Criticism of Mother Teresa, a Roman Catholic nun, has come from various sources.

Mother Teresa has been criticized for having few scruples about where donations came from.^[1]

• She risked her credibility by taking money from former Haitian dictator Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier. ^[2] In 1981, Teresa flew to Haiti to accept the Legion d'Honneur from right-wing dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier, who, after his ouster, was found to have plundered the impoverished country.^[3]

• The donation issue came up in the early 1990s when it was revealed that Charles Keating, an American banker known for the infamous "saving and loan scandal," had donated up to $1.25 million to Missionaries of Charity. Amidst calls to return the money, Mother Teresa chose to remain silent, an incident that is still sited by her critics who demand transparency. ^[4] Typically, friends, family and colleagues write the judge urging leniency. Mother Teresa asked the court to show mercy on Mr. Keating, a generous contributor to her charities. ^[5]

• She also accepted money from the British publisher Robert Maxwell, who, as was later revealed, embezzled UK£450 million from his employees' pension funds.^[6]

There is no suggestion that she was aware of any theft before accepting the donation in either case; criticism instead focuses on Teresa's plea for leniency in the Keating case, her refusal to return the money. In their Book, Mother Teresa,CEO:Unexpected Principles for Practical Leadership, authors Ruma Bose and Lou Faust suggest that the cause was right, even if the source of the money was tainted.^[2]

A report in German magazine Stern, revealed that in 1991 only seven percent of the donations received at Missionaries of Charity was used for charity.^[4]

• In February 1994, Indian-born writer living in Britain, Aroup Chatterjee, persuaded Vanya Del Borgo at the television production company Bandung Productions in London and to undertake "Hell's Angel" (shown on Britain's Channel 4 television on 8 November 1994), the very first attempt to challenge the Teresa myth on television. Ms Del Borgo chose Christopher Hitchens as the presenter, knowing him as she did from their days together at The Nation in the United States. Chatterjeee was not happy with how Hell's Angel turned out, especially its sensationalist approach, such as Mr Hitchens's calling Mother Teresa 'a presumed virgin'. The film however caused some ripple, in Britain and also internationally.^[7]

After Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's suspension of civil liberties in 1975, Mother Teresa said: "People are happier. There are more jobs. There are no strikes." ^{[citation needed]} These approving comments were seen ^{[by whom?]} as a result of the friendship between Teresa and the Congress Party.^{[citation needed]} Mother Teresa's comments were even criticised outside India within Catholic media.^{[citation needed][8]}

In 1994, two left-wing British journalists, Christopher Hitchens and Tariq Ali, produced a critical British Channel 4 documentary, Hell's Angel, based on Chatterjee's work.^{[citation needed]} Chatterjee himself published The Final Verdict in 2003, a less polemic work than those of Hitchens and Ali, but equally critical of Teresa's operations.^{[citation needed]}

Christopher Hitchens published The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice, a pamphlet which repeated many of the accusations in the documentary. In articles with Free Inquiry and Slate magazines Hitchens said Mother Teresa is widely and falsely seen as selflessly devoted to serving mankind. People who would normally think rationally fail to examine claims about Mother Teresa because she is considered holy. The pope (Pope John Paul II) abolished the traditional wait of five years after a person’s death before starting the procedure for canonization and also the "devil's advocate", both safeguards against unsuitable people being declared saints and against irrational thinking. Further, the pope nominated Mother Teresa a year after her death. There was in Hitchens’ opinion no reason to pay so much attention to Mother Teresa rather than to very many other people working to relieve Third World misery.^{[9] [unreliable source?]}

Further Hitchens claimed Mother Teresa promoted an extreme fundamentalist view of Roman Catholicism, and that during the deliberations over the Second Vatican Council, Mother Teresa spoke against doctrinal reform.^{[9][unreliable source?]}

In an article in Slate magazine, British writer Christopher Hitchens claimed that Mother Teresa accepted money from Keating despite knowing it was obtained illegally.^[10]

From the early 1970s, Mother Teresa began to attract some criticism.^{[citation needed]} Many advocates of the family planning and pro-choice movements were critical of her views and influence because she was opposed to artificial contraception and abortion.^{[citation needed]} Mother Teresa frequently spoke against them publicly and in meetings with high level government officials.^{[citation needed]} Teresa claimed that abortion was such an evil act, that merely allowing it to exist would numb one's senses to murder in general; in her Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, she declared, "Because if a mother can kill her own child - what is left for me to kill you and you kill me - there is nothing between".^[11][12] She has also described abortion as "…the greatest destroyer of peace today."^[11][12]

She asserted her rejection of abortion by publicly renouncing abortion as an option and by calling upon women to keep their unborn children.^{[citation needed]} She characterized her views later when asked in 1993 about a 14 year old rape victim in Ireland, "Abortion can never be necessary... because it is pure killing."^{[citation needed]}

This stance is in line with that of the Roman Catholic Church,^{[citation needed]} which asserts Natural family planning is the only acceptable form of birth control.^{[citation needed]}

Mother Teresa encouraged members of her order to baptize dying patients, without regard to the individual's religion.^{[citation needed]} In a speech at the Scripps Clinic in California in January 1992, she said: "Something very beautiful... not one has died without receiving the special ticket for St. Peter, as we call it. We call baptism ticket for St. Peter. We ask the person, do you want a blessing by which your sins will be forgiven and you receive God? They have never refused. So 29,000 have died in that one house [in Kalighat] from the time we began in 1952."^{[citation needed]}

Critics have argued that patients were not provided sufficient information to make an informed decision about whether they wanted to be baptized and the theological significance of a Christian baptism.^{[citation needed]}

Some of Mother Teresa's defenders have argued that baptisms are either soul-saving or harmless and hence the criticisms would be pointless (a variant of Pascal's Wager).^{[citation needed]} Simon Leys, in a letter to the New York Review of Books, wrote: "Either you believe in the supernatural effect of this gesture – and then you should dearly wish for it. Or you do not believe in it, and the gesture is as innocent and well-meaningly innocuous as chasing a fly away with a wave of the hand."^{[citation needed]}

In 1987 Teresa visited Albania and visited the grave of the former Communist dictator Enver Hoxha.^{[citation needed]} Critics said her actions compromised her perceived moral authority through unwise and controversial political associations;^{[citation needed]} however, her supporters defended such associations, saying she had to deal with political realities of the time in order to lobby for her causes.^{[citation needed]} By the time of her death, the Missionaries of Charity had houses in most Communist countries.^{[citation needed]}

Supporters of Mother Teresa see charges such as those above as clear examples of double-standards and attempts of "guilt by association".^{[citation needed]} They allege that similar standards are not applied to other companies and individuals who have had dealings with Maxwell and Keating, and that the money collected went to use in helping the poor.^{[citation needed]}

Christopher Hitchens described Mother Teresa's organization as a cult which promoted suffering and did not help those in need.^{[citation needed]} Hitchens said that Teresa's own words on poverty proved that her intention was not to help people.^{[citation needed]} He quoted Teresa's words at a 1981 press conference in which she was asked: "Do you teach the poor to endure their lot?" She replied: "I think it is very beautiful for the poor to accept their lot, to share it with the passion of Christ. I think the world is being much helped by the suffering of the poor people."^{[citation needed]}

Chatterjee added that the public image of Mother Teresa as a "helper of the poor" was misleading,^{[citation needed]} and that only a few hundred people are served by even the largest of the homes.^{[citation needed]} According to a Stern magazine report about Mother Teresa, the (Protestant) Assembly of God charity serves 18,000 meals daily in Calcutta, many more than all the Mission of Charity homes together.^{[citation needed]}

Chatterjee alleged that many operations of the order engage in no charitable activity at all but instead use their funds for missionary work.^{[citation needed]} He stated, for example, that none of the eight facilities that the Missionaries of Charity run in Papua New Guinea have any residents in them, being purely for the purpose of converting local people to Catholicism.^{[citation needed]}

Mother Teresa and her possible defenders apparently did not feel a need to directly answer most of these allegations.^{[citation needed]} Some defenders of the order argue that missionary activity was the central part of Teresa's calling.^{[citation needed]}

In 1991, Dr. Robin Fox, editor of the British medical journal The Lancet visited the Home for Dying Destitutes in Calcutta (now Kolkata) and described the medical care the patients received as "haphazard".^{[citation needed]} He observed that sisters and volunteers, some of whom had no medical knowledge,^{[citation needed]} had to make decisions about patient care,^{[citation needed]} because of the lack of doctors in the hospice.^{[citation needed]} Dr. Fox specifically held Teresa responsible for conditions in this home,^{[citation needed]} and observed that her order did not distinguish between curable and incurable patients,^{[citation needed]} so that people who could otherwise survive would be at risk of dying from infections and lack of treatment.^{[citation needed]}

Fox conceded that the regimen he observed included cleanliness,^{[citation needed]} the tending of wounds and sores,^{[citation needed]} and kindness,^{[citation needed]} but he noted that the sisters' approach to managing pain was "disturbingly lacking".^{[citation needed]} The formulary at the facility Fox visited lacked strong analgesics which he felt clearly separated Mother Teresa's approach from the hospice movement.^{[citation needed]} There have been a series of other reports documenting inattention to medical care in the order's facilities. Similar points of view have also been expressed by some former volunteers who worked for Teresa's order. Mother Teresa herself referred to the facilities as "Houses of the Dying".^{[citation needed]}

In contrast to the conditions at her homes, Mother Theresa sought medical treatment for herself at renowned medical clinics in the United States, Europe, and India, drawing charges of hypocrisy from critics such as Hitchens.^[13]

It has been alleged by former employees of Mother Teresa's order that Teresa refused to authorize the purchase of medical equipment,^{[citation needed]} and that donated money was instead transferred to the Vatican Bank for general use,^{[citation needed]} even if it was specifically earmarked for charitable purposes.^{[citation needed]} See Missionaries of Charity for a detailed discussion of these allegations. Mother Teresa did not disclose her order's financial situation except where she was required to do so by law.^{[citation needed]}

The Showtime program Penn & Teller: Bullshit! has an episode titled "Holier than Thou" that criticizes Mother Teresa, as well as Mahatma Gandhi and the 14th Dalai Lama.^{[citation needed]} The show criticizes Mother Teresa's controversial relationships with Charles Keating and the Duvalier family, as well as the poor medical care in her home for the dying.^{[citation needed]} Christopher Hitchens appears on, and narrates some of the episode.^{[14][unreliable source?]}