Democratic presidential candidate, John F. Kennedy,
who was also Roman
Catholic, did not take place. However, while in New York City, Mother
Teresa met with Mother Anna Dengel, the Austrian-born founder of the
Medical Mission Sisters, who had given Mother Teresa her early medical
training in Patna a little more than a decade earlier. She also paid visits to
Catholic Relief Services, and met with Bishop Fulton J. Sheen, who was
a prominent radio and television personality in the United States. Sheen
was the head of the American division of the foreign mission’s
organi-
zation, the Propagation of the Faith, which channeled donations to Cath-
olic missions all over the world. But perhaps one of the most important
contacts Mother Teresa made during this trip was with Marcolino Can-
dau, director of the World Health Organization (WHO). She told Can-
dau of her urgent need to provide for the lepers and their children in
India. Candau told her that if she made her request through the Indian
government, WHO would see that she received the necessary medical
supplies.
From New York, Mother Teresa’s
next stop was London, where she
spent one evening at the home of the sister of Indian Prime Minister
Nehru, who encouraged her to expand her work, particularly where vol-
unteers were concerned. Mother Teresa also met with a representative of
the Oxfam aid agency and had her first television interview with a British
journalist on the BBC.
Her next stop was Germany, where Mother Teresa enjoyed a greater
reputation, having been featured in a news magazine
Weltelend
(
World
Misery
), published by the German Catholic relief agency Miseror. The ar-
ticle had also shown photos of the terrible poverty
in Calcutta as well as
shots of Nirmal Hriday. Another news magazine
Erdkreis
(
Earth Circle
)
had featured photos of Kalighat. As she stepped off the plane, wrapped in
a rough wool blanket to protect her from the cold weather, Mother Teresa
was greeted by a horde of German photographers and journalists.
In meeting with Miseror representatives, Mother Teresa outlined her
plans for the construction of a new home for the dying in Delhi. She al-
ready had land set aside, but needed help in building the proposed facility.
The
organization, while generally preferring to fund self-help projects,
readily agreed to her request. In return, they asked only that the Mission-
aries of Charity send financial statements to the organization to monitor
how the money was spent. To their great surprise, Mother Teresa flatly re-
jected their request, stating that the sisters did not have time to spend on
preparing complicated financial forms. She assured the officials that they
should
not worry about the money; each penny would go to the proposed
project. But her refusal to keep detailed accounts marked the beginning of
9 4
M O T H E R T E R E S A
a practice that would continue and later become a source of much criti-
cism. As Mother Teresa later argued, making out separate reports to each
sponsor would be so time-consuming that the poor would suffer. Although
she and her sisters recorded each donation with a letter, they did not keep
detailed financial records of donations accepted and monies spent. As was
her nature, Mother Teresa ignored complaints about the order’s
account-
ing practices.
Before leaving Germany, Mother Teresa also stopped to visit Dachau,
one of the most infamous concentration camps in Nazi Germany, where
more than 28,000 Jews died between 1933 and 1945. After listening to
the history of the camp, Mother Teresa stated that the camp was to his-
tory what the Colosseum in Rome was to the Romans who threw the
Christians to their death. In Mother Teresa’s eyes, modern humans were
behaving no better, and if anything, far worse.
After
a brief visit to Switzerland, Mother Teresa stopped in Rome
where she hoped to make a formal and personal plea to Pope John XXIII
for the Missionaries of Charity to become a Society of Pontifical Right. If
the pope agreed, it would mean that the Missionaries of Charity could
begin working in other countries. However, when it came time to meet
the pope, Mother Teresa, frightened at making the request directly to the
pope, instead only asked for his blessing. She then made her request to
Cardinal Gregory Agagianian, who agreed to
take the matter under con-
sideration. But it was clear that the Church recognized the value and im-
portance of Mother Teresa not only to its missionary and humanitarian
efforts, but to its efforts to spread the Gospel.
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