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Teresa, Bright and Dark
Not many years later, she became a world-class celebrity with the film (and book) about her: "Something Beautiful for God," authored by the worldly English eccentric Malcolm Muggeridge. After that, her star power was so intense that the Church forgot Macaulay's wisdom and gave up any attempt to discipline her apparently enthusiastic fundamentalism. If Santayana was right to define fanaticism as "redoubling your efforts when you have forgotten your aim," then Mother Teresa's international crusade against divorce, abortion and contraception was the tribute that doubt paid to certainty: a strenuous and almost hysterical effort to drown out the awful fear of "absence." One strongly suspects that, like not a few overpromoted figures, she suffered from more self-hatred the more she was overpraised. (After receiving one of many international prizes, she wrote: "This means nothing to me, because I don't have Him.")
Not perhaps to push my analysis too far, but it could also explain some of the things that alarmed even her defenders: the accepting of stolen money from the Duvalier dictatorship in Haiti, for example, or the compromises she made with the tyrannical Indira Gandhi or the shady Charles Keating of savings-and-loan notoriety. Who cares about ignoble surrenders to the things of this impure world if they will fuel the endless drive to abolish misgiving through overwork? The same goes for the alarming doctrinal excesses. Every Catholic is supposed to regard abortion as an abomination (and, if it matters, I concur). But surely it takes someone both insecure and fanatical to exceed the official teaching and to tell the Nobel Prize audience, as she did, that abortion is the greatest threat to world peace?
Toward the end of her days, we have been informed by Archbishop D'Souza of Calcutta, her troubled and sleepless condition gave rise to such concern that she was subjected to an exorcism. According to this same clerical authority, the medieval banishment of the demons allowed her a good night's sleep before her death. One is glad to learn of it, and to know that she found a sort of peace. But since then, she has been posthumously exploited for having worked a medical "miracle" from beyond the grave: an episode which (to put it mildly) no respectable Bengali physician can confirm. I say it as cal—ly as I can-the Church should have had the elementary decency to let the earth lie lightly on this troubled and miserable lady, and not to invoke her long anguish to recruit the credulous to a blind faith in which she herself had long ceased to believe.
Christopher Hitchens is a columnist for Vanity Fair and the author of "The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice." His most recent book is "God Is Not Great."
© 2007
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Member Comments
Posted By: Salvatore @ 10/31/2007 11:49:45 AM
Comment: To the Newsweek editorial board and corporate management --- you have been hoisted on your own petard! The absurdity of providing a review written by Christopher Hitchens of the Come Be My Light book about Mother Teresa's correspondences points directly to your secular humanist obsession and folly. Would you pick an aborigine with no formal education to provide a review of a book written in Portuguese about nuclear weaponry? No. They would be a very poor source of insight into an area about which they know nothing including the language of the content. Christopher Hitchens may as well be an aborigine for all he knows or understands about the dimensions of faith and spirituality. Yet, there you go hoisting his ignorance onto the pages of your magazine to provide an "exclusive" discussion of Mother Teresa's faith ( as displayed in her letters ) about which he possesses no comprehension. Perhaps you would like to have Mahmoud Ahmadinejad provide your next column on a book about the Holocaust written by an authenticated survivor?
I delayed responding to your atrocity until I actually had a chance to read Come Be My Light. The love bestowed on others by Mother Teresa as she faced her burden of sharing the pain on the cross made as a sacrifice by Jesus Christ for the absolution of our sins made my admiration for her even stronger. The rest of the world recognized her faith in how she lived. You will also be measured by what you have done. I will pray for your souls.
Wake up before you go to....oh, never mind you don't believe it exists anyhow.
Ken Pulvino
Posted By: tfleming @ 10/29/2007 11:48:30 PM
Comment: Dear Christopher: That Mother Teresa suffered so is truly heartbreaking. It's easy to persevere when you are sure of your way, it must have taken great courage and strength for her to continue when she had so many doubts and was so deeply troubled. I'm sure that God loved her very much. As for God. God is indeed Great. And God is very, very real. God is as real as the earth upon which we stand, which He created. And He loves us more than we could ever imagine, for we are His children.
Was Jesus the Son of God? He was, is, and always will be the Son of God and the Savior for all those who choose to accept Him. His love knows no limits and it will go on for all eternity. His love does not recognize national boundaries or the color of a person???s skin, nor does He recognize political parties or any of the other many ways we divide ourselves. For Jesus loves every single person with a love so amazing and so complete that for over 2,000 years, millions have followed Him and millions more will continue to do so. Is Jesus the Son of God? There can be only one answer to such a question, and that answer is a resounding and absolute ???yes. And no amount of debate will ever change that fact. Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God and the Savior of our World. He gave His all for us and one day He will return. Be ready.-Theresa Fleming