The Missionary Position
Recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, feted by politicians, the Church and the world's media, Mother Teresa of Calcutta appears to be on the fast track to sainthood. But what, asks Christopher Hitchens, makes Mother Teresa so divine? In a frank expose of the Teresa cult, Hitchens details the nature and limits of one woman's mission to the world's poor. He probes the source of the heroic status bestowed upon an Albanian nun whose only declared wish is to serve God. He asks whether Mother Teresa's good works answer any higher purpose than the need of the world's privileged to see someone, somewhere, doing something for the Third World. He unmasks pseudo-miracles, questions Mother Teresa's fitness to adjudicate on matters of sex and reproduction, and reports on a version of saintly ubiquity which affords genial relations with dictators, corrupt tycoons and convicted frauds.
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2011–2023years
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What Hacker News says
- There's a short book by Christopher Hitchens called The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice, which does go into her dirty dealings and doings. Recommended read, as it may very well change your mind again.
- This is an interesting idea. I don't know if I would be comfortable posting my address, though.
Definitely not trying to make this political, but please do more reading about "Mother" Teresa before quoting her as an inspiration: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_wor..., http://www.amazon.com/Missionary-Position-Mother-Teresa-Prac... and http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-03/uom-mta022813... .
- Yes she is.
You've clearly never read The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa In Theory And Practice, by Christopher Hitchens.
Mother Teresa was pure evil.
You should read up on how she intentionally tortured dying people by denying them basic pain killers. How she stipulated the use of dull needles. How she claimed pain was desirable because it was the kiss of Jesus. How she refused to properly treat people that were dying in agony, while her charity hoarded massive sums of money. The stories abound, Hitchens was kind enough to document it heavily, both in book and video documentary format.
- The first time I read Christopher Hitchens was his takedown of Mother Teresa - "The Missionary Position". It was emblematic of his writing - shocking, irreverent, but beautifully written and argued. The most intellectually honest pundit I have ever read - even when I disagreed with him. Sad to see him go.
- If you read Christopher Hitchens' book The Missionary Position, you'll discover that Theresa was quite the sadist.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58664511-the-missionary-...
- What did Christopher Hitchens get wrong about Mother Teresa?
Sounds like her veneration was a vast overcorrection of a terribly harsh reality, that people who are faith and fairytale based instead of fact and evidence based simply refuse to accept.
Not even the highly but undeservedly venerated Elon Musk is known to have been involved in wrongly defending child sexual abusers, like Mother Teresa absolutely did (although he's certainly well know for accusing innocent people of being child molesters).
And if you're actually against abortion, then it's pretty idiotic and counterproductive to also be against contraception and empowering women, don't you think? That just causes even more abortions and poverty and suffering, which is the height of hypocrisy. Unless causing poverty and suffering is actually your goal, which is exactly Hitchens' spot-on criticism of Mother Teresa.
Hell's Angel (Mother Teresa) - Christopher Hitchens
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJG-lgmPvYA
>Christopher Hitchens investigates whether Mother Teresa of Calcutta deserves her saintly image. He probes her campaigns against contraception and abortion and her questionable relationships with right-wing political leaders.
Is there anything factually incorrect or "vastly overcorrected" in the wikipedia article about her? If you have better facts with supporting evidence, then you should edit the wikipedia pages so they're correct, instead of just posting about it here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Teresa#Criticism
>Criticism
>Main article: Criticism of Mother Teresa
>According to a paper by Canadian academics Serge Larivée, Geneviève Chénard and Carole Sénéchal, Mother Teresa's clinics received millions of dollars in donations but lacked medical care, systematic diagnosis, necessary nutrition and sufficient analgesics for those in pain;[120] in the opinion of the three academics, "Mother Teresa believed the sick must suffer like Christ on the cross".[121] It was said that the additional money might have transformed the health of the city's poor by creating advanced palliative care facilities.[122][123]
>One of Mother Teresa's most outspoken critics was English journalist and antitheist Christopher Hitchens, host of the documentary Hell's Angel (1994) and author of the essay The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice (1995) who wrote in a 2003 article: "This returns us to the medieval corruption of the church, which sold indulgences to the rich while preaching hellfire and continence to the poor. [Mother Teresa] was not a friend of the poor. She was a friend of poverty. She said that suffering was a gift from God. She spent her life opposing the only known cure for poverty, which is the empowerment of women and the emancipation of them from a livestock version of compulsory reproduction."[124] He accused her of hypocrisy for choosing advanced treatment for her heart condition.[125][126] Hitchens said that "her intention was not to help people", and that she lied to donors about how their contributions were used. "It was by talking to her that I discovered, and she assured me, that she wasn't working to alleviate poverty", he said, "She was working to expand the number of Catholics. She said, 'I'm not a social worker. I don't do it for this reason. I do it for Christ. I do it for the church'".[127] Although Hitchens thought he was the only witness called by the Holy See, Aroup Chatterjee (author of Mother Teresa: The Untold Story) was also called to present evidence opposing Mother Teresa's beatification and canonisation.[128]
>In 1994, Mother Teresa argued that the sexual abuse allegations against Jesuit priest Donald McGuire were untrue. When he was convicted of sexually molesting multiple children in 2006, Mother Teresa's defense of him was criticised.[129][130]
>Abortion-rights groups have also criticised Mother Teresa's stance against abortion and contraception.[131][132][133]
