I'm a little late on writing about this debate. In fact I had completely forgotten about it until recently when I was speaking with my mother-in-law about the Catholic Church and it's impact upon the world. I think the conversation had been kicked off with my announcement of my recent submission of the form Declaration of Defection to the head of my local diocese. I mentioned the debate which was carried out last year in London and at the time of the conversation I could only remember Ann Widdecombe and Stephen Fry's names. But the other members were the Archbishop John Onaiyekan and Christopher Hitchens.
The debate was kicked off by the Archbishop John Onaiyekan who came across as a very friendly and warm individual who told the audience that if he didn't believe that the Catholic Church was a force for good he wouldn't have dedicated his entire life to it. He believed it and lived it and to all intents and appearances he certainly appeared so. It wasn't the greatest argument and certainly if I was on the unsure table I wouldn't have been swayed by his argument.
Next up came Christopher Hitchens who put forward a well researched argument citing various examples of the atrocities carried out by the Catholic Church. He started off by talking about the previous Pope who had during his reign made various apologies to the various groups and countries his church had tortured, murdered, raped and pillaged throughout history. One such example was the indigenes people from South America who were forced to convert to the Catholic Church by the church at that time, yet this apology was undermined by the statement from another representative of the church who said that those people were in a state of waiting for the Catholic Church to convert them. His statement goes on to highlight the areas where apologies were still waiting such as the child rapes and cover ups. He went on and on citing examples of how the Catholic Church was certainly not a force for good in this world.
The next speaker was Ann Widdecombe. This is a lady who left the Church of England in 1993 to join the Roman Catholic Church in protest of the decision to allow women to become priests. She is also, as most of us living here in the UK know, a Conservative MP. She obviously believes that women deserve equality when it comes to certain seats of power but not within religion. She stood to give her angle on the debate and to be fair on her she tried to give a forceful and strong argument to Hitchens words. She initially discusses the references he made to the historical atrocities carried out by the Catholic Church and appears to brush it to one side by saying that they were carried out during a time when such activities were commonplace and acceptable. She goes on to say how much good and money the Catholic Church have donated to the poor and hungry throughout the developing world. She also claims that the child abuse cases that occurred within the Catholic Institutions were not alone the responsibility of the Church. They were also the responsibility of those in power within the Government and Social Services. There was not the legal powers and statutes around in those days that investigated such incidents apparently.
Stephen Fry was the final speaker who spoke against the motion. He was patently obvious very nervous yet his passion and belief in this topic was additionally obvious. He spoke of the damage that the church had done to people such as him. The belief of the Catholic Church that all homosexual activity is inherently evil. As he mentioned embrace the sinner not the sin. He also believed that if he approached the Catholic Church now he would be speaking with a well educated man who would laugh and smile and possibly smoke and tell him to ignore those silly little suspicions spoken of when discussing the Catholic Church. They would not interfere and happily welcome him. But as he mentioned, it would be a very different story if he was poor and ignorant. The church would interfere and intervene in all aspects of his life - telling him how to live his life. The example he cited here was the groups that Widdecombe had mentioned in her speech. Some of these groups he had visited in Uganda and he had been informed that their funding would be stopped if they were found to be telling people to use condoms during intercourse or even providing condoms. He also spoke of the Priests and Nuns who were on trial within Rwanda for inciting hatred and the genocide. But this was not mentioned by the Catholic Church. He concluded his talk with statistics of the numbers of suicides amongst young people, specifically young gay men, and how attitudes towards homosexuality espoused by the Catholic Church contributed towards these numbers.
The speakers finished, it was now the opportunity for the audience to put their questions to the speakers. First the poll taken of the views of the audience were given to the speakers. Questions were asked of the audience as they arrived of their position: for, against or unsure. The numbers were as follows:
For: 678
Against: 1102
Unsure: 346
As you can see there was already a strong number of people against the motion. But as the speakers were reminded, this question and answer session provided them with the opportunity to strengthen their numbers as the poll would be repeated as the end of the session.
A gentleman in the audience spoke of his recent visit to a UN Council on Human Rights in Geneva. He said that he had put to the UN council the fact that the Holy See has broken five articles of the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child. Just one of those, he says, is that the Catholic Church is meant to produce annual reports and they are twelve years behind in doing so. He wrapped up his point with the statement that the Church did not deny breaking five articles of the UN Convention Rights of the Child on Child Abuse.
Part of the reply from the Bishop contained the following statement: "As for the defence of children, taking care of children, I think we don't have to go to the UN to learn about that."
One of the other audience members was a lady who asked Christopher Hitchens if he reserved his beliefs for the Catholic Church or was it all religions.
He replied with the example, first brought up by Widdecombe of how the Catholic Church gave money to the poor, and of other religious groups such as the Mormons and the Muslims had used their work abroad and/or at home to help the poor and needy as an example of how good they were to the world. Yet there were groups such as MSF and Amnesty who did such good works but did it without proselytising, they did it because it was a good thing to do.
There were further questions and answers to the speakers and finally it was finished and the poll repeated. The results were:
For: 268
Against: 1876
Unsure: 34
A resounding success to Hitchens and Fry and a cold wake up to Bishop Onaiyekan and Widdecombe.
I spoke with my partner about this debate and he mentioned one very pertinent point. When the Catholic Church was asked if anyone would be interested in debating against the likes of Hitchens and Fry do you suppose that most of their people recoiled in horror and the knowledge that they would be subject to humiliation? The only people foolish enough to stand up for the motion were one newly converted and hence still passionate about the church and a bishop who didn't know of either of his opponents?
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