The Motion – “The Catholic Church is a force for good in the world”

Christopher Hitchens and Stephen Fry, opposing the motion, lay a clear argument. Archbishop Onaiyekan (of Abuja, Nigeria) and Ann Widdecombe, who spoke for it, had trouble finding any ground at all. Seeing the likes of Christopher Hitchens across from you at the debate table is likely to keep anyone gun shy. To have Stephen Fry also across that table is just down right unfair. The archbishop in particular was hopeless.

Stephen Fry Debate of Beauty

When a debate features the likes of Christopher Hitchens the opposing side will always be fighting an uphill battle. however, I am pretty sure the neither member of the catholic church had any idea how decimating Stephen Fry would be to their stance. This Christopher Hitchens and Stephen Fry debate features one of the best speeches I have ever heard. Stephen fry beautifully calls out to humanity to help lift us as a species past the oppressive nature in believing unprovable things.

let’s not call it child abuse, it was rape – Stephen Fry

The best section of the Stephen Fry debate destroys the opposing side with easy. Stating: “It’s hard for me to be told that I am evil. Because I think of myself as someone who is filled with love, who’s only purpose in life is to achieve love, and who feels love for so much of nature and the world and everything else. We certainly don’t need the stigmatization, the victimization, that leads to the playground bullying when people say you’re a disordered, morally evil individual. That’s not nice. it isn’t nice!”

Stephen Fry then sends the message home when pointing to an often overlooked recent history.

“The kind of cruelty in Catholic education, the kind of child – let’s not call it child abuse, it was rape. The kind of child rape that went on systematically for so long… Let’s imagine that we can overlook this and say that it is nothing whatever to do with the structure and nature of the Catholic Church, and for the twisted and neurotic and hysterical way that its leaders are chosen. The celibacy, the nuns, the monks, the priesthood… That is not natural or normal, ladies and gentlemen, it 2009 – is really isn’t.”

Your thoughts?

Does this Christopher Hitchens and Stephen Fry Debate hold up? Was the Catholic church unfairly misrepresented and thrown to the wolves?

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