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[escepticos] RV: That Mother Teresa book review





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> De: Brian Siano <siano en cceb.med.upenn.edu>
> A: WIZARDS-STAR-LIST en SSR.COM
> Asunto: That Mother Teresa book review
> Fecha: miércoles 10 de septiembre de 1997 4:23
> 
> This isn't part of that now-dead argument: someone asked me to
> post this to the list, so here it is. It's an unpublished 
> review of Christopher Hitchens' book _The Missionary Position_,
> and I hope y'all like it. (Reading it over, I noticed a few 
> stylistic rough spots that I would love to clean up, and the 
> translation to plain text stripped out the italics, so it 
> might not read as well as I'd like.)
> 
> Copyright 1996 Brian Siano. You know the drill.
> 
> The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice by
> Christopher Hitchens
> 98 pages. Verso.
> 
>       1969 was the year Agnes Bojaxhiu's star began to rise. That
> was  the  year  Malcolm Muggeridge, who had "taken to  piety  and
> censure in his senescence and could usually induce the BC to film
> him standing next to some phoney shroud or blubbering statuette,"
> journeyed  to the reliable hellhole of Calcutta to film  his  BBC
> documentary  Something Beautiful for God. It was this documentary
> that  presented  Agnes-- better known as Mother  Teresa--  as  an
> exemplar  of  humble  Christian charity,  selflessly  working  to
> alleviate  the suffering of the poorest of the poor in  her  Home
> for the Dying. It's a safe bet that Mother Teresa will be granted
> sainthood  some  day in the future, and Muggeridge's  documentary
> provides us with the miracle required by the Catholic Church.
>        According   to  Muggeridge's  book,  his  cameraman,   Ken
> MacMillan, had claimed that filming was impossible in the poorly-
> lit  cells  of the House of the Dying. However, the footage  shot
> within  the  walls  came  out suffused with  a  warm  glow;  this
> Muggeridge  immediately characterized as the "Kindly  Light"  one
> sees in haloes around saints' heads.
>       Sixteen years lay between Muggeridge's documentary and  the
> refutation of this "Kindly Light" myth. During that time,  Mother
> Teresa has grown into an international example. Her missions have
> expanded throughout the world. She is regularly feted by heads of
> state  and  industry.  Few living religious  figures  enjoy  such
> adoration,  which  is by no means confined to  devout  Catholics:
> popular and secular culture is awash in references to her work as
> shorthand  for  the austere life of selfless poverty.  Sure,  the
> Dalai  Lama is justly respected as the leader of a country ruined
> by invaders, and the Pope gets a free ride in the domestic press.
> But nobody outdoes Mother Teresa as the humble saint.
>       I  can't express how damn good it feels these days,  to  be
> able to refer to "that authoritarian, crackpot psychobitch Mother
> Teresa," and watch people give me that horrified expression. Half
> of  Christopher Hitchens' slim volume is the joyous spectacle  of
> watching  one  of  the nation's sharpest essayists  look  at  the
> world's leading saint with a cold, critical eye. "It still  seems
> astonishing to me" Hitchens writes in his foreword, "that  nobody
> had  ever before decided to look at the saint of Calcutta as  if,
> possible, the supernatural had nothing to do with it."
>       The  other  half  of  Hitchens' book  is  the  horror  that
> accumulates  over its spare 98 pages. Take, for example,  one  of
> Teresa's  most  notable  donors; the notorious  Charles  Keating,
> whose  Lincoln  Savings and Loan had engineered the disappearance
> of  $252  million of other people's dollars. Keating, a long-time
> crony   of   censorious  fanatics  and  Republican  law-and-order
> efforts, gave Teresa $1.25 million of those dollars and  the  use
> of  "his"  private jet. Teresa, in turn, provided a  personalized
> crucifix,  lots of favorable press, and a letter to  Judge  Lance
> Ito   begging  for  clemency  in  the  sentencing  of  this  oily
> hypocrite.  A  letter  from  Keating's  prosecuting  attorney  to
> Teresa,  explaining  who Keating is and  how  he'd  acquired  his
> wealth,  and  suggesting  that Teresa return  the  money  to  its
> owners, has gone unanswered for three years.
>       Ah,  yes, the money. Even as our homegrown evangelists  are
> exposed  as  trinket  salesmen, political kingmakers,  bigots  or
> mailing-list  racketeers,  Mother  Teresa  remains  untouched  by
> simple  questions  of  fiscal accountability.  She  has  received
> innumerable  honors and prizes, many of which have  large  checks
> attached. "Nobody has troubled to total the amount of prize money
> received  from  governments and quasi-government organizations...
> and  nobody  has  ever asked what became of the funds."  Hitchens
> observes that the amount must be enough to provide Calcutta  with
> "the  finest  teaching hospital in the entire Third  World."  Yet
> this has not happened.
>       The  best  clue  turns  up in excerpts  of  an  unpublished
> manuscript, In Mother's House, by a former Missionary of  Charity
> named  Susan  Shields. Believe it or not, the  money  never  gets
> used.  "Around $50 million had collected in one checking  account
> in the Bronx," Shields reports. "The donations rolled in and were
> deposited  in  the bank, but they had no effect  on  our  ascetic
> lives or on the lives of the poor we were trying to help."
>       Shields's  manuscript,  and other  materials  collected  by
> Hitchens,  would provide a strong brief for the eternal damnation
> of  Mother Teresa. Dr. Robin Fox, editor of The Lancet (9/17/94),
> reports  that in Teresa's Calcutta operation-- which,  we  should
> recall,  has  been  provided with uncounted millions  for  nearly
> thirty years-- analgesics are not used and medical diagnoses  are
> rarely  conducted.  Mary  Loudon, who'd worked  in  the  Calcutta
> operation, writes:
> 
>      "They're dying. They're not being given a great deal of
>      medical  care.  They're  not  being  given  painkillers
>      really  beyond aspirin and maybe if you're  lucky  some
>      Brufen  or  something, for the sort of pain  that  goes
>      with  terminal cancer... The needles they  reused  over
>      and  over  and over and you would see some of the  nuns
>      rinsing needles under the cold water tap."
> 
>      Keep in mind that Mother Teresa checks into the best medical
> clinics  and  hospitals when her heart acts up. I cannot  improve
> upon  Hitchens'  summary of her efforts: "The point  is  not  the
> honest  relief of suffering but the promulgation of a cult  based
> on death and suffering and subjection."
>      Mother Teresa's choices for benefactors have their root in a
> bitter   aphorism.  God  must  love  the  poor  and  downtrodden;
> otherwise,  why  does  he  provide us  with  so  many  dictators,
> criminals, and mass murderers? In 1980, Mother Teresa was awarded
> the  Legion d'honneur by Haiti's dictator, Jean-Claude  Duvalier.
> Speaking  of  Mrs.  Duvalier  and her make-show  clinics,  Teresa
> stated, "I have never seen the poor people being so familiar with
> their  head  of state as they were with her. It was  a  beautiful
> lesson  to  me."  The  Duvalierist newspaper  L'Asaut  circulated
> photos,  the  TV stations ran the film of Teresa's  praise  every
> night for a week, and to date, not one word of protest over  this
> use  of  her image has come from Mother Teresa. It's a lesson  to
> the  rest  of us to consider the Church's support of the Duvalier
> regime.
>      Mother Teresa's willingness to endorse the empty, hollow, or
> corrupt  seems endless. In a photo studio, before a  backdrop  of
> Indian  beggars,  she  lends her visage to  John-Roger,  a  self-
> described  messiah who claims to be Jesus' superior in "spiritual
> consciousness."  She  lays  flowers  at  the  grave  of  Albanian
> dictator  Enver Hoxha-- whose murderous punishments of  religious
> worship  should have given the Saint of Calcutta some misgivings.
> Kleptocrat Marion Barry and health-care saboteur Hillary  Clinton
> make  certain  to  accompany Teresa on her visit  to  a  well-off
> Washington  adoption  center. Teresa campaigns  against  abortion
> rights on behalf of Margaret Thatcher. Robert Maxwell uses photos
> of  himself  and Teresa to defraud thousands in a  charity  scam.
> Indira  Ghandi  initiates a brutal program  of  sterilization  to
> control India's population, and buys PR by providing Teresa  with
> funding.   Ronald  Reagan  spends  his  eight  years  in   office
> supporting  the  Dergue junta of Ethiopia, which used  starvation
> tactics  against Eritrean insurgents: and Teresa  praises  Reagan
> for  his Ethiopia policies while receiving he Presidential  Medal
> of  Freedom. And Teresa rushes to Bhopal in the aftermath of  the
> Union  Carbide chemical disaster, and offers the stirring counsel
> that surviving victims "Forgive, forgive, forgive."
>       "The  rich world likes and wishes to believe that  someone,
> somewhere,  is  doing  something for the Third  World,"  Hitchens
> writes.  "As ever, the true address of the missionary is  to  the
> self-satisfaction of the sponsor and the donor, and  not  to  the
> needs  of  the  downtrodden...It is time to  recognize  that  the
> world's  leading exponent of this false consolation is herself  a
> demagogue, an obscurantist and a servant of earthly powers."
>       It's apparently a difficult lesson to learn. The Missionary
> Position  grew  out  of  a Channel Four documentary  by  Hitchens
> titled  Hell's  Angel, broadcast in 1994. The  response  to  this
> program  was  loud  and  immediate. The  reliably  deranged  Paul
> Johnson fulminated that Hitchens had called Teresa a lesbian  (he
> hadn't),  and called it "diabolical," "loathsome and mendacious,"
> and  "an  extraordinary  tissue  of  falsehoods  and  innuendoes,
> suggesting  she  approved of some of the vilest dictatorships  on
> earth." (Geez, it's not like he titled the book Sacred Cow.) Even
> before seeing the program, Victoria Gillick-- known in England as
> an  anti-abortion mother of ten-- complained, "I am interested in
> the  motives  of  the two men, Tariq Ali and Channel  4  director
> Michael  Grade, who have made this programme possible. The  first
> is  a  Moslem,  the second is a Jew. Why are these two  attacking
> Catholics?"
>       Reviews  of  The Missionary Position in the States  haven't
> reached the grand mal levels of Gillick. But few seem willing  to
> let  go  of the idea of Mother Teresa as a bona fide saint.  Many
> reviews  paired The Missionary Position against A Simple Path,  a
> collection  of  talks by MT herself. Much was made  of  Hitchens'
> current  job  at Vanity Fair, as though this were  some  kind  of
> compromise of integrity.
>       Carlin  Romano,  writing in the Tampa  Tribune,  makes  the
> following argument:
> 
>      Consider the charges. Mother Teresa, he warns, preaches
>      conservative  Catholic  doctrine.  Why  shouldn't  she?
>      Because  Mother Teresa offers medical services  to  the
>      poor,  Hitchens  assesses her as if  she  were  surgeon
>      general   of   the  world,  obliged,   as   a   medical
>      professional, to meet the highest standards of  medical
>      care.  Yet  Mother  Teresa, as Hitchens  concedes,  has
>      always  mingled  her eschatological  beliefs  with  her
>      charity. Hitchens is right that a caretaker who  thinks
>      there's a better life around the corner may offer  less
>      than  ideal  E.R.  services, but it's  not  clear  that
>      Mother   Teresa   blocks  her  charges   from   joining
>      alternative  health plans. If Hitchens is so  outraged,
>      why  doesn't  he  organize a better HMO for  Calcutta's
>      destitute?
> 
>       And,  in  regards to the PR-for-evil examples,  the  book's
> contents are quickly flensed from memory:
> 
>      Yet if, by doing this, Mother Teresa manages to squeeze
>      good works out of thugs, what's the harm? Does Hitchens
>      really  believe that the "credibility" a dictator  gets
>      from  a  stock Mother Teresa photo outweighs  the  good
>      work  her  nuns may therefore be allowed to  do?  Isn't
>      Mother  Teresa  being  a  good  rationalist  under  the
>      circumstances?
> 
>       Romano  follows this with the requisite sweet purring  over
> Hitchens'  sad  inability  to understand  "simple  truths"  about
> religion  and  God.  One  presumes Romano  will  be  donning  the
> sackcloth and ashes, or at least instructing his children in  the
> doctrine of Papal infallibility.
>       Hitchens closes The Missionary Position with a remark  that
> anticipates  the  Romanos of the world. I have been  rebuked  and
> admonished for ridiculing the household gods of the simple folk,"
> he says. "But is it not here that authentic intellectual snobbery
> exposes itself? We ourselves are far too sophisticated to believe
> in  God  and  creationism and all that,  say  the  more  advanced
> defenders of the Teresa cult. But we do believe in religion--  at
> least  for other people. It is a means of marketing hope, and  of
> instilling ethical precepts on the cheap. It is also  a  form  of
> discipline."
>       And what about that "Kindly Light?" Ken MacMillan explained
> its  origin  on Hell's Angel. He'd brought several  reels  of  an
> experimental  film  stock from Kodak, and tried  them  out  while
> filming  Mother  Teresa's  operations,  with  surprisingly   good
> results.  Despite being told about the new film stock, Muggeridge
> insisted that the light was due to a miracle.
> 
> -- 
> Q: Is there any other impression about the Mars landing and people's
> perception about it that you want to say?
> A: The most salient thing that strikes me is what I said at the top of
> this
> interview - which is, the incredible and dismaying dichotomy.  On the
> one 
> hand, we land a robot on Mars after two decades - and on the very same 
> day, here are all these people buying hot dogs and looking around for 
> space garbage in a rancher's field in New Mexico.  And those are the 
> smart ones.  The stupid ones are the ones who went to Roswell, Ga., 
> because they didn't know the difference.
> 	Harlan Ellison, asked about public perceptions of the
> 	Mars landing, in the Dallas Morning News, July 13, 1997