Faith is blind.
Ought to.
Science and spirituality, logic and religion, rationality and divinity, fact and faith can juxtapose as strange bedfellows or move past each other as strangers.
Religion is a byproduct of one’s cultural heritage or embraced as a result of one’s tangible and intangible encounters and experience with a supernatural force that is beyond science, logic, rationality, and fact.
Irreligion on the rise: atheism and agnosticism
Unlike the population and the number of countries (states) in the world, the number of religions have not increased but seen an implosion: divisiveness within the faiths across all religions: Christianity (Catholics, Protestants, Orthodox), Islam (Shias and Sunnis), Hinduism (caste and clan, Vaishnavism and Shaivism, Dvaita or Advaita). There are groups that are embracing this or that: theosophy, scientology, Baha'ism.
However, in 21st century there is an interesting development across the world.
The number of people unaffiliated to a religion is rising such as the atheists, and agnostics. According to Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life, 16.3% of global population do not adhere to any religion: irreligious.
Religion: for serving humanity, too
The religions of the world have an invisible thread of commonality: serve fellow human beings, strive for peace, and get there (Heaven). They unequivocally tell the adherents to come to the aid of fellow human beings either by wearing one’s religious garb, or without them, as one of the means to discover the unseen, or the Almighty.
At times, the religious interpreters usurp the interpretative powers and misinterpret the scriptures: annihilate adherents of other faiths, or condescending on another one, or focusing on increasing their number.
(What is happening in Israel, what is happening in ISIS-controlled swathes in Middle East, what is unfolding in beef- and pork-eating spots of Bharat?)
Mother Teresa was born in 1910 to Albanian parents in Macedonia. She came to the Indian subcontinent in 1929, and established Missionaries of Charity after Indian attained Independence. She made Hindustan her home in Kolkata (Calcutta) and served those who needed care, and gave love to those unloved.
When the mullahs and monks, matajis and swamis turned away their eyes to something else (pelf and power), Mother Teresa touched those who needed the touch of a human being: lepers, pariahs, disfigured humans, terminally-sick and those abandoned by the families and society.
She was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1979, and passed away on 5 September 1997 at the age of 87.
All along in some quarters there were murmurs that she was an agent of Pope and proselytization but communists and secularists and religious fundamentalists could not dispel her service to people in their midst. She did what they could not do albeit by donning the goggles of religion.
Mother Teresa was beatified on 19 October 2003 during the papacy of John Paul II: her soul has departed to Heaven, and she had performed miracles which are steps to conferring sainthood. She will be canonized on 4 September 2016 in Vatican the headquarters of Christianity by Pope Francis.
Blessed Maria Elizabeth Hesselband of Sweden (land of Protestants: Lutheranism) will also be canonized for saving Jews and Fascists from death during the World War II.
Sainthood in Christianity:
In Christianity, canonization (honorific title) is an elaborate and inevitable process unlike in Islam, Hinduism where one can bestow titles on himself or herself: Mullah, Sri Sri, Guru, Imam, Swami, Maha, Mahdi, Radhe, Baba, Marabout, Maitreya…). Sainthood is the highest honour bestowed on a person but posthumously after gathering information about one’s humane and almost divine qualities.
The canonization of Mother Teresa the ‘saint of gutters’ is a reason to celebrate and a testimony to India’s secularism (irrespective of fundamentalists’ tweets and twitters online and offline). She is the inspiration for a mullah and mata to alleviate suffering of fellow humans.
Bharat Mata is a figurative symbol of nationalistic conception, and its slogan 'Bharat Mata Ki Jai' is an effusion of patriotism, profundity and politicization. But Independent India has witnessed a Bharat Mata in Mother Teresa in flesh and blood.
(Kovuuri G. Reddy attained Masters in International Journalism with Specialization in Religions & Reporting on Religions from City University in London. He produced a documentary “Vatican: A Journey”. Reach him at [email protected]. Views are personal)
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