My distaste for poverty is only exceeded by my utter contempt for those who nurture that awful monster of poverty that chews up living human beings and spits them out like so much garbage. True evil to me is that impulse that disregards human suffering, and more often than not, that evil force emanates from ideology and dogma. Communism is one such evil; the other horror is organized religious dogma mostly represented by the monotheistic religions. The richer the organized religion, the more powerful it is, and has the will and the means to wreak havoc and cause misery. The Catholic Church is exhibit A. It has a shining history of centuries of wholesale murder and it has not deviated one bit from that unholy crusade to this day. Its most celebrated foot-soldier — nay, general — in its war against decency and humanity was Mother Teresa. Christopher Hitchens called her (among other things) the Ghoul of Calcutta. I call her Teresa, the Merciless.

Here’s Hitchens (from one of his live debates):

What’s motherly about her? Hideous virgin and fraud, and fanatic and fundamentalist, shriveled old bat. [She was] as far from the nature of motherhood as a woman could decently get. . . We have to have the fortitude to say… to those who are afflicted, to those who are poor, to those who really are suffering, we should say honestly that those who offer them false consolation are not their friends. Who doesn’t know by now that the cure for poverty is not charity in Calcutta. Who doesn’t know that? Why did we decide to forget what we learnt over the generations that charity is an insult to the poor and a way of prolonging poverty; that Mother Teresa was not a friend of the poor, she was a friend of poverty. That there is only one cure for poverty, and that is, by the way, the liberation of women. And which works every time and against which all religions have set its face every time. And against which Mother Teresa has spent a lifetime campaigning, to ensure that misery and poverty and dirt and disease and ignorance would be continued so that there would be ever more people to testify to the Catholic faith.

Hitchens is accurate in his description of Teresa being a fraud. It has recently been revealed that she did not believe in the tripe she was peddling pretty much all her life. She did not have faith in her god. This did not come as a surprise to me because I had concluded that she was a supremely shrewed, cunning, and intelligent person. The way she manipulated the press, the way she used the high-ranking politicians (and the way she allowed herself to be used by them in turn), the way she rubbed shoulders with convicted frauds as long as they enriched her order, the way she handed out indulgences to mass murderers — it all indicated that she was nobody’s fool and she could not have possibly believed in the simple-minded nonsense that the Catholic church expects its flock to believe.

But apparently she wanted to believe in that vile nonsense. And being unable to believe, she was a tortured soul. Perhaps there is some justice in the world after all: at least she suffered a bit. Not a whole lot compared to the suffering that she inflicted by her evil machinations but still suffered. There is no hell but perhaps she did inhabit a bit of hell on earth. Unfortunately though, it is possible that if she had not been so tortured by her lack of faith, perhaps she would have been a little less merciless in her actions. A good person does not even unintentionally harm innocent humans. The evil she represents is absolute because she knowingly increased suffering and pain.

If she had toiled in obscurity whatever her motivation, if she was just another misguided monkey trying to save fish, if she had been just one more missionary hell-bent on converting the heathens — I would not waste my breath on her. But she was celebrated by the powers of the Western world, and celebrated by the morons in the Indian press, awarded all kinds of honors by the stupid Indian government, and finally given a state funeral. The louder these powers speak about her holiness, the more the general population gets brainwashed into believing a falsehood. So I consider it my duty to expose the evil she embodied. I am laying out the evidence and voicing my opinion. To this end, the best spokesman I have found is Christopher Hitchens. May his tribe increase.

Here is part 1 (of 3) of one of Hitchens’ documentary on Teresa titled “Hell’s Angel”.

Here are Part 2, and Part 3.

Teresa was absolutely against abortion, and even just plain contraception. At the very least, if one opposes abortion, one should at least be absolutely for contraception. She was vile. And absolute opposition to abortions leads to murder. Don’t believe me? Read this report in the Guardian titled “Killer Law” on Nicaragua’s anti-abortion legislation. Not pretty, is it? Check your pulse if it does not make your blood boil.

I am sure that I will continue to write against Teresa. For now, let me close with a letter that a friend of mine forwarded to me. It is part of a letter-writing campaign addressed to those in charge of the international airport in Kolkata.

4 November 2007

To
The Director
NSCBI Airport Kolkata
Kolkata 700052

Dear Sir

As a lover of Kolkata and frequent visitor to your city I was shocked to see, just at the entrance to the check-in section of the international airport, a large portrait of Mother Teresa.

The late nun has caused and is causing IMMENSE harm to Kolkata’s reputation through the worst kind of negative publicity. Most people in the world believe that Kolkata is one mass of disgusting slums where nothing except the most dire poverty exists. This belief system cuts through national, religious and social boundaries.

Let me assure you that without the oppressive yoke of the Teresa myth Kolkata would have enjoyed many many more visitors. Also Kolkata’s business prospects have been irrepairably harmed by the Teresa association.

We, the undersigned, therefore, ardently request you to remove the portrait of Mother Teresa from such a vantage point. We do not have any religious issues about her, as we are drawn from many religions (and none). But we deeply care about Kolkata and its honour and dignity.

Yours faithfully
Dr Z K Kittler

Copy: Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, Chief Minister, West Bengal

Kolkata, whatever its miseries, does not deserve the punishment that Teresa so mercilessly administered it. I do pity Kolkata but I also feel contempt for the ignorance of the people of Kolkata that they so shamelessly acquiesce to their own debasement.