Mother Teresa: the ’demon’ saint

The late Mother Teresa, one of the world's highest-profile religious figures, was accused of being mad, vain, evil, and also of having an inappropriate relationship with a priest who was her spiritual director, according to newly published research from the University of Birmingham. In an article published in the ' International Journal of Public Theology ' , Birmingham sociologist Dr Gëzim Alpion explores some of the reasons behind the hostile treatment the Albanian-born missionary received as a member of the Loreto order in Calcutta from the moment she announced in 1946 that she wanted to be an independent nun. Dr Alpion says: 'In my previous research, especially in the 2007 monograph 'Mother Teresa: Saint or Celebrity?' , I have argued that Mother Teresa was discriminated against in Loreto because of her ethnicity as well as for daring to tell her Irish superiors that she could no longer stay in an order whose main purpose was the education of the daughters of rich people. In setting up her own Missionaries of Charity order in 1950 Mother Teresa emerged as a religion revolutionary who had a vision on what was expected of Christian missionaries in post-independence India.' The publication of Mother Teresa's private writings in 2000, 2001 and especially in 2007 and 2010, provided a new wealth of information which, according to Dr Alpion, is of interest to scholars from a variety of academic disciplines such as sociology, missiology, theology, psychology, celebrity studies, cultural studies, postcolonial studies, race and ethnicity studies, etc.