SubscribeFree Inquiry: According to polls, Mother Teresa is the most respected woman in the world. Her name is a by-word for selfless dedication in the service of humanity. So why are you picking on this sainted old woman?
Christopher Hitchens: Partly because that impression is so widespread. But also because the sheer fact that this is considered unquestionable is a sign of what we are up against, namely the problem of credulity. One of the most salient examples of people's willingness to believe anything if it is garbed in the appearance of holiness is the uncritical acceptance of the idea of Mother Teresa as a saint by people who would normally be thinking - however lazily - in a secular or rational manner. In other words, in every sense it is an unexamined claim.
It's unexamined journalistically - no one really takes a look at what she does. And it is unexamined as to why it should be she who is spotlighted as opposed to many very selfless people who devote their lives to the relief of suffering in what we used to call the "Third World." Why is it never mentioned that her stated motive for the work is that of proselytization for religious fundamentalism, for the most extreme interpretation of Catholic doctrine? If you ask most people if they agree with the pope's views on population, for example, they say they think they are rather extreme. Well here's someone whose life's work is the propagation of the most extreme version of that.
That's the first motive. The second was a sort of journalistic curiosity as to why it was that no one had asked any serious questions about Mother Teresa's theory or practice. Regarding her practice, I couldn't help but notice that she had rallied to the side of the Duvalier family in Haiti, for instance, that she had taken money - over a million dollars - from Charles Keating, the Lincoln Savings and Loans swindler, even though it had been shown to her that the money was stolen; that she has been an ally of the most reactionary forces in India and in many other countries; that she has campaigned recently to prevent Ireland from ceasing to be the only country in Europe with a constitutional ban on divorce, that her interventions are always timed to assist the most conservative and obscurantist forces.
Being raised catholic...Many of the naysayers are non-catholics, and as such, their opinions have no bearing on what the Vatican decides.
confused beatification with canonizationSplitting hairs? Or, did the old woman keep it shaved? ;-P
I don't know if she [a dying woman with TB] had any family. If she did, they would almost certainly not have been allowed to see her, because families are strongly discouraged from visiting their relatives at the home. What I do know, or at least I was told, by an American doctor working at Kalighat, was that she might have lived if she had received some hospital treatment. Yet Mother Teresa's policy is not one of intervention... God decides who lives and who dies. People are better off in heaven than in the operating theatre. Thus, instead of using her influence and income to finance a properly equipped hospital, Mother Teresa and her Sisters continue to give aspirin to patients with cancer, linctus to those with TB, and glucose drips with old needles rinsed in cold water to those in comas. And everyone, regardless of creed, gets a good Catholic funeral.That's by Mary Louden, who spent time as a volunteer worker in one of the mission's homes. I think mdn has a pretty balanced judgment. Just because she was mainly a product of pr doesn't mean there aren't real "saints" (in the sense of people who spend their lives genuinely helping other people).
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posted by quonsar at 9:16 PM on October 18, 2003 [2 favorites has favorites]