Recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, feted by politicians,
the Church and the world's media, Mother Teresa of Calcutta
appears to be on the fast track to sainthood. But what, asks
Christopher Hitchens, makes Mother Teresa so divine?
In a frank expose of the Teresa cult, Hitchens details the
nature and limits of one woman's mission to the world's
poor. He probes the source of the heroic status bestowed
upon an Albanian nun whose only declared wish is to serve
God. He asks whether Mother Teresa's good works answer any
higher purpose than the need of the world's privileged to
see someone, somewhere, doing something for the Third World.
He unmasks pseudo-miracles, questions Mother Teresa's
fitness to adjudicate on matters of sex and reproduction,
and reports on a version of saintly ubiquity which affords
genial relations with dictators, corrupt tycoons and
convicted frauds.