Stephen Fry gives a moving speech about the Catholic Church; and more specifically, why it isn’t a good thing
Stephen Fry is a well-known English actor, writer and media personality. If you are an Anglophile, you might recall the very funny TV series ‘Jeeves and Wooster’, based on P.G. Wodehouse’s hilarious novels and played by Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie respectively, the latter of TV Dr. House fame. Besides that, Stephen Fry has written four novels, regularly appears on TV panel games, writes columns for newspapers and magazines, has a huge following on Twitter, and is the reader of all seven Harry Potter novels in audio version.
He very courageously accepted being diagnosed with bipolar disorder and has also made public that he is gay. He is an outspoken and daring man who opposes organized religion. However, a year ago he said, “Sometimes belief means credulity, sometimes an expression of faith and hope which even the most skeptical atheist such as myself cannot but find inspiring.”
A little later he successfully participated in a debate at the Methodist Church in London Westminster together with Christopher Hitchens (author of ‘God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything’), as speakers against the motion ‘The Catholic Church is a force for good in the world’.
Speakers for the motion were Archbishop John Onaiyekan: Roman Catholic Archbishop of Abuja, Nigeria, and Rt Hon Ann Widdecombe MP: Conservative MP and Catholic convert. The video embedded here shows the unedited riveting speech by Stephen Fry which is spirited, honest, and to the point.
Together with 54 other public figures, he signed an open letter published in ‘The Guardian’, stating their opposition to Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to the United Kingdom being a state visit, and was recently made a Distinguished Supporter of the British Humanist Association. He commented, “It is essential to nail one’s colours to the mast as a humanist.”
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