CultNEWS101 Articles: 1/14/2021 (Flat Earth, Video, Missionaries of Charity, Mother Teresa, India, Legal, Spain, Evangelicals)

Flat Earth, Video, Missionaries of Charity, Mother Teresa, India, Legal, Spain,  Evangelicals

Talk Beliefs: Flat-Smacked - Inside the Mind of a Flat-Earther ~ with ALEX OLSHANSKY

"What would make anyone think the earth is flat? What is at the core of the conspiracy mindset? ALEX OLSHANSKY, M.A., is a Doctoral Candidate in the College of Media and Communication at Texas Tech University. Alex examines how people cognitively process science misinformation and conspiracy theories, with a special interest in Flat Earth conspiracies.

MARK from Talk Belief delves into Alex's amazing research, research which took him and his colleagues to Flat Earth conferences and to dedicated Flat Earthers themselves. But what is the psychology behind it all? What makes a Flat Earther tick?"

Indian Express: Weeks before govt's FCRA move, Missionaries of Charity nuns booked for 'forcible conversion'

"Almost two weeks before the Union Ministry of Home Affairs refused to renew the FCRA (Foreign Contribution Regulation Act) status of the Kolkata-based Missionaries of Charity founded by Mother Teresa, the Vadodara city police had booked a case against the NGO under the Gujarat Freedom of Religion Act for allegedly "hurting Hindu religious sentiments" and "luring towards Christianity young girls" in the shelter home run by the organization.

On Friday, a Vadodara court adjourned for the third time the anticipatory bail plea filed by two nuns of the Home for Girls, with the court directing the city police to 'clarify' the use of Sections 3 and 4 of the Act, whose application had been stayed by the Gujarat High Court in August.

Section 3 of the Act prohibits conversion "by use of force or by allurement or by any fraudulent means or by marriage or by getting a person married or by aiding a person to get married" while Section 4 prescribes the penal provisions.

District Government Pleader (DGP) Anil Desai, who appeared for the Vadodara city police in the case, informed Additional Sessions Judge R T Panchal that an intimation from the office of the government pleader in the High Court was awaited.

Police has resisted the anticipatory bail plea by the nuns while alleging that a woman was "forcefully converted" in the institution, that the girls in the shelter were being served "non-vegetarian food" and were being to read books on Christianity, according to Desai.

The Vadodara police FIR, lodged on December 12, is based on a complaint by District Social Defense Officer Mayank Trivedi, who had visited the Home for Girls run by the Missionaries of Charity in Makarpura area of the city along with the Chairman of the district Child Welfare Committee on December 9.

According to the complaint, Trivedi found that the girls inside the Home were being allegedly 'forced' to read Christian religious texts and participate in prayers of Christian faith, with the intention of "steering them into Christianity".

A release from the Vadodara city police on December 13 said, "Between February 10, 2021, and December 9, 2021, the institution has been involved in activities to hurt the religious sentiments of Hindus intentionally and with bitterness (towards Hindu religion). The girls inside the Home for Girls are being lured to adopt Christianity by making them wear the cross around their neck and also placing the Bible on the table of the storeroom used by the girls, in order to compel them to read the Bible… It is an attempted crime to force religious conversion upon the girls."

The Vadodara Police are also investigating a specific case of a Hindu woman from Punjab, who was allegedly married into a Christian family by the organization after being allegedly forced to convert to Christianity."

Religion News Service: A surge of evangelicals in Spain, fueled by Latin Americans

"When Kent Albright, a Baptist pastor from the United States, arrived as a missionary to Spain in 1996, he was unprepared for the insults and threats, or the fines from the police for handing out Protestant leaflets on the streets of Salamanca.

"Social animosity was big — they had never seen a Protestant in their life," said Albright, recalling one woman who whispered, "Be thankful we don't throw stones at you."

He couldn't have imagined that 25 years later, he would be pastoring an evangelical congregation of 120 and count about two dozen other thriving Protestant churches in the northwestern city. And there's a distinctive feature to the worshippers: Most of them are not Spanish-born — they're immigrants from Latin America, including about 80% of Albright's congregation.

The numbers reflect huge surges in Spain's migrant population and evangelical population in recent decades, producing profound changes in how faith is practiced in a country long dominated by the Catholic church."

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Weeks before govt's FCRA move, Missionaries of Charity nuns booked for 'forcible conversion'

Police has resisted the anticipatory bail plea by the nuns while alleging that a woman was "forcefully converted" in the institution, that the girls in the shelter were being served "non-vegetarian food" and were being to read books on Christianity.




Aditi Raja
The Indian Express
January 4, 2022

Almost two weeks before the Union Ministry of Home Affairs refused to renew the FCRA (Foreign Contribution Regulation Act) status of the Kolkata-based Missionaries of Charity founded by Mother Teresa, the Vadodara city police had booked a case against the NGO under the Gujarat Freedom of Religion Act for allegedly “hurting Hindu religious sentiments” and “luring towards Christianity young girls” in the shelter home run by the organisation.

On Friday, a Vadodara court adjourned for the third time the anticipatory bail plea filed by two nuns of the Home for Girls, with the court directing the city police to ‘clarify’ the use of Sections 3 and 4 of the Act, whose application had been stayed by the Gujarat High Court in August.

Section 3 of the Act prohibits conversion “by use of force or by allurement or by any fraudulent means or by marriage or by getting a person married or by aiding a person to get married” while Section 4 prescribes the penal provisions.

District Government Pleader (DGP) Anil Desai, who appeared for the Vadodara city police in the case, informed Additional Sessions Judge R T Panchal that an intimation from the office of the government pleader in the High Court was awaited.

Police has resisted the anticipatory bail plea by the nuns while alleging that a woman was “forcefully converted” in the institution, that the girls in the shelter were being served “non-vegetarian food” and were being to read books on Christianity, according to Desai.

The Vadodara police FIR, lodged on December 12, is based on a complaint by District Social Defence Officer Mayank Trivedi, who had visited the Home for Girls run by the Missionaries of Charity in Makarpura area of the city along with the Chairman of the district Child Welfare Committee on December 9.

According to the complaint, Trivedi found that the girls inside the Home were being alleged ‘forced’ to read Christian religious texts and participate in prayers of Christian faith, with the intention of “steering them into Christianity”.

A release from the Vadodara city police on December 13 said, “Between February 10, 2021, and December 9, 2021, the institution has been involved in activities to hurt the religious sentiments of Hindus intentionally and with bitterness (towards Hindu religion). The girls inside the Home for Girls are being lured to adopt Christianity by making them wear the cross around their neck and also placing the Bible on the table of the storeroom used by the girls, in order to compel them to read the Bible… It is an attempted crime to force religious conversion upon the girls.”

The Vadodara Police are also investigating a specific case of a Hindu woman from Punjab, who was allegedly married into a Christian family by the organisation after being allegedly forced to convert to Christianity.

Meanwhile, the woman, named in the police FIR as being a ‘victim’ of the forceful conversion, has filed an affidavit stating that she had “not been forcefully converted” and that the police case has “caused damage to her image in the society” as her interfaith marriage was with “her will and consent”.

DGP Desai told this newspaper, “The woman filed her affidavit before the court and has denied the police case but the investigation is ongoing… the police has opposed the anticipatory bail on various grounds, including the forced conversion of the woman as well as serving non-vegetarian food to the girls living in the shelter. The police have also told the court that the organisation has forced the girls to read books of the Christian faith and that books of no other faith were found in the organisation. That the girls living in the shelter are being forced to wear a holy cross pendant — a symbol of Christian faith — in order to lure them towards the religion, is also a ground for opposing the bail plea.”

Vadodara Commissioner of Police Shamsher Singh told The Indian Express, “The woman, who was converted for marriage, has not yet recorded her statement with the police. The police have been trying to establish contact with her. The other investigation is ongoing. We have handed over the case to the Crime Branch.”

Advocate Jahangir Shaikh, counsel for MoC in Vadodara told The Indian Express, “Our first argument before the court has been that the Vadodara Police should not have booked the case under the sections of the amended Act, which have been stayed by the HC in August. Secondly, they have named this Punjabi girl as a victim in the case. The fact is that in her affidavit she has told the court that she has never been converted and continues to follow Sikhism… So, the question of forceful conversion for marriage does not arise. Moreover, the wedding took place in 2012 and it has been brought into this case in 2021, which in itself is dubious as the girl has not voluntarily complained to anyone.”

Besides sections of the Gujarat Freedom of Religion Act, the institution has been booked under IPC Sections 295(A) and 298, which are related to insulting religious belief.

The Gujarat government, in June last year, effected the amended 2003 Gujarat Freedom of Religion Act that adds forcible conversion by marriage, among others, to Section 3, which provides for ‘Prohibition of forcible conversion’. Section 4 of the Act prescribes punishment for forcible conversion with a term of three years imprisonment and a fine of Rs 50,000; in case of a minor being the ‘victim of forceful conversion’, imprisonment of four years and a fine of up to Rs 1 lakh.

On August 20, this year, the division bench of Chief Justice Vikram Nath and Justice Biren Vaishnav, hearing two petitions opposing the Act, had stayed the operation of certain sections of the Act, including 3 and 4, and observed, “Prima-facie inter-faith marriages between two consenting adults by operation of the provisions of Section 3 of the 2003 Act interferes with the intricacies of marriage including the right to the choice of an individual, thereby infringing on Article 21 of the Constitution Of India.”

DGP Desai said, “The court, during the hearing of the anticipatory bail, had asked us to discuss with the Advocate General the scope of the stay order issued by the Gujarat High Court in regard with Section 3 and 4 of the Gujarat Freedom of Religion Act. The HC has issued the stay order for the sections specified in the context of forceful conversion through interfaith marriage… The rest of the grounds of forceful conversion laid down in the section have not been stayed and so the police case is on sound ground. We will discuss the applicability of the section in this case with the counsel of the government in the HC and file our reply before the court when we receive the intimation.”



https://indianexpress.com/article/india/missionaries-of-charity-gujarat-fir-fcra-7703510/

CultNEWS101 Articles: 8/17/2021 (Conversion Therapy, LGBTQ, UK, Legal, Missionaries of Charity, Mystical Experiences, Australia, Extremism, Fake-news)

Conversion Therapy, LGBTQ, UK, Legal, Missionaries of Charity, Mystical Experiences, Australia, Extremism, Fake-news

BBC: Government accused of 'burying' conversion therapy report

"Research into people's experiences of so-called conversion therapy in the UK has been buried, campaigners say.

A report - commissioned over two years ago - hit ministers' desks last December, the BBC has discovered, but has yet to appear.

Boris Johnson has promised to ban what he called the "abhorrent" practice of conversion therapy.

The government says the study will be published shortly when a consultation is launched.

Conversion therapy is defined as an attempt to change someone's sexual orientation or gender identity, according to a document signed by a number of health groups.

The prime minister said in July 2020 he would put a stop to the practice.

In the same interview, he said a study was examining "how prevalent" it was, adding: "We will then bring forward plans to ban it".

Research funded by the Government Equalities Office was commissioned when Theresa May was in Downing Street.

It was led by Adam Jowett, of Coventry University's Psychological, Social and Behavioural Sciences department."

The Turning: The Sisters Who Left

PART NINE - Is this a cult?  How do you leave?

"Thousands of women gave up everything to follow Mother Teresa, joining her storied Catholic order, the Missionaries of Charity. But some found that life inside this fiercely private religious order was not what they'd imagined. Former sisters who worked closely with Mother Teresa describe her bold vision and devotion to charity and prayer. But they also share stories of suffering and forbidden love, abuse and betrayal. If you make a lifelong vow, what does it mean to break it? What is the line between devotion and brainwashing? Can you truly give yourself to God?"

Big Think: Mystical experiences on demand? Welcome to spirit tech

Brain-based technologies of spiritual enhancement can induce mystical experiences in many people on demand. What does this mean for spirituality today?

" ... There are lots more of these spiritually potent technologies, including high-tech ways to enhance spiritual togetherness and virtual-reality experiences that create something like a psychedelic experience without any drugs. They are arriving thick and fast, and the landscape can feel confusing. So, let's close by considering two common concerns.

Are tech-assisted spiritual experiences authentic? Judging from the reports of people who have experienced both tech-assisted and no-tech spiritual experiences, we think the answer is usually yes. They are the real deal, potentially. But they create opportunities for exploitation by unscrupulous companies who would take advantage of spiritual questers for a quick buck. Our advice: make sure you know who is making these products and why.

Are tech-assisted spiritual experiences safe? So far, the answer seems to be yes, but there are dangers. Just as intense tech-free meditation experiences can skittle the psychic stability of some people and bring on psychosis, so tech-assisted spiritual experiences might be unhealthy for some people. Similarly, any technology can be abused and used to harm people. So, if you want to go this way, be a smart consumer, just as you study the safety features of a car before committing to buy.

Mystical experiences on demand? Apparently, yes. But while you're worrying about authenticity and safety, don't forget to pause and ponder the possibilities of setting loose in the world the kinds of experiences that routinely change priorities and values in the direction of the good, the true, and the beautiful."

EXIT Australia

" ... Our central purpose is striving to assist those individuals who have noticed their increase in violence and are now seeking a safe exit away from this, we also collectively work with other organisations to support those wanting to leave groups that are of high demand or using coercive control against their members.

Our current board is made of members who all have lived experience from high demand groups, Our team are all from professional backgrounds which include formers, psychologists, academics, veterans, occupational therapists and connected not for profits.

The Exit team assesses via intake the safest options for our clients, through our trusted partners we find the best support, whether that's via intervention, mental health support, counselling for family and friends, adjusting within the community or legal assistance.

Exit also continues its assistance with a collective of organisations, domestically and internationally, including not for profits, academia, businesses, affording aid with research, education, monitoring and creating pathways in preventing people from recruitment, radicalisation or self/ group conditioning towards violent extremism or an act of terrorism.

Columbia Journalism Review (CJR): Index of fake-news, clickbait, and hate sites

Step one in evaluating the credibility of a news story is: Consider the source? To help fight fake news, we've compiled an index of untrustworthy sources.

Goals

• Compile the most complete, up-to-date list of active fake-news sites.
• Make the list dynamic, auto-adding new sites and removing inactive ones.
• Build a blacklist for advertisers to keep their ads off bogus sites (and for researchers who study disinformation).

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Please forward articles that you think we should add to cultintervention@gmail.com.

A podcast that listens to what anti-vaxxers think rather than lecturing them

Jessa Crispin
The Spectator
From magazine issue: 7 August 2021

Plus: how do we square treating work like a religion and religion like a cult?

The Turning: The Sisters Who Left; Oh No, Ross and Carrie!

Work is our new religion. There are people whose primary job is writing listicles of celebrity gossip, illustrated with gifs from the Fast & Furious franchise, who refer to being a writer as a ‘calling’. If I think about this for too long my brain simply shuts down to protect itself.

What we used to do for God we now do for our work. In a secular culture, it seems totally normal — admirable, even — to sacrifice the possibility of having a family, to give up all leisure time, to starve yourself or live on insane, totally made-up diets like intermittent fasting or paleo for the sake of your job as an Instagram beauty influencer or whatever. But to wear a habit and be celibate and fast out of a religious devotion? That must be a cult!

The bafflement that those who serve one god (engagement numbers) feel for those who serve another god (God) is present in some parts of iHeartRadio’s new series The Turning: The Sisters Who Left. Hosted by Erika Lantz, it follows the stories of nuns who served with, and eventually left, the Missionaries of Charity, the organisation led by Mother Teresa. And while the lay person’s horror that a woman might take an oath of obedience to a patriarchal institution in the age of feminism, or the comparison of a millennia-old religion and tradition to a ‘cult’, definitely mars the series, ultimately the stories these women have to tell makes getting through all of that worth it.

Instead of a lecture on the idiocy of being anti-vax, they listen to their skeptical guest.

Saint Teresa of Kolkata, still commonly referred to as Mother Teresa, may have been canonised by the Catholic church, but she’s still the subject of much speculation and criticism. Was her pursuit of asceticism simply masochism when directed at herself and sadism when demanded of her nuns? Or was there something godly in it? Did the poor suffer in her care or were their lives harder and more deprived outside of it?

There are no easy answers in this podcast, but there are some difficult but valuable conversations about vocation and devotion. These are women who took vows of service but ultimately decided that life with Mother Teresa was too hard or abusive or just not fulfilling. The former nuns talk about being deprived of sleep, comfort and food, of wide-eyed naïveté crashing hard into the reality of working with the poor and the sick.

It’s very moving to hear women talk about the moment they realised that what they thought was a calling was actually a wrong number, or the heartbreak of deciding to leave a commitment you had envisioned as lasting your whole life. It’s not the best podcast I’ve listened to lately — Lantz is truly exasperating as a host, and it’s devoid of any real context of what life in convents and in the church has done for women through history — but it’s still very rewarding.

One provocative question raised by the series is how does one re-enter and adjust to a society that you have lived apart from for so long? This is a question taken up by the long-running show Oh No, Ross and Carrie!. Co-host Ross Blocher is a former evangelical Christian who, along with his partner journalist Carrie Poppy, delve into the more credulous communities in America. They investigate and talk to UFO believers, homeopathic practitioners, religious fundamentalists, and more. But rather than the usual ‘look at all these dummies’ point of view, it’s done with real warmth and thoughtfulness.

Over the course of ten years, they’ve covered all sorts of communities and misadventures, but recent episodes have dealt with those skeptical of the medical community. They talk to a 38-year-old woman whose religious background prevented her from being vaccinated — against anything at all — for her entire life, and they help walk her through her first coronavirus vaccine. Instead of the expected lecture on the importance of public health and the idiocy of being anti-vax, they listen to their guest as she tells funny stories of her encounters with illness as someone who was supposed to be healed by God and her struggle to reconcile her intellectual self with her belief. It’s not all anecdotal, they also bring on an immunity expert to help answer her medical questions. It’s a long episode, almost 100 minutes, but such a complicated subject deserves the full airing.

One would think — or hope — that after ten years of weekly episodes, Oh No! would have run out of guests by now, but alas, that’s not really how things are working out. There’s always a new commune transforming itself into a cult or an internet forum running amok and inspiring a sensationalised murder. But if one has to leave one’s all-consuming worldview behind, the best possible outcome is probably to have smart, generous people like Ross and Carrie guiding you back into the rest of the world. Even if it’s for the sake of content.

WRITTEN BY Jessa Crispin



https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/a-podcast-that-listens-to-what-anti-vaxxers-think-rather-than-lecturing-them

CultNEWS101 Articles: 7/27/2021 (Mother Teresa, Podcast, QAnon, Term Cult, QAnon, ICSA Event)

Mother Teresa, Podcast, QAnon, Term Cult, QAnon, ICSA Event

The Turning: Highway of Broken Glass (Part nine - Is this a cult? How do you leave?  Janja Lalich)

"Thousands of women gave up everything to follow Mother Teresa, joining her storied Catholic order, the Missionaries of Charity. But some found that life inside this fiercely private religious order was not what they'd imagined. Former sisters who worked closely with Mother Teresa describe her bold vision and devotion to charity and prayer. But they also share stories of suffering and forbidden love, abuse and betrayal. If you make a lifelong vow, what does it mean to break it? What is the line between devotion and brainwashing? Can you truly give yourself to God?"

Religion Dispatches: 'Cult' Is An Inaccurate, Unhelpful and Dangerous Label for Followers of Trump, QAnon, and 1/6

In the twentieth century the word "cult" (originally meaning "worship") became a pejorative word that people apply to a group or movement that they do not like and perhaps fear. The word "cult" implies a stereotype that involves what sociologist James T. Richardson has termed the "myth of the omnipotent leader" and a corresponding "myth of the passive, brainwashed follower." These are just that: myths. They're inaccurate assumptions about groups and movements with unconventional beliefs: no leader can become a dictator without complicit lieutenants who prop up his (or her) authority; the "brainwashing thesis" has been judged to be unscientific by the American Psychological Association and American judges and has been debunked by social scientists; in fact, people frequently change their minds and leave a group when they lose faith in its ideology.

In 2013 I wrote an essay titled "The Problem Is Totalism, Not Cults," which argues that instead of using the pejorative word "cult," which prevents unbiased research and dehumanizes believers, the term "totalism" better conveys what people were actually worried about: groups whose members live in isolated communities, where people are controlled and not permitted to leave when they choose. Such totalistic institutions range from some unconventional religious or political groups to prisons, concentration camps, and authoritarian governments of nations. Americans generally agree that they're abusive.

Currently it's fashionable to use the word "cult" to describe all sorts of groups and movements that people don't like. It's said that people who support former President Donald Trump constitute a "cult"; the diffuse QAnon movement is called a "cult"; and the January 6, 2021 insurrection against the United States Congress meeting in the Capitol has been alleged to be a "cult." However, these are diffuse movements, not insulated, totalistic communities. "Cult" used in this manner is constructed to refer to the worst characteristics that people can imagine, which is what Yale historian Joanne Freeman did in a June 22, 2021 podcast with Boston College historian Heather Cox Richardson (no relation to James T. Richardson) when Freeman stated that members of a "cult" believe their side is righteous and that anyone opposed to them is evil and "must be defeated, executed."

A statement like this says more about what Freeman imagines a "cult" to be than it does about the research of scholars who have studied alternative and emergent religious movements, including millennial movements. Starting by imposing one's own constructed definition of "cult" on movements and groups inhibits careful investigation and analysis, as indicated by Freeman and Heather Cox Richardson comparing the QAnon movement to three different historical episodes in entirely different communal contexts: the Salem Witch Trials in 1692-1693, the Oneida Perfectionist community, and Jonestown.

International Cultic Studies Association (ICSA): The Cult of Trump: How to Speak Respectfully & Strategically to Promote Re-Evaluation (Steve Hassan)

"I wrote my 4th book, The Cult of Trump for Simon and Schuster and it was published on October 15th, 2019. In it, I discuss the stereotypical profile of many cult leaders: that of malignant narcissism and compare Trump with Moon, Hubbard, LaRouche, Jones, and others. I discuss his childhood and influences, including his father Fred, Norman Vincent Peale, Roy Cohn and others and go into the history of propaganda and disinformation, then persuasive communication patterns of a cult leader's playbook. Then to influencers like Putin, The Family, Opus Dei, New Apostolic Reformation, Libertarians, the Alt-right, the NRA and other groups with agendas which include Dominionism as well as shrinking the government. I discuss the followers and then have a chapter on how to talk with true believers, using my Strategic Interactive Approach. It is clear that calling names only further polarization. So does saying the other side is brainwashed. Effective communication demands understanding how people are believing and how they are operating."

International Cultic Studies Association (ICSA): 2021 Conference is Still Available

The 2021 online annual conference was a great success, with more than 425 attendees!! If you missed it, no problem, because for the FIRST TIME EVER -- you have the opportunity to watch 65 conference session recordings until August 15, 2021!

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Intervention101.com to help families and friends understand and effectively respond to the complexity of a loved one's cult involvement.

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Please forward articles that you think we should add to cultintervention@gmail.com.

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Highway of Broken Glass

The Turning

"Thousands of women gave up everything to follow Mother Teresa, joining her storied Catholic order, the Missionaries of Charity. But some found that life inside this fiercely private religious order was not what they’d imagined. Former sisters who worked closely with Mother Teresa describe her bold vision and devotion to charity and prayer. But they also share stories of suffering and forbidden love, abuse and betrayal. If you make a lifelong vow, what does it mean to break it? What is the line between devotion and brainwashing? Can you truly give yourself to God?"


Documentary


PART NINE - Is this a cult? How do you leave?
Janja Lalich

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/highway-of-broken-glass/id1566966691?i=1000528704705

Was Mother Teresa a Cult Leader?

Michelle Goldberg
New York Times
May 21, 2021

Opinion Columnist

During the Trump years, there was a small boom in documentaries about cults. At least two TV series and a podcast were made about Nxivm, an organization that was half multilevel marketing scheme, half sex abuse cabal. “Wild Wild Country,” a six-part series about Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh’s compound in Oregon, was released on Netflix. Heaven’s Gate was the subject of a four-part series on HBO Max and a 10-part podcast. Indeed, there have been so many recent podcasts about cults that sites like Oprah Daily have published listicles about the best ones.

In many ways the compelling new podcast “The Turning,” which debuted on Tuesday, unfolds like one of these shows. It opens with a woman, Mary Johnson, hoping to escape the religious order in which she lives. “We always went out two by two. We were never allowed just to walk out and do something,” she explains. “So I wouldn’t have been able to go, you know, more than five or six paces before somebody ran up to me and said, ‘Where are you going?’”

Johnson sees an opportunity in escorting another woman to the hospital, where there’s a room full of old clothes that patients have left behind. She makes a plan to shed her religious uniform for civilian garb and flee, though she doesn’t go through with it.

It is what she wants to flee that makes “The Turning” so fascinating. Johnson spent 20 years in Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity before leaving through official channels in 1997. “The Turning” portrays the order of the sainted nun — Mother Teresa was canonized in 2016 — as a hive of psychological abuse and coercion. It raises the question of whether the difference between a strict monastic community and a cult lies simply in the social acceptability of the operative faith.

“The Missionaries of Charity, very much, in so many ways, carried the characteristics of those groups that we easily recognize as cults,” Johnson told me. “But because it comes out of the Catholic Church and is so strongly identified with the Catholic Church, which on the whole is a religion and not a cult, people tend immediately to assume that ‘cult’ doesn’t apply here.”

“The Turning” is far from the first work of journalism to question Mother Teresa’s hallowed reputation. Christopher Hitchens excoriated her as “a demagogue, an obscurantist and a servant of earthly powers,” in his 1995 book “The Missionary Position.” (Along with the writer and filmmaker Tariq Ali, Hitchens collaborated on a short documentary about Mother Teresa titled “Hell’s Angel.”) A Calcutta-born physician named Aroup Chatterjee made a second career lambasting the cruelty and filth in the homes for the poor that Mother Teresa ran in his city.

They and other critics argued that Mother Teresa fetishized suffering rather than sought to alleviate it. Chatterjee described children tied to beds in a Missionaries of Charity orphanage and patients in its Home for the Dying given nothing but aspirin for their pain. “He and others said that Mother Teresa took her adherence to frugality and simplicity in her work to extremes, allowing practices like the reuse of hypodermic needles and tolerating primitive facilities that required patients to defecate in front of one another,” The New York Times reported. (Hygiene practices reportedly improved after Mother Teresa’s death, and Chatterjee told The Times that the reuse of needles was eliminated.)

What makes “The Turning” unique is its focus on the internal life of the Missionaries of Charity. The former sisters describe an obsession with chastity so intense that any physical human contact or friendship was prohibited; according to Johnson, Mother Teresa even told them not to touch the babies they cared for more than necessary. They were expected to flog themselves regularly — a practice called “the discipline” — and were allowed to leave to visit their families only once every 10 years.

A former Missionaries of Charity nun named Colette Livermore recalled being denied permission to visit her brother in the hospital, even though he was thought to be dying. “I wanted to go home, but you see, I had no money, and my hair was completely shaved — not that that would have stopped me. I didn’t have any regular clothes,” she said. “It’s just strange how completely cut off you are from your family.” Speaking of her experience, she used the term “brainwashing.”

“I didn’t bring up the word ‘cult,’” Erika Lantz, the podcast’s host, told me. “Some of the former sisters did.” This doesn’t mean their views of Mother Teresa or the Missionaries of the Charity are universally negative. Their feelings about the woman they once glorified and the movement they gave years of their lives to are complex, and the podcast is more melancholy than bitter.

“I still have a great deal of affection for the women who are there, as well as the women who have left, some obviously more than others,” Johnson told me. “But the group as a whole, it just makes me really, really, really sad to see how far they’ve strayed from Mother Teresa’s initial impulse.” Mother Teresa famously used to say, “Let’s do something beautiful for God.” That, said Johnson, “was kind of the spirit of the initial thing. And it got so twisted over the years.”

Not all these stories are new; Johnson and Livermore have written memoirs. But we have a new context for them. There is the surge of interest in cults, likely driven by the fact that for four years America was run by a sociopathic con man with a dark magnetism who enveloped a huge part of the country in a dangerous alternative reality. And there’s a broader drive in American culture to expose iniquitous power relations and re-evaluate revered historical figures. Viewed through a contemporary, secular lens, a community built around a charismatic founder and dedicated to the lionization of suffering and the annihilation of female selfhood doesn’t seem blessed and ethereal. It seems sinister.

One sister quotes Mother Teresa saying, “Love, to be real, has to hurt.” If you heard the same words from any other guru, you’d know where the story was going.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.

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Michelle Goldberg has been an Opinion columnist since 2017. She is the author of several books about politics, religion and women’s rights, and was part of a team that won a Pulitzer Prize for public service in 2018 for reporting on workplace sexual harassment issues. @michelleinbklyn

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https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/21/opinion/mother-teresa.html

Mother Teresa's lawyer blasts new podcast likening her order to a cult

Kate Scanlon

Catholic News Agency 

May 28, 2021

A new podcast that likens St. Teresa of Calcutta to a cult leader is full of “untruths and false accusations,” the former legal counsel for St. Teresa told CNA on Friday. 

The podcast, titled “The Turning: The Sisters Who Left,” discusses Mother Teresa and the religious order she founded, the Missionaries of Charity; the podcast asks the question, “What is the line between devotion and brainwashing?” 

The podcast features claims of “abuse and betrayal” in the order by former sisters. A recent opinion piece for the New York Times highlighting the podcast was titled: “Was Mother Teresa a Cult Leader?”

According to the Times article, the podcast features a woman named Mary Johnson, who says she sought to “escape” the order but ultimately left “through official channels.” 

In response, Jim Towey - the Catholic legal counsel to St. Teresa for the last twelve years of her life - blasted the podcast in a piece for National Review, calling it a “smear campaign.” 

He told CNA on Friday that in his view, the podcast is part of “a continued effort by people who are trying to draw attention to themselves by degrading the memory of Mother Teresa, by attacking her sisters, and in so doing, kind of attacking the Catholic Church and its moral teachings and all we stand for.”

He added that “It’s easy to take pot-shots at the Missionaries of Charity, and it’s always by people who don’t do the work.” 

The founder and CEO of the group Aging with Dignity, a nonprofit working for the elderly, disabled, and mentally ill, Towey says his nonprofit was inspired by St. Teresa’s work with the poor. 

One allegation discussed in the New York Times opinion piece was the poor conditions at homes run by the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta - conditions that Mother Teresa allegedly was responsible for.

“It’s a really cheap shot to go and criticize the Missionaries of Charity for not having sophisticated medical services when you don’t have a clue what the reality is on the ground in Calcutta,” Towey said on Friday. 

“And of course these people that make these criticisms aren’t going out there to help the sick, and they’re instead criticizing those who do,” he said.

Towey lamented that an online search of Mother Teresa’s name would yield “posts that are vulgar,” in an attempt to “strike at her reputation.”

The podcast, he said, “is filled with untruths and false accusations, and that’s why the sisters did not agree to interviews, why waste time they could be with the poor?” he said.  

Towey said the podcast company behind “The Turning” was looking for controversy to gain listeners. 

He also said the podcast accuses St. Teresa “cozying up to dictators,” but called that charge a “distortion of fact.” St. Teresa wanted to serve the poor living within totalitarian regimes and had to seek government approval in some cases, he said.

“At no time did she compromise herself, her values, or the Catholic faith,” Towey said. 

https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/247830/mother-teresas-lawyer-blasts-new-podcast-likening-her-order-to-a-cult

The Turning: The Sisters Who Left

"Thousands of women gave up everything to follow Mother Teresa, joining her storied Catholic order, the Missionaries of Charity. But some found that life inside this fiercely private religious order was not what they’d imagined. Former sisters who worked closely with Mother Teresa describe her bold vision and devotion to charity and prayer. But they also share stories of suffering and forbidden love, abuse and betrayal. If you make a lifelong vow, what does it mean to break it? What is the line between devotion and brainwashing? Can you truly give yourself to God?"

All Episodes

https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-the-turning-the-sisters-w-82262169/

CultNEWS101 Articles: 5/27/2021 (Former Member Stories, The Missionaries of Charity, Westboro Baptist Church, Vatican, Pope Pius XII)

Former Member Stories, The Missionaries of Charity, Westboro Baptist Church, Vatican, Pope Pius XII

Forbes: From Growing Up In A Cult To Building A 7-Figure Business

"Julia McCoy is the CEO of Express Writers, educator and founder of The Content Hacker, and bestselling 3x author. But it didn't start out all rosy for this successful entrepreneur.

Having been raised in a Fundamentalist cult led by a narcissistic father in the state of Pennsylvania, Julia learned how to make decisions for herself and follow her passion. She escaped the prison that she had been confined to for the first 21 years of her life. It was then that Julia began her new life. But it took courage to escape the confines she grew up in and boldly pursue a life of happiness, especially when the odds were stacked against her."

Salon: "The Turning": The dark side of Mother Teresa's order, according to nuns who left

Salon talks to the maker of a new podcast on abuse, suffering and forbidden love within The Missionaries of Charity.

"One of the most striking things about the new podcast "The Turning: The Sisters Who Left" is how some of the former nuns describe their experiences with life behind the walls of Mother Teresa's world-famous order, the Missionaries of Charity: in language reminiscent of the way we talk about cults. 

They use terms like "isolation" and "brainwashing." They were only permitted to write home once a month and visit home once every decade. They describe what it feels like to look at a single human: as having a direct line to holiness. 

Of course there were beautiful, spiritually affirming moments, too — times where these women felt achingly close to the God for whom they'd given up their normal lives — but for some, the suffering and separation were too much. "The whole idea was to make you feel as alone as possible," Kelli Dunham, a self-described "ex-nun," said. 

It was enough to make some fantasize about escaping — and some did. Through "The Turning," a new 10-episode podcast by Rococo Punch and iHeartMedia, producer and host Erika Lantz tells their stories."

" ... The sisters kept a rigid schedule that began at 4:30 a.m. and only included 30 minutes of unstructured recreation time, which was most often spent catching up on work that hadn't gotten done. Though they were required to go everywhere in pairs, the nuns were never allowed to have private conversations and would instead recite prayers together. 

This was to encourage chastity, a virtue that, as Lantz found out in her reporting, Mother Teresa was strict about maintaining, almost to the point of paranoia. After all, the Missionaries of Charity were spiritually wed to Jesus and were organized to "satiate the thirst of Jesus Christ on the Cross for Love and Souls."

It's a telling detail that Mother Teresa was so intently focused on Christ's crucifixion. While, as Lantz put it in "The Turning," one would anticipate that the scriptural passages that would have most impacted Mother Teresa would have centered on Jesus' interactions with the poor, sick and hungry, she was perhaps most moved by how his pain catalyzed his holiness. 

This was reflected in how the sisters lived in their respective convents, the series reports. Why would you pray from a chair when you could kneel on the hard ground? Why would you open the windows or wear one less layer when you could simply swelter? Why, as in the case of one nun, would you rest in bed after sustaining major burns when you could go back to work in almost unspeakable pain? 

However, as Lantz found out, the emphasis on achieving holiness through suffering didn't stop there. As is revealed early in "The Turning," the sisters would frequently engage in self-flagellation. 

Mary Johnson, a former nun and author of "An Unquenchable Thirst" — who also spoke with Salon back in 2013 about her experiences in the order — joined the Missionaries of Charity when she was 19 after seeing Mother Teresa on the cover of TIME Magazine."

Insider: A man bought a home right across the street from a homophobic church and painted it the colors of the Pride flag

"When Aaron Jackson found a property for sale across the street from the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas, right away he had the idea to buy the house and paint it the colors of the Pride flag.

The founder of Planting Peace — a global nonprofit whose initiatives include environmental conservation and LGBTQ advocacy campaigns — Jackson wanted to make a statement with his choice of paint colors.

While a number of religious groups are supportive of LGBTQ inclusion and equality, according to the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), the Westboro Baptist Church is not one of them.

The organization is considered to be an extremist and anti-gay religious group, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. And its members believe that homosexuality is a sin, according to the church's website (which includes a homophobic epithet in its URL)."

NCR: No 'smoking gun' yet in Pius XII archives, researchers say

" ... According to the experts, much of what is in the seemingly endless secretive archival records are actually kind of boring — housing documents like requests for money to buy shoes. But scholars predict the vaults will shed light upon the range of opinion within church leadership at the time about how to respond to the reports about treatment of Jews in Nazi Europe.

Rioli described the opinions of bishops on the continent as "a mosaic" that will "give us a more wide view of mid-century church leadership."

Valbousquet said she had recently uncovered Vatican correspondence from shortly after the war that suggested officials had a deep lack of understanding of what had happened during the Holocaust and harbored antisemitic sentiments.

Valbousquet found a 1946 letter from a Vatican official about Jewish refugees performing a hunger strike to be allowed to immigrate to what was then Palestine. In the letter, the official commented that: "I don't believe that the hunger strike will last very long because Jews do not like to suffer and they are not used to suffering."

Kertzer stressed the importance of understanding the length of Pius' tenure, which went well past the war into the era of post-war reconstruction, the founding of Israel, and the theological debates that would eventually lead to the 1962-65 Second Vatican Council.

Understanding the postwar era of his papacy is crucial to understanding what Pius signifies today, said the researcher.

"Part of the reason that Pope Pius XII has such staunch defenders is that there are some who believe that the Second Vatican Council is where the church went wrong and Pope Pius XII was the last pre-Second Vatican pope," said Kertzer."

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