Here is a link to the BBC’s The Intelligence Squared Debate between Christopher Hitchens and Stephen Fry and Catholics, Archbishop John Onaiyekan and Anne Widdencombe MP debating: “Is the Catholic Church a Force for Good in the World?” Evidently, according to this report, it wasn’t so much a debate as a romp, Hitchens and Fry ran away with it:

The voting gives a good idea of how it went. Before the debate, for the motion: 678. Against: 1102. Don’t know: 346. This is how it changed after the debate. For: 268. Against: 1876. Don’t know: 34. In other words, after hearing the speakers, the number of people in the audience who opposed the motion increased by 774. My friend Simon, who’s a season ticket holder, said it was the most decisive swing against a motion that he could remember.

Maybe the Catholics should have limited the debate to the last hundred years so they could have avoided the whole Inquisition thing. Of course that leaves them with other very difficult issues to defend but at least it removes torture and death from the debate.
If I were to defend the church (not just the Roman Catholic Church but the universal church) as being a force for good in the world, I would focus less on our actions (though, we do get it right more often than not) and more on our message: that Christ is a force for good in the world. He came to take away the sin of the world, to give eternal life to those who believe in himand reconcile us to the Father so that in Christ we may have peace and know the everlasting love of God. That’s a message that’s a force for good in the world, which is why it’s called the gospel 🙂