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The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and PracticeSnagging.org In association with Amazon.co.ukOnline Shop | Property Guides | Kitchen & Home | Garden Tools | Power Tools | Consumer Electronics Get the Snagging Checklist Here!  List Price: £10.99 Price: £5.34 You Save: £5.65 (51%)Prices subject to change. Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Dewey Decimal Number: 271.97 EAN: 9781859840542 Edition: Reprint ISBN: 185984054X Label: Verso Books Manufacturer: Verso Books Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 98 Publication Date: 1995-10 Publisher: Verso Books Studio: Verso Books Related Items:
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 Rating:  - BrilliantI really cannot recommend this enough. The other positive reviews are spot on, the truth is out there now!!! Rating: - A superb expose of a deeply hypocritical womanDuring her lifetime, Mother Teresa was as close to canonization as it was possible to get without actually being dead. The front cover of Time magazine called her a "Living Saint". A cult of holiness surrounded her and in the eyes of the media and many politicians she could do no wrong. She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and awarded numerous honors in the countries she visited. The facts however didn't match the illusion and public perception and Christopher Hitchens had the courage to say so. He exposes her revolting attitude towards the dying, namely that they were there to die and to suffer; in that way they became closer to Christ. Care, compassion and alievement of pain were practically non-existent in her `clinics'. Standard clinical procedures and medical diagnosis was also spurned because they were materialistic. Provenance was to be preferred at all times. Hitchens also shows deceit was practiced as a matter of course towards those of other religions who were secretly baptized without their knowledge by sisters who were supposed to be caring for them. Then there is her fawning over politicians, including some of the worst despots of the latter twentieth century. The Duvalier's of Haiti and Hoxha of her native Albania were amongst the most notoriously repressive regimes, yet as Hitchens documents, this living saint was there giving them her blessing. If she could preach her message against abortion and her present advocacy of unlimited population growth at the same time, so much the better. Not so much reducing the suffering in the world as adding to it would appear to be Mother Teresa's legacy. There is also the little matter of money and as Hitchens points out, there is rather a lot of it, that was handed over in the name of charity or humanitarian support. Very little of this ever went to benefit the poor for whom it was intended. Rather it disappeared into unaudited bank accounts. One account in the Bronx had over $50 million dollars, yet Mother Teresa was on record as saying she wouldn't accept altruism. She was quite happy to accept money from fraudsters such as Charles Keating, but ignored a letter from the man investigating Keating's massive thefts requesting its return. It might also be asked where the money came from which allowed Teresa to fly around the world often at short notice. As far as I know, the world's commercial airlines have never operated a policy of free seats to the religious. Hitchens' book does not set out to be a hatchet job but he has not surprisingly received a fair amount of criticism for writing it. However there has never been any convincing explanations put forward by Teresa's apologists to any of Hitchen's criticisms, yet there has been much silence since he former living saint was hoisted to a higher plane following beatification in 2003. For those who are determined to see Mother Teresa as the embodiment of religious holiness nothing will convince them of anything untoward. However, if you do have doubts about the abuse of religious power and the ways in which all manner of lies are justified on the back of adherence to religious dogma, this book will provide a most illuminating window into a highly corrupt world. Rating:  - DullThere are lots of flaws with this book which others have picked up and argued over. I'd like to add that it's dull. Rating:  - Good fun,but flawedWell,I suppose somebody had to do it!The 20th century's most sacred of sacred cows subject to something other than hero worship.Hitchens writes well,and his examples of Mother Theresa's politicking in Ireland,Haiti,the USA and elsewhere are entertaining reading.I thoroughly enjoyed him putting the boot into Malcolm Muggeridge and other uncritical Theresa-worshippers.Hitchens is also realistic enough to know that Theresa was only partially responsible for the hero-worship that surrounded her in her lifetime,lots of it was the responsibility of gullible journalists. However,it would have been nice if Hitchens did point out that Theresa did say while she was alive that she didn't think she was a saint,and thought she shouldn't be made one after her death-she appears to have had some insight into the unreality that surrounded her. The major flaw inthe book is Hitchens' fundamental misconception that Catholic nuns can be anything other than Catholics.Does he really think that Theresa,or any other nun,would support abortion on demand,or indeed anything that the Vatican forbids?If,in some alternate universe,Theresa did so,she wouldn't be a catholic nun for very long. The book is outrageously overpriced(£10 for less than 100 pages!!)so buy it secondhand or get it out of a library. Rating: - The superior of all mothers is brought down. This book is a tremendous indictment of one of the most over praised women in the last hundred years. Referring to various acts of cynicism and callousness Hitchens wages a concrete but brief attack on her reputation; her support for the notorious Duvalier Family, her support for the crook Charles Keating who rightfully should have the title of the American Maxwell. But the biggest and most shocking judgement passed on her holiness is her appalling treatment of the people whom she was lauded for supposedly serving. While many may claim in her support that she fleeced the bad to aid the good there is no evidence that she was a 20th century Robin Hood. She may have been good at taking from the rich but she never quite managed to get around to giving it to the poor. There are two key points here, which are at the centre of this book. One, what actually was her deeds and there effects? Also more importantly the fact that any kind of demand for proof of her greatness has never been demanded before this book. In the first area he unearths that she did not in fact direct her fundraising cause towards helping the poor but actually channelled it into her cause of catholic fundamentalism. Her famous Calcutta home for the dying was literally that. This was a theological death camp where people under the order of Mother Theresa were not even allowed to sympathise with those for whom they were meant to care. There never was more poignant evidence of her cynicism than the pictures of this place; the money she had collected instead of being deployed to buy medicine or pay for better conditions was used to militarise thousands of nuns of her order. It is very convincingly proved here that because of her actions thousands perhaps even millions of people suffered and died because of what she did and poverty has been made more prevalent not less so because of her actions. But more fundamental to this book is the analysis of the cultural attitude towards her. Christopher Hitchens does a fine job of showing how the liberal establishment will fall down at the feet of any person based on the thinnest of Chinese whispers. For in the end this book ironically is not about Mother Theresa or even religion, it is about the cowardliness of the secular who applaud the so-called good works of people like Mrs. T for cynical and credulous reasons. Here's a book that asks us whenever someone has disproportional amounts of acclaim heaped upon them to ask why? That's a start.  Try searching the Internet for "The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice" or Ebay for "The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice". You might also be interested in the following great products:
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