Diane Stokes: Mother Teresa revealed

[Socialism Today, No 25, February 1998, p. 29]

The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice, by Christopher Hitchens. Verso, 1995. Reviewed by Diane Stokes.

The death of Mother Teresa last September was overshadowed by the death five days before of Princess Diana. Yet the octogenarian „missionary‘, representing medieval values, was every much an icon of the age as her more glamorous counterpart, sanctified by both the hierarchy of the Catholic church and the capitalist media.

Christopher Hitchens is one of the few writers who has maintained his humanistic and journalistic principles and in this book he lifts the veil on the common class interests of the Vatican and Rupert Murdoch and Mother Teresa’s role in serving them.

Hitchens interviewed a number of people who had worked with Mother Teresa and used original documents, video-taped interviews, newspaper articles and published photographs to gather his facts. The most fascinating part of the book consists of Mother Teresa’s own words and actions. Hitchens basically allows her to ‚reveal‘ herself.

In one story, Charles Keating, now serving ten years in prison for his role in the 1980s Savings & Loan scandal, donated $1.25m to Mother Teresa. Keating also made similarly large campaign donations to five US Senators in return for favours – the so-called ‚Keating Five‘. Keating’s millions, generously shared with his political

Hitchen lifts the veil on the common class interests of the Vatican and Rupert Murdoch, and Mother Teresa’s role in serving them. Allies.

were ripped-off from the accounts of hundreds of small investors in one of the biggest scams in history. Amazingly, during Keating’s trial, Mother Teresa wrote to Judge Lance Ito, asking for clemency toward Keating. Paul Turley, Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney, replied, explaining the nature of the Savings & Loan scandal and asking her to return the $1.25m to the investors Keating had swindled. Mother Teresa never replied and the money remains unaccounted for today, since her mission was a tax-exempt organisation.

Then there is the story of Susan Shields, who worked for nine-and-a-half years in Mother Teresa’s holy order in San Francisco, the Bronx and Rome. She wrote a memoir of her experiences and had been unable to find a publisher at the time Hitchens interviewed her. Underlining her writing is her concern about large amounts of unaccounted money. As Shields became more critical of Mother Teresa’s demand for unquestioning obedience, she eventually rejected her hypocrisy and methods. As Shields writes:

„The flood of donations was considered to be a sign of God’s approval of Mother Teresa’s congregation, We were told that we received more gifts than other religious congregations because God was pleased with Mother, and because the Missionaries of Charity were the sisters who were faithful to the true spirit of religious life. Our bank account was already the size of a great fortune and increased with every postal service delivery. Around $40m had collected in our checking account in the Bronx … Those of us who worked in the office regularly understood that we were not to talk about our work. 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“.

One of the most shocking aspects of Hitchen’s book is the apparent ease Mother Teresa felt in publicly associating herself with not only thieves like Charles Keating, but also dictators like Jean Claude ‚Baby Doc‘ Duvalier and his wife Michele of Haiti. In January 1981, Mother Teresa appeared in a photograph with Michele Duvalier in L’Assaut, a propaganda newspaper of #Baby Doc‘. She is quoted in French as saying, „Madame President is someone who feels, who knows, who wishes to demonstrate her love not only with words, but also with concrete and tangible actions‘.

Hitchens argues that many of Mother Teresa’s trips, such as the one to Haiti, were furthering the political aims of the right-wing of the Vatican, which favoured the Duvalier dictatorship. When Father Jean-Bertrand Aristide led a populist movement against the regime, the Catholic hierarchy supported Duvalier and suspended Aristide from his order. During the time Aristide was elected to government, removed by a military coup. and then returned to office by international intervention, the Vatican remained the only government still recognising the Duvalier dictatorship.

The exploited and oppressed of the world do not need women or men telling them to turn the other cheek while the Keatings and Duvaliers torture and murder them and plunder the wealth they have created. The working class itself has its own leaders, and will produce many more. who will question authority even in the form of mothers and saints.