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Summary: So.. she was Catholic?
Review: Is this the worst that can be said? That Mother Theresa was Catholic (and so prayed, wanted to convert others to be Catholic and opposed abortion despite not having all the answers for India's population problem), and that people conributing to her order were contributing to an order (which built churches and convents as well as hospices and clinics) and not to a secular charity looking to impose a rigorous seperation between its works and any religious views of its staff. I really don't think the people who contributed, and contribute, to her order were ever in confusion about this.It actually reminds me a lot of the criticisms leveled against her by the local govt in Calcutta. Their emperor's new clothes like problem was that despite their views on how she should spend the money given to her, she did a lot more actual good for the porrest of the poor in Calcutta then they did. The fact she didn'yt solve all their problems in one stroke did not take away from the fact she gave people abandoned on the street to die a place to die with dignity and caring - something they could not achieve despite annual budgets several times her order's. The WHO, UN, USAID and the govts of Calcutta and India have not been able to solve Calcutta's medical situation. Hitchens critcisms that she did not do more are laughable. What did he do? What did any of us do to compare to what this woman achieved in the aleviating of real human suffering and desperation. I would like to live in a world with more Mother Teresas and only someone who has never really tried to do anything about real problems could wish for less Teresas and more Indian govt officials mismanaging funds as the truely poor are left to die in the streets.
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Summary: Hitchens vs. mother teresa
Review: Christopher Hitchens, one time skewer of cant now apologist for the republican party and GWB flag-waver, penned this vitriloic piece a few years back, when Mother Teresa was stiill alive.He couldn't stand Mother teresa, and he hides his animus not at all. He actually does bring up a couple of good points, here coziness with the Duvalier family, the muderers who destroyed haiti for many years, and her association with S&L swindler supreme Charles Keating{the exchange over Keating giving her a million bucks is enlightening}.His overall picture, of course, lacks anything resembling balance[never Hitchens strong point},the book being 98 pages, reads as if it were written during a particualrly nasty hangover.Which is too bad.the issuedsbrought up are legitimate,but get obscured by his venom and shallowness. However,to get another side of Mother teresa, whom I consider a holy woman and a saint,this book doesn bring up some points that hagiographers would rather be swept away.For that reason alone,it is worth reading.
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Summary: Reveals a tip of an iceberg
Review: My friend has first hand experience with 'missionaries of charity' in India and speaks lot more horrible stories, may be worse than Nazi camps. What Christopher Hitchens reveals is just a tip of the iceberg about "real" mother teresa. She is a hardcore missionary and has no concern for humanity, (though she and Indian media projects a totally different picture). Do you know that sister Nirmala (personally chosen by Mother Teresa to head the missionaries of charity) was recently (in 2002) fined by Indian court? do you know her offence? She burnt a 6 year old girl's hands with a red hot rod . WOW! What a symbol of humanity? The little orphan girl's offence. THE LITTLE GIRL FELT HUNGY AND ATE A PIECE OF BREAD. These people speak of LOVE, AFFECTION, CARING and HUMANITY. It is a simple publicity exercise.
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Summary: tough to read mother theresa
Review: a tough read about the holiest woman out there
its tough to say you like a book thats so condemning of a person you thought was doing the world some good but at the same time its refreshing to understand and see exposed the egotism that arises when one person is credited with all that is good and some of the actions that person has taken thinking her way is the best way. not an easy read for the beach but rather a sit down study
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Summary: Hitchens dares to stand up for what is right
Review: It is not always popular to tell the truth; but Hitchens does not shrink from it. A compelling and factual account of Mother Teresa's true nature and the news isn't good. Well documented and well presented.
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Summary: Hitchens powerfully criticizes an untouchable
Review: Really can't add anything that hasn't already been said. Of course die-hard Catholics are going to be apoplectic over this book, as they should be; if one lives their lives in supersticious nonsense they're more than likely to be a bit upset when someone with commonsense comes along and slays one of their idols.
Hitchens uses a great dose of pragmatism along with myriad examples to make his case. His documentation of Teresa's glad-handing support for Charles Keating was nothing short of fantastic and enthralling. The book contains a copy of the actual letter the prosecuting DA sent to Teresa urging her to refund Keating's donations to the victims and to rethink her support for the charlatan (the twice swindled victims are still waiting for a refund). The info about her courting the Duvalier criminal aristocracy of Haiti is also very interesting. He also broaches the topic of how Teresa and the Catholic hierarchy urged that woman who were raped and became pregnant during the Yugoslav conflict should refrain from aborting the fertilized egg and force themselves to give birth. Lastly, the portion of the book dealing with the "Kodak/Teresa miracle" was hilarious!
Ignore the negative reviews and enter into the world of clear thinking rationality by reading this book. He describes Teresa's mission and work as basically a cult of suffering and dying; a bitter truth that takes a lot of guts to say even though it's so accurate. In the tradition of Bertrand Russell and agnostic rationalists everywhere, Hithchens delivers a bombshell. The title is quite enjoyable as well.
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Summary: A Brilliant Muckraking Classic
Review: Hitchens is one of the bravest and wittiest critics of culture and politics. Even when you don't agree with him, he is always a heck of a lot of fun. In this case, Hitchens has given ample evidence to why I feel so uneasy about Mother Teresa. Where is all her money, and why wasn't she accountable for it? Read this book. Its a brilliant, muckraking classic, essential reading for any free-thinker.
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Summary: How sad
Review: Mr. Hitchens, who understands nothing of Christianity in general or Catholicism in particular, has done a little research with the apparent intent of proving his preconceptions. He fails. As always, his writing is clever but too obviously self-impressed. He is rarely worth reading, and this book is probably the most worthless of anything he has published. Read it only if you hate good people and want to be supported in your hatred.
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Summary: About time someone dared say it
Review: I have always thought very highly of Mother Theresa, until a few years ago, when I visited one of her clinics on a medical trip. It was a nursery, filled to the brim with pathetic crying babies, or those too scrawny and weak to even move. Many of them lay in urine soaked beds. I started to cry at the sight of their misery, it was just so appalling, and mind you, this is not the first time I have seen sick babies or dire poverty. But what was most shocking was when one of the doctors in my group asked where the money had gone. She apparently had been here last year, and she and others raised $25,000 for this particular nursery--they had sent the money a few months before we arrived to buy cribs, diapers, formula and medicine. The nursery was exactly the same now as it had been a year ago. The sister in charge said something to the effect that they had to give the money to the main MC office--or something like that. They never saw a penny of it. One of the babies died during our visit--of starvation. He could have been saved very easily. My doubts began at that time, and I read more about Mother Theresa, how her nuns were spreading AIDS and hepatitis by using unclean needles in their clinics. You can buy bleach to sterilize needles for just a few pennies, but yet, they didn't even have that. Where then, does the millions go that is donated to this woman and her charity? If she believes that suffering is so holy, then one would think she would have wanted to be treated when she got sick, the same way that the poor are treated. But instead, Mother Theresa got top notch care. I guess when one is on the fast track to sainthood, they don't have to do their penance and suffering like the rest of us. I don't think that she was an evil woman, and maybe she meant to do well at one time. But keeping medical care and food away from the hungry and sick is a crime. She became known for caring for the dying because that's what people did best in her clinic--die. True, many of them lived on the street, and she did offer than food and shelter. However, why allow someone to die when you have the means to save them? I would like to know where all of the money that Mother Theresa got in donations has gone to. If she is a true Christian, she would have returned the donation made by Keating back to its rightful owners, the people he stole it from. But she didn't. She never even acknowledged it, only pleaded for clemency for the criminal who robbed 17,000 people of their life savings. One truly has to wonder about the "Christian" mind of such a person. At any rate, my personal experience has convinced me that Hitchens is on to something. The sisters were basically doing nothing for these babies, not even holding them. Not even changing the worn cloth diapers that they wore. It was totally disgusting. Just waiting for them to die, what Mother Theresa does best.
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Summary: For the love of god...
Review: people, follow the money! Here Hitchens slices to the quick of populist well-wishing and banality. He illustrates again how self-appointed 'conduits to deity' often practice the opposite of what they preach. But the best reason to read this book is to firmly underline the broader fact of the correlation between population and poverty, which the Catholic Church hopelessly ignores.
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