Msgr. John Esseff, the confessor to Mother Teresa of Calcutta, tells the story of how Mother Teresa had travelled to Nicaragua to help earthquake victims in Managua. On Tuesday, February 25, 1986, a 4.7 scale earthquake shook the Western seaboard of Nicaragua which resulted in the destruction of property and a loss of life. As she arrived in Nicaragua, she was greeted by the head of the Sandinista Communist regime, Daniel Ortega. Ortega was fascinated by Mother Teresa and took every opportunity to be seen with her and have events with her.
At one rally, Ortega, surrounded by thirty of his best armed guards, introduced Mother Teresa to the expectant crowd. But before he allowed her to speak, Ortega went on a long tirade about President Reagan and what a horrible person he was, bragging that communism was far better a means of government.
When he had finished, he invited Mother Teresa up to the microphone and said, “President Reagan really needs prayers, doesn’t he.” “Yes, he really does, Mother,” replied Ortega. But then Mother said to him, “And so do you. I was talking to your wife, and you are a Catholic.” (You see, the woman he had been living with and with whom he had had several children was his wife by common law, but they were never married in a Catholic Church.)
Ortega, very much embarrassed, affirmed that he was Catholic. But, as he did so, he must have been wondering where Mother Teresa going with this line of questioning. He probably had a sinking feeling in his gut. Mother Teresa continued, “You are a Catholic, but you don’t have your children baptized. I want to be their godmother. Your wife told me you haven’t had them baptized. Let’s go baptize them right now, because if you can’t run your family, you can’t run the country.”
Mother told Ortega that they were all going to go with the priest now and have the children baptized—today! And so it happened. Though she corrected Ortega in front of everyone, she did not fear the presence of his men-at-arms. Mother was not afraid to call Ortega to live up to his spiritual duties as a father. Mother Teresa remained the godmother to those children for the rest of her life. Mother Teresa was a woman of courage. She was not afraid of earthly things. She was only concerned with disappointing God. Likewise, we should boldly preach the truth with love after the example of St. Teresa of Calcutta.
In 2022, the Ortega government expelled Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity because they spoke the truth about the human rights abuses by Ortega’s government. As Mother Teresa intercedes for her community, and especially for the poor and neglected, let us pray, too, for the conversion of Ortega. May we always be courageous to speak the truth in love whether convenient or inconvenient.
St. Teresa of Calcutta, pray for us.
Note:
Ortega’s common law wife, Rosario Murillo, is a staunchly pro-life woman who saw to widespread bans on abortion in Nicaragua. About radical feminism she once wrote: “Their values represent the Old Society, exclusive, unjust, and impoverishing… where men and women…prefer to raise pets instead of children, and depopulate and disharmonize the Earth… This is junk feminism, and furthermore, as I already said, it is in the hands of women who neither live as women, nor know the feminine soul, individual or collective. They ignore our daily battles; they are not the flesh and bone of a woman. They have no family ties or stable affections; they disdain those blessed ties of unconditional affection, indispensable for healthy human development.”
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