It didn't take very long to find the original source of the initial poster's assertions.

From Atanu Dey's web page:

Hitchens on Mother Teresa

The Ghoul of Calcutta


[ This was the first article that confirmed my suspicion about Mother Teresa. The article below is written by Christopher Hitchens in 'For The Sake Of Argument', a collection of essays & reports, June '93. The article first appeared in The Nation, a US monthly magazine. ]

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Ghoul n.
  1. An evil spirit that robs graves and feeds on the flesh of the dead. 2. A person who robs graves. (From Webster's - College edition)
Ghoul of Calcutta
Christopher Hitchens
This column heartily endorses Governor Brown's campaign against Bill (Spoiler) Clinton for the Democratic nomination and urges its millions of loyal readers to call 1-800-426-1112. However, this column cannot sit idly by and tolerate Jerry Brown's repeated encomiums for the woman calling herself 'Mother' Teresa of Calcutta, a dangerous, sinister person who properly belongs in the caboose of the Pat Buchanan baggage train.

I first encountered M.T. in Calcutta in early 1980. While touring one of the less fashionable quarters of the city, I scheduled a drop-by at the Missionaries of Charity in Bose Road. Instantly put off by the mission's motto ('He that loveth correction loveth knowledge'), I none the less went for a walkabout with M.T. herself and had a chance to observe her butch style at first hand. There was something in the way she accepted the kisses bestowed on her feet, taking them as no more than her due, that wasn't quite adorable, but I held my peace until we got to the orphanage. Although built on a tiny scale in relation to the problem, this was in many ways an exemplary place. A small vacant cot told that one innocent hadn't made it through the night. I was about to mutter some words of praise for the nurses and was even fumbling in my pocket when M.T. announced: 'You see, this is how we fight abortion and contraception in Calcutta.' Squeamish as I am on the abortion question, I had seen enough of Bengal to know that the last thing - arguably the very last thing - that it needs is a campaign against population control. M.T.'s avowed motive somewhat cheapened the ostensible work of charity and made it appear rather more like what it actually was: an exercise in propaganda. Propoganda for the Vatican's heinous policy of compelling the faithful to breed, and of denying where it can the right of nonbelievers to get hold of birth control. I have met numerous relief workers in my reporting life, many of them battling in conditions far worse than Bose Road, but they have usually been doing the work for its own sake.

After this experience with the leathery old saint, I kept up an M.T. watch of sorts. I wasn't surprised to see her turn up in Haiti a few years later, as a kind of paid confessor to the Duvalier gang. When Michele Duvalier started emulating Eva Peron in her enthusiasm for Potemkin clinics, M.T. was on hand to sanctify the vulturelike regime. 'I have never seen the poor people being so familiar with their heads of state as they were with her,' croaked M.T. approvingly. 'It was a beautiful lesson for me. I've learned something from it.' She then jetted off to Beirut to bind up Lebanon's wounds as a guest of the Phalangists. THe 'beautiful lesson' imbibed in Haiti was soon to be shared with the long-suffering people of Albania. (M.T., whose family name is Bojaxhiu, was born in the Albaninan-speaking Yugoslav province of Kosovo and has been, since the death of John Belushi, the world's most famous Albanian.) In August 1989 she made an official visit to the worst of all Stalinist tyrannies, as the personal guest of Nexhmije Hoxha, official widow of the dictator and a rival in tempestuousness to Michele Duvalier herself. M.T., who has long been allied with the more fanatical wing of the impassioned speeches about the 'brothers and sisters' of Kosovo. She certainly knew what she was doing. Ramiz Alia, Hoxha's successor, had in his younger days been a member of the ultra-fascist Albanian Youth of the Lictor. Under the direct patronage of Mussolini and the Vatican, this outfit stood for the twin objectives of Greater Albania and the forcible conversion of the Balkans to Catholicism. M.T., having lent her imprimatur to the most thuggish elements of Albanian irredentism, spent the rest of her visit as the guest of Health Minister Ahmed Kamberi, and made a number of affecting remarks about the beauty and spirit of the children in Stalinist orphanages. No doubt the motto about lovers of corrections and lovers of knowledge was ready to hand.

Having prostituted herself for the worst of colonialism and the worst of Communism, it was an easy and worldly step to the embrace of the worst of capitalism. During the heroic period of the S&L bonanza, M.T. nursed at the ample tit of Charles Keating, of Lincoln Savings and Loan of California. cording to Nan Goldin, who made the splendid PBS Frontline documentary use of a company plane' from the ascetic Keating when he was at the height of his charitable powers. Patricia Johnson, Keating's PR flack, recalls that Keating 'carried in his pocket a crucifix that Mother Teresa had given him when they first met. And he carried it always.' Another bargain for Mr. Keating. I wonder where the money is now.

Brave and honest humanitarian workers are to be found all over the globe, and though I have never met one, there are conceivably some modest and self- sacrificing missionaries also. How has the extrodinary deception of M.T. come to be perpetrated so widely? As far as one can determine, the M.T. myth began after a British poseur named Malcolm Muggeridge found himself in the steps of St. Paul. A likable old sinner in his way, Muggeridge took to piety and censure in his senescence and could usually induce the BBC to film him standing next to some phoney shroud or blubbering wooden statuette. Ready to spend time - but not too much time - among the lepers and beggars, Muggeridge got himself to Calcutta and struck pay dirt with a flying visit to Bose Road. And a star was born.

'The Pope is still fornicating with the Emperor,' wrote Dante in one of his pithier staves, and with M.T. one sees yet again the alliance between ostentatious religiosity and the needs of crude secular power. This is, of course, a very old story indeed, but when one surveys the astonishing, dumb credulity of the media in the face of the M.T. fraud, it becomes easier to understand how the sway of superstition was exerted in medieval times. Jerry Brown currently suffers from the 'perception' that he is somewhat rudderless intellectually. He couldn't make a better move than dropping the hell bat over the side.

The Nation, April 1992
http://are.berkeley.edu/~atanu/Teresa/hitchens_nov1992.html
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More...

From a Companion Web Site to C-SPAN's Author Interview Series
October 17, 1993
For the Sake of Argument
by Christopher Hitchens

Interview with Brian Lamb:

LAMB: We can come back to Henry Kissinger possibly. There's so much to talk about, I want to move to Mother Teresa. You have a piece in here that was in The Nation in April 1992, called "Ghoul of Calcutta." Mother Teresa?

HITCHENS: Mother Teresa, the ghoul of Calcutta. I always had real doubt in my mind as to whether there really was this saintly person. If you ask people why they think Mother Teresa's so great, they'll always say, "Isn't it true that she spends her time always helping out the poor of Calcutta?" But if you really push them, they don't know anything about her at all. They just take it on faith, as saints always are taken.

So I went to Calcutta, actually for another reason. I thought while I was there I'd go and look her up, and I was rather appalled by what I found. She showed me around her mission and announced that the purpose of the mission is to run the campaign in Calcutta and Bengal against abortion and conception. As it happens, I have my doubts about abortion. I find I'm very squeamish on the subject, but one thing that Calcutta definitely does not need is a campaign waged by an Albanian Catholic missionary against the limitation of the population. It rather, to me, spoiled the effect of her charitable work. She was saying, actually, this is not charity; it's really just propaganda. I think the Vatican policy on population control is calamitous.

So that aroused my curiosity anyway. It had been a bit of a disappointment meeting her then, and I didn't like her manners particularly, either, as she went around among the poor. Then I found her turning up as the defender of the Duvalier family in Haiti, saying how lovely they were and how gentle and beautiful. I found her turning up as Charles Keating's personal best friend in the Lincoln Savings & Loan scandal, taking a lot of money from his for a private plane, giving him blessings and crucifixes in return. I found her turning up in Albania where she's a supporter of a very extreme right nationalist party. And quite a few other such things.

I thought, hey, I don't like any of these things singly or together, and, second, when does she ever get time for the poor old poor of Calcutta. She's forever on some, "scumbag's," Lear jet going around cashing in on everyone else's belief that she's a saint. I think this is probably how medieval religion was worked. You took the faithful as credulous, and you reckoned that they would believe whatever you said.

LAMB: Let me just take her side for purposes of discussion. Let's say that she went to the Duvalier family and got money, went to Charles Keating and got money and moved it over to the poor. Wouldn't that be charity?

HITCHENS: I don't think it's necessary for someone who is supposedly conse-crated to the mission of charity and who's world famous for it to ever have to beg for money. If she ever wanted it, she knows where to go for it. People would open their pockets and, I think, their hearts. The fact is, I don't know if she got any money from the Duvaliers. What she was doing was defending them as a dynasty in Haiti, and everyone knows what the record of the Duvalier family is. She did get money from Keating, and I actually ask in my piece, you know, would she care, would anyone care to say that they know where it's gone because she must have known or should have known that that money doesn't belong to Keating and doesn't belong to her. It's stolen money.

But the fact is she was giving him in return various kinds of absolution in his campaigns, and I think this is because he started off life as morals cop. He was another of the prohibitionists who began his career as an anti-pornography person. She's evidently, it seems, on call for people with dubious characters of this kind. I just thought it was worth pointing out. I can't tell you the mail I got about it. If you touch the idea of sainthood, especially in this country, people feel you've taken something from them personally. I'm fascinated because we like to look down on other religious beliefs as being tribal and superstitious but never dare criticize our own.
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You can read the rest at http://www.booknotes.org/Transcript/?Progr...ryText=Hitchens

Interesting information Mako, makes me a little sad though. I'd be interested in knowing exactly what material you are reading from. Is it published, something the general public can get ahold of and read? I am surprised that her fellow sisters would talk badly of her in public.

Someone, I can't recall, once reportedly said:

"Let he who is without sin, cast the first stone"

Because she was faithful to the teachings of her church (re abortion & contraception) while attending to the needs of the poor and ill as her vows required, that makes her evil?

Perhaps she recieved monies from, shall we say, questionable people, does that negate the good the money did?

Or is her condemnation due to the fact that she didn't construct massive hospitals? Do any of you know the exact amount of money that really goes towards helping the afflicted, and how much goes for "overhead"? Pick a charity, any one, and look it up.

To me, the people quoted above in regards to Teresa, had already formed an opinion based, in part, on her anti-abortion stance. I believe that preconceived notion colored their later reporting style on her.



-Good Journey

Now i'm not just being high strung, or nit picky, or constantly observing her faults, but what i have come to realize recently is that this world is not anything of what it may seem, everything you think is good is bad in disguise, and you've got to be more careful when you try to trust someone as romantisized as Mother Teresa, once i've come to realize this- the entire world as i see it now is covered in evil and corruption like i've never seen before

For example: Disney, a good lahdee da company, completely harmless, but i have done some deep research on Disney lately, look closely and you'll see how corrupt and greedy they actually are, i'm not making this stuff up either- do an internet search on Disney and corrupt--- you don't even want to know the horrific things that happened in Disney World, how many under age child factories the police have been shutting down from Disney.

Some people are just at the top and carry a false image of themselves, don't trust them atleast until you've done some actual research on them. Like that McCarthy, he was only at that position of power not to help America with any of it's problems, everyone actually trusted him, and he caused a major stir and actually controlled the US

Thank you for answering my Vatican cocaine question (sarcasm).

I don't think she wanted to be a saint....but that's entirley up to God don't you think?

dont forget Walt Disney was a devout believer in Nazism and encouraged and assisted Hitler before he came to power, and continued to encourage his actions throughout the Holocaust. evidence to prove this is that even his works are tainted, just watch them carefully they contain the strongest aspects of racism and sexism. like especialy in Dumbo or The jungle book.

i guess wat im saying is that no ones perfect, not even God himself, after all he did the mistazke of pissing off ;ucifer and now we have the Devil, and he had wrong faiths in Eve and Adam.

^ i agree, isnt it up to God and not us who becomes a Saint? because there are people in everyday life who do amazing thigs like Ocupational Therapists, who have the hardest job of looking and helping disabled people, does that not deserve Sainthood?

See I agree there are a lot of people that do a lot of great things like - care about world hunger ect and they indeed deserve it....so might I say to the people if they make that person a saint so be it...but up in heaven it's up to God who is and who isn't...guess what???? that's something you or I will never know untill the day we kick the bucket

So they didn't make her a saint, BIG DEAL. She doesn't have to be a saint to be fondly remembered throughout history. Besides saints are only made into figurine idols and have a day named for them. Oh and the catholics will use them for worship. But other than that and all the crap they're digging up on her now she will still be remembered for her good deeds anyway.

Amen to that brother

EDIT: err sorry sister lol

WoW! even if wikipedia says it I still don't feel sure if that's true. .

Wikidpedia, rotten.com and some evangalical crackpot website. Wow what intellectually sound sources. First and foremost Mother Teresa was indeed the head of her charity but never ever had day to day control of the assets it managed, her charity employed thousands and impacted many from the streets of New Dehli to the jungles of Africa. If anyones biggest problem with Mother Teresa was that she was anti abortion well boo hoo. Much if not all of the criticism leveled against this greatest of women came from far left feminists. Mother Teresa has NOT been denied Sainthood. She is now beatified and in the second process which could take years. I have no doubt that Mother Teresa was a Saint on Earth and will be canonized in my lifetime.

Dude, do you live in a bunker 3 stories down? Everything you think is good - is bad in disguise?

Everything in the world today is survival on the balance of good and bad. No disguise is worth it. You think maybe trusting someone you don't know is some harmless subliminal evil thrown out like some contageous disease no one knows about - underneath our skin like we don't realize it. What your doing is called consipiracy theorizing about what you think is bad, and what you refuse to understand is good enough to be bad.

What is it you know about trust?

Do you trust God? Or are you just afraid of someone being called a "Saint" anyway?

Youve got to be more careful when you try to trust someone?

Explain that....

Um....Isn't that called standing for what you believe in?

She was totally against abortion as are many people....it's understandable. I mean sure rape victims may want to give up they're child because everytime they looked at them it would remind them of their rape...but again that's their choice. Mother T. was only speaking her mind. And you have no right to say she was evil. She's done more good in the world than you will.

in fact he has every right. and to say he will never do more good than her is kind of stupid, you dont know, him and he could cure cancer tomorow for all you know. however of the catholic religion, if people are raped, theyre stuck with it, its hardly 'theyre choice' they are doing this because it is theyre religion, some may feel everylife was put onto earth for a reason, however MY god wouldnt be so cruel to have one created through such circumstances. im not having a dig at catholic people by all means no, i respect them for braving even rape to stick to theyre religion.

people dont stand up for what they believe in, and keep theyre child, they may feel presured that they are going to hell if they dont.

I'm Catholic. And I know for sure that I wouldn't keep my child if it was concieved through rape. But anywhos that's not the point.


You're right I was stupid for suggesting she would do more good. But basically he really shouldn't say that she was evil because she has done so much good, more than most people would. And he nor anyone else can deny that.

i agree calling her evil is kind of extreme and personally i have no extreme feelings for mother teresa, it aint' my problem to worry of such things, however everyones entitled to an opinion, and i guess it rely depends on the perspective you take. some people think its evil to force people to keep a baby after rape and some feel it right.

though i respect the fact that even though your catholic, you ould still have your own opinion involved, just as much as i respect catholics who do keep the child for theyre devotion.