British Scholar campaigns for Mother Teresa sainthood

 By: C.M. Paul 

Dr Alpion, first secular scholar to address MC Sisters

Birmingham: With Pope Francis announcing his visit to Albania this September, a Mother Teresa scholar in the United Kingdom has started an internet signature campaign for the Indian saint of Albanian origin.

Following the midday Angelus prayer last Sunday, the Pontiff announced that on Sept. 21, he will visit Tirana, the capital Albania.

“With this brief trip I wish to confirm in the faith the Church in Albania, and offer my encouragement and love to a country that has suffered greatly as a result of the ideologies of the past,” the pope said.

Albania is just over 10 percent Catholic.

Albanian-born Mother Teresa scholar Dr Gëzim Alpion, who launched the signature campaign on June 15, said he has been thinking about “this from the moment a selection of Mother Teresa’s private writings was published in 2007.”

The professor of Birmingham University, UK, said he holds the view that the publication of her letters was unethical. “Those who decided to make public her sensitive confessions to her spiritual directors should have known better. As a result, a delicate matter was sensationalized and trivialized. Since then Mother Teresa has been hung out to dry,” he told Matters India.

A Cairo and Durham graduate, Professor Alpion is the author of the ground-breaking book ‘Mother Teresa: Saint of Celebrity?’ published by Routledge in Oxford, New York and New Delhi in 2007. An Italian edition was published in Rome by Salerno Editrice in 2008.

His work on Mother Teresa has been published in a number of renowned peer-reviewed journals since 2004, the most recent one being the study on the resistance of her charism/a, which appeared in the ‘International Journal of Public Theology’ in February 2014.

Asked why he waited for seven years to initiate the sainthood campaign, Professor Alpion, said: “Since 2007 I have been educating myself on the intricate issue of spiritual darkness. During 2011-2012, I established contact with members of the Indian and international media who broke the news about Mother Teresa’s dark night of the soul in 2001, as well as with some of her friends and spiritual directors, including members of the beatification commission both during the diocesan and position stages of the beatification inquiry. Since November 2013 my efforts to get an update about the stage Mother Teresa’s canonization process is currently at, have come to nothing.”

Alpion is adamant that Mother Teresa is being penalized for her spiritual darkness which, according to him, is a pity: “Mother Teresa’s spiritual darkness cannot and should not be approached exclusively in light of what other sainted mystics, from John of the Cross and Teresa of Ávila, to Thérèse of Lisieux, went through. This has been going on for almost 15 years in Mother Teresa’s case.“

“The Vatican does not need to go shopping for miracles for Mother Teresa; her prolonged spiritual darkness is her most miraculous feat. It’s baffling that this has not been yet officially acknowledged, and preposterous that Mother Teresa’s detractors are using it relentlessly against her.”

“Mother Teresa’s spiritual doubts offer a welcome challenge both to theologians and social scientists interested in religion. Her ‘lack of faith’ requires a new mindset, especially from within the Vatican. I had hoped that, with his scholarly disposition, the last Pope, would look into this matter. I am equally hopeful that the current pontiff, who has shown that he can be less dogmatic than his predecessors, will address this issue from a fresh perspective.”

Professor Alpion emphatically says: “The issue is not simply to add another saint to the Catholic Church but a saint with a difference. As a sociologist I am now convinced that Mother Teresa’s ‘spiritual aridity’ should not be held against her canonization; on the contrary, in my view, it’s mainly on this account why she should be canonized.”

Following the announcement that Pope Francis will visit Albania on September 21, Professor Alpion emphasized on his online petition: “I very much hope this is the moment when the Vatican will announce the long-overdue canonization of Mother Teresa. Whatever reasons those who object to Mother Teresa’s canonization may have, they pale into insignificance when weighed against her unique contribution to the Catholic Church.”

“Few outstanding individuals, religious or otherwise, in the history of mankind have done so much to sanctify human dignity like Albanian-born Mother Teresa throughout her missionary life that began in India in 1929 and ended in 1997”.

Sign the petition

http://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/the-vatican-canonize-mother-teresa-petizione-per-chiedere-la-canonizzazione-di-madre-teresa-shenjt%C3%ABroni-n%C3%ABn%C3%AB-terez%C3%ABn

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Mother Teresa canonization petition gains momentum 

 By C.M. Paul 

Birmingham: Already into the second week, the signature campaign to petition Pope Francis to speed up the canonization process of Blessed Teresa of Calcutta on his visit to Albania has collected more than 500 signatories from 30 countries.

“So far the petition has been signed by more than 500 people from 30 countries. I am delighted to notice that a large number of the signatories come from India,” says initiator of the campaign, Albanian born Professor Gëzim Alpion, lecturer in Sociology at the University of Birmingham.

Speaking to Matters India Professor Alpion said: “I started the petition for the canonization of Mother Teresa with the purpose of offering my modest contribution to encourage the Vatican (an institution I hold to very high esteem) to speed up this issue.”

Some of the distinguished people in India who have signed the petition are Jesuit Fathers George Gispert-Sauch and Gaston Roberge of St Xavier’s College, and Dr John Dayal, a prominent social activist.

“Several Indian reporters have shown interest in the campaign and have contacted me over the week end,” says Dr Alpion who hopes the petition will be covered shortly by a number of newspapers in India.

Elsewhere in the world, the petition has been supported by a number of internationally renowned writers, diplomats and academics including the Australian scientist Professor Avni Sali, the poet Visar Zhiti who was persecuted by the communist government in Albania, and Dr Franco Tagliarini in Rome.

Alpion is keen to emphasize that while he welcomes the support of the great and the good, “this is the petition of everyone who admires Mother Teresa’s message that human dignity matters.”

A number of distinguished members of the clergy in the Balkans have reportedly signed the petition.

The petition has been supported by numerous leading newspapers, magazines and portals in Albania, Kosovo and Macedonia and the Albanian media in diaspora, especially in the UK, the USA, Canada, and Switzerland.

Regular updates on the petition are available from the following public Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DrGezimAlpion

Please sign the petition

http://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/the-vatican-canonize-mother-teresa-petizione-per-chiedere-la-canonizzazione-di-madre-teresa-shenjt%C3%ABroni-n%C3%ABn%C3%AB-terez%C3%ABn