Abstract

160 BOOK REVIEWS determination to sever her ethno-national roots, provoked largely by the overt political intrigue behind her father’s painful death, turned out to be incompatible with the strict racial hierarchy within the Loreto Mission which gradually contributed to her decision to part ways and establish her own order. The discriminations she faced, especially during the Loreto years, subsequently motivated her to overcome the racial boundaries which significantly guided her vision to experiment with a transcendental spirituality. The third part also suggests that, though in the years following the establishment of the Missionaries of Charity, the relationship between Mother Teresa and the Vatican had strengthened for several pragmatic reasons, there had been no significant change in the Vatican’s policy towards Albania. Equally important in this section is Alpion’s rebuttal of the recent tendency to uncritically attribute a kind of patriotism to the th image of Mother Teresa, akin to that of Skanderbeg, the Albanian national hero of the 15 century. The text suggests that despite her repeated attempts at a reconciliation with her nation, her nationality remained a perpetual anomaly in the context of her spiritual quest. Considering the wealth of new historical evidences that the book brings into