Is Catholicism a Force for Good: A debate

This is an interesting debate and I will leave comments to a minimum. First, Catholic Archbishop john Onaiyekan pretty much ignores the topic under discussion. Next Christopher Hitchens rips into Catholicism and rips into it well and good. Next a Right-wing, exMP, Ann Widdecombe, comes on to try to defend Catholicism. I must confess she has the most grating, irritating voice I've heard in a long time. This woman could torture kittens merely by speaking. She pretty much ignores what Hitchens noted and points to minor incidents contrary to what Hitchens said. So while Hitchens speaks of centuries of church approved anti-Semitism, which helped create the Holocaust, Widdecombe ignores the millions killed and mentions a few thousand who Catholics helped saved. Fine, but add up the numbers. Widdecombe pretends that the attacks on children, by priests of her faith, were ignored by everyone. Not so. In fact when these cases were being investigated the Catholic church actually tried to hide the rapists and protect them from those attempting to stop the rapes. Finally, Stephen Fry makes his case in defense of the Enlightenment and in opposition to theology and he doesn't leave the Catholics much weasel room either. I'm biased but the quality of the debate was clearly on just one side. Enjoy it. The Catholic church deserves the debate. This is about one hour, five videos.

The audience was polled in advance and 678 people said the church was a force for good, prior to the debate while 1102 said it was not a force for good and 346 were undecided. Apparently I wasn't the only one who thought Hitchens and Fry mopped up the floor with the Catholic apologists. The vote afterwards was 1862 against the motion and 268 in favor. About two-thirds of those defending Catholicism abandoned that defense. For the record my grandmother, to whom I was very close, was a devout Catholic. So I'm not against Catholics per se, but very much opposed to Catholicism and the Church.