THE MISSIONARY POSITION
Mother Theresa in Theory and Practice
by Christopher Hitchens
It is hard to imagine a more revered personage in recent years than the late Mother Teresa. But nothing
is sacred to the intrepid Christopher Hitchens, who, after writing polemic screeds about Mother Teresa for The Nation and
Vanity Fair and making the controversial documentary Hell's Angel for British TV, embarked upon the creation of this book, The Missionary Position. In it, he points an accusing finger at the wrinkled old nun who worked for five decades among the Third World's poor, taking her to task for consorting with and providing compliments for former Haitian dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier and his wife, and accepting $10,000 from cult leader John-Roger of the Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness (MISA).
Hitchens accuses Mother Teresa of using the poor as a backdrop for her aggrandization of the Vatican's uncompromising position on birth control. He rails against her unceasing promulgation of a "cult based on death and suffering
and subjection." Hitchens points out the sizable sums of money that are garnered worldwide by Mother Teresa's Missionaries
of Charity organization, and asks why they are not utilized to provide more technologically advanced care for those in need,
rather than supporting a vast "bare bones" operation that provides little, if any, relief. He labels her "a demagogue,
an obscurantist and a servant of earthly powers," as well as "a religious fundamentalist, a political operative, a
primitive sermonizer and an accomplice of worldly, secular powers."
And Hitchens questions the propriety of Mother Teresa's acceptance of a $1.25 million donation from
convicted stock defrauder Charles Keating, her subsequent plea for judicial mercy to Keating's judge (Lance Ito!), and her eventual
failure to return any of the purloined funds to their rightful owners.
1997, 5¼x 8½, 98 pp, illustrated, soft over.
THE MISSIONARY POSITION: $12.00
(ORDER NUMBER 99151)
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