The debate between the two sides were as I expected and to be honest, nothing really new was said.
However, concerning the two speakers speaking for the negative, namely Christopher Hitchens and Stephen Fry.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I have the greatest respect for both men. I am also against organised religion in any form whether it is Catholic, Judaism, Islam, Scientology, whatever.

However, the two men seemed to have missed a very important point, which Stephen Fry even touched on at one point, which is that organised religion is NOT faith.

Stephen Fry says he is not attacking the individuals within the church and has great respect for their faith, states they are as entitled to their faith as he is to his leaning towards Enlightenment and Post Enlightenment thought which is as fair and wise as you would expect from him.

The point I wish either Stephen Fry or Christopher Hitchens would have brought up is that the men who are enabling atrocities such as child rape, the spread of AIDS in Africa etc are not acting through Faith. They are acting on behalf of the organised religion and are working only to build the power base to which they have aligned themselves. The people who are enabling these disgusting acts to continue to be forced onto those who are looking to the Church for guidance and protection are not acting from a point of Faith but are merely exercising power and control over the vulnerable through the veneer of Faith.

The priest who is raping a child. The Archbishop who is spreading the ‘gospel’ that condoms encourage the spread of AIDS. How can they say they believe these things are right? How can they say they believe Jesus would condone this dangerous attitude towards sexuality?

Stephen Fry rightly makes a point to say the hierarchy and the way the leaders are chosen within the Catholic church is not natural. Through public shows of celibacy etc, these people deny their human natures to say they are trying to be more like Jesus.
However, according to Catholic doctrine, Jesus was wholly man And wholly divine.
Jesus was a man which means he would have gotten hungry, sleepy, horny, pissed off, loved up and all the other emotions which humans feel. Organised religion is saying certain parts of the human spectrum of emotion is wrong and they must be suppressed. Organised religion doesn’t want you to be whole.

I wish either Stephen or Christopher would have called the leaders of the Catholic church to read the Bible as men. Not men of God for there is no such thing. Anyone who claims to be closer to God/Jesus/Allah/Yahweh than anyone else is lying to themselves and everyone else. You are only as close to God as you are humbled by the awesomeness of the universe and the Creator.
If the leaders of the Catholic Church read the Bible through fresh eyes, without the blinkers of religion, they would see that Jesus’ lesson of Love crosses all boundaries. His lesson of Love for all man is actually quite easy to follow and is more joyous than the rules and regulations that Man has put in place to control those who are weaker.

I think the title of the debate is misleading and led to a debate of Faith (as was the view of the pro-Catholic side) vs Religion.

It cannot deny that many good things have been done through Faith.

However, in the debate, the representatives of the Catholic Church refused to acknowledge that it is the structures within they work, the rules and regulations they enforce upon themselves, the view that you have to speak to God through a priest etc which is causing all the problems within the Catholic Church.

They refused to acknowledge that if they did not enforce an environment where people deny their natural, God given, human natures then children would not be raped by priests. They refuse to acknowledge that it is a man made idea that homosexuality is wrong and that it is religious men, not Faithful men, who continue to enforce this idea.
They also refused to acknowledge that the only reason the Catholic church continues to keep the idea that you cannot speak to God directly yourself is to keep priests/bishops/archbishops etc etc employed by the Church. Yes, they may say they live modest lifestyles etc, but how much more modest must the congregation be? How much more must the congregations offer in order to keep these Men in positions of power only to be told they are not as devout/holy/pure as these Men simply because they live in the real world?

What is needed is the removal of organised religion. If the congregations are truly faithful and are following the teachings of Jesus which is to love your fellow man, they will continue to do good deeds. They will continue to give aid to developing countries. They will continue to nurture and encourage each other to be as good as human being as they possibly can.
Therefore, the question which should have been debated is ‘Why is the Catholic Church so reluctant to let go of it’s power?’