Product Description

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.

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Product Details

Publisher	Verso
ISBN	185984054X
Features	ISBN13: 9781859840542 Condition: New Notes: BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed
Format	Paperback
Author	Christopher Hitchens
EAN	9781859840542
Label	Verso
Dewey Decimal Number	271.97
Studio	Verso
Number Of Pages	98
Title	The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice
Publication Date	1997-04
Manufacturer	Verso

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Customer Reviews

Hitchens does it again

Review by Hope Hilandera, 2010-09-06

Yes, much of the material Hitchens provides for the reader is already known. However, more isn't. To collect all of the terrible things Mother Teresa did to the people under her care in one book, is a service to those who blindly believe her lay canonization by the press, magazines, and other news media. There were some things which infuriated me about her more than others: her refusal to help those in excruciating pain; her second- to third-rate care while seeking out first-rate care for herself, and her acceptance of the accolades which were thrown her way. This was not a humble woman.

Hitchens' research does a service to everyone who really works to help the "least of these." Saints do not always have good public relations machines, or at least, not as good as hers. They don't want them; they want only to serve. Thank God for them.

Read Carlos Flauta's excellent review. He says it much more cogently than I, for which I'm grateful. Then buy this book as well as his one on Henry Kissinger. He's trying to break up myths, for which we ALL should be grateful.

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What -- "No Stars" is not an option?!?

Review by J. Sullivan, 2010-08-17

Christopher Hitchens is a virulent anti-Catholic bigot whose "reportage" on Mother Teresa should be taken about as seriously as an SS officer's reportage on Judaism. This thin little volume is rife with undocumented anecdotes and shabby pseudo-research. Hitchens lowers the bar for journalism as frequently as he falls off his barstool.

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Important Subject, Mishandled

Review by Ana Mardoll, 2010-06-13

Missionary Position / 978-1-85984-054-2

In the introduction to this book, the author preempts critics by asking the question "Is nothing sacred?" and answering, simply, "No". This is a good attitude when writing biographies and exposes, particularly ones of such powerful, influential, and traditionally immune from criticism as Mother Teresa.

Unfortunately, at less than 100 pages and with a title that seems largely designed to provoke juvenile giggles than thoughtful reflection, "The Missionary Position" largely fails to deliver on its premise of serving as a scathing expose of Mother Teresa and, frankly, seems more like a paean to the wit and wisdom of the author than anything else.

Which is a shame, because there's a lot of good information in here that deserves to be expanded upon. Hitchens points out the hypocrisy of hobnobbing and (implicitly or explicitly) lending the power of one's name to the corrupt and evil, even in the name of a good cause - and this is a very powerful question for debate. But amongst the criminals and dictators who can claim Mother Teresa's proximity in various photo shoots, Hitchens cannot help but take time to single out Hillary Clinton as equally unworthy of the dubious honor, due to her having "almost single-handedly destroyed a coalition on national health care that had taken a quarter of a century to build and mature." Moments like these stand out as very "Cowboy Bebop at his computer" (if I may indulge in a TV Trope), because I'm not sure how to convey to Hitchens that reality was more complicated than that, and these outbursts make me doubt the veracity of the rest of the book - more's the pity.

Each chapter is a little vignette of another type of questionable actions on the part of Mother Teresa - blunders with birth control, taking (and failing to return) stolen money, supporting corrupt politicians, exonerating businesses at fault for lost lives and property, refusal to use analgesics or pain-reducing medicine, secret (and unwilling) baptism of dying Hindus and Muslims, written appeals for clemency for criminal supporters - but each chapter feels like a short, crammed outline - imagine the 6 subjects I just listed (and more I didn't list) crammed into less than 100 pages, and you can do the math to see how exhaustively researched and documented this book isn't. Several of the space is, for that matter, devoted to basically complaining that the book wasn't already written by time Hitchens came along, pen in hand - a valid complaint for consideration, but like so many of Hitchens' digressions, it just ends up taking valuable space.

If this book was a little longer, a little better organized, a little more exhaustive, and a little more clear on who the actual subject is (Mother Teresa or the author? - sometimes it's difficult to tell), then I would consider it worth owning in my library. As it is, the documentation is so spotty and each subject is treated so shallowly, that I'm not even sure it's worthwhile as a reference - the poor presentation diminishes the excellent intent.

~ Ana Mardoll

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Eye-opening and overdue

Review by James R. Gilligan, 2010-06-13

This slim (98 pages) book by Christopher Hitchens is a major exposé revealing Mother Teresa as just another fundamentalist evangelist purporting to help the poor while raking in thousands upon thousands of dollars--very little of which actually goes to improving the plight of the poor and instead goes toward spreading her own version of Christianity. According to Hitchens, by her own admission, Mother Teresa is "a religious fundamentalist, a political operative, a primitive sermonizer and an accomplice of worldly, secular powers" (p. 11). Hitchens supports his analysis with documentation--first-hand accounts by those who have worked in Mother Teresa's sanctuaries, photographic evidence of her support for political dictators like Duvalier, and Mother Teresa's very own letter to Judge Lance Ito asking for mercy on behalf of the accused fraud and embezzler Charles Keating, from whom she received 1.5 million dollars in donations--every penny of which she kept even after the DA in the case against Keating wrote her a letter explaining the dishonest way in which those funds were raised. Furthermore, those who were indignant about Obama's being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize ought to examine the circumstances surrounding Mother Teresa's receipt of the award in 1979. Hitchens has endured great criticism for taking on such a sacred cow as Mother Teresa and showing what a fraud she actually was. His own words explain his reasons better than any apologist ever could: "[Mother Teresa] herself purposely blurred the supposed distinction between the sacred and the profane, to say nothing of the line that separates the sublime from the ridiculous. It is past time that she was subjected to the rational critique that she evaded so arrogantly and for so long" (p. 98).

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she opened 500 convents in more than a hundred countries,

Review by Isabella R, 2010-06-03

" Frankly, if a sick man died with dignity in her home having technically become a Catholic, it is infinitely preferable to his dying a non-Catholic
in the gutters of Calcutta. "

Permission to speak freely is not allowed in Roman Catholic circles...THEY MAY GIVE LIP SERVICE TO THE POWER OF PERSONAL CONSCIENCE IN MAKING DECISION, BUT POINT OUT IF YOU CHOOSE SOMETHING OTHER THAN CHURCH DOGMA DEFINES...YOUR CONSCIENCE IF NOT FORMED CORRECTLY...IT IS A CATCH 22...and the peer pressure to confirm and parrot worn out dogma is enormous.
I am glad someone has the courage to speak out...if God can use Baalam's ass to speak, catholics should quit looking at the source of the criticism and examine the message and come down from their high self righteous horse-FOR ONCE.
I don't hold out much hope for that in the light of the bishop Olmstead fiasco where a dead mother and fetus is more pleasing in the sight of God than a living mother and wife.
More proof that THE BISHOPS LOVE YOU UNTIL YOU'RE BORN AND THEN ALL BETS OFF...then you are only an object, a means to an end...

In a way Mother Theresa was a victim of the cult...but then again she had free will and like the bishops who clam ignorance at the scope of the pedophile scandal, you have to wonder where in the heck is common sense...

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