Was Hitchens right about Mother Theresa?

[alliWantisGod]

Hello everyone,

I would like to know if anyone else on this site has read Christopher Hitchen’s book, “The God Delusion”. I am currently reading it right now, and am just finishing the first part of the book. Can anybody confirm that what he says is actually true? He gave good sources for some of his explanations and arguments, from doctors at Mother Theresa’s clinic such as Dr. Robert Fox, volunteers such as Mary Loudon, and a nurse named Emily Lewis.

Was mother Theresa actually obsessed with the suffering of the poor because it brings “Glory to God”? Was she actually more obsessed with self satisfaction from the world approving her charitable works than helping the poor? and did lots of people really die because of her because she refused contraception? Now I understand she chose to live with the poor, but with all the money she had, why couldn’t she have just constructed a hospital with proper cleaning and sanitary equipment, and proper medicine?

Apparently there was one time Mother Theresa told a suffering cancer patient that Jesus is kissing him, and the person replied, “Then tell him to please stop kissing me”

Can someone give me good counterevidence to refute Hitchens’ claims, because he sounds quite convincing

 

[EricF]

I am curious what sort of answer you are looking for on a Catholic forum.

 

[po18guy]

Can someone give me good counterevidence to refute Hitchens’ claims, because he sounds quite convincing

“Claims” that were intended to sell a book. Did he send a single dollar to help the poor?

 

[alliWantisGod]

I am curious what sort of answer you are looking for on a Catholic forum.

I am looking for someone who is also catholic, who can give me good evidence on how Mother Theresa wasn’t the woman that Christopher Hitchens’ claims she is. I have spoke to multiple priests at church but they couldn’t give me a good answer other than “Mother Theresa was a good lady”

 

[joeybaggz]

Hello everyone,

Can someone give me good counterevidence to refute Hitchens’ claims, because he sounds quite convincing

I have read and listened to the late Christopher Hitchens on several occasions. Hitchens was very adept at using language and verbal subterfuge to attack religion, the Church,and Mother Teresa. I find he can twist the meaning of words to fit his point, or his view of a situation. Case in point: i watched a video of him attack an African Catholic Cardinal and the church in general. Partway through his diatribe, in attacking the recent sex scandals, he said that the Catholic Church “institutionalizes” abuse of young boys and minors. Most people hearing that would take the word institutionalize and understand it to mean that the Church in Rome) gives institutional approval to the situation, That is far from the truth, but it is a clever verbal “crown of thorns” that Hitches was so adept at creating… Saying that abuse was found in multiple locations is a far cry from institutionalization. But that is Hitchen’s forte’.

Ask yourself, if Mother Teresa was the charlatan that Hitchens painted her to be, would the Roman Catholic Church, with all its investigative ability and criteria for canonization, gone ahead and canonized her? Hitches was a master at the the use of a half truth to paint a bold lie.

 

[alliWantisGod]

Joeybaggz, that’s true. I just wonder if there are some things he could be correct upon. After all, his criticism must have come from somewhere…

 

[Tantum_ergo]

Joeybaggz, that’s true. I just wonder if there are some things he could be correct upon. After all, his criticism must have come from somewhere…

You seriously mean that all a person has to do is charge another person with a wrongdoing, and the mere fact that he has made the charge must mean the charge is at least partially true, because “the charge must have come from somewhere?” Because that’s what it looks like you’re saying.

 

[alliWantisGod]

You seriously mean that all a person has to do is charge another person with a wrongdoing, and the mere fact that he has made the charge must mean the charge is at least partially true, because “the charge must have come from somewhere?” Because that’s what it looks like you’re saying.

No. I’m asking if there is any good resources to discredit Hitchens claim, because he did give evidence from sources. He must have got his accusations from somewhere… How about you give me some good evidence yourself before you accuse me

 

[Tantum_ergo]

No. I’m asking if there is any good resources to discredit Hitchens claim, because he did give evidence from sources. He must have got his accusations from somewhere… How about you give me some good evidence yourself before you accuse me

I’m not accusing you, I ASKED you if that’s what you were saying. You’re the one reading the book. What sources did he claim? Did YOU check them out to see if they backed him up?

This is a hypothetical.

“Elvis Presley was a petty person. He went to church and gave money in the collection plate, but not because he wanted to help people. He just wanted to look good to others. And I’ll cite my sources: A Pew research poll from 1971 stated that most people who gave money to their churches did so because they saw others do it and wanted not to stand out. Another source is that an academic in Walla Walla Washington asked on Facebook if people thought others gave money in church back in the 1960s to look good, and most of the people who answered him said yes. Plus there was this study in HuffPo that claimed that Christians were stingy compared to Buddhists, and it proved it because in the two cities compared over one year in 1967, the Buddhist group gave $12,000 in the year and the Christian group $8,000.” Also a person who knew Elvis Presley said that he always thought Elvis was stuck up and stingy. And he knew him personally.

Now hey, look, I gave ‘sources’, right? I must be right because I supplied ‘evidence’ for my charge. Then I could say, “well prove that I’m WRONG”. Go ahead, try to prove that Elvis Presley did NOT just give money to charity because he wanted to look good. Isn’t my authority just as good as Christopher Hitchens?

 

[holyrood]

You seriously mean that all a person has to do is charge another person with a wrongdoing, and the mere fact that he has made the charge must mean the charge is at least partially true, because “the charge must have come from somewhere?” Because that’s what it looks like you’re saying.

This is it, exactly. What happened to innocent until proven guilty?

I would like to know if anyone else on this site has read Christopher Hitchen’s book, “The God Delusion”. I am currently reading it right now, and am just finishing the first part of the book. Can anybody confirm that what he says is actually true?

So you want confirmation that Mother Teresa was not really a good person? Why would you want to believe that someone who did good for others isn’t actually a good person?

He gave good sources for some of his explanations and arguments, from doctors at Mother Theresa’s clinic such as Dr. Robert Fox, volunteers such as Mary Loudon, and a nurse named Emily Lewis.

Was mother Theresa actually obsessed with the suffering of the poor because it brings “Glory to God”? Was she actually more obsessed with self satisfaction from the world approving her charitable works than helping the poor? and did lots of people really die because of her because she refused contraception?

Are Dr. Robert Fox, Mary Loudon and a nurse named Emily Lewis experts on obsession, on what makes behavior obsessive, or on Mother Teresa’s heart, soul, beliefs, mindset, and motives?

On what basis are they ‘good sources’ or qualified, to judge whether she was ‘obsessed’ and what her actual motivation was? She may well have been ‘obsessed’ with the suffering of the poor–and it drove her to help them. May we all be so ‘obsessed.’

How are any of these people qualified to claim that she was seeking the world’s approval, rather than seeking to help the poor because she actually cared for them? If I tell the world you helped a little old lady across the street just for attention, does that automatically make it true?

Did lots of people die ‘because of her?’ Where is anything at all to back up such a claim? Also, by this logic, lots of people in India are dying because of me, too, because I’m also not there giving them contraception. Mother Teresa was under no obligation to give anyone contraception. She was there to help the poor and the dying, not to work as a branch of Planned Parenthood.

Now I understand she chose to live with the poor, but with all the money she had, why couldn’t she have just constructed a hospital with proper cleaning and sanitary equipment, and proper medicine?

What money are you (or your sources) talking about? She certainly was using the money to help the poor, and my guess is that she worked with what she had in Calcutta. I suspect it’s not as simple as these rather flippant words make it out to be to just go build a hospital in Calcutta.

Keep in mind, when you seek to criticize this woman, an incident where she tried to get a facility for the poor going in New York City if I remember correctly. Regardless of where it was, she was denied permission because she didn’t have enough money to install an elevator. Given the choice between ‘help many people’ or ‘help no one,’ the city in question chose ‘help no one.’ Building a hospital is subject to MANY MANY MANY factors, laws, regulations, bureaucracies, and more, other than simply being the whim and desire of a single elderly nun.

Apparently there was one time Mother Theresa told a suffering cancer patient that Jesus is kissing him, and the person replied, “Then tell him to please stop kissing me”

And? This is apparently meant to be a condemnation of Mother Teresa. Why? Her answer is a summation of a great deal of theology on suffering–and we all suffer. Every one of us. What would you say to someone suffering?

Can someone give me good counterevidence to refute Hitchens’ claims, because he sounds quite convincing

I have already said innocent until proven guilty. Someone else has already asked, does the fact that he made claims make them true in any way? I have pointed out that the ‘sources’ you mention are hardly experts or qualified to speak on the matters on which they are apparently being quoted.

Hitchens’ claims will sound quite convincing to those who want to believe them.

I personally, will listen to criticism of Mother Teresa from anyone who has picked up more dying people out of gutters and personally cared for them, than she has. Then, and only then, is a person in any possible position to criticize her. Otherwise, it’s a bit like an obese man eating chips and criticizing the quarterback who’s actually out there on the field getting pounded, isn’t it?

In short, Christopher Hitchens is a hypocrite. He ought to spend more time putting good into the world and less time criticizing those who actually do. Take any single person lifted out of a gutter and brought inside to at least die with someone to hold their hand or pull a blanket over them or clean their wounds. Do you think they found greater peace in the actions of those who lifted them from the gutter and fed them, or in Christopher Hitchens’ book ripping apart and condemning those who lifted them from the gutter and fed them?

 

[alliWantisGod]

maybe you are right. innocent until proven guilty. I should probably take a look at the life of Christopher Hitchens more as well. I have looked a little and he does seem like quite the hypocrite himself. He never went and helped the poor himself, just sat there and complained about Mother Theresa

 

[alliWantisGod]

Now hey, look, I gave ‘sources’, right? I must be right because I supplied ‘evidence’ for my charge. Then I could say, “well prove that I’m WRONG”. Go ahead, try to prove that Elvis Presley did NOT just give money to charity because he wanted to look good. Isn’t my authority just as good as Christopher Hitchens?

Good point. I shouldn’t be so naïve next time

 

[Don_Ruggero]

Was mother Theresa actually obsessed with the suffering of the poor because it brings “Glory to God”? Was she actually more obsessed with self satisfaction from the world approving her charitable works than helping the poor? and did lots of people really die because of her because she refused contraception? Now I understand she chose to live with the poor, but with all the money she had, why couldn’t she have just constructed a hospital with proper cleaning and sanitary equipment, and proper medicine?

Apparently there was one time Mother Theresa told a suffering cancer patient that Jesus is kissing him, and the person replied, “Then tell him to please stop kissing me”

Can someone give me good counterevidence to refute Hitchens’ claims, because he sounds quite convincing

Well, first Mother Teresa was not “obsessed;” she was focused on what she perceived was her mission and what she had been called to do, in an extraordinary way, by the Lord. He called her to be a missionary to the poorest of the poor…and to be poor with them, according to the evangelical counsel of poverty. And, embodied in the fourth vow that the Missionaries of Charity profess, to give “wholehearted free service to the poorest of the poor.”

On the one hand, she understood her mission was principally to convey the love of God to those in her path who were in need. On the other hand, because of the Gospel mandate that “whatsoever you do, even for one of these least ones, you do to me,” she saw anything she did for those in need as an act done to Jesus.

There are various religious institutes that build and staff hospital and are healthcare professionals of various sorts…physicians, nurses, social workers, and so forth. Nursing Sisters were almost as ubiquitous as teaching Sisters in the Church’s recent history, in the era when Mother founded the Missionaries of Charity. But that was not the vocation of the Missionaries of Charity anymore than it is the vocation of cloistered Carmelite nuns to run schools or orphanages…their vocation is as contemplative Religious and thus they play a different role in the Mystical Body of Christ than active Religious. Missionaries of Charity are, first and foremost, missionaries.

The problem with the criticism that you cite is that it completely excludes the religious element and the mystical dimension to Mother Teresa’s life. It reduces the equation to what is the most utilitarian solution. If they are sick, they need medicine or they need surgery.

Having been a provider of pastoral care for sick and the dying, I can say that is not all people need. I have had a genuine love for that aspect of my ministry and for those assignments over the years that were focused on that work. I can provide those who were sick, suffering, or dying with my ministry and pastoral care, that derives from my priesthood, without being a physician, surgeon, or nurse.

I know, because I saw it and I experienced it, that the sacraments and pastoral care that I provided made a real difference in the lives of patients and also their families and also the healthcare professionals with whom I worked…it responded to real human needs.

In my old age, I don’t want only doctors and nurses in my life…healthcare technicians…I also want and need those who reflect to me God’s love and His presence.

If one takes a purely humanistic approach, however, you are going to come to conclusions that are diametrically opposed to what Mother Teresa was all about…and even who she was. She was a woman with a particular mission from God.

Frankly, to say that “if Mother Teresa really cared about the poor, she would have built hospitals” rather than what she did is as absurd as saying to any volunteer that is acting out of the goodness of their heart and generosity, be it in hospital, hospice, meals-on-wheels or the various volunteer ministries within the Church, “if you really cared about the sick, you would quit your job, stop pretending to care by your volunteerism and become a clone of Jonas Salk or Albert Schweitzer…because that is what the desperately ill really need.”

It is an incredible person that goes out to the poor who have been abandoned and are dying and bring them back to your home, put them in a clean bed, and care for them in their last hours, tend them in death and after death…and then the next day go out and do it again…and keep doing it every day.

Mother knew she could not help everyone. That is why she said that God does not call us to be successful, He calls us to be faithful.

Mother knew she could not radically change all of Calcutta…or India…or any of the other places where she sent her daughters. But she could make the difference she was able to…by being what the Lord had called her to be and by doing what He had called her to do and by founding a new Religious Family in the Church that would live out and carry on the charism that she first received and herself embodied.

 

[Don_Ruggero]

In short, Christopher Hitchens is a hypocrite. He ought to spend more time putting good into the world and less time criticizing those who actually do.

Well he is very limited in what he can do right now, for the positive or the negative. He’s dead.

I would agree with what you say, if you put it into the past tense.

 

[alliWantisGod]

UPDATE: I didn’t realize I made an error. I said Christopher hitchens’ book was called the God delusion. That’s actually a book by Dawkins. The book is actually called the missionary position

 

[exnihilo]

The problem with the criticism that you cite is that it completely excludes the religious element and the mystical dimension to Mother Teresa’s life. It reduces the equation to what is the most utilitarian solution. If they are sick, they need medicine or they need surgery…

Frankly, to say that “if Mother Teresa really cared about the poor, she would have built hospitals” rather than what she did is as absurd as saying to any volunteer that is acting out of the goodness of their heart and generosity, be it in hospital, hospice, meals-on-wheels or the various volunteer ministries within the Church, “if you really cared about the sick, you would quit your job, stop pretending to care by your volunteerism and become a clone of Jonas Salk or Albert Schweitzer…because that is what the desperately ill really need.”

Very well stated. These criticisms often come from materialists. They present physical comfort as the highest good. They also, as you point out, always claim some particular Christian or the Church should be doing something else. For instance they say the Church shouldn’t have any gold items because that could be sold and given to the poor. They themselves of course haven’t sold all that they have and given it to the poor. The critic actually has the audacity to condemn the individual Christian or the Church by rightly interpreting Christian Faith to condemn the acts of that individual Christian or the Church.

As for Hitchens he was an antitheist. He opposed God. He was also a materialist, so his own philosophy had no grounds for condemning anyone else for wrong actions as rightness and wrongness are immaterial.

 

[holyrood]

Well he is very limited in what he can do right now, for the positive or the negative. He’s dead.

I would agree with what you say, if you put it into the past tense.

Totally goes to the heart of the question. That puts a whole new spin on everything. Sorry I didn’t research Christopher Hitchens’ death date before stating something that actually is not affected in the least by whether he’s currently dead or alive.

But now that I know, I can only hope he comes back via one of the great spiritualists and lets us know that God kicked Mother Teresa to the farthest, darkest corner of hell for not building a hospital and elevated him to God’s right hand for calling her out on what he perceived as her failures.

Very well stated. These criticisms often come from materialists. …

As for Hitchens he was an antitheist. He opposed God. He was also a materialist, so his own philosophy had no grounds for condemning anyone else for wrong actions as rightness and wrongness are immaterial.

I believe such accusations also come from those who want to discredit faith, Christianity, and Catholicism. Deep down, they–and everyone–knows that ‘by their fruits you shall know them.’ Deep down, everyone who wants to see, CAN see the fruits of a deeply Catholic life, vs. the fruits of those living by the world’s standards–and it’s condemning. Broken marriages, teen pregnancies, children out of wedlock, crime, vulgar language, broken homes, drug use, the list goes on.

So they try to discredit the shining star of Catholic faith.

After all, if they admit that maybe her life says something about the faith she followed, they might have to re-think how they themselves are living. That would mean curbing some of their own desires and beginning to think of others.

 

[NM505StKate]

Hello everyone,

I would like to know if anyone else on this site has read Christopher Hitchen’s book, “The God Delusion”. I am currently reading it right now, and am just finishing the first part of the book. Can anybody confirm that what he says is actually true? He gave good sources for some of his explanations and arguments, from doctors at Mother Theresa’s clinic such as Dr. Robert Fox, volunteers such as Mary Loudon, and a nurse named Emily Lewis.

Was mother Theresa actually obsessed with the suffering of the poor because it brings “Glory to God”? Was she actually more obsessed with self satisfaction from the world approving her charitable works than helping the poor? and did lots of people really die because of her because she refused contraception? Now I understand she chose to live with the poor, but with all the money she had, why couldn’t she have just constructed a hospital with proper cleaning and sanitary equipment, and proper medicine?

Apparently there was one time Mother Theresa told a suffering cancer patient that Jesus is kissing him, and the person replied, “Then tell him to please stop kissing me”

Can someone give me good counterevidence to refute Hitchens’ claims, because he sounds quite convincing

I still haven’t read that book. I’ve seen his debates and adore his wit. Have you seen the movie “Hell’s Angel”? It is done by him and is quite good. He was a journalist and probably made sure his sources were correct.

 

[polki]

Maybe it would be helpful if you read a book or saw a movie about Mother Teresa. She was not a multimillionaire. She lived off of others’ charity and that means that she had little control of what she was receiving, who she received it from, and what she could do with it. Sometimes donations come with “strings attached.” Sometimes, as another poster stated, higher-up officials likely knocked her ideas and requests down.

You should also look up redemptive suffering, something that MT surely understood but Hitchens does not, or at least does not accept. It is a completely different world view. When people don’t understand something, the first thing they do is want to criticize it.

Also, just because someone made a snarky comment when she told them Jesus kissed them, doesn’t make her a fraud. Good grief!

 

[BornInMarch]

Personally I think that Saint Teresa of Calcutta simply chose quantity over quality, i.e. choosing to give treatment to lots and lots of people instead of giving really good treatment to a handful of people.

I think this is a valid strategy in Mother Teresa’s position, because regardless of it’s quality compared to western hospitals the Sisters of Charity still provided better medical care than the alternatives available to most people … because there was no alternative available to most people. Mother Teresa’s patients were often people who could not afford treatment and who wouldn’t receive any at all in her absence.

A lot of people complain about Mother Teresa but we rarely see any of them actually put their money where their mouth is and try to do better.