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Title: The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice by Christopher Hitchens ISBN: 1-85984-054-X Publisher: Verso Books Pub. Date: April, 1997 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.43 (95 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: My review is based on personal experience...
Comment: 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.
Rating: 5
Summary: A fair and balanced examination......
Comment: It takes courage to write about something, or someone, that is popularly believed to be beyond reproach. Hitchens has done exactly this in his examination of Mother Teresa and her Missionaries of Charity. The book informs the reader concerning the inconsistencies surrounding Mother Teresa's ideals and the way in which those ideals were actualized.
I came away from the book repulsed by the dichotomy between Mother Teresa's "theory and practice," but conversely I am willing to concede that she was most probably a victim of the Catholic Church's imperative of saintliness at all costs. It's quite regrettable and the book clearly shows how this can lead not only Mother Teresa, but any of us, to a point where objectivity is replaced by a sort of illogical religious fervor that blurs boundries and hinders clarity.
Mother Teresa no doubt was a good person trying to put balance into an unbalanced world. But after reading this book the reader is left with a sense of just how much her own modes of operation and thought were off-balance......
Rating: 5
Summary: Mother Teresa, a monstrous myth
Comment: In addition to the above book please see the one by Dr. Aroup Chatterjee, "Mother Teresa: The Final Verdict". He has researched MT over many years and gives detailed evidence that seems to be incontrovertible. In fact, it was his efforts that gave birth to the TV documentary narrated by Hitchens. Chatterjee's book is published by Meteor Books, Calcutta (see their site www dot meteorbooks dot com). See also a review of the book on Amazon. In September 1998 the German magazine Stern published a devastating article entitled "Mother Teresa: Where are her millions?". A Google search using the article's title will lead you to websites that have reproduced it. The height of deceit, in the name of God! She will rot in hell.
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Title: No One Left To Lie To: The Values of the Worst Family by Christopher Hitchens ISBN: 1859842844 Publisher: Verso Books Pub. Date: July, 2000 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: A Long Short War: The Postponed Liberation of Iraq by Christopher Hitchens ISBN: 0452284988 Publisher: Plume Pub. Date: 03 June, 2003 List Price(USD): $8.99 |
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Title: The Trial of Henry Kissinger by Christopher Hitchens ISBN: 1859843980 Publisher: Verso Books Pub. Date: June, 2002 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: Letters to a Young Contrarian by Christopher Hitchens ISBN: 0465030327 Publisher: Basic Books Pub. Date: 16 October, 2001 List Price(USD): $23.00 |
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Title: Why Orwell Matters by Christopher Hitchens ISBN: 0465030491 Publisher: Basic Books Pub. Date: 17 September, 2002 List Price(USD): $24.00 |
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