{{automatic taxobox |color=limegreen |name=Life (Biota / Vitae / Eobionti) |image=Ruwenpflanzen.jpg |image_width=250px |image_caption = Plants in the Rwenzori Mountains, Uganda |subdivision_ranks=Domains and kingdoms |subdivision=Life on Earth: Non-cellular life (viruses)

Cellular life

* Bacteria

* Archaea

* Eukarya

** Protista

** Fungi

** Plantae

** Animalia}}

Life (cf. biota) is a characteristic that distinguishes objects that have signaling and self-sustaining processes (i. e., living organisms) from those that do not, either because such functions have ceased (death), or else because they lack such functions and are classified as inanimate. Biology is the science concerned with the study of life.

Living organisms undergo metabolism, maintain homeostasis, possess a capacity to grow, respond to stimuli, reproduce and, through natural selection, adapt to their environment in successive generations. More complex living organisms can communicate through various means. A diverse array of living organisms (life forms) can be found in the biosphere on Earth, and the properties common to these organisms—plants, animals, fungi, protists, archaea, and bacteria—are a carbon- and water-based cellular form with complex organization and heritable genetic information.

In philosophy and religion, the conception of life and its nature varies. Both offer interpretations as to how life relates to existence and consciousness, and both touch on many related issues, including life stance, purpose, conception of a god or gods, a soul or an afterlife.

Early theories about life

Materialism

[[Image:Grand prismatic spring.jpg|thumb|An aerial photo of microbial mats around the Grand Prismatic Spring of Yellowstone National Park]] Some of the earliest theories of life were materialist, holding that all that exists is matter, and that all life is merely a complex form or arrangement of matter. Empedocles (430 BC) argued that every thing in the universe is made up of a combination of four eternal "elements" or "roots of all": earth, water, air, and fire. All change is explained by the arrangement and rearrangement of these four elements. The various forms of life are caused by an appropriate mixture of elements. For example, growth in plants is explained by the natural downward movement of earth and the natural upward movement of fire.

Democritus (460 BC), the disciple of Leucippus, thought that the essential characteristic of life is having a soul (psyche). In common with other ancient writers, he used the term to mean the principle of living things that causes them to function as a living thing. He thought the soul was composed of fire atoms, because of the apparent connection between life and heat, and because fire moves. He also suggested that humans originally lived like animals, gradually developing communities to help one another, originating language, and developing crafts and agriculture.

In the scientific revolution of the 17th century, mechanistic ideas were revived by philosophers like Descartes.

Hylomorphism

Hylomorphism is the theory (originating with Aristotle (322 BC)) that all things are a combination of matter and form. Aristotle was one of the first ancient writers to approach the subject of life in a scientific way. Biology was one of his main interests, and there is extensive biological material in his extant writings. According to him, all things in the material universe have both matter and form. The form of a living thing is its soul (Greek psyche, Latin anima). There are three kinds of souls: the "vegetative soul" of plants, which causes them to grow and decay and nourish themselves, but does not cause motion and sensation; the "animal soul" which causes animals to move and feel; and the rational soul which is the source of consciousness and reasoning which (Aristotle believed) is found only in man. Each higher soul has all the attributes of the lower one. Aristotle believed that while matter can exist without form, form cannot exist without matter, and therefore the soul cannot exist without the body.

Consistent with this account is a teleological explanation of life. A teleological explanation accounts for phenomena in terms of their purpose or goal-directedness. Thus, the whiteness of the polar bear's coat is explained by its purpose of camouflage. The direction of causality is the other way round from materialistic science, which explains the consequence in terms of a prior cause. Modern biologists now reject this functional view in terms of a material and causal one: biological features are to be explained not by looking forward to future optimal results, but by looking backwards to the past evolutionary history of a species, which led to the natural selection of the features in question.

Vitalism

Vitalism is the belief that the life-principle is essentially immaterial. This originated with Stahl (17th century), and held sway until the middle of the 19th century. It appealed to philosophers such as Henri Bergson, Nietzsche, Wilhelm Dilthey, anatomists like Bichat, and chemists like Liebig.

Vitalism underpinned the idea of a fundamental separation of organic and inorganic material, and the belief that organic material can only be derived from living things. This was disproved in 1828 when Friedrich Wöhler prepared urea from inorganic materials. This so-called Wöhler synthesis is considered the starting point of modern organic chemistry. It is of historical significance because for the first time an organic compound was produced from inorganic reactants.

Later, Helmholtz, anticipated by Mayer, demonstrated that no energy is lost in muscle movement, suggesting that there were no vital forces necessary to move a muscle. These empirical results led to the abandonment of scientific interest in vitalistic theories, although the belief lingered on in non-scientific theories such as homeopathy, which interprets diseases and sickness as caused by disturbances in a hypothetical vital force or life force.

Definitions

It is still a challenge for scientists and philosophers to define life in unequivocal terms. Defining life is difficult—in part—because life is a process, not a pure substance. Any definition must be sufficiently broad to encompass all life with which we are familiar, and it should be sufficiently general that, with it, scientists would not miss life that may be fundamentally different from life on Earth.

Biology

Since there is no unequivocal definition of life, the current understanding is descriptive, where life is a characteristic of organisms that exhibit all or most of the following phenomena: # Homeostasis: Regulation of the internal environment to maintain a constant state; for example, electrolyte concentration or sweating to reduce temperature. # Organization: Being structurally composed of one or more cells, which are the basic units of life. # Metabolism: Transformation of energy by converting chemicals and energy into cellular components (anabolism) and decomposing organic matter (catabolism). Living things require energy to maintain internal organization (homeostasis) and to produce the other phenomena associated with life. # Growth: Maintenance of a higher rate of anabolism than catabolism. A growing organism increases in size in all of its parts, rather than simply accumulating matter. # Adaptation: The ability to change over a period of time in response to the environment. This ability is fundamental to the process of evolution and is determined by the organism's heredity as well as the composition of metabolized substances, and external factors present. # Response to stimuli: A response can take many forms, from the contraction of a unicellular organism to external chemicals, to complex reactions involving all the senses of multicellular organisms. A response is often expressed by motion, for example, the leaves of a plant turning toward the sun (phototropism) and by chemotaxis. # Reproduction: The ability to produce new individual organisms, either asexually from a single parent organism, or sexually from two parent organisms.

Proposed

To reflect the minimum phenomena required, some have proposed other biological definitions of life: A network of inferior negative feedbacks (regulatory mechanisms) subordinated to a superior positive feedback (potential of expansion, reproduction). A systemic definition of life is that living things are self-organizing and autopoietic (self-producing). Variations of this definition include Stuart Kauffman's definition as an autonomous agent or a multi-agent system capable of reproducing itself or themselves, and of completing at least one thermodynamic work cycle. Living beings are thermodynamic systems that have an organized molecular structure. Things with the capacity for metabolism and motion. Life is a delay of the spontaneous diffusion or dispersion of the internal energy of the biomolecules towards more potential microstates. Life is a way to "hydrogenate carbon dioxide", at least at its very beginnings, according to physicist Sean Carroll. Life is a self-sustained chemical system capable of undergoing Darwinian evolution. Life is matter that can reproduce itself and evolve as survival dictates.

Viruses

Viruses are most often considered replicators rather than forms of life. They have been described as "organisms at the edge of life," since they possess genes, evolve by natural selection, and replicate by creating multiple copies of themselves through self-assembly. However, viruses do not metabolize and require a host cell to make new products. Virus self-assembly within host cells has implications for the study of the origin of life, as it may support the hypothesis that life could have started as self-assembling organic molecules.

Biophysics

Biophysicists have also commented on the nature and qualities of life forms—notably that they function on negative entropy. In more detail, according to physicists such as John Bernal, Erwin Schrödinger, Eugene Wigner, and John Avery, life is a member of the class of phenomena which are open or continuous systems able to decrease their internal entropy at the expense of substances or free energy taken in from the environment and subsequently rejected in a degraded form (see: entropy and life).

Living systems theories

Some scientists have proposed in the last few decades that a general living systems theory is required to explain the nature of life. Such a general theory, arising out of the ecological and biological sciences, attempts to map general principles for how all living systems work. Instead of examining phenomena by attempting to break things down into component parts, a general living systems theory explores phenomena in terms of dynamic patterns of the relationships of organisms with their environment.

Gaia hypothesis

The idea that the Earth is alive is probably as old as humankind, but the first public expression of it as a fact of science was by a Scottish scientist, James Hutton. In 1785 he stated that the Earth was a superorganism and that its proper study should be physiology. Hutton is rightly remembered as the father of geology, but his idea of a living Earth was forgotten in the intense reductionism of the 19th century. The Gaia hypothesis, originally proposed in the 1960s by scientist James Lovelock, explores the idea that the life on Earth functions as a single organism which actually defines and maintains environmental conditions necessary for its survival.

Nonfractionability

Robert Rosen (1991) built on the assumption that the explanatory powers of the mechanistic worldview cannot help understand the realm of living systems. One of several important clarifications he made was to define a system component as "a unit of organization; a part with a function, i.e., a definite relation between part and whole." From this and other starting concepts, he developed a "relational theory of systems" that attempts to explain the special properties of life. Specifically, he identified the "nonfractionability of components in an organism" as the fundamental difference between living systems and "biological machines."

Life as a property of ecosystems

A systems view of life treats environmental fluxes and biological fluxes together as a "reciprocity of influence", and a reciprocal relation with environment is arguably as important for understanding life as it is for understanding ecosystems. As Harold J. Morowitz (1992) explains it, life is a property of an ecological system rather than a single organism or species. He argues that an ecosystemic definition of life is preferable to a strictly biochemical or physical one. Robert Ulanowicz (2009) also highlights mutualism as the key to understand the systemic, order-generating behavior of life and ecosystems.

Origin

Evidence suggests that life on Earth has existed for about 3.7 billion years, with the oldest traces of life found in fossils dating back 3.4 billion years. All known life forms share fundamental molecular mechanisms, and based on these observations, theories on the origin of life attempt to find a mechanism explaining the formation of a primordial single cell organism from which all life originates. There are many different hypotheses regarding the path that might have been taken from simple organic molecules via pre-cellular life to protocells and metabolism. Many models fall into the "genes-first" category or the "metabolism-first" category, but a recent trend is the emergence of hybrid models that combine both categories.

There is no scientific consensus as to how life originated and all proposed theories are highly speculative. However, most currently accepted scientific models build in one way or another on the following hypotheses:

The Miller-Urey experiment, and the work of Sidney Fox, suggest that conditions on the primitive Earth may have favored chemical reactions that synthesized some amino acids and other organic compounds from inorganic precursors.

Phospholipids spontaneously form lipid bilayers, the basic structure of a cell membrane.

Life as we know it today synthesizes proteins, which are polymers of amino acids using instructions encoded by cellular genes—which are polymers of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). Protein synthesis also entails intermediary ribonucleic acid (RNA) polymers. One possibility is that genes came first and then proteins. Another possibility is that proteins came first and then genes. However, because genes are required to make proteins, and proteins are required to make genes, the problem of considering which came first is like that of the chicken or the egg. Most scientists have adopted the hypothesis that because DNA and proteins function together so intimately, it's unlikely that they arose independently. Therefore, many scientists consider the possibility, apparently first suggested by Francis Crick, that the first life was based on the DNA-protein intermediary: RNA. even before the catalytic properties of RNA had been demonstrated by Thomas Cech.

A significant issue with the RNA-first hypothesis is that experiments designed to synthesize RNA from simple precursors have not been nearly as successful as the Miller-Urey experiments that synthesized other organic molecules from inorganic precursors. One reason for the failure to create RNA in the laboratory is that RNA precursors are very stable and do not react with each other under ambient conditions. However, the successful synthesis of certain RNA molecules under conditions hypothesized to exist prior to life on Earth has been achieved by adding alternative precursors in a specified order with the precursor phosphate present throughout the reaction. This study makes the RNA-first hypothesis more plausible to many scientists.

Recent experiments have demonstrated true Darwinian evolution of unique RNA enzymes (ribozymes) made up of two separate catalytic components that replicate each other in vitro. In describing this work from his laboratory, Gerald Joyce stated: "This is the first example, outside of biology, of evolutionary adaptation in a molecular genetic system." Such experiments make the possibility of a primordial RNA World even more attractive to many scientists.

Recent findings by NASA, based on studies with meteorites found on Earth, suggests DNA and RNA components (adenine, guanine and related organic molecules) may be formed extraterrestrially in outer space.

Conditions for life

The diversity of life on Earth today is a result of the dynamic interplay between genetic opportunity, metabolic capability, environmental challenges, and symbiosis. For most of its existence, Earth's habitable environment has been dominated by microorganisms and subjected to their metabolism and evolution. As a consequence of such microbial activities on a geologic time scale, the physical-chemical environment on Earth has been changing, thereby determining the path of evolution of subsequent life. For example, the release of molecular oxygen by cyanobacteria as a by-product of photosynthesis induced fundamental, global changes in the Earth's environment. The altered environment, in turn, posed novel evolutionary challenges to the organisms present, which ultimately resulted in the formation of our planet's major animal and plant species. Therefore this "co-evolution" between organisms and their environment is apparently an inherent feature of living systems.

Range of tolerance

The inert components of an ecosystem are the physical and chemical factors necessary for life—energy (sunlight or chemical energy), water, temperature, atmosphere, gravity, nutrients, and ultraviolet solar radiation protection. In most ecosystems the conditions vary during the day and often shift from one season to the next. To live in most ecosystems, then, organisms must be able to survive a range of conditions, called "range of tolerance." Outside of that are the "zones of physiological stress," where the survival and reproduction are possible but not optimal. Outside of these zones are the "zones of intolerance," where life for that organism is implausible. It has been determined that organisms that have a wide range of tolerance are more widely distributed than organisms with a narrow range of tolerance.

Extremophiles

To survive, some microorganisms can assume forms that enable them to withstand freezing, complete desiccation, starvation, high-levels of radiation exposure, and other physical or chemical challenges. Furthermore, some microorganisms can survive exposure to such conditions for weeks, months, years, or even centuries. Extremophiles are microbial life forms that thrive outside the ranges life is commonly found in. They also excel at exploiting uncommon sources of energy. While all organisms are composed of nearly identical molecules, evolution has enabled such microbes to cope with this wide range of physical and chemical conditions. Characterization of the structure and metabolic diversity of microbial communities in such extreme environments is ongoing. An understanding of the tenacity and versatility of life on Earth, as well as an understanding of the molecular systems that some organisms utilize to survive such extremes, will provide a critical foundation for the search for life beyond Earth.

Chemical element requirements

All life forms require certain core chemical elements needed for biochemical functioning. These include carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, and sulfur— the elemental macronutrients for all organisms — often represented by the acronym CHNOPS. Together these make up nucleic acids, proteins and lipids, the bulk of living matter.

Alternative hypothetical types of biochemistry have been proposed which eliminate one or more of these elements, swap out an element for one not on the list, or change required chiralities or other chemical properties.

Classification of life

Traditionally, people have divided organisms into the classes of plants and animals, based mainly on their ability of movement. The first known attempt to classify organisms was conducted by the Greek philosopher Aristotle (384–322 BC). He classified all living organisms known at that time as either a plant or an animal. Aristotle distinguished animals with blood from animals without blood (or at least without red blood), which can be compared with the concepts of vertebrates and invertebrates respectively. He divided the blooded animals into five groups: viviparous quadrupeds (mammals), birds, oviparous quadrupeds (reptiles and amphibians), fishes and whales. The bloodless animals were also divided into five groups: cephalopods, crustaceans, insects (which also included the spiders, scorpions, and centipedes, in addition to what we now define as insects), shelled animals (such as most molluscs and echinoderms) and "zoophytes." Though Aristotle's work in zoology was not without errors, it was the grandest biological synthesis of the time and remained the ultimate authority for many centuries after his death.

The exploration of the American continent revealed large numbers of new plants and animals that needed descriptions and classification. In the latter part of the 16th century and the beginning of the 17th, careful study of animals commenced and was gradually extended until it formed a sufficient body of knowledge to serve as an anatomical basis for classification.

In the late 1740s, Carolus Linnaeus introduced his method, still used, to formulate the scientific name of every species. Linnaeus took every effort to improve the composition and reduce the length of the many-worded names by abolishing unnecessary rhetoric, introducing new descriptive terms and defining their meaning with an unprecedented precision. By consistently using his system, Linnaeus separated nomenclature from taxonomy. This convention for naming species is referred to as binomial nomenclature.

The fungi were originally treated as plants. For a short period Linnaeus had placed them in the taxon Vermes in Animalia. He later placed them back in Plantae. Copeland classified the Fungi in his Protoctista, thus partially avoiding the problem but acknowledged their special status. The problem was eventually solved by Whittaker, when he gave them their own kingdom in his five-kingdom system. As it turned out, the fungi are more closely related to animals than to plants.

As new discoveries enabled us to study cells and microorganisms, new groups of life were revealed, and the fields of cell biology and microbiology were created. These new organisms were originally described separately in protozoa as animals and protophyta/thallophyta as plants, but were united by Haeckel in his kingdom protista, later the group of prokaryotes were split off in the kingdom Monera, eventually this kingdom would be divided in two separate groups, the Bacteria and the Archaea, leading to the six-kingdom system and eventually to the current three-domain system. The classification of eukaryotes is still controversial, with protist taxonomy especially problematic.

As microbiology, molecular biology and virology developed, non-cellular reproducing agents were discovered, such as viruses and viroids. Sometimes these entities are considered to be alive but others argue that viruses are not living organisms since they lack characteristics such as cell membrane, metabolism and do not grow or respond to their environments. Viruses can however be classed into "species" based on their biology and genetics but many aspects of such a classification remain controversial.

Since the 1960s a trend called cladistics has emerged, arranging taxa in an evolutionary or phylogenetic tree. It is unclear, should this be implemented, how the different codes will coexist.

Extraterrestrial life

Earth is the only planet in the universe known to harbor life. The Drake equation, which relates the number of extraterrestrial civilizations in our galaxy with which we might come in contact, has been used to discuss the probability of life elsewhere, but scientists disagree on many of the values of variables in this equation. Depending on those values, the equation may either suggest that life arises frequently or infrequently.

The region around a main sequence star that could support Earth-like life on an Earth-like planet is known as the habitable zone. The inner and outer radii of this zone vary with the luminosity of the star, as does the time interval during which the zone will survive. Stars more massive than the Sun have a larger habitable zone, but will remain on the main sequence for a shorter time interval during which life can evolve. Small red dwarf stars have the opposite problem, compounded with higher levels of magnetic activity and the effects of tidal locking from close orbits. Hence, stars in the intermediate mass range such as the Sun may possess the optimal conditions for Earth-like life to develop. The location of the star within a galaxy may also have an impact on the likelihood of life forming.

Panspermia, also called exogenesis, is a hypothesis proposing that life originated elsewhere in the universe and was subsequently transferred to Earth in the form of spores perhaps via meteorites, comets or cosmic dust. However, this hypothesis does not help explain the ultimate origin of life.

Death

Death is the permanent termination of all vital functions or life processes in an organism or cell. After death, the remains of an organism become part of the biogeochemical cycle. Organisms may be consumed by a predator or a scavenger and leftover organic material may then be further decomposed by detritivores, organisms which recycle detritus, returning it to the environment for reuse in the food chain.

One of the challenges in defining death is in distinguishing it from life. Death would seem to refer to either the moment at which life ends, or when the state that follows life begins. However, determining when death has occurred requires drawing precise conceptual boundaries between life and death. This is problematic, however, because there is little consensus over how to define life. The nature of death has for millennia been a central concern of the world's religious traditions and of philosophical inquiry. Many religions maintain faith in either some kind of afterlife or reincarnation for the soul, or resurrection of the body at a later date.

Extinction

Extinction is the gradual process by which a group of taxa or species dies out, reducing biodiversity. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of that species. Because a species' potential range may be very large, determining this moment is difficult, and is usually done retrospectively after a period of apparent absence. Species become extinct when they are no longer able to survive in changing habitat or against superior competition. Over the history of the Earth, over 99% of all the species that have ever lived have gone extinct; however, mass extinctions may have accelerated evolution by providing opportunities for new groups of organisms to diversify.

Fossils

Fossils are the preserved remains or traces of animals, plants, and other organisms from the remote past. The totality of fossils, both discovered and undiscovered, and their placement in fossil-containing rock formations and sedimentary layers (strata) is known as the fossil record. Such a preserved specimen is called a "fossil" if it is older than the arbitrary date of 10,000 years ago. Hence, fossils range in age from the youngest at the start of the Holocene Epoch to the oldest from the Archaean Eon, up to 3.4 billion years old.

See also

Alpha taxonomy

Artificial life

Biological immortality

Biology—the study of life

Carbon-based life

Cell

Conway's Game of Life

Entropy and life

Evolutionary history of life

Extraterrestrial life

Extremophile

Gaia hypothesis

Genetics

Genetic engineering

Hierarchy of life

Kingdom (biology)

Life form

Life on Mars

Meaning of life

Nature

Non-cellular life

Organic life

Organism

Origin of life

Personal life

Phylogenetics

Prehistoric life

Prion

Quality of life

Silicon-based life

Synthetic life

Notes

References

Further reading

Kauffman, Stuart. The Adjacent Possible: A Talk with Stuart Kauffman

Walker, Martin G. LIFE! Why We Exist...And What We Must Do to Survive Dog Ear Publishing, 2006, ISBN 1-59858-243-7

External links

Wikispecies – a free directory of life

"The Adjacent Possible: A Talk with Stuart Kauffman"

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry

Life under extreme conditions An in depth look at how life can form under the most extreme conditions and circumstaces.

Category:Biology Category:Biological systems Category:Biology terminology

am:ህይወት ar:حياة an:Vida ay:Jakaña az:Həyat bn:জীবন zh-min-nan:Sèⁿ-miā be:Жыццё be-x-old:Жыцьцё bo:འཚོ་བ། bs:Život br:Buhez bg:Живот ca:Vida cs:Život cy:Bywyd da:Liv de:Leben et:Elu el:Ζωή es:Vida eo:Vivo eu:Bizi fa:زندگی hif:Zindagi fr:Vie gl:Vida ko:생명 hi:जीवन hr:Život id:Kehidupan ia:Vita is:Líf it:Vita he:חיים jv:Urip kn:ಜೀವನ krc:Джашау ka:სიცოცხლე kk:Өмір rw:Ubuzima ht:Lavi la:Vita lv:Dzīvība lt:Gyvybė li:Leve ln:Bomɔi hu:Élet mk:Живот mg:Fiainana mr:जीवन ms:Hidupan mwl:Bida nl:Leven new:उयिर् (सन् २००६या संकिपा) ja:生命 no:Liv nn:Livet oc:Vida uz:Hayot pa:ਜੀਵਨ pnb:جیون pap:Bida pl:Życie pt:Vida kbd:ГъащӀэ ro:Viață qu:Kawsay rue:Жывот ru:Жизнь sah:Олох sq:Jeta scn:Vita simple:Life sk:Život sl:Življenje sr:Живот sh:Život su:Hirup fi:Elämä sv:Liv tl:Buhay ta:உயிர் te:జీవం th:ชีวิต tr:Yaşam uk:Життя ur:حیات vec:Vita vi:Sự sống wa:Veye (biyolodjeye) war:Kinabuhi yi:לעבן zh-yue:生命 zh:生命

Coordinates	12°58′0″N77°34′0″N
background	#013366
name	Mother Teresa
religion	Catholic
order	Sisters of Loreto (1928–1950)Missionaries of Charity (1950–1997)
title	Superior General
period	1950–1997
successor	Nirmala Joshi
birth name	Agnes Gonxhe Bojaxhiu
birth date	August 26, 1910
birth place	Üsküb, Vilayet of Kosovo, Ottoman Empire (today's Skopje)
ethnicity	Albanian
nationality	Indian
ethnicity	Albanian
death date	September 05, 1997
death place	Calcutta, India 150pxSignature of Mother Teresa }}

Mother Teresa (26 August 1910 5 September 1997), born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu (pronounced ), was a Catholic nun of Albanian ethnicity and Indian citizenship, who founded the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta, India in 1950. For over 45 years she ministered in her own way to the poor, sick, orphaned, and dying, while guiding the Missionaries of Charity's expansion, first throughout India and then in other countries. Following her death she was beatified by Pope John Paul II and given the title Blessed Teresa of Calcutta.

In the 1970s, she became well-known internationally for her controversial work considered humanitarian and apparent advocacy for the rights of the poor and helpless. Malcolm Muggeridge documented this favourably and wrote a book Something Beautiful for God, Christopher Hitchens claims Muggeridge was “credulous” and even mistook an innovative photographic film for a divine miracle. Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity continued to grow during her life-time, and at the time of her death, they had 610 missions in 123 countries, including hospices and homes for people with HIV/AIDS, leprosy and tuberculosis, soup kitchens, children's and family counselling programs, orphanages, and schools. Governments, charity organisations and prominent individuals have been inspired by her work. She received numerous awards, including a number from the Indian Government, one of which was the Bharat Ratna (1980), as well as international awards, such as the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979.

Mother Teresa has not been without her critics, however, including prominent atheist Christopher Hitchens who believes her reputation is misguided and due to people failing to examine what she actually did. Other critics are cultural critic Michael Parenti, Indian-English physician Aroup Chatterjee and the World Hindu Council (Vishva Hindu Parishad). They accuse her of proselytizing, failing to provide accounts which Hitchins could have audited and which would have allowed donors to investigate how their money was used, allowing her hospice to be primitive and run down despite obtaining vast sums of donated money which could be used to build, for example a new teaching hospital in Calcutta. Mother Teresa is further accused of strongly opposing contraception and abortion, believing in poverty's spiritual goodness and alleged "secret baptisms of the dying" though the baptism may not have valid according to Roman Catholic teachings.

In 2010 on the 100th anniversary of her birth, she was honoured around the world, and her work praised by Indian President Pratibha Patil though some people are unsure if she did more good or more harm.

Early life

Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu (gonxha meaning "rosebud" or "little flower" in Albanian) was born on 26 August 1910, in Üsküb, Ottoman Empire (now Skopje, capital of the Republic of Macedonia). Although she was born on 26 August, she considered 27 August, the day she was baptized, to be her "true birthday". She was the youngest of the children of a family from Shkodër, Albania, born to Nikollë and Drana Bojaxhiu. Her father, who was involved in Albanian politics, died in 1919 when she was eight years old. After her father's death, her mother raised her as a Roman Catholic. Her father, Nikollë Bojaxhiu (his name means 'painter') was of Kosovar Albanian origin possibly stemming from Prizren, Kosovo while her mother's origin was possibly from a village near Đakovica, Kosovo.

According to a biography by Joan Graff Clucas, in her early years Agnes was fascinated by stories of the lives of missionaries and their service in Bengal, and by age 12 was convinced that she should commit herself to a religious life. Her final resolution was taken on August 15, 1928, while praying at the shrine of the Black Madonna of Letnice, where she often went on pilgrimage.

She left home at age 18 to join the Sisters of Loreto as a missionary. She never again saw her mother or sister.

Agnes initially went to the Loreto Abbey in Rathfarnham, Ireland to learn English, the language the Sisters of Loreto used to teach school children in India. She arrived in India in 1929, and began her novitiate in Darjeeling, near the Himalayan mountains, where she learnt Bengali and taught at the St. Teresa’s School, a schoolhouse close to her convent. She took her first religious vows as a nun on 24 May 1931. At that time she chose to be named after Thérèse de Lisieux, the patron saint of missionaries, but because one nun in the convent had already chosen that name, Agnes opted for the Spanish spelling Teresa.

She took her solemn vows on 14 May 1937, while serving as a teacher at the Loreto convent school in Entally, eastern Calcutta. Teresa served there for almost twenty years and in 1944 was appointed headmistress.

Although Teresa enjoyed teaching at the school, she was increasingly disturbed by the poverty surrounding her in Calcutta. The Bengal famine of 1943 brought misery and death to the city; and the outbreak of Hindu/Muslim violence in August 1946 plunged the city into despair and horror.

Missionaries of Charity

On 10 September 1946, Teresa experienced what she later described as "the call within the call" while traveling by train to the Loreto convent in Darjeeling from Calcutta for her annual retreat. "I was to leave the convent and help the poor while living among them. It was an order. To fail would have been to break the faith."

She began her missionary work with the poor in 1948, replacing her traditional Loreto habit with a simple white cotton sari decorated with a blue border. Mother Teresa adopted Indian citizenship, spent a few months in Patna to receive a basic medical training in the Holy Family Hospital and then ventured out into the slums. Initially she started a school in Motijhil (Calcutta); soon she started tending to the needs of the destitute and starving. In the beginning of 1949 she was joined in her effort by a group of young women and laid the foundations to create a new religious community helping the "poorest among the poor".

Her efforts quickly caught the attention of Indian officials, including the prime minister, who expressed his appreciation.

Teresa wrote in her diary that her first year was fraught with difficulties. She had no income and had to resort to begging for food and supplies. Teresa experienced doubt, loneliness and the temptation to return to the comfort of convent life during these early months. She wrote in her diary:

Teresa received Vatican permission on 7 October 1950 to start the diocesan congregation that would become the Missionaries of Charity. Its mission was to care for, in her own words, "the hungry, the naked, the homeless, the crippled, the blind, the lepers, all those people who feel unwanted, unloved, uncared for throughout society, people that have become a burden to the society and are shunned by everyone."

It began as a small order with 13 members in Calcutta; today it has more than 4,000 nuns running orphanages, AIDS hospices and charity centers worldwide, and caring for refugees, the blind, disabled, aged, alcoholics, the poor and homeless, and victims of floods, epidemics, and famine.

In 1952 Mother Teresa opened the first Home for the Dying in space made available by the city of Calcutta. With the help of Indian officials she converted an abandoned Hindu temple into the Kalighat Home for the Dying, a free hospice for the poor. She renamed it Kalighat, the Home of the Pure Heart (Nirmal Hriday). Those brought to the home received medical attention and were afforded the opportunity to die with dignity, according to the rituals of their faith; Muslims were read the Quran, Hindus received water from the Ganges, and Catholics received the Last Rites. "A beautiful death," she said, "is for people who lived like animals to die like angels—loved and wanted."

Mother Teresa soon opened a home for those suffering from Hansen's disease, commonly known as leprosy, and called the hospice Shanti Nagar (City of Peace). The Missionaries of Charity also established several leprosy outreach clinics throughout Calcutta, providing medication, bandages and food.

As the Missionaries of Charity took in increasing numbers of lost children, Mother Teresa felt the need to create a home for them. In 1955 she opened the Nirmala Shishu Bhavan, the Children's Home of the Immaculate Heart, as a haven for orphans and homeless youth.

The order soon began to attract both recruits and charitable donations, and by the 1960s had opened hospices, orphanages and leper houses all over India. Mother Teresa then expanded the order throughout the globe. Its first house outside India opened in Venezuela in 1965 with five sisters. Others followed in Rome, Tanzania, and Austria in 1968; during the 1970s the order opened houses and foundations in dozens of countries in Asia, Africa, Europe and the United States.

The Missionaries of Charity Brothers was founded in 1963, and a contemplative branch of the Sisters followed in 1976. Lay Catholics and non-Catholics were enrolled in the Co-Workers of Mother Teresa, the Sick and Suffering Co-Workers, and the Lay Missionaries of Charity. In answer to the requests of many priests, in 1981 Mother Teresa also began the Corpus Christi Movement for Priests, and in 1984 founded with Fr. Joseph Langford the Missionaries of Charity Fathers to combine the vocational aims of the Missionaries of Charity with the resources of the ministerial priesthood. By 2007 the Missionaries of Charity numbered approximately 450 brothers and 5,000 nuns worldwide, operating 600 missions, schools and shelters in 120 countries.

Mother Teresa's philosophy and implementation have faced some criticism. Catholic newspaper editor David Scott wrote that Mother Teresa limited herself to keeping people alive rather than tackling poverty itself.

It is further alleged that she did not even consistently strive to keep people alive and let patients die of curable conditions claiming that they were going to God anyway.

She could have had Munchhausen's Syndrome by Proxy or whatever it is called – the thing where the person (nurse, etc) gives herself a role by making people die or nearly die, so she can then play the ministering angel. The only difference between this evil and that of Mother T is that she never had to take any murderous actions because there was a steady supply of dying people, it being Calcutta.

She has also been criticized for her view on suffering. She felt that suffering would bring people closer to Jesus. Sanal Edamaruku, President of Rationalist International , criticised the failure to give pain killers, writing that in her Homes for the Dying, one could “hear the screams of people having maggots tweezered from their open wounds without pain relief. On principle, strong painkillers are even in hard cases not given. According to Mother Teresa's bizarre philosophy, it is ‘the most beautiful gift for a person that he can participate in the sufferings of Christ’.”

The quality of care offered to terminally ill patients in the Homes for the Dying has been criticised in the medical press. The Lancet and the British Medical Journal reported the reuse of hypodermic needles, poor living conditions, including the use of cold baths for all patients, and an approach to illness and suffering that precluded the use of many elements of modern medical care, such as systematic diagnosis. Dr. Robin Fox, editor of The Lancet, described the medical care as "haphazard", as volunteers without medical knowledge had to take decisions about patient care, because of the lack of doctors. He observed that her order did not distinguish between curable and incurable patients, so that people who could otherwise survive would be at risk of dying from infections and lack of treatment.

Colette Livermore, a former Missionary of Charity, describes her reasons for leaving the order in her book Hope Endures: Leaving Mother Teresa, Losing Faith, and Searching for Meaning. Livermore found what she called Mother Teresa's "theology of suffering" to be flawed, despite being a good and courageous person. Though Mother Teresa instructed her followers on the importance of spreading the Gospel through actions rather than theological lessons, Livermore could not reconcile this with some of the practices of the organization. Examples she gives include unnecessarily refusing to help the needy when they approached the nuns at the wrong time according to the prescribed schedule, discouraging nuns from seeking medical training to deal with the illnesses they encountered (with the justification that God empowers the weak and ignorant), and imposition of "unjust" punishments, such as being transferred away from friends. Livermore says that the Missionaries of Charity "infantilized" its nuns by prohibiting the reading of secular books and newspapers, and emphasizing obedience over independent thinking and problem-solving.

International charity

In 1982, at the height of the Siege of Beirut, Mother Teresa rescued 37 children trapped in a front line hospital by brokering a temporary cease-fire between the Israeli army and Palestinian guerrillas. Accompanied by Red Cross workers, she traveled through the war zone to the devastated hospital to evacuate the young patients.

When Eastern Europe experienced increased openness in the late 1980s, she expanded her efforts to Communist countries that had previously rejected the Missionaries of Charity, embarking on dozens of projects. She was undeterred by criticism about her firm stand against abortion and divorce stating, "No matter who says what, you should accept it with a smile and do your own work." She visited the Soviet republic of Armenia following the 1988 Spitak earthquake, and met with Nikolai Ryzhkov, the Chairman of the Council of Ministers.

Mother Teresa traveled to assist and minister to the hungry in Ethiopia, radiation victims at Chernobyl, and earthquake victims in Armenia. In 1991, Mother Teresa returned for the first time to her homeland and opened a Missionaries of Charity Brothers home in Tirana, Albania.

By 1996, she was operating 517 missions in more than 100 countries. Over the years, Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity grew from twelve to thousands serving the "poorest of the poor" in 450 centers around the world. The first Missionaries of Charity home in the United States was established in the South Bronx, New York; by 1984 the order operated 19 establishments throughout the country.

The spending of the charity money received has been criticized by some. Christopher Hitchens and the German magazine Stern have said Mother Teresa did not focus donated money on alleviating poverty or improving the conditions of her hospices, but on opening new convents and increasing missionary work.

Additionally, the sources of some donations accepted have been criticized. Mother Teresa accepted donations from the autocratic and corrupt Duvalier family in Haiti and openly praised them. She also accepted 1.4 million dollars from Charles Keating, involved in the fraud and corruption scheme known as the Keating Five scandal and supported him before and after his arrest. The Deputy District Attorney for Los Angeles, Paul Turley, wrote to Mother Teresa asking her to return the donated money to the people Keating had stolen from, one of whom was "a poor carpenter". The donated money was not accounted for, and Turley did not receive a reply.

Declining health and death

Mother Teresa suffered a heart attack in Rome in 1983, while visiting Pope John Paul II. After a second attack in 1989, she received an artificial pacemaker. In 1991, after a battle with pneumonia while in Mexico, she suffered further heart problems. She offered to resign her position as head of the Missionaries of Charity. But the nuns of the order, in a secret ballot, voted for her to stay. Mother Teresa agreed to continue her work as head of the order.

In April 1996, Mother Teresa fell and broke her collar bone. In August she suffered from malaria and failure of the left heart ventricle. She had heart surgery but it was clear that her health was declining. She was treated at a California hospital, too, and this has led to some criticism. The Archbishop of Calcutta, Henry Sebastian D'Souza, said he ordered a priest to perform an exorcism on Mother Teresa with her permission when she was first hospitalized with cardiac problems because he thought she may be under attack by the devil.

On 13 March 1997, she stepped down from the head of Missionaries of Charity. She died on 5 September 1997.

At the time of her death, Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity had over 4,000 sisters, and an associated brotherhood of 300 members, operating 610 missions in 123 countries. These included hospices and homes for people with HIV/AIDS, leprosy and tuberculosis, soup kitchens, children's and family counseling programs, personal helpers, orphanages, and schools. The Missionaries of Charity were also aided by Co-Workers, who numbered over 1 million by the 1990s.

Mother Teresa lay in repose in St Thomas, Kolkata for one week prior to her funeral, in September 1997. She was granted a state funeral by the Indian Government in gratitude for her services to the poor of all religions in India.

Recognition and reception

In India

Mother Teresa had first been recognised by the Indian government more than a third of a century earlier when she was awarded the Padma Shri in 1962 and the Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International Understanding in 1969. She continued to receive major Indian rewards in successive decades including, in 1972, in 1980, India's highest civilian award, the Bharat Ratna.

Her official biography was authored by an Indian civil servant, Navin Chawla, and published in 1992.

Indian views on Mother Teresa were not uniformly favourable. Her critic Aroup Chatterjee, who was born and raised in Calcutta but lived in London, reports that "she was not a significant entity in Calcutta in her lifetime". Chatterjee blames Mother Teresa for promoting a negative image of his home city. Her presence and profile grated in parts of the Indian political world, as she often opposed the Hindu Right. The Bharatiya Janata Party clashed with her over the Christian Dalits, but praised her in death, sending a representative to her funeral. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad, on the other hand, opposed the Government's decision to grant her a state funeral. Its secretary Giriraj Kishore said that "her first duty was to the Church and social service was incidental" and accused her of favouring Christians and conducting "secret baptisms" of the dying, though the baptism may not have valid according to Roman Catholic teachings. But, in its front page tribute, the Indian fortnightly Frontline dismissed these charges as "patently false" and said that they had "made no impact on the public perception of her work, especially in Calcutta". Although praising her "selfless caring", energy and bravery, the author of the tribute was critical of Mother Teresa's public campaigning against abortion and that she claimed to be non-political when doing so. More recently, the Indian daily The Telegraph mentioned that "Rome has been asked to investigate if she did anything to alleviate the condition of the poor or just took care of the sick and dying and needed them to further a sentimentally moral cause." On 28 Aug 2010, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of her birth, the Government of India issued a special 5 Rupee coin, being the sum she first arrived in India with. President Pratibha Patil said of Mother Teresa, "Clad in a white sari with a blue border, she and the sisters of Missionaries of Charity became a symbol of hope to many - the aged, the destitute, the unemployed, the diseased, the terminally ill, and those abandoned by their families."

In the rest of the world

In 1962, Mother Teresa received the Philippines-based Ramon Magsaysay Award for International Understanding, given for work in South or East Asia. The citation said that "the Board of Trustees recognizes her merciful cognizance of the abject poor of a foreign land, in whose service she has led a new congregation". By the early 1970s, Mother Teresa had become an international celebrity. Her fame can be in large part attributed to the 1969 documentary Something Beautiful for God, which was filmed by Malcolm Muggeridge and his 1971 book of the same title. Muggeridge was undergoing a spiritual journey of his own at the time. During the filming of the documentary, footage taken in poor lighting conditions, particularly the Home for the Dying, was thought unlikely to be of usable quality by the crew. After returning from India, however, the footage was found to be extremely well lit. Muggeridge claimed this was a miracle of "divine light" from Mother Teresa herself. Others in the crew thought it was due to a new type of ultra-sensitive Kodak film. Muggeridge later converted to Catholicism.

Around this time, the Catholic world began to honor Mother Teresa publicly. In 1971, Paul VI awarded her the first Pope John XXIII Peace Prize, commending her for her work with the poor, display of Christian charity and efforts for peace. She later received the Pacem in Terris Award (1976). Since her death, Mother Teresa has progressed rapidly along the steps towards sainthood, currently having reached the stage of having been beatified.

Mother Teresa was honoured by both governments and civilian organizations. She was appointed an honorary Companion of the Order of Australia in 1982, "for service to the community of Australia and humanity at large". The United Kingdom and the United States each repeatedly granted awards, culminating in the Order of Merit in 1983, and honorary citizenship of the United States received on 16 November 1996. Mother Teresa's Albanian homeland granted her the Golden Honour of the Nation in 1994. Her acceptance of this and another honour granted by the Haitian government proved controversial. Mother Teresa attracted criticism from a number of people for implicitly giving support to the Duvaliers and to corrupt businessmen such as Charles Keating and Robert Maxwell. In Keating's case she wrote to the judge of his trial asking for clemency to be shown.

Universities in both the West and in India granted her honorary degrees. Other civilian awards include the Balzan Prize for promoting humanity, peace and brotherhood among peoples (1978), and the Albert Schweitzer International Prize (1975).

In 1979, Mother Teresa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, "for work undertaken in the struggle to overcome poverty and distress, which also constitutes a threat to peace." She refused the conventional ceremonial banquet given to laureates, and asked that the $192,000 funds be given to the poor in India, stating that earthly rewards were important only if they helped her help the world's needy. When Mother Teresa received the prize, she was asked, "What can we do to promote world peace?" She answered "Go home and love your family." Building on this theme in her Nobel Lecture, she said: "Around the world, not only in the poor countries, but I found the poverty of the West so much more difficult to remove. When I pick up a person from the street, hungry, I give him a plate of rice, a piece of bread, I have satisfied. I have removed that hunger. But a person that is shut out, that feels unwanted, unloved, terrified, the person that has been thrown out from society—that poverty is so hurtable [sic] and so much, and I find that very difficult." She also singled out abortion as 'the greatest destroyer of peace in the world'.

Towards the end of her life, Mother Teresa attracted some negative attention in the Western media. The journalist Christopher Hitchens has been one of her most active critics. He was commissioned to co-write and narrate the documentary Hell's Angel about her for the British Channel 4 after Aroup Chatterjee encouraged the making of such a program, although Chatterjee was unhappy with the "sensationalist approach" of the final product. Hitchens expanded his criticism in a 1995 book, The Missionary Position.

Chatterjee writes that while she was alive Mother Teresa and her official biographers refused to collaborate with his own investigations and that she failed to defend herself against critical coverage in the Western press. He gives as examples a report in The Guardian in Britain whose "stringent (and quite detailed) attack on conditions in her orphanages ... [include] charges of gross neglect and physical and emotional abuse", and another documentary Mother Teresa: Time for Change? broadcast in several European countries.

The German magazine Stern published a critical article on the first anniversary of Mother Teresa's death. This concerned allegations regarding financial matters and the spending of donations. The medical press has also published criticism of her, arising from very different outlooks and priorities on patients' needs. Other critics include prominent marxist, Tariq Ali, a member of the editorial committee of the New Left Review, and the Irish investigative journalist Donal MacIntyre.

Her death was mourned in both secular and religious communities. In tribute, Nawaz Sharif, the Prime Minister of Pakistan said that she was "a rare and unique individual who lived long for higher purposes. Her life-long devotion to the care of the poor, the sick, and the disadvantaged was one of the highest examples of service to our humanity." The former U.N. Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar said: "She is the United Nations. She is peace in the world." During her lifetime, Mother Teresa was named 18 times in the yearly Gallup's most admired man and woman poll‎ as one of the ten women around the world that Americans admired most, finishing first several times in the 1980s and 1990s. In 1999, a poll of Americans ranked her first in Gallup's List of Most Widely Admired People of the 20th Century. In that survey, she out-polled all other volunteered answers by a wide margin, and was in first place in all major demographic categories except the very young.

Spiritual life

Analyzing her deeds and achievements, John Paul II asked: "Where did Mother Teresa find the strength and perseverance to place herself completely at the service of others? She found it in prayer and in the silent contemplation of Jesus Christ, his Holy Face, his Sacred Heart." Privately, Mother Teresa experienced doubts and struggles over her religious beliefs which lasted nearly fifty years until the end of her life, during which "she felt no presence of God whatsoever", "neither in her heart or in the eucharist" as put by her postulator Rev. Brian Kolodiejchuk. Mother Teresa expressed grave doubts about God's existence and pain over her lack of faith: }}

With reference to the above words, the Rev. Brian Kolodiejchuk, her postulator (the official responsible for gathering the evidence for her sanctification) indicated there was a risk that some might misinterpret her meaning, but her faith that God was working through her remained undiminished, and that while she pined for the lost sentiment of closeness with God, she did not question his existence. Many other saints had similar experiences of spiritual dryness, or what Catholics believe to be spiritual tests ("passive purifications"), such as Mother Teresa's namesake, St. Therese of Lisieux, who called it a "night of nothingness." Contrary to the mistaken belief by some that the doubts she expressed would be an impediment to canonization, just the opposite is true; it is very consistent with the experience of canonized mystics.

Mother Teresa described, after ten years of doubt, a short period of renewed faith. At the time of the death of Pope Pius XII in the fall of 1958, praying for him at a requiem mass, she said she had been relieved of "the long darkness: that strange suffering." However, five weeks later, she described returning to her difficulties in believing.

Mother Teresa wrote many letters to her confessors and superiors over a 66-year period. She had asked that her letters be destroyed, concerned that "people will think more of me—less of Jesus." However, despite this request, the correspondences have been compiled in Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light (Doubleday). In one publicly released letter to a spiritual confidant, the Rev. Michael van der Peet, she wrote, "Jesus has a very special love for you. [But] as for me, the silence and the emptiness is so great, that I look and do not see,—Listen and do not hear—the tongue moves [in prayer] but does not speak ... I want you to pray for me—that I let Him have [a] free hand."

Many news outlets have referred to Mother Teresa's writings as an indication of a "crisis of faith." Some critics of Mother Teresa, such as Christopher Hitchens, view her writings as evidence that her public image was created primarily for publicity despite her personal beliefs and actions. Hitchens writes, "So, which is the more striking: that the faithful should bravely confront the fact that one of their heroines all but lost her own faith, or that the Church should have gone on deploying, as an icon of favorable publicity, a confused old lady who it knew had for all practical purposes ceased to believe?" However, others such as Brian Kolodiejchuk, Come Be My Light's editor, draw comparisons to the 16th century mystic St. John of the Cross, who coined the term the "dark night of the soul" to describe a particular stage in the growth of some spiritual masters. The Vatican has indicated that the letters would not affect her path to sainthood. In fact, the book is edited by the Rev. Brian Kolodiejchuk, her postulator.

In his first encyclical Deus Caritas Est, Benedict XVI mentioned Teresa of Calcutta three times and he also used her life to clarify one of his main points of the encyclical. "In the example of Blessed Teresa of Calcutta we have a clear illustration of the fact that time devoted to God in prayer not only does not detract from effective and loving service to our neighbour but is in fact the inexhaustible source of that service." Mother Teresa specified that "It is only by mental prayer and spiritual reading that we can cultivate the gift of prayer."

Although there was no direct connection between Mother Teresa's order and the Franciscan orders, she was known as a great admirer of St. Francis of Assisi. Accordingly, her influence and life show influences of Franciscan spirituality. The Sisters of Charity recite the peace prayer of St. Francis every morning during thanksgiving after Communion and many of the vows and emphasis of her ministry are similar. St. Francis emphasized poverty, chastity, obedience and submission to Christ. He also devoted much of his own life to service of the poor, especially lepers in the area where he lived.

Miracle and beatification

Name	Blessed Teresa of Calcutta
Feast day	5 September
Venerated in	Roman Catholicism
Beatified date	19 October 2003
Beatified place	St. Peter's Basilica, Rome
Beatified by	Pope John Paul II
Patronage	World Youth Day
Major shrine	Mother House of the Missionaries of Charity, Calcutta, India
Issues	}}

After Mother Teresa's death in 1997, the Holy See began the process of beatification, the third step toward possible canonization. This process requires the documentation of a miracle performed from the intercession of Mother Teresa.

In 2002, the Vatican recognized as a miracle the healing of a tumor in the abdomen of an Indian woman, Monica Besra, after the application of a locket containing Mother Teresa's picture. Besra said that a beam of light emanated from the picture, curing the cancerous tumor. Critics—including some of Besra's medical staff and, initially, Besra's husband—insisted that conventional medical treatment had eradicated the tumor. Dr. Ranjan Mustafi, who told The New York Times he had treated Besra, said that the cyst was not cancer at all but a cyst caused by tuberculosis. He insisted, "It was not a miracle.... She took medicines for nine months to one year." According to Besra’s husband, “My wife was cured by the doctors and not by any miracle.”

An opposing perspective of the claim is that Besra's medical records contain sonograms, prescriptions, and physicians' notes that could prove whether the cure was a miracle or not. Besra has claimed that Sister Betta of the Missionaries of Charity is holding them. The publication has received a "no comments" statement from Sister Betta. The officials at the Balurghat Hospital where Besra was seeking medical treatment have claimed that they are being pressured by the Catholic order to declare the cure a miracle.

Christopher Hitchens was the only witness called by the Vatican to give evidence against Mother Teresa's beatification and canonization process, because 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,” says Hitchens. “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.’”

In the process of examining Teresa's suitability for beatification and canonization, the Roman Curia (the Vatican) pored over a great deal of documentation of published and unpublished criticism of her life and work. Vatican officials say Hitchens's allegations have been investigated by the agency charged with such matters, the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, and they found no obstacle to Mother Teresa's beatification. Because of the attacks she has received, some Catholic writers have called her a sign of contradiction. The beatification of Mother Teresa took place on 19 October 2003, thereby bestowing on her the title "Blessed."

A second miracle is required for her to proceed to canonization.

Legacy and depictions in popular culture

Commemoration

Mother Teresa inspired a variety of commemorations. She has been memorialized through museums, been named patroness of various churches, and had various structures and roads named after her, including Albania's international airport. In 2009 the Mother Teresa Memorial House was opened in her hometown Skopje, in the Republic of Macedonia.

Mother Teresa Women`s University, Kodaikanal, Tamil Nadu has been established in 1984 as a public university by Government of Tamil Nadu, India.

Mother Theresa Post Graduate and Research Institute of Health Sciences, Puducherry has been established in 1999 by Government of Puducherry, India.

Various tributes have been published in Indian newspapers and magazines authored by her biographer, Navin Chawla.

Indian Railways will introduce a new train, "Mother Express", named after Mother Teresa, on 26 August 2010 to mark her birth centenary.

Tamil Nadu State government organised centenary celebrations of Mother Teresa on 4 December 2010 in Chennai, headed by Tamil Nadu chief minister M Karunanidhi.

Film and literature

Mother Teresa is the subject of the 1969 documentary film and 1972 book Something Beautiful for God, a 1997 Art Film Festival award winning film starring Geraldine Chaplin called Mother Teresa: In the Name of God's Poor, a 2003 Italian miniseries titled Mother Teresa of Calcutta, (which was re-released in 2007 and received a CAMIE award,) and was portrayed by Megan Fox in a satirical film-within-a-film in the 2007 movie How to Lose Friends and Alienate People.

See also

Christopher Hitchens' critiques of public figures#Mother Teresa

Commemorations of Mother Teresa

List of female Nobel laureates

Memorial House of Mother Teresa

Missionaries of Charity

Mother Teresa: In the Name of God's Poor

Mother Teresa of Calcutta (film)

Notes and references

Notes:

References:

Further reading

Alpion, Gezim. Mother Teresa: Saint or Celebrity?. London: Routledge Press, 2007. ISBN 0-415-39247-0

Benenate, Becky and Joseph Durepos (eds). Mother Teresa: No Greater Love (Fine Communications, 2000) ISBN 1-56731-401-5

Chatterjee, Aroup. Mother Teresa: The Final Verdict (Meteor Books, 2003). ISBN 81-88248-00-2, introduction and first three chapters of fourteen (without pictures). Critical examination of Agnes Bojaxhiu's life and work.

Chawla, Navin. Mother Teresa. Rockport, Mass: Element Books, 1996. ISBN 1-85230-911-3

Chawla, Navin. Mother Teresa: The Authorized Biography, Diane Pub Co. (March 1992), ISBN 978-0756755485.

Chawla, Navin. The miracle of faith, article in the Hindu dated 25 August 2007 " The miracle of faith''"

Chawla, Navin. Memories of Mother Teresa, article in the Hindu dated 26 August 2006 " Memories of Mother Teresa''"

Chawla, Navin. Touch the Poor... – article in India Today dated 15 September 1997 " Touch the Poor...''"

Chawla, Navin. The path to Sainthood, article in The Hindu dated Saturday, 4 October 2003 " The path to Sainthood ''"

Chawla, Navin. In the shadow of a saint, article in The Indian Express dated September, 05, 2007 " In the shadow of a saint ''"

Chawla, Navin. Mission Possible, article in India Today dated 21 April 2008 "Mission Possible''"

Chawla, Navin. Mother Teresa and the joy of giving, article in The Hindu dated 26 August 2008 Mother Teresa and the joy of giving''"

Clucas, Joan. Mother Teresa. New York: Chelsea House, 1988. ISBN 1-55546-855-1

Dwivedi, Brijal. Mother Teresa: Woman of the Century

Greene, Meg. Mother Teresa: A Biography, Greenwood Press, 2004. ISBN 0-313-32771-8

Hitchens, Christopher. The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice. London: Verso, 1996. ISBN 1-85984-054-X

Le Joly, Edward. Mother Teresa of Calcutta. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1983. ISBN 0-06-065217-9.

Muggeridge, Malcolm. Something Beautiful for God. ISBN 0-06-066043-0.

Muntaykkal, T.T. Blessed Mother Teresa: Her Journey to Your Heart. ISBN 1-903650-61-5. ISBN 0-7648-1110-X. .

Scott, David. A Revolution of Love: The Meaning of Mother Teresa. Chicago: Loyola Press, 2005. ISBN 0829420312.

Sebba, Anne. Mother Teresa: Beyond the Image. New York: Doubleday, 1997. ISBN 0-385-48952-8.

Slavicek, Louise. Mother Teresa. New York: Infobase Publishing, 2007. ISBN 0791094332.

Spink, Kathryn. Mother Teresa: A Complete Authorized Biography. New York: HarperCollins, 1997. ISBN 0062508253

Teresa, Mother et al., Mother Teresa: In My Own Words. Gramercy Books, 1997. ISBN 0-517-20169-0.

Teresa, Mother & Kolodiejchuk, Brian, Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light, New York: Doubleday, 2007. ISBN 0385520379.

Williams, Paul. Mother Teresa. Indianapolis: Alpha Books, 2002. ISBN 0-02-864278-3.

Wüllenweber, Walter. "Nehmen ist seliger denn geben. Mutter Teresa—wo sind ihre Millionen?" Stern (illustrated German weekly), 10 September 1998. English translation.

Navin Chawla. Mother Teresa: The Authorized Biography. Diane Pub Co. (March 1992). ISBN 978-0756755485. First published by Sinclair-Stevenson, U.K. (1992), since translated into 14 languages in India and abroad. Indian language editions include Hindi, Bengali, Gujarati, Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu, and Kannada. The foreign language editions include French, German, Dutch, Spanish, Italian, Polish, Japanese, and Thai. In both Indian and foreign languages, there have been multiple editions. The bulk of royalty income goes to charity.

Eileen Egan and Kathleen Egan, OSB. Prayertimes with Mother Teresa: A New Adventure in Prayer, Doubleday, 1989. ISBN 978-0385-26231-6.

Brian Kolodiejchuk (ed.). Mother Teresa: Come be My Light, Doubleday, 2007, ISBN 978-0385-52037-9.

Raghu Rai and Navin Chawla. Faith and Compassion: The Life and Work of Mother Teresa. Element Books Ltd. (December 1996). ISBN 978-1852309121. Translated also into Dutch and Spanish.

Vimla Mehta & Veerendra Raj Mehta, ‘’Mother Teresa Inspiring Incidents’’, Publications division, Ministry of I&B;, Govt. of India, 2004, ISBN 81-230-1167-9.

External links

Mother Teresa of Calcutta Center, India – Official Site

Missionaries of Charity Brothers (Active Branch)

Mother Teresa and her patron saint, St. Therese of Lisieux

Mother Teresa Memorial Page

Mother Teresa Women`s University, Kodaikanal, Tamil Nadu, India – Official site

Nobel Laureate Biography (Nobel Foundation)

Complete Mother Teresa Quotations

Mother Teresa: Angel of Mercy (CNN)

The TIME 100: The Most Important People of the Century – Mother Teresa

Missionaries of Charity Fathers (MC Fathers / MC Priests) – Official Website: Biography of Mother Teresa

Mother Teresa's Crisis of Faith (TIME.com)

Speech at National Prayer Breakfast, Washington, D.C. 3 February 1994

Crisis, 1 February 1998">Peggy Noonan, "Still, Small Voice," Crisis, 1 February 1998 (account of the National Prayer Breakfast speech)

Missionaries of Charity Active and Contemplative Sisters with U.S. contact information (CMSWR member page)

India to give Mother Teresa state funeral, CNN

"Mother Teresa of Calcutta" Website of Sally Warner

"Mother Teresa, John Paul II, and the Fast-Track Saints" by Michael Parenti, CommonDreams.org, 22 October 2007

Biography: Mother Teresa

Criticism

"The Illusory vs The Real Mother Teresa", by Michael Hakeem, is a review of Christopher Hitchens' The Missionary Position. Published in Freethought Today, August 1996.

Christopher Hitchens' articles:

* "Saint to the rich" in Salon.com, September 1997

* "Mommie Dearest" in Slate, 20 October 2003

"The squalid truth behind the legacy of Mother Teresa" by Donal MacIntyre in the New Statesman, 22 August 2005

"Mother Teresa: Where are her millions?", Stern 10 September 1998.

"Mother Teresa's House of Illusions" by Susan Shields

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Coordinates	12°58′0″N77°34′0″N
name	Louis Malle
birth date	October 30, 1932
birth place	Thumeries, Nord, France
death date
death place	Beverly Hills, California, United States
spouse	Anne-Marie Deschodt (1965-1967) Candice Bergen (1980-1995)
children	daughter, Chloe Malle, b. 1985 (with Candice Bergen)
years active	1953–1994 }}

Louis Malle (30 October 1932 – 23 November 1995) was a French film director, screenwriter, and producer. He worked in both French cinema and Hollywood. His films include Ascenseur pour l'échafaud (1958), Atlantic City (1981), and Au revoir, les enfants (1987).

Early years in France

Malle was born into a wealthy industrialist family in Thumeries, Nord, France. He initially studied political science at the Sorbonne before turning to film studies at IDHEC instead.

He worked as the co-director and cameraman to Jacques Cousteau on the Oscar and Palme d'Or-winning (at the 1956 Academy Awards and Cannes Film Festival respectively) documentary The Silent World (1956) and assisted Robert Bresson on A Man Escaped (French title: Un condamné à mort s'est échappé ou Le vent souffle où il veut, 1956) before making his first feature, Ascenseur pour l'échafaud (released in the U.K. as Lift to the Scaffold and in the U.S. originally as Frantic, later as Elevator to the Gallows) in 1957. A taut thriller featuring an original score by Miles Davis, the film made an international film star of Jeanne Moreau, at the time a leading stage actress of the state Comédie-Française. Malle was 24 years old.

Malle's The Lovers (Les Amants, 1958), which also starred Moreau, caused major controversy due to its sexual content, leading to a landmark U.S. Supreme Court case regarding the legal definition of obscenity. In Jacobellis v. Ohio, a theater owner was fined $2,500 for obscenity. The decision was eventually reversed by the higher court, which found that the film was not obscene and hence constitutionally protected. However, the court could not agree on the definition of "obscene," which caused Justice Potter Stewart to utter his "I know it when I see it" opinion, perhaps the most famous single line associated with the court.

Malle is sometimes associated with the nouvelle vague - though his work does not directly fit in or correspond to the auteurist theories that apply to the work of Godard, Truffaut, Chabrol, Rohmer, and others, and he had nothing whatsoever to do with Cahiers du cinéma, he did exemplify many of the characteristics of the movement, including using natural light, and shooting on location. His film Zazie dans le métro ("Zazie in the Metro," 1960, an adaptation of the Raymond Queneau novel) did inspire Truffaut to write an enthusiastic letter to Malle.

Other films also tackled taboo subjects: The Fire Within ("Le Feu follet", 1963) centres on a man about to commit suicide, Murmur of the Heart (1971) deals with an incestuous relationship between mother and son and Lacombe Lucien (1974), co-written with Patrick Modiano, is about collaboration with the Nazis in Vichy France in World War II. The second film earned Malle his first (of three) Academy Award nominations for "Best Writing, Story and Screenplay Based on Factual Material or Material Not Previously Published or Produced."

Documentary on India

In 1968 Malle made a documentary film about India, which was released in cinemas as a film called Calcutta, in 1968, and later broadcast as a seven-part TV series called L'Inde fantôme (Phantom India) on the BBC. Concentrating on real India, its rituals and festivities, Malle fell afoul of the Indian government, which disliked his portrayal of the country, in its fascination with the pre-modern, and consequently banned the BBC from filming in India for several years. Malle later claimed his documentary on India was his favorite film

Move to America

Malle later moved to the United States and continued to direct there. His later films include Pretty Baby (1978), Atlantic City (1981), My Dinner with Andre (1981), Crackers (1984), Alamo Bay (1985), Damage (1992) and Vanya on 42nd Street (1994, an adaptation of Anton Chekhov's play Uncle Vanya) in English; Au revoir, les enfants (1987) and Milou en Mai (May Fools in the U.S., 1990) in French. It is interesting to note that just as his earlier films such as "The Lovers" helped popularize French films in the United States, My Dinner with Andre was at the forefront of the rise of American independent cinema in the 1980s.

Personal life

Malle was married to Anne-Marie Deschodt from 1965 to 1967. He had a son, Manuel Cuotemoc (born 1971), with German actress Gila von Weitershausen and a daughter Justine (born 1974) with Canadian-born French actress Alexandra Stewart.

He married actress Candice Bergen in 1980. They had one child, a daughter, Chloé Malle, in 1985.

He died from lymphoma at their home in Beverly Hills, California on Thanksgiving Day 1995.

Awards and nominations

Le Monde du silence (1956)

*Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or Winner

*Academy Award Best Documentary Winner

The Lovers (1958)

*Venice Film Festival Special Jury Prize Winner

Le Feu follet (1963)

*Venice Film Festival Special Jury Prize Winner

*Venice Film Festival Italian Film Critics Award Winner

Calcutta (1969)

*Cannes Film Festival Official Selection

Murmur of the Heart (1971)

*Cannes Film Festival Official Selection

*Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay Nomination

Pretty Baby (1978)

*Cannes Film Festival Technical Grand Prize Winner

Atlantic City (1981)

*Venice Film Festival Golden Lion Winner

*Academy Award for Best Director Nomination

Crackers (1984)

Berlin Film Festival Official Selection

Goodbye, Children (1987)

*Venice Film Festival Golden Lion Winner

*Venice Film Festival OCIC Award Winner

*Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film Nomination

*Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay Nomination

Filmography

Feature films

Elevator to the Gallows (1958) (aka Ascenseur pour l'échafaud, aka Lift to the Scaffold)

The Lovers (1958) (aka Les Amants)

Zazie in the Metro (1960) (aka Zazie dans le métro)

A Very Private Affair (1962) (aka Vie privée)

The Fire Within (1963) (aka Le feu follet)

Viva Maria! (1965)

The Thief of Paris (1967) (aka Le voleur)

Histoires extraordinaires (1968) (aka Spirits of the Dead)

Murmur of the Heart (1971) (aka Le souffle au cœur)

Lacombe Lucien (1974)

Black Moon (1975)

Pretty Baby (1978)

Atlantic City (1981)

My Dinner with Andre (1981)

Crackers (1984)

Alamo Bay (1985)

Au revoir, les enfants (1987)

Milou en Mai (1989) (aka May Fools)

Damage (1992)

Vanya on 42nd Street (1994)

Short films

Crazeologie (1953)

Station 307 (1954)

Histoires extraordinaires (1968) (segment "William Wilson")

Documentary films

The Silent World (1956) Co-director

*Le Monde du silence

Vive le Tour (1962)

Calcutta (1969)

Humain, trop humain (1974)

Place de la république (1974)

Close Up (1976) Short

TV

Bons baisers de Bangkok (1964) Documentary Short

L'Inde Fantôme (1969)

*Phantom India

Dominique Sanda ou Le rêve éveillé (1977) Documentary Short

God's Country (1986) Documentary

And the Pursuit of Happiness (1986) Documentary

Bibliography

A number of books have been written on Malle and his work. The interview collection Malle on Malle was published by Faber and Faber in 1992 and revised, after the director's death, in 1996. The definitive biography of the director is only available in French, Pierre Billard's Louis Malle - Rebelle solitaire (2003). Malle was interviewed extesively for The London Times by cultural correspondent Melinda Camber Porter who subsequently became a lifelong friend. The study, Louis Malle, written by Hugo Frey, was published by Manchester University Press in 2004. The Films of Louis Malle: A Critical Analysis, a detailed critical exploration of Malle's films, written by Nathan Southern and Jacques Weissgerber, was published by McFarland in 2005.

External links

Biography on newwavefilm.com

They Shoot Pictures, Don't They?

Rialto Pictures Website - entry for Elevator to the Gallows.

References

Category:1932 births Category:1995 deaths Category:People from Nord (French department) Category:BAFTA winners (people) Category:European Film Awards winners (people) Category:Cancer deaths in California Category:Deaths from lymphoma Category:French expatriates in the United States Category:French film directors

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