Hi Sondra...
-> When I speak of spiritual leaders, I am not really thinking of
-> priests and people like that.  I am thinking of people who seem to
-> have some sort of true spiritual power, people like Sister Theresa,
-> for example. We need leaders like that.
Uh, well, Sister Theresa...  I've read an account of the day-to-day
activities of Sister Theresa and her nuns, written by a man who'd had a
lot of contact with her and who seemed to have no particular axe to
grind.  Now I can't find the article and can't remember if he was an aid
worker himself or a journalist.
According to this magazine article, Sister T and her nuns provide a very
rudimentary level of care compared to that provided in the Third World
by other Western organizations and compared to that received by Sister
Theresa herself (who is flown to France when she has health problems).
People are given a place to lie down and then the nuns pray for them,
and apparently that's about all that is done for them.
At specific times of day, the nuns must pray, leaving their charges in
the hands of unqualified persons who, incidentally, have been accused of
abusing them physically.
The man who'd written the article had taken a particular interest in a
young blind woman in Sister T's care.  Her vision could have been
improved by a procedure available in the West.  He found a facility in
the West who agreed to help this blind woman, but Sister T had to give
her permission.  After some delay, she gave her answer:  'no'.  This
from the woman who gets flown repeatedly to France for treatment of her
cardiac problems.
Does Sister T need this woman to be blind so that she, Sister T, may
pray for her miraculous recovery?  Does Sister T need needy people?
Sister T has also visited various brutal regimes and has been
photographed in the presence of notorious dictators.  I cannot recall
the details; this was stated in a TV interview given by a man (not the
same as the person above) who'd written a book about Sister T, with the
naughtly title The Missionary Position.  His interpretation of these
visits seemed to be that the Vatican accepted donations in return for
allowing dictators to try to sanitize their images by being seen with
Sister T. It's not clear what Sister T herself thinks of these trips.
If I recall correctly, he also said that money donated to Sister T
doesn't necessarily get spent in India or the Third World.  I understand
that first it goes to the Vatican.  So much for the justification that
she at least attracts donations for the Third World.
I'll bet you weren't expecting a harangue about Sister Theresa.    I
have no way of verifying any of this.  If it's true, then Sister T is
being exploited by a too-worldly church, and she's too concerned with
praying to offer the kind of help that is really needed.  Sometimes we
get so carried away with the role of helping the needy that we fall into
the vice of needing them to be needy...like the 'disadvantaged' whose
existence is discovered by the newspapers only at Christmas.   :(
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