Mother Teresa: a biography

UNWILLING TO LET GO
By 1990, given her ill health, Mother Teresa began giving serious
thought to stepping down as head of the Missionaries of Charity. She even
went as far as to inform Pope John Paul II of her intentions. Yet, she did
nothing. Some people believed that Mother Teresa did not wish to relin-
quish control of the order she had founded. Others thought that she
feared a sudden drop in donations if she stepped down. Therefore, it was
crucial to the survival of the order and their mission that she remain at
the helm.
Even among her supporters, Mother Teresa’s refusal to appoint a suc-
cessor was troubling. For many, building up what had become a major in-
stitution with a tremendous amount of goodwill and money, but not
looking ahead to the future seemed short-sighted and egocentric. Church
leaders were also concerned; clearly, it was time for a younger, more vig-
orous leader to take over the order. Mother Teresa’s supporters also feared
that the great goodwill she had built up would somehow be negated by her
ill health. One supporter, working in the Vatican, also believed that, even
if she stepped down, Mother Teresa would still stay involved in the order.
She could concentrate on things such as the daily administration and ed-
ucation, which did not require the exhaustive traveling that she did. For
the time being, Mother Teresa would not consider even a partial retire-
ment.
Thus, despite her ill health, Mother Teresa continued to respond to
new crises around the world. She also continued to receive large financial
donations from world leaders. For instance, Yassir Arafat, head of the
Palestinian Liberation Organization, presented her personally with a
$50,000 check in Calcutta, though he never commented on why he made
such a generous donation to the Missionaries of Charity.
The last three decades had for the most part been very kind to Mother
Teresa. She enjoyed public acclaim and was handled gently by the media.
But the attitudes changed in the 1990s. Signaling the perceptible shift
was the publication of Germaine Greer’s article about Mother Teresa’s ef-
forts in Bangladesh almost 20 years earlier. There was also trouble when it
was announced that a movie of Mother Teresa’s life was being planned.
Slated to play her was British actress Glenda Jackson and the script was
being written by Dominique LaPierre, who had written the best-selling
book
City of Joy,
which described working with Missionaries of Charity.
The proposed film even had the Vatican’s support; yet Mother Teresa de-
clined to cooperate with the film project and never explained her deci-
sion. Newspaper and magazine profiles of her were now often less
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flattering, portraying her as demanding and egotistical. This was only por-
tent of what lay ahead.