Atheist group at Dartmouth plans anti Mother Teresa event

Campus Reform ^ | 11/20/2012 | Oliver Darcy

[SeekAndFind]

An atheist group at Dartmouth College is planning an event aimed at skewering the reputation of the late Mother Teresa.

The Atheists Humanists Agnostics (AHA) club sent out a campus-wide e-mail announcing the program on Tuesday and promising a “full-out romp against why one of the most beloved people of the century, Mother Teresa, is as Hitchens put it… ‘a lying, thieving Albanian dwarf.’”

The e-mail says the group plans to screen an anti-Mother Teresa film, discuss Hitchens’ book, Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice, and question how the public has been “conned into thinking this woman [Teresa] was good.”

The e-mail states Teresa, who is on her way to sainthood in the Catholic church, “was not a friend of the poor,” but “was a friend of poverty.”

The email links to a now infamous article by the late Christopher Hitchens which attempts to debunk much of the lore that surrounds Teresa.

The event has ignited controversy on the Ivy League campus, with students telling Campus Reform they were upset AHA was hosting such an event.

“It’s easy for a group of privileged Ivy League students who have never experienced poverty to meet in a ‘super secret room’ and think themselves as intellectuals by bashing Mother Teresa,” Melanie Wilcox, Executive Editor of the conservative Dartmouth Review, told Campus Reform.

“I’d like to know what they have done, if anything, to help the needy,” she added.

AHA President Adam Hann, however, defended the event, but admitted he had intentionally used “provocative” language in the e-mail to excite interest among students.

“What I like to do is, when there are areas that people just get vitriol or angry even for bringing it up, I like to go and have that discussion,” said Hann.

Hann added that he estimates about five to ten people will participate in the event slated for this Saturday.

Mother Teresa is widely known for founding the Missionaries of Charities, a charity tasked with aiding the poor. She was beatified in 2003 by Pope John Paul II, a step toward possible sainthood.

[History Repeats]

Just another reason not to put much faith in what he says. He has an agenda.

[dfwgator]

Hutchins should learn to be respectful and tolerant of people of faith, we are the majority, and it will serve him well in life. Hutchins should also consider joining me at Church Sunday.

Uhhh, it's a little late for that.

[Servant of the Cross]

The e-mail states Teresa, who is on her way to sainthood in the Catholic church, “was not a friend of the poor,” but “was a friend of poverty” ... and also links to a now infamous article by the late Christopher Hitchens.

“It’s easy for a group of privileged Ivy League students who have never experienced poverty to meet in a ‘super secret room’ and think themselves as intellectuals by bashing Mother Teresa,” Melanie Wilcox, Executive Editor of the conservative Dartmouth Review, told Campus Reform.

AHA President Adam Hann, however, defended the event, but admitted he had intentionally used “provocative” language in the e-mail to excite interest among students.

Hann added that he estimates about five to ten people will participate in the event slated for this Saturday.

St. Peter asked Blessed Mother Teresa her reaction to such earthly buffoonery ….

[tanknetter]

respectfully, I think Mother Teresa would be more likely to seriously and solumnly pray for the souls of the buffoons, rather than smile at their antics.

Which would be taken by them as even more of an affront to their opinions and efforts.

[Joe 6-pack]

Christopher Hitchins became a believer on December 15, 2011.

Not sure if it was in time, or not.

[billorites]

“was not a friend of the poor,” but “was a friend of poverty.”

That quip attributed to the late author Christopher Hitchens appears calculated to offend. Hitchens continued in his rant to describe Mother Teresa as, "A lying, thieving Albanian dwarf".

I refrain from writing when angry or been drinking.

[longfellow]

The Nazi’s hated the church too. I don’t see a problem.

[Tax-chick]

Christopher Hitchens is dead. He was determined to die unrepentant. Not because he was an atheist, but because he was so filthy-minded about it, I rather hope he succeeded.

[GoldwaterChick]

Hitchens is dead. Wonder what he found when he got there? If I believed in reincarnation I’d say by now he’s probably a giant cockroach in some slum.

[SES1066]

The proper response to this is too ignore this handful of over-priviledged SWINE (Al Capp: Students Wildly Indignant about Nearly Everything) just like those other attention whores, PETA and their ilk. If we could do so, we deny them the thing that they most value, a media spotlight!

Of course, I am violating my own view on the proper response because I can't resist.

[ScottinVA]

Hitchens is dead. Wonder what he found when he got there? If I believed in reincarnation I’d say by now he’s probably a giant cockroach in some slum...

...launching missiles at Tel Aviv.

[CrazyIvan]

In a world where most people pat themselves on the back for wearing a ribbon to “raise awareness”.

[windsorknot]

Atheists are such wonderful people, aren’t they? Who needs God when you’re a know-it-all atheist? My apologies to civil atheists who are not obnoxious, in-your-face jerks.

[Oztrich Boy]

Hutchins should learn to be respectful and tolerant of people of faith, we are the majority, and it will serve him well in life.

"What is needed from the supporters of this very confident faith is more self-criticism and less self-pity and self-righteousness" -Christopher Hitchens

At least Hitchens was consistent.

[Mrs. Don-o]

The Vatican Congregation for the Causes of Saints -- the department which investigates and approves/disapproves of people "nominated" for sainthood --- invited Christopher Hitchens to Rome to testify against Mother T., which means, to be what is colloquially termed the Devil's Advocate, to present evidence to the effect that she did not lead a life of heroic virtue. They paid his expenses and duly took his deposition.

I'm reasobnly sure it followed the lines of his many Down-With-Mother-Teresa magazine articles: it evidently wasn't enough to derail the canonization process.

I spent almost 2 decades admiring, often disagreeing with, but usually enjoying Hitchens' writings. Although he had a hodgepodge of knowledge as well as loads of style, he was at best sophomoric --- and at worst, snake-mean and turkey-stupid--- abou Mother T or anything to do with Catholicism. I'm mentining this only because. in the hundreds of venues that were open to Hitchens' anti-Teresa venom, the most surprising must the Vatican itself, which was admirably open to whatever he had to say.

I'll go into greater detail to anyone who asks!

If I were the Judge--- which thanks be to God I'm not--- I'd handcuff Hitchens (d. 2011) to Pope Innocent III (d. 1216) in purgatory. They'd about deserve each other. At the end, salted, dry-roasted and saved, they'd enter heaven friends, and merrily, thanks no doubt to Mother T's prayers, and ours.

Y'all can pray for me, too, in case they have three-person shackle sets. I'll bring the popcorn.

[Mrs. Don-o]

The Vatican Congregation for the Causes of Saints -- the department which investigates and approves/disapproves of people "nominated" for sainthood --- invited Christopher Hitchens to Rome to testify against Mother T., which means, to be what is colloquially termed the Devil's Advocate, to present evidence to the effect that she did not lead a life of heroic virtue. They paid his expenses and duly took his deposition.

I'm reasobnly sure it followed the lines of his many Down-With-Mother-Teresa magazine articles: it evidently wasn't enough to derail the canonization process.

I spent almost 2 decades admiring, often disagreeing with, but usually enjoying Hitchens' writings. Although he had a hodgepodge of knowledge as well as loads of style, he was at best sophomoric --- and at worst, snake-mean and turkey-stupid--- abou Mother T or anything to do with Catholicism. I'm mentining this only because. in the hundreds of venues that were open to Hitchens' anti-Teresa venom, the most surprising must the Vatican itself, which was admirably open to whatever he had to say.

I'll go into greater detail to anyone who asks!

If I were the Judge--- which thanks be to God I'm not--- I'd handcuff Hitchens (d. 2011) to Pope Innocent III (d. 1216) in purgatory. They'd about deserve each other. At the end, salted, dry-roasted and saved, they'd enter heaven friends, and merrily, thanks no doubt to Mother T's prayers, and ours.

Y'all can pray for me, too, in case they have three-person shackle sets. I'll bring the popcorn.

[Mrs. Don-o]

The Vatican Congregation for the Causes of Saints -- the department which investigates and approves/disapproves of people "nominated" for sainthood --- invited Christopher Hitchens to Rome to testify against Mother T., which means, to be what is colloquially termed the Devil's Advocate, to present evidence to the effect that she did not lead a life of heroic virtue. They paid his expenses and duly took his deposition.

I'm reasobnly sure it followed the lines of his many Down-With-Mother-Teresa magazine articles: it evidently wasn't enough to derail the canonization process.

I spent almost 2 decades admiring, often disagreeing with, but usually enjoying Hitchens' writings. Although he had a hodgepodge of knowledge as well as loads of style, he was at best sophomoric --- and at worst, snake-mean and turkey-stupid--- abou Mother T or anything to do with Catholicism. I'm mentining this only because. in the hundreds of venues that were open to Hitchens' anti-Teresa venom, the most surprising must the Vatican itself, which was admirably open to whatever he had to say.

I'll go into greater detail to anyone who asks!

If I were the Judge--- which thanks be to God I'm not--- I'd handcuff Hitchens (d. 2011) to Pope Innocent III (d. 1216) in purgatory. They'd about deserve each other. At the end, salted, dry-roasted and saved, they'd enter heaven friends, and merrily, thanks no doubt to Mother T's prayers, and ours.

Y'all can pray for me, too, in case they have three-person shackle sets. I'll bring the popcorn.

[RichInOC]

Because nothing says “respect for the value of human beings” quite like making fun of a woman who vowed poverty, chastity and obedience and went off to nurse the sick and dying in India.

[Tax-chick]

Is that Pope Innocent of the Albigensian Crusade? He was quite a fella.

I’m usually the one arguing for thinking the best of people, but there’s a kind of unmerited and obscene hatefulness - Hitchens’ kind - that is absolutely stomach-churning.

But who can say ... God denies nobody the opportunity for repentance.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Yeah, that's the Innocent I'm talking about. He was in many ways a great pope: his personal morality was reputedly without stain. But he was a maximalist in asserting papal claims over every earthly power; he declared the right to appoint or depose kings and princes; he called the Fourth Crusade and the Albigensian Crusade (whose most horrible excesses were done against his express commands, and yet he ought to have known what happens when you place huge and homicidal power in the hands of a bunch of greedy Venetians, or of devils like Simon de Montfort...).

On the day he died, he appeared to the nun (St.) Lutgarda in her monastery at Belgium. Engulfed in flames, he told her that, for three crimes of his, he would have to stay in purgatory until the end of time, unless Lutgarda and her sisters assisted him with prayers, penances and sacrifices.