Mother Theresa - is she a saint or a sacred cow?

I only know what I read in the press, so I have absolutely no clue.

I tend to err towards the late Christopher Hitchens' view (ie that she was more of a hell's angel):

What's the difference ?

Hi Kevin-W,

Indeed, Hitch was my prompt to ask!!

I assume you're referring to the Prime Minister, since the deceased nun was called Teresa.

I liked Hitchens, too.  Think what you like.  It is not your call.  She is a Saint today.

In the end it's just a matter of applying labels. Ben Kingsley played the role of a sacred cow and got himself knighted so he now carries the title of "Sir".

Mother Teresa affected a powerful level of good for undesirable factions of society under desperate conditions. Is she worthy of the label of "Saint" in the Church's vernacular? Who cares?

She was a poster woman for the Catholic Church, and I paraphrase Hitchens - she wasn't a supporter of the poor she embraced poverty and used it for her advantage. She said AIDS was bad but not as bad as condoms and incidentally - in case you didn't know, lost her faith towards the end. The Catholic Church refuse to accept that - as evidenced by their scrupulous scientific criteria to make someone a saint. I think it's just a sign of their desperation as more people are realising what they claim is crap - along with many other (all) religions.

Ironic to hear the Catholic Church and 'scrupulous scientific criteria' mentioned in the same sentence. Didn't read the Hitchens findings but maybe Mother Teresa's view on condoms would be different if her religion allowed her to get laid on occasion. After all, the Catholic Church has a good track record of turning a blind eye on priests that butt rape altar boys. Why shouldn't nuns be permitted a dalliance?

Joe - All three major Abrahamic religions -  Judaism, Christianity and Islam - have absurd, deeply unhealthy and  hypocritical attitudes to both sex and women inbuilt as part of their pointless questing after "virtue".

These motifs are part of these religions' DNA, and manifest themselves as all kinds of unpleasantness. Islam's obsession with covering up women and Catholicism's maniacal opposition to covering up willies being just two examples.

Thou shalt not take the Naim of the Lord in vain!

I think I'd go with Christopher Hitchens and his "Lying, thieving Albanian dwarf". I believe he actually said this to see how far he could go, I guess before the mediaeval minds ruling the catholic church started to object.