The late author's now-classic "The Missionary Position," a takedown of Mother Teresa, resonates even louder today

This is the attitude that Hitchens saw as the central trouble with Mother Teresa. Although her emphasis was upon “the poorest of the poor and the lowest of the low,” her solution was never to lift anyone out of poverty or lowness, much less to engage in a dialogue of change with the systems that perpetuated poverty and lowness. Since Jesus said, “The poor you always have with you,” then, in Hitchens’s estimation, there becomes no particular hurry to ease the general condition of poverty, and the poor become objects “used to illustrate morality tales,” to advance political causes such as the outlawing of contraception, and to proselytize.

StJohn:

I've been meaning to read this for ages. I'm a big fan of Señor Hitchens. He would probably have been a terrible bully to know in real life, but I always admire the man's intelligence and intellectual honesty. He would always tell you exactly what he thought and why, and he wasn't afraid to change his mind if you could produce a good argument.

posted 4110 days ago