A petition launched in India, demanding that the country should not send a top-level delegation to the Vatican to attend the canonisation of Mother Teresa, sets out a a comprehensive list of reasons why India should boycott the event.

The list includes:

There have been several cases against Mother Teresa for financial irregularities as well as accepting donations from dubious people and sending it to Roman Catholic Church. Unless such cases are thoroughly investigated, how can the government provide legitimacy to a saint who has a very fraudulent background? 

And:

The hospice in Calcutta through which Mother Teresa gained such wide recognition is very small (80 beds) and provides little medical care. Needles are reused, all patients are forced to have their heads shaven, visitors are forbidden and painkillers are rarely if ever used. The nurses do not speak the language of the people and are not usually involved in the care of the patients. This duty is assumed by volunteers.

But according to The Guardian, the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, paid tribute to Mother Teresa in a radio broadcast, saying:

She devoted her whole life to the poor. When such a person is conferred with sainthood, it is natural for Indians to feel proud.

The petition has attracted a pathetic 1,318 signatures.

Contrast that with the fact that half a million people are expected to attend the canonisation on Sunday in a ceremony that will be transmitted live to her adopted home of Kolkata and Catholic audiences worldwide. Proof, if it were needed, that truth is never permitted to impede the workings the Catholic Church’s immense propaganda and cash-generating operations.

The Guardian reverentially added:

The two-hour mass in St Peter’s Square, led by Pope Francis almost 19 years after she died will transform the diminutive nun who became a global icon for her work with the poor into Saint Teresa of Kolkata.

Pilgrims will venerate her relics and have the opportunity to buy 1.5m commemorative 95c postage stamps, released today, that celebrate:

Her great strength, simplicity and extraordinary humility … [and] tireless dedication.

In the lead-up to Sunday’s mass, images of Mother Teresa have been publicly displayed in and around the Vatican. A series of seminars, feasts, musical events and prayer sessions held for visiting pilgrims have emphasised the parallels between her life’s work and Pope Francis’s central message of social justice and humility.

In Kolkata, three months of commemorations are planned, including book launches, art shows, a stadium mass and the installation last week of a lifesize bronze statue of the nun.

But Hindu nationalists have claimed that Mother Teresa was a “soul harvester” who proselytised among the poor, and that she and her followers surreptitiously baptised the dying without their knowledge.

Aroup Chatterjee, a doctor, grew up in Kolkata and now works in the UK. He is one of Mother Teresa’s most vocal critics.

Many rogues have become Catholic saints. What bothers me is that the world makes such a song and dance about a superstitious, black magic ceremony. It’s obvious that people are duped, they have a herd mentality. But the media has a responsibility not to collude with it.

He has described Mother Teresa as “a medieval creature of darkness” and a “bogus and fantastic figure” who went unchallenged by the world’s media.

According to his 2003 book, Mother Teresa: The Final Verdict, based on the testimonies of scores of people who worked with the Missionaries of Charity, the medical care given to sick and dying people was negligible. Syringes were reused without sterilisation, pain relief was non-existent or inadequate, and conditions were unhygienic. Meanwhile, Mother Teresa spent much of her time travelling around the world in a private plane to meet political leaders.

Similar criticisms were made by the late writer Christopher Hitchens in his book, The Missionary Position. Mother Teresa was, he wrote:

A religious fundamentalist, a political operative, a primitive sermoniser, and an accomplice of worldly secular powers.

The focus of the nun’s work, he said:

Was not the honest relief of suffering but the promulgation of a cult based on death and suffering and subjection.

Among those cited by Hitchens was Susan Shields, a former worker with the Missionaries of Charity, who claimed that vast sums of money accrued in bank accounts but very little was spent on medical expertise or making the lives of the sick and dying more comfortable.

Three years ago, a study by academics at the University of Montreal concluded that the Vatican had ignored Mother Teresa’s:

Rather dubious way of caring for the sick, her questionable political contacts, her suspicious management of the enormous sums of money she received, and her overly dogmatic views regarding … abortion, contraception and divorce.

After several years of ill health, Mother Teresa died on September 5, 1997 aged 87, and was given a state funeral by the Indian government. Demands for her canonisation began almost immediately.

Two years after her death, the Vatican began the process of beatification, the first stage of becoming a saint. In 2002, the Vatican recognised the “miracle cure” of an Indian woman who had prayed to Mother Teresa about her cancer, though the woman’s husband and doctors said the cancer had been treated with drugs.

Last year, Pope Francis recognised a second miracle attributed to Mother Teresa, clearing the way for her canonisation.

Hat tip: Agent Cormac and BarrieJohn