{"id":13473,"date":"2014-03-25T09:02:57","date_gmt":"2014-03-25T08:02:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fjala.info\/?p=823"},"modified":"2014-03-25T09:02:57","modified_gmt":"2014-03-25T08:02:57","slug":"british-scholar-takes-on-mother-teresa-friends-foes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fjala.info\/2009-2015\/british-scholar-takes-on-mother-teresa-friends-foes\/","title":{"rendered":"British scholar takes on Mother Teresa friends, foes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-7236\" title=\"Dr. G\u00ebzim Alpion\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/www.fjala.info\/2014\/dr_gezim_alpion.jpg\" width=\"300\" \/> Story By: <strong>C M Paul<\/strong>, <em>reporter<\/em><br \/>\n<strong>Dr. G\u00ebzim Alpion<\/strong>, <em>March 25, 2014 <\/em>(mattersindia.com)<\/p>\n<p><strong>Guwahati<\/strong>: In a path breaking study, a Mother Teresa scholar has taken on avowed and lifelong critics and friends (read custodians) of the global charity icon in an article published on March 23 in a leading national newspaper in India.<\/p>\n<p>Writing an op-ed piece in The \u2018Hindustan Times\u2019 entitled \u2018How do you study a problem like Mother Teresa?\u2019, author of two books \u2018Mother Teresa: Saint or Celebrity?\u2019, and \u2018Encounters with Civilisations: From Alexander the Great to Mother Teresa\u2019, Dr G\u00ebzim Alpion of Birmingham University, UK, has taken on the Nobel Laureate\u2019s contemporariessuch as the celebrity iconoclast Christopher Hitchens, arch feminist Germaine Greer, and self-proclaimed atheist Richard Dawkins.<\/p>\n<p>Besides pointing out the issues in numerous major lectures on Mother Teresa presented over a decade at internationally renowned universities in the UK, Australia, India, the US, Canada, Finland and Italy, Professor Alpion had initially taken issue with Hitchens and Greer in 2007 in his book \u2018Mother Teresa Saint or Celebrity?\u2019<\/p>\n<p>Though Mother Teresa is the most written about woman in modern times that so many well-known universities, including Oxford, conferred upon honorary degrees, she is finding it rather difficult to become a serious topic of academic inquiry, says Albanian-born Alpion, who is considered \u2018the most authoritative English-language author\u2019 on Mother Teresa.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCompiling a complete bibliography of the ever-expanding literature on Mother Teresa is a daunting task even for her avid title-spotters,\u201d contends Mother Teresa\u2019s countryman Alpion, citing several reasons why academia still gives this most public of missionaries the cold shoulder.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking to mattersindia.com on March 24, Alpion insists, \u201cMother Teresa has some staunch critics in academia who, it appears, barely comprehend her or even try to.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Citing an example he says: \u201cGermaine Greer\u2019s superficial understanding of the sister, for instance, is seen in her 1990 \u2018religious imperialist\u2019 sweeping statement. Mother Teresa\u2019s preference for an indult of secularization (turning from a vowed nun into a laywoman) in 1948 indicates clearly the extent to which this \u2018obedient\u2019 nun was prepared to challenge a patriarchal institution like the Catholic Church if her persistent request to leave the Loreto order was not approved.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Alpion quickly adds, Richard Dawkins\u2019 contribution to Mother Teresa scholarship consists almost entirely of name-calling, as is apparent from his 2006 outburst against \u2018the sanctimoniously hypocritical\u2019 woman \u2018with cock-eyed judgement.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>However, Alpion does not hesitate to state the main reason why, to this day, Mother Teresa continues to be ignored or treated largely in a biased way. In his words, this is \u201cbecause of the jaundiced view that the late Christopher Hitchens took of her work. This is not to say that Hitchens did not raise some serious issues about Mother Teresa; after all, he will always be an important footnote in Mother Teresa scholarship. All the same, as I have mentioned in \u2018Mother Teresa: Saint or Celebrity?\u2019 his abrasive style of writing is a poor substitute for the absence of balanced research.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Explaining further Alpion says: \u201cHitchens coveted notoriety as an uncompromisingly belligerent journalist at the expense of a religious pacifist he arbitrarily put at the top of his list of celebrity crooks. That the target of Hitchens\u2019 vitriol herself turned out to have suffered from serious doubts about God makes the relentless lynching that he and fellow fundamentalist atheists like Dawkins subjected her to in life and death even more of a sorry affair.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In a scathing appraisal of the non-academic stance of Mother Teresa archives\u2019 custodians today, Alpion says: \u201cA huge burden of responsibility for the ad hoc, sensationally hostile and predominantly hagiographic nature characterizing Mother Teresa scholarship lies with the keepers of her private writings who are inclined to grant access to her archive mainly to researchers prone to praise her unconditionally.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Alpion further asserts: \u201cMother Teresa is a conundrum that will not be solved at once. And in this challenging intellectual exercise no specific field of knowledge, theology included, should be given a privileged status, let alone be seen as the only discipline capable of unravelling the truth about the introverted woman behind this public nun.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Referring to his recent study on Mother Teresa\u2019s charism\/a, published in the \u2018International Journal of Public Theology\u2019 in February 2014, Alpion contends that \u201cthe publication of some of Mother Teresa\u2019s private writings in recent years, has provided a wealth of information which, in addition to theologians, is of interest to scholars from a number of academic disciplines such as sociology, missiology, psychology, celebrity studies, gender studies, cultural studies, postcolonial studies, and race and ethnicity studies.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Alpion believes that \u201ccross disciplinary cooperation will be vital to understand better why Mother Teresa became a nun in the first place, the reasons why Loreto superiors accused her of being mad, vain, evil, and also of having an inappropriate relationship with one of her spiritual directors, and more importantly perhaps, what kept her going in spite of the fact that, different from medieval and modern canonized mystics like John of the Cross, Teresa of \u00c1vila and Th\u00e9r\u00e8se of Lisieux, she apparently was never cured of her spiritual aridity.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>On a positive note, Alpion concludes saying: \u201cAcademia will enable us to understand better how, with her faith in action, a charismatic religious visionary like Mother Teresa paved the way for public religion today.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Story By: C M Paul, reporter Dr. G\u00ebzim Alpion, March 25, 2014 (mattersindia.com) Guwahati: In a path breaking study, a Mother Teresa scholar has taken on avowed and lifelong critics and friends (read custodians) of the global charity icon in an article published on March 23 in a leading national newspaper in India. 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