It’s 100 years since her birth and there has been quite a lot in the Polish media about this woman - all saintly.
Just as a corrective, here’s Hell’s Angel by Christopher Hitchens - author of The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice.
This is the first part of three….you can see the other two parts at youtube here and here.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Mother Teresa - hell’s angel?
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21 comments:
Christopher Hitchens should be mandatory reading for all Polish school children, it is utterly criminal that catholic priests are free to indoctrinate children in the public school system. Turning children into mindless slaves of a barbaric medieval superstition should be made a crime. We need people in Poland to stand up to the abuses of the catholic church for that matter religion in general.
Jan, wait a minute.
it is utterly criminal that catholic priests are free to indoctrinate children in the public school system. Turning children into mindless slaves of a barbaric medieval superstition should be made a crime.
But they don’t turn kids into mindless slaves. I don’t see mindless slaves staggering around the streets of Warsaw.
I went to a Church of England church school - Holy Trinity Primary School. We said prayers (Assembly) every morning. We said grace before meal times…My parents sent me to Sunday School, where we learnt the bible, like good protestants.
I know my bible, but I am no mindless slave to religion. The opposite, in fact.
I don’t think you can blame the education system for the entrenchment of religion in much of Poland. And kids are not empty cups to be filled up with the teachings of the god squad.
I won't say much of anything bad about Hitchens coz he's pretty much a dead man in the last throes of cancer.
That he had nothing better to do for a year or so of his life than write a book attacking Mother Teresa says enough. Like there were a few too many other folks out there a mite bit more deserving of someone's animus.
Lots of stuff should be required reading for lots of different folks.
Like:
http://commonwealmagazine.org/book-not-good-0
http://www2.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2007/0706.baumann.html
And whoa, I just went back and read some of Hitchens' stuff on MT.
Seems his biggest complaint about MT was that she wasn't a raving Marxist.
My God, she even accepted an award from Ronald Reagan without dutifully spitting in his face!
Seems to me that by recommending this book to Polish kids, you should beat yourself as a fellow traveller, 57.
My God, she even accepted an award from Ronald Reagan without dutifully spitting in his face!
That meeting was done when US contras etc were going around murdering catholics....I would have spat in his face...
Really? Why not loogie up and find somebody else's face to spit in now? I'm sure you can find someone similarly deserving.
Firstly, I dod not understand the verb "to loogie" and secondly, the world brimeth over with contemptable criminals and fools in control of nations and armies....
If it was Polish it would be "loogic sie" = gather up phlegm in one's throat with the most disgusting noise possible.
A loogie itself is the conglomeration of phlegm thus assembled.
Yes, agreed, there are a lot of contemptable criminals and fools with waaaay too much political power.
Mother Teresa had very little political power. She didn't elect Reagan, etc. Nor Enver Hoxha (if I recall the name correctly).
she had amaaaazing influence with people and influence is power...and she could asign some tyrant legitamacy, so strenghtening his power - something she did often.
as to looging .... I said I would spit in Ronnmie's face...I didn;t mention anything but coughing up some extra stuff....
She had influence to get them to cough up some money towards helping the poor. She got the pretty much good-for-nothing rat bastard fuckers to do a little bit of good.
Influence to get them to change their policies? I doubt it.
JP2 travelled to Cuba and appeared with Fidel and took a lot of shit for it. Was he legitimating Fidel? I think not. Did he influence Fidel to change any of his policies? Nah.
Spit. Loogies. Liquid runny shit.
Well beatroot I was in the clutches of the Protestant clergy during portions of my youth, I already had my doubts about the Catholics. On the positive side of Catholicism, they never tried to sodomize me when I was an Altar boy. I finally became a full-fledged atheist by 21.
The current religion problem in Poland is neither normal, traditional nor good for society. Once again we are saddled with the consequences of our history of totalitarian rule for over 50 years resulting in a highly politicized church. A far more vigorous separation of church and state are needed. The presence of the clergy in the schools does cause a serious problem because if they don’t succeed in creating their version of a good Catholic then they create an atmosphere of social pressure to be silent and conformist even if you choose not to believe. An example of this very effective methodology is the abortion issue where Polish women vote with their feet and go get an abortion when they feel its necessary. The draconian abortion laws have not reduced abortion at all, but there is no serious and visible women’s movement in Poland crying out for their rights because of the social stigma attached to defying the teachings of the church. Up to very recently there were a few situations where Priests physically prevent women who had an abortion from entering the church to attend mass. Catholicism and “Polishness” are associated as one in the same and meaningful debate degenerates into the them and us argument if you oppose the church’s position your at odds with Polish society in the eyes of many.
Hitchens' arguments are good, there is no God, this superstition so smarten up and get on with it. The Priest and the drug dealer perform the same function in society so far as they are suppliers of a form of anaesthetic to those who are too emotionally fragile to cope with a difficult and complex world.
Mother Teresa was both a fraud and criminal, any good she may have done was spectacularly counterbalanced by the harm generated by the anti-abortion and condom stand she took in the third world.
“She had influence to get them to cough up some money towards helping the poor.”
She didn’t help the poor improve their material conditions (surly the only help poor need) she helped them die while being poor. That’s no help to poor people, it’s saying “you can do nothing for yourself here on earth…you were made poor by God now accept it…”
I think that’s disgusting.
She also legitimised some nasty dictator’s rule, and for that she should be condemned.
Jan - Though my religious education didn’t do me any harm I don’t think kids should be forced to have it…there should be a choice given to the parents as to what education they have in religion, ethics etc.
So a clear separation between church and state is needed in Poland. Kaczynski has tried to raise the spectre of zapetero-ism (the ‘socialist’ prime minister of Spain who legalised civic partnerships in Spain.
I don’t see that as a problem…and the comparison between Poland and Spain is a useful one: two nations of similar population size; two countries recovering from dictatorships; two countries wondering what role the church should have in public life.
Well, for some reason, these folks on their own and by their choice could find no place better to go to die. Otherwise, they would have died in places where there was absolutely no comfort to be had at all.
I strongly doubt that the dying were told that God made them poor (presumably as some kind of punishment?) by MT and her order of nuns. If they said such, it is disgusting. But to claim that was routinely said without any documentation is disgusting, too. Certainly, that is not the teaching of the Catholic Church. It sounds much more Protestant, Calvinist especially, to me.
I believe and the Catholic Church teaches that the poor in spirit -- both the economically rich and impoverished -- need spiritual succour. But it needn't nor shouldn't be forced upon anyone. Let Christopher Hitchens and the economically destitute of Calcutta choose their own way of dying.
And just appearing with and taking money from a dictator does not legitimate that dictator's power.
Hey, JP2 appeared with Fidel and I doubt he even got money from Fidel. Do you agree with the right wingers that JP2's visit to Cuba legitimated Fidel? I doubt that you think that but maybe you do -- at least if you want your argument to be consistent.
And 57, why do you keep supporting that Trot Hitchens, you fellow traveller you? Tsk-tsk. At least read the Commonweal links I posted above. And you, too, BR.
"And just appearing with and taking money from a dictator does not legitimate that dictator's power."
Balls.
Robin Hood.
And made the bastard feel good about getting robbed.
Yea, she had balls. Or sumptin' else, better.
And some of dem stories like I see on thenews.pl.... that ain't legitimating???
Balls?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoQGVX-jLEM&feature=player_embedded
Christ is said to have eaten and interacted with tax-collectors and adulterers. These were some of the most despised people of his time. Did his association with them become cause for calling him evil? You bet...He was called a demon by the "righteous" Pharisees.
Did his association with them legitimize their ways? I think not.
Hitchens is an opportunist with no imagination or integrity. He's a hater, plain and simple.
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