8

The Nation.

CHRIS

March 17,1997

Mother Teresa on a Roll.

I hen we read accounts of miracles-the

sorcerer Jesus of Nazareth casting out devils, for

instance, and causing them to enter the bodies
of pigs-we do so through the numinous prism
of a remote and mythical past. Rabbi Low of
Prague made his golem withoutthe scrutinyof prime
time. Its much more difficult to picture the actual
scene as it was: a bunch of stupefied Galileanpeasants watching the convulsions of an epileptic and
then seeing some pigs behave oddly on a neighboring slope, and being induced to draw the connection
by an exorcist on the make. Bear in mind always the injunction
of David Hume when confronted by a miracle and ask yourself
Which is more likely-that the laws of nature have been suspended? Or that I am under a misapprehension?
Of course, in our age of progress and improvement, astrologers can get on the Internet and miracles can actually occur
in prime time. Take the case of Our Lady of Nashville. On
October 15 last, in the Bongo Java coffeehouse of that most
rhythmic of cities, an employee named Ryan Finney got himself a cinnamonbun and raised it to his openjaws. Some divine
impulse made him glance down as his mandibles were about to
close, and he saw the image of Mother Teresa of Calcutta on,
so to speak, the roll. Witnesses to the apparition were so impressed that they stored the delicacy in a freezer. Then a group
of Bongo Java employees teamed up, found a director and
made a nine-minute documentary titled A Music City Miracle.
It could not be long-and was not-before a franchise outlet
was formed, selling T-shirts, prayer cards and coffee mugs to
go with. Just around Christmastime, in a typically seasonal
move, The Tennessean ran a cover story on the B u n . Other
networks and news agencies then carried the story of the holy
roll, which is now copyrighted and enjoys its own Web site.
On this same site, morons the world over have registered their
awe. (This should be another example to the people of this
planet that God is indeed watching us and Judgment Day is approaching faster than people realize.)A few skepticshave also
kicked in, with profane observations such as Who is without
cinamonus?
Laugh all you like; there is nothing in this downscale phenomenon b a t is any more absurd than the existing cult of the
ghoul of Calcutta. The first line of Hillary Clintons first syndicated columnwas, The first time I met Mother Teresa. Congress
has just voted unanimously to make Mother an honorary U.S.
citizen-a distinction conferred until now only upon William
Penn, Winston Churchill and Raoul Wallenberg and his wife,
Hannah.In 1994 she was invited to address the NationalPrayer
Breakfastwith the Presidenthimself.The Bongo Java breakfast
was more authentic.
Here is a woman who has already achieved canonization.
This state of living sainthood might be defined as the miraculous condition of having all your actions judged by your reputation, instead of your reputation by your actions. And,this is

just as well, considering that her actions include:

0 flying to Haiti during the Duvalier regime to
receive a high decoration, and announcing,that the
Duvaliers were friends of the poor;
0 accepting ,the Nobel Prize for Peace and declaring that the greatest threat to world peace was
abortion;.
0 stating that contraception and abortion are
morally equivalent;
6 accepting a large donation of stolen savingsand-loan money &om Charles Keating, giving him
a crucifix in return and describingthis pious fleece; o?the&all
saver as a fiiend of the poor also.
Mother Teresa has always preached indulgence to the rich
and sacrifice and acceptanceto the poor. Only recently, she campaigned in Ireland against the referendum that lified the constitutional b k on divorce and remarriage. Yet when her new friend
Princess Diana got a divorce, she stated publicly that it was all
for the best because the marriage had obviously been a wretched
&e. Never happier thanwhen providing photo-ops for the powerful and the great, she runs a multinational missionary operation
that is impossible to audit but that has, by her own admission,
opened many more convents than clinics.As the national security
adviser to a highly reactionary and authoritarianPope, she clearly
hopes to be r e c o e e d as founder of an order. John Paul II has already created five times as many saints as all of his twentiethcentury predecessors combined, and the Vaticans Congregation
for Sainthood Causes--already at work on the canonization of
the gruesomeQueen Isabella of Spain-has all but announced that
M.T. is on the fast track for the same dubioushonor.
This entire spurious cult actually originated with another
bogus miracle. Mother Teresas break into the big time came
in 1969,when Malcolm Muggeridgemade a documentary about
her for the BBC with the sickly title Something Beautiful for
God. In the course of filming, claimed Muggeridge, there occurred the first authentic photographic miracle. Film shot in
a darkened room had turned out, when developed, to show a
glow of light. Muggeridge, now the posthumous darling of the
New Right, went so far as to claim that this was the kindly
light specified in Cardinal Newmans burdensome hymn of
the same name. The highly professional cameramanin the case,
Ken Macmillan (who shot Lord Clarks Civilization) testified
that he had been using a specially made new Kodak film, designed for crepuscular scenes. But his evidence never caught
up with the credulity of those who love to be fooled. With a
woman like this, the buns are the least of it.
Help is at hand. My short book The Missionary Position:
Mother Teresa in The0ry and Practice is now available in paperback. Published by Verso this month, it containsa full account of
the hollowness of Mothers world view, and a detailed list of
her crimesagainsthumanity. Get some copiesnow, and help equip
your friends to withstand the tsunami of bullshit that will break
over them when Mother gives up the ghost.