The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice
By Christopher Hitchens
Verso, 1995. 98pp., $22.95
Reviewed by Norm Taylor
Christopher Hitchens has provided many fascinating revelations about the world of Albanian nun Agnes Bojaxhiu, better known as Mother Teresa of Calcutta. He refers to her as being on the fast track to sainthood whilst dominating a missionary multinational. He questions the fitness of a very old virgin to adjudicate on matters of sex and reproduction, and looks with suspicion at her genial relations with dictators, corrupt tycoons and convicted frauds.
The Missionary Position provides an extremely interesting exposure of the Teresa cult. As the emissary of a very determined and politicised papacy, she is a very successful campaigner on behalf of her Missionaries of Charity organisation, with its 4000 nuns and 40,000 lay workers.
Less well known is her fanatical campaign against contraception and abortion. When asked if she would agree that there are too many children in India, Mother Teresa replied, "I do not agree because God always provides. He provides for the flowers and the birds, for everything in the world that he has created. And these little children are his life. There can never be enough." The author remarks, "If it were true that god always provides, then obviously there would be no need for the Missionaries of Charity in the first place".
Mother Teresa has been favoured with huge sums of money during the past 30 years, but illnesses have been wrongly diagnosed by unqualified sisters and volunteers unable to distinguish between the curable and incurable. Mother Teresa prefers providence to planning, and the very strictest economy is always enforced.
While $50 million remains in a cheque account in the Bronx, needles are used over and over again and are rinsed under a cold water tap. Mother Teresa's global income is more than enough to equip several first class clinics, like some of the finest and costliest clinics and hospitals in the west that she herself has checked into.
A sign on the wall of the morgue of Mother Teresa's Home for the Dying reads, "I am going to heaven today". Mary Loudon, a volunteer in Calcutta, was shocked by what she saw there. "It looked a bit like the photos of Belsen", she said. "All patients had shaved heads, there were old stretcher beds, no chairs, and not much medical care or pain-killers."
In another home, "The sisters were rarely allowed to spend money on the poor they were trying to help. Instead they were forced to plead poverty, thus manipulating generous credulous people into giving more goods, services and cash."
Mother Teresa has a San Francisco hostel named the Gift of Love, for homeless men with HIV. They are not allowed to watch TV or smoke or drink or invite friends, not even when they are dying and so of course are exceptionally depressed. One man said how afraid he was of dying without morphine. It is hard to find anyone with a good word to say for the Gift of Love.
Charles Keating was a notorious swindler now serving a 10-year sentence for his part in the US savings and loan scandal. He was generous with the money he stole from small investors; he gave Mother Teresa $1.25 million and the use of his private jet. In return she allowed him to make use of her prestige on several important occasions.
During Keating's trial, she wrote to the court seeking clemency for the Catholic fundamentalist and notorious thief. It was a suspiciously naive letter which did nothing to convince the judge. It prompted the deputy district attorney in Los Angeles County, Paul W. Turley, to write with some facts about Keating's crimes, about which Mother Teresa claimed she knew nothing.
After referring to Keating's conviction for defrauding 17 individuals of $900,000 Turley concluded: "You urge Judge Ito to look into his heart — as he sentences Charles Keating — and do what Jesus would do. I submit the same challenge to you. Ask yourself what Jesus would do if he were given the fruits of a crime; what Jesus would do if he were in possession of money which had been stolen; what Jesus would do if he were being exploited by a thief to ease his conscience? I submit that Jesus would promptly and unhesitatingly return the stolen property to its rightful owners. You should do the same. You have been given money by Mr Keating that he has been convicted of stealing by fraud. Do not permit him the 'indulgence' he desires. Do not keep the money. Return it to those who worked for it and earned it! If you contact me I will put you in direct contact with the rightful owners of the property now in your possession."
Three years later Turley has received no reply to his letter. Nor can anybody account for the missing money: saints, it seems, are immune to audit.