Stephen Fry & the Catholic Church

I enjoyed his speach and I align myself with his opinions. I'm not a fan of religions in general.

Cheers, Sue

What a wonderful speech, eloquent, genuine and not 'anti-religion'...well done Mr Fry. I share his conerns about Uganda as I have spent lots of time there myself. The repressive anti-homosexual legislation being pushed through parliament there at the moment is another symptom of Catholic religiosity (although this isn't the only influence) in the country.

Thank you for sharing this Reiki Pixie I really enjoyed it.
Much appreciated
Linda x

I'm practically speechless. Awesome! I wish so much I could be this articulate.

Hi

Glad you all enjoyed the video and was moved by Fry's progressive stance.

Best Wishes

RP

Only just found time to watch this. Wow what an awsome speach, So well put by Mr Fry

Thanks for this find

Only just found time to watch this. Wow what an awsome speach, So well put by Mr Fry

Thanks for this find

I agree wholeheartedly. He puts the information so eloquently - it's worth watching again! His mastery of words is something all speakers should aspire to! Thank you for posting and thank you Stephen Fry for putting his thoughts so well!

I confess I shut it off after awhile; eloquent though Mr Fry is I found it to be rather tiring.

It's a curious thing with me that the recent controversies within the Catholic church have forced me into deeper thought about what it means to be a Catholic. I was raised in the church, and although I've branched out in terms of spirituality it still has value to me. While there certainly is much to be critical or even outraged about in the church, I think what is often missing from these arguments is the faith of the people of the church itself. The church is more than a 'few old men' hanging out in the Vatican. And we aren't a bunch of mindless drones who are incapable of questioning the faith.

There is an incredible beauty and strength to be found in the church, and a focus on social justice and human dignity, something which no doubt makes its detractors scoff. Which is not to say by any means that the church or its followers are perfect, clearly not. But trying to portray Catholicism as some sort of Medieval relic is likewise untrue; it is a living, vibrant spirituality. And the thousands of quiet good works of clergy and lay people likewise seem to get brushed aside in the debates.

Hi Tapestry

Stephen Fry at the beginning of the video stated that it wasn't an attack on individual members of the church or their spiritual practices, it was highlighting some the negative aspects of the organised Roman Catholic Church, and some of the unprogressive Abrahamic faith's attitudes to modern social problems.

Best Wishes

RP

It was hard to disagree with anything Fry said. He was focussing upon the (obvious and maybe often not obvious) negatives within the Catholic Church. It doesn't demean any of the wonderful saints throughout the centuries, or the simple (so-called) folk of good faith. But his eloquence was devastating: I had to mentally pull back and try to figure out if I agreed with his facts, rather than just be carried away with such an amazing speech which may have been more words than substance. But no, all the substance was there too. (And thanks for posting it!).

BTW: here's an HP quiz. If we believe in reincarnation, whom is Venetian pretty darned convinced that Stephen Fry was in his past life? (Pretty obvious! 🙂 .) I'll come back and reply in a week or so: doesn't mean I'm right, but I think it stares us in the face.

V

Hi V, I have watched this video several times and I agree with you it does have substance. Reincarnation of whom? You don't mean that well know Victorian playright?

Hi Everybody, one of the people who brought this video to my attention has sent me the following email:

I’ve just received an email from a personal contact of mine who upon watching the Stephen Fry video was brought to tears. As a child he was a victim of sexual abuse at the hands of those warped psychotic minds. He told me that for the first time in his life he felt like he had a VOICE because somebody important had stood up for him and said so eloquently what he had struggled to say. He was so moved by the video that he has put it on his website and I was so moved by his email that I have done the same thing and formed a Facebook group entitled Support for Stephen Fry’s opinion on Catholicism.

Best Wishes

RP

Just to throw the opposing argument into the mix. Here is Anne Widdecombe speaking at the same debate in defence (if that's the right word) of the Catholic faith. I felt, particularly as she is a politician, and is presumably used to arguing her case, that this was all extrememly unconvincing.

Well, for the sake of a balanced debate here is more Annie:

Deleted post. Not because I was flaming or anything of the sort, just I get the feeling that my opinion is in the minority here and I don't feel like wasting emotional energy defending something that is important to me, especially with those who aren't likely to agree anyway. Sorry, everyone.

Hi Tapestry,

I note that you "shut off" the video of Stephen Fry, so I suppose that means you didn't hear it all and it was not music to the ears? Lest I come across sounding like an adversary, I nearly "shut it off" as well. I felt I was being subjected to eloquence, not facts. But I kept thinking, and the facts were all there, and my main religion TBH is Truth and none other. (I should state I am not a Catholic.)

I have immense respect and love for many Catholic saints. They are not just idols or little pictures to have in my wallet to me: Padre Pio lived within my own lifetime, and could heal, bi-locate, etc. There's St. John of the Cross, the female saints, St, Francis (two of them actually, equally astonishing, but one is better-known).

What I pick up upon reading, as I have done for decades, about the lives of these so-magnificent men and women within the Church is that they had to succeed only by opposing it. They came either to reform the Catholic church, or they were kind of always a bit outcast. Yet these are the greatest figure-heads the church has had since Christ. What does that tell us about the institution itself? I feel that Stephen Fry, in words, unleashes a power that can alter institutions.

I once received a regular Catholic periodical, and as a series it gave the lives of every pope since the beginning, in a few paragraphs as there have been many of them. I couldn't believe it, to read how many lasted only months or a year or two - for reasons of the next successor poisening them, murder by the successor, intrigue, etc. I read this 30 years ago and remember thinking, "If I wanted a long life, I wouldn't then have been a pope!" So something is rotten in the state of Vatican.

I was once married to someone now deceased who personally had known John Paul II before he became Pope. Apparently (I heard through his Polish friends), he arrived in the Vatican and used to regularly telephone home to his Polish friends, needing moral support and appalled at the depravity and intrigue he had moved into. Apart from the politics, even the ornate and large bathrooms are engraved in pornographic scenes, I'm told. What has this to do with Christ?

Rather than fully attack the Catholic faith, were I Catholic, I'd do as did St. Francis and St. Clare, and form my own branch within it, away from Jesuits etc, etc.

V

I'm in a slightly less irritable mood than I was last night; I think the heat's getting to me.

The reason I tuned Fry out wasn't down to any reason of truth or lack of it, rather I just had the feeling I'd heard all this before. Being Catholic you can't turn around without being reminded of how backwards/evil/oppressive your religion is, generally followed by the tag "but that doesn't apply to *you* of course." Taking shots at the church is easy, and I'm the first to admit the church hands out enough of its own ammo.

But the question was whether the church does good in the world, and perhaps naively I think it does. I've seen first hand how the strength of faith motivates people to do good. I went to a Jesuit university and I was always impressed at how much they focused on critical thinking and ethics. The church is involved in a vast amount of charity work across the world, and frequently speaks out against exploitation and other social problems.

What impresses me most about Catholicism is it's devotion to life. Life is sacred, and every life has value. It's life in the basic sense, but also in the freedom of every person to live a life free from tyranny and violence. And while I can't always agree with their application of that, in a world that often seeks to denegrate and turn people into numbers I think this concept is fundamentally important. If anything though I think the church is somewhat naive in the application of it's beliefs. For example, the church says the best way to halt the AIDS epidemic is through abstinence and marital fidelity. Overly optimistic perhaps, but hard to argue with in prinicple.

There are many currents in Catholicism, some subtle, some overt. It is possibly the largest church in the world and as with any large group it can be hard to label. Some members are conservative, others liberal. I have no problem in criticising the church, and I'm sure many Catholics feel the same. We're not blind to the problems. But speaking just for myself I often get angered at how one-sided the portrayals tend to be. Where are the good stories? What about the millions of ordinary Catholics, priests, nuns, etc who go about their lives, trying to do some good? Like with anything though, the good stuff never makes the headlines.

The church has changed a great deal even in the past generation and I'm sure it will continue to change. But it's important to remember the church isn't a monolith, some borg-like entity that speaks with one voice. It's a worldwide community, and at the end of the day the church is its members, not its heirarchy. Of course there is always the 'official line' from the top, but in practice most Catholics follow their own conscience.

tapestry,

Much has been written here, including by me, about how Stephen Fry was so eloquent. May I just say that your post is amazingly eloquent too? Without such wonderful wording, the points may not have got across. A super post, IMHO.

V

Oh, thank you. 😮 I'm glad I managed to get my thoughts across. Sometimes they get a bit muddled!

Edit: Just for anyone who may be curious, I found these articles about Catholic teaching to be interesting. I don't necessarily agree with everything expressed but I thought they do well in explaining Catholic beliefs, which are often misinterpreted.

Wikipedia is actually quite a good source of articles and issues surrounding Catholicism.

Hi Tapestry,

I’ve been silent up to now as I have a lot on at the moment and hadn’t found the time to watch Stephen Fry, or look up your links, but I have now.

To me, it had shadows of the television documentary by Richard Dawkins, titled “The Root of all Evil?” a few years ago. I felt so incensed then, with the biased and one-dimensional aspect of that, that I instantly wrote a thread:

Dawkins started that documentary off showing pilgrims at Lourdes and, as I wrote:

I felt last night that it was very sad that he had to put those dear people at Lourdes into a programme with evil in its title. They are not mass killers. What evil goes on at Lourdes?

I have to say that in comparison, Stephen Fry was far more balanced and respectful!

While I do not agree with the theology of the Catholic church, or how some individuals have interpreted it, (or covered up wrong doing), let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water. To only focus on what is wrong is ignoring all the good that there is, which you have so eloquently described and as Venetian also said, especially with the individual followers. Stephen Fry insisted that history had to be taken into account, well, what about the contribution to the world and religious understanding, of the many saints – Venetian described Francis of Assisi for one. It is also ignoring the fact that changes are finally coming, purification is coming.

I can only speak from personal experience. As many people know, I work in a Christian Science bookshop where we are also there to answer questions or to talk through people’s concerns. Again and again, those members of the public who have an open, unbiased thought (which sadly, you will never find in a fundamentalist Protestant Christian) are practicing or former Catholics. I have also found this on HP. There is a love of and trust in God which is beautiful in its simplicity. All the Catholics I’ve been friends with, or have met through work or HP, have this same quality of goodness, honesty, open-ness, inquiry, non-judgementalism and above all, a love of the Bible and a great desire to draw closer to God.

A faith system that produces such good and decent people cannot be all bad!

Love and peace,

Judy

PS Venetian, I assume you think Stephen Fry is a reincarnation of Shakespeare? 😉

Hi Judy, thank you for your lovely words! I put those links up partly because of Fry's comments on Galileo and the Enlightenment. One thing that always particularly got me was when people assumed the church is anti-science.

I watched the video in full (must have been about halfway through before) and I can't say my opinion has changed. While nothing Stephen says is strictly untrue, he does present a rather one-sided opinion.

For starters, I found his reliance on history to be dangerous rhetorically speaking. Yes, the church has been responsible for many atrocities throughout its history. But what of Britain's own persecution of Catholics? Is that to be overlooked? Or of Britain's crimes they inflicted on their colonies? One could use the same argument to state that Britain isn't a force for good in the world, or that America is evil because they slaughtered the Indians, bombed Hiroshima and invaded Iraq. I know he did qualify it by marginally putting it in the past, but you could tell it was an issue for him.

His discussion on the sex abuse scandal was certainly more relevant. I have read about studies that showed that priests were no more likely to sexually abuse children than any other group. The true issue is the culture of secrecy, of the desire to keep things within the church that went on for so long. It is shameful and I strongly hope the church has learned from this.

I could be wrong, but I don't think the church actually says that condoms can't prevent aids. What they fear is that use may lead to promescuity, and thusly a greater chance of contracting an infection. They also point out (rightly) that condoms aren't a 100% guarantee of not getting infected. I don't agree with the church on this one, simply because human nature being what it is, people are going to have extra-marital sex. Hopefully if they do, they'll put on a condom.

His comments regarding homosexuality also weren't entirely accurate. The church official line says that homosexuality is a sin, not that homosexuals are evil. It considers homosexuality to be a 'trial' and says gays should be treated with compassion. It also speaks out strongly against violence against homosexuals. None of which is likely to comfort a gay Catholic who is struggling with their faith and sexuality, I am sure. But it's still a far cry from the "God hates f*gs" attitude you sadly see elsewhere. And as with all issues in the church, there are dissenting voices to be heard.

Like Stephen, I also hope the church will modernise and change in many ways. However, I also can't think that by only focusing on the negative anything will be improved. Catholicism and the Catholic Church are both complex organisms, with many facets that need considering. All in all, he has my thumbs down on this one, which is rather sad because I adore Stephen Fry. 🙁

I just wanted to add a postscript regarding Stephen's comments about a woman's right to control over her body, which might be controversial.

It is true that the church is more concerned about the life of a child rather than a woman's right to choose. However, I cannot disagree with this in principle. While I do think that abortion should be legal, it cannot be escaped that it involves the killing of a human child. It's not something that can be glossed over. And as such I can't fault the church for being against abortion, even if I myself am pro-choice.

And with regards to birth control, it also goes back to the church's respect for life. It does allow for so-called 'natural' birth control methods, like planning sex around a woman's cycle and so on. Again, I don't agree, I have used birth control (and had pre-marital sex). But based within the framework of the church it makes sense, and I can't believe they have this view just because they have no regard for women.

Phew, that is enough from me today!

I put those links up partly because of Fry's comments on Galileo and the Enlightenment. One thing that always particularly got me was when people assumed the church is anti-science.

To my limited understanding, it was the Church (all what we now call Catholic at the time) which was virtually the only foundation for writing, keeping historical records, and for philosophy and learning as Europe emerged from the Dark Ages into Medieval times. It wasn't that any other major Western sources of learning were suppressed so far as I can think of the top off my head (did the Templars keep history and a recorded, developing philosophy that was public?), but rather that the Church was synonymous with learning, writing, and philosophy.

Yes, it became controversial when philosophers, authors, and scientists began - as was needed - to depart from Catholic dogma, but for untold centuries it was the Church which was the centre of learning. Without it, the Dark Ages wouldn't have ended if I understand correctly.

For starters, I found his reliance on history to be dangerous rhetorically speaking. Yes, the church has been responsible for many atrocities throughout its history. But what of Britain's own persecution of Catholics?

Yes, I've often visited Glastonbury, and am reminded of how Henry VIII utterly destroyed that incredible cathedral, along with many others, and with all the wonders and books that they contained.

V

I don't know much about the Templars, other than they probably weren't as mysterious as popular legend suggests. They became too powerful and were virtually eliminated overnight by the Pope in response to political pressure. The stuff of legends was born!

I was thinking too about your earlier comments about the bloody Papal history. Politics in general in the Middle Ages (of which the church was a large part) was a sordid affair, rife with intrigue and assassinations. Fascinating to read about, but certainly not a time I'd choose to live in.

To my limited understanding, it was the Church (all what we now call Catholic at the time) which was virtually the only foundation for writing, keeping historical records, and for philosophy and learning as Europe emerged from the Dark Ages into Medieval times.

The term 'Dark Ages' was first applied to the post Roman era in the Middle Ages and referred originally to the period of decline of Latin literature rather than a period of general cultural deterioration.

It's not often considered to be a time of backwardness by historians any more. As the Roman culture could be marked by material cultural achievement, the post Roman era was marked by a different type of artistic and religious expression. There was little written history but it marked a flowering of beautiful Celtic art and the Celtic Church, Glastonbury being one of its great centres.

Ever since the early middle ages western society has harked back to the Greco-Roman model of society and has used it as a template, anything 'different' has never really matched up.

It wasn't that any other major Western sources of learning were suppressed so far as I can think of the top off my head

As the Roman Church grew in power it imposed it's influence over Celtic christianity until Celtic christianity eventually disappeared. It would be interesting to know what our society would have been like without that reintroduction of Roman influence. Maybe this was inevitable, the Dark Ages being a blip in between Roman military might being replaced by Roman Ecclesiastical might (what have the Romans ever done for us, apart from the roads, law, viaducts... :))

I'm a big fan of Stephen Fry and agree with many of the points he makes in the video. He is an atheist and it's worth remembering that his ideas on religion will be coloured by that attitude, but what he says needs to be said, and in my opinion no-one can say it better. He really is an excellent communicator. At the same time I agree with the excellent points made by Tapestry and Judy in response.

One point Stephen Fry made regarding the Catholic Church rejecting Jesus if he turned up today reminded me of something I read recently that had been said by Sri Shivabalyogi...

Christ is in the form of a yogi. The pope now is in the form of a policeman. His dress and the way he looks, it’s a uniform. Try to look at the attire of Christ and the traditional attire of the pope. The dress of Christ is that of a yogi. The attire, behaviour, and everything else of pope is that of a man who keeps the law of the king, a man who controls the law. Look and find out how a Roman policeman looked say two thousand years ago. You get the point? Yes. The uniform that the pope wears now is not that of the devotees of Christ. It is of that of the representatives of the king at the time.

The worship that you are doing now is more related to the king and not to Christ. You are not worshipping Christ. You are following the orders of the king.

V referred to Padre Pio and Saint Francis who are two heroes of mine. For years, because of his popularity, Padre Pio was banned from saying Mass in public by the Church hierarchy, and after the death of Saint Francis of Assisi his original simple constitution was greatly diluted by Church politicians. Quite often the great saints have only been recognised by the hierarchy after they're safely dead. Politics and spirituality really shouldn't mix.

All religions especially the organized, can be, and are nothing more than a negative good,
and out of negative good spring forth positive evil.
Regards Meta

All religions especially the organized, can be, and are nothing more than a negative good,
and out of negative good spring forth positive evil.

I think this argument needs to be expounded upon for the purposes of clarity, Meta.

Another wise post from Barafundle!

One point Stephen Fry made regarding the Catholic Church rejecting Jesus if he turned up today reminded me of something I read recently that had been said by Sri Shivabalyogi....

It reminded me of these words of Mary Baker Eddy:
[COLOR="Blue"]
If that Godlike and glorified man were physically on earth to-day, would not some, who now profess to love him, reject him? Would they not deny him even the rights of humanity, if he entertained any other sense of being and religion than theirs? (Science and Health 54)

The uniform that the pope wears now is not that of the devotees of Christ. It is of that of the representatives of the king at the time.

I don't know what the uniform of a Roman policeman was, but what I've heard is that when Constantine declared that the whole Roman world was to become Christian, pagan temples became churches and many pagan rituals and festivals were adopted, like for instance, the worship of a Mother-goddess turned into worship of Mary, plus the pagan priests' robes are basically what we have still today. I haven't time to do any research, but it makes sense.

Politics and spirituality really shouldn't mix.

Couldn't agree more!

Love and peace,

Judy

I'm glad BF has brought attention to the term "Dark Ages". Was it really that dark?

I think this argument needs to be expounded upon for the purposes of clarity, Meta.

Barafundle
The reason I did not expound on it, because it would not belong in this forum anymore. therefore I left it as it is.
Regards Meta