AMERICA’S Freedom from Religion Foundation has blasted the US Postal Service for its plan to honour soon-to-be-sainted Mother Teresa – aka The Albanian Prune – with a commemorative stamp.
The Mother Teresa stamp which will be issued in August
The FFRF insists that the plan violates postal regulations against honouring:
Individuals whose principal achievements are associated with religious undertakings.
The atheist organisation is urging its supporters to boycott the stamp — and also to engage in a letter-writing campaign to spread the word about what it calls the “darker side” of M T.
The stamp — set to be released on August 26, which would have been the wizened old fraud’s 100th birthday — will recognise the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize winner for her “humanitarian work”, the Postal Service announced in a press release.
Noted for her compassion toward the poor and suffering, Mother Teresa, a diminutive Roman Catholic nun and honorary US citizen, served the sick and destitute of India and the world for nearly 50 years. Her humility and compassion, as well as her respect for the innate worth and dignity of humankind, inspired people of all ages and backgrounds to work on behalf of the world’s poorest populations.
But FFRF spokeswoman Annie Laurie Gaylor says issuing the stamp runs against Postal Service regulations.
Mother Teresa is principally known as a religious figure who ran a religious institution. You can’t really separate her being a nun and being a Roman Catholic from everything she did.
Gaylor added that:
Mother Teresa infused Catholicism into her secular honours — including an “anti-abortion rant” during her Nobel Prize acceptance speech — and that even her humanitarian work was controversial. There was criticism by the end of her life that she turned what was a tiny charity into an extremely wealthy charity that had the means to provide better care than it did.
According to Wikipedia, writer and broadcaster Christopher Hitchens, who described MT as “a fanatic, a fundamentalist and a fraud” was the only witness called by the Vatican to give evidence against M T’s beatification and canonisation process, as the Vatican had abolished the traditional “devil’s advocate” role, which fulfilled a similar purpose. Hitchens has argued that “her intention was not to help people”, and he alleged that she lied to donors about the use of their contributions.
It was by talking to her that I discovered, and she assured me, that she wasn’t working to alleviate poverty. She was working to expand the number of Catholics. She said, ‘I’m not a social worker. I don’t do it for this reason. I do it for Christ. I do it for the church.’
But Postal Service spokesman Roy Betts insists the commemorative stamp has nothing to do with Mother Teresa’s religion.
Mother Teresa is not being honoured because of her religion, she’s being honoured for her work with the poor and her acts of humanitarian relief. Her contribution to the world as a humanitarian speaks for itself and is unprecedented.
The Foundation is encouraging its supporters to purchase the new stamp honoring the late actress Katharine Hepburn, who was an atheist, instead — or any of the other 2010 stamps, which include cartoonist Bill Mauldin, singer Kate Smith, filmmaker Oscar Micheaux, painter Winslow Homer and poet Julia de Burgos.
The Freethinker was founded in 1881 by GW Foote, an outspoken critic of religion. After the publication of 
January 29th, 2010 at 11:25 pm
After Mother Teresa, can we now expect stamps honoring Charles Ponzi, Bernard Madoff, Conrad Black, L. Ron Hubbard, and Alphonse Capone, all equally worthy candidates for the title of “swindler of the century”?
Surely the FFRF can sue the post office to prevent it from using taxpayer money to perpetrate such a crime against humanity? The testimony of MT’s biographers, Christopher Hitchens(1) and Aroup Chatterjee(2), should be more than sufficient to convince any sane jury that MT was a lying, thieving, swindling, hypocritical, self-serving humbug who solicited millions of dollars to feed the starving, and instead used it to benefit herself, her nuns, and the RC church, while the persons she falsely claimed to be feeding continued to starve.
(1) Hitchens, THE MISSIONARY POSITION: MOTHER TERESA IN THEORY AND PRACTICE
(2) Chatterjee, MOTHER TERESA: THE FINAL VERDICT
January 29th, 2010 at 11:37 pm
So, the US Postal service is honouring a controversial fraud. Who’ll be next? Dubya and Tony ‘The Rich’ Blair?
January 29th, 2010 at 11:56 pm
£10 to the first person to have the courage to lick her.
January 30th, 2010 at 12:04 am
£10 to the first person to have the courage to lick her.
Most US stamps (particularly general postage stamps like that one will be) are self-adhesive now, so chances of needing to lick her are slim to none.
As to MT, she’s just another example of why I’m so cynical about religious charities and those who do charity in the name of god/religion. They don’t do it because they care about others or because it’s the right thing to do. They do it because their religion/god tells them to, or to gain converts to the church. Where is the morality in that?
January 30th, 2010 at 2:31 am
Buffy,
I’ve said similar things myself, but I have to admit that sort of statement is really more of a talking point than a truth. The vast majority of believers who do charity work that I have met, do their work because they care deeply about the people they are serving. Religion, faith and belief gets used as a motivator. It is a way to over ride or in some way mitigate self interest. I can’t speak for MT, and her motivations, but I believe most people care about other people and wish them well. (here is a link to a feel good video that explores this in a humorous way http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.....r_embedded) The difference between the people who do charity work and those who do not, is in my opinion, one of motivation not desire. We all want to alleviate poverty, end sickness and comfort the grieving. As the Dalai Lama is so fond of pointing out, we all want happiness and to avoid suffering. In general we all want this for everyone else as well. The religious are not any more or less deficient than atheists in this regard. On the other hand, more often than not, what gets people motivated enough to give up their time, money, and often safety to serve others, is religion.
January 30th, 2010 at 2:41 am
Uhm, that did not come out exactly how I intended it…
January 30th, 2010 at 7:44 am
For pity’s sake; it’s just a fucking stamp. Where do people find the time to care about such trivialities?
Print blank stamps and let the sender draw on the bastard things!
January 30th, 2010 at 8:03 am
At least the publicity may give another opportunity to publicise the truth about the wicked old woman.
http://members.multimania.co.uk/bajuu/
January 30th, 2010 at 8:29 am
I can’t tell you how happy I am that we are no longer listlessly praising anyone who “seems” to be helping. American media has some catching up do do on their critical thinking skills, but from what I see on the blogosphere, a groundswell is coming.
Not American media, but here is social commentary on Pat Robertson’s Operation Blessing and the Scientologists in Haiti. Again, not accepting the bland concept of help but finding out what’s really going on. Hallelujah to Breaking the Spell! (video)
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.c.....d-in-hati/
“£10 to the first person to have the courage to lick her.” el o el
“For pity’s sake; it’s just a fucking stamp. Where do people find the time to care about such trivialities?”
The devil’s in the details.
“Print blank stamps and let the sender draw on the bastard things!”
Excellent idea.
January 30th, 2010 at 9:07 am
Old joke from my fundamentalist days:
Man goes into the Post Office and asks for a stamp.
“Which denomination?”
“Plymouth Brethren.”
“Why is that?”
“They stick to the letter!”
Many a true word!!
January 30th, 2010 at 12:12 pm
Yeah… I’m an atheist. Do I have a problem with Bach’s cantata and Fuge in D Minor? no. Good as well as evil can be done in the name of God. A woman who gave her life to helping the poor of Caluctta to please her God: Wicked, wicked old bitch? Really?
Do I care whether someone is on a stamp? no. Being British, I have to lick the head of the Church of England on every stamp. I think I’ll get over that too.
You do, sometimes, need to take a step back, think about what you’re saying, and get a grip.
January 30th, 2010 at 2:14 pm
Ooh, a Mother Teresa virgin! Jackart, you need to learn a bit more about her before you rush to her defence. She ain’t no cantata and fugue in D minor.
January 31st, 2010 at 12:19 am
Even though I’m and atheist myself, I find it quite amusing how the Brights of America band together as one, almost religiously, fiercely waving a banner under science – showing the exact same characteristics as a believing religious person in terms of “one way only, or the highway”
I do see why the necessity was born though, the inbred religious want to stamp everything under God. The tunnel-vision at a huge scale.
It is quite sad to see a fight with Fire vs Fire.
January 31st, 2010 at 10:47 am
So you think it strange, Jones Scott, that rational people should have similar views on this matter? That in itself is a strange thing!
February 1st, 2010 at 1:32 pm
Amazing how all the negative objections come out when acknowledging a Catholic. The stamp is intended to honor the Nobel Peace Prize recipient for her humanitarian work. Not for being a Saint.
A press release from the U.S. Postal Service issued last month praised Mother Teresa for her 50 years of service to “the sick and destitute of India and the world,†as well as her “humility and compassion†and “respect for the innate worth and dignity of humankind.â€
Notably the atheist groups have no objections to existing images of Martin Luther King, a Protestant clergyman, and Malcolm X, a Muslim minister. Do you think such statements and actions can be defined as an act of discrimination?
“Mother Teresa is not being honored because of her religion; she’s being honored for her work with the poor and her acts of humanitarian relief.â€
“Her contribution to the world as a humanitarian speaks for itself and is unprecedented.â€
Keep the faith ~
February 1st, 2010 at 1:40 pm
What I find utterly despicable about the hateful old crone was her attitude towards suffering: that it was somehow ‘wonderful’ and ‘beautiful’ because it ‘brought people closer to god’. All that money raised, and not one fucking red cent spent on analgesics to actually relieve the suffering, just so this deluded anti-human could live out her hateful, twisted philosophy. As someone who’s gone through one of the worst forms of pain it’s possible to have, believe me, there is nothing ‘wonderful’ or ‘beautiful’ about suffering.
I do hope Jackart reports back after they’ve done a bit of reading…
March 1st, 2010 at 1:56 pm
As an Atheist, it’s hard for me to get riled up about a stamp. Everyone who has ever appeared on one has been flawed in some way or other. While Mother Teresa can certainly be questioned and even reviled for putting her mission of religious proselytizing before her mission of ending human suffering, I believe she gave as much to humanity as Elvis did.
And at least we didn’t have to help the USPS choose between printing the “Skinny Young Mother Teresa” stamp and the “Fat Old Mother Teresa” one.