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In a Vatican ceremony on 4 September 2016, Pope Francis conferred sainthood upon Mother Teresa, the Albanian-born nun who famously devoted most of her life to ministering to the poor in India until her death in 1997 at the age of 87. He described her as a model of holiness and generous dispenser of divine mercy, citing, among other qualifications, Mother Teresa's unwavering opposition to abortion in any form. She was committed to defending life, the Pope said, ceaselessly proclaiming that 'the unborn are the weakest, the smallest, the most vulnerable.' For Americans, the canonization of Mother Teresa coincided with the home stretch of the 2016 presidential campaign, in which the two principal candidates, along with their parties, have taken opposite stands on the issue of abortion. Republican Donald Trump has declared himself pro-life and supports legal sanctions to protect the unborn, while Democrat Hillary Clinton says she's committed to protecting women's access to critical health services, including safe, legal abortion. The timing of the resurrection of an old anecdote about a meeting between Hillary Clinton and Mother Teresa — an anecdote some have called apocryphal even while passing it along — was probably not so coincidental. Most versions tie the story to a National Prayer Breakfast hosted by the Clinton administration in 1994, at which Mother Teresa was invited to speak and did not mince words about her feelings on abortion: After the speech, Mother Teresa and First Lady Hillary Clinton — who, needless to say, held disparate opinions on the topic of the day — briefly conversed, as recalled by Clinton in her 2003 memoir, Living History: According to the anecdote that concerns us today, there was another verbal back-and-forth between Clinton and Mother Teresa on that occasion (or perhaps it was another occasion — there are varying versions of events), which began with the First Lady quizzing the future saint about, of all things, gender and politics: It's an exchange Hillary Clinton would vividly remember, one would think, yet she neglected to mention it in her memoir, nor has she ever spoken of it in public speeches or interviews. It doesn't appear in biographies of Clinton or Mother Teresa. (The question of why the U.S. hadn't yet seen a woman as president also seems a rather implausible query for Hillary Clinton to have posed to a conservative Albanian-Indian Roman Catholic nun.) The source most frequently cited by those spreading the story during the 2016 presidential campaign is an essay by educator Sean Fitzpatrick that appeared in the Catholic journal Crisis Magazine on 20 January 2016. Fitzpatrick used the anecdote as an epigraph without specifying where he found it. When we contacted him and asked for his help to authenticate it, Fitzpatrick replied that he has heard it told on many occasions over the years but doesn't know of a definitive source. He pointed us to a few other iterations of the tale online, however, which at least led a few years further back, such as this variant published in the Evansville, Indiana Courier & Press on 11 March 2010: In this case, as in some others we found, the storyteller was identified as pro-life activist Shawn Carney, though we've no reason to think the story originated with him. It appears, in fact, to be standard fare at pro-life gatherings. Here is a mention from October 2010: We haven't yet come across any instances of the story being told before 2009, however. One of the earliest examples is in a blog post written by Ohio Congressman Steve Chabot in October of that year: But none of the leads we've followed converge on a single source, much less an authoritative one. There doesn't seem to be a source. It's just that story about that time Hillary Clinton got schooled by Mother Teresa people tell at pro-life events. It is told consistently, mind you — apart from small details — but such is the case with most anecdotes this pointed and this short, regardless of whether they're true or false. Until we encounter a citation that names an eyewitness source — or, better yet, quotes one — we're labeling the authenticity of this story unproven.
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