Chapter 3 Summary and Analysis

In Chapter 3 of this section, Hitchens returns to Malcolm Muggeridge's documentary film about Mother Teresa, in which she declares that her order gives free service to the poor, which means they cannot accept money for the work they do. Hitchens says this seems to exempt the Missionaries of Charity from the financial cunning that has disfigured Christianity in the past, and it might make the unwary person conclude that no money is solicited from the wealthy by the nuns. He claims that the order's affectation of poverty obscures the huge sums of money it actually receives. Also, he adds, Mother Teresa frequently gives the impression to the media that a donation arrives just at the moment when it is most needed, as if divinely directed, which Hitchens describes as an old trick of missionary fund-raisers. He quotes from an adoring book...