Kicking Nuns for Fun and Profit
The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice by Christopher Hitchens (Verso: 1995) is an exposé of the greatest fraud and swindler in the 20th century. Mother Teresa was a double-dealing hypocrite who ensured that millions would suffer so that she could watch over their final pains, torments, agonies, and despair. Mother Teresa sought and gained the approval of dictators such as Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier and Ramiz Alia, the successor to Envar Hoxhia of Albania.
They were only points on a line that included the Reagan White House, Margaret Thatcher at 10 Downing Street, the British Royal Family (who are legally prohibited from marrying Catholics), and countless others. Near the bottom of the list is Charles Keating, the convicted savings and loan swindler of the 1980s. A devout Catholic, he donated over a million dollars to her charity. She sent him a special crucifix. When he faced sentencing, Mother Teresa sent a letter to judge Lance Ito begging for clemency for Keating. The prosecutor, Paul W. Turley wrote back asking Mother Teresa to return the $1,250,000 that was stolen by Keating and given to her. She did not reply.
Hitchens, of course, was proudly an old-school liberal who also had harsh words for Ayn Rand’s Virtue of Selfishness. Hitchens was less concerned with the success of capitalism than he was with the civil rights, civil liberties, and civil sensibilities upon which it ultimately depends.
The fact remains that while Christopher Hitchens wrung his hands over Mother Teresa’s duplicity, it was Ayn Rand who explained quite clearly why no disconnect existed: the swindle began with mysticism, grew with altruism, and therefore of necessity enveloped the poor in even worse circumstances.
In India that hardly seemed possible. But the Missionaries of Charity ran 102 missions in 40 countries back then and has continued to grow. When Hitchens wrote 20 years ago, his best guess was that $50 million sat mostly idle in bank accounts. Mother Teresa had no use for money, though she attracted it. In our common culture that makes her some kind of saint – which the Catholic Church has done: she was been beatified and then canonized. But it also meant that no resources were spent on the poor who were sick and dying. Mother Teresa needed their suffering.
Christopher Hitchens was a brilliant polemicist, and a deft, insightful writer. He never wasted words. Here in just 98 pages, Hitchens destroyed the myth of Mother Teresa.
(From my blog, NecessaryFacts, September 23, 2013)
They were only points on a line that included the Reagan White House, Margaret Thatcher at 10 Downing Street, the British Royal Family (who are legally prohibited from marrying Catholics), and countless others. Near the bottom of the list is Charles Keating, the convicted savings and loan swindler of the 1980s. A devout Catholic, he donated over a million dollars to her charity. She sent him a special crucifix. When he faced sentencing, Mother Teresa sent a letter to judge Lance Ito begging for clemency for Keating. The prosecutor, Paul W. Turley wrote back asking Mother Teresa to return the $1,250,000 that was stolen by Keating and given to her. She did not reply.
Hitchens, of course, was proudly an old-school liberal who also had harsh words for Ayn Rand’s Virtue of Selfishness. Hitchens was less concerned with the success of capitalism than he was with the civil rights, civil liberties, and civil sensibilities upon which it ultimately depends.
The fact remains that while Christopher Hitchens wrung his hands over Mother Teresa’s duplicity, it was Ayn Rand who explained quite clearly why no disconnect existed: the swindle began with mysticism, grew with altruism, and therefore of necessity enveloped the poor in even worse circumstances.
In India that hardly seemed possible. But the Missionaries of Charity ran 102 missions in 40 countries back then and has continued to grow. When Hitchens wrote 20 years ago, his best guess was that $50 million sat mostly idle in bank accounts. Mother Teresa had no use for money, though she attracted it. In our common culture that makes her some kind of saint – which the Catholic Church has done: she was been beatified and then canonized. But it also meant that no resources were spent on the poor who were sick and dying. Mother Teresa needed their suffering.
Christopher Hitchens was a brilliant polemicist, and a deft, insightful writer. He never wasted words. Here in just 98 pages, Hitchens destroyed the myth of Mother Teresa.
(From my blog, NecessaryFacts, September 23, 2013)
Some fraudsters and swindlers are caught, some get away with it. I think this evasion relates to the general human weakness of being able to ignore any crime if it can be attributed to good, ie, altruistic, motives. Altruism has a lot to answer for!