Paris Hilton or Mother Teresa?

Who's the better person, Paris Hilton or Mother Teresa? Come on, make your call. Personally, I think Hirsi Ali has it over both of them, but the MT v Paris battle has just been engaged, and positions are already being formed (so to speak) -- and you will need to make a call.

You see, the Catholic League of America wants Penn and Teller's Penn Jillette sacked from CBS for plumping for Paris (if that's really the right word for supporting a stick insect). And he dissed Mother Teresa. Fancy that. Says the League in calling for Jillette's dismissal:

On his April 5 CBS radio show, Penn Jillette commented on the rumor that Paris Hilton may play Mother Teresa in a movie. He said Mother Teresa "had this weird kink that I think was sexual" about seeing people suffer and die. He also said that "Paris Hilton is so far above Mother Teresa on the moral scale, she should not lower herself" to playing the saintly nun. After comparing Mother Teresa to Charles Manson, Jillette again said she "got her [sexual] kicks watching people suffer and die." He concluded by saying, "Paris Hilton. You're so much better than that. Don't take the gig. Keep making good wholesome porn films. Just do that. Do what you're cut out for. Don't lower yourself to playing Mother Teresa."

Well, I'm with Penn. Paris (I'm told) does make good sex tapes. And Mother Teresa was no saint. As Christopher Hitchens pointed out some years back following the publication of his all -warts bio of MT, the grizzled Albanian witch did like watching people suffer and die.:

MT was not a friend of the poor. She was a friend of poverty. She said that suffering was a gift from God. She spent her life opposing the only known cure for poverty, which is the empowerment of women and the emancipation of them from a livestock version of compulsory reproduction. And she was a friend to the worst of the rich, taking misappropriated money from the atrocious Duvalier family in Haiti (whose rule she praised in return) and from Charles Keating of the Lincoln Savings and Loan. Where did that money, and all the other donations, go? The primitive hospice in Calcutta was as run down when she died as it always had been—she preferred California clinics when she got sick herself—and her order always refused to publish any audit. But we have her own claim that she opened 500 convents in more than a hundred countries, all bearing the name of her own order. Excuse me, but this is modesty and humility?

Still not convinced? Then try this excerpt from 'The diabolical works of Mother Teresa,' an article by Auckland University's Robert White:

You see, Mother Teresa believes that poverty and suffering are "gifts" from God. And the sisters in her order, The Missionaries of Charity, are taught that suffering makes God very happy. Mother Teresa once recounted, with a bright smile, how she had told a terminally ill cancer patient, who was suffering from unbearable pain, that, "You are suffering like Christ on the cross. So Jesus must be kissing you." Now, get that. According to Mother Teresa, Jesus, who, remember, is a moral ideal in her religion, expresses his "love" through tormenting the sick and the dying, while his father - God - gets his kicks from watching their suffering. This is pure sadism. And, unfortunately for the poor, Mother Teresa was ruthlessly intent on making God a very happy deity.'

One could go on, and of course Hitchens himself did exactly that with his book, and in subsequent interviews and articles.

So should Paris "lower herself" then? And who's the better human being: Paris or MT? If you decide the former, perhaps you could do your bit to ensure that Penn Jillette doesn't get sacked for saying so by contancting Joel Hollander at joel.hollander@infinitybroadcasting.com and demand that Penn Jillette stay.

UPDATE: The complete edition of Robert White's brilliant essay 'The Diabolical Works of Mother Teresa' is now back online.

LINKS: Catholic League angry with Penn Jillette - Julian Pistorius, SOLO
Mommie Dearest: The pope beatifies Mother Teresa, a fanatic, a fundamentalist, and a fraud - Christopher Hitchens, Slate
The diabolical works of Mother Teresa - summary of article by Robert White, Scoop
The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice - book by Christopher Hitchens, Amazon.Com
Christopher Hitchens on Mother Teresa (Interview) - Free Inquiry Magazine

TAGS: History-Twentieth_Century, Nonsense, Political_Correctness