Taking aim at Mother Teresa's critics

NEW YORK (CWN) - John Cardinal O'Connor of New York September 14 joined the Vatican Secretary of State in condemning Mother Teresa's critics in the media who have become vocal after her death September 5. 

"I must confess my deep regret at what I consider the almost unbelievably tasteless manner in which some of the television and radio stations reported on the life and death of Mother Teresa," the cardinal said in his homily at St. Patrick's Cathedral. 

The Nobel Peace Prize laureate's critics contend that rather than simply feeding the poor and caring for the dying, the tiny nun should have used her influence to pressure governments to institute population control that would supposedly ease suffering on a wider scale. 

The critics, led by British journalist Christopher Hitchens, especially attacked Mother Teresa's steadfast adherence to the Catholic Church's teachings against abortion and artificial birth control. Hitchens attacked her recently in the British newspaper The Observer as "a friend of the rich and powerful and a lifelong deliverer of morality lectures to the poor." 

Vatican Secretary of State Angelo Sodano, principal celebrant at Mother Teresa's funeral in Calcutta September 13 with an estimated 100,000 mourners, said in his homily that Mother Teresa took action to end suffering, unlike utopian theorists. "It has been said that Mother Teresa might have done more to fight the causes of poverty in the world," he said. "Mother Teresa was aware of this criticism. She would shrug as if saying: 'While you go on discussing causes and explanations, I will kneel beside the poorest of the poor and attend to their needs."