Who is Susan Shields from The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice and what is their importance?

Susan Shields served for nine-and-a-half years as a member of Mother Teresa's order, the Missionaries of Charity. She wrote an unpublished manuscript, In Mother's House, from which Hitchens quotes. In it, Shields writes that total, unquestioning obedience to Mother Teresa was demanded of everyone. One story she tells is of plans to start a home for the poor in the Bronx that were scrapped, despite donation of the building and labor to renovate it, because Mother Teresa thought it extravagant to have an elevator put in the building for the handicapped, as required by government regulations.