Why we hate Mother Teresa

Exclusive to the Independent, the Guardian, the Carpet-chewers' Gazette and all other liberal papers.

So the Catholic Church has chosen to ignore the description given by the great Christopher Hitchens - "a lying, thieving Albanian dwarf" - and canonize one of the most evil women of the 20th Century. Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu was her real name, but she chose to hide under the alias of "Mother Teresa", even though she had no children and was not called Teresa at all.

How I hate that woman. She opposed a woman's right to choose to dismember her unborn child (when Hitchens asked her if she had any "baby parts" for sale, she looked at him in total disbelief). She never spoke up for same-sex marriage, incest, polygamy and orgies in tanks of olive oil, which are now accepted by all mainstream orthodox secularists. As for transgender awareness, she still lived in the dark ages when they had sexist labels such as "male" and "female" - and "Mother" of course! Teresa even attended Catholic Church services, as if she actually believed all that nonsense about God. Sheeesh!

Mother Teresa. What a horrible smug woman.

When the Catholic Church decides whom to canonize, it doesn't ask journalists like me to advise them. That's why you don't see such heroes as Marie Stopes, Che Guevara, Nelson Mandela and Hugo Chávez getting an expensive ceremony with lots of pilgrims singing their praises. No, they pick on some wretched nun who was not only undersized but also Albanian (well spotted, Christopher!) and give her the works! She was never invited to our Islington dinner parties, and serve her right!

Apparently, "Saint" Teresa ran some sort of hospital in Calcutta, but if you turned up asking for a sex-change, an abortion, or even "something for the weekend", she would ignore you in favour of some nasty smelly person with leprosy, tuberculosis or other socially unacceptable disease. No compassion for those of us who suffer modern illnesses such as acne, hair loss, or halitosis! Monster!

Mother Teresa and one of her smelly old lepers.

She was a self-publicist, nagging people for money to waste on a bunch of dying no-hopers. She'd fly across the world to see rich people, just to embarrass them into coughing up some cash. For crying out loud, she could have walked, couldn't she? Also, she was too proud to use the traditional "get rich" methods employed by the majority of our readers, such as embezzlement, insider trading, and mugging people late at night.

Well, what do you expect of the Catholic Church? Pope Francis has been a great disappointment to us: he may have correctly identified climate change as the biggest issue facing us in this era, or indeed any era, but he puts God and Jesus a close second, which is a real turn-off. Mother Teresa was the same, so HOW DARE the Catholic Church honour her in this way?

Er, will that do? All I needed to say was that she was a Catholic, and so should never have been canonized, but I needed to pad it out a little.

Clash of the Titans.

Yes, already they're calling it the Debate of the Century. Peter Hitchens and Damian Thompson, acknowledged experts on addiction, discuss the question: Whose book is better?

Peter Hitchens prepares to confront Damian Thompson.

For those who don't have time to listen to the Spectator podcast, we present a transcript of the debate between the two greatest intellectuals of our day.

DT: Well, I should point out straight away that I'm an expert on addiction, as I've written a best-selling book on the subject. I don't normally plug it, but it's called The Fix.

PH: I've written a best-selling book too. It's called The War We Never Fought: The British Establishment's Surrender to Drugs.

DT: Well, my book's better than your book. My friend Cristina says so.

PH: No, my book's better than your book. You see, I claim that addiction doesn't even exist.

DT: What? How dare you say that! I hate you!

Damian Thompson, modelling the new Michael Voris wig.

PH: Well, I'm sorry, but any addicts you see are purely a figment of your imagination.

DT: Look here, mate. Your brother Christopher may have been a lunatic left-wing atheist, but he was still much cleverer than you.

PH: Well, your sister Emma may be a lunatic left-wing atheist, but she's still much cleverer than you.

Emma Thompson expresses concerns over her brother Damian's latest meltdown.

DT: I'll get you for that. Wait until I write my Saturday column.

PH: Look, calm down, Damian. And please stop throwing cupcakes at me.

DT: I'll ruin you, as I did Johann Hari, David Cameron, and Keith O'Brien. Nobody will take you seriously again.

(Storms out, slams the door, and knocks over two secretaries, a security guard and a passing Monsignor. Returns to Telegraph Towers to launch a barrage of Twitter abuse and hostile blog posts. Phones Telegraph hit man and orders him to pour custard through Peter Hitchens's letter box.)

Preparing to fill Peter Hitchens's house full of custard.

PH: Sigh... it looks as though I'm not going to get that job on Telegraph blogs, after all.

The Book of St Richard, Chapter 12

Continued from Chapter 11

1. Thus it came to pass that Joseph Ratzinger, he whom they called Pope Benedict XVI, travelled to Britain.

2. For he said, "There are many pious and faithful Catholics on this island, who will be pleased to see me. Also many bishops, who would like to have their photographs taken with me."

3. But Richard had vowed to arrest Pope Benedict, and so he formed the Dawkins Constabulary.

The Dawkins Constabulary in action.

4. Led by Superintendent Dawkins and Inspector Hitchens, the team included the mighty Sergeant Grayling and two other men and women known for their forensic skills, namely, Constables Stephen Fry (an expert on credit-card fraud) and Johann Hari (an expert on plagiarism and cyber-bullying).

5. But the lawyers told Richard that he could not arrest the Pope, saying unto him, Nolle prosequi, which is the Latin for "Grow up, you silly little man."

6. But, just to be on the safe side, the Pope came to Britain in a mighty chariot, known as a Popemobile, which defended him from all ill.

Pope Benedict XVI, in his Popemobile, en route for Birmingham

8. And the Pope was protected by his mighty Swiss Guards; they were armed with state-of-the-art Swiss Army knives, which could remove a stone from a horse's hoof, open a packet of peanuts, or pierce the soul of a heretic.

9. But the Pope was merciful, and did not succumb to the temptation of going to Oxford to flatten the house of the author of The Blind Birdwatcher and all that God Confusion tripe.

10. Thus Richard, humiliated, slunk away, and turned his attention to attacking faith schools. For he had produced a hard-hitting television documentary, explaining how children were indoctrinated.

A fanatic attempts to brainwash children into his views on x, y and z

10. But many of the people who watched the documentary said, "Who is this nutter? He's just trying to indoctrinate us. Let us change the channel and watch Strictly Come Dancing, for this week we shall see Polly Toynbee dancing with Eric Pickles, a sight that no man has seen before."

11. And so, to Richard's great dismay, the Catholics continued to teach that 2+2=4, and other controversial doctrines.

And here's one to do at home when Mummy and Daddy have gone to bed

12. Thus, at end of the tenth year of the second millennium, Richard ceased not in his folly. And as he grew weaker, both bodily and mentally, the Lord God came unto him in a dream and said "Pack it in, you old fool."

13. But still he packed it not in.

Continued in Chapter 13.

The Divine Comedy: Inferno

So the poet Virgil came to Eccles, who is a saved person, and said "Perhaps you'd like to take a look at Hell, Purgatory and Heaven, to see how they've been getting on since I gave Dante a conducted tour? You could write about them on your lovely blog."

Abandon Hope, all ye who enter here

So they travelled to the gates of Hell itself, and began their descent into the abyss from which no man returns.

"This could be interesting," said Eccles. "Will we see Hitler, Stalin, Bin Laden, and people like that?"

"We do have them down here of course," said Virgil, "but frankly you don't want to see the dreadful torments they suffer. When you see someone who is forced to read the Guardian all day long, you even start to feel a nagging sympathy for them."

Ted Heath

They came to a darkened room in which a big fat man was groaning pitifully as he declaimed in a booming voice: "Ohhh... notwithstanding directive LU/267/JRQ/1637, paragraph 208, on the regulations for the design of teaspoons permitted in coffee shops not exceeding 250 square metres in area, it will be necessary for the managers of such shops to buy carbon credits to the value of EUR 50 for each customer who wishes to blow on his coffee to cool it, on pain of having their toenails pulled out by a registered inspector..."

"This is one of his lucky days," said Virgil. "He's just got to read out pointless EU directives. On a bad day they get him to read out all his old speeches."

"I see you try to make the punishment fit the crime," remarked Eccles. "Do you have any interesting atheists?"

Christopher Hitchens

They came to a room in which a rather stout man was writing a book. Eccles looked at the chapter heading, which said How Mother Teresa murdered a nanny and framed Lord Lucan for it, on the instructions of Pope Paul VI. In the corner of the room was a fire, and Virgil explained that Hitchens's punishment (apart from being eternally deprived of alcohol and cigarettes) was to write books which, when completed, were thrown directly into the flames. "This happened when he was alive too, usually, but now we can cut out all the trouble of getting a customer to buy them first," explained Virgil.

"I was right, I was right, there is no God, and he hates me!" screamed Hitchens, and resumed his writing.

"How about Catholics?" asked Eccles. "Do you have any down here?"

"Lots," said Virgil. "Since the 1960s, there's been no shortage of Catholics wanting to sign up to a liberal agenda. Abortion, euthanasia, divorce, homosexual practices... so much simpler than traditional morality, it seems."

Will nobody come for a drive with me?

A fat dissolute man came past, driving a taxi. "Taxi, guv?" he asked. "A little drive to the island?"

"Heard the legend of the Flying Dutchman?" asked Virgil. "Condemned for ever to sail the seas? It's been updated - Ted here is condemned for ever to drive his taxi, unable to pick up passengers."

"He was a Catholic, wasn't he?" asked Eccles.

"When there were votes in it," replied Virgil. "But mostly he was just a fat drunken slob."

"So, where next?" asked Eccles.

"Well, you've seen some dead souls currently in torment. Next, I shall show you a vision of the future. We'll see some of the living people whom we're expecting down here in the next few years..."

Let's go and do something really evil.