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Date of Debate: March 23, 2000
Opening
Well, well, kiss me, I’m English.
Thank you, Father, at least for your generosity and fraternity, and also for giving me, in what you just said, that any foe of this revolting president is a friend of yours or Mr. Donahue’s, another proposition to rebut. I thought I only had one. I’m certainly here to dispute not to be heard.
Listen, can we settle this once and for all? Am I audible now?
Did you hear the “kiss me, I’m English” bit?
I wanted to thank, I felt obliged to thank, at any rate, the Father for his generosity and absence of vulgarity, and to say that in doing that, he nonetheless burdened me with rebutting yet another proposition, namely that any foe of this revolting pagan president is also a friend of his. I fear, Father, there you’re too generous or too optimistic too.
I’m in a fortunate position, though, in rebutting this motion, in believing both that it is not true that the American intellectual and cultural elite is biased against religion, let alone against Holy Mother Church, but in wishing and hoping that it were true. So I should either have half the time or perhaps double the time for my task.
I am also an admirer, especially of the poetry of both Hiller, Belloc, and G.K. Chesterton. Of Catholic writers, my favorite is Evelyn Waugh. Of atheist writers, my favorite is P.G. Woodhouse, of whom Evelyn Waugh was a great fan. And Mr. Woodhouse, once in trying to summon the image of a very loud and deafening noise, said of the person in his short story that to his disordered ears there came a sound as if the figure of Mr. G.K. Chesterton had just fallen onto a sheet of tin.
Now, it’s, I think, very important for me, anyway, to be able to say that I don’t have to begin, as I would have if I was speaking for the Church, with any apologies. We don’t have a lot to apologize for. It wasn’t we who framed Galileo. It wasn’t we who said that God wanted the Crusades. It wasn’t we who mounted the Inquisition. It wasn’t we who sponsored Pavlich, Salazar, Mussolini, Dolphus, Hitler, Vichy, Franco, and the rest of it. And it wasn’t we who preached the Easter Sermon, saying who was responsible for the death of a mythical figure and creating ludicrous pain to real people in the real world.
We don’t have to begin by proving that our institutions and our beliefs are human, as all human institutions are. That we are only mammals, as His Holiness the Pope is only a mammal. We don’t make a mystery where none exists. We say that we face the heavens and we find them empty, and that some of us, at any rate, are not alarmed to find this emptiness, and would be more alarmed to find the heavens full of permanent supervision and invigilation, and that an ethical life may be led by someone with no supernatural means of support, without the fear, if it is a fear, or the hope, if it is a hope, of celestial invigilation.
America is actually the country to which people came in the most of a hurry to try and find if that life could really be lived as a society. Some of them came to practice their religion freely. Many came to escape from persecution by other religions. Some came to be free from religion altogether. And that’s why the Constitution is godless and doesn’t mention the word. It was not written by atheists. It was written by democratic theists and secularists.
And that’s why the meeting at Philadelphia, which decided these matters and decides them still for us, was a godless one, if not an atheist one. And that’s why I think modern America should be a lot more anti-religious than it is, should pay less respect, make much less reverence to religion than its mass media, to which I’m coming, presently do.
Read one page of Stephen Hawking about the event horizon, about the possibility that we will soon know not where the universe originated, but where it has tended, and the event horizon to which we may all be headed. There is more to inspire awe in one page of Stephen Hawking than in any of the fantasies of Tertullian, imagining that he could go to the window of heaven when he was promoted there and look down for his consolation on the torments of the damned.
There’s much more to be awe-inspired by in a page of Hawking than any number of burning bushes or other such myths. Now it could be, and this is part of the motion I think I might have to admit for debate purposes, that when religion is attacked in this country, that the Catholic Church comes in for a little more than its fair share.
I may say I’ve probably contributed somewhat to that, and I’m not ashamed of my part in it. But doesn’t the Catholic Church make rather large claims for itself? The Catholic Church claims to hold the keys of Peter. The Holy Father claims to have that power and to be the vicar of Christ upon earth. It is said that only through this means and this approach can redemption be achieved.
These are large claims for a human and fallible and political and bureaucratic institution to be making for itself in the age of Hawking. I think it’s also the case that America is pre-eminently a country of, if not sexual license, as you might imagine from hearing Mr. Donoghue. I mean, I’m surprised that you can cross the streets without copulating individuals and with dogs throwing buckets of water over them to keep the temperature down.
But at any rate, a country of sexual tolerance, a country of sexual “I’ll settle for pluralism,” would settle for pluralism for now. Well, Holy Mother Church doesn’t settle for that. Holy Mother Church makes rather strict demands. Holy Mother Church prohibits by various edicts, UKs, statutes and pronouncements all forms of sex that are not specifically devoted to the outcome of procreating further Catholics.
And it enforces this with a celibate hierarchy. Now, that’s fine, and it is your choice. And as you say, Father—as you don’t say, Father, excuse me, but presumably would. But as Mr. Donoghue did say, no one has to join that church. But that church, where it can, does try to impose those standards on non-believers and non-members.
And there will always seem to some people, I think, something absurd in the enforcement of such statutes, especially since we know most Catholics don’t observe them, by a celibate oligarchy and hierarchy. And isn’t it said, and should it not be believed or at least affirmed or at any rate not repudiated that you should expect to suffer for this? That you should expect to be reviled? That you should be proud to be abused?
That you will be told that what you believe is absurd? That you should be glad to hear it for his sake? That those who despitefully use you are to be expected? And isn’t that a rather dignified position? A rather honorable position for the church to take? Something that even an atheist and humanist and Marxist like myself can understand and respect.
But instead what do we get? An endless whine of self-pity. Of, “Why are they picking on us?” They wouldn’t say that about the Jews. An endless play on the ethnic politics and identity politics card. An endless appeal to self-pity. Where you should be proud that you’re in a fight for your politics and your church.
And you seem instead to be resentful about it. And perhaps, who knows, a little insecure. However, for the main part of it, you only have to open a paper to see the exaggerated deference paid to every utterance of His Holiness the Pope, wherever he goes. And the extraordinary deference shown to him whenever he visits these shores and decides to grace us with his presence.
As for the woman styling herself, Mother Teresa, I can attest that until I wrote my little pamphlet, she had been the recipient, the beneficiary, of a 25-year Niagara of 100% favorable publicity in every secular, Protestant, Jewish, and Catholic, or non-religious outlet of any kind at all in the media. Only by the grace of my intervention could it not be said, could it not be said when she died that no one had ever said a single word against her.
And that no one had ever pointed out that she had fawned on the Duvalier family in Haiti and said that they were the Lord’s anointed and beloved of the poor. That, oh well, I’ll get to her depredations in rebuttals. I say I have only a minute to go and I don’t want to overrun my time or end foaming in mid-sentence, waving vomit bags and tampax.
Waving vomit bags and tampax in the name of good taste and good bearing and good manners and good standards. I think I can hope to be rescued from that fate without any divine intercession. The truth of the matter is, ladies and gentlemen, comrades and friends, brothers and sisters, religion has it very much its own way in this country of ours.
It’s in the Pledge of Allegiance, thanks to a stupid intervention by President Eisenhower. It’s on the money. It’s in the opening of Congress every day. It’s at the National Prayer Breakfast. It’s when the delinquent president summons his advisors and his spiritual team in order to fend off what should have been inevitable.
It’s when Al Gore can’t bring himself to criticize the decision of the Oklahoma School Board. And it’s high time that that situation was reversed and we developed a proper immunity to it and made sure that religion could only be self inflicted. Thank you.
Comment from Dr. Donohue
Donohue: Didn’t you quite figure out the cause and effect? In social science, it’s called an independent variable and a dependent variable. Didn’t you quite figure out that the reason they have so much poverty over there is precisely because of your secular leftist politics, which predominates?
Hitchens’ Response
Can questions take that form? If questions can take that form, I can question Mr. Donahue for longer than four minutes, believe you me. I think I’m obliged, am I not, to reply to what was just said of me? It would be unmanly to borrow a term from Dr. Donahue not to do so. Well, it’s hardly to convict me of skulking to say you don’t have the nerve to say what you then quote from my own book as having said. So that’s my first point.
I mean, I suppose I do hide behind my own publication and my own byline. If I didn’t quote myself, I at least didn’t repeat your error, sir, of solipsism. But I can’t have it said of even of the Red Cross, which I hold no brief, they take money from dictators.
I’m sorry, the Red Cross does not go to dictators and ask for money. What Mother Teresa in fact did was to go to Haiti during the rule of the Duvalier family to take money from the Duvaliers, which the Duvaliers had stolen from the poor, you will remember.
You will remember that the life of the poor in Haiti was notoriously hard. And to make a speech in which she said that the Duvalier family was loved by the poor in Haiti and that as far as she could see, the poor in Haiti loved them back. Now that’s what she actually did and what she actually said. And you can square that as you will with her claim to be a saint.
I don’t trespass on sainthood questions, it’s none of my affair. But those are the facts.
Again with Charles Keating of the Lincoln Savings and Loan, who had fleeced the poor of California through a Ponzi scheme, she took a large sum of money from him and a private plane, and the use of a private plane, and when asked by the court in California to return the stolen money, said no, or rather didn’t reply, having interceded in the court to say that Mr. Charles Keating was a good man and a friend of the poor.
Again, these are the facts. Now it was not said by Mother Teresa, I’ll say this much for her, she didn’t say, but some of her apologists did say, well, Jesus of Nazareth knocked around with some pretty bad characters too. Sinners, publicans, tax collectors, that sort of type, whores as well.
No one accuses Mother Teresa of knocking around with that kind of type, and as far as I know she never did. But he wasn’t, if he was a real person, he wasn’t shaking them down for their money.
So the analogy, even if I accept the grammar or morality of it, would not hold. Mother Teresa took stolen money from the rich, money they had stolen from the poor, and she spent it on, well, we don’t actually know what, because there was no audit.
But we know it wasn’t on hospices and on healthcare and feeding people in Calcutta because that remained consistent. Her outfit was as poor when she finished as when she started. What we think is it went to the 300 convents she claimed to have built around the world, in other words it went to an order that will bear her name, to the greater glory of Mother Teresa. Well that’s fine also, and not my business, but it’s not the impression under which the money was given to her, is it? And finally, she was not a friend of the poor, but a friend of poverty.
It’s a very important distinction. Everybody knows that there is one way, and only one way by which poverty can be cured. It involves the empowerment, to use a, sorry for the fashionable catchphrase, but there’s no better word for it, the empowerment of women. Go to a village in Bolivia and Bangladesh, any way you like, any wooden spoon country you choose. Give women some power and education where their reproduction and reproductive rate is concerned, and come back a year or two later and you will see the floor has moved up a little bit away from the swamp of ignorance and filth and superstition and infant mortality and disease.
And things are starting to happen, and then if you can come up with maybe a handful of seeds and a small loan, things will really start to happen, but it all depends on releasing women from their dependence on the cycle of reproduction, and on the husbands who force it on them and the conditions that force it on them. Mother Teresa spent her entire life in the third world opposing any vestige of the only policy that can possibly work.
She deserves to be called a friend of poverty, and she preached to the poor that their poverty was to be loved and thought of as a gift from God, that their sufferings were a gift.
And she preached to women that in Ireland, for example, one of the last acts of her life, to go to Ireland to campaign against the constitutional ban on divorce that’s since been lifted by an all-party agreement.
She campaigned solidly in the no referendum to say no, a woman in Ireland who’s married to a drunk and alcoholic, a child abuser and wife beater may never hope to be divorced and remarried, and the constitution of Ireland will tell this to Protestants too, because the constitution was then applied to the whole of Ireland, and thus making peace between the two communities entirely impossible.
And then in her interview with the Ladies Home Journal said about her friend and fellow campaigner Princess Diana, the spoiled narcissist princess of all time, that it was great that she got divorced because her marriage was so unhappy. This is, I’m sorry ladies and gentlemen, a return to the time of the sale of indulgences and the most disgraceful days of your church.
8 Minute Response
Actually, I hadn’t quite got through with Mother Teresa.
But I think probably Dr. Donahue, if I must call him that, will duly take any criticism of her as a reflection on his own probity. I’m sorry I’m not usually accused of being inaudible or understated. I’ll start again.
I was going to say I hadn’t quite finished with Mother Teresa, but I’m sure that if I go on a little, it will, in rebuttal, it will, so to speak, feed into Dr. Donahue’s rebuttal of me.
Let’s put a case where I think that the church has a claim to a certain moral grandeur. The Catholic Church, the Roman Catholic Church, because all, many churches claim to be Catholic, the Roman Catholic Church, takes the view that there can be no trifling with the life of the unborn, and that the concept unborn child is not a propaganda concept, but a meaningful one, a real one, a true one, and that deserves protection and tenderness.
As it happens, I agree with this view for materialist reasons.
It seems to me obvious from the discoveries of biology and embryology that the concept unborn child is a real one. It’s not just a dialectical. And it has to be granted to the church that it has made this a centerpiece of its ethic and its morality. But just as I’m not, say, a pacifist, and I can certainly imagine circumstances in which human life can be taken, I don’t think that there are non-fundamentalist positions on abortion.
For example, one of them is that the IUD, the intrauterine contraceptive device, is in fact a murder weapon, an abortifacient murder weapon. I consider that to be an extreme view, I must say.
I think there is the possibility of common ground to be found on this if such extreme positions are dropped.
I also do not believe and cannot really believe that anybody does believe that what is sometimes called artificial contraception, in other words, medical or chemical contraception, is the moral equivalent of abortion, and thus that really all forms of contraception are murder also.
So you have my reservations as well.
Now take the position of Mother Teresa.
She’s given the Nobel Prize for peace. She’s never done anything for peace, never claimed to do anything for peace, and actually never said anything about it either, but she accepts the award. On another occasion, by the way, I’d like to know where the money went, but never mind, you can’t just take the money at Stockholm. You have to make a speech. It has to be about peace. And I have the speech, and Mother Teresa in that speech says, “Well, the greatest threat to world peace is abortion.”
Now this is not a sensible view. It’s an extreme view. It’s a fanatical view. It’s a fundamentalist and zealot view. One of the great achievements of your church used to be that it knew how to keep zealots and fanatics under control, that it was indeed a means of pacifying and disciplining that kind of force in society.
But I’m afraid to say that with a great deal of secular and Protestant and Jewish help, this mad Catholic fundamentalist escaped and became a role model for the American media. And for everyone in it, secular, Jewish, or Christian. And then having witnessed this absurd Rod of Montart, the effect of secular canonization of this woman, who as I say was a friend of poverty, was a friend of dictatorship, was a friend of ignorance and superstition of fanaticism, and to see her adopted by the entire secular media and welcomed by all, I have to come here and explain why everyone’s pounding on the Catholic Church. It’s preposterous. There’s no sense of proportion in this way of arguing.
I’m sorry. Doctor, or I must say in the way you argue it.
I’ll accept as a joke what you said about Darwinism, and I’m sure you hope that everyone else was hoping, vulgarly though it was phrased that it would be accepted in that way too. I don’t think I can quite let go the idea that no one would be in any physical danger if they followed only the sexual precepts of the church, and you’ll have to forgive me here.
Since the church has, and still does, condemned even modest acts of lonely self abuse and encouraged people, enjoined them to abstain from them, it’s quite clear that what you abstain from under church instruction is not going to kill you. I mean I will grant you that, but I will also think you will have to admit that you are the father, if not the mother, of a gigantic tautology. Teaching of that kind, teaching about abstention, clearly cannot lead to death from sex, but to say that AIDS is death from sex is I think to commit an obscenity.
I’m sorry to have to say that the brothers and sisters of our society who have succumbed to that appalling disease did not die of sex or of their sexuality. And remember homosexuality is not just a form of sex, it’s a form of love. They died, oh that’s interesting, I wondered what kind of a growl I might get there, well I’ll repeat it then.
Homosexuals practice not just a form of sex but a form of love, if you can’t live with it, I think you’re the poorer.
However, what they died of was a filthy virus which can and will be cured.
And the clear implication of what Dr. Donahue said was that it was some kind of judgment on their sexual preference. I’m sorry I can’t sit here, rather stand here and take that.
I’ll give you an example which you again might think was extreme but it’s not. During the Reagan administration there was a search for blood to do experiments to find out what’s happening with AIDS. The search was to find blood that had no sexual transmitted disease contamination. In other words, the blood of people who’d never had any kind of disease.
And I don’t think you’ll find actually that in the countries where Holy Mother Church rules, and by the way it does make rules for non-believers on the accessibility and availability of contraception where it can, and divorce, in Spain, in Italy, in Ireland, it’s been tried many times, it’s been defeated, but you’ve no right to say the church has not tried to legislate for non-believers.
No right at all, that’s a flat lie.
And in many of these countries syphilis and gonorrhea is not unknown, even among believers. I hate to break it to you, but to those of you who’ve been in confessionals probably know it already. So the search was on in America.
Who has the cleanest blood? Who has the blood that is freest of all venereal trace for these experiments? The Department of Health went out to look for it.
So there are two groups. One is nuns. I don’t make nun jokes, never have, resent the accusation that I do.
One is nuns, the other is female homosexuals.
Lesbians, as some people I think like to call them, especially people who are slightly too interested in this subject, as I suspect Dr. Donohue of being. Well, there was a lesbian organization in San Francisco called Blood Sistah, which agreed to give blood.
It’s pure uncontaminated blood for this experiment, and a member of the Reagan administration, a junior member of it, went to a dinner to honor this group because, if you remember AIDS was left to voluntary initiative.
It wasn’t a national health question or anything socialist or totalitarian like that. It was to be left up to volunteers, this plague, and for going to the dinner just to recognize women who’d given their pure blood to help their gay brothers.
He was fired because he committed an immoral act and recognized an immoral practice. Well, this is why I don’t think secular morality needs to be defended from the barbaric superstitions and guilts and obscene suggestions that are made by the godly, or from the repressions and unguessable atmoteves that lie behind people who talk and think and sound like that.
Thank you.
Opening
Well, well, kiss me, I’m English.
Thank you, Father, at least for your generosity and fraternity, and also for giving me, in what you just said, that any foe of this revolting president is a friend of yours or Mr. Donahue’s, another proposition to rebut. I thought I only had one. I’m certainly here to dispute not to be heard.
Listen, can we settle this once and for all? Am I audible now?
Did you hear the “kiss me, I’m English” bit?
I wanted to thank, I felt obliged to thank, at any rate, the Father for his generosity and absence of vulgarity, and to say that in doing that, he nonetheless burdened me with rebutting yet another proposition, namely that any foe of this revolting pagan president is also a friend of his. I fear, Father, there you’re too generous or too optimistic too.
I’m in a fortunate position, though, in rebutting this motion, in believing both that it is not true that the American intellectual and cultural elite is biased against religion, let alone against Holy Mother Church, but in wishing and hoping that it were true. So I should either have half the time or perhaps double the time for my task.
I am also an admirer, especially of the poetry of both Hiller, Belloc, and G.K. Chesterton. Of Catholic writers, my favorite is Evelyn Waugh. Of atheist writers, my favorite is P.G. Woodhouse, of whom Evelyn Waugh was a great fan. And Mr. Woodhouse, once in trying to summon the image of a very loud and deafening noise, said of the person in his short story that to his disordered ears there came a sound as if the figure of Mr. G.K. Chesterton had just fallen onto a sheet of tin.
Now, it’s, I think, very important for me, anyway, to be able to say that I don’t have to begin, as I would have if I was speaking for the Church, with any apologies. We don’t have a lot to apologize for. It wasn’t we who framed Galileo. It wasn’t we who said that God wanted the Crusades. It wasn’t we who mounted the Inquisition. It wasn’t we who sponsored Pavlich, Salazar, Mussolini, Dolphus, Hitler, Vichy, Franco, and the rest of it. And it wasn’t we who preached the Easter Sermon, saying who was responsible for the death of a mythical figure and creating ludicrous pain to real people in the real world.
We don’t have to begin by proving that our institutions and our beliefs are human, as all human institutions are. That we are only mammals, as His Holiness the Pope is only a mammal. We don’t make a mystery where none exists. We say that we face the heavens and we find them empty, and that some of us, at any rate, are not alarmed to find this emptiness, and would be more alarmed to find the heavens full of permanent supervision and invigilation, and that an ethical life may be led by someone with no supernatural means of support, without the fear, if it is a fear, or the hope, if it is a hope, of celestial invigilation.
America is actually the country to which people came in the most of a hurry to try and find if that life could really be lived as a society. Some of them came to practice their religion freely. Many came to escape from persecution by other religions. Some came to be free from religion altogether. And that’s why the Constitution is godless and doesn’t mention the word. It was not written by atheists. It was written by democratic theists and secularists.
And that’s why the meeting at Philadelphia, which decided these matters and decides them still for us, was a godless one, if not an atheist one. And that’s why I think modern America should be a lot more anti-religious than it is, should pay less respect, make much less reverence to religion than its mass media, to which I’m coming, presently do.
Read one page of Stephen Hawking about the event horizon, about the possibility that we will soon know not where the universe originated, but where it has tended, and the event horizon to which we may all be headed. There is more to inspire awe in one page of Stephen Hawking than in any of the fantasies of Tertullian, imagining that he could go to the window of heaven when he was promoted there and look down for his consolation on the torments of the damned.
There’s much more to be awe-inspired by in a page of Hawking than any number of burning bushes or other such myths. Now it could be, and this is part of the motion I think I might have to admit for debate purposes, that when religion is attacked in this country, that the Catholic Church comes in for a little more than its fair share.
I may say I’ve probably contributed somewhat to that, and I’m not ashamed of my part in it. But doesn’t the Catholic Church make rather large claims for itself? The Catholic Church claims to hold the keys of Peter. The Holy Father claims to have that power and to be the vicar of Christ upon earth. It is said that only through this means and this approach can redemption be achieved.
These are large claims for a human and fallible and political and bureaucratic institution to be making for itself in the age of Hawking. I think it’s also the case that America is pre-eminently a country of, if not sexual license, as you might imagine from hearing Mr. Donoghue. I mean, I’m surprised that you can cross the streets without copulating individuals and with dogs throwing buckets of water over them to keep the temperature down.
But at any rate, a country of sexual tolerance, a country of sexual “I’ll settle for pluralism,” would settle for pluralism for now. Well, Holy Mother Church doesn’t settle for that. Holy Mother Church makes rather strict demands. Holy Mother Church prohibits by various edicts, UKs, statutes and pronouncements all forms of sex that are not specifically devoted to the outcome of procreating further Catholics.
And it enforces this with a celibate hierarchy. Now, that’s fine, and it is your choice. And as you say, Father—as you don’t say, Father, excuse me, but presumably would. But as Mr. Donoghue did say, no one has to join that church. But that church, where it can, does try to impose those standards on non-believers and non-members.
And there will always seem to some people, I think, something absurd in the enforcement of such statutes, especially since we know most Catholics don’t observe them, by a celibate oligarchy and hierarchy. And isn’t it said, and should it not be believed or at least affirmed or at any rate not repudiated that you should expect to suffer for this? That you should expect to be reviled? That you should be proud to be abused?
That you will be told that what you believe is absurd? That you should be glad to hear it for his sake? That those who despitefully use you are to be expected? And isn’t that a rather dignified position? A rather honorable position for the church to take? Something that even an atheist and humanist and Marxist like myself can understand and respect.
But instead what do we get? An endless whine of self-pity. Of, “Why are they picking on us?” They wouldn’t say that about the Jews. An endless play on the ethnic politics and identity politics card. An endless appeal to self-pity. Where you should be proud that you’re in a fight for your politics and your church.
And you seem instead to be resentful about it. And perhaps, who knows, a little insecure. However, for the main part of it, you only have to open a paper to see the exaggerated deference paid to every utterance of His Holiness the Pope, wherever he goes. And the extraordinary deference shown to him whenever he visits these shores and decides to grace us with his presence.
As for the woman styling herself, Mother Teresa, I can attest that until I wrote my little pamphlet, she had been the recipient, the beneficiary, of a 25-year Niagara of 100% favorable publicity in every secular, Protestant, Jewish, and Catholic, or non-religious outlet of any kind at all in the media. Only by the grace of my intervention could it not be said, could it not be said when she died that no one had ever said a single word against her.
And that no one had ever pointed out that she had fawned on the Duvalier family in Haiti and said that they were the Lord’s anointed and beloved of the poor. That, oh well, I’ll get to her depredations in rebuttals. I say I have only a minute to go and I don’t want to overrun my time or end foaming in mid-sentence, waving vomit bags and tampax.
Waving vomit bags and tampax in the name of good taste and good bearing and good manners and good standards. I think I can hope to be rescued from that fate without any divine intercession. The truth of the matter is, ladies and gentlemen, comrades and friends, brothers and sisters, religion has it very much its own way in this country of ours.
It’s in the Pledge of Allegiance, thanks to a stupid intervention by President Eisenhower. It’s on the money. It’s in the opening of Congress every day. It’s at the National Prayer Breakfast. It’s when the delinquent president summons his advisors and his spiritual team in order to fend off what should have been inevitable.
It’s when Al Gore can’t bring himself to criticize the decision of the Oklahoma School Board. And it’s high time that that situation was reversed and we developed a proper immunity to it and made sure that religion could only be self inflicted. Thank you.
Comment from Dr. Donohue
Donohue: Didn’t you quite figure out the cause and effect? In social science, it’s called an independent variable and a dependent variable. Didn’t you quite figure out that the reason they have so much poverty over there is precisely because of your secular leftist politics, which predominates?
Hitchens’ Response
Can questions take that form? If questions can take that form, I can question Mr. Donahue for longer than four minutes, believe you me. I think I’m obliged, am I not, to reply to what was just said of me? It would be unmanly to borrow a term from Dr. Donahue not to do so. Well, it’s hardly to convict me of skulking to say you don’t have the nerve to say what you then quote from my own book as having said. So that’s my first point.
I mean, I suppose I do hide behind my own publication and my own byline. If I didn’t quote myself, I at least didn’t repeat your error, sir, of solipsism. But I can’t have it said of even of the Red Cross, which I hold no brief, they take money from dictators.
I’m sorry, the Red Cross does not go to dictators and ask for money. What Mother Teresa in fact did was to go to Haiti during the rule of the Duvalier family to take money from the Duvaliers, which the Duvaliers had stolen from the poor, you will remember.
You will remember that the life of the poor in Haiti was notoriously hard. And to make a speech in which she said that the Duvalier family was loved by the poor in Haiti and that as far as she could see, the poor in Haiti loved them back. Now that’s what she actually did and what she actually said. And you can square that as you will with her claim to be a saint.
I don’t trespass on sainthood questions, it’s none of my affair. But those are the facts.
Again with Charles Keating of the Lincoln Savings and Loan, who had fleeced the poor of California through a Ponzi scheme, she took a large sum of money from him and a private plane, and the use of a private plane, and when asked by the court in California to return the stolen money, said no, or rather didn’t reply, having interceded in the court to say that Mr. Charles Keating was a good man and a friend of the poor.
Again, these are the facts. Now it was not said by Mother Teresa, I’ll say this much for her, she didn’t say, but some of her apologists did say, well, Jesus of Nazareth knocked around with some pretty bad characters too. Sinners, publicans, tax collectors, that sort of type, whores as well.
No one accuses Mother Teresa of knocking around with that kind of type, and as far as I know she never did. But he wasn’t, if he was a real person, he wasn’t shaking them down for their money.
So the analogy, even if I accept the grammar or morality of it, would not hold. Mother Teresa took stolen money from the rich, money they had stolen from the poor, and she spent it on, well, we don’t actually know what, because there was no audit.
But we know it wasn’t on hospices and on healthcare and feeding people in Calcutta because that remained consistent. Her outfit was as poor when she finished as when she started. What we think is it went to the 300 convents she claimed to have built around the world, in other words it went to an order that will bear her name, to the greater glory of Mother Teresa. Well that’s fine also, and not my business, but it’s not the impression under which the money was given to her, is it? And finally, she was not a friend of the poor, but a friend of poverty.
It’s a very important distinction. Everybody knows that there is one way, and only one way by which poverty can be cured. It involves the empowerment, to use a, sorry for the fashionable catchphrase, but there’s no better word for it, the empowerment of women. Go to a village in Bolivia and Bangladesh, any way you like, any wooden spoon country you choose. Give women some power and education where their reproduction and reproductive rate is concerned, and come back a year or two later and you will see the floor has moved up a little bit away from the swamp of ignorance and filth and superstition and infant mortality and disease.
And things are starting to happen, and then if you can come up with maybe a handful of seeds and a small loan, things will really start to happen, but it all depends on releasing women from their dependence on the cycle of reproduction, and on the husbands who force it on them and the conditions that force it on them. Mother Teresa spent her entire life in the third world opposing any vestige of the only policy that can possibly work.
She deserves to be called a friend of poverty, and she preached to the poor that their poverty was to be loved and thought of as a gift from God, that their sufferings were a gift.
And she preached to women that in Ireland, for example, one of the last acts of her life, to go to Ireland to campaign against the constitutional ban on divorce that’s since been lifted by an all-party agreement.
She campaigned solidly in the no referendum to say no, a woman in Ireland who’s married to a drunk and alcoholic, a child abuser and wife beater may never hope to be divorced and remarried, and the constitution of Ireland will tell this to Protestants too, because the constitution was then applied to the whole of Ireland, and thus making peace between the two communities entirely impossible.
And then in her interview with the Ladies Home Journal said about her friend and fellow campaigner Princess Diana, the spoiled narcissist princess of all time, that it was great that she got divorced because her marriage was so unhappy. This is, I’m sorry ladies and gentlemen, a return to the time of the sale of indulgences and the most disgraceful days of your church.
8 Minute Response
Actually, I hadn’t quite got through with Mother Teresa.
But I think probably Dr. Donahue, if I must call him that, will duly take any criticism of her as a reflection on his own probity. I’m sorry I’m not usually accused of being inaudible or understated. I’ll start again.
I was going to say I hadn’t quite finished with Mother Teresa, but I’m sure that if I go on a little, it will, in rebuttal, it will, so to speak, feed into Dr. Donahue’s rebuttal of me.
Let’s put a case where I think that the church has a claim to a certain moral grandeur. The Catholic Church, the Roman Catholic Church, because all, many churches claim to be Catholic, the Roman Catholic Church, takes the view that there can be no trifling with the life of the unborn, and that the concept unborn child is not a propaganda concept, but a meaningful one, a real one, a true one, and that deserves protection and tenderness.
As it happens, I agree with this view for materialist reasons.
It seems to me obvious from the discoveries of biology and embryology that the concept unborn child is a real one. It’s not just a dialectical. And it has to be granted to the church that it has made this a centerpiece of its ethic and its morality. But just as I’m not, say, a pacifist, and I can certainly imagine circumstances in which human life can be taken, I don’t think that there are non-fundamentalist positions on abortion.
For example, one of them is that the IUD, the intrauterine contraceptive device, is in fact a murder weapon, an abortifacient murder weapon. I consider that to be an extreme view, I must say.
I think there is the possibility of common ground to be found on this if such extreme positions are dropped.
I also do not believe and cannot really believe that anybody does believe that what is sometimes called artificial contraception, in other words, medical or chemical contraception, is the moral equivalent of abortion, and thus that really all forms of contraception are murder also.
So you have my reservations as well.
Now take the position of Mother Teresa.
She’s given the Nobel Prize for peace. She’s never done anything for peace, never claimed to do anything for peace, and actually never said anything about it either, but she accepts the award. On another occasion, by the way, I’d like to know where the money went, but never mind, you can’t just take the money at Stockholm. You have to make a speech. It has to be about peace. And I have the speech, and Mother Teresa in that speech says, “Well, the greatest threat to world peace is abortion.”
Now this is not a sensible view. It’s an extreme view. It’s a fanatical view. It’s a fundamentalist and zealot view. One of the great achievements of your church used to be that it knew how to keep zealots and fanatics under control, that it was indeed a means of pacifying and disciplining that kind of force in society.
But I’m afraid to say that with a great deal of secular and Protestant and Jewish help, this mad Catholic fundamentalist escaped and became a role model for the American media. And for everyone in it, secular, Jewish, or Christian. And then having witnessed this absurd Rod of Montart, the effect of secular canonization of this woman, who as I say was a friend of poverty, was a friend of dictatorship, was a friend of ignorance and superstition of fanaticism, and to see her adopted by the entire secular media and welcomed by all, I have to come here and explain why everyone’s pounding on the Catholic Church. It’s preposterous. There’s no sense of proportion in this way of arguing.
I’m sorry. Doctor, or I must say in the way you argue it.
I’ll accept as a joke what you said about Darwinism, and I’m sure you hope that everyone else was hoping, vulgarly though it was phrased that it would be accepted in that way too. I don’t think I can quite let go the idea that no one would be in any physical danger if they followed only the sexual precepts of the church, and you’ll have to forgive me here.
Since the church has, and still does, condemned even modest acts of lonely self abuse and encouraged people, enjoined them to abstain from them, it’s quite clear that what you abstain from under church instruction is not going to kill you. I mean I will grant you that, but I will also think you will have to admit that you are the father, if not the mother, of a gigantic tautology. Teaching of that kind, teaching about abstention, clearly cannot lead to death from sex, but to say that AIDS is death from sex is I think to commit an obscenity.
I’m sorry to have to say that the brothers and sisters of our society who have succumbed to that appalling disease did not die of sex or of their sexuality. And remember homosexuality is not just a form of sex, it’s a form of love. They died, oh that’s interesting, I wondered what kind of a growl I might get there, well I’ll repeat it then.
Homosexuals practice not just a form of sex but a form of love, if you can’t live with it, I think you’re the poorer.
However, what they died of was a filthy virus which can and will be cured.
And the clear implication of what Dr. Donahue said was that it was some kind of judgment on their sexual preference. I’m sorry I can’t sit here, rather stand here and take that.
I’ll give you an example which you again might think was extreme but it’s not. During the Reagan administration there was a search for blood to do experiments to find out what’s happening with AIDS. The search was to find blood that had no sexual transmitted disease contamination. In other words, the blood of people who’d never had any kind of disease.
And I don’t think you’ll find actually that in the countries where Holy Mother Church rules, and by the way it does make rules for non-believers on the accessibility and availability of contraception where it can, and divorce, in Spain, in Italy, in Ireland, it’s been tried many times, it’s been defeated, but you’ve no right to say the church has not tried to legislate for non-believers.
No right at all, that’s a flat lie.
And in many of these countries syphilis and gonorrhea is not unknown, even among believers. I hate to break it to you, but to those of you who’ve been in confessionals probably know it already. So the search was on in America.
Who has the cleanest blood? Who has the blood that is freest of all venereal trace for these experiments? The Department of Health went out to look for it.
So there are two groups. One is nuns. I don’t make nun jokes, never have, resent the accusation that I do.
One is nuns, the other is female homosexuals.
Lesbians, as some people I think like to call them, especially people who are slightly too interested in this subject, as I suspect Dr. Donohue of being. Well, there was a lesbian organization in San Francisco called Blood Sistah, which agreed to give blood.
It’s pure uncontaminated blood for this experiment, and a member of the Reagan administration, a junior member of it, went to a dinner to honor this group because, if you remember AIDS was left to voluntary initiative.
It wasn’t a national health question or anything socialist or totalitarian like that. It was to be left up to volunteers, this plague, and for going to the dinner just to recognize women who’d given their pure blood to help their gay brothers.
He was fired because he committed an immoral act and recognized an immoral practice. Well, this is why I don’t think secular morality needs to be defended from the barbaric superstitions and guilts and obscene suggestions that are made by the godly, or from the repressions and unguessable atmoteves that lie behind people who talk and think and sound like that.
Thank you.
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00:00:03:02, 00:00:14:23, [
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00:00:53:23, 00:00:57:21, >>Christoph fidelis presents the Chesterton-belloc debates. And
00:00:57:23, 00:01:01:23, now, moderator for tonight’s debate, the founder and director of
00:01:02:02, 00:01:04:22, christoph fidelis, father John pericope.
00:01:05:01, 00:01:07:00, >>Well let us begin. In the name of the father
00:01:07:02, 00:01:08:22, and of the son and of the holy spirit, amen.
00:01:09:01, 00:01:12:16, >>And direct, o lord, we ask thee, all our actions by thy holy inspiration,
00:01:12:19, 00:01:15:23, and carry them on by thy assistance, that every prayer and work of
00:01:16:01, 00:01:19:02, hours may begin from thee and through thee be brought
00:01:19:04, 00:01:21:23, to completion through the same Christ, our lord.
00:01:22:01, 00:01:22:23, >>Amen.
00:01:23:01, 00:01:23:23, >>Holy may our hope, seat of wisdom.
00:01:24:01, 00:01:24:23, >>Amen.
00:01:25:01, 00:01:28:01, >>Father and of the son and of the holy spirit, amen.
00:01:28:04, 00:01:29:23, >>Amen.
00:01:30:01, 00:01:37:09, >>I would like to welcome you to christoph fidelis’ inaugural Chesterton-belloc
00:01:37:11, 00:01:44:05, debates. I am father pericope, the moderator of tonight’s proceedings.
00:01:44:07, 00:01:55:11, Firstly, may I answer the question, why debates? Because debates are only natural for catholics. If
00:01:55:13, 00:02:07:05, the church did not invent debate, it brought it to its highest refinement in the middle ages with the
00:02:07:07, 00:02:16:11, equestiones disputatis of the scholastic doctors. This was natural for the catholic
00:02:16:14, 00:02:25:04, church, as I said, because truth is her possession and her passion since her
00:02:25:07, 00:02:35:21, master is the way, the truth, and the life. No other institution on earth at any time has
00:02:35:23, 00:02:47:18, protected and exalted the true achievements of the intellect other than the catholic church.
00:02:47:20, 00:02:56:23, Of course, she bids the intellect to exercise itself, not for the sake of intellectual
00:02:57:02, 00:03:07:19, exercise. That only leads to the contemporary philosophical fatigue called deconstructionism,
00:03:07:21, 00:03:18:18, with its more remote descendant in the skepticism of Plato’s Athens. No, the intellect’s purpose is to strive for
00:03:18:20, 00:03:29:23, the truth. It is to this end that the church created the universities and still considers them one of her monumental
00:03:30:01, 00:03:44:11, accomplishments, prompting in her great pride and jealous custody. Debates? Yes, because
00:03:44:13, 00:03:59:18, arriving at the truth is everything, and the catholic is second to no one in that quest.
00:03:59:20, 00:04:12:04, My second question. Why debates named after messrs. Chesterton and belloc? For four reasons. Because they were
00:04:12:07, 00:04:25:13, two of the premier catholics of the 20th century. Second, they were two of the church’s most vigorous apologists.
00:04:25:15, 00:04:33:05, Thirdly, because they were two of the finest debaters of their day. Chesterton’s
00:04:33:07, 00:04:40:14, frequent debates with George Bernard Shaw are now the stuff of legend.
00:04:40:16, 00:04:50:13, And belloc, his sidekick, rivaled his friend. Listen to a student of Oxford
00:04:50:15, 00:05:00:16, adhering belloc debate as a student for the first time at Oxford union.
00:05:00:18, 00:05:10:03, As he Rose, men started up and began to leave the house. At his
00:05:10:06, 00:05:19:23, first sentence, they paused and looked at him and sat down again.
00:05:20:01, 00:05:32:09, By the end of his third sentence, with a few waves of his powerful hands and a touch
00:05:32:11, 00:05:45:18, of unconscious magnetism and conscious strength, belloc held his audience breathless.
00:05:45:20, 00:05:51:08, Together, gk and hillea were so formidable that their countrymen
00:05:51:11, 00:05:57:01, merely referred to this intellectual tag team as Chester belloc.
00:05:58:02, 00:06:02:20, Yes, for those reasons, Christopher delos has named
00:06:02:22, 00:06:08:15, its debate series after those two herculean catholics.
00:06:08:18, 00:06:20:06, But there is a fourth. For all their consummate wielding of the English language and formidable
00:06:20:08, 00:06:32:22, oratorical skills, they were probably remembered as well for their civility, wit, and gentlemanly charm.
00:06:33:01, 00:06:40:12, In the tens of thousands of words launched in debate,
00:06:40:14, 00:06:48:04, you could not find one marked by acrimony or animus.
00:06:48:07, 00:06:58:13, This series will strive to imitate their high example
00:06:58:16, 00:07:08:22, as we attempt to let truth shine and great fun reign.
00:07:09:01, 00:07:16:00, The resolution of tonight’s debate is the American cultural elite
00:07:16:02, 00:07:23:01, is hostile to religion in general and catholicism in particular.
00:07:24:02, 00:07:29:23, We remind you that audience
00:07:30:01, 00:07:35:23, reaction is not prohibited.
00:07:36:01, 00:07:39:06, Dr. William donahue, for the affirmative, began his teaching
00:07:39:09, 00:07:42:22, career in the 1970s working at St. lucie school in Spanish Harlem.
00:07:43:01, 00:07:45:19, In 1977, he took a position as college professor
00:07:45:22, 00:07:48:12, teaching at la roche college in Pittsburgh.
00:07:48:14, 00:07:51:06, In 1980, Dr. Donahue was awarded his phd
00:07:51:09, 00:07:54:18, in sociology from New York university.
00:07:54:20, 00:07:56:19, Dr. Donahue is the author of
00:07:56:21, 00:07:59:00, three books and many articles.
00:07:59:03, 00:08:03:20, He is currently president and ceo of the catholic league for religious
00:08:03:23, 00:08:09:13, and civil rights, the nation’s largest catholic civil rights organization.
00:08:09:16, 00:08:11:12, He is the publisher of the
00:08:11:14, 00:08:13:23, catholic league journal catalyst.
00:08:14:01, 00:08:22:02, Dr. Donahue was also an adjunct scholar at the heritage foundation and serves on the board of
00:08:22:04, 00:08:31:07, directors of the national association of scholars and the New York state chapter of that organization.
00:08:31:10, 00:08:43:01, Dr. Donahue.
00:08:43:04, 00:08:46:13, The first thing I want to mention is something that happened in this, not in
00:08:46:16, 00:08:50:02, this country, but to our neighbors in the north of Montreal just recently.
00:08:50:05, 00:08:51:22, Let me read something to you.
00:08:52:01, 00:08:57:11, On march the 7th, 15 people wearing ski masks spray painted graffiti with the words religion,
00:08:57:14, 00:09:03:07, a trap for fools on a pillar outside Mary queen of the world cathedral in downtown Montreal.
00:09:03:09, 00:09:05:05, Inside, they painted no god,
00:09:05:07, 00:09:07:11, no masters on the altars.
00:09:07:13, 00:09:10:09, They overturned flower pots and they stuck sanitary
00:09:10:12, 00:09:12:23, napkins, some soiled, to pictures and walls.
00:09:13:01, 00:09:16:01, Condoms were thrown around the cathedral, the missile
00:09:16:03, 00:09:19:03, was stolen, hundreds of prayer books were destroyed.
00:09:19:05, 00:09:20:13, There was an attempt to
00:09:20:15, 00:09:22:20, overturn the tabernacle as well.
00:09:22:22, 00:09:29:08, Not one us newspaper reported on this outbreak of fascism in Montreal, though the New York times did run
00:09:29:10, 00:09:35:23, a story the day before on the controversy in Quebec over whether pokemon cards should be issued in French.
00:09:36:01, 00:09:41:17, Ap ran a story on march the 8th of 1999 on a synagogue that was vandalized in
00:09:41:20, 00:09:47:23, Siberia, but said nothing about the march 7th, 2000 desecration of Montreal church.
00:09:48:01, 00:09:50:03, But ap did address another issue
00:09:50:05, 00:09:52:01, in Montreal the day before.
00:09:52:03, 00:09:54:19, The story was on us files complaint
00:09:54:21, 00:09:58:01, against European unions on jet mufflers.
00:09:59:06, 00:10:02:10, Now, why is it that the media seem to have such little interest in
00:10:02:12, 00:10:05:23, what’s going on regarding the feminist fascist that exists in Montreal?
00:10:06:01, 00:10:07:07, It has something to do with the
00:10:07:10, 00:10:09:01, outlook of the media elite themselves.
00:10:09:03, 00:10:13:11, If you take a look at the book by Stanley rothman, for example, and Robert lichtner
00:10:13:13, 00:10:17:12, in 1980 called the media elite, they’ll identify for you a certain mindset.
00:10:17:14, 00:10:19:18, When it comes to adultery, for example, the majority of
00:10:19:20, 00:10:22:04, the media elite in this country have no problem with it.
00:10:22:06, 00:10:25:01, When it comes to homosexuality, no problem.
00:10:25:03, 00:10:28:05, 96% in favor of abortion right through term.
00:10:28:08, 00:10:30:22, I could go right down the list, but let me let you know,
00:10:31:01, 00:10:33:22, people, that this study has also been replicated more recently,
00:10:34:01, 00:10:37:02, and in the year 2000 we’re going to see the study by rothman
00:10:37:04, 00:10:40:01, and Amy black, which pretty much shows the same picture.
00:10:40:03, 00:10:43:13, Basically this, the media elite are fundamentally
00:10:43:15, 00:10:47:06, out of step with the thinking of most Americans.
00:10:47:08, 00:10:48:15, Certainly when it comes to the question
00:10:48:17, 00:10:49:23, of religion, they are way out of step.
00:10:50:01, 00:10:52:21, For example, 94% of American people believe in
00:10:52:23, 00:10:56:04, god, and with the media the figure is below 50%.
00:10:56:06, 00:11:00:22, 70% of the Americans attend synagogue or church or mosque weekly, but that is not
00:11:01:01, 00:11:06:06, true, certainly with the people in the media elite, something like around 5 or 10%.
00:11:06:08, 00:11:08:16, There’s been a later work which I’d advise you to take
00:11:08:18, 00:11:11:02, a look at too, anti-catholicism in American culture.
00:11:11:05, 00:11:12:23, The editor is Bob lockwood, the research
00:11:13:02, 00:11:14:14, director of the catholic league.
00:11:14:16, 00:11:17:03, He draws on the survey of Robert lichtner, again
00:11:17:06, 00:11:19:14, one of the top statisticians in the country.
00:11:19:16, 00:11:24:23, And what did they found out? Lichtner studied abc, CBS, nbc, time, newsweek,
00:11:25:02, 00:11:30:04, us news, world report, the New York times, Washington post, usa today.
00:11:30:06, 00:11:32:05, Here’s the central finding just published.
00:11:32:08, 00:11:34:11, 90% of the news reports on the catholic
00:11:34:13, 00:11:36:23, church are critical of the catholic church.
00:11:37:02, 00:11:39:14, 90% are critical of the ecumenical
00:11:39:16, 00:11:42:06, efforts of the catholic church.
00:11:42:09, 00:11:45:00, The number one source of controversy, women
00:11:45:02, 00:11:48:01, within the catholic church, the role of women.
00:11:49:02, 00:11:50:13, You know, I thought there was something about
00:11:50:15, 00:11:51:23, house rules which people came to expect.
00:11:52:01, 00:11:54:13, In other words, you know, if you don’t like a particular
00:11:54:16, 00:11:56:23, religion, you don’t have to join it or you can quit.
00:11:57:01, 00:12:00:11, But there seems to be a kind of voyeuristic interest on the part of some
00:12:00:13, 00:12:04:03, people in the media in looking into my church to manipulate its teachings.
00:12:04:05, 00:12:06:21, We saw this more recently with the Kansas City
00:12:06:23, 00:12:10:08, star asking catholic priests about their sex lives.
00:12:10:10, 00:12:12:02, Could you imagine asking imams whether or not
00:12:12:05, 00:12:13:22, you’re having sex during the day during ramadan?
00:12:14:01, 00:12:16:06, Could you imagine them asking rabbis who are
00:12:16:09, 00:12:18:22, orthodox what kind of practices they’re engaged in?
00:12:19:01, 00:12:21:00, I don’t think you’d find that.
00:12:21:03, 00:12:23:16, For that matter, the New York times, which has a particular
00:12:23:19, 00:12:25:17, fixation with my church and how it runs its
00:12:25:19, 00:12:27:13, internal affairs, when it comes to its own
00:12:27:16, 00:12:29:02, problems, reacts very differently.
00:12:29:04, 00:12:31:03, For example, on November the 29th, the new
00:12:31:05, 00:12:33:06, York times summarily fired about 30 people.
00:12:33:08, 00:12:34:23, Why did they do that? They said they
00:12:35:02, 00:12:36:23, were engaged in certain email violations.
00:12:37:01, 00:12:37:23, They have every right to do that.
00:12:38:01, 00:12:40:06, When reporters asked the New York times, “could
00:12:40:09, 00:12:42:07, you explain why these people were fired?
00:12:42:09, 00:12:45:14, ” The woman answered, “this is an internal matter.”
00:12:45:17, 00:12:48:00, Well, you know what? We have internal matters too, and it’s
00:12:48:02, 00:12:50:08, none of the business of the media to be prying in here.
00:12:50:10, 00:12:53:11, Other media which are particularly offensive, in terms of
00:12:53:14, 00:12:57:06, weeklies, I would say, at least from my reading of a time magazine,
00:12:57:08, 00:12:59:07, clearly we have our file on them much worse than
00:12:59:09, 00:13:01:08, anything newsweek or us news and world report.
00:13:01:11, 00:13:04:16, In terms of pseudo-intellectual journals, I would say probably
00:13:04:19, 00:13:08:07, the greatest offense in the country would be the nation magazine.
00:13:08:09, 00:13:09:23, [Laughter]
00:13:10:01, 00:13:14:08, Now, you may know something about that, Christopher, because your
00:13:14:10, 00:13:18:22, magazine has been beating up on the catholic church for a long time,
00:13:19:01, 00:13:20:11, without the kind of effect,
00:13:20:14, 00:13:22:02, of course, that you’d like.
00:13:22:05, 00:13:24:22, One of the earlier bigots was Paul Blanchard back after
00:13:25:01, 00:13:28:01, world war ii, writing that incredible anti-catholic screed.
00:13:28:03, 00:13:29:14, Know that, you’ve read it a few times, hope
00:13:29:16, 00:13:30:23, you prepared your notes for it tonight.
00:13:31:02, 00:13:33:20, And you have now, of course, continued in that tradition, even been
00:13:33:23, 00:13:36:23, accused of the nation magazine of being an anti-catholic bigot yourself.
00:13:37:01, 00:13:38:23, You can defend yourself later.
00:13:39:01, 00:13:42:18, In terms of the tabloids, I would say there’s a three-way
00:13:42:20, 00:13:46:01, tie between the enquirer, star, and vanity fair.
00:13:46:03, 00:13:48:14, That’s what I would say as probably the greatest
00:13:48:17, 00:13:50:22, offenders in terms of anti-catholic bigotry.
00:13:51:01, 00:13:53:22, [Applause]
00:13:54:01, 00:13:55:23, Now, 60 minutes, in terms of television, in terms of the
00:13:56:02, 00:13:57:22, magazine shows, is probably one of the most defensive.
00:13:58:01, 00:14:01:07, You saw that show on Sunday with John Cornwell.
00:14:01:10, 00:14:03:04, He is from… England.
00:14:03:07, 00:14:04:23, [Laughter]
00:14:05:01, 00:14:07:01, He’s from England.
00:14:08:14, 00:14:10:01, We’re getting some strange
00:14:10:04, 00:14:12:17, things exported to this country.
00:14:12:20, 00:14:14:00, John Cornwell is a phony.
00:14:14:03, 00:14:15:23, He’s a journalist, he’s not a scholar.
00:14:16:01, 00:14:19:12, He has lied to everybody, and including to ed Bradley, about
00:14:19:14, 00:14:22:22, the fact that he had unprecedented access to the archives.
00:14:23:01, 00:14:24:22, He didn’t have unprecedented access.
00:14:25:01, 00:14:26:23, They’ve been around for a long time.
00:14:27:02, 00:14:30:07, Lots of people have had access to the archives.
00:14:30:10, 00:14:32:00, And as a matter of fact, he didn’t
00:14:32:03, 00:14:33:12, go on for months beyond end.
00:14:33:15, 00:14:36:07, He in fact spent less than three weeks, sometimes never
00:14:36:09, 00:14:39:09, showed up at all, and sometimes for a short period of time.
00:14:39:11, 00:14:40:17, This is a man who’s been able
00:14:40:19, 00:14:42:01, to get away with it so far.
00:14:42:04, 00:14:44:16, You check out the New York times a week from tomorrow on the
00:14:44:19, 00:14:47:11, op-ed page to see how far 60 minutes gets away with it again.
00:14:47:13, 00:14:49:01, Go on with him sometime.
00:14:49:04, 00:14:54:04, In terms of the morning shows, I’d say the early show with that pompous fool, Bryant gumbo,
00:14:54:06, 00:14:59:10, is probably the leading example of somebody who likes to take shots at the catholic church.
00:14:59:12, 00:15:02:15, Hollywood, well we have our own production company. I mean, you can’t
00:15:02:18, 00:15:05:22, say that about the Jews or the hindus, but we have, of course, miramax.
00:15:06:01, 00:15:07:17, Barb and Harvey weinstein like to give
00:15:07:19, 00:15:09:13, money to al Gore and Hillary Clinton.
00:15:09:15, 00:15:11:01, They gave us the movie priest.
00:15:11:03, 00:15:13:08, Now could you imagine a movie called rabbis?
00:15:13:11, 00:15:16:07, Five depraved rabbis, all degenerates, and their
00:15:16:09, 00:15:18:23, degeneracy is a function of their rabbinic.
00:15:19:01, 00:15:21:12, Now, well, you’re not going to see it. What about
00:15:21:15, 00:15:23:23, the movie dogma, also coming out from miramax?
00:15:24:01, 00:15:26:10, You’re not going to see a movie about Kadesh. You’re not going to
00:15:26:13, 00:15:28:22, see a movie where they’re going to use toilet humor with the Jews.
00:15:29:01, 00:15:31:21, That’s because Jews have done a better job than catholics
00:15:31:23, 00:15:34:22, have in fighting back. Catholics are a little slow to react.
00:15:35:01, 00:15:38:20, Now, with regard to a real thesis I want to run with you
00:15:38:22, 00:15:43:23, tonight, and we’ll see if you can run with me, Christopher.
00:15:44:01, 00:15:47:12, The public sector, that’s what I want to talk about. The public
00:15:47:15, 00:15:50:23, sector actually subsidizes anti-catholicism in this country.
00:15:51:01, 00:15:55:05, Take, for example, foundations, tax-exempt institutions. You
00:15:55:07, 00:15:59:22, wouldn’t have the rockefeller foundation subsidizing Jews for Jesus,
00:16:00:01, 00:16:02:04, but you have the Ford foundation
00:16:02:06, 00:16:05:05, subsidizing catholics for a free choice.
00:16:05:07, 00:16:08:10, A phony of an organization was condemned
00:16:08:13, 00:16:11:01, by the catholic church in 1993.
00:16:11:03, 00:16:13:22, Frances kisselin is an amazing creature who refuses
00:16:14:00, 00:16:16:15, to debate me. That’s where you’re getting that.
00:16:16:17, 00:16:20:04, The nonprofits, you have sisters of perpetual indulgence. These
00:16:20:07, 00:16:23:23, fools are dressed like nuns, and then they get a tax-exempt status.
00:16:24:01, 00:16:28:17, People say, well, they give money to charities. How about a bunch of white boys setting up the al jolson society
00:16:28:20, 00:16:33:08, with a little black painter on their face doing a little tap dance and saying, well, we give to charities.
00:16:33:10, 00:16:35:09, Would they get a 501(C)(3) Status?
00:16:35:11, 00:16:36:14, I don’t think so.
00:16:36:17, 00:16:39:14, In terms of the public theaters, Manhattan theatre
00:16:39:16, 00:16:42:13, club gives us corpus christi, incredible play.
00:16:42:15, 00:16:46:15, The museums, the Brooklyn museum of art, sensation. If you haven’t heard
00:16:46:17, 00:16:50:23, about it, I don’t know where you live, but let’s listen to the reaction here.
00:16:51:01, 00:16:57:21, Boxes of maggots, decomposing cows’ heads, bisected pig in formaldehyde, a
00:16:57:23, 00:17:05:22, 13-foot portrait of Myra hindley, and the holy virgin Mary by Chris offaly.
00:17:06:01, 00:17:09:10, Now, what did we get out of this? Where did
00:17:09:13, 00:17:13:01, this come from? Well, it came from England.
00:17:14:03, 00:17:17:13, Now, there are two things about England that I know that we’ve had to put up
00:17:17:15, 00:17:20:23, with. One of them is Christopher hitchens, and the other is elephant dung.
00:17:21:01, 00:17:25:03, Now, let me tell you something. You may need this, too. After
00:17:25:05, 00:17:29:07, listening to him, I brought along some of my vomit bags.
00:17:29:09, 00:17:34:18, We used that very successfully in the Brooklyn museum of art, because they
00:17:34:20, 00:17:39:22, told us that if you looked at the holy virgin Mary, that you may puke.
00:17:40:01, 00:17:42:06, And we took them as they were. We want to facilitate the
00:17:42:09, 00:17:44:23, process, so if anybody feels the need to puke, there you have it.
00:17:45:02, 00:17:50:09, Now, you also have a problem with the state schools in this country. Penn state,
00:17:50:11, 00:17:55:23, for example, a few years ago, the feminist fascists there decided to take a vagina,
00:17:56:01, 00:17:59:02, made a vagina with human hair, and then put our blessed
00:17:59:04, 00:18:02:08, mother inside of it to show how much they care about us.
00:18:02:11, 00:18:06:04, At hunter college and other state-supported institutions, you had
00:18:06:06, 00:18:10:01, condom Jesus, and at suny-newpaul, it’s the same kind of outrage.
00:18:10:04, 00:18:23:12, [Applause]
00:18:23:14, 00:18:30:21, Mr. Christopher hitchens, for the negative, was born in 1949 in Portsmouth, England, and
00:18:30:23, 00:18:39:11, received a degree in philosophy, politics, and economics from balliol college in Oxford in 1970.
00:18:39:13, 00:18:42:02, Mr. Hitchens writes a biweekly column,
00:18:42:05, 00:18:45:19, minority report, for the nation magazine.
00:18:45:21, 00:18:52:19, He is also contributing editor to vanity fair and to such other publications as the London review of
00:18:52:22, 00:19:00:14, books, Harper’s, the new left review, the New York review of books, and the times literary supplement.
00:19:00:16, 00:19:06:13, On television every now and then, Mr. Hitchens will appear on c-span’s Washington journal, among other
00:19:06:15, 00:19:12:07, shows such as Larry king live, meet the press with Tim russett, and hardball with Chris Matthews.
00:19:12:09, 00:19:16:13, Mr. Hitchens has been a visiting professor at the university of California at
00:19:16:16, 00:19:20:22, Berkeley, the university of Pittsburgh, and the new school for social research.
00:19:21:01, 00:19:27:16, Mr. Hitchens has authored eight books. His most recent are the now famous invective against
00:19:27:18, 00:19:34:00, Mother Teresa entitled the missionary position, Mother Teresa in theory and practice.
00:19:34:03, 00:19:39:10, And in the last year, his book on the current president, no one
00:19:39:12, 00:19:44:23, left to lie to, the triangulations of William Jefferson Clinton.
00:19:45:01, 00:19:49:13, Of course, this work won him the ire of some of his beltway
00:19:49:16, 00:19:54:01, fellow travelers, but won him kudos among folks like us.
00:19:54:03, 00:20:00:22, [Laughter]
00:20:01:01, 00:20:03:20, Mr. Hitchens, at the end of the day,
00:20:03:22, 00:20:07:06, any foe of Clinton is a friend of ours.
00:20:07:08, 00:20:13:23, [Laughter and applause]
00:20:14:01, 00:20:15:23, Mr. Hitchens.
00:20:16:01, 00:20:26:08, [Applause]
00:20:26:10, 00:20:31:06, Well, well, kiss me, I’m English.
00:20:31:08, 00:20:32:22, [Laughter]
00:20:33:01, 00:20:40:11, Thank you, father, at least for your generosity and fraternity, and also for giving me, in what you just said,
00:20:40:14, 00:20:48:11, that any foe of this revolting president is a friend of yours or Mr. Donahue’s, another proposition to rebut.
00:20:48:13, 00:20:50:22, I thought I only had one. I’m certainly
00:20:51:00, 00:20:52:23, here to dispute not to be heard.
00:20:53:01, 00:20:58:22, [Inaudible] Turn it on.
00:20:59:01, 00:21:01:19, Listen, can we settle this once and for all?
00:21:01:21, 00:21:02:22, Am I audible now?
00:21:03:01, 00:21:04:22, Did you hear the kiss me, I’m English bit?
00:21:05:01, 00:21:05:22, [Laughter]
00:21:06:01, 00:21:09:19, Okay. I wanted to thank, I felt I was obliged to thank at
00:21:09:22, 00:21:14:00, any rate, father for his generosity and absence of vulgarity.
00:21:14:03, 00:21:19:09, And to say that in doing that, he nonetheless burdened me with rebutting and yet another
00:21:19:11, 00:21:24:23, proposition, namely that any foe of this revolting pagan president is also a friend of his.
00:21:25:01, 00:21:27:12, I fear, father, there you’re too
00:21:27:14, 00:21:30:04, generous or too optimistic too.
00:21:30:06, 00:21:36:09, I’m in a fortunate position, though, in rebutting this motion, in believing both that it is not true that the
00:21:36:11, 00:21:42:12, American intellectual and cultural elite is biased against religion, let alone against holy mother church,
00:21:42:14, 00:21:46:00, but in wishing and hoping that it were true.
00:21:46:03, 00:21:48:10, So I should either have half the time
00:21:48:12, 00:21:50:23, or perhaps double the time for my task.
00:21:51:02, 00:21:54:01, I am also an admirer, especially of the poetry
00:21:54:04, 00:21:57:04, of both hiller, bellock and g.K. Chesterton.
00:21:57:07, 00:22:00:01, Of catholic writers, my favorite is Evelyn waugh.
00:22:00:04, 00:22:02:16, Of atheist writers, my favorite is p.G.
00:22:02:19, 00:22:05:22, Wodehouse, of whom Evelyn waugh was a great fan.
00:22:06:01, 00:22:14:10, Mr. Wodehouse once, in trying to summon the image of a very loud and deafening noise, said of the person in his short story
00:22:14:13, 00:22:23:04, that to his disordered ears there came a sound as if the figure of Mr. G.K. Chesterton had just fallen onto a sheet of tin.
00:22:23:07, 00:22:28:04, Now it’s, I think, very important for me anyway to be able to say that I don’t have
00:22:28:07, 00:22:33:11, to begin, as I would have if I was speaking for the church, with any apologies.
00:22:33:13, 00:22:37:15, We don’t have a lot to apologize for. It wasn’t we who framed Galileo, it wasn’t
00:22:37:17, 00:22:41:22, we who said that god wanted the crusades, it wasn’t we who mounted the inquisition,
00:22:42:01, 00:22:46:16, it wasn’t we who sponsored pavlich, Salazar, Mussolini,
00:22:46:18, 00:22:51:14, dolphus, Hitler, vichy, Franco and the rest of it,
00:22:51:16, 00:22:56:15, and it wasn’t we who preached the easter sermons saying who was responsible for the
00:22:56:17, 00:23:01:23, death of a mythical figure and creating ludicrous pain to real people in the real world.
00:23:02:01, 00:23:05:21, We don’t have to begin by proving that our institutions
00:23:05:23, 00:23:10:16, and our beliefs are human, as all human institutions are,
00:23:10:18, 00:23:14:05, that we are only mammals, as his holiness the pope is
00:23:14:07, 00:23:17:22, only a mammal. We don’t make a mystery when none exists.
00:23:18:01, 00:23:21:16, We say that we face the heavens and we find them empty, and that
00:23:21:18, 00:23:25:09, some of us at any rate are not alarmed to find this emptiness,
00:23:25:11, 00:23:31:23, and would be more alarmed to find the heavens full of permanent supervision and invigilation,
00:23:32:01, 00:23:37:23, and that an ethical life may be led by someone with no supernatural means of support,
00:23:38:01, 00:23:41:14, without the fear, if it is a fear, or the hope,
00:23:41:16, 00:23:45:05, if it is a hope, of celestial invigilation.
00:23:45:07, 00:23:49:13, America is actually the country to which people came in the most of a
00:23:49:15, 00:23:53:22, hurry to try and find if that life could really be lived as a society.
00:23:54:01, 00:23:58:22, Some of them came to practice their religion freely, many came to escape from
00:23:59:00, 00:24:03:23, persecution by other religions, some came to be free from religion altogether,
00:24:04:01, 00:24:08:15, and that’s why the constitution is godless and doesn’t mention the word, that it
00:24:08:17, 00:24:13:07, was not written by atheists, was written by Democratic theists and secularists,
00:24:13:09, 00:24:18:02, and that’s why the meeting at Philadelphia, which decided these matters
00:24:18:05, 00:24:23:21, and decides them still for us, was a godless one, if not an atheist one.
00:24:23:23, 00:24:29:00, And that’s why I think modern america should be a lot more anti-religious than it is,
00:24:29:02, 00:24:33:23, should pay less respect, make much less reverence to religion than its mass media,
00:24:34:01, 00:24:39:07, to which I’m coming presently, do. Read one page of Stephen Hawking
00:24:39:10, 00:24:44:23, about the event horizon, about the possibility that we will soon know,
00:24:45:01, 00:24:48:16, not where the universe originated, but where it has tended,
00:24:48:18, 00:24:51:23, and the event horizon to which we may all be headed.
00:24:52:01, 00:24:55:22, There is more to inspire awe in one page of Stephen
00:24:56:01, 00:24:59:22, Hawking than in any of the fantasies of Tertullian,
00:25:00:01, 00:25:04:03, imagining that he could go to the window of heaven when he was promoted
00:25:04:06, 00:25:08:11, there and look down for his consolation on the torments of the damned.
00:25:08:14, 00:25:13:11, There’s much more to be awe inspired by in a page of Hawking
00:25:13:14, 00:25:18:08, than any number of burning bushes or other such myths.
00:25:18:11, 00:25:21:02, Now it could be, and this part of the motion I
00:25:21:04, 00:25:24:01, think I might have to admit for debate purposes,
00:25:24:04, 00:25:26:21, that when religion is attacked in this country that the
00:25:26:23, 00:25:29:22, catholic church comes in for little more than its fair share.
00:25:30:01, 00:25:32:02, I may say I probably contributed somewhat to
00:25:32:04, 00:25:34:03, that and I’m not ashamed of my part in it.
00:25:34:06, 00:25:35:22, But doesn’t the catholic church
00:25:36:00, 00:25:38:01, make rather large claims for itself?
00:25:38:03, 00:25:41:13, The catholic church claims to hold the keys of Peter. The holy father
00:25:41:15, 00:25:44:23, claims to have that power and to be the vicar of Christ upon earth.
00:25:45:01, 00:25:47:01, It is said that only through this means and
00:25:47:04, 00:25:49:04, this approach can redemption be achieved.
00:25:49:06, 00:25:53:20, These are large claims for a human and fallible and political and
00:25:53:22, 00:25:59:05, bureaucratic institution to be making for itself in the age of Hawking.
00:25:59:07, 00:26:02:23, I think it’s also the case that america is preeminently a country of,
00:26:03:02, 00:26:07:01, if not sexual license as you might imagine from hearing the Mr. Donohue.
00:26:07:03, 00:26:11:22, I mean I’m surprised that you can cross the streets without copulating individuals
00:26:12:00, 00:26:17:12, and with dogs throwing buckets of water over them to keep the temperature down.
00:26:17:15, 00:26:21:21, But at any rate a country of sexual tolerance, a country of sexual,
00:26:21:23, 00:26:25:23, I’ll settle for pluralism, would settle for pluralism for now.
00:26:26:01, 00:26:28:12, Well, holy mother church doesn’t settle for that.
00:26:28:14, 00:26:30:23, Holy mother church makes rather strict demands.
00:26:31:01, 00:26:36:22, Holy mother church prohibits by various edicts, uks, statutes and pronouncements all forms
00:26:37:01, 00:26:42:22, of sex that are not specifically devoted to the outcome of pro-creating further catholics.
00:26:43:01, 00:26:47:14, And it enforces this with a celibate hierarchy. Now that’s fine and it is your choice
00:26:47:16, 00:26:51:23, and as you say father, as you don’t say father, excuse me, but presumably would,
00:26:52:01, 00:26:56:14, but as Mr. Donohue did say, no one has to join that church, but that church where
00:26:56:16, 00:27:00:23, it can does try and impose those standards on non-believers and non-members.
00:27:01:01, 00:27:07:16, And there will always seem to some people, I think, something absurd in the enforcement of such statutes,
00:27:07:18, 00:27:14:08, especially since we know most catholics don’t observe them, by a celibate oligarchy and hierarchy.
00:27:14:10, 00:27:18:05, And isn’t it said, and should it not be believed or at least affirmed or
00:27:18:07, 00:27:21:23, at any rate not repudiated, that you should expect to suffer for this?
00:27:22:01, 00:27:25:23, That you should expect to be reviled? That you should be proud to
00:27:26:01, 00:27:29:23, be abused? That you will be told that what you believe is absurd?
00:27:30:01, 00:27:33:00, That you should be glad to hear it for his sake? That
00:27:33:03, 00:27:35:23, those who despitefully use you are to be expected?
00:27:36:01, 00:27:41:13, And isn’t that a rather dignified position? A rather honorable position for the church to take?
00:27:41:16, 00:27:47:10, Something that even an atheist and humanist and marxist like myself can understand and respect?
00:27:47:12, 00:27:51:04, But instead what do we get? An endless whine of self-pity. Why
00:27:51:06, 00:27:55:21, are they picking on us? They wouldn’t say that about the Jews.
00:27:55:23, 00:28:01:05, An endless play on the ethnic politics and identity politics card. An endless appeal to
00:28:01:08, 00:28:06:23, self-pity where you should be proud that you’re in a fight for your politics and your church.
00:28:07:01, 00:28:09:20, And you seem instead to be resentful about
00:28:09:22, 00:28:13:15, it. And perhaps, who knows, a little insecure.
00:28:13:17, 00:28:22:18, However, for the main part of it, you only have to open a paper to see the exaggerated deference paid to every utterance of his holiness the
00:28:22:21, 00:28:32:01, pope wherever he goes and the extraordinary deference shown to him whenever he visits these shores and decides to grace us with his presence.
00:28:32:03, 00:28:44:10, As for the woman styling herself, Mother Teresa, I can attest that until I wrote my little pamphlet she had been the recipient, the beneficiary, of a
00:28:44:13, 00:28:56:22, 25-year niagara of 100% favorable publicity in every secular, protestant, Jewish, and catholic or non-religious outlet of any kind at all in the media.
00:28:57:01, 00:29:02:11, Only by the grace of my intervention could it not be said when
00:29:02:14, 00:29:07:23, she died that no one had ever said a single word against her.
00:29:08:01, 00:29:12:15, And that no one had ever pointed out that she had formed on the duvalier family
00:29:12:17, 00:29:17:09, in Haiti and said that they were the lord’s anointed and beloved of the poor.
00:29:17:11, 00:29:26:02, Oh well, I’ll get to her depredations in rebuttal because I say I have only a minute to go and I don’t want to overrun my time or end
00:29:26:05, 00:29:35:08, foaming in mid-sentence, waving vomit bags and tampacs in the name of good taste and good bearing and good manners and good standards.
00:29:35:11, 00:29:37:13, I think I can hope to be rescued from
00:29:37:15, 00:29:40:13, that fate without any divine intercession.
00:29:40:15, 00:29:44:09, The truth of the matter is, ladies and gentlemen, comrades and friends, brothers
00:29:44:12, 00:29:48:01, and sisters, religion has it very much its own way in this country of ours.
00:29:48:04, 00:29:50:17, It’s in the pledge of allegiance, thanks to a stupid
00:29:50:19, 00:29:53:14, intervention by president eisenhower, it’s on the money.
00:29:53:17, 00:29:55:21, It’s in the opening of congress every day.
00:29:55:23, 00:29:58:02, It’s at the national prayer breakfast.
00:29:58:05, 00:30:01:11, It’s when the delinquent president summons his advisors and his
00:30:01:14, 00:30:05:06, spiritual team in order to fend off what should have been inevitable.
00:30:05:08, 00:30:12:09, It’s when al Gore can’t bring himself to criticize the decision of the Oklahoma school board and it’s high time that that situation
00:30:12:11, 00:30:19:03, was reversed and we developed a proper immunity to it and made sure that religion could only be self-inflicted. Thank you.
00:30:19:05, 00:30:26:22, [Applause]
00:30:27:01, 00:30:29:09, Dr. Donnie will now question
00:30:29:11, 00:30:31:22, Mr. Hitchens for four minutes.
00:30:32:01, 00:30:35:14, I think I know why you don’t like mother Teresa, but I think you really should
00:30:35:16, 00:30:38:22, be man enough to tell the audience some of your more despicable comments.
00:30:39:01, 00:30:41:13, So since you weren’t, I’ll do it for you.
00:30:41:15, 00:30:43:23, These are Christopher hitchens’ words.
00:30:44:01, 00:30:48:07, Mother Teresa, in regard to her opposition to abortion, he
00:30:48:09, 00:30:53:07, said, “it sounds grotesque when uttered by an elderly virgin.”
00:30:53:09, 00:30:58:09, She’s also been regarded as a “presumable” virgin and you’ve also referred to as an
00:30:58:11, 00:31:04:04, “elderly virgin terrified of sex should not tell the rest of us how to live our sex lives.”
00:31:04:06, 00:31:06:17, So that’s really the kind of individual you are,
00:31:06:19, 00:31:09:17, Christopher, so don’t give me the stuff about duvalier.
00:31:09:19, 00:31:13:06, Now, why is she such a threat to you? All right. You see, both
00:31:13:09, 00:31:16:23, Christopher hitchens and mother Teresa had one thing in common.
00:31:17:01, 00:31:19:23, They both professed to have something in common with regard to
00:31:20:02, 00:31:22:23, the poor. They both said they were concerned about the poor.
00:31:23:01, 00:31:24:20, Unlike Mr. Hitchens, Mother Teresa
00:31:24:22, 00:31:26:23, actually did something about the poor.
00:31:27:01, 00:31:31:23, [Applause]
00:31:32:01, 00:31:36:15, Well, what’s bothering him is that here’s a woman engaged in private philanthropy,
00:31:36:17, 00:31:40:22, grounded in her catholic tradition, and you, sir, you want state socialism.
00:31:41:01, 00:31:44:22, That is why she terrifies you and she continues to terrify you.
00:31:45:00, 00:31:49:11, You want coercion and mother Teresa, of course, chills altruism.
00:31:49:13, 00:31:51:04, You know, if you’re going to write a book, too,
00:31:51:07, 00:31:52:23, you really have to do it in a scholarly fashion.
00:31:53:01, 00:31:56:02, For example, this is a scholarly work.
00:31:56:04, 00:31:58:23, This is a book which I wrote, okay?
00:31:59:01, 00:32:00:23, [Laughter]
00:32:01:01, 00:32:02:18, This is a piece of trash.
00:32:02:20, 00:32:04:23, This is a book which you wrote.
00:32:05:01, 00:32:07:11, Now, why would I say that? This is the Mother Teresa book.
00:32:07:13, 00:32:09:22, Not because of the content. He has the freedom of speech.
00:32:10:01, 00:32:12:22, When you write a book, if you’re going to be taken
00:32:12:23, 00:32:16:03, seriously, it’s always helpful to have an index, okay?
00:32:16:06, 00:32:17:18, You don’t have any index.
00:32:17:21, 00:32:19:22, Yours is 8 1/2 by 5 1/2, 98 pages.
00:32:20:01, 00:32:24:01, But more importantly, there’s something called footnotes, which go at
00:32:24:03, 00:32:28:09, the foot of the page, or endnotes, which go at the end of the chapter.
00:32:28:12, 00:32:32:16, If you take a look at my book, you have 1,060 attributions. It’s called
00:32:32:19, 00:32:37:21, evidence, Christopher, and we open up your book and we don’t find any.
00:32:37:23, 00:32:40:14, Now that, you see, if you were one of my undergraduate
00:32:40:17, 00:32:43:06, students, that would have to merit an f. I’m sorry.
00:32:43:09, 00:32:48:07, It doesn’t carry any weight.
00:32:48:10, 00:32:49:22, [Applause]
00:32:50:01, 00:32:53:12, You know, the reason why you really don’t like Mother Teresa, you say
00:32:53:15, 00:32:56:23, she takes from the rich in your book, and she gives from the poor.
00:32:57:01, 00:32:59:11, Well, who the hell did you expect her to take it from? The
00:32:59:14, 00:33:01:23, poor? I mean, what kind of a mentality is this, you know?
00:33:02:01, 00:33:04:23, She visits dictatorships, so does the red cross, and
00:33:05:02, 00:33:07:23, what do you have against dictatorships anyhow, sir?
00:33:08:01, 00:33:12:04, You have been in love with the marxist
00:33:12:06, 00:33:15:22, all over Latin america. [Applause]
00:33:16:01, 00:33:21:12, To give you an idea of where he’s coming from, he was so angry at Mother Teresa because she
00:33:21:14, 00:33:27:01, wouldn’t install an elevator in one of her buildings to rescue the homeless in the Bronx.
00:33:27:03, 00:33:29:22, He didn’t mention that she agreed to take them up the
00:33:30:00, 00:33:32:23, stairs, the nuns would carry the homeless up the stairs.
00:33:33:01, 00:33:36:21, No, because the mind of the bureaucrat, the person who must have the state, is the
00:33:36:23, 00:33:40:23, mind of the person who would be against anybody who was going to anything like this.
00:33:41:01, 00:33:47:23, It’s called voluntarism. But most amazing, in your book you say that Calcutta needs population
00:33:48:02, 00:33:55:13, control, but on the page before, you actually say that secular leftist politics predominates.
00:33:55:15, 00:33:58:22, Didn’t you quite figure out the cause and effect? In social science,
00:33:59:01, 00:34:02:02, it’s called an independent variable and a dependent variable.
00:34:02:04, 00:34:05:22, Didn’t you quite figure out that the reason they have so much poverty over
00:34:06:00, 00:34:10:02, there is precisely because of your secular leftist politics, which predominates?
00:34:10:04, 00:34:15:14, Where in god’s name has socialism ever delivered anything but what orwell said?
00:34:15:16, 00:34:20:22, Leader worship, oppression, and war. That’s the legacy of what you stand for.
00:34:21:01, 00:34:35:14, [Applause] Thank you, Dr.
00:34:35:16, 00:34:35:16, Donahue.
00:34:33:01, 00:34:35:11, Mr. Hitchens will now question
00:34:35:14, 00:34:37:23, Dr. Donahue for four minutes.
00:34:38:01, 00:34:41:23, Oh, I see.
00:34:42:01, 00:34:44:19, I didn’t want it to be, I
00:34:44:21, 00:34:48:07, thought that was a question.
00:34:48:09, 00:34:50:23, Can questions take that form?
00:34:51:01, 00:34:53:17, If questions can take that form, I can question
00:34:53:20, 00:34:57:04, Mr. Donahue for longer than four minutes, believe you me.
00:34:57:06, 00:34:59:13, I think I’m obliged, am I not, to
00:34:59:15, 00:35:02:06, reply to what was just said of me?
00:35:02:08, 00:35:05:10, It would be unmanly to borrow a term from Dr.
00:35:05:13, 00:35:07:03, Donahue not to do so.
00:35:07:05, 00:35:11:09, Well, it’s hardly to convict me of skulking to say you don’t have
00:35:11:11, 00:35:15:23, the nerve to say what you then quote from my own book as having said.
00:35:16:01, 00:35:18:12, So that’s my first point. I mean, I suppose I do
00:35:18:14, 00:35:21:04, hide behind my own publication and my own byline.
00:35:21:07, 00:35:24:07, If I didn’t quote myself, I at least didn’t
00:35:24:09, 00:35:27:13, repeat your error, sir, of solipsism.
00:35:27:15, 00:35:30:14, But I can’t have it said of even of the red cross,
00:35:30:17, 00:35:33:22, which I hold no brief, they take money from dictators.
00:35:34:01, 00:35:35:22, I’m sorry, the red cross does not
00:35:36:00, 00:35:38:00, go to dictators and ask for money.
00:35:38:02, 00:35:41:11, What Mother Teresa in fact did was to go to Haiti during the
00:35:41:13, 00:35:44:23, rule of the duvalier family to take money from the duvaliers,
00:35:45:01, 00:35:46:20, which the duvaliers had stolen
00:35:46:23, 00:35:48:23, from the poor, you will remember.
00:35:49:01, 00:35:51:13, You will remember that the life of the
00:35:51:16, 00:35:53:23, poor in Haiti was notoriously hard.
00:35:54:01, 00:35:58:13, And to make a speech in which she said that the duvalier family was loved by the
00:35:58:16, 00:36:03:09, poor in Haiti and that as far as she could see, the poor in Haiti loved them back.
00:36:03:12, 00:36:04:14, Now that’s what she actually
00:36:04:17, 00:36:05:22, did and what she actually said.
00:36:06:01, 00:36:07:20, And you can square that as you
00:36:07:22, 00:36:09:22, will with her claim to be a Saint.
00:36:10:01, 00:36:11:11, I don’t trespass on sainthood
00:36:11:14, 00:36:13:07, questions, it’s none of my affair.
00:36:13:10, 00:36:15:00, But those are the facts.
00:36:15:03, 00:36:18:10, Again with Charles keating of the Lincoln savings and loan,
00:36:18:12, 00:36:22:01, who had fleeced the poor of California through a Ponzi scheme,
00:36:22:04, 00:36:23:23, she took a large sum of money from him and a
00:36:24:02, 00:36:26:02, private plane, and the use of a private plane,
00:36:26:04, 00:36:31:12, and when asked by the court in California to return the stolen money, said no, or rather didn’t reply,
00:36:31:14, 00:36:36:22, having interceded in the court to say that Mr. Charles keating was a good man and a friend of the poor.
00:36:37:01, 00:36:38:22, Again, these are the facts.
00:36:39:01, 00:36:45:00, Now it was not said by Mother Teresa, I’ll say this much for her, she didn’t say, but some of her
00:36:45:02, 00:36:51:04, apologists did say, well, Jesus of nazareth knocked around with some pretty bad characters too.
00:36:51:07, 00:36:53:02, Sinners, publicans, tax collectors,
00:36:53:04, 00:36:54:23, that sort of type, whores as well.
00:36:55:01, 00:36:57:10, No one accuses Mother Teresa of knocking around with
00:36:57:12, 00:37:00:02, that kind of type, and as far as I know she never did.
00:37:00:04, 00:37:03:01, But he wasn’t, if he was a real person, he
00:37:03:04, 00:37:06:05, wasn’t shaking them down for their money.
00:37:06:07, 00:37:07:22, So the analogy, even if I accept the
00:37:08:01, 00:37:09:22, grammar or morality of it, would not hold.
00:37:10:01, 00:37:14:22, Mother Teresa took stolen money from the rich, money they had stolen from the poor,
00:37:15:01, 00:37:19:22, and she spent it on, well, we don’t actually know what, because there was no audit.
00:37:20:01, 00:37:23:07, But we know it wasn’t on hospices and on healthcare and
00:37:23:09, 00:37:26:23, feeding people in Calcutta because that remained consistent.
00:37:27:01, 00:37:29:12, Her outfit was as poor when she
00:37:29:15, 00:37:31:23, finished as when she started.
00:37:32:01, 00:37:35:20, What we think is it went to the 300 convents she claimed to have built around the world, in
00:37:35:23, 00:37:39:22, other words it went to an order that will bear her name, to the greater glory of Mother Teresa.
00:37:40:01, 00:37:43:01, Well that’s fine also, and not my business, but it’s not the
00:37:43:03, 00:37:45:22, impression under which the money was given to her, is it?
00:37:46:01, 00:37:48:02, And finally, she was not a friend of
00:37:48:05, 00:37:50:13, the poor, but a friend of poverty.
00:37:50:15, 00:37:52:02, It’s a very important distinction.
00:37:52:05, 00:37:55:11, Everybody knows that there is one way, and
00:37:55:14, 00:37:58:23, only one way by which poverty can be cured.
00:37:59:01, 00:38:02:08, It involves the empowerment, to use a, sorry for the fashionable
00:38:02:10, 00:38:06:05, catchphrase, but there’s no better word for it, the empowerment of women.
00:38:06:08, 00:38:08:23, Go to a village in Bolivia and Bangladesh, any
00:38:09:01, 00:38:12:03, way you like, any wooden spoon country you choose.
00:38:12:05, 00:38:20:02, Give women some power and education where their reproduction and reproductive rate is concerned, and come back a year or two later and you
00:38:20:05, 00:38:28:05, will see the floor has moved up a little bit away from the swamp of ignorance and filth and superstition and infant mortality and disease.
00:38:28:07, 00:38:36:11, And things are starting to happen, and then if you can come up with maybe a handful of seeds and a small loan, things will really start to happen, but it all
00:38:36:13, 00:38:44:23, depends on releasing women from their dependence on the cycle of reproduction, and on the husbands who force it on them and the conditions that force it on them.
00:38:45:01, 00:38:48:04, Mother Teresa spent her entire life in the third world
00:38:48:06, 00:38:51:22, opposing any vestige of the only policy that can possibly work.
00:38:52:01, 00:38:57:06, She deserves to be called a friend of poverty, and she preached to the poor that their
00:38:57:08, 00:39:03:04, poverty was to be loved and thought of as a gift from god, that their sufferings were a gift.
00:39:03:07, 00:39:08:14, And she preached to women that in Ireland, for example, one of the last acts of her life, to go to Ireland
00:39:08:16, 00:39:13:23, to campaign against the constitutional ban on divorce that’s since been lifted by an all-party agreement.
00:39:14:01, 00:39:21:12, She campaigned solidly in the no referendum to say no, a woman in Ireland who’s married to a drunk and alcoholic, a child abuser
00:39:21:14, 00:39:29:01, and wife beater may never hope to be divorced and remarried, and the constitution of Ireland will tell this to protestants too,
00:39:29:03, 00:39:32:10, because the constitution was then applied to the whole of Ireland,
00:39:32:12, 00:39:36:02, and thus making peace between the two communities entirely impossible.
00:39:36:04, 00:39:40:13, And then in her interview with the ladies home journal said about her friend and
00:39:40:15, 00:39:44:23, fellow campaigner Princess Diana, the spoiled narcissist Princess of all time,
00:39:45:01, 00:39:49:23, that it was great that she got divorced because her marriage was so unhappy. This is, I’m sorry ladies and
00:39:50:02, 00:39:54:22, gentlemen, a return to the time of the sale of indulgences and the most disgraceful days of your church.
00:39:55:01, 00:39:55:22, Thank you Mr. Hitchens.
00:39:56:01, 00:39:58:01, You take her, not me.
00:40:04:01, 00:40:05:22, Dr. Donahue will now respond to
00:40:06:01, 00:40:08:03, Mr. Hitchens for eight minutes.
00:40:08:05, 00:40:08:23, Eight?
00:40:09:02, 00:40:13:04, Charles keating, by the way, gave the money to mother
00:40:13:07, 00:40:17:23, Teresa back around 1982. You left that out, very convenient.
00:40:18:01, 00:40:20:19, When he was involved in the swindle in the
00:40:20:21, 00:40:23:23, 1990s, the money was already spent on the poor.
00:40:24:01, 00:40:25:23, That does not appear in your book and you’re not
00:40:26:02, 00:40:27:22, man enough to say it again here this evening.
00:40:28:01, 00:40:31:02, Now, this fawning over the poor that you supposedly
00:40:31:05, 00:40:33:22, have, you should have an interest in the poor.
00:40:34:01, 00:40:38:07, It kind of reminds me of people who said that, you know, when Jimmy Carter was a good
00:40:38:10, 00:40:43:03, president, because he kept, after he left the presidency, he kept making houses for the poor.
00:40:43:06, 00:40:45:13, My response to that was, and same response to that to you, well hell
00:40:45:15, 00:40:47:23, he ought to. He helped make enough of them poor in the first place.
00:40:48:01, 00:40:49:23, Why shouldn’t he build some houses for them?
00:40:50:01, 00:40:53:08, I mean, after all, it is the philosophy of the nation magazine, as
00:40:53:10, 00:40:56:23, yours is a marxism, it is the most failed philosophy in all of history.
00:40:57:01, 00:41:00:12, You’ve been on the wrong side of history. Marxism is what is, you
00:41:00:14, 00:41:03:22, talk about apologies. You don’t want to apologize for anything.
00:41:04:01, 00:41:07:10, There are more people dead in the 20th century as a result
00:41:07:12, 00:41:10:22, of what government has done than what any religion has done.
00:41:11:01, 00:41:14:01, 120 million people lost their lives.
00:41:14:03, 00:41:16:04, It’s called communism.
00:41:16:07, 00:41:25:21, Now if you don’t make this, Christopher, you want to make the argument that somehow there’s a distinction here,
00:41:25:23, 00:41:35:22, that you as a marxist, as an intellectual, are somehow distant from the behavioral consequences of your philosophy.
00:41:36:01, 00:41:40:21, Well it won’t work. Remember what Solzhenitsyn said about stalinism and marxism. He
00:41:40:23, 00:41:45:22, said, Stalin didn’t pervert marxism, it perfected it, and that’s exactly what happens.
00:41:46:01, 00:41:49:07, You cannot have a socialist regime without the kind of poverty
00:41:49:09, 00:41:52:23, which then people like Mother Teresa have to rescue the people from.
00:41:53:01, 00:41:57:01, What you are doing is sponsoring an ideology which ultimately
00:41:57:04, 00:42:01:08, leads to the kind of oppression that you supposedly abhor.
00:42:01:11, 00:42:06:17, Now you say that you’re an atheist as such. Well I hope that you will leave
00:42:06:19, 00:42:11:22, this hall tonight and explain to us then why you believe in the ape story.
00:42:12:01, 00:42:16:09, I mean it’s very important for me to know, for example, as I understand it
00:42:16:11, 00:42:21:11, the way you believe it is that once upon a time there were apes up in a tree.
00:42:21:14, 00:42:27:13, And then the apes fell off the tree. They fell on all fours. And after millions of
00:42:27:15, 00:42:33:23, years they stood up. And they lost most of their hair. And then, voila, there we were.
00:42:34:01, 00:42:42:12, Now, you know, if you want to believe that you are a descendant
00:42:42:14, 00:42:50:22, of the apes, you won’t get any argument from me, Mr. Hitchens.
00:42:51:01, 00:43:01:05, Your little lecture about women is rather misplaced too. It’s the people who practice sexual libertine philosophy are the ones who are dead. Did you ever figure out that, for
00:43:01:07, 00:43:11:23, example, in 1989 when the gay thugs ran into St. Patrick’s cathedral and they trashed the cathedral and split the eucharist on the floor, they had a kind of reunion here in December.
00:43:12:02, 00:43:17:20, There’s almost none of them showed up. That’s because they’re dead. Now why are people dead from
00:43:17:22, 00:43:23:22, sex? Is it because they are practicing natural sex or are they practicing unnatural promiscuous sex?
00:43:24:01, 00:43:30:11, Now, nobody that I know of in the entire world has ever died of sex if you
00:43:30:13, 00:43:36:23, listen to what the catholic church teaches. It’s only people in rebellion.
00:43:37:01, 00:43:44:23, If you go throughout history you’ll see a whole long list of people from the Marquis de sade to Kinsey. Every one of these people, not
00:43:45:01, 00:43:52:22, only anti-catholic, they were sadomasochist, bisexual, switch-hitting, pedophile, voyeuristic exhibitionists. Did I leave anybody out?
00:43:53:01, 00:44:06:10, And that’s true. If you take a look at every one of these people, look at what they have bequeathed to us. So I think there is some account that needs to be done and has to come from your side. You said that the catholic church deserves the bigotry it gets because it wants to impose
00:44:06:12, 00:44:20:02, its views. I can take no better authority than pope John Paul ii who says the catholic church doesn’t want to impose anything. We are here to propose. You can accept and you can reject and you can live with the consequences of those people who reject the wisdom of the catholic church.
00:44:20:05, 00:44:27:01, You know, it is strange. The catholic church is the greatest defender of the poor. I don’t know of one single force
00:44:27:03, 00:44:29:10, which allows more poor people to become middle class than catholic
00:44:29:12, 00:44:38:23, schools. And yet if we lived in a sane society, [applause]
00:44:39:01, 00:44:44:22, If we lived in a sane society, we would close down the department of education, give
00:44:45:00, 00:44:50:23, every single dime to the catholic church to defend the poor. That’s what we would do.
00:44:51:01, 00:44:57:07, But the government is too busy watching catholic priests on Sunday. Are they talking about abortions? Meanwhile, we have the
00:44:57:09, 00:45:03:22, protestant stumping in there. Don’t we have Gore and the others? And we have them getting endorsements in the protestant churches.
00:45:04:01, 00:45:10:10, In 1988, you had two protestants run for president, the reverend Jesse Jackson and the reverend pat robertson.
00:45:10:12, 00:45:16:23, Could you imagine if instead in the year 2000, we announced that father paracone is going to run for president?
00:45:17:01, 00:45:22:23, [Applause]
00:45:23:01, 00:45:27:23, Oh, I’d like to give them father eichner out in kellenberg. That’s what I’d like to give them. And if
00:45:28:01, 00:45:32:22, I really want to stick it to them, I’ll give them monsignor John woolsey. That’s what I’ll give them.
00:45:33:01, 00:45:38:23, And if you want to push them way over the top, then I’ll give you wren. You ever meet Michael wren? Alright, let’s run these guys for president.
00:45:39:02, 00:45:44:23, We’ll have father frank give you the fundraiser. I mean, after all, if Gore can do it, the Buddhist temples can get away with it. Why can’t we?
00:45:45:01, 00:45:50:18, Can you imagine Jack kemp in 1996 in St. Patrick’s cathedral taking up checks from the nuns and the priests? Everybody’s writing
00:45:50:20, 00:45:56:08, a check and then they get the money back from the archdiocese of New York. Could you imagine trying to get away with this?
00:45:56:11, 00:46:04:17, Now Christopher, you might agree with me on this, because you don’t want the clergy to be running. I understand that. However, I think even you, because of your appetite
00:46:04:19, 00:46:13:02, for power, would find it irresistible if a particular clergyman came to you and said, “Christopher, I need a vice presidential candidate. Will you please come with me?”
00:46:13:05, 00:46:20:13, I could see this one person in this country that even you, Christopher, would have to say yes. Bob
00:46:20:15, 00:46:28:02, Jones III. Now, what a ticket we have. Jones and hitchens for president. Can you see the buttons?
00:46:28:04, 00:46:34:22, Now, you could actually bring in your friend Ian Paisley, another guy from the other side of the country. Now, Ian Paisley has a lot in common. He’s not
00:46:35:01, 00:46:41:22, only a fellow brit with him, but he’s also a guy who got an honorary degree from Bob Jones university, so you’d have some fun with that. I’m sure you would.
00:46:42:01, 00:46:52:07, You know, the hypocrisy that goes on with this thing is never-ending, particularly with regard to the government, and I want you to talk to this question of the public subsidization of the government
00:46:52:10, 00:47:02:12, here. We had, in Chicago in 1988, people went in and they took mayor of Washington, put a portrait of him in the Chicago institute, in underwear and the like. What did the black city council do?
00:47:02:15, 00:47:10:09, They ordered that the artwork be impounded. To what happened last year, the year before, when the Los Angeles city council, how many of you
00:47:10:11, 00:47:18:10, know this? They actually passed a resolution condemning a particular network for putting on a program, the secret diaries of Douglas pfeiffer.
00:47:18:13, 00:47:25:20, Could you imagine if donahue went to the New York City council and said, “hey guys, you want to pass a resolution condemning nothing sacred?” I mean, they look at you like you
00:47:25:23, 00:47:33:11, were crazy. So what we have is a double standard. You don’t like the double standard because you want to contribute to anti-catholicism. You at least you’re on record about that.
00:47:33:13, 00:47:41:02, That’s one thing I have to say to Mr. Hitchens, because he’s not a liberal. Liberals usually lie about these things. He will tell you right to your face that he believes that you
00:47:41:05, 00:47:48:22, should have more bigotry. But where you really break down, though, is that if you yourself were the victim of some sort of bigotry, you would be the first one to scream bloody murder.
00:47:49:01, 00:47:55:03, You, sir, want to have it both ways. You want to talk about the necessity of human rights. Meanwhile, every time you get a
00:47:55:05, 00:48:01:09, chance to undercut somebody who’s fighting for human rights, you will do so. So that’s why it makes you the ultimate phony.
00:48:01:11, 00:48:06:04, Thank you, Dr. Donahue. Mr. Hitchens will now
00:48:06:06, 00:48:11:19, have eight minutes to respond to Dr. Donahue.
00:48:11:21, 00:48:18:09, Actually, I hadn’t quite got through with mother Teresa. But I think probably Dr. Donahue, if
00:48:18:11, 00:48:25:05, I must call him that, will duly take any criticism of her as a reflection on his own probity.
00:48:25:07, 00:48:34:11, I’m sorry I’m not usually accused of being inaudible or understated. I’ll start again. I was going to say I hadn’t quite finished with
00:48:34:14, 00:48:44:04, Mother Teresa, but I’m sure that if I go on a little, it will, in rebuttal, it will, so to speak, feed into Dr. Donahue’s rebuttal of me.
00:48:44:06, 00:48:54:02, Let’s put a case where I think that the church has a claim to a certain moral grandeur. The catholic church, the Roman catholic church, because
00:48:54:05, 00:49:03:23, all, many churches claim to be catholic, the Roman catholic church, takes the view that there can be no trifling with the life of the unborn,
00:49:04:01, 00:49:12:12, and that the concept unborn child is not a propaganda concept, but a meaningful one, a real one, a true one,
00:49:12:14, 00:49:20:22, and that deserves protection and tenderness. As it happens, I agree with this view for materialist reasons.
00:49:21:01, 00:49:29:05, It seems to me obvious from the discoveries of biology and embryology
00:49:29:07, 00:49:37:23, that the concept unborn child is a real one. It’s not just a dialectical.
00:49:38:01, 00:49:46:11, And it has to be granted to the church that it has made this a centerpiece of its ethic and its morality. But
00:49:46:13, 00:49:55:04, just as I’m not, say, a pacifist, and I can certainly imagine circumstances in which human life can be taken,
00:49:55:06, 00:50:03:11, I don’t think that there are non-fundamentalist positions on abortion. For example, one of them is that the iud, the intrauterine
00:50:03:14, 00:50:12:11, contraceptive device, is in fact a murder weapon, an abortifacient murder weapon. I consider that to be an extreme view, I must say.
00:50:12:13, 00:50:19:13, I think there is the possibility of common ground to be found on this if such extreme positions are dropped. I also do not believe and cannot
00:50:19:16, 00:50:26:23, really believe that anybody does believe that what is sometimes called artificial contraception, in other words, medical or chemical contraception,
00:50:27:01, 00:50:32:22, is the moral equivalent of abortion, and thus that really all forms of contraception are
00:50:32:23, 00:50:38:22, murder also. So you have my reservations as well. Now take the position of Mother Teresa.
00:50:39:01, 00:50:43:13, She’s given the Nobel prize for peace. She’s never done anything for peace, never claimed to do
00:50:43:15, 00:50:48:06, anything for peace, and actually never said anything about it either, but she accepts the award.
00:50:48:08, 00:50:51:18, On another occasion, by the way, I’d like to know where the money went, but never
00:50:51:20, 00:50:55:04, mind, you can’t just take the money at Stockholm. You have to make a speech.
00:50:55:06, 00:50:59:10, It has to be about peace. And I have the speech, and Mother Teresa in
00:50:59:13, 00:51:03:23, that speech says, “well, the greatest threat to world peace is abortion.”
00:51:04:02, 00:51:08:02, Now this is not a sensible view. It’s an extreme view. It’s
00:51:08:04, 00:51:12:00, a fanatical view. It’s a fundamentalist and zealot view.
00:51:12:02, 00:51:17:11, One of the great achievements of your church used to be that it knew how to keep zealots and fanatics
00:51:17:13, 00:51:22:23, under control, that it was indeed a means of pacifying and disciplining that kind of force in society.
00:51:23:01, 00:51:28:22, But I’m afraid to say that with a great deal of secular and protestant and Jewish help,
00:51:29:00, 00:51:35:17, this mad catholic fundamentalist escaped and became a role model for the American media.
00:51:35:20, 00:51:41:18, And for everyone in it, secular, Jewish, or Christian. And then having witnessed this absurd rod
00:51:41:20, 00:51:47:22, of montart, the effect of secular canonization of this woman, who as I say was a friend of poverty,
00:51:48:01, 00:51:52:05, was a friend of dictatorship, was a friend of ignorance and superstition of
00:51:52:07, 00:51:56:23, fanaticism, and to see her adopted by the entire secular media and welcomed by all,
00:51:57:01, 00:52:01:08, I have to come here and explain why everyone’s pounding on the catholic church.
00:52:01:10, 00:52:05:23, It’s preposterous. There’s no sense of proportion in this way of arguing. I’m sorry.
00:52:06:01, 00:52:11:22, Doctor, or I must say in the way you argue it. I’ll accept as a joke what you said about darwinism, and I’m sure
00:52:12:01, 00:52:17:22, you hope that everyone else was hoping, vulgarly though it was phrased that it would be accepted in that way too.
00:52:18:01, 00:52:23:22, I don’t think I can quite let go the idea that no one would be in any physical danger if
00:52:24:00, 00:52:30:02, they followed only the sexual precepts of the church, and you’ll have to forgive me here.
00:52:30:04, 00:52:37:15, Since the church has, and still does, condemned even modest acts of lonely self abuse and
00:52:37:17, 00:52:45:22, encouraged people, enjoined them to abstain from them, it’s quite clear that what you abstain from
00:52:46:01, 00:52:51:12, under church instruction is not going to kill you. I mean I will Grant you that, but I will also
00:52:51:14, 00:52:57:05, think you will have to admit that you are the father, if not the mother, of a gigantic tautology.
00:52:57:07, 00:53:07:19, Teaching of that kind, teaching about abstention, clearly cannot lead to death from sex, but to say that aids is death from sex is I think to commit an obscenity.
00:53:07:21, 00:53:18:02, I’m sorry to have to say that the brothers and sisters of our society who have succumbed to that appalling disease did not die of sex or of their sexuality.
00:53:18:05, 00:53:24:05, And remember homosexuality is not just a form of sex, it’s a form of love. They died, oh that’s
00:53:24:07, 00:53:30:21, interesting, I wondered what kind of a growl I might get there, well I’ll repeat it then.
00:53:30:23, 00:53:37:02, Homosexuals practice not just a form of sex but a form of love, if you can’t live with it, I think
00:53:37:04, 00:53:42:23, you’re the poorer. However, what they died of was a filthy virus which can and will be cured.
00:53:43:01, 00:53:47:14, And the clear implication of what Dr. Donahue said was that it was some kind of judgment
00:53:47:17, 00:53:52:07, on their sexual preference. I’m sorry I can’t sit here, rather stand here and take that.
00:53:52:09, 00:53:59:10, I’ll give you an example which you again might think was extreme but it’s not. During the Reagan
00:53:59:13, 00:54:07:13, administration there was a search for blood to do experiments to find out what’s happening with aids.
00:54:07:15, 00:54:12:00, The search was to find blood that had no sexual transmitted disease contamination.
00:54:12:03, 00:54:15:23, In other words, the blood of people who’d never had any kind of disease.
00:54:16:01, 00:54:25:04, And I don’t think you’ll find actually that in the countries where holy mother church rules, and by the way it does make rules for non-believers on the accessibility and availability of contraception
00:54:25:06, 00:54:33:22, where it can, and divorce, in Spain, in Italy, in Ireland, it’s been tried many times, it’s been defeated, but you’ve no right to say the church has not tried to legislate for non-believers.
00:54:34:01, 00:54:40:09, No right at all, that’s a flat lie. And in many of these countries syphilis and gonorrhea is not unknown, even among
00:54:40:11, 00:54:46:16, believers. I hate to break it to you, but to those of you who’ve been in confessionals probably know it already.
00:54:46:19, 00:54:51:07, So the search was on in america. Who has the cleanest blood? Who has the blood that is freest
00:54:51:09, 00:54:55:22, of all venereal trace for these experiments? The department of health went out to look for it.
00:54:56:01, 00:55:04:22, So there are two groups. One is nuns. I don’t make nun jokes, never have, resent the accusation that I do. One is nuns, the other is female homosexuals.
00:55:05:00, 00:55:13:23, Lesbians, as some people I think like to call them, especially people who are slightly too interested in this subject, as I suspect Dr. Donohue of being.
00:55:14:01, 00:55:22:09, Well, there was a lesbian organization in San Francisco called blood sistah, which agreed to give blood. It’s pure uncontaminated blood for this experiment, and
00:55:22:12, 00:55:30:22, a member of the Reagan administration, a junior member of it, went to a dinner to honor this group because, if you remember aids was left to voluntary initiative.
00:55:31:01, 00:55:37:23, It wasn’t a national health question or anything socialist or totalitarian like that. It was to be left up to volunteers,
00:55:38:02, 00:55:45:02, this plague, and for going to the dinner just to recognize women who’d given their pure blood to help their gay brothers.
00:55:45:04, 00:55:58:01, He was fired because he committed an immoral act and recognized an immoral practice. Well, this is why I don’t think secular morality needs to be defended from the barbaric superstitions
00:55:58:03, 00:56:10:23, and guilts and obscene suggestions that are made by the godly, or from the repressions and unguessable atmoteves that lie behind people who talk and think and sound like that. Thank you.
00:56:11:02, 00:56:16:23, [Applause]
00:56:17:01, 00:56:18:19, Dr. Donohue will now have six
00:56:18:21, 00:56:21:12, minutes for his closing statement.
00:56:21:15, 00:56:25:17, You don’t write jokes about nuns, you just write vicious things about them as you
00:56:25:20, 00:56:29:23, did about her virginity before. So, that’s right, you’re in a different category.
00:56:30:01, 00:56:35:01, You know, the reason is that abortion is the greatest threat to world peace. I mean, if you understand who the most
00:56:35:04, 00:56:40:04, defenseless segment of the population is, Christopher, then you wouldn’t have to have me try to explain it to you.
00:56:40:06, 00:56:44:15, If a woman can kill her child, she can kill anyone, and if men put up with it, and if men
00:56:44:18, 00:56:49:07, encourage it, who’s next? You don’t quite seem to get that, but that’s in front of the day.
00:56:49:10, 00:56:54:12, The reason why Mother Teresa is loved by the media, and they don’t particularly care for people
00:56:54:15, 00:56:59:23, who are socialist, is precisely because they recognize in her as they recognize in the holy father.
00:57:00:01, 00:57:06:05, We’re dealing with somebody very, very special. We’re dealing with holy people, a concept which is obviously foreign to you. We
00:57:06:08, 00:57:12:14, have a situation with regard to the aids thing, and I find it absolutely amazing that you think that you can win this argument.
00:57:12:17, 00:57:16:06, Did you think a little bug came along and bit these people in the behind, and that’s
00:57:16:08, 00:57:19:22, why they wound up with aids? I mean, the time has come to really talk the truth here.
00:57:20:01, 00:57:25:22, If you drink too much, you will get cirrhosis of the liver. If you smoke too much, you will
00:57:26:00, 00:57:31:23, get lung cancer. And if you practice promiscuous sex, you will wind up with some type of VD.
00:57:32:01, 00:57:36:23, That’s because the body cannot take that kind of punishment. There’s something called the natural
00:57:37:02, 00:57:42:09, law. There’s something called the natural order. You don’t want to hear it, but it happens to be true.
00:57:42:11, 00:57:46:15, I was on with Larry king myself, and they said, “well, you’re talking about aids.” I said, “well, I’m not
00:57:46:18, 00:57:51:04, going to get it, unless I get one of these transfusions.” And you know the reason why I’m not going to get it?
00:57:51:06, 00:57:56:11, It’s because I don’t sleep around, I don’t practice anal sex, and I don’t take drugs. So I’m not going to get it. Now, I
00:57:56:14, 00:58:01:23, feel sorry for people who get it, but you know what? There are people who are out there who know exactly what they’re doing.
00:58:02:01, 00:58:08:17, If you had a group in Washington, D.C., which said smokers of the world unite, you get all the tobacco people in Washington
00:58:08:20, 00:58:15:22, demanding that we have more research for lung cancer, and saying, “you have no right to tell me to do what I want with my own body.
00:58:16:01, 00:58:22:11, I have every right to smoke cigarettes, but I demand that you find a cure for my malady.” We’d look at them as if they were
00:58:22:14, 00:58:29:00, mad, but yet we find this with the gay population and with the straights who are also getting the results of what they do.
00:58:29:03, 00:58:34:12, Now, you and your secular morality, you know, there is something called the ten commandments, they’re
00:58:34:15, 00:58:39:23, not recommendations, and that’s because it speaks to human appetites. “Thou shalt not, Christopher.”
00:58:40:01, 00:58:44:09, It’s written, the understanding here is that human nature on its own might in fact
00:58:44:12, 00:58:48:17, indulge in the passions and the appetites which lead to this kind of behavior.
00:58:48:19, 00:58:52:07, You know, the catholic church is hated, you know why? Because the catholic church
00:58:52:09, 00:58:56:05, speaks the truth. The catholic church talks about absolutes in a world of relativism.
00:58:56:07, 00:59:00:16, The catholic church knows what freedom is. The freedom is the right to do what you ought
00:59:00:18, 00:59:04:23, to do. In a culture where it says freedom is the right to do whatever we want to do.
00:59:05:01, 00:59:08:22, But no, you would rather be in bed with the deconstructionists, and so we
00:59:09:00, 00:59:12:23, found out what they think, don’t we? That there is no such thing as truth.
00:59:13:01, 00:59:17:14, That’s why people like de man can go on teach at Yale university after collaborating
00:59:17:16, 00:59:21:15, with the Nazis. It’s only a natural fit if you could only figure it out.
00:59:21:17, 00:59:25:08, Foucault, another one of your masters out of France, said, “oh, masochist,
00:59:25:10, 00:59:28:22, who wound up with aids and then intentionally spread it to people here.”
00:59:29:01, 00:59:31:22, And of course, he got a job at the new school for
00:59:32:01, 00:59:35:01, social research, obviously where he would belong.
00:59:35:03, 00:59:39:07, So no, you’ve got to take a look at the consequences. You cannot just say we have an
00:59:39:09, 00:59:43:23, ideology here which means good, and then take a look at the consequences as divorced from it.
00:59:44:01, 00:59:47:21, And that’s exactly the kind of problem that I think that we have with you. In
00:59:47:23, 00:59:51:23, any event, listen, we’ve got some very good news here with the catholic league.
00:59:52:01, 00:59:57:03, Despite your appetite to have us lose, we are winning, and I think that’s the driving thing
00:59:57:05, 01:00:02:03, that’s driving people mad, not only you, hitchens, but a lot of people in this country.
01:00:02:06, 01:00:05:14, If you take a look at the victories the catholic league has had, it’s astounding,
01:00:05:17, 01:00:08:23, isn’t it? Take a look, for example, what happened tonight if you got the news.
01:00:09:01, 01:00:15:02, I got a chance to be on with Peter Jennings here just about an hour or so ago. We’ve been fighting the Republicans and the bigots
01:00:15:04, 01:00:21:02, in the Evangelical protestant community who are out there to try and sunder a priest from getting the job as house chaplain.
01:00:21:04, 01:00:26:23, Well, as a matter of fact, house speaker Denny hassett, the former wrestling coach in high school,
01:00:27:02, 01:00:33:06, stood up and said, “I am going to ask reverend Wright to pull up side,” and he did do exactly that.
01:00:33:08, 01:00:36:12, And it was announced tonight that a catholic priest has been
01:00:36:14, 01:00:39:22, installed as the new house chaplain the first time in 215 years.
01:00:40:01, 01:00:48:23, [Applause]
01:00:49:01, 01:00:52:06, Father Douglas, father Daniel coughlin, he’s a
01:00:52:08, 01:00:56:09, vicar of priests out of the archdiocese of Chicago.
01:00:56:12, 01:01:02:13, You know, we also broke every record in television history with the nothing sacred boycott that we conducted, and unlike the people
01:01:02:16, 01:01:08:22, who are now saying Dr. Laura should be taken off the air before she gets on, we were called all kinds of names for it, but that’s okay.
01:01:09:01, 01:01:15:23, 37 sponsors were killed as a result of our effort to get that nvidia show off the air. The Simpsons, we made the point on that,
01:01:16:02, 01:01:22:23, too, and they said, “you can go after the Jews, you can go after the muslims, you can go after the baptists and presbyterians.
01:01:23:01, 01:01:28:06, Leave the catholics alone because we sent an unmistakable message.” In fact, nbc just recently
01:01:28:08, 01:01:33:05, canceled putting on a show the last day because of the efforts of the catholic league.
01:01:33:07, 01:01:37:14, We’ve gotten cds retired voluntarily without coercion. We don’t have to
01:01:37:17, 01:01:42:06, go to the government to get what we want. We use the private pressure.
01:01:42:08, 01:01:44:14, And one of the things that I am most proud of, and some of you in
01:01:44:16, 01:01:47:02, this room are very proud of you, too, because you were there with me.
01:01:47:05, 01:01:52:15, When we went against corpus christi, the gay play, we had 2,000 people in the streets, and the
01:01:52:17, 01:01:57:23, other side with their stupid little balloons from people from the American way, 300 people.
01:01:58:01, 01:02:01:04, Oh no, the clock is ticking. The cultural clock is
01:02:01:07, 01:02:05:12, ticking, Christopher, and it’s not going your way anymore.
01:02:05:14, 01:02:15:22, [Applause]
01:02:16:01, 01:02:18:07, Mr. Hitchens, you will have six
01:02:18:10, 01:02:21:03, minutes for your closing statement.
01:02:21:06, 01:02:26:15, Thank you, father. Well, if I understood Dr. Donahue correctly just a moment ago, he
01:02:26:17, 01:02:32:06, seems to have come over to my side of the, at least the formal part of the motion.
01:02:32:08, 01:02:35:22, This evening, since it is my contention that religion is unusually privileged in this
01:02:36:00, 01:02:39:23, country by the cultural elite and the political and the intellectual and academic elite, too.
01:02:40:01, 01:02:44:18, Now we read of a string of new triumphs, including, I think, a bad
01:02:44:21, 01:02:49:22, time for Bart Simpson and some kind of papist in the well of the house.
01:02:50:01, 01:02:53:10, I mean, isn’t this all going your way? Next you know, next you know
01:02:53:12, 01:02:56:23, they’ll have under god on the money and in the pledge of allegiance.
01:02:57:01, 01:03:01:19, I rest my case. It’s always seemed to me quite preposterous to hear this self-pity from
01:03:01:22, 01:03:06:23, Roman catholics about what actually is a church pretty much triumphant, not to say militant.
01:03:07:01, 01:03:11:09, I mean, look, it was, it is, I know it’s true that there was a time when people didn’t
01:03:11:12, 01:03:15:22, like Irish Americans and they didn’t like catholic Americans and often confused the two.
01:03:16:01, 01:03:21:10, But now the Kennedy family is a celebrity family and everybody loves
01:03:21:13, 01:03:26:22, them and everybody loves them and they’re your problem and not mine.
01:03:27:01, 01:03:29:15, But I think we can dispose of that under the rubric
01:03:29:17, 01:03:31:23, of is this a great country or what, actually.
01:03:32:01, 01:03:36:23, [Laughter]
01:03:37:01, 01:03:42:21, Now rather than reply to the extremely cheap suggestions made about, I mean,
01:03:42:23, 01:03:48:22, you can probably tell from something about me that I wasn’t born here either.
01:03:49:01, 01:03:51:04, But was born in an island next to Ireland, a
01:03:51:06, 01:03:53:22, neighboring island. It was mentioned a couple of times.
01:03:54:01, 01:03:59:11, Rather than reply to the rather cheap assertions that were made about that, I’ll reply to
01:03:59:14, 01:04:04:23, them in someone else’s behalf, namely my friend John Cornwell who was mentioned earlier.
01:04:05:01, 01:04:06:19, And I feel it’s my turn to
01:04:06:21, 01:04:09:00, defend him since he’s not here.
01:04:09:03, 01:04:14:04, John Cornwell is as unlike me as an englishman as it’s possible to get. He was at ampleforth
01:04:14:07, 01:04:18:23, school which is the sort of, I don’t know, the, I don’t know what you’d call it here,
01:04:19:01, 01:04:25:09, the loyola of English public schools. He takes his church and his adherence,
01:04:25:11, 01:04:31:02, he’s a communicant and devout member of the Roman catholic church,
01:04:31:05, 01:04:37:09, and takes his adherence to it, took it so nearly to the, he only just avoided, and it
01:04:37:11, 01:04:43:23, wasn’t by my pleading with him either, taking the vows that would have made him a priest.
01:04:44:01, 01:04:49:12, He’s, it is also true, and I’ll restate it because it was denied, and denied in a
01:04:49:14, 01:04:54:22, confusing manner, that he was allowed tremendous access to the Vatican archives.
01:04:55:01, 01:05:00:14, And it’s true because he had on his previous visit to those archives, which had been open to him before,
01:05:00:17, 01:05:05:22, written a very stern and rather brilliant book in defense of insinuations made against the church,
01:05:06:01, 01:05:10:23, and against the polity in Rome, that it had murdered the previous pope. You may remember there
01:05:11:02, 01:05:15:23, was that outbreak of surreptitious reporting at one point. John Cornwell put all that to rest
01:05:16:01, 01:05:22:23, with the help of the archives. That’s why he was trusted to do what he did about pope pius, and that’s why what he
01:05:23:01, 01:05:29:22, has found is so annihilating, and why it’s so dishonest not to pretend that this is a crisis for those who believe
01:05:30:01, 01:05:33:23, that the pope is or was or could be the vicar of Christ on earth, because here’s
01:05:34:02, 01:05:38:02, what this vicar of Christ did do, and I’ll mention only a couple of the things.
01:05:38:04, 01:05:45:02, But this vicar of Christ did tell Heinrich bruning, the leader of the catholic center party in Germany, to dissolve his party,
01:05:45:04, 01:05:51:23, to give up having a catholic center party, and to join and vote for the accession of the national socialists and of Hitler,
01:05:52:01, 01:06:01:02, specifically as chancellor. This vicar of Christ on earth also did make it a mandate that every German bishop celebrate Hitler’s birthday every
01:06:01:05, 01:06:09:22, year from the pulpit. It is a tremendous testimony, it seems to me, to the unease with which the cultural elite approaches church matters,
01:06:10:01, 01:06:18:11, that to this day, I haven’t read a review of this book or discussion of its incredible findings. You have not lived, ladies and
01:06:18:13, 01:06:27:04, gentlemen, if you believe in the dialectical principles that the good father was kind enough to reiterate to us in his opening,
01:06:27:07, 01:06:36:03, you have not submitted yourself to a dialectical test as catholics, and I gather there are some
01:06:36:05, 01:06:45:05, of you here, if you have not exposed yourself to John Cornwell’s book, I’m closing on my time.
01:06:45:07, 01:06:52:11, The big difference between us is this. It’s nothing to do with the particular depredations of Rome. It’s certainly nothing to do with
01:06:52:13, 01:06:59:23, the particular depredations of Bob Jones university, and like I should perhaps say for myself, and as I could also say for John Cornwell,
01:07:00:01, 01:07:07:13, he and I have both opposed very strongly British policy towards partitioned Ireland, which involved writing anti-catholic laws into the statute
01:07:07:16, 01:07:14:22, books. We’ve both opposed the laws in britain that say that, for example, no member of the royal family can legally marry a Roman catholic,
01:07:15:01, 01:07:24:02, and we both opposed the guy Fawkes celebration, which celebrates the lynching of a catholic, and so on, and the strain of vulgar sectarianism that
01:07:24:04, 01:07:33:04, is and remains in British imperial life, and I’ve written myself, I was actually the first to write about the connection between Ian Paisley’s
01:07:33:06, 01:07:43:01, thuggish, murderous sectarianism and the Bob Jones university’s down-home racist version of it, so it was particularly nasty, but since Mr. Donohue I do know reads
01:07:43:03, 01:07:53:00, my stuff, I don’t know why, but I know he does, for him to give you the opposite or contrasting impression, but the difference is this, and it’s a major difference.
01:07:53:02, 01:08:01:22, I do not believe that I was created, and I don’t believe I was created sick and then commanded to be well. I just choose not to believe it. I
01:08:02:00, 01:08:10:23, don’t think it’s a plausible proposition. I don’t think that it’s plausible to say that you hate the sin and love the sinner when you talk like
01:08:11:02, 01:08:21:14, Mr. Donohue does about homosexuals, and I think it’s casuistry anyway, because who really goes around saying I don’t like rape, but I love those rapists. I think the religion gets a free pass in making
01:08:21:17, 01:08:31:23, moral casuistry of this kind. I think it is possible. I may not be the best example of it, and I did flicker a bit with enthusiasm when the alcohol and tobacco lobbies were mentioned a moment ago.
01:08:32:01, 01:08:39:21, If you’d thrown in firearms, you’d have had me all together. I may not be the best example for it, but it is possible and
01:08:39:23, 01:08:48:06, probably necessary that people lead ethical and moral lives without claiming the solipsism of divine protection. Thank you.
01:08:48:09, 01:09:07:23, [Applause]
01:09:08:01, 01:09:36:23, [Music]
01:09:37:01, 01:09:47:01, [Music]
01:09:54:23, 01:09:57:01, [Music]
