Stephen Fry about the catho...

While I am not Catholic, I don't like this man's self-righteous attitude.

- History does matter
When people err in the past, admit those errors, and move on, there should be forgiveness. Clearly, this man may not be as "enlightened" as he claims to be, since there seems to be little forgiveness in his heart. History has it's place, but today does matter more than history, and this man has an issue with forgiveness, which discolors his entire discourse.

- Indulgences
Money ensuring entrance to heaven, as he said, was now irrelevant, so it should never have been brought up. The exploitation of such a dramatic emotional argument demonstrates a lack of "enlightenment". He should have chosen rational arguments instead of "irrelevant" emotional arguments.

- salvation
The Catholic Church has made movements in my lifetime to indicate that salvation is not only within it's 4 walls. He is incorrect in this statement.

- male priesthood
He said this was dogmatic, but it is not, it is scriptural. People in positions of authority (Deacons) should be the "husband of one wife" and the scripture discusses how it is better to "not be married" when dealing with the service of people. (This is not to exclude married ministers, I do believe the Catholics err here, but this speaker errored twice.)

- worldly priests, snobby, etc.
It seems like he fits this bill correctly. He acts snobby, has a worldly dress , and acts more self-righteous than any priest I had ever met.

- owners of the truth
Stephen Fry criticizes the Catholic Church like he owns exclusivity of The Truth.

- alignment of Catholic and Islamic world against Women's Choice
Let's rephrase the comment to indicate that the Catholic Church and Islamic world was against the premeditated murder of unborn humans? Perhaps being against murder of humans, who are not even able to defend themselves, is somewhat "enlightened"?
So, if a woman has the choice to kill her human child, depending on the age, and if she is housing it in her uterus... in the Islamic world, when a man houses his wife and children, should he have the right to murder them?
Does a man have no right to his genetic offspring since he is half procreator? Should a man no longer be held fiscally responsible, since the woman had a chance to abort their child and chose not to?
No matter where you land on this topic, there are thorny consequences to the position.

- former practicing male priests abusing younger male children
The speaker did not seem to like the church's position on same-gender preferring priests not practicing in the ministry - because he preferred same gender sexual interactions. It is undeniable that if a priest did not have same gender sexual preferences that the documented cases would not have happened

- same-gender sexual intercourse a moral evil
The speaker seemed to complain that he did not like the Catholic Church dogma that the behavior is a moral evil. Discussing how he did not like the Pope speaking this. It is more than "dogma", however - it is written in scripture over and over again, including in the New Testament. One such writing:
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans+1:25-27&version=NIV
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Corinthians+6:8-10&version=NIV

- Same gender sexual actors don't need the stigmatization
In the Islamic word, they would kill him in a heartbeat, because that is what is to be done under Islamic Law.
Disassociation is the only path that the believers are given in order to deal with those who are actively engaged in sexual perversion. It is a little something that free societies have, called Freedom of Speech and Association - denying that the any Church has it is not "enlightened", rather it is authoritarian.
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Corinthians%205:9&version=NIV

- calling out individuals who are refusing to repent from their sins is "not nice"
Well, I guess this speaker is "not nice" with his discourse about the Catholic Church. Hypocrite.

- celibacy with priests and nuns is not "normal"
Ironic that he says this, neither is same-gender intercourse preferring behavior. Ultimately, participation in such activities by people like himself result in medical disorders (ripping of another's colon, spreading of disease, keeping another woman in sexual desire for a mate, never experiencing biological procreation, or failing to be faithful forever to his natural female mate, plus plenty of other discussion items.)

- people are celibate are "extrordinarily sexually disfunctional"
Plenty of people (unmarried, widows, widowers, students, elderly, etc.) are celibate. A same-gender sexually preferring individual calling someone who is not engaging in sexual activity is calling the one who abstains "sexually disfunctional"??? LOL! What an absolute hypocrite!

- 3 documentary films of AIDS in Africa and call for condoms
How about identifying that the outbreak of AIDS tracked vaccines in Africa? I am not one of these followers of American President Barack Obama's old minister or Nation of Islam who preach the "White Man" created AIDS to kill the "Black Man", but after speaking with people conducting vaccinations and seeing how impossible it was to keep nurses from re-using needles between patients, Stephen Fry should have been complaining about vaccination needles. The same patterns for hepatitis followed the Nile in Egypt during vaccinations, by the way. This guy has sexual disfunction on the brain, and can't seem to break away from it in his rant!

OK - 15 minutes into it, I couldn't take it any more. Completely hypocritical, uninformed, accusatory, and obsessed with sexual function of other people, at a fault to understanding the realities in the world!

He is lucky he is not in one of the 30% of the world's Islamic societies - he would be killed. The other 30% of the world which he criticizes merely dislike his behavior - yet criticism is so much worse than his own death.