Mother Teresa says she has forgiven a British television producer for a documentary that portrays her as egotistical and publicity-hungry.
"No matter who says what, you should accept it with a smile and do your own work," the 85-year-old nun, revered for her work with Calcutta's poor and dying, was quoted as saying in The Pioneer newspaper Saturday.She received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 and has created a global network of shelters for the poor from New York City to her native Albania.
The documentary "Hell's Angel," made by producer Tariq Ali and journalist Christopher Hitchens and shown Tuesday on Britain's Channel 4, accuses her of mismanaging donations and seeking out publicity and the company of the rich and powerful.
In her first public reaction, Mother Teresa told The Pioneer she has forgiven "the producer."
"It is for you to decide how you want to live. As far as I am concerned, I know that I have to keep on doing my work," she said. "I work for the Lord and I have a clear conscience."
For more than four decades, Mother Teresa has comforted destitute old people, abandoned babies, the poor and the insane.
She has drawn criticism for her passionate opposition to abortion, contraception and divorce.
In 1982, at the height of the siege of Beirut, she persuaded the Israeli army and Palestinian guerrillas to stop shooting long enough for her to rescue 367 children trapped in a mental hospital on the front line.