The Missionary Position is a book by Christopher Hitchens about Mother Teresa's life and work. From the insulting title (using a sexual double entendre to refer to a celibate nun), the book consistently criticizes Teresa as a political opportunist who has adopted the guise of a saint both to hoodwink India's poor and to hijack the West's adoration.
Hitchens criticizes Teresa for using contributions to open convents in 150 countries rather than establishing a teaching hospital, the latter being what he implies donors expected her to do with their gifts. He claims that Teresa is no "friend to the poor" but opposes measures to end poverty, particularly those that would raise the status of women above that of cattle.
Hitchens portrays Mother Teresa's organisation, the Missionaries of Charity, as a cult which promotes suffering and does not help those in need. He argues that Teresa's own words on poverty proved that her intention was not to help people and cites a 1981 press conference in which she was asked: "Do you teach the poor to endure their lot?" She replied: "I think it is very beautiful for the poor to accept their lot, to share it with the passion of Christ. I think the world is being much helped by the suffering of the poor people."
Library Journal calls the book a "caustic polemic [which is] short on biographical data and cited sources and lacks scholarly development." [1]
