In this frank & damning expose of the Teresa cult Hitchens details the nature & limits of one woman's mission to help the world's poor He probes the source of the heroic status bestowed upon an Albanian nun whose only declared wish was to serve God He asks whether Mother Teresa's good works answered any higher purpose than the need of the world's privileged to see someone somewhere doing something for the Third World He unmasks pseudo-miracles questions Mother Teresa's fitness to adjudicate on matters of sex & reproduction & reports on a version of saintly ubiquity which affords genial relations with dictators corrupt tycoons & convicted frauds Is Mother Teresa merely an essential salve to the conscience of the rich West or an expert PR machine for the Catholic Church? In its caustic iconoclasm & unsparing wit The Missionary Position showcases the devastating effect of Hitchens' writing at its polemical best