Towards the end of her life, Mother Teresa attracted some negative attention in the Western media. The journalist Christopher Hitchens was 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 programme, 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 Tariq Ali of the New Left Review and the Irish investigative journalist Donal MacIntyre.

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 painkillers, 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 were not administered even in severe cases. According to Mother Teresa's 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 make 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. Dr. Fox makes it a point to contrast the term "hospice", on the one hand, with what he calls "Mother Teresa's Care for the Dying" on the other hand; noting that, while hospice emphasizes minimizing suffering with professional medical care and attention to expressed needs and wishes of the patient, her approach does not.

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 sisters at the wrong time according to the prescribed schedule, discouraging sisters 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 sisters by prohibiting the reading of secular books and newspapers, and emphasizing obedience over independent thinking and problem-solving.

Hitchens and 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.Mother Teresa accepted donations from the autocratic and corrupt Duvalier family in Haiti and openly praised them. She accepted $1.25 million 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.

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—said 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 said, "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.

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.[109] 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. Mother Teresa Day (Dita e Nënë Terezës) on 19 October is a public holiday in Albania. In 2009 the Memorial House of Mother Teresa 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, Pondicherry has been established in 1999 by Government of Pondicherry, India.
Various tributes have been published in Indian newspapers and magazines authored by her biographer, Navin Chawla. Indian Railways introduced 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.

German stamp commemorating the 100th year from her birth (2010), having her quote : » Poverty was not created by God. It is we who have caused it, you and I through our egotism.«

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.[123] Hitchens' 1994 documentary about her, Hell's Angel, claims that she urged the poor to accept their fate, while the rich are portrayed as being favored by God.