Talk:Catholic Church

Which of these quotes should be used from Stephen Fry and South Park?

• Stephen Fry: Aquinas and Augustus of Hippo, both proposed this extraordinary idea that babies who were unbaptised would not know heaven. They also proposed the idea of purgatory which doesn’t exist in The Bible. There’s absolutely no evidence for it. However, what an extraordinary brilliant coup to imagine such a thing as purgatory. That a soul needs to be prayed for, in order to go to heaven. In order to turn left when he enters the aeroplane of heaven and get a first class seat. That, he needs to be prayed for. And many hundreds, indeed over a thousand years, you’ll be amazed what generous terms those prayers came at. Sometimes as little as two thirds of a year’s salary. Could ensure that a dead loved one would go to heaven. And money could ensure that your baby. Your dead child, your dead uncle, your dead mother, could go to heaven. And if you were rich enough, you could have a chantry built and monks would permanently sing prayers so that that existence in heaven for the child would go up and up and up until they were at the table of the Lord themselves.
• Stephen Fry: Anyone ordained here will know they are, er, they have this extraordinary power to change the molecules of wine into blood: literally. To change the molecules of paste bread into flesh: literally. And to forgive the sins of the peasants and the poor whom they routinely exploit around the planet. Only this church has this extraordinary principle that it is through these male priests - and only male priests - that this is given. It is a doctrinal fact. It is more than a doctrinal fact; it is a dogma.
• Stephen Fry: “Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus”. Outside the church, there is no salvation. That is a dogma of the church that has been used to excuse all the missionary zeal. All the rape and torture of the Aztecs and the Incas. All the horrors of South America and Africa and The Phillipines. And the rest of the world. To which other churches and other cultures have also their guilt to admit. It’s not unique to the Catholic Church and I never said it was.
• Stephen Fry: Just imagine in this square mile how many people were burned for reading The Bible in English. And one of the principle burners and torturers of those who tried to read The Bible in English here in London, was Thomas More. You may know if you’ve read the novel, Wolf Hall, which one the Man Booker Prize just the other day. Now, that’s a long time ago, it’s not relevant, except that it was only last century that Thomas More was made a saint, and it was only in the year 2000. That the last pope, the Pole, he made Thomas More the patron saint of politicians. This is a man who put people on the rack for daring to own a Bible in English. He tortured them for owning a Bible in their own language. The idea that the Catholic Church exists to disseminate the word of the Lord is nonsense. It is the only owner of the truth for the billions that it likes to boast about ’cause those billions are uneducated and poor as again, it likes to boast about. But they are the ones it can tell and bully and domineer.
• Stephen Fry: So, Ratzinger, in 2003 he was..he was prefect…(I’m not making this up). He was Prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith. And it was his job to deal with child abuse scandal the was brewing. His first act was to write a letter to the Catholic bishops, ordering them on “pain of excommunication”. NOT to talk to the police or anyone else. ” Investigations should be handled…he wrote and I’m quoting that letter…in the most secretive way restrained by perpetual silence”. The Mexican founder of The Legion of Christ Movement, [Marcial] Maciel Degollado was protected from his own catalogue of child abuse. Which is horrific, “one cannot put on trial so close a friend of the Pope” said Ratzinger. When the allegations could no longer be denied, Marcial was “sentenced” (SENTENCED) to a life of prayer and penitence. And Ratzinger described the whole affair and that of Bernard Law of Boston to which my colleague also referred as ”causing suffering for the Church and for me personally”. He also said that the answer would be to “stop homosexuals from being allowed into the Church”. Now, it’s perhaps unfair of me, as a gay man.
• Stephen Fry: It’s..i.t’s the strange thing about this Church, it is obsessed with sex, absolutely obsessed. Now, they will say, they would say we with our permissive society and our rude jokes are obsessed. No, we have a healthy attitude, we like it, it’s fun, it’s jolly, because it’s a primary impulse it can be dangerous and dark and difficult, it’s a bit like food in that respect only even more exciting. The only people who are obsessed with food are anorexics and the morbidly obese, and that in erotic terms is the Catholic Church in a nutshell!
• Stephen Fry: Do you know who would be the last person ever to be accepted as a Prince of the Church? The Galilean carpenter. That Jew. They would kick him out before he tried to cross the threshold. He would be so ill-at-ease in the Church. That simple and remarkable man, if he said the things that he was said to have said. What would he think...what would he think of St. Peter’s? What would he think of the wealth, and the power, and the self-justification, and the wheedling apologies? (Applause) What would he think of a man who calls himself “the Father”, a celibate, who dares to lecture people on what family values are? What would he think of any of that? He would be horrified.
• Stephen Fry: But there is a solution, there is an answer, there is redemption available for all of us and any one of us, and to the Catholic Church, funny enough I think it is a novel by Morris West, The Pope could decide that all this power, all this wealth, this hierarchy of princess, bishops, archbishops, priests, monks, and nuns could be sent out in the world with money and art treasures, to put them back in the countries that they once raped and violated, whose original systems of animism and belief in simplicity they told them would (tell them) take them straight to hell. They could give that money away, and they could concentrate on the apparent essence of their belief. Then, I would stand here and say the Catholic Church may well be a force for good in the world. But until that day, it is NOT.
• Zeinab Badawi: Okay, Stephen Fry, the question about the Catholic church apparently doesn’t condemn homosexuality, that question asked.

Stephen Fry: Well, I’m afraid it simply does, it does condemn it, yes. It calls it, the official word is a disorder, but it was refined by the current Pontiff, Ratzinger, who called it a moral evil. But on the other hand we must remember, as the point that was made, is that the church is very loose on moral evils, because although they try to accuse people like me, who believe in empiricism and the Enlightenment, of somehow what they call moral relativism, as if it’s some appalling sin, where what it actually means is thought, they for example thought that slavery was perfectly fine, absolutely okay, and then they didn’t. And what is the point of the Catholic church if it says ‘oh, well we couldn’t know better because nobody else did,’ then what are you for?

• • Intelligence² Catholic church debate: Transcript or Intelligence Squared (2014)

• Priest Maxi: Hell is a very real place, Mr. and Mrs. Marsh. I'm trying to save their souls and the souls of everyone in this town from the wretched lake of fire!
• Kyle: [stops by] Hey, dudes. What are you doin'?

Stan: We're trying to remember all our sins. Sister Anne told us we have to confess all our sins or else we're gonna go to hell.

Kyle: Uhwuwhat?

Stan: Have you confessed all your sins yet?

Kyle: No-o-o-o-o!

Cartman: Dude, he's Jewish. He doesn't have to confess his sins.

Kyle: Oh good. I don't?

Cartman: No, you're already going to hell.

Kyle: I am not!

Cartman: You are, too!

Stan: Dude, this lady told us if you don't confess all your sins and you don't eat crackers and drink wine, then you go to hell. Period.

Kyle: I'm gonna go ask my mom!

• Butters: [rushes in with Timmy and Token] Eyou guys! Eyou guys! Uh we just thought of somethin'!

Stan: What, Butters?

Butters: Uhwell, uh what about the handicapped kid, uh-Timmy?

Timmy: Timmiih!

Cartman: What'd we do to Timmy?

Butters: No! I mean, poor Timmy's gonna go to hell! He can't confess his sins, 'cause all he can say is his name!

Timmy: Timmiih!

Cartman: Oh yeah, you're right. I guess Timmy's pretty screwed.

Stan: Oh man, we can't let Timmy go to hell. We have to do something.

• Stan: Come on! This stupid light won't change.

Token: [arrives, followed by Butters, Clyde, and Bebe] Come on! Hurry up! [sees the other three boys] Hey, what are you guys doin'?

Stan: We're goin' to church. We've sinned and so we have to confess again.

Butters: Uh us too. Uh we saw a picture of a naked lady. We could see her whole beaver.

Clyde: Yeah. If we died right now, we'd have unclean souls and we'd burn in hell. [the crosswalk light turns green]

Stan: Uh, come on, let's go. [the kids begin to cross the street, Kenny first, but...]

Kenny: (Yow!) [a tour bus slams into Kenny and takes him away. The other kids freeze where they are, petrified]

Stan: [finally reacts, shrilly] ...Oh my God, they've killed Kenny!

Butters: He had sins that he didn't confess!

Cartman: And he never took Communion!

Stan: He's doomed.

Clyde: ...We've gotta get to that church before we die.

Cartman: Yeah. [the kids make their way slowly across the street]

• • South Park/Season 4 Do the Handicapped Go to Hell? written by Trey Parker

I removed two quotes from South Park, bringing the choices down to 4. Stephen Fry on the other hand makes too many good points and I really can't decide. If the Intelligence Squared debate is on Youtube doesn't that mean the copyright should be pretty lenient anyways though? CensoredScribe (talk) 15:45, 18 August 2015 (UTC)