Stephen Fry Passionately Argues the Catholic Church is NOT a Force for Good | Intelligence Squared

there are occasions as gwendaline remarked in The Importance of Being Earnest when it becomes more than a moral duty to speak one's mind it becomes a pleasure and this is one such occasion with my trusty hitch by my side I am very proud to be here but also very nervous very worried I've been nervous all day and the reason I've been nervous is quite simple and that is that this motion matters to me it matters to me greatly it's not a joke it's not a game it's not just a debate I genuinely believe that the Catholic church is not to put it at its mildest a Force for good in the world and therefore it is important for me to try and Marshall my facts as well I can to explain why I think that but I want first of all to say that I have no quarrel and no argument and I wish to express no contempt for individual devout and Pious men members of that church they are welcome to their sacraments to their welcome to their reliquaries and to their Blessed Virgin Mary they're welcome to their um to their faith to the importance they place in it to the comfort and the joy that they receive from it all of that is absolutely fine by me it would be impertinent and wrong of me to express any antagonism towards any individual who wishes to find Salvation in whatever form they wish to express it that to me is sacran as much as any Article of Faith is sacran to anyone of any church or any faith in the world it's very important it's also very important to me is it happens um that I have my own beliefs they are a belief in the enlightenment they are a belief um in the Eternal adventure of trying to discover moral truth in the world discover it's a terribly important word to which we might return it's a fight it's an empirical fight it's one that was begun in the middle of uh of of the last Millennium uh it's given the name the Enlightenment and there is nothing sadly that the Catholic church and its hierarchs likes to do more than to attack the enlightenment it did so at the time reference was made to Galileo and the fact that he was tortured for trying to explain the cernic theory of the universe that's history history as Miss Wham has reminded us is irrelevant it's not important all that matters now is that billions of pounds go out of this extraordinary institution to relieve the poor around the world and make the world a better place history is of no importance whatsoever well I beg to differ history history wines and quivers and vibrates in all of us in this Hall in this square mile let's think about this square mile I'll come back to it in a moment but first Christopher made mention of limbo it seems so tedious and so silly one of those little casuistic games that toist and others play ainus and Augustine of Hippo both proposed this extraordinary idea that babies who were unbaptized would not know Heaven they also proposed the idea of purgatory which doesn't exist in the Bible there's absolutely no evidence for it however what an extraordinary brilliant coup to imagine such a thing as per Tre that a soul needs to be prayed for in order to go to heaven in order to turn left when he enters the airplane of heaven and get a first class seat that he needs to be prayed for and for many hundreds indeed over a thousand years you'll be amazed what generous terms those prayers came at sometimes as little are as 2third of a year's salary could ensure that a dead loved one would go to heaven and money could ensure that your baby your dead child your dead uncle your dead mother could go to heaven and if you were Rich enough you could have a Chantry built and monks would permanently sing prayers so that that existence in heaven for the child would go up and up and up until they were at the table of the Lord themselves now all this is in the past and is irrelevant I seed to an Wham how irrelevant it is except in one thing this church is founded on the principle of intercession only through the apostolic succession only through the laying on of hands from this Galilean Carpenter whom we can all admire only from the laying on of hands to his Apostles to St Peter to the other Bishops all the way down to everyone consecrated in this room anyone ordained here will know they are uh they have this extraordinary power to change the molecules of wine into blood literally to change the molecules of paste bread into flesh literally and to forgive the sins of the peasants and the poor whom they routinely exploit around the planet only this church has this extraordinary principle that it is through these male priests and only male priests that this is given it is a doctrinal fact it is more than a doctrinal fact it is a Dogma extra Ecclesia am nul salus outside the church there is no salvation that is a dogma of the church that has been used to excuse all the missionary Zeal all the rape and torture of the Aztecs and the incor all the horrors of South America and Africa and the Philippines and the rest of the world to which other churches and other cultures have also their guilt to admit it's not unique to the Catholic church and I never said it was and the motion doesn't say it was or at least the opposition of the motion does not arrogate to the Catholic Church uniquely this sin however the particular nature of the exploitation of the poor the vulnerable and the young if I were to talk to a priest now believe me that priest would be the most worldly Charming self-deprecating snobbish in a Ronald Knox Al gilby sort of way he would be lovely he would smoke gosh how daring he would be a sort of ha haa priest and the Superstition and the nonsense that we read about of the church it it's absolute don't pay any attention Steven just join Farm Street or one or the bronton oratory and have a marvelous time as a Catholic and everything is lovely and Splendid but be poor and ignorant and my goodness me every single detail of damnation and original sin and of any possibility of your complaining or asking to think for yourself I said let's think of this square mile just imagine in this square mile how many people were burned for reading the Bible in English and one of the principal burners and torturers of those who tried to read the Bible in English here in London was Thomas Moore you may know if you've read the novel Wolf Hall which won the man Booker prize just the other day now that's a long time ago it's not relevant except that it was only last century that Thomas Moore was made a saint and it was only in the year 2000 that the last Pope the pole he he made Thomas Moore the patron saint of politicians this is a man who put people on the rack for daring to own a Bible in English He tortured them for owning a Bible in their own language the idea that the Catholic Church exists to disseminate the word of the Lord is nonsense it is the only owner of the truth for the billions that it likes to boast about because those billions are uneducated and poor as again it likes to boast about but they are the ones it can tell and Bully and domineer and then we come to Children Well it's all very well to say the world didn't know better the world had no knowledge of how dangerous crime uh how dangerous a crime child abuse was I want to read you some of the words of ratzinger the current pope staggers me to admit that he is the head of state of a country incidentally an Wham said we doesn't have the power of a nation state yes you do you are a nation state yes I wrote it down you mentioned that you are a masan state and it is no accident that the kyou the UN KIRO population conference when they were trying to do something about the world's population spinning out of control Vatican City as a nation state represented at that conference made a joint statement with the Islamic countries of the world notably the most extreme Islamic countries of the world led by Saudi Arabia and it it began on behalf of the re revealed religions of the world dot dot dot and what he did was essentially hobble and veto any possibility of women's sexual freedom in the world because as we know the Islamic religion and the Catholic Church have never been anything other than implacably opposed to women's choice in their own bodies and their Destinies however so rat Singo in 2003 was he was he was prefect I'm not making this up he was prefect of the congregation of the doctrine of the faith and it was his job to deal with the child abuse Scandal that was brewing his First Act was to write a letter to Catholic Bishops ordering them on pain of excommunication not to talk to the police or anyone else investigation should be handled he wrote and I'm quoting that letter in the most secretive way restrained by Perpetual silence the Mexican founder of the Legion of Christ movement marel Deo was protected from his own catalog of child abuse which is horrific one cannot put on trial so close a friend of the Pope said ratzinger when the allegations could no longer be denied marel was sentenced sentenced to a life of prayer and penitence and ranzinger described the whole Affair and that of Bernard La of Boston to which my colleague also referred as causing suffering for the church and for me personally he also said the answer would be to stop homosexuals from being allowed into the church now it's perhaps unfair of me as a gay man to moan this enormous institution which is the largest and most powerful Church on Earth has over a billion as they like to tell us members each one of whom is uh under strict instructions to believe the dogmas of the church but may wrestle with them personally of course it's a little hard for me to know that I am disordered or again to quote rat singer um that I'm guilty of a moral evil uh simply by fulfilling my sexual Destiny as I see it it's it's hard for me to be told that be told that I'm I'm evil because I think of myself as someone who is filled with love whose only purpose in life was to achieve love and who feels love for so much of Nature and the world and for everything else and who like anybody decent and of an education realizes that in order to achieve and and receive love it's a struggle it's not one that needs a pope to tell you how to do it it's certainly isn't one who needs a pope to tell you that you're evil with 6% of all teenage suicides being gay teenage suicides 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 the kind of Cruelty in Catholic Education the kind of of child let's not call it child abuse it was child rape the kind of child rape that went on systematically for so long let's imagine that we can overlook this and say it is nothing whatever to do with the structure and nature of the Catholic church and the Twisted neurotic and hysterical way that its leaders are chosen the celibacy the nuns the monks the priesthood this is not natural and normal ladies and gentlemen in 2009 it really isn't I'm sorry for me to be called a pervert by these extraordinarily sexually dysfunctional people I don't think human history's ever had more I have to I have to say this is not a problem that necessarily is permanent I like to believe that in 10 years time I could come back and argue the opposite even though I've talked about the history and the structural problems of this bited institution and the cruelty and the unpleasantness it is caused around the world I have yet to approach one of the subjects dearest to my heart I've made three documentary films on the subject of AIDS in Africa my particular love is the country of Uganda it is one of the countries I love most in the world been there many times I've interviewed Joseph to Yi mevy and his wife Janet uh before unfortunately she suddenly saw god um there was a period when Uganda had the worst incidents of HIV AIDS in the world I went to raki the village where it was first spotted but through an amazing initiative called ABC abstinence be faithful correct use of condoms those three I am not denying that abstinence is a very good way of not getting AIDS it really is it works so does being faithful but so do condoms and do not deny it and this Pope this Pope not satisfied not satisfied with saying condoms are against our religion please consider first abstinence second being faithful to your partner he spreads the lie that condoms actually increase the incident of AIDS he actually makes sure that Aid is conditional on saying no to condoms I have been to there's a hospital in Bundi in the west of Uganda where I do quite a lot of work it is unbelievable the pain and suffering you see now yes yes it is true abstinence will stop it it's it's the strange thing about this church it is obsessed with sex absolutely obsessed now they will say they will say we with our permissive society and our rude jokes are obsessed no we have a health healthy attitude we like it it's fun it's jolly because it's a primary impulse it can be dangerous and dark and difficult it's a bit like food in that respect only even more exciting the only people who are obsessed with food are anorexics and the morbidly OB beast and that in erotic terms is the Catholic church in a nutshell so all I want to say really is that we're here in the Methodist Hall I'm not trying to argue against religion on this occasion I'm not saying there's I understand the desire of anybody to to seek spiritual rewards in a in a complex and difficult to understand world we don't know why we're here where we're going we want answers we love the idea of answers how marvelous it would be but there are other choices there are Quakers who could possibly quarrel with a Quaker with their pacifism with their openness with their ease with their Simplicity with their refusal to tell anybody what's a dogma and what isn't even with methodists also I'm not saying protestantism is the answer against Catholicism I am merely saying there are all kinds of ways we can search for the truth you do not need this Imperial panoply of marble and gold do you know who would be the last person ever to be accepted as a prince of the church the Galilean Carpenter that Jew they would kick him out before he tried to cross the threshold he would be so ill at ease in the church that simple and remarkable man if he said the things that he was said to have said what would he think what would he think of St Peter's what would he think of the wealth and the power and the self-justification and the weedling apologies what would he think of a man who calls himself the father a celibate who dared to lecture people on what family values are what would he think of any of that he would be horrified but there is a solution there is an answer there is redemption available for all of us and any one of us and for the Catholic Church funny enough I think it's a novel by moris West the pope could decide that all this power all this wealth this hierarchy of princes and Bishops and archbishops and Priests and monks and nuns could be sent out in the world with money and art Treasures to put them back in the countries that they once raped and violated whose original systems of animism and belief and simplicity they told would tell them take them straight to hell they could give that money away and they could concentrate on the apparent essence of their belief and then I would stand here and say the Catholic Church May well be a force for good in the world but until that day it is not

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Id: kDOGMM9IaT0

Length: 19min 29sec (1169 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 02 2023