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    The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice
    Unavailable
    The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice
    Unavailable
    The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice
    Audiobook2 hours

    The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice

    Written by Christopher Hitchens and Thomas Mallon

    Narrated by Simon Prebble

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    A religious fundamentalist, a political operative, a primitive sermonizer, and an accomplice of worldly secular powers. Her mission has always been of this kind. The irony is that she has never been able to induce anybody to believe her. It is past time that she was duly honored and taken at her word.

    Among his many books, perhaps none have sparked more outrage than The Missionary Position, Christopher Hitchens's meticulous study of the life and deeds of Mother Teresa. A Nobel Peace Prize recipient beatified by the Catholic Church in 2003, Mother Teresa of Calcutta was celebrated by heads of state and adored by millions for her work on behalf of the poor. In his measured critique, Hitchens asks only that Mother Teresa's reputation be judged by her actions – not the other way around.

    With characteristic élan and rhetorical dexterity, Hitchens eviscerates the fawning cult of Teresa, recasting the Albanian missionary as a spurious, despotic, and megalomaniacal operative of the wealthy who long opposed measures to end poverty, and fraternized, for financial gain, with tyrants and white-collar criminals throughout the world.

    A Hachette Audio production.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHachette Audio
    Release dateApr 10, 2012
    ISBN9781619693692
    Unavailable
    The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice
    Author

    Christopher Hitchens

    Christopher Hitchens was the author of numerous books, including the controversial international bestseller God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything.

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    Reviews for The Missionary Position

    4/5

    243 ratings18 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Perhaps a little short - as others have said, it would have been good to see Hitchens take twice as many pages to eviscerate Mother Theresa. Nevertheless, Hitchens is always a great read and he covers the topic reasonably completely.
    • 4/5
      A discussion of the popular nun's fundraising and caregiving. Hitchens pulls no punches in his description of the nun as someone who doesn't deserve the slavish devotion showered on her by the American public. A bit disappointing in that it could have been more thorough.
    • 4/5
      Thank god for Christopher Hitchens, a true rebel, unpredictable, impossible to pin, but always to the point. This little book made me blame myself for being too gullible and uncritical - I have accepted unequivocally that Mother Teresa was an altruistic angel, only interested in helping the poor. She herself never hid the fact that she was a fundamentalist, reactionary zealot - it was just the media that underreported that side of her. The only problem with this book is that Hitchens hasn't put a lot of effort into it. A great part of the book are quotes from other people's work. That doesn't make it less hard hitting, but I wish he had spent more time on his own writing and particularily on her background story.
    • 5/5
      This book definitely changed my viewpoint on Mother Teresa. It gives a way to look at different perspectives on highly praised figure. Good read.
    • 4/5
      A discussion of the popular nun's fundraising and caregiving. Hitchens pulls no punches in his description of the nun as someone who doesn't deserve the slavish devotion showered on her by the American public. A bit disappointing in that it could have been more thorough.
    • 5/5
      Hitchens has nailed it again. I love his ability to dissect a subject or person without being influenced by popularly accepted beliefs. He is quite adept at digging beneath the surface.
    • 5/5
      This book should be a mandatory read for everyone - if only to show how dangerous consumption of uncritical BS can be and where it can lead to. The subtitle of this book - "Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice" says it all and let me say it up front - the difference between the two is quite stark. It's been a while since I felt disgusted while reading a book - but it is hard not to when Mother Teresa's delusional religious fantasies are presented in stark contrast to her actual doings. It is hard to remain indifferent (forget about staying positive) when you read that "covert" baptisms of those on their death beds are common in a hospice with utter lack of medical care. How about workers washing needles under a stream of cold water in between application while millions of dollars fester in bank accounts of Mother Teresa's charities? I am at a loss of words here as I try to comprehend how deep religious dogma can be presented as a good thing in the mainstream media while there is plentiful evidence to the contrary.
    • 5/5
      Most people will automatically be repelled at the idea of a book exposing the hypocrises and agendas of Mother Teresa, a woman described by many as a modern-day saint. Those who steer away will miss an excellent investigative novel that explores not only the motives of Mother Teresa, but the effect (or lack of) that she had on the world.Do not fear that this book is simply a character assassination, either. Hitchens does not set out to slander or destroy Mother Teresa, and in fact even defends her in some instances, stating his belief that she was not a spiteful or evil woman, but simply did not do as much as good as she is thought to. A must read for anyone interested in the truth behind the legend.
    • 4/5
      Hitchens pulls no punches (he never did!) and this really shows how easily we are led to believe the media's rubbish. Nobel peace prize winner indeed.
    • 4/5
      Mother Theresa is not who she is represented to be in the media. She is a cynical politician and cult leader, mixing it up with brutal dictators when that serves her purposes, refusing to use her vast resources to alleviate the suffering in her institutions for idealogical reasons (and in some cases causing death because of it), and accepting huge donations from criminals who, ironically, conned rich and poor alike to obtain their wealth. The recent revelations from her posthumous memoirs that she simply could not feel the presence of God or the divine, making her at best an unwilling Christian, but perhaps a closet atheist of sorts, only deepen the darkness of Mother Theresa's story.
    • 4/5
      We should always be careful who we place on a pedestal, and we should always keep our eyes open when we do. Mother Teresa is the best example of this - she is regarded as a saint by so many, and yet - why? In this longform essay, Christopher Hitchens sets himself the task of demolishing the mythology of the Albanian nun, and so proves himself the ultimate iconoclast along the way. A quick read - but then everything Hitchens wrote is a quick read, it's so good.
    • 4/5
      There are always two sides to a story and Christopher Hitchens shows us that the story of Mother Theresa isn’t exempt from that adage. I was surprised to find out that the same religious ideals that have inspired Mother Theresa to care for the poor, also propelled her to encourage the sickly, to bear the suffering - as Jesus did - when she could have used her donations to provide significantly better care. The book sheds light onto the other side of Mother Theresa’s story and is definitely worth checking out.
    • 1/5
      I'm not a Roman Catholic, but, even I saw the great charity of Mother Theresa and the passion she had for helping the poor and needy. Mock as you may... Theresa is most likely in Heaven, and if Hitchens didn't repent before his last breath, he's receiving his reward in a place where thirst and gnashing of teeth are now part of his pathetic life.
    • 4/5
      An unfortunately titled book that is nevertheless a very well argued if strident argument against the notion that Mother Teresa was the selfless advocate for the poor that her reputation would suggest.

      Hitchens argues that her work with the poor was less an attempt to alleviate their suffering than a desire to use them to promote a retrograde worldview; “to propagandize one highly subjective view of human nature and need, so that she may one day be counted as a beatific founder of a new order and discipline within the Church itself.” He backs this up with several lines of evidence.

      He interviewed a number of former volunteers with Teresa’s “Missionaries of Charity,” documenting the substandard condition at a number of their facilities despite the enormous amounts of money they had been given. The hospice facilities for example, provided almost no palliative care, reused unsterilized equipment, and provided nothing in the way of physical comfort for the patients under their care. In one documented case a 15 year old boy became terminal after the nuns running the hospice facility neglected to get the boy proper medical care. Time after time, “Missionaries of Charity’ declined to provide the resources necessary to actually lift the poor under their care out of the poverty they were suffering under

      As Hitchens points out, whenever the needs of the poor conflicted with her religious worldview, it was the religious view that won out. Militantly anti-abortion and anti-contraception, she viewed the over population she saw around her as evidence of God’s grace.

      Her reputation as an political neophyte allowed her to escape criticism for letting her name and reputation be used by various crooks, thugs and dictators including the brutal dictator of Haiti Jean-Claude Duvalier, and crook Charles Keating, looking to exculpate their crimes in the eyes of the public. In fact the evidence shows she was not a political neophyte and knew quite well how and when she could use the support of such people without drawing criticism to herself. A blatant example of this is the letter she wrote to Judge Lance Ito asking that Charles Keating be shown leniency in his sentencing for bilking hundreds of millions of dollars from the unsuspecting investors he hoodwinked. When a prosecutor in the case wrote a reply explaining exactly what Keating had done and that perhaps the Christian thing to do would be to return the money she had been given by Keating so it could be returned to its owners, he was met with silence.

      I’m not an uncritical fan of Hitchens. He sometimes went out of his way to be insulting (as the title of this books shows). His views on American politics and culture were juvenile and often ill-informed. and of course his support for the Iraq war was a spectacular blunder. Having said all that however, we need folks like Hitchens to stir up the pot and force us to take a critical look at the people and institutions we rely on to make sure we are not deluding ourselves about their effectiveness. This goes for religious institutions as well. Were the facilities under Mother Teresa’s direction subject to the same scrutiny as those run by secular non-profits or the government they would have been shut down, or their funds would have dried up as donors got word of their ineffectiveness.

      Both Hitchens and Mother Teresa have passed away of course, so neither can elaborate or defend their positions. I have tried to look for a reasoned look at her work from a sympathetic viewpoint, but all seem to be of the hagiographic variety. I will keep looking

      Missionary Position continues to have relevance due to the cautionary tale it highlights.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 2/5
      I was decidedly underwhelmed by this book. I had expected a proper scorching of the life and principles of Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu, with mountains of inescapable evidence of her dogmatic religious worldview. Instead I found what I already know about her: she's a hypocrtical, authoritarian, money-grubbing, euthanasiatic-for-Christ, anti-female-rights, shoulder-rubber-with-goons dictator who answers to no one. Big deal, so is any televangelist, king, or Republican.
    • 4/5
      One of the more famous of Hitchens' contrarian stances, this is a systematic repudiation of the saintly reputation Mother Teresa had built up. He examines the problems built up by the rush to acclaim her and then the uncritical adoration of her life and work. It dismantles supernatural claims (such as Malcolm Muggeridge's), why her religious attitudes were so detrimental to many in her care and the sophistry of her attitude to money. It even convincingly questions how much of her life and work was down to naivete and ignorance. A terrific corrective, overdue at the time of writing, but seventeen years after her death it's most useful now as a warning about uncritical adoration.
    • 4/5
      bookshelves: essays, fraudio, published-1995, spring-2014, roman-catholic, nonfiction, christian, history, religion, tbr-busting-2014, politics, philosophy, india, calcutta, lifestyles-deathstylesRead from March 04 to 05, 2014Written by: Christopher Hitchens, Thomas Mallon (foreword)Narrated by: Simon PrebbleLength: 2 hrs and 11 minsFormat: UnabridgedDescription: A Nobel Peace Prize recipient beatified by the Catholic Church in 2003, Mother Teresa of Calcutta was celebrated by heads of state and adored by millions for her work on behalf of the poor. In his measured critique, Hitchens asks only that Mother Teresa's reputation be judged by her actions-not the other way around.Among his many books, perhaps none have sparked more outrage than The Missionary Position, Christopher Hitchens's meticulous study of the life and deeds of Mother Teresa.A Nobel Peace Prize recipient beatified by the Catholic Church in 2003, Mother Teresa of Calcutta was celebrated by heads of state and adored by millions for her work on behalf of the poor. In his measured critique, Hitchens asks only that Mother Teresa's reputation be judged by her actions-not the other way around.With characteristic elan and rhetorical dexterity, Hitchens eviscerates the fawning cult of Teresa, recasting the Albanian missionary as a spurious, despotic, and megalomaniacal operative of the wealthy who long opposed measures to end poverty, and fraternized, for financial gain, with tyrants and white-collar criminals throughout the world.Somewhat a redundant read given the year that I have finally got around to this and there was nothing in it that any intelligent person hadn't sussed out about the disservice she did to the Culcutta poor. Far better would have been if she could hand out dunkies and pain killers instead of telling them that pain brings you nearer to God, and it is everyone's duty (except hers, of course) to bring children to Christ. Powerful writing as always.4* The Portable AtheistTR God Is Not GreatTR Mortality4* ArguablyTR Letters To A Young Contrarian4* The Missionary PositionCrossposted:WordpressBooklikesLeafMarkLibrarythingaNobii
    • 4/5
      If you venerate Mother Teresa, or even if you just think she was a simple woman who sacrificed herself to aid the world’s poor and you want her to remain on a pedestal, don’t read this book. However, if you like to ask questions and look at things from a different angle than we are fed from the mass media, this is a fascinating book. And at only 98 pages, it’s also a quick read. Every writer has an agenda, and Christopher Hitchens is less than subtle with his: I’ve heard him declare elsewhere that he has contempt for religion. So I expected a virulent attack on the poor old martyr. But that’s not what he delivered. Although Mother Teresa comes off poorly, his writing is not mean spirited. He looks at facts and events from a fresh perspective, and asks difficult questions. His information is drawn from his personal visit with Mother Teresa in India, and from interviews with medical workers and religious volunteers who assisted her over the years. Highly recommended.