Charity Work

Can the media please stop with the Princess Diana-Mother Teresa comparisons (Drawing Board, Column Right, Sept. 9)? A few weeks of charity work every year by a wealthy, nonworking member of the social elite, admirable as that may be, is by no means comparable to a lifetime of personal sacrifice and dedication to the poor and needy of the world.

Princess Diana’s claim to fame was not charity work but the happenstance of marriage. She was a beautiful and somewhat tragic celebrity in life, known more for her designer clothes and marital problems than for her charity work. Canonizing her in death is revisionist and minimizes the work to which Mother Teresa devoted her life.

CURT MATSUNE

Walnut