Christopher Hitchens: Partly because that impression is so widespread. But also because the sheer fact that this is considered unquestionable is a sign of what we are up against, namely the problem of credulity. One of the most salient examples of people's willingness to believe anything if it is garbed in the appearance of holiness is the uncritical acceptance of the idea of Mother Teresa as a saint by people who would normally be thinking - however lazily - in a secular or rational manner. In other words, in every sense it is an unexamined claim.
-So to think of her, like many even rational think of Gandhi, in a good way as to look upon her as something good, means you have ceased to think in a secular or rational manner? It's an unexamined claim? They give people Nobel Peace Prizes who really didn't do anything worthwhile, but just gave the appearance of such a thing? They don't bother to investigate?
It's unexamined journalistically - no one really takes a look at what she does. And it is unexamined as to why it should be she who is spotlighted as opposed to many very selfless people who devote their lives to the relief of suffering in what we used to call the "Third World."
-This deserves a "good grief." A why should she be singled out, but it's nine years later and how many organizations were started because of her. It's like, why should Gandhi be singled out, why should Jesus be singled out, or the Buddha? I don't know that any of those three actively from one day to however many years later, was their sole duty to care for the poor and dying. Jesus spend time with such, it is true, but he didn't live with them. Gandhi, well, he proposed starvation so he caused himself to be among the sick, and Buddha? He just started a movement of unattachment. I would be interested to see how many charitable organizations were started in his name or because of him. I really have no idea, but if anybody does, please post.
Why is it never mentioned that her stated motive for the work is that of proselytization for religious fundamentalism, for the most extreme interpretation of Catholic doctrine?
Catholicism is not Fundamentalism, first and foremost and she has no more extreme interpretation of Catholic doctrine than I do, or the Pope does, or the entire Church, bishops, priests, nuns and deacons, ie: if you practice what you preach, if you believe what you speak.
If you ask most people if they agree with the pope's views on population, for example, they say they think they are rather extreme. Well here's someone whose life's work is the propagation of the most extreme version of that.
This sentence is just a waste of time. It doesn't say anything, it doesn't prove anything, it's just conjecture.
That's the first motive. The second was a sort of journalistic curiosity as to why it was that no one had asked any serious questions about Mother Teresa's theory or practice. Regarding her practice, I couldn't help but notice that she had rallied to the side of the Duvalier family in Haiti, for instance, that she had taken money - over a million dollars - from Charles Keating, the Lincoln Savings and Loans swindler, even though it had been shown to her that the money was stolen;
-This guy actually believe in evidence at all? Lots of things to say, where's the corroberation? That's a heavy claim to make.
that she has been an ally of the most reactionary forces in India and in many other countries; that she has campaigned recently to prevent Ireland from ceasing to be the only country in Europe with a constitutional ban on divorce, that her interventions are always timed to assist the most conservative and obscurantist forces.
Well, yes of course, Conservatives are always wrong and evil. Half of America would agree with him on that, but then, I'm a Conservative and I think for him to say something like that is just ridiculous.
FI: Do you think this is because she is a shrewd political operator or that she is just naïve and used as a tool by others?
HITCHENS: I've often been asked that. And I couldn't say from real acquaintance with her which view is correct, because I've only met her once. But from observing her I don't think that she's naïve. I don't think she is particularly intelligent or that she has a complex mind
, but I think she has a certain cunning.
A certain cunning? Well, hopefully that just means she has a few brain cells and is not quite a mindless dummy who would believe half the stuff this guy puts forth here without question.
It probably makes them happy to believe it. 
