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Christopher Hitchens

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The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice Paperback – April 17, 1997

by Christopher Hitchens (Author)

4.5 2,740 ratings

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In a frank expose of the Teresa cult, Hitchens details the nature and limits of one woman’s mission to the world’s poor. He probes the source of the heroic status bestowed upon an Albanian nun whose only declared wish is to serve God. He asks whether Mother Teresa’s good works answer any higher purpose than the need of the world’s privileged to see someone, somewhere, doing something for the Third World. He unmasks pseudo-miracles, questions Mother Teresa’s fitness to adjudicate on matters of sex and reproduction, and reports on a version of saintly ubiquity which affords genial relations with dictators, corrupt tycoons and convicted frauds.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

An extended, nun-busting polemic from the The Nation columnist.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

Like all good pamphlets, The Missionary Position . . . is very short, zealously overwritten, and rails wildly in defense of an almost nonsensical proposition: that Mother Teresa of Calcutta is actually not a saint but an evil and selfish old woman. And Mr. Hitchens . . . is rather convincing. His main beef is that Teresa . . . has consorted with despots and white-collar criminals and gained millions of tax-free dollars, while the residents of her famous Calcutta clinic are still forced to confront their mortality with inadequate care. Ultimately, he argues, Mother Teresa is less interested in helping the poor than in using them as an indefatigable source of wretchedness on which to fuel the expansion of her fundamentalist Roman Catholic beliefs. Hitchens argues his case with consummate style. -- The New York Times Book Review, Bruno Maddox

Veteran lefty kicks old nun; old nun forgives; lefty doesn't want to be forgiven. -- Sunday Times [London]

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Verso (April 17, 1997)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 98 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 185984054X
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1859840542
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 5.6 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 0.53 x 0.04 x 0.84 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #3,343,459 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #16,756 in Religious Leader Biographies

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4.5 2,740 ratings

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Christopher Hitchens

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Christopher Hitchens (1949-2011) was the author of Letters to a Young Contrarian, and the bestseller No One Left to Lie To: The Values of the Worst Family. A regular contributor to Vanity Fair, The Atlantic Monthly and Slate, Hitchens also wrote for The Weekly Standard, The National Review, and The Independent, and appeared on The Daily Show, Charlie Rose, The Chris Matthew's Show, Real Time with Bill Maher, and C-Span's Washington Journal. He was named one of the world's "Top 100 Public Intellectuals" by Foreign Policy and Britain's Prospect.

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Roger Johnson

Hitch is my favorite

Reviewed in the United States on January 4, 2024

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Really informative and even enjoyable read. Hitchens was one of my favorite writers (still is) because he wrapped the English language around himself like a blanket, and his wit, intellect and ability to skewer an idea-good or bad-are among the best ever. I think Hitch was the Michelangelo of the written word. This book might be one of his minor works, but it is nevertheless a work of literary genius.

One person found this helpful

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F. Gwin

Eye opening, yet somehow not the whole story...

Reviewed in the United States on June 29, 2012

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This book was fascinating. It started with the slight laugh I got from the title, but then got more serious as I got further into the book. Coming into this book I didn't have very much of an opinion of Mother Teresa, so you might say that I could easily be persuaded one way or the other in this debate. However, I have tried to balance out my intake of information of Mother Teresa, and I hope that now I can write an honest and accurate review of this book.

Hitchens starts his expose on Mother Teresa, in a section titled "A Miracle," by talking about her interesting and totally accidental rise to fame. Mother Teresa apparently became famous because she was filmed in a dark room with new Kodak film which made the room lighter, and before the truth about the new film could be told, the director of the documentary had spread the story that a miracle had occurred and that Mother Teresa had lit up the room with her presence. Weird.

The second part was the most influential when it comes to scarring Mother Teresa's name. Titled "Good Works and Heroic Virtues," this section goes into detail about several incidents where Mother Teresa made decisions that just made me cringe. Maybe these were isolated incidents, but Hitchens makes a good case against Mother Teresa and this was probably the defining section of the whole book. Without this section, which contains evidence against the moral and saintly nature of Mother Teresa, this book would be extremely bankrupt of any real hard evidence against Mother Teresa.

The last section is titled "Ubiquity," which talks about the political side of Mother Teresa, and how she claimed to be above and beyond, or just downright not interested in politics, yet she still used her influence heavily in the realm of politics. I found this section somewhat based of speculation more than proven fact, but it still added to the case against Mother Teresa and was quite worth the paper it was printed on.

All in all, I think this was worth my time. However, I still think that Hitchens played this one a little too far out into left field. What I have heard from so many different people who have worked with Mother Teresa directly or indirectly makes it seems like there is more to the story. However, this is certainly worth the read and is a thought provoking book. The only reason it is not 5 stars is because the burden of proof was placed on Hitchens, and I think he dropped the ball a little (only a little!) in the last section.

8 people found this helpful

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Almighty God

Great exposé on the "myth" that is Mother Teresa

Reviewed in the United States on March 3, 2024

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Mother Teresa was quite a missionary, but she was not by any means a saintly person. She would rather let people perish than use good doctors to provide real care for the "guests" of her houses of squalor. She placed a much higher priority on fighting any form of birth control than she did assuring mothers were given professional care (beyond "prayer").

A British promoter became enamored of her story and worked hard to push her into sainthood. This book, written by the brilliant British-American author, essayist, and journalist Christopher Hitchens, exposes the truth with investigative journalism (interviews with those who worked with Mother Theresa) and first-hand experience with a key "miracle" glow that was easily explained by the groundbreaking new Kodak film used by the photographer who was with Mr. Hitchens at the time. The Catholic Church was more interested in adding a now-popular figure to their sainthood roster than it was in letting the truth be heard. (Does that sound familiar?)

3 people found this helpful

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Marvin Sowers

Eyeopening

Reviewed in the United States on March 26, 2024

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Until reading this book I had never seen anything negative about Mother Theresa. My thanks to the author for this honest portrayal of her actions. I plan on reading more about her.

I also plan on reading more of Mr. Hitchens’ books.

2 people found this helpful

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MGG

Saint indeed

Reviewed in the United States on December 28, 2012

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My name is Raul Valdez Jr, and im using my mothers account. My mother is a devout catholic, and would probably never read a book defacing Mother Teresa. On that note she would probably never read most of the books I have read such as Professor Dawkins, the god delusion, or god Is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens. The only complaint I have about this book is that its to short. Its a very factual book that talks about the truth. People who critize this book ignore large amounts of information like idiotic dolts walking around in there own self imposed fogs. Its a sad world we live in when people hoist someone up on there shoulders, and look past every single thing they do thats wrong even if it hurts the poor and dieing. How can people be so deluded. Maybe its part of what Dawkins called the virus of the mind. One of the books I have read is called the god Virus and goes on about how people can ignore alot of information because they have this. Yet even non catholics can ignore the facts about this women. THey fail to look them up. Such ignorence is almost unforgivable. But then again Im a nice guy. Any other person may call it totally unforgivable. We owe a debt to people like Christopher Hitchens for exposing this shrivled up old prune as she was in life. Its just to bad that she outlived him by many decades. The cult of personalty still persists today with people like Joyce Meyers, Jeol Olsteen, and such personalities. People who have millions of dollars and use it mostly on themselves, yet preach charity and the love of god. They fool people into buying more then they can handle. They think that they are owed something. They fool people into believing in a delusion. You can listen to any one of there sermons and they will tell you to believe in something with out evidence. Such a thing is a stupid thing. If there is a god surely these people would be in his hit list.

5 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

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Adriana

livros em inglês

Reviewed in Brazil on March 7, 2019

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excelente livro. Nos mostra um outro lado da Madre Teresa

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Moumita Bagchi

Must read this

Reviewed in India on April 20, 2019

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It is good that we finally have a book which takes a long hard look at the uncritical appreciation being heaped on her. Mother Teresa is a creation of the media, perhaps to assuage some of the richer world’s guilt. Her position is no different from the missionaries who preceded or followed her, but with a more palatable package. It is we who are credulous enough to make her into something semi-divine.

8 people found this helpful

Judy Tipple

Well researched

Reviewed in Spain on December 7, 2018

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You just got to love Chris Hitchens, a very informative and interesting read, well written and easy to read, what a pity he is no more

Víctor R

Hitchens, cómo te extrañamos

Reviewed in Mexico on November 18, 2016

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Compré este libro en cuanto me enteré que canonizarían a la señora Agnes (Madre Teresa) y lo disfruté mucho.
Está muy bien escrito (como todo lo que escribe Hitchens) y con palabras mordaces y pedazos de historias acaba con la teatralidad y la supuesta superioridad de este personaje,
Buen libro, por supuesto, no lo compres si crees que la Madre Teresa es una Santa y no estás dispuesto a escuchar lo contrario ni a reconsiderar tu opinión. Si no, definitivamente cómpralo, te vas a divertir mientras amplías tu conocimiento sobre Agnes.

2 people found this helpful

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