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The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice

The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice

List Price: $15.00
Your Price: $10.50
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: If Hitler ran a hospice, he'd hire Mother Theresa
Review: I am so glad someone finally had the nerve to publish what the Sisters of Charity are really doing to those unfortunate enough to crawl through their door. The Catholic Church has milked the little nun for all she was worth. Hitchens, as always, writes what we have all seen (if you visit the hospices, you'll know what i'm talking about). Most journalists just re-type the press releases. Even more frightening, the public tolerated Mother Theresa's cynical theft and malappropriation of millions as if she had the right to put money given in good faith to ease suffering into Swiss banks to enrich the Catholic Church. Mother Theresa's life was a living example of how so many so-called "Christians" treat those in need. They don't have any interest in relieving suffering. After all, if lighting enough candles would actually brighten up the world, then where would they get all those great photo opportunities?

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Ma Teresa exposed
Review: I have always maintained that mother Teresa was a media creation, meticulously crafted by the catholic church using the imagery of the poor as a backdrop for emotional appeal. I have been to her warehouses for the "poorest of the poor" and was appalled at the lack of professional medical care, as well as the lack of toys for abandoned children. Christopher Hitchens has done this blind world a huge service by exposing this media morphed nun. Many, many Indian men and women are serving the needs of the poor in more productive ways than M Teresa. However, the western media finds it imperative to celebrate the work of an European Albanian nun, the image if the "white" savior in a savage land. Hitchens should be honored for exposing these lies.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: I question Christopher Hitchens credibility
Review: I used to work for Gift of Love, Mother Teresa's Aids Hospice in San Francisco. What Christopher Hitchens reports about the hospice is completely untrue. We administered pain medication on demand. Our hospice was highly recommended by UCSF's Aids clinic and all of the AIDS organization in SF. We had a long waiting list of AIDS patients trying to get in. Public Health Nurses would work on a daily basis at the hospice and were highly supportive of its operation. In this one area, Christopher Hitchens seems to have purposefully sought out people who would support his side of the story. Such deterministic reporting makes me wonder about the accuracy of the rest of his book. The title reflects his bias. Hilary Kotter

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A liberating book on the truth behind Teresa's methods
Review: This is perhaps one of the most important books to be written in the last ten years about the complicated relationship the rich have with the poor. Far from just an expose on the devious tactics used by Teresa to increase the material wealth and public image of herself and her order, Hitchens also exposes the spiritual fraud exacted on the bodies of the non-Catholic poor on whom the success of her mission (in terms of her spiritual agenda and her own political ambitions) so desperately depends. Keep in mind while reading this book that Hitchens, ostensibly much like Teresa, is crucially concerned with liberating humanity. Unlike Teresa, his idea of liberation is much more in concert with our collective understanding of decency and the possibility of people finding salvation in the world they create.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: I loved it!
Review: From the cover to the back page this book was a real treat! The sugar-coated biographies of Mother Teresa leave readers with a strangely sick after taste, yet Hitchens refreshes us with his tart take on this modern icon. My 12 year old daughter was so taken by it that she decided to write a controversial Mother Teresa bashing editorial for her school newspaper!

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: I read it with an open mind
Review: I read this book with a very open mind and found it rather informative. I was mildly swayed by the fact that there may have been some fraud in collecting funds, but I think all charities have this temptation. How many other charity organizations do you know that help people more directly than the Missionaries of Charity? No matter what anyone thinks about Mother Teresa, the evidence is clear that Mother Teresa and her organization did more good in the world than any other charity I have seen and touched more lives and hearts

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: ground-breaking expose that is long overdue
Review: A breath of journalistic fresh air. It's such a treat to read something that rises above the drudge that sucks your will to read anything at all. Reality is fast becoming the reserve of those who use mind expanding drugs, however, hitchen has given us all a life-line. Read it and don't wee

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Interesting look at Mother Teresa's dubious ethics & motives
Review: Bravo to Christopher Hitchens for writing a story that needed to be told. Too bad Mother Teresa's many supporters and apologists will probably never read this book. This book's a must for anyone who's concerned about instant myths-in-the-making

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A squelched must-read.
Review: For anyone who has ever doubted the claims of big religion or aggrandized holy personalities, this book will be a personal vindication. Despite the title, Mr. Hitchens refrains from cheap shots and focusses on the scary facts; the millions of dollars squirrelled away in Catholic Church bank accounts, S&L loan scandal money hoarded by Mother Theresa, and amazing stories of the mobster nun hobnobbing with the rich and famous fascist set in Haiti and around the world, while children died in her "hospices" without aspirin or medical attention. A must read that was regarded, incorrectly, as tacky or cruel by the majority of the press

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: What does first-world journalist-as-guru offer? More words.
Review: I usually enjoy Christopher Hitchens' punishing wit, but in this little addition to the list of articles and books "unmasking the saint" of Calcutta, I find him in a very broad sense to be intellectually dishonest and inflammatory. He throws the spotlight on Mother Teresa's meetings with a few questionable characters (Duvalier and Keating) as if such associations were standard. She met hundreds of leaders and leading personalities throughout the world, many with whom Hitchens himself would love to have association, I'm sure. She spoke with a Catholic-formed conscience on issues of abortion, contraception and divorce, which Hitchens condemns as robbing poor women of the one power they have. Poor women don't want to kill their babies. Further, Mother Teresa also spoke of the need for fidelity and respect in marriage, that women should not be seen as chattels by their husbands. No mention of that in Hitchens booklet.

As for the level of care which Hitchens criticizes? He seems to suggest that all the resources in the hands of M. Teresa's Missionaries of Charity should be funneled into the building of a western style hospital in Calcutta. It's possible, but it is a rich, Western vision, and not the missionary mandate of the order M. Teresa founded. They do as effective a work as possible in places where they are asked to come (they do not go where they are not invited, Hitchens forgot to mention). If it disturbs the author and some doctors that MC care is not Scripp's Clinic quality, then Hitchens is free to donate the royalties from the sales of his book to improve conditions, as are the doctor-critics, who also offer words, but no open door to the poor.

I have visited and lived in many MC homes around the world in the past 15 years. In most cases, they take in the poor and dispossessed that no one else wants, that no other hospital or institute will admit. What is it that Hitchens has against offering exiled love a place of refuge, albeit a simple refuge?


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