Saturday, November 30, 2002
It's OK to have religious doubts, people; even Mother Teresa had them. Mother Teresa, who was put on the fast track to sainthood by the Pope after her death five years ago, was tormented by a crisis of belief for 50 years, her writings reveal.
Her letters and diaries present a different picture of the nun and Nobel peace prize winner from her public image as a woman confident of her faith.
Biographies would have to be rewritten to take the revelation into account. Her writings, collected by Catholic authorities in Calcutta after her death at the age of 87, are to be published as Il Segreto di Madre Teresa (Mother Teresa's Secret) in December in Italy.
Mother Teresa, who worked for years among the poor of Calcutta, wrote in 1958: "My smile is a great cloak that hides a multitude of pains." Because she was "forever smiling", people thought "my faith, my hope and my love are overflowing and that my intimacy with God and union with his will fill my heart. If only they knew ... "
posted by James Russell |
2:28 PM
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