this post was submitted on 04 Sep 2023
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Kind of weird to call it the "Hitchens Narrative" when there are a bunch of other people who contributed much more to modern criticisms of Mother Teresa than Hitchens did. But I guess calling it the Chatterjee Narrative might draw attention to the fact she was doing a white savior colonialism at the time. ๐คทโโ๏ธ
Source for my claim btw https://old.reddit.com/r/badhistory/comments/gcxpr5/saint_mother_teresa_was_documented_mass_murderer/
I'm calling it that because it's been so heavily debunked it's not even funny, but Hitchens has his name on it.
Funfact: Hitchens claims no one ever got better in her hospitals
Which is odd that he'd expect anyone to considering they were hospices.
I don't know why you're insisting on making this about Hitchens when it's really not. The editor of The Lancet visited her hospice and had criticism of it as well, and some random claim made by Hitchens has no bearing on the fact it was a racist enterprise to begin with.
https://old.reddit.com/r/badhistory/comments/gcxpr5/saint_mother_teresa_was_documented_mass_murderer/
Actually Mother Theresa was beloved because she got people to stop dying in the streets.
I think the real "White Savior Complex" is had by you, trying to stand up against the kindly dead lady like a good "Mighty Whitey"
I hate to use reddit and give traffic to the ruins of what Spez destroyed as a source but please read the included link.
Tl;dr - Mother Theresa was an amazing person, but Christopher Hitchens did a hit piece on her that became influential amongst many crowds, historians aren't one of them. So now you get people parroting misinformation about "Religion bad so Mother Theresa bad"
Sorry, I'm not impressed by "ackchully recognizing racism is the real racism." Carry all the water for the Catholic Church that you want, there's not a combination of words out there that will convince me it's a good idea.
You also continue to ignore that Hitchens was not the sole source of criticism for Mother Teresa. Do you think I just picked a random Indian sounding name when I said Chatterjee? Aroup Chatterjee is a Calcutta native and told Hitchens many of the things Hitchens went on to criticize Mother Teresa for. You can read Chatterjee book yourself if you want, although I'm sure it doesn't have the prestige of a reddit post.
You are fixated on Hitchens like I give a shit about him. What Hitchens says or does has fuck all to do with Mother Teresa running a hospice with inadequate medical personnel and with people without medical training making medical decisions. Cry all you want about how it doesn't count because it was in the third world, you're not going to be able to convince me that the richest religious organization in the world whose leader sits on a literal golden throne is somehow unable to fund REAL hospices with medical care if they actually wanted to. It was and remains PR for the Catholic Church.
If you had read the link I provided you would have seen a lot of my evidence. You do realize that hospice didn't really exist anywhere, nor did the term palliative care even exist when Mother Teresa's first centers were open... nor would they be a commonplace thing in any nation for thirty years.
Or how she provided transportation to actual hospitals, if someone wasn't dying but still very sick.
Or that a lot of this care was provided in the 1950s and in a third world country, so it's not like the region and time had Advanced medicine to begin with.
Or how she had literally been forced into hospitals by Arch Bishops and kept trying to sneak out to continue her work. (Very different from "Private plane to America for best care")
Or how limits on painkillers had nothing to do with religious beliefs, that the Catholic church has never had a policy against painkillers, and in fact advocates for them for reducing suffering. But instead said limits were insisted upon by the Indian government?
Or how accusations that Mother Teresa or her organization laundered money while letting their own facilities hanging out to dry are largely baseless and have never had any actual evidence to support them?
Or how Christopher Hitchens, a guy who made up a fake Thomas Aquinas in a book where he argued that anything submitted without evidence can be rejected without it, is... even if you don't care about his specific accusations, was still widely considered the prinary source of claims against her and therefore is absolutelt crucial to any discussion about the misinformation surrounding her?
Btw Hitchens claimed the Catholic Church was silencing him despite literally inviting him to speak against her canonization (as is customary for any Sainthood hearing. To have skeptics or critics give their case)
And... how is nonprofit charity work racist exactly? Is a food bank operating in a black neighborhood racist?
My friend, being rational means listening to science, which includes philosophy and history. It's more complicared than "Sky Daddy Bad"
Back it up, I did my homework, if anyone is carrying water it's you. I am only carrying facts.
And no I'm not a Christian, I just have no tolerance for easily debunked misinformation.