Missionaries of Charity
Missionaries of Charity is a Catholic religious order established in 1950 by Mother Teresa to tend to the sick and dying, especially, "the poorest of the poor". The order currently consists of over 4500 nuns and is active in 133 countries. Members of the order designate their affiliation using the order's initials, MC.Mother Teresa received her inspiration to form the order on September 10, 1946, on a train ride from Calcutta, where she taught in a convent school, to Darjeeling. She received permission to leave the convent in 1948, and, after medical training in Paris, her request to establish the Missionaries of Charity order was approved on October 7, 1950. Their first home for the destitute and dying was opened in Calcutta with a staff of 12 nuns, including Mother Teresa.
In 1990, Mother Teresa asked to resign as head of the Missionaries, but was soon voted back in as Superior General. On March 13, 1997, six months before Mother Teresa's death, Sister M. Nirmala Joshi was selected the new Superior General of the Missionaries of Charity.
A Calcutta priest, Debi Charan Haldar, gave an interview in the December 1990 issue of Calcutta Skyline in which he said: "Many Sisters belonging to the Missionaries of Charity are very harsh towards the patients at Nirmal Hriday. Almost every night we hear heartrending cries from these old patients. I suspect the Sisters indulge in physical torture." Whether cries at night were the natural result of fatal illness, or caused deliberately by staff is not addressed by Haldar's accusation.
In September 2000, Teresa's successor Sister Nirmala admitted that one nun working in a Calcutta shelter run by the Missionaries had tortured four young street children with a hot knife. According to Nirmala, the children had tried to steal money.Allegations of torture
