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The following was just deleted from the article as non-notable:
"In 2000, 65% of members lived in the Southern Hemisphere.(ref)Scotchie, Father David (15–28 January 2010).
"Unity in Diversity". Orlando, Florida: Florida Catholic. pp. A19.{{
cite news}}
: CS1 maint: date format (
link)(endref)"
While the material didn't have the greatest source (also mentioned in the deletion as an aside since the editor didn't want it there anyway), it still IMO is notable that most Catholics live in the otherwise least populated, and smallest land mass of the two hemispheres. The church considers it very significant and talks about it often, since projections are for continuing expansion of the population there and not in the 1st world countries (for example). Student7 ( talk) 12:20, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
Yes, contrary to Student7's claim about it being an aside in my edit summary, finding a source that meets WP:RS is my main concern. I also think what Richard has written about immigration into the US driving the growth of the Catholic Church there is more notable than what Student7 added. Haldraper ( talk) 15:23, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
NancyHeise talk 05:24, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
I disagree with Nancy that persecution of Christians should be relegated exclusively to the domain of another article. There are at least three categories of persecution of Catholics:
IMO, we should mention persecution in categories 1 & 2 but we should make sure to differentiate the two categories so that the reader knows which ones are persecution of Catholics qua Christians and which ones are persecution of Catholics qua Catholics.
-- Richard S ( talk) 06:13, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
I saw that a length tag went up on this page. Two questions: "Is there a lot of text?" Yes. "Is this a big institution?" Yes. So from a practical viewpoint, it must be made clear which text could possibly be sent into exile without diminishing the value of the article. I do not see any section that can be deleted, but a haircut for the history section may be suitable. But that section is towards the end anyway, and does not get in the reader's way. I think for the tag to remain there a "practical suggestion" is necessary, else the tag should be removed. Each section in the article informs the user of some aspect of the Church, so no section can be deleted. The Church has a long history, so expecting the presentation of its history to be short enough to be written on a paper napkin is unrealistic. Yet, I personally find the history section somewhat long. My suggestion would be to agree to just trim that section by 15% to 25% and stop there. The reader who wants more history can read the history article. A related fact is that the history article gets about 20% of the number of visits of this article, so obviously many people are interested in history anyway. Another reason the article seems longer than it is, is that the notes and footnotes sections are huge. In fact that is a clear case of "footnote wagging the article". It seems that whatever text could not find its way into the article was relegated to "second class text" and went into the footnotes. That can, and should be seriously trimmed. History2007 ( talk) 08:02, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
I do not think that this article is trashy at all. In fact, I think the article, except the history section, is really well written item - partly because it has been the subject of so much debate. I did not write any of this article, so I have no pride of authorship. But I do think that the constant debates here, coupled with the in depth knowledge of several unnamed editors does provide a very good representation of the Catholic Church. I do not agree with the mode of use of Roman within the article, as discussed at length before, but as far as the structure of sections and content goes, I think it is a credit to Wikipedia. I do see the history section as hard to read, as stated above, but I see no reason for throwing the article out with the bath water. As for anyone respectable agreeing with me, the measure of respect is, of course, within the keyboard of the beholder. History2007 ( talk) 20:22, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
I agree with Marauder40 that the time spent on inserting and reverting the tags is totally unproductive and, in fact, counter-productive. I think it's time to issue an RFC on the question. Depending on how the RFC comes out, the next step would be to propose an article ban on any editor who inserts or removes tags in defiance of the consensus of the RFC. (And, yes, I know that it's possible no consensus will emerge but we can burn that bridge when we get to it.) -- Richard S ( talk) 01:21, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
(<---) I have started attempting some tightening of wording, for the purposes of making the length shorter as well as the wording more declarative (reading better as well as hopefully attracting fewer POV objections). I hope it will not disrupt your section sizing, because each one will be a somewhat small edit.
I reiterate my plea that editors here comment on the content, not the contributors. Baccyak4H ( Yak!) 16:57, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
Now that I understand what History2007's approach is, I figured I'd get the ball rolling by conducting a very top-level analysis of the article.
The following results are based on copying the article to MS Word and using its word count tool. Please note that the total character count in MS Word is about 20% lower than the byte count given by the WikiMedia software. My guess is that the discrepancy might be due to Wiki markup and other non-printing characters (e.g. image filenames).
Total article including Notes, Footnotes, References and other bottom material 25,057 words; 165,109 characters
Article text only excluding Notes, Footnotes, References and other bottom material 14,106 words; 92,403 characters
Notes only 1067 words; 6699 characters
Footnotes only 8,189 words; 54,153 characters
-- Richard S ( talk) 18:09, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
Here are some initial thoughts based on the above analysis...
The footnotes constitute 33% of the total characters in the article (54,000 out of 165,000 characters). With 441 footnotes and an estimated 50 characters per footnote reference on average, we would expect about 22,000 characters. I would guess that the remaining 32,000 characters come from extensive quoting in the footnotes. Removing the vast majority of quotes from the footnotes would probably yield somewhere between 20,000 - 30,000 characters from the page. However, WP:SIZE tells us that footnotes and other bottom material are not to be counted in considerations of article length. Thus, removing quotes from the footnotes makes page loading and page editing easier but it does not improve the readability of the article because most readers are likely to ignore the footnotes.
Accounting for the discrepancy between MS Word and WikiMedia character counts, MSWord's 92,403 character count for the article text should be adjusted to about 115,000. (Nah, ignore this point, WP:SIZE focuses on "readable prose")
Readers may tire of reading a page much longer than about 30 to 50 KB, which roughly corresponds to 6,000 to 10,000 words of readable prose. Our current article text is 14,000 words.
This suggests that a reduction of 33-50% of the article text is in order. That would get us into the 7,000-10,000 word range.
My experience is that Wikipedia articles on substantial topics such as this one regularly break the WP:SIZE guideline. A more reasonable goal might be for us to try to get into the 10,000-12,000 word range (this represents a 15-30% reduction in article text).
As mentioned above, I think it would be hard to achieve more than a 5-10% reduction in the article text unless entire sections are deleted but I think it's worth a try. What we need is a disciplined effort to avoid mentioning everything under the sun just because it seems "important to somebody" or because it serves to defend somebody's "sacred cow". For example, the extended defense of Pius XII and the Church's conduct during WWII is not appropriate. Some mention of the controversy is appropriate but the detailed exposition is not. Many of these kinds of debates can and should be discussed in a subsidiary article.
It may be useful to continue this word/character count analysis on a section-by-section basis. I don't have time to do that this morning. I'll try to get back to it later.
-- Richard S ( talk) 18:09, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
Section | Prose size (text only) | Word count | % of article |
---|---|---|---|
Origin and mission | 3023 B | 496 | 3.9 |
Beliefs | 12k | 2078 | 16.4 |
Prayer and worship | 10k | 1728 | 13.7 |
Church org... | 11k | 1841 | 14.6 |
Catholic inst... | 1443 B | 234 | 1.8 |
Cultural influence | 3337 B | 488 | 3.9 |
History (total) | 37k | 5787 | 45.7 |
History section breakdown
Section | Prose size (text only) | Word count | % of history section |
---|---|---|---|
Early Christianity | 1495 B | 228 | 3.9 |
Persecution | 1508 B | 233 | 4.0 |
State religion | 2068 B | 335 | 5.8 |
Early Middle Ages | 2295 B | 517 | 8.9 |
High Middle Ages | 5081 B | 785 | 13.6 |
Reformation... | 4111 B | 631 | 10.9 |
Age of Discovery | 4118 B | 639 | 11.0 |
Enlightenment | 3873 B | 602 | 10.4 |
Industrial Age | 4157 B | 634 | 11.0 |
2nd Vatican | 5939 B | 916 | 15.8 |
Present | 1619 B | 248 | 4.3 |
My thoughts on the numbers alone: Given that this organization is approximately 2000 years old and has had such an impact on the western world, I would expect the history section to be about 1/3 of the total article length. We've overshot that quite a bit (especially considering that half of the "origin" section is also history, as is the cultural influences section). It also surprised me that 20% of the history section (about 10% of the entire article) is devoted to the history of the last 50 years. Note that the last 50 years accounts for only 2.5% of the Church's existance. These numbers very strongly suggest that the article has fallen victim to recentism. What other analyses can we do from this? Karanacs ( talk) 19:11, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
I agree with Karanacs that, at nearly 46% of the article, the History section is way too long. I would think 25-30% would be adequate especially since there is History of the Catholic Church and many, many other subsidiary articles. If we could cut the History section by 25% to 33%, that would get us there.
However, I'm not 100% convinced about the argument about recentism. I would argue that the last 100 years or so (basically since Vatican I) are very important in understanding the Church today and that this last 100 years should probably constitute 20-25% of the article. The key areas to focus on are
Just off the top of my head, those are the major topics that come to mind as "must be discussed". As I've said before, hit the main points and leave the details and controversies for subsidiary articles.
-- Richard S ( talk) 22:09, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
Adding another column showing the percentage of total to the breakdown table will help. For instance, High Middle Ages = 45.7 * 13.6% = 6.2 percent of the entire article. But the column should not be the last column, and just before the last. Looking at pre and post Reformation totals will also help, e.g. there is more on both pre and post Reformation history than on Beliefs. History2007 ( talk) 05:55, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
Well, maybe we need to do X, maybe we need to do Y. But those solutions are untested and not clear who will do them, with what quality. I think an article in hand is worth 2 in the bush. And "we have to do something" is not always a good decision, sometimes sitting tight is the best decision [9]. Overall, all other options are likely to risk the DISRUPTION a really well written article. History2007 ( talk) 21:11, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
I generally agree with Karanacs re the recentism in the history section, and that it would be best if it were somewhat shorter overall. I thought Richard S's idea about key areas to focus on wasn't bad, but is headed toward whatever one wants to call the opposite of recentism. Given that there is Early Christianity and History of the Catholic Church, I would suggest his items 1 to 4 are just the one item, and that their length managed accordingly. As a person with limited knowledge in this area, i am inclined to agree with Karanacs also that reformation / counter-ref is more significant than Vatical II and post-V2 history, but that is a view formed just as an outsider without much information on the subject. hamiltonstone ( talk) 03:37, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
I think I must plead guilty to the introduction of too much analysis here regarding article size. I think it must be said that all the focus on the numbers should NOT distract from the purpose of the article, which is the "education of readers". Hence I think to balance all the number crunching here, another front needs to open, namely "what should the article teach the reader". My personal opinion is that the article is a VERY good introduction, except the long history section. A new reader with a non Catholic background should first be informed of a few things:
And the article is already structured as such. So apart from the massive history section, the rest is really needed to inform the reader. And I think it is pretty well written. History2007 ( talk) 20:56, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
Please, let's be more compassionate regarding writing style. The problem is finding different ways of saying "Catholics believe..." and "the Church teaches...". If, in an effort to avoid repeating those phrases umpteen times, an editor has chosen a locution that seems stilted, then let's fix it but let's at least understand from whence these locutions come. (or,more colloquially, "where these locutions come from"). -- Richard S ( talk) 06:10, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
I've been reading some of this section. I hadn't realised just how bad it is. Duplicate sentences, unreferenced claims, stuff all over the place. Truly dire. Anyway, i'm working away at some of it, and i came across this:
"Some historians argue that for centuries Protestant propaganda and popular literature exaggerated the horrors of the inquisitions in an effort to associate the Catholic Church with acts committed by secular rulers.[313][314][315] Over all, one percent of those tried by the inquisitions received death penalties, leading some scholars to consider them rather lenient when compared to the secular courts of the period.[310][316"
As a lay person my immediate reaction is that this makes a ridiculous comparison between secular court outcomes, trying criminal matters, and the inquisition, which was a doctrinal investigation. The notion that a body is lenient because it puts fewer people to death for non-Catholic religious beliefs than for, say, murder or theft, is too bizarre for words. I propose that all the above quote be deleted. This would allow the bare facts to stand without such wierd commentary. Not to mention the added virtue of shortening the bloated history section.
hamiltonstone (
talk)
04:53, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
PS. Notes on the cited sources. There are three separate sources involved in these footnotes:
Once again, i recommend deletion, not tinkering, and certainly not expansion to cover "the range of views". The place for that is papal inquisition or Spanish Inquisition. hamiltonstone ( talk) 05:10, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
OK, I've already been admonished once for describing parts of this article as indulging in apologetics but I have to say that this is another example of what I've been talking about. I haven't read all of Historical revision of the Inquisition but I do at least agree with this sentence: "Because the inquisitorial process was not based on tolerant principles and doctrines such as freedom of thought and freedom of religion that became prominent in Western thinking during the eighteenth century, modern society has an inherent difficulty in understanding the inquisitorial institutions." This is why we need to discuss the Inquisitions with some nuanced detail. Not the specifics of each Inquisition but an expanded explanation of the historiography of the Inquisition. (i.e. an inclusion of the revised perspective discussed in Historical revision of the Inquisition)
However, I will point out that Historical revision of the Inquisition also says " Investigations usually involved a legal process, the goal of which was to obtain a confession and reconciliation with the Church from those who were accused of heresy or of participating in activities contrary to Church Canon law. The objectives of the inquisitions were to secure the repentance of the accused and to maintain the authority of the Church. Inquisitions were conducted with the collaboration of secular authorities. If an investigation resulted in a person being convicted of heresy and unwillingness to repent punishment was administered by the secular authorities."
Now let us look at the current article text which says "Over all, one percent of those tried by the inquisitions received death penalties, leading some scholars to consider them rather lenient when compared to the secular courts of the period." What does this mean? Are we saying that 99% of those tried admitted their heresy and recanted thereby escaping the death penalty? I fear that we are trying to provide an apology for the Inquisition as not being bloodthirsty like the Terror during the French Revolution and glossing over the use of interrogation, torture and the threat of the death penalty to coerce religious conformity. Sometimes a great lie can be told by telling a partial truth. This seems to be one of those situations.
I would prefer not to try and excuse the Inquisition in this particular way; it seems intellectually dishonest to me. I would prefer a more straightforward explanation of the social context of the Inquisition (along the lines of the sentence quoted above from Historical revision of the Inquisition which starts "Because the inquisitorial process was not based...") I think we just need to understand that religious conformity was considered far more important to peace and civil tranquility than it is today. If this is so hard to understand, consider that McCarthyism was a form of political inquisition and that was only half a century ago. The Communists had their own style of political inquistion as well. We are not so much more civilized than our forebears as we would like to think.
-- Richard S ( talk) 06:02, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
It seems that various sections are getting trimmed quite rapidly now. The trims seem ok in many cases, but I feel the trend is about to result in a starvation diet - not a great thing. I think it is still the history section that needs trimming, not elsewhere. History2007 ( talk) 21:55, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
Oh fuck it. Good luck, I'm outta here!-- Mike - Μολὼν λαβέ 00:13, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
I have outlined some open questions and concerns below. I'd like to hear what other editors think.
In the section on Jesus, sin and penance, the article says "It is taught that Jesus' mission on earth included giving people his word and his example to follow, as recorded in the four Gospels."
Well, being a Catholic, I understand what this means and so too would any Christian who has spent any time in church or Bible study. However, to a non-Christian, "giving people his word" might be something less than comprehensible. First of all, my inclination would be to capitalize "his Word" as the colloquial meaning of "giving someone your word" is to make a promise. Is that what is meant by this sentence? I don't think so. I'm unclear as to what we mean to say here because "Word" has so much meaning overloaded onto it that I'm not sure if the original author meant "his word" or "his Word". For example, There is this huge discussion about Jesus being "the Word" (ho logos) and the Bible being the "Word of God".
I'd like to hear what other people think about this. The sentence needs to be fixed but I'm not sure how to do it.
P.S. Subsections 2.3, 2.4 and 2.5 in the "Beliefs" section use a very florid style that takes on the tone of something that is either catechizing or proselytizing (i.e. it's what one might expect to find in catechetical material or in a proselytizing tract). It's not quite an encyclopedic tone. Any ideas on how to fix this?
-- Richard S ( talk) 06:30, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
In this section, the article says "Through the sacrament of Confirmation, Catholics believe they receive the Holy Spirit."
Once again, as a Catholic, I understand what this means to say. However, for a non-Christian, this could be read differently. What does this say about what happens between baptism and confirmation? Has the baptized but unconfirmed Christian received the Holy Spirit? I would say "Yes, he has but at confirmation the Holy Spirit endows the confirmand with a fuller understanding of one's faith and one's relationship to God and the Church".
Anyone else have an opinion on this sentence?
-- Richard S ( talk) 06:36, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
Is this section really vital to this article? I would advocate removing the entire section. The Liturgy of the Hours is mentioned and linked to in the next section Devotional life and prayer -- Richard S ( talk) 07:51, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
Yeh, being bold, I just deleted the section. If you feel strongly that it should be kept, revert me and then let's discuss it here. -- Richard S ( talk) 08:24, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
I think the discussion of "Tertiaries and oblates" is excessive detail for an article of this scope and should be dropped. I would reduce the section to just the lead sentence and thus the last two sections of the "Consecrated life" section would now read:
Comments?
-- Richard S ( talk) 08:22, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
I hesitate to ask this because the answer will probably make the article longer but here goes anyway...
The article text reads "The consequent estrangement led to the creation of the papal states and the papal coronation of the Frankish King Charlemagne as Emperor of the Romans in 800. This ultimately created a new problem as successive Western emperors sought to impose an increasingly tight control over the popes."
There are dots that are not connected here. How exactly does the estrangement "lead to the creation of the Papal States"? Also why does the papal coronation of Charlemagne lead to the problem of successive Western emperors seeking to impose control over the popes?
I think I know the answer to the second one. Once the pope claims the right to crown the secular ruler, then secular rulers seek to control the pope to make sure he crowns the "right" secular ruler. However, this is not obvious to someone who is not already familiar with the history of that period. We need to spell it out for the average reader.
-- Richard S ( talk) 09:24, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
The last paragraph of the article reads as follows:
First of all, this is sourced to the USCCB and therefore we have no proof that this is the position of the whole Church. Also the source is effectively a primary document. A secondary source would be preferable.
However, those points are just a question of sourcing. My real concern is that whether this should really be the last paragraph of the article and whether it is that important to mention as part of the description of the Church in the present. To warrant keeping this paragraph, I think we would have to show that there is a deliberate increase in involvement of the Church in politics across multiple countries (e.g. in the U.S., Canada and Europe at least). Even then, it seems like an abrupt way to end the article.
-- Richard S ( talk) 10:31, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for the kudos but my problem is... I'm pretty much done and all I've managed to trim is 10,000 bytes from a total of 203,000. Anybody have ideas on what we should do next? -- Richard S ( talk) 15:57, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
Karanacs ( talk) 16:33, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
This seemed to run on and repeat itself unnecesarrily.
Strongly disagree. Removal of material on Latin American missions would severely disable the articles usefulness and comprehensiveness. This is an article on the WORLD church. Xan dar 00:32, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
I wanted to comment that I personally find the considerable frequency of the words "Catholic" and "Church" very tedious. I have removed some completely unecessary repetitions in the past but believe the article would read much better if the use of these two words could be significantly reduced. If any editors feel the same way and up to the task at present I would encourage them to do so. Afterwriting ( talk) 05:59, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
I think it may be a good idea to rerun the size stats now that various trims have taken place. That will provide a better idea of the relative sizes, etc. for trims to stop or continue, etc. It should use the same scripts as before for consistency. I am not sure what the scripts were, so I will have to leave it to KaranaCS and/or Richard who ran them before. Thanks. History2007 ( talk) 05:51, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
The Eucharist is celebrated at each Mass and is the center of Catholic worship. [20] [21] The Words of Institution for this sacrament are drawn from the Gospels and a Pauline letter. [22] Catholics believe that at each Mass, the bread and wine become supernaturally transubstantiated into the true Body and Blood of Christ. The Church teaches that Jesus established a New Covenant with humanity through the institution of the Eucharist at the Last Supper. Because the Church teaches that Christ is present in the Eucharist, [23] there are strict rules about its celebration and reception. The ingredients of the bread and wine used in the Mass are specified and Catholics must abstain from eating for one hour before receiving Communion. [24] Those who are conscious of being in a state of mortal sin are forbidden from this sacrament unless they have received absolution through the sacrament of Reconciliation (Penance). [24] Catholics are not permitted to receive communion in Protestant churches because of their different beliefs and practices regarding Holy Orders and the Eucharist. [25]
That seems much clearer to me and will probably be more accessible to non-Catholics. I like the proposal. Karanacs ( talk) 17:57, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
I think the restored text about the Mass today being "almost identical" could be deleted and presented in a subsidiary article on the Eucharist or the Mass. It's an important point but not necessarily for this article.
In addition, I would delete these two sentences : "The ingredients of the bread and wine used in the Mass are specified and Catholics must abstain from eating for one hour before receiving Communion. Those who are conscious of being in a state of mortal sin are forbidden from this sacrament unless they have received absolution through the sacrament of Reconciliation (Penance)." This is excessive detail and does not need to be presented in this article. It belongs in the Eucharist (Catholic Church). -- Richard S ( talk) 05:03, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
Xandar restored the section on Liberation Theology with this .
I agree with Xandar that it is important to mention Liberation Theology but perhaps a more concise description could be drafted.
Here's the original text:
I would reduce this to:
In particular, the mention of the "challenge of Pentecostalism" is a bit of a non sequitur here.
-- Richard S ( talk) 05:39, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
I re-read this article line-by-line and managed to reduce it from 203,000 bytes to 195,000 bytes (assuming no one reverts my deletions). I have to confess that many of the complaints that I voiced earlier turned out to have been addressed already. For example, the previously lengthy discussion of the Reichskonkordat/Mit Brennender Sorge/Holocaust has been reduced to 4 sentences. It's hard to see how that could be reduced much more.
I do see a little more trimming that could be done in the last section titled "Present". The mention of the "new ecclesiastical structures" to accomodate converts from the Anglican Church could be dropped. In addition, the very last paragraph which starts with "In politics, ..." could also be dropped.
Other than that, I really don't see much more that could be deleted except for a few sentences here and there.
-- Richard S ( talk) 10:31, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
Xandar restored the "Present" subsection in the "History" section with this .
Below is my sentence-by-sentence analysis...
-- Richard S ( talk) 06:10, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
Richard, I agree with your point about the structures created by the Vatican for defecting Anglicans. I said it at the time it was added, as I remember in a tide of enthusiasm from Xandar and Yorkshirian that some 'stray sheep' may be 'coming home'. I think it would be better to wait until some actually do. Regensburg could definely go now as well. Haldraper ( talk) 18:53, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
Xandar,
"Haldraper, your memory seems to be short-circuiting. I would love to be directed to the post where I sais that stray sheep were coming home."
Maybe my memory let me down there, I'm pretty sure Yorkshirian said this but if you didn't I apologise.
"The sentence regarding the pope as an international leader is important as a summation of a historic review that brings us up to the present. Without it, we are left in limbo as to the current situation."
Really? I thought he'd abolished it :-) Haldraper ( talk) 08:47, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
Editor Farsight001 reverted my edits adding links to wiki links to articles on sex abuse cases in Canada and other jurisdictions. This editor has previously reverted edits on Catholic sex abuse cases by replacing words confirming the problem is world wide with words suggesting it is limited to a few jurisdictions. See for example this edit by Farsight001:
# 08:44, 31 December 2009 (hist | diff) Catholic sex abuse cases (Undid revision 335070820 by Sturunner (talk)rv pov edits re-added with no explanation given. take to talk first)
203.129.49.145 (
talk) 05:00, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
:And? If you're just posting to complain about my edits, then you posted in the wrong place. We actually have a consensus that those things should not be mentioned in that place. This issue has been brought up in the past, which is why I (and others) removed it. It deserves mention in this article. Just not where it was put. Plus it's already mentioned last I checked. There is no need to slap it everywhere like you'd slap fragile stickers on a
Fabergé egg you're mailing.
Farsight001 (
talk) 05:31, 7 February 2010 (UTC) Stricken as requested by Farsight001 below. --
Richard S (
talk)
08:49, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
The Protestant Reformation began as an attempt to doctrinally reform the Catholic Church from within. Catholics reformers opposed what they perceived as false doctrines and ecclesiastic malpractice — especially the teaching and the sale of indulgences, and simony, the selling and buying of clerical offices — that the reformers saw as evidence of the systemic corruption of the church’s hierarchy, which included the Pope.
In 1517, Martin Luther included his Ninety-Five Theses in a letter to several bishops. [26] [27] His theses protested key points of Catholic doctrine as well as the sale of indulgences. [26] [27] Huldrych Zwingli, John Calvin, and others further criticized Catholic teachings. These challenges developed into a large and all encompassing European movement called the Protestant Reformation. [28] [29]
The English Reformation under Henry VIII began more as a political than as a theological dispute. When the annulment of his marriage was denied by the pope, Henry had Parliament pass the Acts of Supremacy, 1534, which made him, and not the pope, head of the English Church. [30] [31] Henry initiated and supported the confiscation and dissolution of monasteries, convents and shrines throughout England, Wales and Ireland. [30] [32] [33] Elizabeth I, {second Act of Supremacy, 1558} outlawed Catholic priests [34] and prevented Catholics from educating their children and taking part in political life. [35] [36]
The Catholic Church responded to doctrinal challenges and abuses highlighted by the Reformation at the Council of Trent (1545–1563), which became the driving force of the Counter-Reformation. Doctrinally, it reaffirmed central Catholic teachings such as transubstantiation, and the requirement for love and hope as well as faith to attain salvation. [37] It made structural reforms, most importantly by improving the education of the clergy and laity and consolidating the central jurisdiction of the Roman Curia. [37] [38] [39] New religious orders were a fundamental part of this trend. Orders such as the Capuchins, Ursulines, Theatines, Discalced Carmelites, the Barnabites, and especially the Jesuits strengthened rural parishes, improved popular piety, helped to curb corruption within the church, and set examples that would be a strong impetus for Catholic renewal. Organizing their order along a military model, the Jesuits strongly represented the autocratic zeal of the period. Characterized by careful selection, rigorous training, and iron discipline, the Jesuits ensured that the worldliness of the Renaissance Church had no part in their new order.
To popularize Counter-Reformation teachings, the Church encouraged the Baroque style in art, music and architecture. [40]
Toward the latter part of the 17th century, Pope Innocent XI reformed abuses that were occurring in the Church's hierarchy, including simony, nepotism and the lavish papal expenditures that had caused him to inherit a large papal debt. [41] He promoted missionary activity, tried to unite Europe against the Turkish invasion, prevented influential Catholic rulers (including the Emperor) from marrying Protestants but strongly condemned religious persecution. [41]
Xandar wrote "the work of the Jesuits and Teresa of Avila need to be in here too". The work of the Jesuit missionaries is mentioned in the "Age of Discovery" section. I am going to copy a couple of paragraphs from Counter-Reformation. It may be too long but let's discuss it and see what is really important to say.
Without taking away from the importance of Teresa of Avila as a saint and "Doctor of the Church", I don't see why it is important to mention her in the "History" section. -- Richard S ( talk) 01:51, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
When I was in college (and now I'm dating myself), I read a book by Malachi Martin entitled "The Final Conclave". In this book, Martin describes the tension between the liberal/progressives and the conservative/traditionalists in the Church. Written in 1978, Martin's thesis was that the selection of the next Pope would be driven by this battle for the soul of the Church.
Well, here we are 32 years later, and we can look back and see how things have played out. Neither side has completely won although my personal take is that the conservatives have been more in the driver's seat than not. Liberation theology has definitely been smacked down.
The shift towards the conservative end of the spectrum is the work of John Paul II and Benedict XVI.
What's my point? We don't really talk about this battle for the soul of the Church except that we do mention liberation theology and the traditionalists but the way the end of the history section is written, those issues could be considered by the reader as no more important than Regensberg and "structures for defecting Anglicans".
I think the Catholicism of the 1990s and the 21st century has a different face from the Catholicism of the 1960s in a bunch of different ways. Use of the vernacular in the mass, fewer white Europeans as a percentage of the whole, not so militantly leftist or even progressive, a focus on sexuality and its attendant moral issues, issues regarding adequate supply of clergy.
Now, the above is OR but I think we can find reliable sources who analyze the past quarter century or so of Church history and come up with a very similar list.
This is what I think the end of the article should be about instead of degenerating into a bunch of disconnected bits of recent news that lacks any unifying theme.
NB: In what I wrote above, I am not necessarily in favor of the conservatives or the liberals despite some indications of what my personal position might be. For the purposes of this article, I'm more interested in describing what happened than in advocating that one side should or should not have won.
-- Richard S ( talk) 01:18, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
I take Richard's point about the consensus to include 'RCC' at the start of the lead - I personally think it could be left to the note to explain - but leaving that aside (and the church/demonination question) there is still too much information thrown in that could easily wait until the demographics section: is the number of Catholics (practicing and lapsed) as a percentage of Christians/the world's population really such an important fact that it has to be presented so prominently?
I therefore propose the following:
"The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church,[note 1] is the world's largest Christian denomination with more than a billion members.[note 2] It is a communion of the Western, (or Latin Rite) Church, and 22 autonomous Eastern Catholic Churches (called particular churches), comprising a total of 2,795 dioceses in 2008."
Haldraper ( talk) 19:18, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
If you read my proposed opening sentences you will see that both CC and RCC are retained - it is the comparisons between the number of Catholics (both practicing and lapsed) and the total number of Christians/world population that have been cut as unnecessarily prominent for the lead. Haldraper ( talk) 12:44, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
History2007, things are clearer here than you think. If like me you're been baptised a Catholic, then you're a Catholic. Those who follow the obligations of the faith set out in canon law (attend mass on Sundays and holy days of obligation, confess mortal sins at least once a year) are practicing Catholics, those who don't are lapsed. Most other Christian churches do not have a similar codified way of measuring who is a practicing member so don't have the concept of 'lapsed members'. Haldraper ( talk) 15:21, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
The extent to which this article has degenerated into propaganda for this sect is reflected by the fact that Pope John Paul I is not even mentioned, despite the immense significance of his death in 1978 in terms of highlighting problems with the catholic Church. I added this referenced sentence: In 1978 Pope John Paul I died after only 33 days in office and unsubstantiated rumours continue of his plans to embrace such ideological change and dismiss senior Vatican officials over allegations of corruption.ref: George Gregoire. Murder in the Vatican: The Revolutionary Life of John Paul and The CIA, Opus Dei and the 1978 Murders. AuthorHouse. 4th edition (2008) ISBN-10: 1434387224 ISBN-13: 978-1434387226. If no mention is made of the death of John Paul I in 1978 and the implications of the controversy about his death for the Catholic Church it only indicates the extent to which this article (with all its self-serving internal references) has drifted from the required neutrality 150.203.35.200 ( talk) 01:11, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
I disagree that many of these are considered open issues. No one is arguing most of them. I would keep "relations with Nazi Germany" open and "cultural influence" as well. I think that these issues are vastly understated in the article in a way that glosses over or significantly omits the good done by the Church in these areas. I have compiled a list of sources to improve the Cultural Influence section here [12] someone keeps eliminating it from this tray. Please do not edit my post - Thanks, NancyHeise (refraining from using signature so this section does not get archived by the bot)
Just because I have a different point of view from your doesn't mean you should insult me. I hereby formally request any sympathetic logged-in editor to apply for this article's Good Article status to be reassessed. I believe it it is too verbose, has insufficient objective sources, is not neutral (has minimal criticism of the Catholic Church). There is a vast debate taking place about whether the Catholic Church and what many academic commentators consider its polarising views on non-ordination of women, mandatory priestly celibacy, covert support of pederasty, double standards on homosexuality, deleterious impact on population control and protection from sexually-transmitted disease, are helping or hindering planetary survival. This important debate in teh published literature is not accurately reflected in the article as it stands. 150.203.35.200 ( talk) 02:29, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
I've been watching the edit/revert/discussion regarding John Paul I and I have to say that it's a close call. John Paul I is the only Pope not mentioned in this article since Pius XI (whose reign started in 1922!). Yes, JPI's reign as Pope was only 33 days but the choice of "the next Pope" after Paul VI was a crucial one (cf. my earlier discussion of Malachi Martin's book "The Last Conclave"). It seems to me that there is value in focusing on the politics of the two papal elections though with less emphasis on the conspiracy theory stuff about JPI's death. -- Richard S ( talk) 18:53, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
The point of view implicit in the title of this article (that Roman Catholic is somehow the invention of Protestants alone) is now being added by an anon.
In case someone believes there is a question of fact here, permit me to quote the Mexican Constition of 1824:
Was this (which prohibits the exercise of all forms of Protestantism) drawn up by Protestants? (The printed Spanish text says la Católica, Apostólica, Romana; a set phrase, with a standard abbreviation, in all the Western Romance languages.) Can we have an end to this fraud, at least? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:10, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
This page seems to attract tags right at the top at the drop of a hat. The current reason is that someone "could not find a section tag" for a few references. That is no reason for using guilt by association to tag the entire page. Smaller "fact" tags can be added where needed. There is no reason to throw the page out with the bath water and tag it all when a few references are in question, say less than 2% of total. This page is MORE referenced than most Wikipedia articles around. History2007 ( talk) 13:55, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
Marking them note by note on the article page would create a bigger mess than the tag at the top of the page, though i understand your point. I have outlined the issue in principle in an earlier talk section - as Haldraper briefly notes, the issue generally is one of independence. Very briefly, here's a hasty sketch of sources that may not meet that standard. The detail depends however on context (eg. a church source can be OK for citing the church's own claims about its own doctrine).
This is the first time I have made a systematic, albeit cursory, run through the entire reference list. My observation would be that it appears to lean toward conservative sources, some of which i would also question as to quality / reliability (regardless of POV), including some of the works from Regnery Publishing (eg. Woods Jr). That may be considered to have an effect on the neutrality of the WP article: this is perhaps best dealt with as a separate, later discussion. For now, the above list is my starting point for identifying potential problems with the independence of sources. hamiltonstone ( talk) 02:20, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
Yes Xandar, "We've been through this dozens of times" and you still don't get it. "Trying to accuse any historian who happens also to be a Catholic of bias is idiotic". Clearly. That is exactly the point I made to hamiltonstone in the discussion in the 'Present' section above, citing the use of Edward Norman and Anthony Rhodes as examples. That is NOT what we are talking about. Please don't throw it in as red herring again in order to avoid the real issue which is those sources such as Bokenkotter, McGonigle and Vidmar who are ordained members of the Church and therefore fail WP:INDEPENDENT. Haldraper ( talk) 08:51, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
Kung has been in quite a bit of trouble with the Church hierarchy for his opinions before. Although he is ordained, I suspect his works can be considered more independent than others, as he's proven a willingness to speak his mind regardless of the personal consequences. That said, I wouldn't use his books for any of the beliefs sections, but for history I think they will be fine. I would much prefer if the history section relies solely on university press-published books. That would eliminate many of the sources currently used, as many were published by Church-related organizations. However, on WP university presses are considered the most reliable, and I suspect there are hundreds if not thousands of potential books that could be used. Karanacs ( talk) 15:21, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
Xandar, you seem determined to misrepresent other peoples' positions here. "Prof X is a Catholic, he can't be trusted" Who has said anything remotely like that? I specifically talked about Norman and Rhodes as academics who also happen to be Catholics whose use as sources is entirely unproblematic. I repeat: your throwing this is in as a red herring isn't helpful in addressing the real issues, it only serves to obscure and confuse them.
You're right that WP:V rather than WP:INDEPENDENT is policy. But I still think it informs how we assess whether sources meet that policy. You also write "it is quite preposterous for people to start claiming that no source written by an ordained person, or apparently anyone connected with the Catholic Church, can be used in the article!". Yes it would be if anyone actually had. No one as far as I can see - and certainly not me - is proposing that Bokenkotter, Duffy, McGonigle and Vidmar be excluded because they are non-third party sources - WP:INDEPENDENT doesn't stipulate that, merely that they shouldn't be relied upon exclusively as the History section does currently, to the exclusion of the many reliable third party sources that do exist. Haldraper ( talk) 14:53, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
The article is again locked until disputes are resolved. As such, it would be helpful for us to list what SPECIFIC disputes remain to be resolved. We're looking here for specific resolvable disputes that relate to particular statements or sections within the article. "Article is POV" or similar-style statements will not be helpful in this context. Please stick to particulars. Xan dar 02:37, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
PMAnderson has started re-inserting old banner tags at the top of the article which editors had largely come to the conclusion were unconstructive and misleading. His activities on this article seem to have devolved into nothing but vandalism and disruption. He has done NOTHING constructive to resolve or debate or justify the "issues" he claims to be upholding. All he has done is make negative and abusive personal comments about editors and their motivation on the talk page, and edit-war disruptively with no genuine attempt whatsoever to argue a referenced position or come to consensus. All he seems to be seeking to do is raise the temperature, sabotage constructive discussion, and stir up trouble on the page. I have removed the disruptive tags. PMA needs to adopt a constructive non-disruptive attitude or go elsewhere. Xan dar 01:45, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
Nancy, can you give us one example of "anti-Catholic POV" from anywhere on the page? Haldraper ( talk) 15:33, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
1) The sexual abuse sentence just tells Reader that since the end of the century, sexual abuse has been a problem in such and such countries. It omits some important information like
2)World War II paragraph is so basic it omits all mention of the different scholarly opinions by summarizing it all in a blob that just says its the subject of continuing debate. This is a major controversy, FAC criteria asks us to sufficiently address all major controversies and I dont think what we have is comprehensive enough. Omission of the fact that the most respected Israeli Historian, Pinchas Lapide, concluded that the Church under Pius XII saved "hundreds of thousands" of Jews from the Nazis is anti-Catholic POV. NancyHeise talk 21:00, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
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In the section "Second Vatican Council and beyond", there is this sentence "The Church maintains that in countries like Kenya and Uganda, where behavioral changes are encouraged alongside condom use, greater progress in controlling the disease has been made than in those countries solely promoting condoms." The quoted sentence has two citations, neither of which support the assertion made in the sentence. Specifically, the assertion in the sentence is that "the Church maintains that X is true". Both sources support the assertion that X is true but not the assertion that "the Church maintains that X is true".
Neither source mentions the Catholic Church nor has there been any indication offered that the Church relies on these sources or similar studies in defense of its theological position.
My request is that both citations (401 and 402) be either removed or commented out and that a {{cn}} tag be inserted in their place.
-- Richard S ( talk) 05:05, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
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template. — Martin (
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10:55, 18 February 2010 (UTC)If Xandar does not retract this defense of unsourced material defended by an erroneous footnote, is there support for dispute resolution? Alternatively, is there hope for progress with this editor present? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:38, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
I just came by today to offer this interesting bit of news regarding this controversy from the Harvard University's Crimson newspaper see [13]. We may want to use this to improve our article's coverage of this issue. NancyHeise talk 14:53, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
I think our article could be improved with these souces by summarizing what they are saying and that is: 1)The Church has been roundly denigrated in the media for its stand on condoms 2)several peer reviewed scientific studies agree with Pope Benedicts explanation 3)A promiment Harvard scientist came out in defense of the Pope NancyHeise talk 15:04, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
The question is what you define as "some of what the Church is saying with regard to condoms". As I said to Nancy above, if the Church had opposed condom use on the scientific grounds that they're ineffective against preventing AIDS, been criticised for it and now been vindicated by a peer-reviewed scientist who had also come out against their use your arguments would carry great weight.
Unfortunately:
1. the Church's opposition to condoms has never been based on science but is part of its general theological view that any use of artificial contraception is a mortal sin.
2. the scientist himself if you read the article doesn't oppose condom use.
I think you're trying to shoehorn this guy's scientific work to provide rational covering for your religious moral rules. Haldraper ( talk) 09:10, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
Absolutely Hamiltonstone: "monogamy/chastity will protect you from AIDS". Give that man a Nobel prize! (And by the way Nancy, Edward C. Green is not as you claim a professor at Harvard, merely a research scientist). Like I said, it's not even as if monogamy/chastity are distinctive Catholic beliefs, unlike its opposition to artificial contraception whose theological basis is already outlined on the page.
Whether you agree with him or not, Green uses a different method to the Church ('risk analysis' versus theology) and reaches a different conclusion (monogamy/chastity and condoms versus monogamy/chastity and a ban on all artificial contraception). To claim they are "saying the same thing" takes mental gymnastics I am not capable of, maybe that's why I'm a lapsed Catholic :-) Haldraper ( talk) 09:20, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
Nancy, why do you keep claiming Edward C. Green is a "leading Harvard AIDS professor"? He is not a professor, he is a merely a research scientist! Haldraper ( talk) 09:07, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
Xandar, as per my {{editprotected}} request in the section immediately above, the problem here is that the article text is indulging in OR and synthesis by constructing an argument for the Church which the sources do not indicate that the Church makes.
I am not very knowledgeable in this area but I have not seen any pronouncement from the Church that defends its stance on pragmatic issues such as efficacy. Making such an argument would be analogous to the Church arguing that abstinence is superior to birth control in reducing teen pregnancy. Such an argument is in the domain of social policy and some evangelicals do make such an argument. However, it is not at all clear to me that such an argument is withing official Church teaching. The Church is not nearly as concerned about the efficacy of social policy as it is with morality. To be concerned about the efficacy of social policy would be to open the door to moral relativism.
From the perspective of the Church, premarital sex is immoral whether or not it results in pregnancy. Similarly, from the Catholic perspective, the use of condoms is immoral whether or not it results in reduction of pregnancy or STDs.
Thus, the sources in the current article text have the same problem as the one that Nancy proposed. The sources in question do not mention the Catholic Church or its position regarding condoms. Nor do we have any evidence that the Catholic Church relies on such scientific studies to support its position.
Thus, while some people (e.g. evangelicals and Catholics) might wish to construct such an argument, it is not at all clear that the Catholic Church constructs such an argument. This leads me to conclude that, in the absence of citations to reliable sources who explicitly make the argument in question, the current article text is the result of synthesis.
-- Richard S ( talk) 05:22, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
Cyrus, first of all, this article is the wrong place to have any extended treatment of the topic. Such a treatment belongs in Catholic Church and AIDS. We simply don't have room in this article to get into detailed discussions of any controversy.
But, even if we did want to do more than mention the existence of the controversy, it would be critical to draw a distinction between the statement "The Church maintains that in countries like Kenya and Uganda, where behavioral changes are encouraged alongside condom use, greater progress in controlling the disease has been made than in those countries solely promoting condoms" and the statement "What the churches are called to do by their theology turns out to be what works best in AIDS prevention."
The first statement, which is in the current article text, makes an assertion about what the Church "maintains". As I've stated above, this is a pragmatic argument which suggests that its position on condoms is somehow based on efficacy of different approaches to the AIDS epidemic. Can someone point me to a source where the Church maintains what this statement says? Once again, this is not an area where I am an expert but I am highly skeptical that the Church would promote an approach which combines "behavioral changes" with the promotion of condoms as such an approach would involve an implicit condoning of the use of condoms. I do not believe that the Catholic Church is endorsing this combined approach. Maybe my understanding of Catholic teaching is incorrect. If so, someone please educate me.
The second statement, which is at the end of AIDS and the Churches: Getting the Story Right makes a different assertion. It says "What the churches advocate from a theological perspective turns out to be what works best". This is NOT the churches endorsing the public health approach from a theological perspective. This is one (or more) public health experts endorsing the approach of the churches from a pragmatic perspective.
It is crucial that we understand the difference between these two assertions.
At the risk of oversimplification: churches don't care about what works best, they care about what is morally right. Conversely, public health experts don't care about what is morally right, they care about what works best. (Of course, those are gross oversimplifications but we should start with those as the basic premises and then admit that, in truth, churches do care somewhat about efficacy and public health experts do care somewhat about morality. However, in each case, those are second-order issues which take a backseat to the primary concern.)
-- Richard S ( talk) 00:45, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
Aids, condoms, and the suppression of theological truth]
I'd like to begin a more in-depth assessment of Catholic Church history, focusing on broader patterns rather than some of the details that are currently in the article. None of what I read may end up in this article, but at least I will have a better understanding of the pieces and how they fit together. I did a lot of searching on Google books today to identify potential works that I might want to order. My criteria were that the book must have been published in the last 15 years by a university press, and it should present a broader overview of history rather than be narrowly focused on an event. In some cases, these books appear to have several chapters that would be applicable toward the Catholic Church, while the rest of the book may not. I don't have access to JSTOR or many other academic - or Catholic - journals. Would someone be willing to look for reviews of these books and see what other academics think of these? I'd also be curious to know others' opinions of these works and their authors, so that I can prioritize the order in which I might read them. Basically, if you think you might complain about these sources later, I'd appreciate knowing that up front so I can first read those that might be more acceptable to the editors here.
Thanks! Karanacs ( talk) 17:09, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
It may be useful here to discuss independence on its own terms. Hamiltonstone may be right in practice, but he is wrong in theory; the present article is wrong both in practice and in theory.
What this article ought to do, per NPOV, is to present facts which are agreed on by almost everybody (saying "everybody" would give a liberum veto to Ian Paisley, Ellen G. White, and Patrick Walsh, S.J.) - Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, atheist, Orthodox, Muslim, Martian... Where there is controversy, this summary article should (at most) say so; again, the parties will usually agree on that, if on nothing else.
The best way to do this is to source claims to both Protestant and Catholic sources, with an admixture of others. This would demonstrate consensus. In practice, Hamiltonstone's solution, of omitting Roman Catholic clergy would produce much the same text; if everybody else asserts a given historic fact, Catholic clergy usually assert it too - especially historians, like Knowles.
The worst way to do this is to cite nobody; but this article is now using the next worst: Citing only Catholic scholars, and among them, scholars of particular ideologies. Why should our reader believe that even other Catholic scholars concur with statements sourced to Vidmar alone, much less Protestant or Buddhist scholars? (Often they will; Vidmar does not appear to anywhere near as partisan as our editors - but how can the reader know?) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:31, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
Xandar, how were the current topics in the History section chosen? On what basis would you argue that this "chronological narrative" is not problematic? The "broader themes" that I see would include: spread of Christianity via evangelism, the medieval period, the Crusades, the Great Schism, the Inquisition, the Reformation, the Age of Discovery and the spread of Christianity by missionaries in "discovered" (i.e. conquered) lands, Enlightenment and the separation of Church and State, the modern era (from about 1870 onwards). Even within these "broader themes", there is room for discussion as to which events should be included and which should not. Are you asserting that most sources discuss Church history from a purely chronological perspective and do not organize the material according to themes such as I have outlined? -- Richard S ( talk) 00:31, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
Please allow me to suggest a different perspective...
There are facts on one side and opinions and interpretations on the other side. Sometimes the line between the two sides can get blurry. Different interpretations can color what people perceive to be the "facts" of the situation. For example, is it a fact that the Eastern Orthodox split off from the Catholic Church or is it the other way around? Of course, the neutral interpretation is that the two parts split apart and neither really split off as a splinter from the other.
Where facts are involved, we should seek to make a neutral presentation of those facts. However, there are times when we must describe a POV because that POV is so notable that it would be unencyclopedic to omit it. For example, if we feel that it is important to mention the criticism of the Church's action/inaction during the Holocaust, it is obvious that we should cite those who make the criticism even if that criticism is POV. We have to make sure that we assert "some people criticize the Church for failing to ..." rather than asserting "the Church failed to ..." as "fact". If we choose to present the defense against the criticsm, then we should cite the sources that make that defense even though the defense is also POV.
If we are concerned about the sources being POV rather than neutral, the real issue is that there are concerns about the article text being POV rather than neutral. We should re-examine the article text and determine whether it adequately treats the topic in a neutral fashion, presenting facts as such and opinions or interpretations as such.
-- Richard S ( talk) 05:34, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
On this "themes" idea, Richard's selection of possible themes shows up the big problems of such an option.
I agree that there is no easy way to come up with a mutually-agreed upon set of central themes. There could very well be some heated debate on this question. And yet, without coming up with such a set of themes, there is no obvious decision criteria to determine whether or not something should be mentioned in the History section. Just saying that the organization is "chronological" is glib and glosses over the fact that there is a selection process going on but that the selection process is "ad-hoc" and employs no clear decision criteria. (other than that editor X thinks that it is important). This is what has led to the "kitchen sink" approach of throwing into the article every little pet topic that a FAC reviewer feels "has" to be mentioned. Remember that a camel is "a horse designed by committee". -- Richard S ( talk) 01:40, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
Xandar suggests that the list of themes that I proposed are "a group of largely negative-slanted themes" that give many of the named issues "undue weight". I would ask him to suggest some exemplar histories of the Catholic Church so that we can consider what organizing principles are used by those. I don't see that my list is "negative-slanted" although I'm willing to discuss individual items on the list that may be considered "negative-slanted".
Xandar asks why we don't consider themes such as "Monasticism, Technology and the Universities, or the Investiture Controversy".
First of all, the Investiture Controversy is not, IMHO, an overarching theme. It is just one topic in a larger theme: "Separation of Church and State". (Read the first line of the Investiture Controversy article.)
"Technology and the Universities" should NOT be a central theme. It's too narrow. The influence of the Church on science, philosophy and education is certainly a theme worth presenting.
It's debatable whether "Monasticism" should be a central theme. It's certainly a worthwhile topic. However, while most histories of the Church will mention monks and monasticism, it's not clear to me that this is the sort of topic that is typically given central focus in histories of the Church. Someone who has broader experience than I can enlighten us on this issue. I will say that it's worth mentioning the role of the Irish monks in "saving Western civilization" and in evangelizing much of Northern Europe.
This leads me to an insight that I had this morning but didn't have time to write here. There is more than one way to write a "history" of the Church. The current "History" section is largely a political history that does mention some theological and spiritual issues along the way but it's mostly a history of who did what to whom and when. Xandar mentioned St. Theresa of Avila and others including myself argued that she is not that important to the history of the Church. Well, I still believe that but, at the time, my sense was that mentioning St. Theresa of Avila would be more appropriate in a history of Catholic mysticism or Catholic spirituality. (Likewise, the charismatic movement gets short shrift in this article but would deserve more attention in an article focused on Catholic spirituality.)
Similarly, we give Aquinas and the Scholastics short shrift but they get more attention in the article History of Catholic dogmatic theology.
We need to come to some agreement as to what the scope of the "History" section should be. My thought is that the "themes" will help us focus on what the important points are that we want to make. If a topic doesn't further the presentation of one of the mutually agreed-upon themes, then we probably shouldn't present the topic.
-- Richard S ( talk) 02:03, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
Like many other Wikipedia articles, this article ends by drifting off into blithering about relatively unimportant stuff. :Since the end of the twentieth century, sex abuse by Catholic clergy has been the subject of media coverage, legal action, and public debate in Australia, Ireland, the United States, Canada and other countries.[408]
I say "relatively unimportant stuff" because, in the context of 2000 years of church history, these are not very salient issues.
Worse yet, so little is said about each point that the average reader is unlikely to understand what is being said "between the lines".
For example, we don't say anything about the Church's reaction to the sex abuse scandal. At the very least, we should say that the sex abuse scandal forced the Church to institute better procedures to prevent, identify and deal with sex abuses.
What's the point about "actively encouraging support for political figures"? Why does that bear mentioning? Is it because the Church didn't do that until recently or because nobody thought it objectionable until recently?
Why was it necessary to create "new ecclesiastical structures to receive Anglican converts to the Catholic Church"? Haven't there always been Anglican converts to the Catholic Church? What's new in the 21st century. (Of course, the answer is that some Anglicans are upset about the ordination of homosexuals but we don't say anything about that so how is the reader going to divine this important piece of the puzzle?)
Finally, even a middle school student knows that a piece of writing is supposed to end with a conclusion. This article has no conclusion. It just ends with the discussion "creation of new ecclesiastical structures to receive Anglican converts to the Catholic Church."
I think Sister Mary Ignatius would be none too happy with this poor excuse for a writing assignment.
-- Richard S ( talk) 01:24, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
I think part of the problem is that the article is organized poorly. Generally, a history section is one of the first, not last, sections in an article on an organization. In this article, the history is listed at the very beginning and the very end. I recommend either combining history with Origin and Mission at the beginning or moving all the history stuff (including what is in the Origin part) to be under Prayer and Worship. Let the article end with Catholic institutions, personnel and demographics, which provides a good summary of the organization. Karanacs ( talk) 15:12, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
"Worldly" does imply a value judgment (i.e. "wordly=bad" vs. "spiritual=good"). However, we might consider presenting this value judgment not as if it were fact but qua "value judgment". The question is whether it is a notable POV. Many years ago, I read a history of Christianity whose primary thesis was that the institution of Christianity as the state religion of Rome was a critical turning point because it ensured the survival and growth of the religion AND, at the same time, entwined the interests of the church with that of the state. This transformed the religion in ways that made it more "worldly". The Donation of Pepin increased this worldliness by giving the Church lands which further increased its wealth. The thesis of the book was that wealth and political influence are corrupting secular interests which diminish the emphasis on the spiritual aspects of the religion. The book postulates that Vatican I was a response to the loss of the Papal States and the need of the Vatican to focus more on its spiritual power. The author claimed that the doctrine of the infallibility of the Pope is an example of this shift towards spiritual power rather than secular power. Unfortunately, I forget the name of the author and the book was titled "History of Christianity" of which there are many such books.
My question to other editors is whether this thesis is one that has substantial support (I think it does) and whether we should be presenting that thesis in this article. If so, how would we do it?
Nancy, several editors have endorsed the assertion that, for most of its history, the Church has been very much wrapped up in the acquisition and use of temporal power. This is really not a controversial assertion. Whatever the motivation of the original proposal may have been, the point is that, for better or worse, temporal power has been an integral part of the Church's ethos until the last hundred years or so.
Without denying any of what you have written about the good things that the Church has done, the pursuit and use of temporal power was a "fact of life" for the Church for centuries. In some sense, its attempt to influence electoral results is an example of its indirect attempt to exert influence in the politics of nations.
What I call your inclination towards apologetics is exemplified by this attitude of "Oh no, you can't say that unless I get to balance out that horrid, negative critical stuff with good, warm and fuzzy stuff that is laudatory". What I've asserted about the Church is true. What you've asserted about the Church is true. They're both true and they should both be put into the article. This is not a zero-sum game where editors only get to put in "negative" stuff if you get to balance it out with "positive" stuff. That's not how Wikipedia works. That's not what NPOV means.
Besides, although the original proposal may have been intended as negative criticism, it doesn't have to be portrayed that way. It's just the way it happened. It doesn't have to be seen as negative any more than Israel being a "Jewish state" is inherently a negative thing. There are positive and negative aspects to that relationship between religion and state as well. At the end of the day, it is not our job to criticize or praise the Church. Nor is it our job to attack or defend it. It is our job to describe in an NPOV way how the Church is described by reliable sources.
-- Richard S ( talk) 00:59, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
In all the debate, I see not enough mention of specifics. Everyone seems in agreement that the history section is overweight, but the discussion is very general. I think "candidates for execution" need to be found in that section. I found many items in the history section that (in my view) would not say anything to a new reader. And believe me this is the FIRST time I could bring myself to read this mass of text masquerading as a history section. If people agree/disagree on specific items, and suggest other candidates, then weight reduction on that section can begin. Else it will be generalities for ever.
I think some people will want to keep some of these candidates, some will suggest others for deletion, but a start needs to be made on "who has to go". Just as in any corporate downsizing, these may seem like hard decisions, but cuts need to be made in the end.
And these are just for starters. Please suggest others or comment. Thanks. History2007 ( talk) 05:21, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
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![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 35 | ← | Archive 40 | Archive 41 | Archive 42 | Archive 43 | Archive 44 | Archive 45 |
The following was just deleted from the article as non-notable:
"In 2000, 65% of members lived in the Southern Hemisphere.(ref)Scotchie, Father David (15–28 January 2010).
"Unity in Diversity". Orlando, Florida: Florida Catholic. pp. A19.{{
cite news}}
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While the material didn't have the greatest source (also mentioned in the deletion as an aside since the editor didn't want it there anyway), it still IMO is notable that most Catholics live in the otherwise least populated, and smallest land mass of the two hemispheres. The church considers it very significant and talks about it often, since projections are for continuing expansion of the population there and not in the 1st world countries (for example). Student7 ( talk) 12:20, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
Yes, contrary to Student7's claim about it being an aside in my edit summary, finding a source that meets WP:RS is my main concern. I also think what Richard has written about immigration into the US driving the growth of the Catholic Church there is more notable than what Student7 added. Haldraper ( talk) 15:23, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
NancyHeise talk 05:24, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
I disagree with Nancy that persecution of Christians should be relegated exclusively to the domain of another article. There are at least three categories of persecution of Catholics:
IMO, we should mention persecution in categories 1 & 2 but we should make sure to differentiate the two categories so that the reader knows which ones are persecution of Catholics qua Christians and which ones are persecution of Catholics qua Catholics.
-- Richard S ( talk) 06:13, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
I saw that a length tag went up on this page. Two questions: "Is there a lot of text?" Yes. "Is this a big institution?" Yes. So from a practical viewpoint, it must be made clear which text could possibly be sent into exile without diminishing the value of the article. I do not see any section that can be deleted, but a haircut for the history section may be suitable. But that section is towards the end anyway, and does not get in the reader's way. I think for the tag to remain there a "practical suggestion" is necessary, else the tag should be removed. Each section in the article informs the user of some aspect of the Church, so no section can be deleted. The Church has a long history, so expecting the presentation of its history to be short enough to be written on a paper napkin is unrealistic. Yet, I personally find the history section somewhat long. My suggestion would be to agree to just trim that section by 15% to 25% and stop there. The reader who wants more history can read the history article. A related fact is that the history article gets about 20% of the number of visits of this article, so obviously many people are interested in history anyway. Another reason the article seems longer than it is, is that the notes and footnotes sections are huge. In fact that is a clear case of "footnote wagging the article". It seems that whatever text could not find its way into the article was relegated to "second class text" and went into the footnotes. That can, and should be seriously trimmed. History2007 ( talk) 08:02, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
I do not think that this article is trashy at all. In fact, I think the article, except the history section, is really well written item - partly because it has been the subject of so much debate. I did not write any of this article, so I have no pride of authorship. But I do think that the constant debates here, coupled with the in depth knowledge of several unnamed editors does provide a very good representation of the Catholic Church. I do not agree with the mode of use of Roman within the article, as discussed at length before, but as far as the structure of sections and content goes, I think it is a credit to Wikipedia. I do see the history section as hard to read, as stated above, but I see no reason for throwing the article out with the bath water. As for anyone respectable agreeing with me, the measure of respect is, of course, within the keyboard of the beholder. History2007 ( talk) 20:22, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
I agree with Marauder40 that the time spent on inserting and reverting the tags is totally unproductive and, in fact, counter-productive. I think it's time to issue an RFC on the question. Depending on how the RFC comes out, the next step would be to propose an article ban on any editor who inserts or removes tags in defiance of the consensus of the RFC. (And, yes, I know that it's possible no consensus will emerge but we can burn that bridge when we get to it.) -- Richard S ( talk) 01:21, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
(<---) I have started attempting some tightening of wording, for the purposes of making the length shorter as well as the wording more declarative (reading better as well as hopefully attracting fewer POV objections). I hope it will not disrupt your section sizing, because each one will be a somewhat small edit.
I reiterate my plea that editors here comment on the content, not the contributors. Baccyak4H ( Yak!) 16:57, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
Now that I understand what History2007's approach is, I figured I'd get the ball rolling by conducting a very top-level analysis of the article.
The following results are based on copying the article to MS Word and using its word count tool. Please note that the total character count in MS Word is about 20% lower than the byte count given by the WikiMedia software. My guess is that the discrepancy might be due to Wiki markup and other non-printing characters (e.g. image filenames).
Total article including Notes, Footnotes, References and other bottom material 25,057 words; 165,109 characters
Article text only excluding Notes, Footnotes, References and other bottom material 14,106 words; 92,403 characters
Notes only 1067 words; 6699 characters
Footnotes only 8,189 words; 54,153 characters
-- Richard S ( talk) 18:09, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
Here are some initial thoughts based on the above analysis...
The footnotes constitute 33% of the total characters in the article (54,000 out of 165,000 characters). With 441 footnotes and an estimated 50 characters per footnote reference on average, we would expect about 22,000 characters. I would guess that the remaining 32,000 characters come from extensive quoting in the footnotes. Removing the vast majority of quotes from the footnotes would probably yield somewhere between 20,000 - 30,000 characters from the page. However, WP:SIZE tells us that footnotes and other bottom material are not to be counted in considerations of article length. Thus, removing quotes from the footnotes makes page loading and page editing easier but it does not improve the readability of the article because most readers are likely to ignore the footnotes.
Accounting for the discrepancy between MS Word and WikiMedia character counts, MSWord's 92,403 character count for the article text should be adjusted to about 115,000. (Nah, ignore this point, WP:SIZE focuses on "readable prose")
Readers may tire of reading a page much longer than about 30 to 50 KB, which roughly corresponds to 6,000 to 10,000 words of readable prose. Our current article text is 14,000 words.
This suggests that a reduction of 33-50% of the article text is in order. That would get us into the 7,000-10,000 word range.
My experience is that Wikipedia articles on substantial topics such as this one regularly break the WP:SIZE guideline. A more reasonable goal might be for us to try to get into the 10,000-12,000 word range (this represents a 15-30% reduction in article text).
As mentioned above, I think it would be hard to achieve more than a 5-10% reduction in the article text unless entire sections are deleted but I think it's worth a try. What we need is a disciplined effort to avoid mentioning everything under the sun just because it seems "important to somebody" or because it serves to defend somebody's "sacred cow". For example, the extended defense of Pius XII and the Church's conduct during WWII is not appropriate. Some mention of the controversy is appropriate but the detailed exposition is not. Many of these kinds of debates can and should be discussed in a subsidiary article.
It may be useful to continue this word/character count analysis on a section-by-section basis. I don't have time to do that this morning. I'll try to get back to it later.
-- Richard S ( talk) 18:09, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
Section | Prose size (text only) | Word count | % of article |
---|---|---|---|
Origin and mission | 3023 B | 496 | 3.9 |
Beliefs | 12k | 2078 | 16.4 |
Prayer and worship | 10k | 1728 | 13.7 |
Church org... | 11k | 1841 | 14.6 |
Catholic inst... | 1443 B | 234 | 1.8 |
Cultural influence | 3337 B | 488 | 3.9 |
History (total) | 37k | 5787 | 45.7 |
History section breakdown
Section | Prose size (text only) | Word count | % of history section |
---|---|---|---|
Early Christianity | 1495 B | 228 | 3.9 |
Persecution | 1508 B | 233 | 4.0 |
State religion | 2068 B | 335 | 5.8 |
Early Middle Ages | 2295 B | 517 | 8.9 |
High Middle Ages | 5081 B | 785 | 13.6 |
Reformation... | 4111 B | 631 | 10.9 |
Age of Discovery | 4118 B | 639 | 11.0 |
Enlightenment | 3873 B | 602 | 10.4 |
Industrial Age | 4157 B | 634 | 11.0 |
2nd Vatican | 5939 B | 916 | 15.8 |
Present | 1619 B | 248 | 4.3 |
My thoughts on the numbers alone: Given that this organization is approximately 2000 years old and has had such an impact on the western world, I would expect the history section to be about 1/3 of the total article length. We've overshot that quite a bit (especially considering that half of the "origin" section is also history, as is the cultural influences section). It also surprised me that 20% of the history section (about 10% of the entire article) is devoted to the history of the last 50 years. Note that the last 50 years accounts for only 2.5% of the Church's existance. These numbers very strongly suggest that the article has fallen victim to recentism. What other analyses can we do from this? Karanacs ( talk) 19:11, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
I agree with Karanacs that, at nearly 46% of the article, the History section is way too long. I would think 25-30% would be adequate especially since there is History of the Catholic Church and many, many other subsidiary articles. If we could cut the History section by 25% to 33%, that would get us there.
However, I'm not 100% convinced about the argument about recentism. I would argue that the last 100 years or so (basically since Vatican I) are very important in understanding the Church today and that this last 100 years should probably constitute 20-25% of the article. The key areas to focus on are
Just off the top of my head, those are the major topics that come to mind as "must be discussed". As I've said before, hit the main points and leave the details and controversies for subsidiary articles.
-- Richard S ( talk) 22:09, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
Adding another column showing the percentage of total to the breakdown table will help. For instance, High Middle Ages = 45.7 * 13.6% = 6.2 percent of the entire article. But the column should not be the last column, and just before the last. Looking at pre and post Reformation totals will also help, e.g. there is more on both pre and post Reformation history than on Beliefs. History2007 ( talk) 05:55, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
Well, maybe we need to do X, maybe we need to do Y. But those solutions are untested and not clear who will do them, with what quality. I think an article in hand is worth 2 in the bush. And "we have to do something" is not always a good decision, sometimes sitting tight is the best decision [9]. Overall, all other options are likely to risk the DISRUPTION a really well written article. History2007 ( talk) 21:11, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
I generally agree with Karanacs re the recentism in the history section, and that it would be best if it were somewhat shorter overall. I thought Richard S's idea about key areas to focus on wasn't bad, but is headed toward whatever one wants to call the opposite of recentism. Given that there is Early Christianity and History of the Catholic Church, I would suggest his items 1 to 4 are just the one item, and that their length managed accordingly. As a person with limited knowledge in this area, i am inclined to agree with Karanacs also that reformation / counter-ref is more significant than Vatical II and post-V2 history, but that is a view formed just as an outsider without much information on the subject. hamiltonstone ( talk) 03:37, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
I think I must plead guilty to the introduction of too much analysis here regarding article size. I think it must be said that all the focus on the numbers should NOT distract from the purpose of the article, which is the "education of readers". Hence I think to balance all the number crunching here, another front needs to open, namely "what should the article teach the reader". My personal opinion is that the article is a VERY good introduction, except the long history section. A new reader with a non Catholic background should first be informed of a few things:
And the article is already structured as such. So apart from the massive history section, the rest is really needed to inform the reader. And I think it is pretty well written. History2007 ( talk) 20:56, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
Please, let's be more compassionate regarding writing style. The problem is finding different ways of saying "Catholics believe..." and "the Church teaches...". If, in an effort to avoid repeating those phrases umpteen times, an editor has chosen a locution that seems stilted, then let's fix it but let's at least understand from whence these locutions come. (or,more colloquially, "where these locutions come from"). -- Richard S ( talk) 06:10, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
I've been reading some of this section. I hadn't realised just how bad it is. Duplicate sentences, unreferenced claims, stuff all over the place. Truly dire. Anyway, i'm working away at some of it, and i came across this:
"Some historians argue that for centuries Protestant propaganda and popular literature exaggerated the horrors of the inquisitions in an effort to associate the Catholic Church with acts committed by secular rulers.[313][314][315] Over all, one percent of those tried by the inquisitions received death penalties, leading some scholars to consider them rather lenient when compared to the secular courts of the period.[310][316"
As a lay person my immediate reaction is that this makes a ridiculous comparison between secular court outcomes, trying criminal matters, and the inquisition, which was a doctrinal investigation. The notion that a body is lenient because it puts fewer people to death for non-Catholic religious beliefs than for, say, murder or theft, is too bizarre for words. I propose that all the above quote be deleted. This would allow the bare facts to stand without such wierd commentary. Not to mention the added virtue of shortening the bloated history section.
hamiltonstone (
talk)
04:53, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
PS. Notes on the cited sources. There are three separate sources involved in these footnotes:
Once again, i recommend deletion, not tinkering, and certainly not expansion to cover "the range of views". The place for that is papal inquisition or Spanish Inquisition. hamiltonstone ( talk) 05:10, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
OK, I've already been admonished once for describing parts of this article as indulging in apologetics but I have to say that this is another example of what I've been talking about. I haven't read all of Historical revision of the Inquisition but I do at least agree with this sentence: "Because the inquisitorial process was not based on tolerant principles and doctrines such as freedom of thought and freedom of religion that became prominent in Western thinking during the eighteenth century, modern society has an inherent difficulty in understanding the inquisitorial institutions." This is why we need to discuss the Inquisitions with some nuanced detail. Not the specifics of each Inquisition but an expanded explanation of the historiography of the Inquisition. (i.e. an inclusion of the revised perspective discussed in Historical revision of the Inquisition)
However, I will point out that Historical revision of the Inquisition also says " Investigations usually involved a legal process, the goal of which was to obtain a confession and reconciliation with the Church from those who were accused of heresy or of participating in activities contrary to Church Canon law. The objectives of the inquisitions were to secure the repentance of the accused and to maintain the authority of the Church. Inquisitions were conducted with the collaboration of secular authorities. If an investigation resulted in a person being convicted of heresy and unwillingness to repent punishment was administered by the secular authorities."
Now let us look at the current article text which says "Over all, one percent of those tried by the inquisitions received death penalties, leading some scholars to consider them rather lenient when compared to the secular courts of the period." What does this mean? Are we saying that 99% of those tried admitted their heresy and recanted thereby escaping the death penalty? I fear that we are trying to provide an apology for the Inquisition as not being bloodthirsty like the Terror during the French Revolution and glossing over the use of interrogation, torture and the threat of the death penalty to coerce religious conformity. Sometimes a great lie can be told by telling a partial truth. This seems to be one of those situations.
I would prefer not to try and excuse the Inquisition in this particular way; it seems intellectually dishonest to me. I would prefer a more straightforward explanation of the social context of the Inquisition (along the lines of the sentence quoted above from Historical revision of the Inquisition which starts "Because the inquisitorial process was not based...") I think we just need to understand that religious conformity was considered far more important to peace and civil tranquility than it is today. If this is so hard to understand, consider that McCarthyism was a form of political inquisition and that was only half a century ago. The Communists had their own style of political inquistion as well. We are not so much more civilized than our forebears as we would like to think.
-- Richard S ( talk) 06:02, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
It seems that various sections are getting trimmed quite rapidly now. The trims seem ok in many cases, but I feel the trend is about to result in a starvation diet - not a great thing. I think it is still the history section that needs trimming, not elsewhere. History2007 ( talk) 21:55, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
Oh fuck it. Good luck, I'm outta here!-- Mike - Μολὼν λαβέ 00:13, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
I have outlined some open questions and concerns below. I'd like to hear what other editors think.
In the section on Jesus, sin and penance, the article says "It is taught that Jesus' mission on earth included giving people his word and his example to follow, as recorded in the four Gospels."
Well, being a Catholic, I understand what this means and so too would any Christian who has spent any time in church or Bible study. However, to a non-Christian, "giving people his word" might be something less than comprehensible. First of all, my inclination would be to capitalize "his Word" as the colloquial meaning of "giving someone your word" is to make a promise. Is that what is meant by this sentence? I don't think so. I'm unclear as to what we mean to say here because "Word" has so much meaning overloaded onto it that I'm not sure if the original author meant "his word" or "his Word". For example, There is this huge discussion about Jesus being "the Word" (ho logos) and the Bible being the "Word of God".
I'd like to hear what other people think about this. The sentence needs to be fixed but I'm not sure how to do it.
P.S. Subsections 2.3, 2.4 and 2.5 in the "Beliefs" section use a very florid style that takes on the tone of something that is either catechizing or proselytizing (i.e. it's what one might expect to find in catechetical material or in a proselytizing tract). It's not quite an encyclopedic tone. Any ideas on how to fix this?
-- Richard S ( talk) 06:30, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
In this section, the article says "Through the sacrament of Confirmation, Catholics believe they receive the Holy Spirit."
Once again, as a Catholic, I understand what this means to say. However, for a non-Christian, this could be read differently. What does this say about what happens between baptism and confirmation? Has the baptized but unconfirmed Christian received the Holy Spirit? I would say "Yes, he has but at confirmation the Holy Spirit endows the confirmand with a fuller understanding of one's faith and one's relationship to God and the Church".
Anyone else have an opinion on this sentence?
-- Richard S ( talk) 06:36, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
Is this section really vital to this article? I would advocate removing the entire section. The Liturgy of the Hours is mentioned and linked to in the next section Devotional life and prayer -- Richard S ( talk) 07:51, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
Yeh, being bold, I just deleted the section. If you feel strongly that it should be kept, revert me and then let's discuss it here. -- Richard S ( talk) 08:24, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
I think the discussion of "Tertiaries and oblates" is excessive detail for an article of this scope and should be dropped. I would reduce the section to just the lead sentence and thus the last two sections of the "Consecrated life" section would now read:
Comments?
-- Richard S ( talk) 08:22, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
I hesitate to ask this because the answer will probably make the article longer but here goes anyway...
The article text reads "The consequent estrangement led to the creation of the papal states and the papal coronation of the Frankish King Charlemagne as Emperor of the Romans in 800. This ultimately created a new problem as successive Western emperors sought to impose an increasingly tight control over the popes."
There are dots that are not connected here. How exactly does the estrangement "lead to the creation of the Papal States"? Also why does the papal coronation of Charlemagne lead to the problem of successive Western emperors seeking to impose control over the popes?
I think I know the answer to the second one. Once the pope claims the right to crown the secular ruler, then secular rulers seek to control the pope to make sure he crowns the "right" secular ruler. However, this is not obvious to someone who is not already familiar with the history of that period. We need to spell it out for the average reader.
-- Richard S ( talk) 09:24, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
The last paragraph of the article reads as follows:
First of all, this is sourced to the USCCB and therefore we have no proof that this is the position of the whole Church. Also the source is effectively a primary document. A secondary source would be preferable.
However, those points are just a question of sourcing. My real concern is that whether this should really be the last paragraph of the article and whether it is that important to mention as part of the description of the Church in the present. To warrant keeping this paragraph, I think we would have to show that there is a deliberate increase in involvement of the Church in politics across multiple countries (e.g. in the U.S., Canada and Europe at least). Even then, it seems like an abrupt way to end the article.
-- Richard S ( talk) 10:31, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for the kudos but my problem is... I'm pretty much done and all I've managed to trim is 10,000 bytes from a total of 203,000. Anybody have ideas on what we should do next? -- Richard S ( talk) 15:57, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
Karanacs ( talk) 16:33, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
This seemed to run on and repeat itself unnecesarrily.
Strongly disagree. Removal of material on Latin American missions would severely disable the articles usefulness and comprehensiveness. This is an article on the WORLD church. Xan dar 00:32, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
I wanted to comment that I personally find the considerable frequency of the words "Catholic" and "Church" very tedious. I have removed some completely unecessary repetitions in the past but believe the article would read much better if the use of these two words could be significantly reduced. If any editors feel the same way and up to the task at present I would encourage them to do so. Afterwriting ( talk) 05:59, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
I think it may be a good idea to rerun the size stats now that various trims have taken place. That will provide a better idea of the relative sizes, etc. for trims to stop or continue, etc. It should use the same scripts as before for consistency. I am not sure what the scripts were, so I will have to leave it to KaranaCS and/or Richard who ran them before. Thanks. History2007 ( talk) 05:51, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
The Eucharist is celebrated at each Mass and is the center of Catholic worship. [20] [21] The Words of Institution for this sacrament are drawn from the Gospels and a Pauline letter. [22] Catholics believe that at each Mass, the bread and wine become supernaturally transubstantiated into the true Body and Blood of Christ. The Church teaches that Jesus established a New Covenant with humanity through the institution of the Eucharist at the Last Supper. Because the Church teaches that Christ is present in the Eucharist, [23] there are strict rules about its celebration and reception. The ingredients of the bread and wine used in the Mass are specified and Catholics must abstain from eating for one hour before receiving Communion. [24] Those who are conscious of being in a state of mortal sin are forbidden from this sacrament unless they have received absolution through the sacrament of Reconciliation (Penance). [24] Catholics are not permitted to receive communion in Protestant churches because of their different beliefs and practices regarding Holy Orders and the Eucharist. [25]
That seems much clearer to me and will probably be more accessible to non-Catholics. I like the proposal. Karanacs ( talk) 17:57, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
I think the restored text about the Mass today being "almost identical" could be deleted and presented in a subsidiary article on the Eucharist or the Mass. It's an important point but not necessarily for this article.
In addition, I would delete these two sentences : "The ingredients of the bread and wine used in the Mass are specified and Catholics must abstain from eating for one hour before receiving Communion. Those who are conscious of being in a state of mortal sin are forbidden from this sacrament unless they have received absolution through the sacrament of Reconciliation (Penance)." This is excessive detail and does not need to be presented in this article. It belongs in the Eucharist (Catholic Church). -- Richard S ( talk) 05:03, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
Xandar restored the section on Liberation Theology with this .
I agree with Xandar that it is important to mention Liberation Theology but perhaps a more concise description could be drafted.
Here's the original text:
I would reduce this to:
In particular, the mention of the "challenge of Pentecostalism" is a bit of a non sequitur here.
-- Richard S ( talk) 05:39, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
I re-read this article line-by-line and managed to reduce it from 203,000 bytes to 195,000 bytes (assuming no one reverts my deletions). I have to confess that many of the complaints that I voiced earlier turned out to have been addressed already. For example, the previously lengthy discussion of the Reichskonkordat/Mit Brennender Sorge/Holocaust has been reduced to 4 sentences. It's hard to see how that could be reduced much more.
I do see a little more trimming that could be done in the last section titled "Present". The mention of the "new ecclesiastical structures" to accomodate converts from the Anglican Church could be dropped. In addition, the very last paragraph which starts with "In politics, ..." could also be dropped.
Other than that, I really don't see much more that could be deleted except for a few sentences here and there.
-- Richard S ( talk) 10:31, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
Xandar restored the "Present" subsection in the "History" section with this .
Below is my sentence-by-sentence analysis...
-- Richard S ( talk) 06:10, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
Richard, I agree with your point about the structures created by the Vatican for defecting Anglicans. I said it at the time it was added, as I remember in a tide of enthusiasm from Xandar and Yorkshirian that some 'stray sheep' may be 'coming home'. I think it would be better to wait until some actually do. Regensburg could definely go now as well. Haldraper ( talk) 18:53, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
Xandar,
"Haldraper, your memory seems to be short-circuiting. I would love to be directed to the post where I sais that stray sheep were coming home."
Maybe my memory let me down there, I'm pretty sure Yorkshirian said this but if you didn't I apologise.
"The sentence regarding the pope as an international leader is important as a summation of a historic review that brings us up to the present. Without it, we are left in limbo as to the current situation."
Really? I thought he'd abolished it :-) Haldraper ( talk) 08:47, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
Editor Farsight001 reverted my edits adding links to wiki links to articles on sex abuse cases in Canada and other jurisdictions. This editor has previously reverted edits on Catholic sex abuse cases by replacing words confirming the problem is world wide with words suggesting it is limited to a few jurisdictions. See for example this edit by Farsight001:
# 08:44, 31 December 2009 (hist | diff) Catholic sex abuse cases (Undid revision 335070820 by Sturunner (talk)rv pov edits re-added with no explanation given. take to talk first)
203.129.49.145 (
talk) 05:00, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
:And? If you're just posting to complain about my edits, then you posted in the wrong place. We actually have a consensus that those things should not be mentioned in that place. This issue has been brought up in the past, which is why I (and others) removed it. It deserves mention in this article. Just not where it was put. Plus it's already mentioned last I checked. There is no need to slap it everywhere like you'd slap fragile stickers on a
Fabergé egg you're mailing.
Farsight001 (
talk) 05:31, 7 February 2010 (UTC) Stricken as requested by Farsight001 below. --
Richard S (
talk)
08:49, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
The Protestant Reformation began as an attempt to doctrinally reform the Catholic Church from within. Catholics reformers opposed what they perceived as false doctrines and ecclesiastic malpractice — especially the teaching and the sale of indulgences, and simony, the selling and buying of clerical offices — that the reformers saw as evidence of the systemic corruption of the church’s hierarchy, which included the Pope.
In 1517, Martin Luther included his Ninety-Five Theses in a letter to several bishops. [26] [27] His theses protested key points of Catholic doctrine as well as the sale of indulgences. [26] [27] Huldrych Zwingli, John Calvin, and others further criticized Catholic teachings. These challenges developed into a large and all encompassing European movement called the Protestant Reformation. [28] [29]
The English Reformation under Henry VIII began more as a political than as a theological dispute. When the annulment of his marriage was denied by the pope, Henry had Parliament pass the Acts of Supremacy, 1534, which made him, and not the pope, head of the English Church. [30] [31] Henry initiated and supported the confiscation and dissolution of monasteries, convents and shrines throughout England, Wales and Ireland. [30] [32] [33] Elizabeth I, {second Act of Supremacy, 1558} outlawed Catholic priests [34] and prevented Catholics from educating their children and taking part in political life. [35] [36]
The Catholic Church responded to doctrinal challenges and abuses highlighted by the Reformation at the Council of Trent (1545–1563), which became the driving force of the Counter-Reformation. Doctrinally, it reaffirmed central Catholic teachings such as transubstantiation, and the requirement for love and hope as well as faith to attain salvation. [37] It made structural reforms, most importantly by improving the education of the clergy and laity and consolidating the central jurisdiction of the Roman Curia. [37] [38] [39] New religious orders were a fundamental part of this trend. Orders such as the Capuchins, Ursulines, Theatines, Discalced Carmelites, the Barnabites, and especially the Jesuits strengthened rural parishes, improved popular piety, helped to curb corruption within the church, and set examples that would be a strong impetus for Catholic renewal. Organizing their order along a military model, the Jesuits strongly represented the autocratic zeal of the period. Characterized by careful selection, rigorous training, and iron discipline, the Jesuits ensured that the worldliness of the Renaissance Church had no part in their new order.
To popularize Counter-Reformation teachings, the Church encouraged the Baroque style in art, music and architecture. [40]
Toward the latter part of the 17th century, Pope Innocent XI reformed abuses that were occurring in the Church's hierarchy, including simony, nepotism and the lavish papal expenditures that had caused him to inherit a large papal debt. [41] He promoted missionary activity, tried to unite Europe against the Turkish invasion, prevented influential Catholic rulers (including the Emperor) from marrying Protestants but strongly condemned religious persecution. [41]
Xandar wrote "the work of the Jesuits and Teresa of Avila need to be in here too". The work of the Jesuit missionaries is mentioned in the "Age of Discovery" section. I am going to copy a couple of paragraphs from Counter-Reformation. It may be too long but let's discuss it and see what is really important to say.
Without taking away from the importance of Teresa of Avila as a saint and "Doctor of the Church", I don't see why it is important to mention her in the "History" section. -- Richard S ( talk) 01:51, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
When I was in college (and now I'm dating myself), I read a book by Malachi Martin entitled "The Final Conclave". In this book, Martin describes the tension between the liberal/progressives and the conservative/traditionalists in the Church. Written in 1978, Martin's thesis was that the selection of the next Pope would be driven by this battle for the soul of the Church.
Well, here we are 32 years later, and we can look back and see how things have played out. Neither side has completely won although my personal take is that the conservatives have been more in the driver's seat than not. Liberation theology has definitely been smacked down.
The shift towards the conservative end of the spectrum is the work of John Paul II and Benedict XVI.
What's my point? We don't really talk about this battle for the soul of the Church except that we do mention liberation theology and the traditionalists but the way the end of the history section is written, those issues could be considered by the reader as no more important than Regensberg and "structures for defecting Anglicans".
I think the Catholicism of the 1990s and the 21st century has a different face from the Catholicism of the 1960s in a bunch of different ways. Use of the vernacular in the mass, fewer white Europeans as a percentage of the whole, not so militantly leftist or even progressive, a focus on sexuality and its attendant moral issues, issues regarding adequate supply of clergy.
Now, the above is OR but I think we can find reliable sources who analyze the past quarter century or so of Church history and come up with a very similar list.
This is what I think the end of the article should be about instead of degenerating into a bunch of disconnected bits of recent news that lacks any unifying theme.
NB: In what I wrote above, I am not necessarily in favor of the conservatives or the liberals despite some indications of what my personal position might be. For the purposes of this article, I'm more interested in describing what happened than in advocating that one side should or should not have won.
-- Richard S ( talk) 01:18, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
I take Richard's point about the consensus to include 'RCC' at the start of the lead - I personally think it could be left to the note to explain - but leaving that aside (and the church/demonination question) there is still too much information thrown in that could easily wait until the demographics section: is the number of Catholics (practicing and lapsed) as a percentage of Christians/the world's population really such an important fact that it has to be presented so prominently?
I therefore propose the following:
"The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church,[note 1] is the world's largest Christian denomination with more than a billion members.[note 2] It is a communion of the Western, (or Latin Rite) Church, and 22 autonomous Eastern Catholic Churches (called particular churches), comprising a total of 2,795 dioceses in 2008."
Haldraper ( talk) 19:18, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
If you read my proposed opening sentences you will see that both CC and RCC are retained - it is the comparisons between the number of Catholics (both practicing and lapsed) and the total number of Christians/world population that have been cut as unnecessarily prominent for the lead. Haldraper ( talk) 12:44, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
History2007, things are clearer here than you think. If like me you're been baptised a Catholic, then you're a Catholic. Those who follow the obligations of the faith set out in canon law (attend mass on Sundays and holy days of obligation, confess mortal sins at least once a year) are practicing Catholics, those who don't are lapsed. Most other Christian churches do not have a similar codified way of measuring who is a practicing member so don't have the concept of 'lapsed members'. Haldraper ( talk) 15:21, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
The extent to which this article has degenerated into propaganda for this sect is reflected by the fact that Pope John Paul I is not even mentioned, despite the immense significance of his death in 1978 in terms of highlighting problems with the catholic Church. I added this referenced sentence: In 1978 Pope John Paul I died after only 33 days in office and unsubstantiated rumours continue of his plans to embrace such ideological change and dismiss senior Vatican officials over allegations of corruption.ref: George Gregoire. Murder in the Vatican: The Revolutionary Life of John Paul and The CIA, Opus Dei and the 1978 Murders. AuthorHouse. 4th edition (2008) ISBN-10: 1434387224 ISBN-13: 978-1434387226. If no mention is made of the death of John Paul I in 1978 and the implications of the controversy about his death for the Catholic Church it only indicates the extent to which this article (with all its self-serving internal references) has drifted from the required neutrality 150.203.35.200 ( talk) 01:11, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
I disagree that many of these are considered open issues. No one is arguing most of them. I would keep "relations with Nazi Germany" open and "cultural influence" as well. I think that these issues are vastly understated in the article in a way that glosses over or significantly omits the good done by the Church in these areas. I have compiled a list of sources to improve the Cultural Influence section here [12] someone keeps eliminating it from this tray. Please do not edit my post - Thanks, NancyHeise (refraining from using signature so this section does not get archived by the bot)
Just because I have a different point of view from your doesn't mean you should insult me. I hereby formally request any sympathetic logged-in editor to apply for this article's Good Article status to be reassessed. I believe it it is too verbose, has insufficient objective sources, is not neutral (has minimal criticism of the Catholic Church). There is a vast debate taking place about whether the Catholic Church and what many academic commentators consider its polarising views on non-ordination of women, mandatory priestly celibacy, covert support of pederasty, double standards on homosexuality, deleterious impact on population control and protection from sexually-transmitted disease, are helping or hindering planetary survival. This important debate in teh published literature is not accurately reflected in the article as it stands. 150.203.35.200 ( talk) 02:29, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
I've been watching the edit/revert/discussion regarding John Paul I and I have to say that it's a close call. John Paul I is the only Pope not mentioned in this article since Pius XI (whose reign started in 1922!). Yes, JPI's reign as Pope was only 33 days but the choice of "the next Pope" after Paul VI was a crucial one (cf. my earlier discussion of Malachi Martin's book "The Last Conclave"). It seems to me that there is value in focusing on the politics of the two papal elections though with less emphasis on the conspiracy theory stuff about JPI's death. -- Richard S ( talk) 18:53, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
The point of view implicit in the title of this article (that Roman Catholic is somehow the invention of Protestants alone) is now being added by an anon.
In case someone believes there is a question of fact here, permit me to quote the Mexican Constition of 1824:
Was this (which prohibits the exercise of all forms of Protestantism) drawn up by Protestants? (The printed Spanish text says la Católica, Apostólica, Romana; a set phrase, with a standard abbreviation, in all the Western Romance languages.) Can we have an end to this fraud, at least? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:10, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
This page seems to attract tags right at the top at the drop of a hat. The current reason is that someone "could not find a section tag" for a few references. That is no reason for using guilt by association to tag the entire page. Smaller "fact" tags can be added where needed. There is no reason to throw the page out with the bath water and tag it all when a few references are in question, say less than 2% of total. This page is MORE referenced than most Wikipedia articles around. History2007 ( talk) 13:55, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
Marking them note by note on the article page would create a bigger mess than the tag at the top of the page, though i understand your point. I have outlined the issue in principle in an earlier talk section - as Haldraper briefly notes, the issue generally is one of independence. Very briefly, here's a hasty sketch of sources that may not meet that standard. The detail depends however on context (eg. a church source can be OK for citing the church's own claims about its own doctrine).
This is the first time I have made a systematic, albeit cursory, run through the entire reference list. My observation would be that it appears to lean toward conservative sources, some of which i would also question as to quality / reliability (regardless of POV), including some of the works from Regnery Publishing (eg. Woods Jr). That may be considered to have an effect on the neutrality of the WP article: this is perhaps best dealt with as a separate, later discussion. For now, the above list is my starting point for identifying potential problems with the independence of sources. hamiltonstone ( talk) 02:20, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
Yes Xandar, "We've been through this dozens of times" and you still don't get it. "Trying to accuse any historian who happens also to be a Catholic of bias is idiotic". Clearly. That is exactly the point I made to hamiltonstone in the discussion in the 'Present' section above, citing the use of Edward Norman and Anthony Rhodes as examples. That is NOT what we are talking about. Please don't throw it in as red herring again in order to avoid the real issue which is those sources such as Bokenkotter, McGonigle and Vidmar who are ordained members of the Church and therefore fail WP:INDEPENDENT. Haldraper ( talk) 08:51, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
Kung has been in quite a bit of trouble with the Church hierarchy for his opinions before. Although he is ordained, I suspect his works can be considered more independent than others, as he's proven a willingness to speak his mind regardless of the personal consequences. That said, I wouldn't use his books for any of the beliefs sections, but for history I think they will be fine. I would much prefer if the history section relies solely on university press-published books. That would eliminate many of the sources currently used, as many were published by Church-related organizations. However, on WP university presses are considered the most reliable, and I suspect there are hundreds if not thousands of potential books that could be used. Karanacs ( talk) 15:21, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
Xandar, you seem determined to misrepresent other peoples' positions here. "Prof X is a Catholic, he can't be trusted" Who has said anything remotely like that? I specifically talked about Norman and Rhodes as academics who also happen to be Catholics whose use as sources is entirely unproblematic. I repeat: your throwing this is in as a red herring isn't helpful in addressing the real issues, it only serves to obscure and confuse them.
You're right that WP:V rather than WP:INDEPENDENT is policy. But I still think it informs how we assess whether sources meet that policy. You also write "it is quite preposterous for people to start claiming that no source written by an ordained person, or apparently anyone connected with the Catholic Church, can be used in the article!". Yes it would be if anyone actually had. No one as far as I can see - and certainly not me - is proposing that Bokenkotter, Duffy, McGonigle and Vidmar be excluded because they are non-third party sources - WP:INDEPENDENT doesn't stipulate that, merely that they shouldn't be relied upon exclusively as the History section does currently, to the exclusion of the many reliable third party sources that do exist. Haldraper ( talk) 14:53, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
The article is again locked until disputes are resolved. As such, it would be helpful for us to list what SPECIFIC disputes remain to be resolved. We're looking here for specific resolvable disputes that relate to particular statements or sections within the article. "Article is POV" or similar-style statements will not be helpful in this context. Please stick to particulars. Xan dar 02:37, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
PMAnderson has started re-inserting old banner tags at the top of the article which editors had largely come to the conclusion were unconstructive and misleading. His activities on this article seem to have devolved into nothing but vandalism and disruption. He has done NOTHING constructive to resolve or debate or justify the "issues" he claims to be upholding. All he has done is make negative and abusive personal comments about editors and their motivation on the talk page, and edit-war disruptively with no genuine attempt whatsoever to argue a referenced position or come to consensus. All he seems to be seeking to do is raise the temperature, sabotage constructive discussion, and stir up trouble on the page. I have removed the disruptive tags. PMA needs to adopt a constructive non-disruptive attitude or go elsewhere. Xan dar 01:45, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
Nancy, can you give us one example of "anti-Catholic POV" from anywhere on the page? Haldraper ( talk) 15:33, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
1) The sexual abuse sentence just tells Reader that since the end of the century, sexual abuse has been a problem in such and such countries. It omits some important information like
2)World War II paragraph is so basic it omits all mention of the different scholarly opinions by summarizing it all in a blob that just says its the subject of continuing debate. This is a major controversy, FAC criteria asks us to sufficiently address all major controversies and I dont think what we have is comprehensive enough. Omission of the fact that the most respected Israeli Historian, Pinchas Lapide, concluded that the Church under Pius XII saved "hundreds of thousands" of Jews from the Nazis is anti-Catholic POV. NancyHeise talk 21:00, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
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In the section "Second Vatican Council and beyond", there is this sentence "The Church maintains that in countries like Kenya and Uganda, where behavioral changes are encouraged alongside condom use, greater progress in controlling the disease has been made than in those countries solely promoting condoms." The quoted sentence has two citations, neither of which support the assertion made in the sentence. Specifically, the assertion in the sentence is that "the Church maintains that X is true". Both sources support the assertion that X is true but not the assertion that "the Church maintains that X is true".
Neither source mentions the Catholic Church nor has there been any indication offered that the Church relies on these sources or similar studies in defense of its theological position.
My request is that both citations (401 and 402) be either removed or commented out and that a {{cn}} tag be inserted in their place.
-- Richard S ( talk) 05:05, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
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template. — Martin (
MSGJ ·
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10:55, 18 February 2010 (UTC)If Xandar does not retract this defense of unsourced material defended by an erroneous footnote, is there support for dispute resolution? Alternatively, is there hope for progress with this editor present? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:38, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
I just came by today to offer this interesting bit of news regarding this controversy from the Harvard University's Crimson newspaper see [13]. We may want to use this to improve our article's coverage of this issue. NancyHeise talk 14:53, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
I think our article could be improved with these souces by summarizing what they are saying and that is: 1)The Church has been roundly denigrated in the media for its stand on condoms 2)several peer reviewed scientific studies agree with Pope Benedicts explanation 3)A promiment Harvard scientist came out in defense of the Pope NancyHeise talk 15:04, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
The question is what you define as "some of what the Church is saying with regard to condoms". As I said to Nancy above, if the Church had opposed condom use on the scientific grounds that they're ineffective against preventing AIDS, been criticised for it and now been vindicated by a peer-reviewed scientist who had also come out against their use your arguments would carry great weight.
Unfortunately:
1. the Church's opposition to condoms has never been based on science but is part of its general theological view that any use of artificial contraception is a mortal sin.
2. the scientist himself if you read the article doesn't oppose condom use.
I think you're trying to shoehorn this guy's scientific work to provide rational covering for your religious moral rules. Haldraper ( talk) 09:10, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
Absolutely Hamiltonstone: "monogamy/chastity will protect you from AIDS". Give that man a Nobel prize! (And by the way Nancy, Edward C. Green is not as you claim a professor at Harvard, merely a research scientist). Like I said, it's not even as if monogamy/chastity are distinctive Catholic beliefs, unlike its opposition to artificial contraception whose theological basis is already outlined on the page.
Whether you agree with him or not, Green uses a different method to the Church ('risk analysis' versus theology) and reaches a different conclusion (monogamy/chastity and condoms versus monogamy/chastity and a ban on all artificial contraception). To claim they are "saying the same thing" takes mental gymnastics I am not capable of, maybe that's why I'm a lapsed Catholic :-) Haldraper ( talk) 09:20, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
Nancy, why do you keep claiming Edward C. Green is a "leading Harvard AIDS professor"? He is not a professor, he is a merely a research scientist! Haldraper ( talk) 09:07, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
Xandar, as per my {{editprotected}} request in the section immediately above, the problem here is that the article text is indulging in OR and synthesis by constructing an argument for the Church which the sources do not indicate that the Church makes.
I am not very knowledgeable in this area but I have not seen any pronouncement from the Church that defends its stance on pragmatic issues such as efficacy. Making such an argument would be analogous to the Church arguing that abstinence is superior to birth control in reducing teen pregnancy. Such an argument is in the domain of social policy and some evangelicals do make such an argument. However, it is not at all clear to me that such an argument is withing official Church teaching. The Church is not nearly as concerned about the efficacy of social policy as it is with morality. To be concerned about the efficacy of social policy would be to open the door to moral relativism.
From the perspective of the Church, premarital sex is immoral whether or not it results in pregnancy. Similarly, from the Catholic perspective, the use of condoms is immoral whether or not it results in reduction of pregnancy or STDs.
Thus, the sources in the current article text have the same problem as the one that Nancy proposed. The sources in question do not mention the Catholic Church or its position regarding condoms. Nor do we have any evidence that the Catholic Church relies on such scientific studies to support its position.
Thus, while some people (e.g. evangelicals and Catholics) might wish to construct such an argument, it is not at all clear that the Catholic Church constructs such an argument. This leads me to conclude that, in the absence of citations to reliable sources who explicitly make the argument in question, the current article text is the result of synthesis.
-- Richard S ( talk) 05:22, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
Cyrus, first of all, this article is the wrong place to have any extended treatment of the topic. Such a treatment belongs in Catholic Church and AIDS. We simply don't have room in this article to get into detailed discussions of any controversy.
But, even if we did want to do more than mention the existence of the controversy, it would be critical to draw a distinction between the statement "The Church maintains that in countries like Kenya and Uganda, where behavioral changes are encouraged alongside condom use, greater progress in controlling the disease has been made than in those countries solely promoting condoms" and the statement "What the churches are called to do by their theology turns out to be what works best in AIDS prevention."
The first statement, which is in the current article text, makes an assertion about what the Church "maintains". As I've stated above, this is a pragmatic argument which suggests that its position on condoms is somehow based on efficacy of different approaches to the AIDS epidemic. Can someone point me to a source where the Church maintains what this statement says? Once again, this is not an area where I am an expert but I am highly skeptical that the Church would promote an approach which combines "behavioral changes" with the promotion of condoms as such an approach would involve an implicit condoning of the use of condoms. I do not believe that the Catholic Church is endorsing this combined approach. Maybe my understanding of Catholic teaching is incorrect. If so, someone please educate me.
The second statement, which is at the end of AIDS and the Churches: Getting the Story Right makes a different assertion. It says "What the churches advocate from a theological perspective turns out to be what works best". This is NOT the churches endorsing the public health approach from a theological perspective. This is one (or more) public health experts endorsing the approach of the churches from a pragmatic perspective.
It is crucial that we understand the difference between these two assertions.
At the risk of oversimplification: churches don't care about what works best, they care about what is morally right. Conversely, public health experts don't care about what is morally right, they care about what works best. (Of course, those are gross oversimplifications but we should start with those as the basic premises and then admit that, in truth, churches do care somewhat about efficacy and public health experts do care somewhat about morality. However, in each case, those are second-order issues which take a backseat to the primary concern.)
-- Richard S ( talk) 00:45, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
Aids, condoms, and the suppression of theological truth]
I'd like to begin a more in-depth assessment of Catholic Church history, focusing on broader patterns rather than some of the details that are currently in the article. None of what I read may end up in this article, but at least I will have a better understanding of the pieces and how they fit together. I did a lot of searching on Google books today to identify potential works that I might want to order. My criteria were that the book must have been published in the last 15 years by a university press, and it should present a broader overview of history rather than be narrowly focused on an event. In some cases, these books appear to have several chapters that would be applicable toward the Catholic Church, while the rest of the book may not. I don't have access to JSTOR or many other academic - or Catholic - journals. Would someone be willing to look for reviews of these books and see what other academics think of these? I'd also be curious to know others' opinions of these works and their authors, so that I can prioritize the order in which I might read them. Basically, if you think you might complain about these sources later, I'd appreciate knowing that up front so I can first read those that might be more acceptable to the editors here.
Thanks! Karanacs ( talk) 17:09, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
It may be useful here to discuss independence on its own terms. Hamiltonstone may be right in practice, but he is wrong in theory; the present article is wrong both in practice and in theory.
What this article ought to do, per NPOV, is to present facts which are agreed on by almost everybody (saying "everybody" would give a liberum veto to Ian Paisley, Ellen G. White, and Patrick Walsh, S.J.) - Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, atheist, Orthodox, Muslim, Martian... Where there is controversy, this summary article should (at most) say so; again, the parties will usually agree on that, if on nothing else.
The best way to do this is to source claims to both Protestant and Catholic sources, with an admixture of others. This would demonstrate consensus. In practice, Hamiltonstone's solution, of omitting Roman Catholic clergy would produce much the same text; if everybody else asserts a given historic fact, Catholic clergy usually assert it too - especially historians, like Knowles.
The worst way to do this is to cite nobody; but this article is now using the next worst: Citing only Catholic scholars, and among them, scholars of particular ideologies. Why should our reader believe that even other Catholic scholars concur with statements sourced to Vidmar alone, much less Protestant or Buddhist scholars? (Often they will; Vidmar does not appear to anywhere near as partisan as our editors - but how can the reader know?) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:31, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
Xandar, how were the current topics in the History section chosen? On what basis would you argue that this "chronological narrative" is not problematic? The "broader themes" that I see would include: spread of Christianity via evangelism, the medieval period, the Crusades, the Great Schism, the Inquisition, the Reformation, the Age of Discovery and the spread of Christianity by missionaries in "discovered" (i.e. conquered) lands, Enlightenment and the separation of Church and State, the modern era (from about 1870 onwards). Even within these "broader themes", there is room for discussion as to which events should be included and which should not. Are you asserting that most sources discuss Church history from a purely chronological perspective and do not organize the material according to themes such as I have outlined? -- Richard S ( talk) 00:31, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
Please allow me to suggest a different perspective...
There are facts on one side and opinions and interpretations on the other side. Sometimes the line between the two sides can get blurry. Different interpretations can color what people perceive to be the "facts" of the situation. For example, is it a fact that the Eastern Orthodox split off from the Catholic Church or is it the other way around? Of course, the neutral interpretation is that the two parts split apart and neither really split off as a splinter from the other.
Where facts are involved, we should seek to make a neutral presentation of those facts. However, there are times when we must describe a POV because that POV is so notable that it would be unencyclopedic to omit it. For example, if we feel that it is important to mention the criticism of the Church's action/inaction during the Holocaust, it is obvious that we should cite those who make the criticism even if that criticism is POV. We have to make sure that we assert "some people criticize the Church for failing to ..." rather than asserting "the Church failed to ..." as "fact". If we choose to present the defense against the criticsm, then we should cite the sources that make that defense even though the defense is also POV.
If we are concerned about the sources being POV rather than neutral, the real issue is that there are concerns about the article text being POV rather than neutral. We should re-examine the article text and determine whether it adequately treats the topic in a neutral fashion, presenting facts as such and opinions or interpretations as such.
-- Richard S ( talk) 05:34, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
On this "themes" idea, Richard's selection of possible themes shows up the big problems of such an option.
I agree that there is no easy way to come up with a mutually-agreed upon set of central themes. There could very well be some heated debate on this question. And yet, without coming up with such a set of themes, there is no obvious decision criteria to determine whether or not something should be mentioned in the History section. Just saying that the organization is "chronological" is glib and glosses over the fact that there is a selection process going on but that the selection process is "ad-hoc" and employs no clear decision criteria. (other than that editor X thinks that it is important). This is what has led to the "kitchen sink" approach of throwing into the article every little pet topic that a FAC reviewer feels "has" to be mentioned. Remember that a camel is "a horse designed by committee". -- Richard S ( talk) 01:40, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
Xandar suggests that the list of themes that I proposed are "a group of largely negative-slanted themes" that give many of the named issues "undue weight". I would ask him to suggest some exemplar histories of the Catholic Church so that we can consider what organizing principles are used by those. I don't see that my list is "negative-slanted" although I'm willing to discuss individual items on the list that may be considered "negative-slanted".
Xandar asks why we don't consider themes such as "Monasticism, Technology and the Universities, or the Investiture Controversy".
First of all, the Investiture Controversy is not, IMHO, an overarching theme. It is just one topic in a larger theme: "Separation of Church and State". (Read the first line of the Investiture Controversy article.)
"Technology and the Universities" should NOT be a central theme. It's too narrow. The influence of the Church on science, philosophy and education is certainly a theme worth presenting.
It's debatable whether "Monasticism" should be a central theme. It's certainly a worthwhile topic. However, while most histories of the Church will mention monks and monasticism, it's not clear to me that this is the sort of topic that is typically given central focus in histories of the Church. Someone who has broader experience than I can enlighten us on this issue. I will say that it's worth mentioning the role of the Irish monks in "saving Western civilization" and in evangelizing much of Northern Europe.
This leads me to an insight that I had this morning but didn't have time to write here. There is more than one way to write a "history" of the Church. The current "History" section is largely a political history that does mention some theological and spiritual issues along the way but it's mostly a history of who did what to whom and when. Xandar mentioned St. Theresa of Avila and others including myself argued that she is not that important to the history of the Church. Well, I still believe that but, at the time, my sense was that mentioning St. Theresa of Avila would be more appropriate in a history of Catholic mysticism or Catholic spirituality. (Likewise, the charismatic movement gets short shrift in this article but would deserve more attention in an article focused on Catholic spirituality.)
Similarly, we give Aquinas and the Scholastics short shrift but they get more attention in the article History of Catholic dogmatic theology.
We need to come to some agreement as to what the scope of the "History" section should be. My thought is that the "themes" will help us focus on what the important points are that we want to make. If a topic doesn't further the presentation of one of the mutually agreed-upon themes, then we probably shouldn't present the topic.
-- Richard S ( talk) 02:03, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
Like many other Wikipedia articles, this article ends by drifting off into blithering about relatively unimportant stuff. :Since the end of the twentieth century, sex abuse by Catholic clergy has been the subject of media coverage, legal action, and public debate in Australia, Ireland, the United States, Canada and other countries.[408]
I say "relatively unimportant stuff" because, in the context of 2000 years of church history, these are not very salient issues.
Worse yet, so little is said about each point that the average reader is unlikely to understand what is being said "between the lines".
For example, we don't say anything about the Church's reaction to the sex abuse scandal. At the very least, we should say that the sex abuse scandal forced the Church to institute better procedures to prevent, identify and deal with sex abuses.
What's the point about "actively encouraging support for political figures"? Why does that bear mentioning? Is it because the Church didn't do that until recently or because nobody thought it objectionable until recently?
Why was it necessary to create "new ecclesiastical structures to receive Anglican converts to the Catholic Church"? Haven't there always been Anglican converts to the Catholic Church? What's new in the 21st century. (Of course, the answer is that some Anglicans are upset about the ordination of homosexuals but we don't say anything about that so how is the reader going to divine this important piece of the puzzle?)
Finally, even a middle school student knows that a piece of writing is supposed to end with a conclusion. This article has no conclusion. It just ends with the discussion "creation of new ecclesiastical structures to receive Anglican converts to the Catholic Church."
I think Sister Mary Ignatius would be none too happy with this poor excuse for a writing assignment.
-- Richard S ( talk) 01:24, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
I think part of the problem is that the article is organized poorly. Generally, a history section is one of the first, not last, sections in an article on an organization. In this article, the history is listed at the very beginning and the very end. I recommend either combining history with Origin and Mission at the beginning or moving all the history stuff (including what is in the Origin part) to be under Prayer and Worship. Let the article end with Catholic institutions, personnel and demographics, which provides a good summary of the organization. Karanacs ( talk) 15:12, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
"Worldly" does imply a value judgment (i.e. "wordly=bad" vs. "spiritual=good"). However, we might consider presenting this value judgment not as if it were fact but qua "value judgment". The question is whether it is a notable POV. Many years ago, I read a history of Christianity whose primary thesis was that the institution of Christianity as the state religion of Rome was a critical turning point because it ensured the survival and growth of the religion AND, at the same time, entwined the interests of the church with that of the state. This transformed the religion in ways that made it more "worldly". The Donation of Pepin increased this worldliness by giving the Church lands which further increased its wealth. The thesis of the book was that wealth and political influence are corrupting secular interests which diminish the emphasis on the spiritual aspects of the religion. The book postulates that Vatican I was a response to the loss of the Papal States and the need of the Vatican to focus more on its spiritual power. The author claimed that the doctrine of the infallibility of the Pope is an example of this shift towards spiritual power rather than secular power. Unfortunately, I forget the name of the author and the book was titled "History of Christianity" of which there are many such books.
My question to other editors is whether this thesis is one that has substantial support (I think it does) and whether we should be presenting that thesis in this article. If so, how would we do it?
Nancy, several editors have endorsed the assertion that, for most of its history, the Church has been very much wrapped up in the acquisition and use of temporal power. This is really not a controversial assertion. Whatever the motivation of the original proposal may have been, the point is that, for better or worse, temporal power has been an integral part of the Church's ethos until the last hundred years or so.
Without denying any of what you have written about the good things that the Church has done, the pursuit and use of temporal power was a "fact of life" for the Church for centuries. In some sense, its attempt to influence electoral results is an example of its indirect attempt to exert influence in the politics of nations.
What I call your inclination towards apologetics is exemplified by this attitude of "Oh no, you can't say that unless I get to balance out that horrid, negative critical stuff with good, warm and fuzzy stuff that is laudatory". What I've asserted about the Church is true. What you've asserted about the Church is true. They're both true and they should both be put into the article. This is not a zero-sum game where editors only get to put in "negative" stuff if you get to balance it out with "positive" stuff. That's not how Wikipedia works. That's not what NPOV means.
Besides, although the original proposal may have been intended as negative criticism, it doesn't have to be portrayed that way. It's just the way it happened. It doesn't have to be seen as negative any more than Israel being a "Jewish state" is inherently a negative thing. There are positive and negative aspects to that relationship between religion and state as well. At the end of the day, it is not our job to criticize or praise the Church. Nor is it our job to attack or defend it. It is our job to describe in an NPOV way how the Church is described by reliable sources.
-- Richard S ( talk) 00:59, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
In all the debate, I see not enough mention of specifics. Everyone seems in agreement that the history section is overweight, but the discussion is very general. I think "candidates for execution" need to be found in that section. I found many items in the history section that (in my view) would not say anything to a new reader. And believe me this is the FIRST time I could bring myself to read this mass of text masquerading as a history section. If people agree/disagree on specific items, and suggest other candidates, then weight reduction on that section can begin. Else it will be generalities for ever.
I think some people will want to keep some of these candidates, some will suggest others for deletion, but a start needs to be made on "who has to go". Just as in any corporate downsizing, these may seem like hard decisions, but cuts need to be made in the end.
And these are just for starters. Please suggest others or comment. Thanks. History2007 ( talk) 05:21, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
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