The Debate: Mother Teresa — Saint or Sinner?
Moderator:
Ladies and gentlemen, tonight’s motion: Mother Teresa was a saint. Speaking against the motion, Christopher Hitchens. Speaking for the motion, Pope Lenny Belardo.
Opening Statements
Christopher Hitchens (calm, cutting):
Mother Teresa was no saint. She was a propagandist for the Vatican, a friend of tyrants, and a cultist of suffering. She took money from the Duvalier dictatorship in Haiti, from Charles Keating in America, and from other criminals, and used it not to alleviate poverty but to spread a medieval cult of misery. In her clinics, patients were denied pain relief, denied basic medical care, while millions in donations sat in Vatican bank accounts. To call her a saint is to profane the very word.
(audience murmurs, scattered applause)
Young Pope (Lenny Belardo, stern and composed):
Christopher, your words cut like daggers, but you mistake shadow for substance. Teresa was not a financier or a politician — she was a servant. She touched the untouchable. She held the dying when no one else dared. The world ignored Calcutta’s poor; she made them visible. The people called her Mother. And holiness is found not in spreadsheets, but in the radical presence of love.
(audience applause, some cheers)
Rebuttals
Hitchens (leaning forward, sharp):
Presence without care is cruelty. Imagine a doctor who refuses anesthesia because suffering is “holy.” Imagine a hospital that refuses modern medicine while hoarding wealth. We would not call that compassion; we would call it malpractice. Yet, because she wore a habit, you canonize her malpractice as sainthood. That, ladies and gentlemen, is moral fraud.
(audience gasps, some applause)
Lenny Belardo (voice rising, fire in his eyes):
And yet, Christopher, those dying souls — the very ones you champion — they did not curse her. They thanked her. You judge from a lectern; she knelt at their bedsides. She may have lacked morphine, but she gave presence, prayer, dignity. Sometimes, dignity is more healing than medicine.
Hitchens (with a caustic laugh):
Dignity? There is no dignity in untreated agony. There is no holiness in refusing penicillin. If Jesus Christ Himself had behaved as Mother Teresa did, He would not be the healer of Galilee, but the patron of preventable death.
(audience gasps loudly, a mix of applause and boos)
Lenny Belardo (slamming the lectern):
Do not blaspheme Christ in your cleverness, Hitchens! You see hypocrisy; I see sacrifice. You see tyranny; I see faith. She may not have been perfect — but she carried the Cross where others fled. That is sainthood.
Closing Arguments
Hitchens (measured, final blow):
The Church canonizes obedience and suffering, not truth or healing. Teresa comforted dictators and kept the poor poor. She praised agony as if it were divine. I submit to you, ladies and gentlemen: if this is sainthood, then sainthood is sin.
(audience erupts — loud applause, cheers, and boos)
Lenny Belardo (calm, almost whispering):
And I say: if holiness is only perfection, then no saint could ever exist. Teresa was flawed, yes. But through her flaws, God’s light shone into the darkest slums of Calcutta. And if you listen — not with cynicism, but with faith — you may still hear Christ’s voice in her broken whisper. That is what makes her a saint.
(audience applause, some standing, others crossing arms in silence)
Moderator:
Thank you, gentlemen. The motion has been passionately debated. Now, let the audience decide.
Audience Q&A
Moderator:
We now open the floor to questions. Please state your name and direct your question.
Student 1 (young woman, philosophy major):
Mr. Hitchens, you accuse Mother Teresa of glorifying suffering. But isn’t it possible she simply lacked resources, and did what she could? Isn’t it unfair to expect Western standards in the slums of Calcutta?
Christopher Hitchens (without hesitation):
My dear, she did not lack resources. She sat atop millions. The problem was not poverty — it was priorities. She could have built hospitals, but she built convents. She could have bought morphine, but she preached suffering. That’s not poverty — that’s ideology.
(applause, some nods in the crowd)
Student 2 (young man, theology major):
Your Holiness, with respect — Hitchens raises a point. If God entrusted Mother Teresa with such donations, why didn’t she use them for medical advancement? Doesn’t the Church bear responsibility?
Young Pope (Lenny Belardo, measured, somber):
The Church always bears responsibility, yes. But remember: Teresa’s mission was not to cure disease, but to show that no one dies alone, forgotten in the gutter. The modern world measures success in efficiency. God measures success in love.
(applause from the faithful, murmurs from skeptics)
Audience Member 3 (older doctor, skeptical tone):
Mr. Pope — love is noble, but it doesn’t set bones or fight infection. Do you really mean to say love matters more than medicine?
Lenny Belardo (with quiet force):
I say love is the soul of medicine. Without love, medicine is mechanics. With love, even in the absence of medicine, there can still be dignity. Teresa brought that dignity.
Hitchens (interjecting, sharply):
With respect, that is a sanctimonious dodge. Love without morphine is cruelty. Dignity without antibiotics is an illusion. Teresa didn’t give dignity — she denied it.
(audience roars with divided applause and boos)
Student 4 (smirking, political science major):
Mr. Hitchens, you call her a fraud, but billions admire her. Isn’t there a danger that you, a Western intellectual, are imposing your cynicism on people who found genuine meaning in her?
Hitchens (with acid wit):
Meaning can be found in false idols as easily as true ones. North Korea finds “meaning” in worshiping Kim Jong-il. Mass admiration is not proof of virtue. It is proof that humans will cheer even for the grotesque, if it is packaged as holy.
(audience gasps, some students laugh nervously, others clap hard)
Student 5 (Catholic nun, voice trembling with emotion):
Your Holiness, if Mother Teresa is not a saint, then what hope do any of us have? She gave everything. If she is condemned as a sinner, are we all lost?
Young Pope (soft, consoling):
No, Sister. Holiness is not perfection. It is surrender. Teresa surrendered everything she had to God, and that is why she is a saint. Saints are not angels without blemish. They are sinners who burn with divine love.
(audience breaks into loud applause, some stand in reverence)
Moderator (closing Q&A):
Thank you, audience, and thank you to our debaters. Tonight’s discussion has reminded us that sainthood, suffering, and truth are contested, and perhaps always will be.
🔥 That ends the audience Q&A round, full of challenges, clashing answers, and emotional weight.