The Catholic Church is a force for good

[Music] hello welcome from central London we're just a stone's throw away from the houses of parliament in Westminster we're here in central hall for this intelligence squared debate on the catholic church is a force for good in the world well that's a subject that's going to generate a lot of heat I think and some light too I hope I'm delighted to be chair of this debate we have a panel which includes some of the most provocative intelligent and stimulating commentators and practitioners on the subject arguing for the motion the Archbishop of Abuja in Nigeria John or Nikon the British Conservative MP and Widdecombe arguing against the motion the actor broadcaster and author Stephen Fry and the journalist and commentator Christopher Hitchens well our first speaker is John an icon whose grace the Archbishop of Abuja the capital of Nigeria and His grace is one of Africa's best-known most respected commentators of the church the Catholic Church so please make your way to the podium speak at the microphone friends I must I certainly must say I'm grateful to be here because is for me is more than a matter of debate because that's what my life is all about if I didn't believe that the catholic church is a force for good I would not devote my whole life to precisely working in that institution hoping that I am involved in something that is good for the whole world you say for me it'll be a Catholic is a gift of God let me start with the word church the Catholic Church obviously it means many things to many people but I think as an archbishop I should be in a position to see what it does mean especially to us Catholics yes the Catholic churches is an institution and some people say it is perhaps the best organized institution in the world but that's not really the essence of our church we should go beyond institution and for us the church is first and foremost a community of believers and this is a community of believers that is spread all over the world made up of all kinds of people and the institution itself as well as those whom we cannot Mali consider church people people dressed up like me for example we are there only because of that huge community of people who claim who are Catholics I'm stressing this so that when you are asking yourself is a Catholic Church a force for good in the world that look at me that look at Braddock this extent look at the Catholics all over the world that the church is a force for good in the world seems obviously to me is quite obvious the question probably we should ask is what kind of force there was was an arrogant dictator who asked in disdain how many battalions has the poop obviously he completely missed the point it's not about military force of physical force but it is about force it's about the force of a spiritual message the force of values which has stood the test of 2,000 years and only 2,000 years in time but has spread its message all over the world among different different kinds of people different races we must also not forget the sheer weight of the number of Catholics I have checked the statistics and we are told that now we have our 1.2 billion Catholics all over the world out of a population of 6.6 billion 7.3 percent and these are young disa made up of all categories of people young and old women and men present farmers and high tech professionals simple citizens and even heads of states and world leaders this is the great army that is a great force for good in the world and whatever they are doing we consider it as being done largely also as a result of the spirit that guides them independent statistics have shown that the Catholic Church is doing far more than its numbers and its population would probably suggest the action of the church is most significant in communities that are reduced to poverty and misery by human neglect and sometimes by hostile environments talking of statistics I spoke recently with the director-general of units which is United Nations agency for HIV and AIDS and he said that 26% of the health institutions in the world directly involved with the treatment of HIV and AIDS are run by the Catholic Church and please note that it is a well known policy of our church that whenever we are engaged in social welfare work it is always given to all with us without any discrimination whether you believe or not irrespective of Crete indeed it is an integral part of our faith that our church is made up of sins and sinners we are all struggling towards that perfection which Jesus asked us to to first follow nor am i denying that the Catholic Church has always and everywhere being good done excellent things even sometimes in high levels but this again only proves that we are in this world even the late Pope John Paul the second was had no difficulty at all in admitting the the mistakes that people who claim to be judged to be catalysts and working in the name of the church have done in the past and even apologized and such gestures of apology is very rare in our world today let me conclude by by drawing attention to one particular aspect of my faith which I admire greatly my we are very open to Dylan and moving and collaborating with others and I think this is very important for the world of our days we are talking of the world of today we need more and more efforts to link hands across all divides so that we can manage to make our planet a better please a world of justice and peace is there still anybody here who still doubts whether the catholic church is a force for good in the world thank you very much [Applause] [Music] our next speaker is Christopher Hitchens he's arguing against the motion he is a writer journalist and commentator particularly well known for his trenchant and views and very original thinking so Christopher Hitchens let us hear what you have to say your time starts now please make your way to the podium I'm sorry to have to begin by disagreeing with his grace if you're going to be a serious grown-up person and appear to defend the Catholic Church in public in front of an educated and literate audience you simply have to start by making a great number of heartfelt apologies and requests for contrition and forgiveness now you might ask you're fully entitled to ask brothers and sisters Who am I to say that well in the jubilee millennium year of 2000 the Vatican spokesman Bishop Piero Marini said explaining the whole sermon of apology given by His Holiness the Pope given the number of sins we've committed in the course of twenty centuries reference to them must necessarily be rather summary when I think Bishop Marini had met just about right I'll have to be summary to his holiness on that occasion it was March the 12th 2000 if you wish to look it up beg forgiveness for among some other things the Crusades the Inquisition the persecution of a Jewish people injustice towards women that's half the human race right there and the forced conversion of indigenous peoples especially in South America the African slave trade the admission that Galileo was right and for silence during Hitler's Final Solution or Shoah and it doesn't end there they're a smaller but significant equally significant of ours of a very bad conscience these have included regret for the rape and the torture of orphans and other children in church run schools in almost every country on earth from Ireland to Australia these are very serious matters and they're not to be laughed off by references to the occasional work of Catholic Charities but I draw your attention not just to the apologists ladies and gentlemen but to the evasive and euphemistic form that they take Joseph Ratzinger the current pope considered by some by Catholics to The Vicar of Christ on earth in his comment one of the few he's made on the institutionalization of rape and torture and maltreatment of children in Catholic institutions he said it's a very severe crisis which which involves us he said in the following in the need for applying to these victims the most loving pastoral care where I'm sorry they've already had that and to say that this is the responsibility laid upon you by the the horrific admission that you've already had to make is not accepting responsibility in any adult sense the same euphemism comes in the term some Christians allowed themselves to be deceived in this way and to act against the gospel well anti-semitism was preached as an official doctrine of the church until 1964 do you think that might have something to do with public opinion in Austria and Bavaria and Poland and Lithuania they'll come a time when the church will issue apologies and explanations and half-baked Appeals for forgiveness for things it's still doing I think that there will be an apology for what happened in Rwanda the most catholic country in africa where priests and nuns and bishops are on trial for inciting from their pulpits and on the church's radio stations and newspapers the massacre of their brothers and sisters staying in africa i think it will one day be admitted with shame that it might have been in error to say that aids is bad as a disease very bad but not quite as bad as condoms are bad or not as immoral in the same way I said if the presence of His grace and I say it to his face the preachings of his church are responsible for the death and suffering and misery of millions of his brother and sister Africans and he should apologize for it he should show some can shame for condemning my friend Stephen Fry for his nature for say for saying you couldn't be a member of our church you're born and said [Applause] he's not been condemned for what he does he's being condemned for what he is you're a child are made in the image of God oh no you're not you're a and you can't join your church and you can't go to heaven this is disgraceful it's inhuman it's obscene and it comes from a clutch of hysterical sinister virgins who've already betrayed their charge in the children of their own church for shame for shame I don't wish any ill on any fellow primate or mammal of mine so I'm not I don't at all look forward to the death of fur though Joseph Ratzinger James or any other person already except for one tiny reason which I want to confess and share with you when he dies there's quite a long interval till the Conclave can meet and for that whole time that whole interval it's a delicious lucid interviewed there isn't anyone on earth who claims to be infallible isn't that nice all I think all I wanna propose in closing is this that if the human species is to rise to the full height that's demanded by its dignity and by its intelligence we must all of us move to a state of affairs where that condition is permanent and I think we should get on with it okay thank you for having me [Applause] [Music] well Christopher thank you very much for all that our next speaker is going to have her work cut out because she's speaking in favor of the motion that the Catholic Church is a force for good the Conservative MP and former government minister and Widdecombe she's as well known for her religious views as for her politics if you recall she left the Church of England in 1992 in a blaze of publicity when it allowed the ordination of women priests the following year she converted to Catholicism and has become one of the most vocal and staunchest defenders of the Catholic Church since then and Widdecombe the floor is yours [Applause] [Music] [Applause] if apology is a do tonight they are do from Christopher Hitchens who has just run through one of the longest series of misrepresentations of the Catholic Church that I have heard in a long time he has said with that certainty which characterizes these utterances that the Catholic Church has had a history of anti-semitism let us just look at the record of the Catholic Church when the Jewish community was under the most serious threat that it has faced in recent centuries and just look at the role that the Catholic Church played in the last World War mr. Hitchens ignores the thousands of Jews who were secreted and rescued in churches and monasteries throughout Europe he ignores the 3,000 Jews who in the course of that conflict took refuge in the Pope's own summer palace and coming nearer to our day of course Christopher Hitchens is right and who could possibly dispute with him that the abuse of children of innocent children is one in fact it is the worst offense that anybody can commit of that no doubt but again he seems to think that the Catholic Church should have had some unique insight which demonstrably was lacking in society as a whole do not expect the Catholic Church somehow when that was the state of knowledge at the time to have acted in a unique and completely different way and respect yes of course in retrospect yup in retrospect it should have done so should the magistrates show should so should the Samaritans so should the National Council of civil liberties but when we ask who whether the catholic church is a force for good let's just try to imagine a world today without for example the billions of pans that are poured into overseas aid by the catholic church contributing year-on-year more than any single nation imagine the developing world had been left without the input of the medicine and the education that was brought to it by the missions imagine the absence of those collection sunday upon sunday for famine relief imagine the absence of the church in the local community we play a vital role and you don't need to be a catholic to acknowledge that we play that role what is the church it is its members it is the nuns and the monks and the priests and the lay workers and the congregations it is not just the hierarchy of the church and i believe that the church to which I belong is a massive massive force for good but there does not just keep the debate at that level I knew somehow that when we were here tonight we would be discussing child abuse and condoms they came in the end I was almost thought we were going to get through an entire speech without condoms and Christopher Hitchens but we got them at the end but that that is not what the Catholic Church is about it isn't only about the physical relief of the poor it isn't only a the work it does on earth but it is the message that it preaches and that message is one of hope that message is one of salvation and it is all very well for some people in their intellectual arrogance to say we didn't do it at that but actually billions of people across the world live by that message of hope and of salvation they try to live by the commandments and also by the interpretation of those Commandments by Christ yeah sometimes they fail sometimes their leaders fail human beings do fail but overwhelmingly I say to you tonight with no apology or ever that a world without the Catholic Church would be poor earth would be more hopeless and would be a worse place in which to live [Applause] [Music] [Applause] well thank you very much indeed Ann Widdecombe and our final speaker is against the motion Stephen Fry a bit of an all-rounder really Stephen can turn his hand to many things Stephen let's hear your view see how well you do in the popularity stakes with people in the Vatican [Applause] [Applause] 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 marshal 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 no argument and I wish to express no contempt for individual devout and pious members of that church it would be impertinent and wrong on 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 sacrosanct as much as any article of faith is sacrosanct to anyone of any church or any faith in the world it's very important it's also very important to me as it happens that I have my own beliefs they are belief in the Enlightenment their belief in the eternal adventure of trying to discover moral truth in the world and there is nothing sadly that the Catholic Church and it's higher works 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 Copernican theory of the universe 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 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 it Thomas More 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 the 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 it's perhaps unfair of me as a gay man to moan that this enormous institution which is the largest and most powerful Church on earth has over a billion if they like to tell us members each one of whom is under strict instructions to believe the dogmas of the church but may wrestle with them personally of course it's hard for me to be told that 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 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 is nice [Applause] the kind of cruelty in Catholic education the kind 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 [Applause] 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 there was a period when Uganda had the worst incidence of hiv/aids in the world but through an amazing initiative called ABC abstinence be faithful correct use of condoms those three I'm 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 incidence of AIDS he actually makes sure that Aid is conditional on saying no to condoms I have been to there's a hospital in the Windy 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 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 anorexic and the morbidly obese and that in erotic terms is the Catholic Church in a nutshell [Applause] [Applause] do you know who would be the last person ever to be accepted as the Prince of the church the Galilean carpenter that Jew they would pick him out before he tried to cross the threshold he would be so ill at ease in the church what would he think what would he think of sin Peters what would he think of the wealth and the power and the self-justification and the weeding apologies [Applause] the Pope could decide that all this power all this wealth this hierarchy of princes and bishops and Archbishop's and priests and monks and nuns could be sent out in the world with money and art treasures to put the back in the countries that they once raped and violated 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 thank you well Stephen Fry thank you very much so you've heard all our four speakers it's gonna be your turn the audience next and I'll give you a couple of minutes to think about what you want to ask our panelists any questions or comments you may wish to make because I'm going to give you now the results of that vote that you all gave when you were coming in here to central hall the motion is the catholic church is a force for good in the world in favor of the motion were 678 against the motion that the catholic church is a force for good was 1102 big difference however three hundred and forty six of you were undecided so Archbishop and Ann Widdecombe you're going to have to not over win over the undecided but actually convert some from the other side let's see if we can sway any opinions here amongst all of you by listening to some points that you wish to raise with the panel and then we're going to ask you to vote again now put your hand up if you want to speak a question the lady with the spectacles here I would like to ask mr. Hutchins if he is only against the Catholic Church or against all religions okay go back there lady in the pink hi there and this is a question for Christopher Hitchens many people today feel that we're really living in some kind of moral crisis and you can see that all around us now if one thing the Catholic Church does do for good in my opinion is give us the Ten Commandments a very basic obvious way of giving us some kind of moral guidance would you not agree with that the lady in front began by asking me do I reserve this condemnation only for the Holy Roman Church and not for other Catholics for example I presume time Catholics and Protestants and so on I think they're all the same equivalent glimpses of the identical untruth now of the commandments the first two or three are entirely about fearing the author of the orders entirely about being terrified of someone who you're enjoying to love I don't know about you ladies and gentlemen but the idea of compulsory love has always struck me as a bit shady especially if you're in you're ordered to love someone who you absolutely must fear so the first three are look out for me and keep at least one day of my way or be terrified full time and Widdecombe 10 commandments firm bedrock of moral teaching I would afford it quite obvious that the Ten Commandments set out a blueprint for a moral and successful society let us just look at some of them honor thy father and thy mother think of today's disrespect thou shalt not steal thou shalt not kill thou shalt not commit adultery and thou shalt not covet tell that to the bankers with their bonuses okay want to come in briefly on this the Ten Commandments I am the Bible but my father knew it before he became a Christian all Africa religious recognized those basic norms of morality everybody knows that [Music] let's take some more questions from the floor okay this is a very simple question for Ann Widdecombe you might think it may be a naive question if so I'd be very happy to be educated why is it wrong for a woman to become a priest but perfectly acceptable for a woman such as yourself to become an MP okay [Applause] [Music] and raised the point regarding the billions that are poured into Africa I respect your faith I respect the message you give but why to pass that message on do you need the finery that you wear do you need the palace of the Vatican okay point mate I think we're going to go here Archbishop of which current Roman Catholic policy are you most ashamed I [Applause] [Music] don't know whether you are serious in that question or you just want to provoke because if it all our Catholic policies and I just dreamt overnight by the Pope or anybody if it is a Catholic policy it is reasonable it is but it is based on our traditions and scriptures and there's none about which I'm ashamed and the other question about and I don't know what billions of that he says the Vatican as the builders of this world I think are not in the Vatican we know where they are and they are not coming to Africa on the contrary Africa has been sucked dry by those people those multinationals they are the ones who should be bringing them our money back to us yeah I think we are we are targeted the wrong place I come from Africa and the funds come from church agencies for us are very important and one specific question to you why not women priests in the Catholic Church well no the specific question was why is it not right for a woman to be a priest but it is for a woman to be an MP that's a specific question right and I have to say to you I mean that really does betray a vast ignorance a member of parliament male or female does not stand in Persona Christi at the point of consecration but I don't believe that it is any more possible for a woman to represent Christ at the point of consecration than for a man to be the Virgin Mary okay thanks lots of lots of hands up and I really do want to go around everybody's step panel if you could keep your responses to the point as much as you can up there please question to Stephen Fry I'm a gastly but I like you a lot about I don't know that the catholic church condemns almost sexuality as such only recommend chastity for everybody I think if I am not married I should be chaste either I am homosexual or heterosexual okay all right thank you now hi question who and where it commercially you accused Christopher Hitchens of judging the Catholic Church by the standards of the time but surely the truths in your doctrines are either eternal or they're not [Applause] Stephen Fry the question about the Catholic Church doesn't condemn homosexuality that question asked it simply does it does condemn it yes it calls it the official word is disorder but it was refined by the current pontiff Ratzinger who called it a moral evil but on the other hand we must remember as the point that was made is that the church is very loose on moral evils because although they try to accuse people like me and believe in me empiricism and the Enlightenment of some how what they call moral relativism as if it's some appalling sin where what actually means is thought they they for example thought that slavery was perfectly fine absolutely ok and then they didn't and what is the point of the Catholic Church of it says well we couldn't know better because nobody else did you just clarify for us on this thing about homosexuality the Catholic Church condemns the act but not the individual did Jesus Christ himself actually say anything about homosexuality that is the wrong question in this regard no because no because we we are not aware about homosexuality the morality of homosexuality being a matter that drew the attention of Jesus but Jesus subtly spoke about about the ten commandments and adultery and I do not think we should deny the church the rights to propound its own doctrines you are not obliged to tip it that's amore from the floor and then we'll come come our life is based on the life of Jesus Christ not on emotion or based on the worldly the way the world is going so I thank all the people who are listening and they I think the message we are getting here we need us to live a good life okay thanks let's get to some more comments okay we are perfectly clean I spent 38 years of my life is to Catholic and then I saw the light and my life now is going back and forth to Africa and next month I go to Uganda and I'm working on trying to stop mother's dying in pregnancy and childbirth what I'm saying is please please reverse the rule on condoms and Family Planning and contraception and save lives [Applause] [Applause] let's keep us moving briefly please as a Catholic I'm actually very pleased to be here this evening to hear two sides of a very important argument and the positive thing I take aways the Catholic Church can take the opportunity to reflect upon these comments and that we look for the future and it's by actually accepting these comments and by looking for a way forward that the church can actually grow and have a more important part of the world alright thank you and what I propose is this you've heard the points that are raised some of them are comments some of them were questions you're going to have a few minutes to make your closing statements please incorporate these questions that you heard in your closing statements because audience I want you to vote again now for those of you who are watching at home if you'd like a brief in brooklet on some of those issues that you've heard raised today then please go to WWE and you can download that booklet anybody can do it in it's absolutely free okay so everybody's doing that so while you're all doing that it's gonna take a little bit of time we're going to hear the closing statements incorporating some of the points that you the audience raised and we're going to do it in reverse order this time and it's it's going to be Stephen Fry first well it's been a really interesting debate and I've got some of the questions from the floor and I suppose I'm slightly disappointed that and waiting in particular should say oh I knew they'd bring up condoms and child rape and Thomas Xu ality it's a bit like a burglar in court so you would bring up that burglary and that you never mentioned the fact I'd give my father a birthday present yes yes are you getting the message there is a reason we hammer home these issues because they matter there's such an opportunity owning a billion souls at baptism it's such an opportunity to do something remarkable to make this planet better and it's an opportunity that is constantly and arrogantly being avoided and I'm sorry for that final statements from Conservative MP and Widdecombe for the motion that the Catholic Church is our force for good in the world right we have heard all the usual stuff about how the Catholic Church being against condoms has apparently caused untold misery as I've said our opponents always try to home in on sex when the teachings of the church which are after all only about the stability of family the maintenance of fidelity the virtue of chastity when the church teaches that as one part of all it's teaching I do sometimes despair at the way that these debates always always come back to that so I'm very pleased to have been here tonight despite the fact that I think the incoming poll was slightly discouraging I'm very pleased to have been here to have been here with the archbishop and with the two gentlemen opposite and thank you for the opportunity [Applause] [Music] [Music] against the motion unanswered questions amazing no wonder where they asked repeatedly would say whether they thought Stephen Fry my friend was in a state of mortal sin or not they wouldn't tell you something about the question brought out there in a coward well I say that homosexuality is not just a form of sex it's a form of love when it deserves our respect for that reason that if when I when my children were young I'd have been proud to have Stephen as their babysitter and I told them they were lucky and if anyone came to my door as a babysitter wearing hurry orders I'd call first a cab and then the police final statement from our final speaker Archbishop of Abuja John Ania Kane you've got to make your final pitch now to the audience thank you very much I just want to draw the attention of the audience back to the topic and the topic is quite clear the catholic church is a force for good in the world it did not say it is the only source for good it is not say it has always been a source for good is not in the past nurses in the present tense is a source for good I can I still have not seen how they have in any way shown that the Catholic Church is not a force for good in the world I can say all kinds of things about other people but I think it is fair enough that then when it comes to what does the church say about condoms what they say about homosexuality what does we say about women please we need to take the trouble to find find out exactly what it is say not what the newspapers are saying that we are saying we never said that the Catholic Church is perfect we'll continue to do our best to be as close as we can to Jesus Christ and his what he wants us to be and to constantly be a force for good in the world and I thank you [Applause] audience you've all voted again now the moment of truth panel let me remind everybody that before the debate when everybody came in this is how you voted for the motion that the Catholic Church is a force for good in the world 678 against the motion 1102 and the undecideds the do't knows were 346 this is how you voted subsequently for the motion that the catholic church is a force for good from 678 it's gone to 268 [Applause] i'm sorry against the motion it's now 1876 and you can see that doesn't leave very many don't knows it's 34 undecided so commiserations Archbishop and Anglican congratulations Stephen frying Christopher Hitchens thank you for me Zeynep Atari good bye [Applause] [Music]

Channel: Intelligence Squared

Views: 112,600

Rating: 4.7735353 out of 5

Keywords: Stephen fry, Christopher Hitchens, Ann Widdecombe, John Onaiyekan, Religion, Catholic Church, Africa, Pope, Vatican, Catholicism, Church, AIDS, Thomas More, History, Zeinab Badawi, Debate, Controversy, Uganda, condoms, Homosexuality, Archbishop

Id: kwP4C5hjo4Y

Length: 46min 44sec (2804 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 20 2013