Kolkata: The Archbishop of Kolkata, Father Thomas D’Souza, on Sunday reacted strongly to author Taslima Nasreen’s controversial tweet criticising Mother Teresa and the Missionaries of Charity founded by her.
Missionaries of Charity spokesperson Sunita Kumar said that such comments “hurt her”. “I will not speak anything on this but it hurts me to hear such things,” Ms Kumar said.
The controversial Bangladeshi author had tweeted: “Mother Teresa charity home sells babies, it is nothing new. Mother Teresa was involved with many illegal, inhumane, immoral, unethical, unprincipled, wicked, fraudulent, barbaric acts. Please don’t try to protect criminals only because they are famous.” Ms Nasreen’s tweet had come after West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee accused the BJP of making “malicious” attempts to malign the name of Missionaries of Charity when two staff members of its Ranchi-based shelter home were arrested for allegedly selling babies.
D’Souza rejected Nasreen’s allegatiions as “baseless and untrue” “This is not at all true.
The author can say whatever she wants but that will not be able to tarnish Mother’s image. Her image will remain impeccable and she will be remembered for all that she has done.
“If someone says something like this, it doesn’t diminish Mother’s integrity. I will not say anything more than this,” D’Souza said.
The Archbishop said people like Nasreen who have not understood Mother’s work properly say such things.
When pointed out about Nasreen on Sunday referring to two books on her Twitter handle saying that they were enough to “know Teresa well”, D’Souza said, “I will not like to comment anything on whatever she (Nasreen) is saying.”
St Xavier’s University vice-chancellor Father Felix Raj also criticised Narseen’s comments.
