a 1994 letter to McGuire's Jesuit superior in Chicago, it appears that Mother Teresa acknowledged she had learned of the "sad events which took [McGuire] from his priestly ministry these past seven months," and that McGuire "admitted imprudence in his behavior," but she wished to see him put back on the job. The letter was written after McGuire had been sent to a psychiatric hospital following an abuse complaint to the Jesuits by a family in Walnut Creek.
Mother Teresa will be a saint one day. How sad is that?
Notes
- TIL is Today I Learned, which is a term gleaned from Reddit.
- Read Christopher Hitchens book, The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice, for more insight into the life and ‘service’ of Mother Teresa.
