Mother Teresa: Where are her millions?

It is worth pointing out here that STERN, one of Europe’s highest
selling magazines, is a conservative organ, not known for its
anti-Catholic bias.

MOTHER TERESA: WHERE ARE HER MILLIONS?

by Walter Wuellenweber The Angel of the poor died a year ago.
Donations still flow in to her Missionaries of Charity like to no
other cause. But the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize vowed to live in
poverty. What then, happened to so much money?

If there is a heaven, then she is surely there: Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu
from Skopje in Macedonia, better known as Mother Teresa. She came to
Calcutta on the 6th of January 1929 as an 18 year old sister of the
Order of Loreto. 68 years later luminaries from all over the world
assembled in Calcutta in order to honor her with a state funeral. In
these 68 years she had founded the most successful order in the
history of the Catholic Church, received the Nobel Peace Prize and
became the most famous Catholic of our time.

Are doubts permitted, regarding this “monument”?

In Calcutta, one meets many doubters.

An example is Samity, a man of around 30 with no teeth, who lives in
the slums. He is one of the “poorest of the poor” to whom Mother
Teresa was supposed to have dedicated her life. With a plastic bag in
hand, he stands in a kilometer long queue in Calcutta’s Park Street.
The poor wait patiently, until the helpers shovel some rice and
lentils into their bags. But Samity does not get his grub from Mother
Teresa’s institution, but instead from the Assembly of God, an
American charity, that serves 18000 meals here daily.

“Mother Teresa?”says Samity, “We have not received anything from her
here. Ask in the slums if anyone has received anything from the sisters
here. You will find hardly anybody.”

In Calcutta there are about 200 charitable organizations helping the
poor. Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity are not amongst the
biggest helpers: that contradicts the image of the organization. The
name “Mother Teresa” was and is tied to the city of Calcutta. All over
the world admirers and supporters of the Nobel Prize winner believe
that it must be there that her organization is particularly active in
the fight against poverty. “All lies,” says Aroup Chatterjee. The
doctor who lives in London was born and brought up in Calcutta.
Chatterjee who has been working for years on a book on the myth of
Mother Teresa, speaks to the poor in the slums of Calcutta, or combs
through the speeches of the Nobel Prize winner. “No matter where I
search, I only find lies. For example, the lies about schools. Mother T
has often stated that she runs a school in Calcutta for more than 5000
children. 5000 children!  That would have to be a huge school, one
of the biggest in all of India. But where is this school? I have never found
it, nor do I know anybody who has seen it!” says Chatterjee.

Compared to other charitable organizations in Calcutta, the nuns with
the 3 blue stripes are ahead in two respects: they are world famous,
and, they have the most money. But how much exactly, has always been a
closely guarded secret of the organization. Indian law requires
charitable organizations to publish their accounts. Mother Teresa’s
organization ignores this prescription! It is not known if the Finance
Ministry in Delhi who would be responsible for charities’ accounts,
have the actual figures. Upon STERN’s inquiry, the Ministry informed
us that this particular query was listed as “classified information”.

The organization has 6 branches in Germany. Here too financial matters
are a strict secret. “It’s nobody’s business how much money we have, I
mean to say how little we have,” says Sir Pauline, head of the German
operations. Maria Tingelhoff had had handled the organization’s
book-keeping on a voluntary basis until 1981. “We did see 3 million a
year,” she remembers. But Mother Teresa never quite trusted the
worldly helpers completely. So the sisters took over the financial
management themselves in 1981. “Of course I don’t know how much money
went in, in the years after that, but it must be many multiples of 3
million,” estimates Mrs. Tingelhoff. “Mother was always very pleased
with the Germans.”

Perhaps the most lucrative branch of the organization is the “Holy
Ghost” House in New York’s Bronx. Susan Shields served the order there
for a total of nine and a half years as Sister Virgin. “We spent a
large part of each day writing thank you letters and processing
cheques,” she says. “Every night around 25 sisters had to spend many
hours preparing receipts for donations. It was a conveyor belt
process: some sisters typed, others made lists of the amounts, stuffed
letters into envelopes, or sorted the cheques. Values were between $5
and $100.000. Donors often dropped their envelopes filled with money
at the door. Before Christmas the flow of donations was often totally
out of control. The postman brought sack full of letters — cheques for
$50000 were no rarity.” Sister Virgin remembers that one year there was
about $50 million in a New York bank account. $50 million in one year!
— in a predominantly non-Catholic country. How much then, were they
collecting in Europe or the world? It is estimated that worldwide
they collected at least $100 million per year — and that has been
going on for many many years.

While the income is utter secret, the expenditures are equally
mysterious. The order is hardly able to spend large amounts. The
establishments supported by the nuns are so tiny (inconspicuous) that
even the locals have difficulty tracing them. Often “Mother Teresa’s
Home” means just a living accommodation for the sisters, with no
charitable function. Conspicuous or useful assistance cannot be
provided there. The order often receives huge donations in kind, in
addition to the monetary munificence. Boxes of medicines land at
Indian airports. Donated food grains and powdered milk arrive in
containers at Calcutta port. Clothing donations from Europe and the US
arrive in unimaginable quantities. On Calcutta’s pavement stalls,
traders can be seen selling used western labels for 25 rupees (DM1)
apiece. Numerous traders call out, “Shirts from Mother, trousers from
Mother.”

Unlike with other charities, the Missionaries of Charity spend very
little on their own management, since the organization is run at
practically no cost. The approximately 4000 sisters in 150 countries
form the most treasured workforce of all global multi-million dollar
operations. Having taken vows of poverty and obedience, they work for
no pay, supported by 300,000 good citizen helpers.

By their own admission, Mother Teresa’s organization has about 500
locations worldwide. But for purchase or rent of property, the sisters
do not need to touch their bank accounts. “Mother always said, we
don’t spend for that,” remembers Sunita Kumar, one the richest women
in Calcutta and supposedly Mother T’s closest associate outside the
order. “If Mother needed a house, she went straight to the owner,
whether it was the State or a private person, and worked on him for so
long that she eventually got it free.”

Her method was also successful in Germany. In March the “Bethlehem
House” was dedicated in Hamburg, a shelter for homeless women. Four
sisters work there. The architecturally conspicuous building cost DM2.5
million. The fortunes of the order have not spent a penny toward the
amount. The money was collected by a Christian association in Hamburg.
With Mother T as figure head it was naturally short work to collect
the millions.

Mother Teresa saw it as her God given right never to have to pay
anyone for anything. Once she bought food for her nuns in London for
GB£500. When she was told she’d have to pay at the till, the
diminutive seemingly harmless nun showed her Balkan temper and
shouted, “This is for the work of God!” She raged so loud and so long
that eventually a businessman waiting in the queue paid up on her
behalf.

STERN asked the Missionaries of Charity numerous times for information
about location of the donations, both in writing as well in person
during a visit to Mother Teresa’s house in Calcutta. The order has
never answered.

“You should visit the House in New York, then you’ll understand what
happens to donations,” says Eva Kolodziej. The Polish lady was a
Missionary of Charity for 5 years. “In the cellar of the homeless
shelter there are valuable books, jewelry and gold. What happens to
them? — The sisters receive them with smiles, and keep them. Most of
these lie around uselessly forever.”

The millions that are donated to the order have a similar fate. Susan
Shields (formerly Sir Virgin) says, “The money was not misused, but the
largest part of it wasn’t used at all. When there was a famine in
Ethiopia, many cheques arrived marked ‘for the hungry in Ethiopia’.
Once I asked the sister who was in charge of accounts if I should add
up all those very many cheques and send the total to Ethiopia. The
sister answered, ‘No, we don’t send money to Africa.’ But I continued
to make receipts to the donors, ‘For Ethiopia’.”

By the accounts of former sisters, the finances are a one way street.
“We were always told, the fact that we receive more than other orders,
shows that God loves Mother Teresa more. ,” says Susan Shields.
Donations and hefty bank balances are a measure of God’s love. Taking
is holier than giving.

The sufferers are the ones for whom the donations were originally
intended. The nuns run a soup kitchen in New York’s Bronx. Or, to put
in straight, they have it run for them, since volunteer helpers
organize everything, including food. The sisters might distribute it.
Once, Shields remembers, the helpers made an organizational mistake,
so they could not deliver bread with their meals. The sisters asked
their superior if they could buy the bread. “Out of the question — we
are a poor organization,” came the reply. “In the end, the poor did
not get their bread,” says Shields. Shields has experienced countless
such incidents. One girl from communion class did not appear for her
first communion because her mother could not buy her a white communion
dress. So she had to wait another year; but as that particular Sunday
approached, she had the same problem again. Shields (Sir Virgin) asked
the superior if the order could buy the girl a white dress. Again, she
was turned down — gruffly. The girl never had her first communion.

Because of the tightfistedness of the rich order, the “poorest of the
poor” — orphans in India — suffer the most. The nuns run a home in
Delhi, in which the orphans wait to be adopted by, in many cases, by
foreigners. As usual, the costs of running the home are borne not by
the order, but by the future adoptive parents. In Germany the
organization called Pro Infante has the monopoly of mediation role for
these children. The head, Carla Wiedeking, a personal friend of Mother
Teresa’s, wrote a letter to Donors, Supporters and Friends which ran:

“On my September visit I had to witness 2 or 3 children lying in the
same cot, in totally overcrowded rooms with not a square inch of
playing space. The behavioral problems arising as a result cannot be
overlooked.” Mrs. Wiedeking appeals to the generosity of supporters in
view of her powerlessness in the face of the children’s great needs.
Powerlessness?! In an organization with a billion-fortune, which has 3
times as much money available to it as UNICEF is able to spend in all
of India? The Missionaries of Charity has have the means to buy cots
and build orphanages, — with playgrounds. And they have enough money
not only for a handful orphans in Delhi but for many thousand orphans
who struggle for survival in the streets of Delhi, Bombay and
Calcutta.

Saving, in Mother Teresa’s philosophy, was a central value in itself.
All very well, but as her poor organization quickly grew into a rich
one, what did she do with her pictures, jewels, inherited houses,
cheques or suitcases full of money? If she wished to she could now
cater to people not by obsessively indulging in saving, but instead
through well thought-out spending. But the Nobel Prize winner did not
want an efficient organization that helped people efficiently. Full of
pride, she called the Missionaries of Charity the “most disorganized
organization in the world”. Computers, typewriters, photocopiers are
not allowed. Even when they are donated, they are not allowed to be
installed. For book-keeping the sisters use school notebooks, in which
they write in cramped penciled figures until they are full. Then
everything is erased and the notebook used again. All this in order to
save.

For a sustainable charitable system, it would have been sensible to
train the nuns to become nurses, teachers or managers. But a
Missionary of Charity nun is never trained for anything further.

Fueklled by her desire for un-professionalism, Mother Teresa decisions
from year to year became even more bizarre. Once, says Susan Shields,
the order bought am empty building from the City of New York in order
to look after AIDS patients. Purchase price: 1 dollar. But since
handicapped people would also be using the house, NY City management
insisted on the installation of a lift (elevator). The offer of the
lift was declined: to Mother they were a sign of wealth. Finally the
nuns gave the building back to the City of New York.

The English doctor Jack Preger once worked in the home for the dying.
He says, “If one wants to give love, understanding and care, one uses
sterile needles. This is probably the richest order in the world. Many
of the dying there do not have to be dying in a strictly medical
sense.” The British newspaper Guardian described the hospice as an
“organized form of neglectful assistance”.

It seems that the medical care of the orphans is hardly any better. In
1991 the head of Pro Infante in Germany sent a newsletter to adoptive
parents:”Please check the validity of the vaccinations of your
children. We assume that in some case they have been vaccinated with
expired vaccines, or with vaccines that had been rendered useless by
improper storage conditions.” All this points to one thing, something
that Mother Teresa reiterated very frequently in her speeches and
addresses — that she far more concerned with life after death than
the mortal life.

Mother Teresa’s business was: Money for a good conscience. The donors
benefitted the most from this. The poor hardly benefitted. Whosoever believed
that Mother Teresa wanted to change the world, eliminate suffering or
fight poverty, simply wanted to believe it for their own sakes. Such
people did not listen to her. To be poor, to suffer was a goal, almost
an ambition or an achievement for her and she imposed this goal upon
those under her wings; her actual ordained goal was the hereafter.

With growing fame, the founder of the order became somewhat conscious
of the misconceptions on which the Mother Teresa phenomenon was
based. She wrote a few words and hung them outside Mother House:

“Tell them we are not here for work, we are here for Jesus. We are
religious above all else. We are not social workers, not teachers, not
doctors. We are nuns.”