Talk:Mother Teresa

For previous discussion, see

Talk:Mother Teresa/Archive1

Rearranging, not Shortening

Without intending to step onto anyone's toes, I wonder whether it might be a useful way forward to take apart the whole Criticism area and form a new new paragraph like "MT's motivation and aims".

It is quite clear that she had particular views on aborrtion and fertility, her aims were not simply relief of poverty and she felt death bed conversions are genuine conversions, warranting baptism, whatever the critics think. This paragraph would be factual and concentrated onto her alone.

A criticism paragraph could then follow, containing exactly what eloquence has written. This would alter the tone probably significantly without necesstiating any actual deletions.

WRT to teh pictures - do they actually add information eloquence ? I am not sure. To me they simply affect bandwith, but than I am a poor Modem-user and I really do not want to be in THAT discussion involved.

After all her aims and motivations are hers not alone and might well be shared by many Wikipedians (and many in the world at large), while eloquence's criticisms are obviously a valid POV. I do not intend to become involved unless there is consensus that this might be a good idea. I am normally a logged in user, but a bit wary looking glancingly at the length of the current discussion. I will watch this page and come back under my username if people agree i should give it a go. Afterwards everyone can revert to status quo ante and continue happily in NPOV/POV warring... :-)

Naive Newbie 23:59 15th December 2003

Is the picture of MT with the Pope useful? Hardly, because that event was neither unusual nor surprising. These pictures are a dime a dozen. The "negative" pictures are about as useful as pictures can be, as they show historical events in MT's life that are unsual and unexpected, yet the pictures themselves do not distort the truth. They convey information which is factual, on-topic and useful. This would be clearer if Jtdirl had not mutilated the captions beyond recognition, as now it is difficult at first glance to see what the pictures are about (e.g. Charles Keating: that she accepted money from him which she refused to return later when asked to do so). So it looks a bit like we're simply trying to show her with persons of questionable reputation in order to discredit her, while in reality, these pictures refer to specific historical events that are discussed in the text.—Eloquence

One Wikipedian's Perspective

I first noticed Mother Teresa (the article) just before this war broke out. I've been watching the article ever since, but I have so little time to devote to WP most days that I haven't wanted to say anything. But I feel today as though I should say something because inaction is a comment of its own. I must reluctantly say that I think this article and the argument surrounding it is one of WP's darkest moments, for both sides. Everyone involved here is a contributor that I have at least moderate respect for. Most of them (especially Jt and Erik) have behaved in a manner that I think is detrimental to Wikipedia and what we all (including Jt and Erik) are trying to accomplish here--I personally believe that both Jt and Erik are assets to this community (far more useful than me, at any rate), and I am still puzzled by how events have turned out. I know each of you blames the other for escalating things, but it occurs to me that there was a way of avoiding this which does not come down to "so-and-so should have given up his/her intractable and illogical bias". Articles like MT will always exist, and they will tend to attract controversy and bias: humans are controversial, biased beings. We have to find a better way of dealing with this, in my opinion. I only wish I had an answer to offer.

The only other thing I really wanted to say is that I am no longer going to keep this article on my watchlist because it is, in my opinion, no longer an embarassment to Wikipedia, which I personally believe it has been for a long time now (no matter whose opinion was ascendant at the time). I still think there are improvements to make, and (yes, I'll make my own bias clear) I still believe there are a few sentences in the Criticism section which go too far, but overall, we have an article that makes many, many people slightly uncomfortable, and no one truly happy. And in an article that invites bias and outrage, I think this is what NPOV looks like: everyone just a little miffed that the article doesn't deliver "the truth". With that definition of NPOV, the only suggestion I can make for MT's future is that I think (though Erik likely disagrees) that the anti-MT faction (which likely calls itself something else..I haven't watched closely enough to know what) is more comfortable with this article than the pro-MT faction, and I would therefore encourage the article to stablize slightly more in favor of MT than it currently is. But perhaps that's just my own bias: as I said above, I think this article is probably about where NPOV lies. That's only my opinion, and I've said it now, and anyone who likes can bash me for it. The only thing I will say in its defense is that I've spent two months thinking about this--thinking, and not writing--so this is perhaps (and I emphasize perhaps) a more considered and carefully thought-out statement than I am wont to make. Peace to all of you, and I hope we can all go back to other articles now, Jwrosenzweig 23:37, 15 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Thanks for your feedback, and I agree with you 100% that this discussion has devolved into a lot of name calling and insults. I have tried to avoid such a course when I made my peace offer to Jtdirl on October 22 and stayed away from the article for several weeks. Jtdirl ignored my offer, first blaming it on the weather and then just launching another public tirade against me. The real reason, of course, is that I wanted an agreement on specific ground rules, such as a) no personal attacks, b) no more than one revert in case of disagreements.

This he could never agree to. His whole methodology for resolving bigger disputes on Wikipedia is: 1) ostracize the person in question (i.e. try to make it a "Us vs. HIM" situation), 2) launch a massive attack on all Wikipedia communication channels, 3) hope that the person stops contributing, 4) if they don't, start an edit war. Of course he is also happy if the person apologizes and agrees with him. Jtdirl is a very efficient bully, and when I pointed this out, several users told me, publicly and privately, that they had noticed this behavior themselves.

But Jtdirl is not unbiased in his abuse. He has reserved it for the anti-MT faction (and I will gladly accept that label). The result was that good contributors like Adam were driven away by zealots like Alexandros, while Jtdirl did nothing. After Alexandros vandalized (yes, vandalized - he just removed the entire criticism section) the article several times, and Jtdirl didn't intervene, Viajero wrote on his talk page: "I wish no ill of Alexandros, but if you are so concerned with protocol, why aren't you chastising him repeatedly on these pages? I am not the problem. In view of all this, I can't help but suspect your neutrality on the issue of Mother Teresa."

He never accepted my peace offer, and abused me verbally at every opportunity he could find - on users' talk pages, mailing lists and of course here. I asked Jimbo to intervene, and he said that he had sent a private message to Jtdirl asking him to moderate himself. That didn't help one bit, and since no explicit public message was forthcoming (as is usually the case when regulars break the rules), there was no alternative for me but to behave the same way Jtdirl did in order to preserve some kind of sanity.

Jtdirl isn't interested in NPOV here, and it's quite blatantly obvious. He is interested in 1) maintaining the pecking order - he has to be the alpha male, 2) getting the most embarrassing facts out of this article (he deliberately removed single passages from quotations, such as the claim by Robin Fox that Mother Teresa did not distinguish curable and incurable patients). In the last weeks, he has waited patiently until someone made a comment here in support of changes to the article, and then started an anti-Erik tirade of the type "Look, everyone thinks this article is biased and Erik just won't listen! Now we have X, Y, Z, A, B and C who all think it's a terrible article but Erik wants to play wiki-God and push his agenda. He thinks he is some kind of Christ-like figure for atheists!" (I'm not making this up.) So he tries to instrumentalize every opinion he comes across, no matter how vague, no matter how opposed to his own earlier statements, in order to gain the kind of control he wants over this article.

I can tell you with certainty at this point that Jtdirl is too biased to have this kind of control. I can tell you with equal certainty that I am, and have always been, willing to make reasonable edits to this article in order to accommodate people with a different point of view. In fact, this article is the result of such an editing process with people from all sides of the issue. I for one am very disappointed that nobody has tried to write a decent rebuttal to these criticisms, and as Adam Carr has explained, that's because the Catholic Church has never made one! They have simply ignored the criticisms. So what are you going to do in a case like that? It is always going to be slightly in favor to the anti-MT side until there is an official rebuttal. In the meantime, the only way to make this article more "balanced" is to include more facts about Mother Teresa's life.

Then there is the information removal argument. Some people believe that NPOV

can only be maintained if certain information -- images, entire sections -- is removed from the article. Never mind that everyone agrees that the information is on-topic. This is of course a logic we would apply nowhere else, but in a case of MT that position suddenly becomes acceptable because, hey, people loved her so much, how can we write so many negative things about her? I will always resist this kind of information deletionism, as it is the very opposite of Wikipedia's mission statement to collect and structure all human knowledge.

My position has always been and continues to me: If there are factual criticisms of this article, I'd like to hear them. Even logical arguments why certain information should be removed. But generic "I think this reads like POV" statements are of no value whatsoever in this discussion. As for the tone, I hope that when the mediation/arbitration teams become official next year, we can moderate it down somewhat.—Eloquence 04:58, Dec 16, 2003 (UTC)

For the record I

came to the article to tone down its initial glorification of MT in the opening. Then I found that whereas the top third was ludicrously OTT in proclaiming MT as the greatest person of the 20th century, the bottom 2/3s adopted a tone that held her on a par with Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot. Both chunks were so far from NPOV as to be laughable.
have removed plenty of OTT glorification of MT, removed references to her being venerated the world over as hero, agreed that her views on abortion should be included, against the wishes of Alexandros and others.
reverted an edit by Alexandros back to one by Eloquence and asked him to use that as a template.
sought a wide spread of views of wikipedians on the article, leaving messages all over wikipedia asking for opinions.
Championed the use of Alan Carr's alternative draft.
Rewrote sections of text in NPOV language, unlike others who deleted chucks and went out of the way to use POV constructs (eg, analysing MT's views on abortion exclusively from a 'pro-choice' angle. I pointed out how equally ludicrous it would be to write the same paragraph from a 'pro-life' perspective and instead wrote the paragraph in a manner that mentioned both sides' perspectives, without producing text that looked like it was written by a fanatic from either side.

As to Erik's laughable peace-offer, it was classic Erik. 'Let me get my way and I'll let you contribute. Whereas I have been repeatedly asking outsiders to come and comment, Eloquence has spent most of his time driving people away, screaming at them to read the fucking article, accusing people of being in the pay of the Catholic Church, threatening bans twice to such an extent that one user was too afraid of him and his position as a developer and sysop to continue contributing to the page, verbially abusing Daniel and Ed to such an extent that other quite senior wikipedians were afraid to come to the page.

As far as I am concerned, this article has to carry details of allegations and criticism of MT. It has to cover who she was, what she believed, what her perspective on the world was, what her critics' perspective were, etc. A glorification article is not an option. Neither is a demonisation. I hope Jwrosenzweig and everyone else will stay had contribution and that everyone driven away will feel able to return without anymore threats and swearing and the ridiculing of their opinions, beliefs and perspectives. FearÉIREANN 19:47, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Nice revisionist history there. Your first "contribution" to this article was to start an edit war by moving the entire criticism section to a separate page, unannounced, against the opinions of various Wikipedians. It's all in the page history. I have never accused you of removing the most well known claims about MT, I have pointed out quite clearly that you have deliberately and selectively removed substantial parts of these criticisms, such as the lack of distinction between curable and incurable patients. When Alexandros went on his edit war, Viajero rightly pointed out that you did not find it necessary to revert his massive vandalism of the article, and in fact, you have gone on to use Alexandros in your "list of poor people who were driven away by evil Erik", even when Adam Carr has agreed that this article would be better off without him. (Which brings me again to the fact that this present article is the result of a collaboration by several contributors, especially Adam, so when you accuse me of not being able to write biographical articles, you are effectively insulting all the people who have worked on this version.) You "championed the use" of Adam's draft? There was never any dispute about using that version as a basis for further edits. You held a silly vote because you thought (and still claim) that I am somehow opposing reasonable changes to the article. I have never done that, and I have immediately accepted major rewrites of sections that were in dispute. I have removed or rephrased anti-Teresa POV where I spotted it.

As long as you are more interested in "winning" than in cooperating, the article (and the conversation about it) will stagnate in its present state, for better or for worse. If you want to start working with me and others, I'm all ears. Make factual, logical suggestions without personal attacks, and I will respond in kind, as I always have. I invite all interested parties to a reasonable discourse based on logic and a sound understanding of our policies, under the mutual assumption of good faith. Is there a rebuttal that should be included? Has MT been misrepresented somewhere? Is there a criticism that is missing? What parts of her life and work should we discuss in more detail? This is the kind of discussion I would like to have about this article. If you can accept that you won't dominate this article and get exactly what you want, then we can work together. It's your decision - another flamewar every couple of days, or a reasonable discussion among adults who treat each other as equals. I'm not interested in "winning". I only want to make this article a well deserved entry on Wikipedia:Brilliant prose ASAP. :-) —Eloquence 20:38, Dec 16, 2003 (UTC)

One thing to me is clear: I shouldn't have written my post above. It just gave you both license to attack each other again. My apologies. I hope you will both realize that, for many Wikipedians, we don't care very much at this stage who started it or who was most wrong or what reversion was most unjust. Personally, anyway, I hope you both leave each other alone for a long time because, as I noted before, you make significant contributions to this site, both of you, and I would love to see a lot more of them. Please stop posting long histories of the other person's violations--even if you have lost respect for each other, I, at least, still respect you both, and accept that almost all of us have done things at WP that others thought worthy of censure. Once again, please don't take my posts as the indication that you should remain in pitched battle. Jwrosenzweig 21:16, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC)

This page needs assistance to make it passable, let alone an adequate encyclopædia article. Please do contribute as much as you can. Silsor has been making great efforts to remove some of the worst of the rubbish. As for Eloquence's attacks, I really don't care anymore. Threats, curses, libels and spin have been what people have had to put up with here for months everytime he can't get his own way. If he wants to use this page as his personal playpen, that's his problem. Plenty of others are concerned with principles like NPOV, accuracy and balance. However many people are driven away by Erik's tantrums, others will continue to threat this article as something that should aim to achieve encyclopædic, not tabloid, standards. So please do offer any constructive suggestions you have on the article, its structure, language, tone and content. The more contributors of substance the better. :-) FearÉIREANN 23:18, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC)

You must have missed the whole point of his original posting. He appears to not agree with you about the current state of the article. At least to the degree that it is close to evenly balanced so that neither opponents or supporters of MT have it all their way. (apologies to JWR, if I misrepresented your position) -- Jussi-Ville Heiskanen 15:54, Dec 19, 2003 (UTC)

Naive Newbie again

1) Can someone archive some of the discussion it is again far too long, but I do not know yet enough how to do this

2) There is one point in the criticism section which I find curious: Her supposed support for a forced sterilisation programme. This sounds so out of order for a catholic nun, that I can not really believe this. I searched today the whole day the net and could not come up with any source supporting this. The only "close" finding i had was that she apparently made some/many(?) supportive noises towards Rajiv Gandhi, who in turn run this programme - but no direct link between her and the programme. Unless this link is established I believe this criticism is "tabloid" and should be removed.

It is one of the more strange claims. On the face of it there was about as much likelihood of Mother Teresa supporting sterilisation as there was of her supporting abortion. Both are condemned by the RC Church in equal measure. It is indicative of some of the fundamental errors regarding Roman Catholic beliefs that have been added in here and elsewhere. Unless some credible source can be found for this on the face of it nutty suggestion, it should indeed be binned. FearÉIREANN 00:06, 17 Dec 2003 (UTC)

3) Apart from this - I was "Naive Newbie" above. I get your point, Eloquence, wrt to the pics.

4) But my other point remained unadressed - I think a re-arrangement - her motivations and aims under one section and criticism under a second section would be more appropriate. Unless someone tells me with good argument I should not do this I will make an attempt at it - you can always revert it if you do not like the result. The idea is to re-arrange not to delete!

Refdoc 23:49, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC)

A Question

All right, then, I'll make one of my suggestions. A sentence that throws me off a little each time I read it is at the end of the paragraph on Duvalier. It reads (currently) "By the time of her death, the Missionaries of Charity had houses in most Communist countries." It seems a little off-balance in the paragraph to me...the section deals with criticisms of MT. Are we criticizing her for helping the poor in Communist nations? Would we prefer that she have only operated in nations who followed a capitalist ideal? I imagine not. So I assume the sentence has landed there because this article has been edited and reverted enough that we've lost track of some things.

As I see it, either this sentence indicates a criticism by MT's opponents (though as I note above, what the criticism is I cannot fathom) or it does not. If it does, I hope that someone will flesh out the criticism in its own paragraph (along with a response from the pro-MT faction, if there is a public response). If it doesn't, we can either move it to MT's bio section or delete it. I can't imagine why it's noteworthy enough for the bio section...I suppose a list of nations where the MofC operated might possibly fit....but surely a better fit for their own article, no? I think it best to delete the sentence unless there is a specific criticism behind it. Note that I do not want to delete much of the criticism section (I worry I will be perceived as taking sides here), but think this particular sentence oddly placed, and worthy of removal (if not expanded). Jwrosenzweig 23:58, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I inserted that sentence a while ago; I think it was because of the controversy over the "guilt by association" issue of her associating with Communists. I just wanted to point out that her efforts in associating with people or regimes which some may find disagreeable may have had results in allowing her to continue her mission in certain areas. I thought it flowed well with the previous sentence,

Critics said her actions compromised her perceived moral authority through unwise and controversial political associations; however, her supporters defended such associations, saying she had to deal with political realities of the time in order to lobby for her causes.

but if you don't think it works, feel free to change it. silsor 00:08, Dec 17, 2003 (UTC)

Hmmm, I guess I just feel that its position in a criticisms section implies it's either a criticism or a defense against one. If it's a defense, I think it should be reworded...something like "Defenders of Mother Teresa note that she was often forced to work with totalitarian governments in order to aid the poor living under those governments." If it's a criticism, I think it should be rephrased more like this: "Critics of Mother Teresa note that, by the end of her life, her Missionaries of Charity had outposts in virtually every Communist country, which they consider to be an indication of her alliance with totalitarian governments." Note, I don't know that defenders or critics of MT ever say such things, so I don't know if it would be right to represent them as saying so here. As it stands, I see the sentence as too ambiguous, and therefore distracting in a section devoted essentially to delineating the two chief perspectives on MT's work. I am hesitant to change anything because I am sure everyone else here knows more about MT than I do (if you didn't before October, I imagine you've picked it up by now), and because I prefer to have consensus because it makes me feel less nervous when I end up clicking that "Save Page" button. Thanks for telling me its origins, though! Jwrosenzweig 00:17, 17 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Just a quick note that many of Teresa's (or rather, the MoC's) outposts had nothing to do with aiding the poor at all. They had a purely missionary ~~posi~~function. This is generally acknowledged by critics and defenders alike.—Eloquence

And so what?

What do we do for this MT page? Shall we leave it like this, with the POV header? I am not sure to have fully understood all contributions here but I feel that more people think there is a POV problem, and less think that the POV header could be removed without changing the article. In fact, Eloquence is the only one to claimed NPOV here, if I'm not mistaking. Maybe his own homepage can explain this : Declaration of bias: I am opposed to irrationalism, be it in the form of organized religion, miracle healers or postmodernism. he wrote himself. I a way, I fully share the opposition to irrationalism, but I do share another value that I think is more inportant: tolerance and respect to others beliefs, even to the stupidest ones. And I still think the attacks against MT that are reflected in the article are fuelled with strong anti-religious ideas, if not anti-Catholic ones.

I don't know what are the procedures in case of conflicts, and I don't want to go to an edit war, but I do want this article to be better and I am ready to try some modifications. gbog 08:13, 18 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I'm all for removing the POV header. As for your proposed changes, just go ahead and make them. If I find them problematic, I will revert them and we can discuss them here. Removal of relevant factual information is generally unacceptable, but adding information for balance and rearranging is OK, even moving it to other articles if it is more ontopic elsewhere. Factual inaccuracies, if there are any, should of course be corrected.

As for tolerance, my own moral position is that there should be no tolerance of intolerant acts. Mother Teresa wanted to deny women the right to choose to have children, she even wanted to deny people the right to use contraceptives. There should also be no tolerance of immoral behavior, and in spite of her order's noble mission, she committed quite a few questionable acts and seemed to relish the suffering of those who came to her for help ("beautiful for the poor to accept their lot .. share it with the passion of Christ" - her words), instead of providing them with proper medical assistance and pain relief. Many children who could have been saved died because they were thrown into a room together with people suffering from infectious disease, and the last thing they got was a "ticket to heaven".

Of course, by declaring my own bias I do not imply that the articles I contribute to should adopt this point of view. I merely request that my point of view be tolerated like any other, and included in an NPOV fashion. You can accuse me of intolerance toward certain actions, that accusation I accept. However, I am not intolerant toward other people's beliefs. I feel that all beliefs of and about Mother Teresa should be treated fairly and neutrally, and I feel that other people have been disrespectful and intolerant toward the beliefs of her critics, trying to remove them entirely or segregate them from the main article. Thus, while I may be intolerant toward some people's actions, it is the people who have tried to remove information from this article who are intolerant toward other people's beliefs.

Prove me wrong: Point to a single instance where I tried to prevent the inclusion of information in this article. You won't find any. All I've done in the last few weeks is try to prevent the removal of some of the points of view about Mother Teresa. And whenever there was discussion about the precise phrasing of an NPOV paragraph -- how do we include all points of view, what possible explanation is there for Mother Teresa's actions -- I have always been open to compromise. What you are asking me to be tolerant of is the removal of my point of view from the article ("shorten the criticism section to one paragraph" - your suggestion), and you accuse me of intolerance if I do not comply. I think that is a rather twisted way of seeing things.—Eloquence

Nonsense. (Quoting Eloquence, by the way). You should take all the statements here with a grain of salt. All of them. Pfortuny 09:08, 18 Dec 2003 (UTC)

And here comes "one of the most polite and honest wikipedians", according to Jtdirl. :-)—Eloquence 09:16, Dec 18, 2003 (UTC)

First time I read that applied to me, AFAIK. Thanks for the compliment. Pfortuny 11:30, 18 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Hey, Eloquence, I don't want to discuss each comma and go into quasi edit war with you. As you are sysop and more experienced as me, I'm sure to loose :)

I also don't want to discuss the validity of each argument against MT, not at all. There is a book full of them and I'm sure they could all be stated here. The only thing I want is to reach NPOV and wikipedia standards. You proposed me to add weight in the pro-part. I am not sure that it is a good idea. The article itself already smells a little bit the edit war cold smoke and I would rather eliminate few flawly things in pro-part, as I already said. So the only solution I see is to shorten con-part (I like slim things!). STOP! Don't shout loudly! I DON'T want to reduce the strength of the arguments themselves, I only want to reduce their size in the page. This is my only little goal here. That's why I am trying to "filter" some paragraphs. As you know, filtering something usually means that you carefully keep the best, and improve the value of the material.

So, if you would like to agree that the percieved size (in pixels, in number of words) could be reduced without weakening argument's strength, and if you would agree that the con-part shouldn't be fatter than pro-part (excluding pure bio that is really neutral), I think we could go somewhere together. (Note also that when I said I wanted to reduce criticism to one paragraph, It was a way to bargain and I was ready to accept more!)

For a more precise case, let's take the sentence MT said at Nobel Prize speech. What does it exactly add to a sentence saying that criticist didn't like that she lobbied against abortion? MT article is not a trial. One don't have to give every factual proofs (but, sure, proofs are very useful in discussion pages if people don't agree). So I would like to be able to write "Criticists claim she lobbied against abortion and artificial contraception" and that's all. The argument (She was lobbied against a and a c) as not weakened, it's on the opposite washed from all the pushy things around. If you really don't like it this way, we could even swap "claim" with a stronger word like "proved", but definitly not inline all the proofs here. What do you think? gbog 10:22, 18 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I understand your goals. But I think there's no way to avoid discussing every single change you make. In some cases I will agree with the removal, in others I will not. The discussion is necessary in order to arrive at real NPOV, and not just one person's understanding of it. This is not an edit war, it's normal procedure.

Regarding the "greatest destroyer of peace" quote, I think it is very important, because it illustrates the level of opposition she had to abortion. It's not just proof for the statement -- that would be something like "For example, on May 12, 1984 she met with the German chancellor Helmut Kohl to discuss § 218 StGB in order to reach a consensus that even early term abortions should not be tolerated." (Completely made up example.) There are plenty such examples which are real that we could cite, but do not, because as you say, we do not need to include every single proof unless someone questions the veracity of what we write.

But a mere statement like "She opposed abortion" is not enough. How much did she oppose abortion? I think it is most NPOV to express this with her own words. After all, it was an important cause to her and it's not just in the interest of the critics that we should devote some space to it. The fact that this is presently only one paragraph, even though it took much more space in her real life and work, is already a big concession to those who would like to reduce the emphasis on her active political lobbying.

Well, to show your spirit of conciliation, you could agree that saying that 1) she lobbied against abortion and 2) she said "blabla" is redundant, as both show the same fact. Agreeing this, and agreeing also that shortening criticist space (space, not strength) is not hell, you could allow me to write only one on both things, that of your choice.gbog 15:18, 18 Dec 2003 (UTC)

They're not the same. There is a big difference between public speeches and private lobbying in talks with high level politicians. We might expect a public figure like Mother Teresa to use an opportunity like the Nobel Prize to promote her beliefs, but what she did clearly went far beyond that -- she frequently participated in meetings with conservative leaders to discuss specific legal proposals.—Eloquence

I think you are a little bit split hairs here. What is important, what people may want to know, is that MT was against abortion and, as you said, "how much" she was. Saying all she made in this direction is off topic. If you really don't want me to touch this article, say it once for all, you will save your time, and mine. gbog 16:00, 18 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I don't think it's splitting hairs at all to distinguish between public speeches and closed doors political lobbying, and as I've said already, I feel this particular paragraph is already as minimized as it can get. I think if you want to work on improving this article, figuring out better section headings might be a good start.—Eloquence

Ah. On that note. The "Secret Baptisms" header. I edited it into "Baptisms without clear will to convert" while the page was protected, and got deservedly chastised for it. Maybe the edit could be reinstated now? I think the "Beef" here is not the secrecy, but whether the recipients actually knew what they were "consenting" to IMO. -- Jussi-Ville Heiskanen 16:04, Dec 19, 2003 (UTC)

In short, this summary -- she opposed it, and here's a quote to show how much she did -- is the minimum I think that is acceptable, both in the interest of the critics and of her own views. She herself would certainly want this message to be included in even greater detail.—Eloquence 10:40, Dec 18, 2003 (UTC)

Hum, I personnally don't want to think about what MT herself would think on our article, and in fact I don't care at all. gbog 15:18, 18 Dec 2003 (UTC)

But why is this under "criticism"?! It is her good right to oppose abortion and to work hard for changing the law. So a "motivation" section should contain this. The criticism section would then contain that some people where not happy with her anti abortion stance.

Similarly 'she went to the grave of Enver Hodja' - where is the criticism here? Good Enver would have shot her in his time, so if at all this is a sign of her being a forgiving person - unless of course she went to the grave to gloat a la "I am still alive and you are dead!" It certainly did not curry her any favours anywhere - within the communist world Enver was a pariah.

I do think not very much needs to be cut on any place, but a lot needs to be re-arranged!

Refdoc 11:39, 18 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I thought about this myself a few hours ago and decided not to change the current structure to avoid splitting arguments up too much. Maybe we simply need a different headline, which would also reduce the impression that this article focuses too much on criticism (this was the case in the original version of the article, FWIW). As for the Enver Hoxha visit, I didn't add that particular part, but if there was indeed some controversy at the time we should include it, but we should also include the Catholic POV about it. I agree that it's not particularly damning.—Eloquence

Hers relationships

I'd like to replace

In 1981, Teresa flew to Haiti to accept the Legion d'Honneur from the right-wing dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier, who, after his ouster, was found to have stolen millions of dollars from the impoverished country. There she said that the Duvaliers "loved their poor," and that "their love was reciprocated." In 1987 Teresa visited Albania and visited the grave of the former Communist dictator Enver Hoxha. Critics said her actions compromised her perceived moral authority through unwise and controversial political associations; however, her supporters defended such associations, saying she had to deal with political realities of the time in order to lobby for her causes. By the time of her death, the Missionaries of Charity had houses in most Communist countries.

Criticism of Teresa in the United States grew after it was revealed that Charles Keating, who stole in excess of US$252 million in the Savings and Loan scandal of the 1980s, had donated $1.25 million to Mother Teresa's order. Teresa interceded on his behalf and wrote a letter to the court urging leniency. The district attorney responded in private and asked her to return the money, which she declined. She also accepted money from the British publisher Robert Maxwell, who, as was later revealed, embezzled UK£450 million from his employees' pension funds. There is no suggestion that she was aware of any theft before accepting the donation in either case.

With something like

Criticists pointed out Mother Teresa's relationship with

the right-wing dictator of Haiti Jean-Claude Duvalier (she received the Haitian Légion d'Honneur in 1981);
the Communist dictator of Albania Enver Hoxha (she visited his grave in 1987);
Charles Keating, who stole in excess of US$252 million in the Savings and Loan scandal of the 1980s;
the British publisher Robert Maxwell, who embezzled UK£450 million from his employees' pension funds.
Defenders claim that she had to lobby for her cause, therefore had to deal with dictators in poor countries and with thieves in rich ones.

Sorry, but this is the kind of "summary" that I find unacceptable, both from a pro- and an anti-Teresa POV. You completely lose the context of these historical events -- what was her relationship with Charles Keating? Did she have an affair with him? Did she do publicity work for him? What did she have to do with Duvalier? I think even Jtdirl will agree that only providing this kind of murky information is worse than what we currently have, because now people will get an even stronger impression that we are merely trying to feed some smear campaign.—Eloquence 16:53, Dec 18, 2003 (UTC)

What kind of relationship she had with Keating is clear enough: she did receive money from him. May be I could add a little adjective on "thieves" ("generous" thieves?). Let's wait for Jtdirl comments.

No, it isn't clear at all -- where in the above summary does it say that she received money from him? And it's not just that she received money, she refused to return it when asked to do so. These kind of bullet point summaries are nice for Power Point presentations, but they do not make encyclopedia articles.—Eloquence

If you don't like the bullets,it's easy to inline (and add the info you claim is missing):

Criticists pointed out Mother Teresa's relationship with the right-wing dictator of Haiti Jean-Claude Duvalier (she received the Haitian Légion d'Honneur in 1981) and the Communist dictator of Albania Enver Hoxha (she visited his grave in 1987). They complain (?) that she accepted donations from Charles Keating, who stole in excess of US$252 million in the Savings and Loan scandal of the 1980s, and from the British publisher Robert Maxwell, who embezzled UK£450 million from his employees' pension funds. Defender claim the received those donation before thefts was uncovered and that she had to lobby for her cause, therefore had to deal with dictators in poor countries and with thieves in rich ones.

Again, you are losing vital information. She did not just accept a donation, she refused to give it back when asked so by the District Attorney. You can't just summarize away facts that are critical to the ethical understanding of these issues. The word is "Critics", btw, not "Criticists".—Eloquence

I don't understand why this information is so "vital" to you. If fact, I think that adding this thing here is on the contrary pushing the critic-part out of the road and becoming unfair. Why? Simply because MT may not have herself all the money asked in her wallet, and also because it is far from sure that she had to give it back. What are saying the laws about that? Someone gives you something, and steels something, and you have to give back the gift? Why? (If you convinced to collusions, things are different, but it is not the case afaik) So, think twice and try to recognize the efforts I am making to improve this article, and please please please allow me to change this part... (I guess you took a lot of time to gather those arguments on MT and this may explain why you do want to keep each little bit of them, and why it hurts when I try to filter the critic-part) gbog 10:22, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)

You are far exceeding your authority here. It is not your job to judge whether arguments against Mother Teresa are fair or not. It's our job as an encyclopedia to report these arguments. I don't go into an article about religion and remove theological arguments about Trinity because I find them silly. As to whether it is fair, Mother Teresa's order is estimated to have billions of dollars and would have easily been able to pay back that money if they wanted to. There is no question about that at all. You seem to assume, like so many others, that the money they get is used for charity. This has been proven wrong. The nuns working for Mother Teresa are specifically instructed not to use donations to purchase medical equipment, food etc. Instead, the money is transferred to dubious accounts. There are no public records. That makes the criticism entirely valid, and raises the question whether MT knowingly cooperated with financial fraud -- an investigation is of course extremely unlikely. I don't care if you find these possibilities likely or not. It's not your job to decide whether they are. It's our job to report the facts. So please stick to doing so instead of trying to remove them.—Eloquence 10:31, Dec 19, 2003 (UTC)

Ok, ok, ok, I understand that you don't really want to hear me, nor to let me try to improve the quality of the article. Instead, you prefer sticking to your ideas on MT and on what should be this article (an "educational" article, as you said somewhere, hear "an article that "educates" readers to shoot catholics nuns"). I don't think that any article in Wikipedia should be "educative" this way, and any other one. My goal is not to "educate" people for or against other people or ideas. I don't feel myself clever enough to be able to "educate" people that read this encyclopedia. I may have few info to share on subjects I like, and I thought that Wikipedia had "information" as main goal. Ok ok. gbog 11:21, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)

BTW, you will answer that "MT didn't want to give back money she received" IS pure information. Yes my friend. And any other line in your book against her could be stated as "informational and on-topic". But any hagiographical book would give the same, or more. And, therefore, if you are consequent with yourself, you should write in the article a list of ALL pro-books, a list of ALL good persons she met, a list of ALL graves she visited, and, at first, a list of ALL person she helped in her life. All those are facts, informational, and, they may also be "educational", so you should like them... Ok ? gbog 11:21, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Gbog, I said "eons ago" in this talk page that Mother Teresa would prefer peace to discussion (or something similar which I do not recall). I had an experience similar to the one you are having. I advise you against the dangers of getting burnout. None of my efforts to ask for an explanation about the reliability as sources of information of Keating and the others were satisfactorily answered and then I gave up (I felt as I was talking to the void and I also felt insulted). You will be told that Keating and the others are as fair as any other, but you know, someone stating "I am an atheist and I am agaist religion" (more or less) seems not too fair a source of info about religious topics. But again, I was told not to "mix up" comments and so on.

I am getting out of the subject. Try not to burn out. Read the whole history and you will see how your arguments were previously withdrawn as "you are POV and the vision in the present article is the best we have achieved", which for me is a way of saying "do NOT DELETE what I edited".

Eloquence is NOT the only voice in this article. I agree with your edits, so feel free to do what you please as long as you give reasons for it.

If anyone reverts your edits "claiming previous consensus" I shall try to help you. There is no consensus here as yet. Pfortuny 11:44, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Great, now we go back to edit wars and insults. So I am "not a fair source of information" because I declare my bias upfront, while you do not even say on your user page that you're Catholic. This is silly and I don't have time for it. If you have meaningful changes to make, do so. Removals without reason will simply be reverted.—Eloquence

Didn't say you above, AFAIK. Please Erik notice that it is absolutely clear from the context, the history of this page and my words that I was referring to the writers of the books you use (I mistook Hitchens for Keating, sorry). I do not mind wether it is you or me or Jimbo or anyone using them, I criticise the reliability of those books and papers due to the actions and words of their writers. Do not feel insulted when no insult was intended, please. Do I need to state that I am a Catholic? I thought it was clear. I AM one. Yes, that's why I do not intend to delete any of the info you have written (even tough I insist nobody has shown that your sources of info are fair).

I do not know wether you are an atheist and are against religion. If that is what hurt you, those are Hitchen's words (or the other author en dispute months ago). I never intended to refer to you and if you thought so I do apologize but recall it has been a misunderstanding on your side.Pfortuny 12:23, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)

You're right, I thought you were referring to me. Sorry for the misunderstanding. Hitchens is definitely not fair, but that doesn't matter much for his inclusion in his article. Wikipedia does not subscribe to ad hominem fallacies, and besides, most of Hitchens' research is based on that of Aroup Chatterjee, whose character does not seem to be called into question by anyone (and who has even submitted his criticisms to the official canonization commission).—Eloquence 12:39, Dec 19, 2003 (UTC)

And then? Will you allow me to make the changes I tried? Will you revert them or, worst, not revert but add more and more delayed Hitchen's assertions? gbog 12:53, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)

The changes you've suggested so far are not improvements, they would make the article less informative and less useful. As such, I disagree with them, so there's clearly no consensus to make these changes. Look at what you're doing: All you've talked about in the last couple of days is what material you want to remove from this article. Yet you call me intolerant. Please do not try to censor information critical of Mother Teresa.—Eloquence

Filtered info are not critical gbog

Wait a minute: censor? Where did (s)he talk about removing important information on unexplained grounds? Gbog is trying to improve (in whatever way (s)he thinks best) the article by summarizing, which is quite a good aim and just. Do not call that censorship. (S)he is not trying just to remove, but to improve. You do not agree that is an improvement, but you cannot bring the word censorship in the discussion: wow, I am really astounded!

Well, Gbog: please do not use nuclear weapons either. Just in case. Pfortuny 13:18, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I guess it's just a coincidence then that the only thing affected by these "summaries" are the negative aspects of Mother Teresa's life.—Eloquence

You confirm one thing i suspected: you don't read what I try to say to you. I already said I agree to filter also other parts.gbog

There's no reason to "filter" anything.—Eloquence

Criticism of her motivations

The same, because a course about Catholicism has no reason to be here, I'd like to replace:

Christopher Hitchens described Mother Teresa's organisation as a cult which promoted suffering and did not help those in need. Hitchens said that Teresa's own words on poverty proved that her intention was not to help people. He quoted Teresa's words at a 1981 press conference in which she was asked: "Do you teach the poor to endure their lot?" She replied: "I think it is very beautiful for the poor to accept their lot, to share it with the passion of Christ. I think the world is being much helped by the suffering of the poor people."

In Christian belief, charity is a duty imposed on followers of Jesus Christ by scripture. Although many Protestant denominations believe salvation comes only through faith, with charitable works a duty of every Christian, Roman Catholicism places considerable emphasis on the performance of good works as a necessary (but not sole) condition of salvation.

In Catholicism, the combination of charitable works and evangelism has played a central role in the actions of some religious orders. To their defenders, the actions of Mother Teresa and her followers fulfilled that tradition. Her critics, however, viewed Mother Teresa as being preoccupied with the furtherance of Catholicism and its causes, rather than with alleviating poverty or offering medical help to the poor she treated. They also claim that Teresa gave a false impression of the nature of her work.

There is an accusation that funds donated for relief work for the sick and poor were actually diverted to missionary work in non-Christian countries. Chatterjee alleged that many operations of the order engage in no charitable activity at all but instead use their funds for missionary work. He alleged, for example, that none of the eight facilities that the Missionaries of Charity run in Papua New Guinea have any residents in them, being purely for the purpose of converting local people to Catholicism.

Defenders of the order argue that missionary activity was the central part of Teresa's calling. She perceived evangelisation as her central goal, with her care of the poor a secondary one, involving the bringing of "Christ to the poor." Chatterjee and other critics counter that the public image of Mother Teresa as a "helper of the poor" was misleading, and that only a few hundred people are served by even the largest of the homes. Stern magazine alleged the (Protestant) Assembly of God charity serves 18,000 meals daily in Calcutta, many more than all the Mission of Charity homes together.

with something like:

Christopher Hitchens and other critics described Mother Teresa's organisation as a cult which promoted suffering and did not help those in need. They viewed Mother Teresa as being preoccupied with the furtherance of Catholicism and its causes, rather than with alleviating poverty or offering medical help to the poor she treated. They claim that Teresa gave a false impression of the nature of her work. There is also an accusation that funds donated for relief work for the sick and poor were actually diverted to missionary work in non-Christian countries.

Sigh, you're still focusing on cutting rather than making useful additions. In addition, you're trying to cut a section that is a carefully worked out compromise between critics and defenders -- the paragraphs about Catholicism were added by Jtdirl in order to improve NPOV, and I think they have a place in the article. By reducing the material to one paragraph (and leaving out some important facts in the process), you accomplish exactly what you say you want to avoid: You make this article focus on only one side of the issue, while ignoring the point of view of those who love and admire Mother Teresa.

Wikipedia is not paper. We have place to elaborate on these criticisms, and we should use it to explain them from both sides of the debate. Not doing so gives a murky and incomplete picture of what is going on. This is exactly the wrong way to achieve NPOV: You go by counting the number of characters which you feel are devoted to criticism (when in reality they are devoted by giving an NPOV discussion of it, which means both sides), and try as hard as you can to get that number of characters down. In the process you will lose both facts and neutrality.—Eloquence 17:05, Dec 18, 2003 (UTC)

(I wrote an answer and lost it, let's write it again) The reason why I don't like the current article is not exactly because of POV, but because of the feeling that there is two opposing POVs defended by some watchdogs that didn't manage (did they try?) to merge (and thus reduce, like in some mathematical operations) them in one NPOV. I am not a Catholic defender, and proselytism is something I really feel bad with. On the opposite, I don't like religious intolerance and unfair attacks against a nun who devoted her life to poors and sicks. So I hope I can try to stand somewhere "in the middle".

As you surely know, there is a Wikipedia fork (forgot its name) where, if I am not mistaking, instead of trying to reach (the mythical) NPOV, different POV can coexist on one page. May be the article in its current state have a better place there. gbog 17:30, 18 Dec 2003 (UTC)

The project you are referring to is the Internet Encyclopedia, which is completely different from what you think it is. They use what is called a "sympathetic point of view", with one main article being positive, and additional critical supplement articles. This is in fact the opposite of NPOV. With NPOV, you have different points of view combined into a single article.

There is no such thing as "one NPOV". The whole point of NPOV is to attribute the different points of view and contrast them against one another. This can lead to sometimes extreme results, such as the argument trees in war on drugs. Of course there is a goal of resolution, that is, when a view is demonstrably false, we no longer need to give it much space, if any. But no such resolution has taken place here, and given that we are dealing with matters of faith as much as matters of reason, I'm not sure that is possible. (For example, why it may be undeniably true to write "Mother Teresa provided insufficient medical care to her patients", this would be labeled POV, not so much because of real arguments, but because it offends believers.)

Reducing the amount of facts or the level of detail is not going to help in achieving either resolution or NPOV. All it will accomplish is turn this page from an encyclopedia article into a bullet point list. As such, it would likely be more POV, because it would not give the different points of view the attention they deserve.

Regarding the "middle ground": The moment you adopt a position on Mother Teresa, you are biased, and it is only by recognizing that bias that you can prevent it from influencing your work. It does not matter if that position is "did more harm than good", "don't believe, but think she did good work" or "love her like Jesus". There is such a thing as the "fallacy of the middle", that is, the notion that just because a certain belief is between two extremes, it is necessarily correct or "moderate".—Eloquence

Yes. Argumentum ad temperantiam, the logical fallacy of the middle ground (still a pathetic stub, by the way...) -- Jussi-Ville Heiskanen 16:38, Dec 19, 2003 (UTC)

A little reminder

Grabbed in NPOV

Now an important qualification. Articles that compare views need not give minority views as much or as detailed a description as more popular views. We should not attempt to represent a dispute as if a view held by only a small minority of people deserved as much attention as a majority view. That may be misleading as to the shape of the dispute. If we are to represent the dispute fairly, we should present competing views in proportion to their representation among experts on the subject, or among the concerned parties. None of this, however, is to say that minority views cannot receive as much attention as we can possibly give them on pages specifically devoted to those views. There is no size limit to Wikipedia. But even on such pages, though a view is spelled out possibly in great detail, we still make sure that the view is not represented as the truth.

So, Eloquence, with full blessing from Jimmy Wales and your permission, I will reduce, and more than a little, the critical part of MT article, because we should present competing views in proportion to their representation among experts on the subject, or among the concerned parties. gbog 14:33, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Chatterjee et al. are experts on the subject just as Muggeridge and other MT hagiographers are, probably with objectively higher qualifications as well. And within the secular community, their view is not a minority view. You misunderstand NPOV completely -- we do not simply count heads. We have to compare the communities and examine the standing of the experts within that community. The religious community is distinct from the secular one. For example, the article about evolution accords almost no space to creationist views, because creationism is a position that is only held within the religious community, not within the secular one, and evolution is a scientific subject. Mother Teresa, being blessed and almost a Saint, falls into both communities, which means that we cannot simply ignore the blatant propaganda by the religious community and just report the facts. That's why we attribute even undeniably correct statements such as "Mother Teresa provided insufficient medical care". If MT was a person who only mattered within the secular community, she would not be granted this kind of special treatment. Similarly, in an article about a purely religious subject, such as Trinity, secular views are of almost no significance, and rightly segregated to separate pages.—Eloquence 14:56, Dec 19, 2003 (UTC)

Yes, but there should be more about her life. There are many books written about her. I don't see why it isn't easy to double or even triple the length of the text concerning her accomplishments. I guess the current article has a poor ratio of criticisms to accomplishments as there were more accomplishements than criticisms, but the criticisms are probably valid and will be more appropriate once we have more biographical information. I guess we should keep the current criticisms but just keep adding factual information about her accomplishments, in order to at some point create a perfect balance. If enough facts are added, so that the criticism section in its current state is only a small minority of the text, the article will be more balanced. Greenmountainboy 15:15, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)

While I don't think there's any requirement in NPOV to achieve a specific relationship between positive and negative information, I'm all for adding important facts to this article.—Eloquence 15:17, Dec 19, 2003 (UTC)

I don't agree, because if the current critical part is kept unchanged, we (or at least I, but I think there are other people thinking like me) will have an article that stills smells pushy, according to this excellent advice taken in NPOV tutorial:

A good way to judge the neutrality of an article is to ask, "Would a reader suspect that this article was written by someone who was trying to push a particular agenda or point of view - either subtly or not-so-subtly?" The more an article appears to be written by a neutral writer, the more neutral it is.

Those photos showing MT with dictators are (not-so-subtly) pushing an agenda, like many those arguments claiming in details that MT visited, one day, the grave of someone, then claiming that she said "gnagnagna" about the poors and ther suffers, then again explaining that a real Catholic can't avoid proselytism, then furthermore details on how bad she was.

Btw, would someone be kind enough to archive half this page? I can't do it because browser and connection limits. gbog 15:27, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)

You have a very good point here. The way the acrticle is currently written, does seem to push a particular agenda/POV. After rereading some criticisms, I have agree with Gbog. The criticism section should be be rewritten. Greenmountainboy 15:30, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)

The reason it is easy to get that impression is that the information contained in this article was never conveyed in the mainstream media. That has nothing at all to do with the information not being written in an NPOV fashion, or being too detailed (we cut down most of the details in the early edits). It is simply because this article tells the reader a lot of things that he probably doesn't already know and that likely contradict what he thinks he already knows.—Eloquence 15:33, Dec 19, 2003 (UTC)

Good point eloquence. Regardless, I think it might be more constructive use of time to add facts about her life, and worry less about the criticism being "too harsh". Greenmountainboy 15:35, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I do think that the link to keating and his being convicted of fraud, however, just is a little hoakie. Greenmountainboy

How so? He's one of America's most famous financial fraudsters, and he donated a million dollars of stolen money to one of the world's most revered nuns. After he was convicted, MT sent a plea for clemency to the trial judge. In response, she was asked to return the money, but refused to do so. I think this bears mentioning.

Even if I didn't, I would have to argue for its inclusion, as it was one of the most often repeated criticisms, along with the insufficient medical care.—Eloquence 15:40, Dec 19, 2003 (UTC)

What I think is most humorous

Here is my favorite part:

> Her critics, however, viewed Mother Teresa as being preoccupied with the furtherance of Catholicism and its causes, rather than with alleviating poverty or offering medical help to the poor she treated.

Not that I'm much of a fan of either institute, but criticising a Catholic nun for being preoccupied with Catholicism is pretty funny; frankly, I don't think I ever made it past that in the article, because that is so humorous.

When said nun is portrayed in virtually every article about her as the noble helper of the "poorest of the poor", and when she actively promoted that impression, then it is only fair to examine how much her work really reflected that image, and how much she focused on activities we would indeed expect of a Catholic nun.—Eloquence

OK, Eloquence cleary don't agree with NPOV

Sorry to say that, but you are unfair, Eloquence. You say I don't understand NPOV, but I have a clear statement that allows me to edit and shorten the critics part. Where should that problem be solved?