The missionary position
Subtitle: Mother Teresa in theory and practice
By: Christopher Hitchens.
Publisher: Verso
Published: 1995
Place of publication: London; New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 98
Subjects: Teresa, Mother, 1910-; Missionaries of Charity -- Biography.; Nuns -- India -- Calcutta -- Biography.
Description: 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.