Hitchens was in La Jolla, San Diego, CA at a book store for an authors talk and this is a part of the Q&A that transpired.
Audience:
I know because you're unusually fair-minded and
well-balanced and never really opinionated (laughter) uh, I’m interested in why
on earth would you tackle Mother Teresa as in the missionary position?
Host:
Christopher, could you give a precis of the question to the
audience?
Hitchens
I was asked why someone of my natural tenderness, perdor and
fair mindedness would and by the way one must not confuse fair mindedness with objectivity
as you know how people often do that, in this culture people say even
even-handedness is objectivity or fairness is objectivity or uh putting both
sides, Objectivity is the search for truth even if it leads you to unwelcome conclusions.
It's nothing at all to do with impartiality but none of
these things apply in the case of Mother Teresa because it's a simple matter of
record that she was a fanatic, a fundamentalist, and a fraud. (laughter) I
think probably the most the most
successful confidence trickster of the last century and
responsible for innumerable deaths and for untold suffering and misery and
proud of it.
Should I just assert this, or would you require any proof? I
just wonder we know how fair-minded some people could be
Audience:
How about John Roger and Charles Keating for
example?
Hitchens:
There's one way of doing, three ways, two ways to do it one
is you say what if she
was so wonderful how come she went to Haiti at the
invitation of the Duvalier family,
took money from them which didn't belong to them, had been
stolen from the Haitian
poor, said how wonderful the situation was for the poor in Haiti,
how the poor loved the Duvalier’s, and
the Duvalier’s loved them back. How does she get to Haiti in the first place, she's
supposed to be in Calcutta.
You've got to go all the way to Haiti to praise the regime
that is notorious for its wringing of the poor well she did it because out of solidarity
with people who thought like her and because she needed their money which they'd
stolen as she stole hers from Charles Keating of the Lincoln savings loan scandal
and who gave for a million and a half dollars and a private jet in return,
pretty good deal actually, for an olive crucifix and a blessing when he was on
trial and he needed a character witness.
The court then wrote to her and said you've got a million
and a half dollars we're looking for the belong to the poor of California do
you feel like giving it back she never replied.
She'd written to the court in the first place.
That's just the fraudulence that’s just touching all the
thoughts, but by the way, if any of any of what I’ve just said is not true and
it all is, how come you need me to tell you, how come that my profession hasn't
enlightened you about this already, how come this woman stands underneath a Niagara
of undiluted free publicity for all these years
Ask yourselves but that's just the fraud.
As for the fanaticism and the fundamentalism, look she said
that poverty was a gift from God and should be accepted should be welcomed. She
believed that disease and poverty were necessary for the formation of a good character,
and she opposed the only thing that is known to cure to poverty, there is only one
known cure of poverty it's very simple. It doesn't matter whether you go to Bangladesh
or Basra or Bolivia.
If you can give women control over their rate of
reproduction up and come back to that village in 10 year’s time, everything
will be better right away it's the only thing that works if you can throw in a
handful of seeds in a bit of credit as well and generally try and funnel it through
the mothers and the wives it'll be enormously
better right away.
If you don’t do it, people die all the time very horribly
and they have rabid diseases like polio that they can spread to other people.
Well Mother Teresa spent her entire life saying that that
solution was impermissible she waged her entire life making sure that didn't
happen so I wish there was a hell to which she could go.
Because she has a lot of death on her conscience and a lot
of misery and stupidity and ignorance and dirt and filth and disease as well. A poisonous woman patronized by a poisonous
pope whose national security advisor she was.
Idon't miss them and nor should anybody else religion. Religion
is the enemy
How much is it gonna take to convince us our faith, faith is
not a virtue but if it was it would be the most overrated of them all?