The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 98 pages
• Published by: Verso April 1997
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 185984054X
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-1859840542
• Book Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.3 x 0.3 inches
• Weighs: 6.4 ounces

Product Review
What's next--The Girl Scouts: The Untold Story? How could anybody write a debunking book about Mother Teresa and her Missionaries of Charity order? Well, in this little cruise missile of a book, Hitchens quickly establishes that the idea is not without point. After all, what is Mother Teresa doing hanging out with a dictator's wife in Haiti and accepting over a million dollars from Charles Keating? The most riveting material in the book is contained in two letters: one from Mother Teresa to Judge Lance Ito--then weighing what sentence to dole out to the convicted Keating--which cited all the work Keating has done "to help the poor," and another from a Los Angeles deputy D.A., Paul Turley, back to Mother Teresa that eloquently stated that rather than working to reduce Keating's sentence, she should return the money he gave her to its rightful owners, the defrauded bond-holders. (Significantly, Mother Teresa never replied.) And why do former missionary workers and visiting doctors consistently observe that the order's medical practices seem so inadequate, especially given all the money that comes in? (Hitchens acidly observes that on the other hand, Mother Teresa herself always manages to receive world-class medical care.) Hitchens's answer is that Mother Teresa is first and foremost interested not in providing medical treatment, but in furthering Catholic doctrine and--quite literally--becoming a saint. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly
An extended, nun-busting polemic from the The Nation columnist.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Reader Reviews
I first read a portion of this book in the Washington Post a number of years ago. As I'd worked closely with Mother Teresa in Calcutta for a bit over two years, I was amused by it and bought several copies which I then gave to those I knew who painted halos on her. Now I admit to some mixed feelings (more on that later) but the book's strength is still formidable. While working in an office that provided Mother with much of her food, a Scottish pharmacologist who'd been volunteering in the Home for Dying Destitutes visited. She proclaimed that the people she was taking care of there "don't need to die!" She asserted that most of the sisters caring for the destitute weren't very bright, and that there are means of keeping the destitute alive of which the Missionaries of Charity would not partake. After that, and after picking up a small child who died in my arms at the mother house not far from my residence, my eyes were more opened to that saint of Calcutta. Incidentally, the child who died was the product of one of the "natural family planning" sessions the MC sisters held for Muslim women in Calcutta. That degree of naivete, as if the sisters who lived among them understood so pathetically little about Islam as to teach Muslim women of that means of birth control--in one of the most crowded square miles on planet earth--was enough to make one question Mother Teresa even if other things, many of which Hitchens points out, were not. As for the intellectual level of the sisters, it's important to note that what I describe is typical in much of the Third World. As an Indian friend said, most of the sisters, if they had not become nuns, would have been stuck in their Indian village, in a prearranged marriage. Their entry into the sisterhood freed them and, in some cases, allows them to "see the world." I'm not saying that in a derisive way; were I in their shoes, I may do the same. And there was one sister whose intelligence and sensitivity did impress me. She shared with me one day that she was concerned about children being adopted into families in, say, Denmark, which had negative population growth at the time. She wondered what would happen when the fad wore off of the obvious adoptions--brown children among the more pale Danes--and what social problems might come about as a consequence. As I'm not familiar with any Scandanavians, I don't know what may be happening there today. The situation, though, also has its ironies. I know many a feminist who is impressed to no end with Mother Teresa, an allegedly strong woman. As I knew Mother, I guarantee to the feminists that such a label turns Mother over in her grave. Indeed, while some reviewers have commented on the MC sisters in the U.S., their commitment to AIDS patients, etc., I see most of the sisters as sheep, little girls despite their ages, following their leader, whoever she may be, with a girl's unquestioning attitude. That's not feminist, despite illusions to the contrary. Mind you, I'm not in any way opposed to taking care of the poor. I'm as far from a Reaganite as one can imagine. But I had--and still have--close friends who are nuns in other orders in India who do far more for "human development" than the MCs do. Are they proclaimed saints? Not in this world they're not. But I don't blame Mother for that. Rather, I blame the media who are anxious to sell papers by finding one individual, a sort of Horatio Alger in reverse, who stands out. Thusly Saint Mother Teresa was born through the likes of Malcolm Muggeridge whom Hitchens covers mercilessly in his text. As I have reflected for a number of years on my experience in Calcutta and the rest of India (MC sisters telling lepers in colonies to be fruitful and multiply per Catholic teachings, thereby ensuring another generation of lepers) I've concluded that my biggest objection to the MC regime is that Mother Teresa unwittingly prevented change. Politicians, including Reagan, loved her as she said, "write a check and help the poor, the dying, and help these kids to be adopted." It never occurred to her that there must be something wrong with a system which enabled countless people to die miserably. And that extended to us in the "developed" world. How many people do you know who feel secure in having their Mother Teresa holy cards, maybe writing a check, but they'll still act and vote to perpetuate systems in which so, so many people die destitute. Oh, the reason I have some mixed feelings toward the MC sisters now is that I'm still acquainted with some American nuns. Many of them are close friends, and women for whom I have a great deal of respect and love. But many too are living more comfortably than I am, e.g., having their community pay for their homes for which they then pay substantially less rent than I would pay. At least Mother Teresa and her sisters DID live and work among the poor. Anyway, I still recommend the book. It puts much of the media hype, especially the tourists who'd visited Calcutta for two days, visited Mother Teresa, then returned to write news stories about how wonderful she is, into perspective with some of the things Mother REALLY did.