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The History section should be moved to the front of the article. This Suggestion does not involve content disputes, although future ones will. Here we're just talking about the location of the section itself. UberCryxic (talk) 03:34, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
Numerous people have asked for this on this very talk page. Every time they are pointed to some really old version of "consensus" or told the section is too long for the top, and then you insist that no one ever asked (and yes, it has brought up at FAC)??? How many people, besides you and Johnbod (and I assume Xandar) have explicitly asked for the history to be last? I also note that the article previously had the history first - that is, until January 16, 2008, when you (Nancy) changed it [1], with the justification that you were following the guidance of Islam, which is an article on a religion (like Christianity), not a particular denomination. You essentially changed the article, without consensus, to reflect a layout that is not the norm for an organization/denomination. Karanacs ( talk) 23:07, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
The history section belongs in the article, obviously. But my contention, one I have held for a long time, is that there is far too much recentism. The "industrial" to "present day" sections, can be merged down from three headers into one. On a whole, a lot of information, which at the end of the day is going to be of minor significance in the 2000 year history of the church has too much focus. History is very important, but the last two hundreds years of the overall 2000 have far too much airtime. - Yorkshirian ( talk) 21:59, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
This one is on content. In Cultural influence, I propose to remove the word "slavery" from the following sentence: The church rejected and helped end practices such as human sacrifice, slavery,[note 9] infanticide, and polygamy in evangelized cultures throughout the world, beginning with the Roman Empire.
I submit this Suggestion for a simple reason: the claim is not true. Slavery ended largely due to the actions of modern and secular states. In 1794, the French government abolished slavery in its colonies, and the radical liberals who made the vote in the National Convention were distinctly anti-Catholic and anti-Christian in general (most were atheists or deists, in fact). The British abolished the slave trade and slavery in the early 19th century largely from pressure by the Whigs, and Catholicism was not an important factor. Slavery ended in the United States after a brutal war. Again, Catholicism was not a factor. Abolitionism in many Western countries did have strong religious support, but Protestant support, not Catholic. Catholicism is not known for helping to end slavery. That claim is totally ludicrous and I propose that it be amended as suggested. UberCryxic (talk) 02:49, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
As for the rest of the sentence: At last, in the year of the City 657,[[97 BC] Cneius Cornelius Lentulus and P. Licinius Crassus being consuls, a decree forbidding human sacrifices was passed by the senate Pliny, Natural History 30.3.
Polygamy was also illegal at Rome; it was one of Anthony's scandals that he (like Caesar) had asked to be exempted from this law. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 06:03, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
I have more to come, but let this be a preliminary salvo. The following reputable and scholarly sources provide important information that everyone engaged in this debate needs to appreciate and understand.
(that Christianity actually legitimized slavery)
Christianity was to provide institutional support and religious authority for the advanced slave systems of medieval Europe and of the modern Americas...Christianity was not alone among the major world religions in legitimizing slavery.
Throughout most of their history, Christian churches and their theologians have unfortunately accepted slavery as God’s will for some persons, especially when those persons have not been Europeans.
(a bit of scholarly and intellectual history, which is useful knowledge to possess in our debate)
Mallet, Le Clerc du Brillet, and many later writers on the history of slavery credited Christianity with the abolition of slavery in early medieval France...The role of Christianity in the abolition of Roman slavery during the Middle Ages was an object of passionate debate by professional historians of the nineteenth century. In 1884...it was asserted that…the Catholic Church sought to stamp out slavery and to ameliorate the conditions of the serf. That notion was challenged by arguing that the Church had little to do with increasing manumission during the Middle Ages, historians citing secular social motives instead. More recently, the influence of Christianity has been overshadowed by economic or sociopolitical analysis of the problem.
(on a major Christian thinker and slavery)
Augustine apparently believed slaves should accept their condition and make the best of it.
(supporting my point that slavery never went extinct in the Middle Ages)
Slavery never completely disappeared from Europe during the Middle Ages.
Christian scholastic thinkers in the Middle Ages had portrayed slavery as part of the natural and necessary hierarchy of the universe.
More modern stuff...
(On the French Revolution)
When the National Convention came into power, the issue was revisited and on February 4, 1794, guided by ideals of equality, the government abolished slavery in the colonies.
And just for some fun
statement by Jefferson Davis (this is how religious people typically thought about the issue, then and at all times prior)
Slavery was established by decree of Almighty God...It is sanctioned in the Bible, in both Testaments, from Genesis to Revelation...it has existed in all ages.
These sources accomplish a number of important tasks...
Based on the above (overwhelming) evidence, all instances throughout the article saying that the Church somehow influenced the decline or the end of slavery should be permanently removed. UberCryxic (talk) 05:35, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
(ec)The trouble is that when these links are followed, they show you are quoting highly selectively, and always in the direction of your (perhaps unwisely) pre-announced POV. For example you have twice quoted the Cambridge Economic History of Europe but not the passage, imediately after one you have quoted "one of the finest achievements of Christian ethics was the enforcement of respect for this maxim [that free Christians could not be enslaved], slowly to be sure, for it is still being recalled in England early in the eleventh century, but in the long run most effectively." This would make a fine ref, from an unimpeachably independent source, for a limited claim such that the church "helped end" slavery, but of course we are never going to hear of anything going in a similar direction that comes up in your researches. Following other links you provided has similar results. For example the very interesting book on Ancien Regime slavery. That is without going into the big picture that the Enlightenment, French Revolution, etc, occurred in societies formed for a thousand years in a Christian, for most of that period Catholic, environment rather than a Hindu, Confucian etc one. Johnbod ( talk) 15:56, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
To the anon above: generally speaking, even the speeches, official pronouncements', or various writings of people from the Church or those associated with it do not indicate that the Church actually wanted to end slavery or tried to end slavery. Yes, you might come up with some isolated cases here and there, but the general history of the Catholic Church reveals that it was very much interested in preserving hierarchical social institutions (slavery, serfdom, patriarchy, etc). None of the modern and secular states that actually abolished slavery were "prompted to action" by the words of the Catholic Church. And like I mentioned above, where religious support did exist for the abolition of slavery, it usually came from Protestants, not Catholics. It doesn't matter how you want to play around with the words: the Catholic Church did not end slavery, it did not "help end" slavery, and it did not "influence" any of the major actors of the last three centuries who actually ended (well, "ended") slavery. "End slavery" and "Catholic Church" should not appear in the same sentence together unless that sentence is something like "The Catholic Church did not help end slavery and was instrumental in its longevity as a prominent institution of human history."
Johnbod: you are the one quoting selectively, and I already spoke about the part you mentioned. The following is the sleight-of-hand being used to say the Catholic Church "helped end" slavery: Church says Catholics can't be enslaved, gets historically lucky in converting much of the European population (supports serfdom instead), and by default you're claiming it "helped end" slavery...when that was never really its goal, and never really what it did anyway. But even the description I've given is not really supported by more modern scholars, who, in general, do not attribute the decline of slavery during the Middle Ages to the actions or the statements of the Catholic Church. UberCryxic (talk) 17:34, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
Is there a reliable source that explicitly says the Catholic Church helped end slavery? Tom Harrison Talk 17:40, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
I've said this before but no one seems to have taken it on board so I'll try to say it again more explictly. The reason you are having this debate is because you want to turn this into a yes/no decision. Did the Church "help end slavery" yes or no? Well the answer is "yes" and "no". Someone mentioned MLK. Well, MLK was never for segregation whereas the Church did accept slavery as an established institution of society and worked to mitigate its more egregious evils. Someone else mentioned Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln is perhaps a slightly better though by no means perfect analogy. He was not the "emancipator of the slaves" that popular myth makes him out to be. I won't rehash all the details but his primary goal was not the abolition of slavery.
At the end of the day, the truth is that Catholic Church has both condoned slavery as a practical fact of life at some earlier points in its history and condemned it at later points in its history. If we just accept that 2000 years is a long time and both the Church and Western society have changed during that period, we can more accurately represent what happened at different points in time. It is also reasonable to consider that what the Vatican says and what the hierarchy and the faithful do can be two different things. In the antebellum South, the U.S. hierarchy interpreted In Supremo Apostolatus to apply to slave trading but not to slave ownership. The fact that most U.S. Catholics at the time were whites living in slave-holding Maryland and Louisiana might have had something to do with that position.
The truth is that we are arguing over whether the one word "slavery" can be included in a list of "good things" that the Church has done. (and many of the other items in the list are also being challenged).
If we can abandon the attempt to attack or defend the Church on this (and other issues!), we can more easily arrive at an NPOV description of its history. What if we do away with the sentence in question altogether and replace it with a series of sentences on each of the items. For example, vis-a-vis slavery, we could use my earlier sentence which went something like this "Although the Church initially accepted slavery as an established social institution and worked primarily to mitigate abuse of slaves, it later opposed slavery first of Christians and eventually of all human beings." To me, this neither attacks nor defends the Church, it just states what happened. One could say the same thing of the United States or most European nations. I don't think it is possible to say definitively who gets how much credit for ending slavery. I think abolition was an evolution in the social conscience of Western society that took several hundred years. The Catholic Church as well as some Protestant churches contributed to this evolution. We should not attempt to judge specific individuals too harshly unless we take into account the mores of the time in which they lived.
In any event, any detailed treatment of specific individuals and/or actions is way outside the scope of this article. If you have an interest in the details, come help improve Catholic Church and slavery.
-- Richard S ( talk) 19:30, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
There are several problems with this, besides the absence of sources. If that were fixed it might alleviate most of the other problems:
Reading the text of Sublimus Dei (to which our article links) reveals that the key phrase is the said Indians and all other people who may later be discovered by Christians, are by no means to be deprived of their liberty or the possession of their property, even though they be outside the faith of Jesus Christ. This prohibits the reduction of anybody into slavery; by implication it may prohibit the slave trade. But this was issued in 1839; the web of international treaties against the slave trade had been in place for decades, and most major slave-holding countries had long since abolished it - the United States in 1807. It prevented little; and for those already in slavery, it does nothing. It liberates nobody. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:57, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
Karanacs makes a good point: if it's turning out to be so insanely controversial, we don't even have to mention slavery at all! As I see it, it's an important part of the history of the Catholic Church, but not central by any stretch of the imagination. It could be left out. What is absolutely unacceptable is the current version, which just blithely credits the Catholic Church with helping to end slavery and does not explain the complicated relationship that readers need to know about. UberCryxic (talk) 22:44, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
"Although the Church accepted slavery as an established social institution, it slowly succeeded during the Middle Ages in suppressing new enslavement of Christians, except as a punishment, while long continuing to accept the enslavement of others, such as Muslims and pagans." That can be referenced from several books linked above. Johnbod ( talk) 04:13, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
All of this discussion would be great over at Talk:Catholic Church and slavery. However, I think we are focusing on too much detail for this article. My basic thesis is that in the first few centuries after its founding, the Church accepted slavery as an established part of the social fabric. Today, in the year 2010, the Church opposes slavery. The transition from acceptance to opposition didn't occur in a single year, a single decade or even a single century. It was a slow evolution. To argue whether secular society changed the Church or the Church changed secular society is kind of like debating the chicken-and-the-egg question. Clearly, they influenced each other and one can find arguments on both sides. The basic thrust of my proposal was to state the initial position (the Church accepting slavery but counseling the humane treatment of slaves) and the final position (the Church opposing slavery). Both of those are fairly indisputable facts. Everything else is historical interpretation which is not the appropriate level of detail for this article. This is probably not the article to discuss how effective the Church's opposition to slavery was in actually ending slavery. Save it for the article on Catholic Church and slavery. --~~
PManderson wrote "If a source can be found making Johnbod's argument, or Richard's, that would be a different matter." I'm sorry... it's unclear to me which argument of mine, you are referring to. Can you clarify so I can either find a source or retract the argument? Thanx. -- Richard S ( talk) 16:57, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
Richard, what do you say to the idea that we not mention slavery at all in Cultural influence? UberCryxic (talk) 18:34, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
Oppose removing the term. Mostly due to the United Stateism, Anglo-centric contention that removing would be based on. The word "slavery" itself in secular humanist and recent identity politics currency, is used mostly in reference to the slavery of black Africans brought into North America. "Slavery" itself is a much, much wider practice than that and the Church has historically opposed it in many places, including in South America, with the creation of the Jesuit Reductions. Reading through the commments, Johnbod comes to tackling this correctly. We must remember, there is whole world out there where Catholicism pervades that is outside the realm of the English-speaking world. - Yorkshirian ( talk) 22:05, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
There are three approaches here:
1) spread out discussion of slavery throughout the History section as a theme that keeps getting revisited
2) mention slavery in the Cultural Influences section
3) say nothing at all about slavery
I think doing #1 is hard to do well and risks giving undue weight to slavery as a major theme in the history of the Church which I really don't think it is. I think we are converging on a consensus with respect to #2. I could accept #3 but I think other editors would not and so I suspect we will wind up having to go with #2. -- Richard S ( talk) 14:55, 5 March 2010 (UTC)
4) add a very few lines brutally summarizing the whole history, with lots of links, at a single appropriate point in the history.
-I think I favour this, probably in the "Age of Discovery" which is the crunch point for the church and slavery, as our readers feel, probably correctly. None of them show signs of giving a monkey's about the degree to which the church did or did not help medieval Slavs etc. This is one of those areas where no mention is taken as inherently demonstrating pro-Catholic apologetics bias, regardless of the motives that led to the lack of coverage. Or the same summary could be in "cultural influences". Johnbod ( talk) 15:08, 5 March 2010 (UTC)
Thanks, Johnbod. That saved me from having to re-read the voluminous discussion. That quotation seems to refer only to the abolition of slavery of "free Christians" in the Middle Ages. Now, we could read the phrase "in the long run most effectively" in the above quote to mean that the prohibition of enslavement of free Christians in Europe ultimately had an indirect on the influence the subsequent abolition of slavery worldwide (culminating in the abolition of slavery in Brazil and Cuba in the late 19th century). Seems like a stretch to me. Does anyone actually make such an argument explicitly or is that original research on our part? The phrase "in the long run most effectively" could also be read more narrowly to mean the enslavement of free Christians in Europe was slow but ultimately came to be universally enforced. Such a reading would make no inference about the influence of the Catholic Church on the abolition of slavery with respect to people of all races and faiths.
My perspective is that the Catholic Church has influenced first the mitigation and eventually the aboition of slavery over the centuries while at times participating in the institution as slaveholder and sanctioning its practice by Catholics. If we are to insist on mentioning slavery as an important issue, we should be careful to mention all the points in the preceding sentence. To just say that "the Church helped end slavery" is true but open to attack due to the ancillary issues.
-- Richard S ( talk) 17:12, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
I agree that the page just fizzled out before and we needed a final section the Church today to tie it up. However, I don't think Nancy's text does that for one simple reason: it's nearly all about the Pope rather than the Church, apart from the final sentence which everyone agrees is POV (for different reasons) and is unreferenced anyway.
I have a proposal to fix this: we move the Institutions, personnel and demographics section to the end of the page given that it does describe the current state of the Church. Haldraper ( talk) 15:32, 5 March 2010 (UTC)
There are still serious POV issues with this section, hence the tag: the "challenges" the Church faces are clearly only seen as such from the POV of the Church and as others have pointed out it is a phrase more approriate to a 'mission statement' than an encyclopaedia article. Like the alleged oppression/persecution/discrimination against the Church by other religions and "secular governments" however I can see why Nancy is pushing for its inclusion.
Where I struggle to see her logic is when she replaces clear statistics such as percentage points with vague phrases - "a slight decrease...steadily rising...decreases in the US and Europe" - especially when they both come from the same sources, the former journalists' paraphrasing and the latter them quoting the 2007 Pontifical Yearbook. Haldraper ( talk) 18:51, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
I'm just reiterating my opposition to a "Present" section and much of what is on the list above. That is giving undue weight (and the list as given reflects a very Church POV) to the last few years of history. Haldraper's suggestion of moving the demographics section down is an excellent one. This provides the perfect snapshot of what the Church is at present - how many members are there, where do they live, etc. Karanacs ( talk) 21:56, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
This compound diff restores two pieces of text which nobody defends as they stand, even the reverter, on the plea that there is no consensus to remove them. This is disingenuous and unacceptable; if this continues, I shall conclude and say to ArbCom that it is impossible to make progress until Xandar is banned from this page.
In one case, the Spanish Civil War, everybody, even Nancy, agrees on a short text; the open question is whether the text as it now stands is short enough or should be shorter still.
In the other case, the miscellaneous and factually challenged sentence on how the Church ended slavery, human sacrifice, and a number of other things with which she had little or nothing to do, the sentence as it stands was undefended, unsourced, and every word of it is contrary to reliable authority.
Johnbod has some much more specific points about the laws of war in the early middle ages; his last post on the subject suggests he doesn't think them important enough to mention in this article, but if he does, I encourage him to add them, with sources.
There is also an ongoing discussion about whether and where to mention slavery at all; but nobody proposes to say what this sentence does; most people seem to want Dum diversas mentioned, if anything is - and this sentence does not. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:23, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
<-- I am removing the clothespin from my nose just long enough to acknowledge the message I left at Tediouspendant's talkpage.
I am glad we got some healthy new blood at this page (Tom, Uber, Mamaj), but the behaviour of many otherwise good editors on this page continues to disappoint, and new blood like that little science stunt is something the project is clearly better without. Please, everyone drop the chips from your own shoulders and remember this is meant to be a serious and respectable reference work. Baccyak4H ( Yak!) 03:11, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
I think everyone has understood my point. The way this article is edited there is not the slightest chance of getting proper neutral or balanced coverage of any significant controversies - such as the treatment of Galileo and other scientists, the Inquisition or the Crusades. This should not be a space for axe-grinding, but nor should it be a page reserved solely for hagiography and apologetics. The fact that I can add a brief paragraph on Science and the Church in the current style of this article (with highly selective use of verifiable pro-church facts and complete evasion of major problematic ones), absurdly co-opting Galileo as a Catholic Scientist embraced by the Church, and get the response from Nancy that The science bit is a little too much detail I think although I do like it proves my point. If we really can't achieve full and fair coverage of major differing POVs in this article then I suggest that an introductory note is added explaining that this article gives the official position of the Church, together with a link to another article in which all the past and present controversies surrounding the Church are properly explored. -- Tediouspedant ( talk) 15:06, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
A few words on
It has been discussed at some length above. No-one defended it; no-one agreed with it; it is unsourced, polemical, and contrary to reliable sources. That is consensus and reason to remove - and the burden of adding or retaining material rests on those who would include it. Our reverter, despite mentioning BRD, has not actually discussed content.
I am therefore removing again; and if anyone reverts without actual discussion of what good this falsehood does the encyclopedia, I will tag this article as inaccurate; as well as concludiong it is hopeless, a waste of the time of good editors; if that happens, I shall therefore request permanent protection until Xandar and Nancy are banned, as they deserve to be. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:14, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
Slavery has been an unchallenged institution in virtually every human society, except Christian society. where it has been challenged and slowly abolished, first in the medieval period - and then, when it was revived on the New World Plantations. With regard to Human sacrifice, this was prevalent in Celtic societies of the pre-christian period, and in Nordic and Baltic-slavonic societies. Human sacrifice was also prevalent throughout pre-columbian America, and in some other societies. Infanticide has been practiced in a variety of European societies with sickly infants. Polygamy is also widely documented around the world. It is often a status thing, where those of high status have many spouses and those of low staus, none. Xan dar 02:34, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
← Rates of infanticide during the late 20th/early 21st century in predominately Christian countries are lower than in, say, much of India or China. See, for example, the current issue of The Economist. Majoreditor ( talk) 04:20, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
Could it be that what we are talking about is the development/evolution of a number of moral/ethical norms in modern Western society to which the Church is certainly a contributor but not necessarily the sole or even the primary force?
What are we really trying to say about slavery? That it existed in Greco-Roman society but eventually evolved into serfdom and then ultimately into the civil liberties/civil rights ethos of today. How much contribution did the Church have in this evolution? Some, maybe even a lot. It is credited by some by helping end slavery in medieval Europe but did it inveigh against the serfdom that took its place? I haven't heard of it doing that. Like the rest of Western society, its record is not lily-white. The Pope sanctioned slavery of non-Christians and this was used to enslave first Native Americans and Africans. Certainly, 18th and 19th century abolitionism was not driven by the Catholic Church.
While human sacrifice and polygamy may not have been elements of Roman civilization at the time of Christ, they were elements of various "pagan" cultures which eventually dropped these practices after being converted to Christianity. Presumably, it's not too POV to present these changes as salutary events. However, the Catholic Church was not alone in effecting these changes. Protestant missionaries also inveighed against these practices and convinced the peoples that they evangelized to abjure them eventually. I don't know much about the Orthodox but presumably they affected the peoples that they converted in similar ways.
I don't know whether infanticide was present in Roman civilization at the time of Christ but it has been and is an element of certain non-Christian cultures. Once again, cultures which have converted to Christianity have dropped this practice in accordance with Christian sanctions against them. And once again, we are talking about all Christians, not just the Catholics.
I think then that what we are saying is that Christianity has played a part in ending these practices or, at least, in getting governments to make them illegal. We could argue whether the sanctions against a particular practice originated in Christianity or were already present in Judeo-Greco-Roman society. However, at the end of the day, I think we should be more interested in Christianity's role in spreading these moral norms than in nailing down exactly where the norms originated from.
This is an article about the Catholic Church but we should still be a little careful not to give the impression that the Catholic Church deserves sole or even primary credit for something that all Christians have done and still do. Moreover, some actions were made by secular governments which were nonetheless motivated by a combination of Christian and secular moral sentiment. By the time you get to the 19th century (and maybe even before that), it is hard to be 100% clear whether a government action is based on Christian morals or a developing secular morality. Certainly the secular morality of Western civilization has its roots in Christian morality.
I think the "Cultural influences" section would seem less like pro-Catholic cheerleading if we drafted a somewhat more nuanced sentence that more accurately portrayed the history of Christianity vis-a-vis the prohibition of these practices in Western (and ultimately the "global") society.
-- Richard S ( talk) 07:00, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
PMAnderson did the right thing in removing that sentence, which was atrocious due its lack of context and POV pushing. UberCryxic (talk) 21:45, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
Catholic opposition to divorce should be mentioned, in a neutral fashion, in any final version of this bit. Johnbod ( talk) 22:11, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
Bokenkotter is a Catholic priest, Duffy is a member of the Pontifical Historical Commission: neither is a third party source per WP:INDEPENDENT. Do either of them describe popes as "leaders in the campaign against slavery"? If they are "well respected sources in mainstream history academia" I doubt it somehow. Haldraper ( talk) 22:34, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
It's obviously up to Tom to determine what's best for this article's stability, and I appreciate his even-handed involvement in this process. Tom has really epitomized the best qualities in an administrator at Wikipedia. Unlike the first page protection, I actually agree with this one. However, I'd also like to say for the record that—compared to earlier editing disputes that I went back and analyzed for this article—the general behavior has improved significantly. The edit warring is still insane, but that's down from apocalyptic, so I really think we're making progress here. Good job everyone. UberCryxic (talk) 03:07, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
The hallmark of honesty, I've always thought, is self-criticism, and to that end I'd like to propose something new, if you're brave enough. I suggest that this second page protection be lifted on the condition that the following users agree not to edit this article for one month starting from when the protection is removed, except in cases of obvious vandalism as defined by Wikipedia, and obvious vandalism only. Other editors and administrators can always be notified to fix tendentious or other kinds of bad edits, given that this group will not be allowed to do that (this condition is meant to be deliberately brutal: vandalism only). The users that this moratorium should apply to are:
I'm crazy and disciplined enough to do this. I hope you are too. Obviously, however, this can only work if you all agree to do it. This will never work if only one person imposes self-moratorium. I don't think this proposal will result in substantial changes or improvements to the article. What I mainly want to test is how disciplined this group is. If we can't get the discipline right, this article will be a quagmire forever. If you feel like you have done wrong by this article in the past and want to confess your sins by adding yourself to this list, do not hesitate to do so. No one's perfect.
I do not propose any punishment whatsoever for someone who breaks the agreement. It is assumed that we are all quasi-stable, semi-rational human beings who would be able to comply with such an agreement. The only thing that will be tarnished if you break it is your reputation. UberCryxic (talk) 04:23, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
I personally have no problem making this promise - I very rarely edit the article itself. However, I don't see that this moratorium will actually make any difference. There were weeks of discussion in Nov/Dec on certain issues, and changes were made to the article based on consenus from those discussions. NancyHeise was deliberately taking a break from the article (as she has mentioned) during that time frame, and when she returned last month she began reverting the changes to be closer to the state it was in when she last edited. Not editing for a month will stop the immediate edit wars, but it will take a much larger personal commitment to result in any real change. Karanacs ( talk) 15:26, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
Nancy, I think you're referring to the sentence you added to the end of the World War II section about the "special significance" of John Paul II's apology to the Jewish people which was cited with a ref to CARA which is clearly a non-third party source. I deleted it because: a) it struck me as POV b) the lack of an independent source. On reflection, I thought it might be better to just add a citation tag, however the page protection then cut off that option. Haldraper ( talk) 22:28, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
If the page is locked for two weeks, that will give us time to agree some section wording changes without extraneous issues arising. So can we not simply agree that the presently protected version, as it stands, is the BASE version. And that no substantive changes are to be made to this without talk-page consensus? That consensus to be judged over a fair amount of time - say 4 days to a week. That would stop a lot of the troublesome edit-wars that threaten to raise their heads. I have to say I disagree with Karanacs interpretation that consensus is needed to KEEP referenced text. Consensus is required to change text, but if disagreement exists over existing referenced text, we work together to achieve agreement. That is the essence of Bold, Revert, Discuss. Xan dar 22:52, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
The protection is to prevent disruption, slow things down a bit, and maybe encourage people to use the talk page to agree on some text. Protection will last no longer than it has to - hopefully I can unlock it shortly. We need to get past simply undoing each other's work. It's better to make small changes, discuss, and rewrite to address concerns. Take it slowly. There's no point in immediately reverting and condemning the other party for not having consensus, when hardly anyone has had a chance to see and consider the change. Similarly, don't rewrite big chunks or make wholesale changes or removals - it's disruptive. Make incremental changes to what's there, or work out something on talk. Tom Harrison Talk 00:02, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
For WP:IAR, our encyclopedia's most controversial rule: Ignore all rules. A lot of people here are talking about the desirability of consensus and that's the last thing they're getting. Let's face it: when even the most minor issues spark explosive arguments on this talk page, consensus doesn't mean much, and the last few days bear this point out. I had hoped that Arbcom would have provided some remedies, but unfortunately they failed to take up the case. The following is a list of things that have gone wrong with this article and that need to be changed. Let me state unequivocally that I do not care if there is no consensus to implement these changes. If consensus is going to get in the way of improving the article, then consensus can be ignored per IAR.
That should be enough to keep me busy for a while. After that, I'll see where the article stands and carry out further changes as necessary. UberCryxic (talk) 00:25, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
Hilarious! Johnbod ( talk) 03:15, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
As far as the article's basic categorization goes, I'm done. Regardless of what you think about actual content, which so far has remained intact as it was during the protection, this categorization is easy on the eyes (unlike the previously obese TOC) and fairly rational. The next stage is the (vastly) harder one: rewriting these sections into summary style and cutting out extraneous material. I'm aiming to make this article roughly 100 kb. Even that's very large, but for an organization of such fame and prestige, it's easy to justify a very large article. UberCryxic (talk) 04:29, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
Ok I'm now going to start the second part of the process: cutting down the size. I plan to follow a basic strategy: synthesize and summarize. I will try to do as little rewriting as possible in order to avoid content disputes. My main task will center on excising extraneous material that achieves nothing but the presentation of one more meaningless fact. I'll focus on what's important instead. The rest belongs in daughter articles. I plan to explain all of my changes with detailed edit summaries, and I will also remove a few irrelevant images. That should help in making the article smaller.
Major, I've been a Wikipedia editor for over four years and I've made nearly 14,000 edits. To my recollection, I've never invoked IAR before this moment, but I'm more than justified in doing so now. We're dealing with an article that's had the same problems for years, and those problems have not been resolved despite countless attempts at dispute resolution (Arbcom was the latest incident) and scores of failed FAC nominations. The intrinsic mechanisms of Wikipedia have failed the article on the Catholic Church. This is exactly why IAR was instituted: Wikipedia's policies and guidelines work superbly 99.9% of the time (and should be followed 99.9999999% of the time), but there are moments when Wikipedia's internal structure reveals its defects. This article —along with Race and intelligence (among very few others)—is almost a perfect example. Here we have a gigantic, 190 kb article and we're told above that the current mess should be the "base version." When you're faced with obtuse, uninformed, and entrenched opposition like that, IAR is all you have left, and it's a credit to this community that it even imagined such a wonderful precept.
Obviously, however, I am not invoking IAR indefinitely. I am only operating under IAR—ie. totally ignoring the misinformed opinions of editors like Xandar—until I can crunch down this article to about 100 kb. After that, I will behave through Wikipedia's rules on consensus again. I have made clear my intentions to Tom and have also informed him that he can ban me at any moment he feels I'm being disruptive. But whatever happens, my conscience is clear because I am staying true to the fundamental intentions of Wikipedia. UberCryxic (talk) 07:10, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
I am done with major changes for now. The article has contracted from 190 kb when I started to 179 kb currently. We still have about 80 kb more to go, but that's fine because I just worked on the first two sections of History. I removed sizable amounts of extraneous content and a few images that I thought did not aid our understanding of the subject. Richard, I declared my sixth suggestion dead because Nancy and Xandar refused to comply with that request, and I specifically mentioned that it would never work unless everyone agreed to it. I do not expect anyone to stand by while I edit: I wholeheartedly encourage everyone to improve the article by removing extraneous content. If I had done as you suggest with my sandbox, I am sure the final version (whatever it ended up being) would have been soundly rejected for making the exact kind of drastic cuts that the article needs. The whole point behind these changes is that I can carry them out live and step by step. You are all encouraged to do the same. It would mean less work for me. UberCryxic (talk) 08:08, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
I haven't looked at the changes in detail, but they seem very poorly done to me. You won't I think be able to reference the new jump between the sentences at "From the 8th century, Iconoclasm, the destruction of religious images, became a major source of conflict in the eastern church.[90][91] The resulting disagreements between the western and eastern sides ultimately prompted the Pope and the Patriarch to excommunicate each other in 1054, commonly considered the date of the East–West Schism.[92]" The old text covered the 220-odd years betweeen the ending of Iconoclasm & the final break. Having the history first looks as bad as I feared. It appeals to people who think the history is the most, or only, important thing about the church, but not to those who are actually interested in the church as such. The establishment of the Holy Roman Empire seems to have disappeared! The last 2 paras of the Middle Ages are just bizarre - stuff that should go, like "according to historian Thomas Noble" is left, but important stuff goes. I hope it is not all like that. Johnbod ( talk) 16:25, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
It's 'Bold, Revert, Discuss.' Boldness has worked well, and the changes have been substantial; now there's been some progress, let's pause for some discussion. Tom Harrison Talk 16:27, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
It'd be good if an objection on the talk page and the suggestion to discuss led people to stop editing and discuss. Tom Harrison Talk 16:41, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
I apologize if my actions led to the reprotection - that was certainly not my intent. I didn't check my watchlist while I was doing those changes and did not see Nancy's post. Overall, I think Uber's reorganization was a very good thing. I agree with Johnbod that the text is now choppy and needs work, but that is something that we can fix. I made two bold changes which I'll break into other sections for discussion. Karanacs ( talk) 16:59, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
Ok the day-time editing for this article is furious and intense, so I plan to hold off until later at night with my continuing changes. Will start cleaning the kitchen at 1 am. Edit Wikipedia at 3 am. That, my friends, is a dedicated editor. You all just don't know how lucky you really are to have me. UberCryxic (talk) 17:52, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
I merged Origin and Missions with the rest of the article. Origin and history are the same thing, they are just two different perspectives of it. The two paragraphs that begin the Origin/Mission section now begin the History section (with no wording changes), so that the article still begins by presenting this information that I've been told is critical to understand the Church. This is a net neutral change. I placed the Mission piece in the Beliefs section, as that paragraph flowed very well from the text that already introduced the beliefs section. (Note that the mission sentences are already in the lead, meaning readers will get to see that right away.) Karanacs ( talk) 16:59, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
Agree with this decision. UberCryxic (talk) 17:48, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
Nancy, can we resolve your objection by rewording the lead? Do you have any suggestions for how that should look? Karanacs ( talk) 20:38, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
I removed the Cultural Influences section and got most of the way through integrating it into the history section (I cancelled my last edit when I saw that protection had been reapplied). Much of the information in this section was already listed in the history section. As discussed in one of the sections above, I moved the information from the slavery note to be spread across the history section. I moved other information from the cultural influence section into its appropriate place in history as well. I believe that part of the text that was in the cultural influences section could also be placed in the lead, as in some cases it is a good summary of what is later discussed. Karanacs ( talk) 16:59, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
Agree with this one too. UberCryxic (talk) 17:48, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
The lead is the appropriate place for a summary. Why don't we work on finding a better way to structure the lead to make sure that this information can be there? Karanacs ( talk) 19:44, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
Given that the protection was readded soon after a lot of work, there are some glaring typos/small issues that we didn't have a chance to fix. I request that we make the following small edits:
Thanks. Karanacs ( talk) 17:03, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
Karanacs already spoke here and Haldraper can speak for herself or himself. I am not going to prejudge anyone's comments. As for me....what part of "I am operating under IAR" do you not understand? I will be officially in IAR mode until the article comes down to around 100 kb, according to the guidelines I established before. Your comments above—steeped, as they are, in endless minutiae and foot-dragging—perfectly highlight why I chose to invoke IAR. I don't know what other editors are doing, but I'm in IAR, so leave me out of your misguided attempts to form consensus. Any administrator who thinks he or she has a good case to ban me for being in IAR can go ahead and do so, as I told Tom repeatedly. But right now, for this article, the rules of Wikipedia have become a useless albatross. UberCryxic (talk) 19:02, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
Proposed action I will wait until Uber is done with his edits and then revert to the previous consensus form, move his changes to a user/subpage as Richard has suggested, open a content RFC, as Karanacs suggested, and post a note on everyone's page who has worked on this article since the last two FACs. We can have each person look at the page with Uber's undiscussed edits and compare it with the previous consensus version. I'm sure that can't be called canvassing because it includes everyone. If needed, maybe we can open a mediation on the Cultural Influences and Origin and Mission section eliminations if it doesnt get resolved at the RFC. NancyHeise talk 19:35, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
I'm sorry, just because certain editors (some of whom have just come to the page) are impatient that they don't get their way when thewy want it, doesn't give them the right to disrupt and overturn five years of article building and make a mess of the whole article without consensus.
This whole process seems to be an attempt to hijack and disrupt the article and make it impossible to make ordered changes or deal with arguments in a patient or proper manner. If Ubercryxix and Karanacs want to propose alternative wordings, they are free to do so. and discuss them on the talk page. They have failed to do this, and are attempting to make radical changes to the page without consensus. This is a breach of Wikipedia rules, and is not on. If people want to do things properly I have already suggested formal mediation. I know that takes patience and negotiation - skills that some have little practice in. But that, not disruption, is the way forward. Xan dar 01:57, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
(ec) May I point out that there was already a loose consensus on this page today for the history section to be first? The following editors have posted today in support of that change: UberCryxic, Majoreditor, Richardshusr, Nancy!, Karanacs. I can't tell whether Bonifacious likes the changes or the fact that IAR was invoked. Three editors disagree with putting the history first: Johnbod, Xandar, Yorkshirian. Xandar and Yorkshirian's objections came after a lot of the discussion and the reverts were made without any discussion and no specific complaints have been raised (by Xandar) other than the process used. There isn't enough discussion here yet to determine whether there is consensus to keep or remove the changes I made (moving the origins/mission information and moving Cultural Influence text to other sections). I would like to know what, exactly, would satisfy you, Xandar, before the history section can go first? Karanacs ( talk) 02:55, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
Just a point of note, in response to some messages earlier up the page. The Catholic Church is not, nor has it ever been a "denomination". In some cultures, for instance in China, Catholicism and Protestantism are regarded as entirely separate religions. The Protestant concept of an invisible super "Christian Church", removed from the actual Catholic Church itself, it not held in Catholic dogma. Catholicism is a whole, not a "slice", not a "sect", not a "bit part", not a "denomination". It should have the same MOS as other complete religion articles, like Islam. - Yorkshirian ( talk) 03:41, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
Now that the article has been protected again, I have been instructed by Tom to carry out my proposed changes in userspace. I'll be working on that over the next few days and we'll see how to move on from there. In the meantime, I want you all to relax, even though I know you won't. Look at it this way: it could be a lot worse. You could have been debating Haldraper on whether the Liberal Democrats are centrist or center-left. Be glad for what you have, and see you in a few days. You can track my changes at my sandbox, where I've now placed the entire article. Obviously you are not allowed to edit that, but I wanted to give you all a link because what I do there will probably reflect the shape that this article takes in a few weeks. Love you all (you too Haldraper), hugs and kisses, etc. UberCryxic (talk) 04:23, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
We have three editors who are very vocal against the restructuring that UberCryxic and I attempted (Johnbod, NancyHeise, and Xandar, although Nancy seems to give tepid support to the history section move). Yorkshirian has expressed disapproval with the history section being first but did not comment on the other changes. Several other editors have expressed support for the full restructured version (Uber, me, PMAnderson, Mike Searson, Haldraper, MoreThings). Majoreditor and Richard appears to support the history section being first but have not commented on the changes to Origin/Mission and Cultural Influence.
By the numbers, this is an obvious consensus to have the history come first (3 opposed, 7 in favor, Nancy neutral, Richard neutral to weak oppose). As to the changes I made, by the numbers we have a smaller consensus for the change (3 opposed, 6 in favor, 3 who did not express a particular opinion). (I obviously can't judge strength of argument here because I'm too involved in the discussion.)
My question to the group is, at what point do we consider that there is consensus for - or against - the structure change? (At this time, let's ignore any question on trimming - we can always change the structure without trimming the history section for now.) What parameters are we using to determine when consensus is reached? A certain percentage of editors in favor? A certain percentage (or raw number) of editors opposed? Specific editors have to approve? I am being very sincere in posing the question, and I'd appreciate to-the-point answers to this question. Karanacs ( talk) 16:02, 10 March 2010 (UTC) amended per Richard's clarifications below Karanacs ( talk) 16:48, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
I am finished with my changes to the article. You can review what happened in my sandbox. The following description of my changes is based on a similar comment I left on Tom's talk page.
The first thing to remember is that even my version has huge problems that will need to be fixed later on. At this first and early stage of the process, however, I was trying to resolve two fundamental issues that I consider to be beyond discussion (hence my invocation of IAR): length and categorization. To that end, the version I present to you all is down from 190 kb two days ago to 115 kb now (and only 5,700 words in readable prose, so pretty good). That's actually still long, but at least we're down from insanely long. I achieved such a reduction in length through the removal of extraneous content that belongs in daughter articles and the consolidation of related paragraphs. The second fundamental problem was categorization, and here I wanted to lighten the TOC by presenting a more rational layout for the article. The TOC you see there now is due half to me, half to Karanacs, who had removed some unnecessary sections and summarized the content in other locations when the article was unprotected.
I want to assure everyone, in particular, that I made my changes with a veil of ignorance. I was not trying to answer the question "Here I have the Catholic Church article: what can I do to change it how I want?" Instead I thought of it as "Here I have a Wikipedia article: what can I do to make it better?" My personal feelings aside, I removed content that could both inspire sympathy with the Church or condemnation against it. On the latter front, I removed various internal and external controversies in the early history of the Church that I thought were too extraneous to its development. I also completely removed the very controversial paragraph on the sexual abuse scandals in the Modern times section because I thought it gave undue weight to a relatively minor event in the history of a very old institution. On the former front, I removed content on the persecution of Catholic priests in Mexico and the Soviet Union because that information, while historically notable, is also relatively unimportant to the overall history of the Church. I even left in the controversial opening sentence that prior consensus had agreed to modify significantly. I don't know who reinstated it, but I did not touch the lead at all. In other words, although I do have my own biases about what this article should say, these changes were not about content or POV disputes, and I left intact all tags. My thought process was very simple: "Set categorization. Crunch down the article." That's all there was to it. I just wanted to get the basics down, and I think I did.
Now I am here to request your support for the new version. But what exactly does supporting the new version mean? First, it emphatically does not mean that we cannot change it in the future. Banish that thought from your head. Here's what supporting it means. Earlier, Xandar was talking about the current version becoming the "base version" on which future redactions will be based. I rejected that proposal because the current version is hopelessly flawed and needs to be destroyed. There's no other way to it. Instead, this new version should become the standard around which to edit in the future. The new model is not great either—it's got numerous prose, content, and POV issues inherited from the earlier version—but at least it's not irreparably hopeless like what our readers are currently facing. To that end, I would like to speed things up, and I have another proposal for you.
A straw poll. If you support making the new version the standard model, say Support. If you want to keep the current version as the base version, say Oppose. Lacking any other authority willing to step in and resolve this issue, the straw poll should have firm executive power. Whoever gets a simple majority wins the prize, and the article must change to reflect the winner of this vote. Bear in mind, however, that whoever wins the straw poll will not necessarily win indefinitely—just until the issue is brought up again for some other kind of review. I still consider myself in IAR and will remain in IAR until, somehow, the size of this article comes down and its categorization becomes simpler. However, I am willing to participate in this consensus-building process because I have been asked to do so and, who knows, we might actually get somewhere this time. There is no magic number for how long the straw poll should last. I prefer to leave that decision for Tom, but I would personally say five or six days is fine.
Finally: Only registered users with accounts that have had at least 500 mainspace edits and have been active for longer than six months can vote. I've been through enough straw polls to know the kinds of shenanigans that people play with anons and new accounts.
UberCryxic
(talk) 17:58, 10 March 2010 (UTC) See just below,
Tom Harrison
Talk
21:40, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
It would be appropriate to mention this straw poll to relevant projects. I'll leave that to people who are active in the area. Tom Harrison Talk 21:53, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
I notice that Nancy has also jumped in the canvassing game, even though Karanacs just left a note there! I think we should probably stop this canvassing business entirely. Look, if there are people who really care about this article, hopefully they care enough to come in here at least once a week. If they don't, their commitment to the article is questionable, and they shouldn't be participating in this poll anyway. UberCryxic (talk) 01:31, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
The editors at that article did two things right. First, they avoided extraneous detail. The two sentences above could easily be turned into two paragraphs. Deliberately, the editors avoided such expansion. This is the biggest difference with RCC; you have POV concerns in part because your article is so long. Second, they avoided apologetics and value judgements. Go to the family life section (also added for FAC): it doesn't imply that you should like or dislike polygamy. It states that a man may take four wives and moves along. Marskell (talk) 11:18, 7 November 2008 (UTC) (See User:Marskell/RCC)
The straw poll is now dead. See below for more details.
I would like to remind everyone to include detailed comments about the straw poll or my changes here, not in the straw poll itself. The straw poll is a poll (a vote), not a forum for discussion. UberCryxic (talk) 21:14, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
Nancy has objected to the proposed reorganization of the article on the grounds that "the former article followed the scholarly format used by other encyclopedias like Brittanica, World Book and Encyclopedia Americana. There is no scholarly precedent for what Uber is proposing."
Here is the top-level organization of the article on "Roman Catholicism" in Britannica Online:
I'd say that's plenty of "scholarly precedent". It's certainly a much closer match to the proposed new structure than it is to the former one. (And note that it also entitles the article "Roman Catholicism", not "Catholic Church"--another issue that probably ought to be revisited at some point.) Harmakheru ✍ 03:24, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
SandyGeorgia, consider this a warning to focus your comments on the content of this article and not other editors. You seem fixated on Nancy and you have crossed the line. Should you continue, I will be more than happy to report your sick edits, which will result in you being blocked.-- Storm Rider 22:22, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
I just did a quick scan of the "History" section in UberCryxic's version and I have to say that it is a short and breezy read. It's much less dense and ponderous than the previous version which really did fatigue me when I read it. And I'm actually quite interested in the subject!
I am inclined to support using UberCryxic's version as a baseline. After all, even if his 115kb version grew by 20%, we would still be at "only" 138kb which is a huge improvement over 190kb.
Before I cast my vote, however, I'd like to hear more from those who oppose going to Uber's version as a baseline. Specifically, NancyHeise characterized that version as "ridiculously incomplete". I would like to know what topics Nancy feels are absolutely critical and undeleteable. My interest is in the History section but others might be interested in developing a similar list for the other parts of the article.
-- Richard S ( talk) 03:56, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
In the sandbox version, UberCryxic makes various cuts which either, do not give a full informative presentation or are inherently bias against the Church IMO. Here is one example, there are many others. Specifically in regards perecutions of the Church, UberCryxic claims to be cutting down what he deems as largely incosequential information, "not important to the Church". But in actuality the following happens;
Plutarco Elías Calles, an anti-clerical, Grand Orient Freemason, persecuted the Church and many of its followers during his time in control of Mexico, including during the Cristero War. This is directly relevent to the Church and Mexico is an important Catholic nation, but is cut. Also removed was the persecution of Catholics by Communist regimes. Some of the most brutal persecutions of the Church, directly inspired by Marxist-Leninist ideology, were carried out under the watch of the Soviet Union and its satellites. Before we even get into the anti-clericalism, there is the Katyn massacre in Catholic Poland, inumerable slaughters of the Catholics in Hungary and of course, Holodomor, in which 11 million Ukrainians were intentionally starved to death by Marxists, many of the victims were Catholic. Obviously important to the Church.
At the same time, when it comes to the off-topic and irrelevent ethnic conflict between Jews and Germans, even the supposedly "cut down" article rattles on for an entire paragraph. This conflict is largely insignificant to the history of the Church, not involving it and doesn't need to be in the article at all. Yet fringe and non-scholary, secularist polemic about Pius XII predominates, the authors of which were simply motivated by a crude, fast cash making sensationalist grab (like the author of " Hitler's Pope") or ideological/politically motivated by hatred of the traditional Catholic religion of which Saint Pius XII is a prominent figurehead. Communism and the Catholic conflict with it is relevent to this article, the Third German Reich and its conflict with the Jews is not. All that needs to be mentioned about the Third Reich, is a very brief mention explaining the ideologically different nature of it to authoritarian governments which the Church had a far more healthy and open relationship with; ie - Franco, Salazar, Dollfuss type Christian corporatist conservatives.
Obviously, such changes are why this needs to be put under the microscope and any change done a bit at a time, rather than a rash wholesale, controversial and undiscussed cut. - Yorkshirian ( talk) 04:14, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
"Although in the past some Biblical scholars thought the word 'rock' referred to Jesus or to Peter’s faith, the majority now understand it as referring to the person of Peter.[43] Some historians of Christianity assert that the Catholic Church can be traced to Jesus's consecration of Peter,[41][44] some that Jesus did not found a church in his lifetime but provided a framework of beliefs,[45] while others do not make a judgement about whether or not the Church was founded by Jesus but disagree with the traditional view that the papacy originated with Peter. These assert that Rome may not have had a bishop until after the apostolic age and suggest the papal office may have been superimposed by the traditional narrative upon the primitive church[46][47] although some of these assert that the papal office had indeed emerged by the mid 150s.[48][49]"
This section is plagued with issues. There are zero direct quotes here. Who said what and when. I cannot favour that this section be left as is because it places disproportionate weight on criticisms of the Catholic church. I come to this page to read what the Catholic church believes, not the 1000 and 1 old grudges. Benkenobi18 ( talk) 08:56, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
"The Nicene Creed also forms the central statement of belief of other Christian denominations.[58] Chief among these are Eastern Orthodox Christians, whose beliefs are similar to those of Catholics, differing mainly with regard to papal infallibility, the filioque clause and the Immaculate Conception of Mary.[59][60] The various Protestant denominations vary in their beliefs, but generally differ from Catholics regarding the Pope, Church tradition, the Eucharist, veneration of saints, and issues pertaining to grace, good works and salvation.[61]"
This is no different then discussing why Rafa Nadal is a good claycourter on Roger Federer's page. Again, this does not need to be here on the Catholic church page. We don't care what the Orthodox church believes, or what the Protestant churches believe. We care about the question, what is it that the Catholic church believes. Again, I cannot support this new edit which removes pertinent information while retaining information irrelevant to the topic at hand. Benkenobi18 ( talk) 08:59, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
"There is evidence from the UK[102] and USA[103] that at least three-quarters of professed Catholics do not adhere to this requirement of canon law."
Why is this trivia here? Benkenobi18 ( talk) 09:03, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
"While some consider this to be evidence of a discriminatory attitude toward women,[156] the Church believes that Jesus called women to different yet equally important vocations in Church ministry.[157]"
This needs to be substantially reworked. "Some people" is a key weasel word. This omits entirely the Catholic doctrine that the priest acts in Personae Christae, and as Christ was a man, therefore the priest must also be a man. This, again is nowhere in the article and must be there. Anything that says, "some people", etc ought to be immediately removed. Benkenobi18 ( talk) 09:08, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
"Adults who have never been baptized may be admitted to Baptism by participating in a formation program such as the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults"
True, but misleading. RCIA is for all adults who wish to enter the Church, irrespective of their previous baptism. This must be reworked. Benkenobi18 ( talk) 09:13, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
"although the number of practicing Catholics worldwide is not reliably known.[191]"
If it's not reliably known, why are we wasting precious space discussing it? Strike this out. Benkenobi18 ( talk) 09:15, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
When this turned into an "appalling massacre",[270] he instituted the first papal inquisition to prevent further massacres and to root out the remaining Cathars.[270][271][272] Formalized under Gregory IX, this Medieval inquisition put to death an average of three people per year for heresy.[265][272]"
If it killed three people a year, why is it significant? This doesn't sound like an 'appalling massacre' to me.
"Over time, other inquisitions were launched by secular rulers to prosecute heretics, often with the approval of Church hierarchy, to respond to the threat of Muslim invasion or for political purposes.[273] King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain formed an inquisition in 1480, originally to deal with distrusted converts from Judaism and Islam to Catholicism.[274] Over a 350-year period, this Spanish Inquisition executed between 3,000 and 4,000 people,[275] representing around two percent of those accused.[276] In 1482 Pope Sixtus IV condemned the excesses of the Spanish Inquisition, but Ferdinand ignored his protests.[277] 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.[278][279][280] 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.[275][281] The inquisition played a major role in the final expulsion of Islam from Sicily and Spain.[241]
This whole section is schizophrenic. I'm not quite sure what bearing this has on Catholic church. As we see here, that Pope Sixtus condemned the inquistion, the inquistion was founded by a King, not the Church. Couple things here, the Albigenisian crusade is only one among many. There were Crusades against the Prussians (as seen in the Teutonic Knights), and Crusades against the moors. I would strike both these sections out. We need to be very careful to attribute to the Catholic church only those actions sanctioned by the Church and not the individual states of the time. Benkenobi18 ( talk) 09:24, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
"John Wycliffe and Jan Hus crafted the first of a new series of disruptive religious perspectives that challenged the Church. The Council of Constance (1414–1417), condemned Hus and ordered his execution, but could not prevent the Hussite Wars in Bohemia. In 1509, the scholar Erasmus wrote In Praise of Folly, a work which captured the widely held unease about corruption in the Church.[286] The Council of Constance, the Council of Basel and the Fifth Lateran Council had all attempted to reform internal Church abuses but had failed.[287] As a result, rich, powerful and worldly men like Roderigo Borgia (Pope Alexander VI) were able to win election to the papacy.[287][288] Personal corruption and abuses of power by these men and other members of the hierarchy preceded the Protestant Reformation - which began as an attempt to reform the Catholic Church from within. Catholic reformers opposed the ecclesiastic malpractice - especially the sale of indulgences, and simony, the selling of clerical offices — which they saw as evidence of systemic corruption of the Church’s hierarchy. Subsequently, reformers began to assault many of the historic doctrinal teachings of the Church.
In 1517, Martin Luther included his Ninety-Five Theses in a letter to several bishops.[289][290] His theses protested key points of Catholic doctrine as well as the sale of indulgences.[289][290] 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.[232][291]
In Germany, the reformation led to a nine-year war between the Protestant Schmalkaldic League and the Catholic Emperor Charles V. In 1618 a far graver conflict, the Thirty Years' War, followed.[292] In France, a series of conflicts termed the French Wars of Religion were fought from 1562 to 1598 between the Huguenots and the forces of the French Catholic League. The St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre marked the turning point in this war.[293] Survivors regrouped under Henry of Navarre who became Catholic and began the first experiment in religious toleration with his 1598 Edict of Nantes.[293] This Edict, which granted civil and religious toleration to Protestants, was hesitantly accepted by Pope Clement VIII.[292][294]"
This reads like a history of the Reformation. This is not the point of the article. The article must discuss first and foremost, the history of the Catholic church in the time of the Reformation. This is a distinct difference, and why I don't think this meets the standard we are looking for here in an article about the Catholic church.
For one, there is zero mention of Avignon, and we jump straight into Hus and Wycliffe. Zero mention is made of Gutenberg. Zero mention is made of the issue of the Vernacular. This is not good enough if we want this into the article. Important details essential for understanding the period are omitted, while others are inflated out of proportion. Benkenobi18 ( talk) 09:32, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
"From the seventeenth century onward, a philosophical and cultural movement known as "the Enlightenment" attacked the power and influence of the Church over Western society.[331] Eighteenth century writers such as Voltaire and the Encyclopedists wrote biting critiques of both religion and the Church. One target of their criticism was the 1685 revocation of the Edict of Nantes by King Louis XIV which ended a century-long policy of religious toleration of Protestant Huguenots."
What does this have to do with the Catholic church? This is an argument between Louis XIV, and Voltaire et al. If you are doing commentary here, much needs to be said about the Catholics who were executed during the reign of terror, and the consequences for the Catholic church in this period, more then just two sentences. Benkenobi18 ( talk) 09:36, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
The entire industrial period is a mess. Zero mention of the Kulturkampf? Look, I think if you want to do this right, you need to go through each of the papal histories (the recent ones are quite good), and then go through all the issues listed there. There are so many omissions here, Soviet opposition to the Church, the issues with Marx and communism dominated the era. Marx saw the Catholic church as a threat to their control of the working class. Benkenobi18 ( talk) 09:41, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
"Changes to old rites and ceremonies following Vatican II produced a variety of responses. Although most Catholics "accepted the changes more or less gracefully", some stopped going to church and others tried to preserve what they perceived to be the "true precepts of the Church".[388] The latter form the basis of today's Traditionalist Catholic groups, which believe that the reforms of Vatican II have gone too far. Liberal Catholics form another dissenting group, and feel that the Vatican II reforms did not go far enough."
This can go. Again, we aren't really interested in the response to Vatican II, which ironically takes up more space then describing the actual document. This falls under the same heading of 'criticism'. Benkenobi18 ( talk) 09:46, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
"In the 1960s, growing social awareness and politicization in the Church in Latin America gave birth to liberation theology, a movement often identified with Gustavo Gutiérrez who was pivotal in expounding the melding of Marxism and Catholic social teaching. A cornerstone of the Liberation Theology were ecclesial base communities, groups uniting clergy and laity in social and political action. Although the movement garnered some support among Latin American bishops, it was never officially endorsed by any of the Latin American Bishops’ Conferences. At the 1979 Conference of Latin American Bishops in Puebla, Mexico, Pope John Paul II and conservative bishops attending the conference attempted to rein in the more radical elements of liberation theology; however, the conference did make a formal commitment to a "preferential option for the poor".[390] Archbishop Óscar Romero, a supporter of the movement, became the region's most famous contemporary martyr in 1980, when he was murdered by forces allied with the government of El Salvador while saying Mass.[391] In Managua, Nicaragua, Pope John Paul II criticized elements of Liberation Theology and the Nicaraguan Catholic clergy's involvement in the Sandinista National Liberation Front.[392] Pope John Paul II maintained that the Church, in its efforts to champion the poor, should not do so by advocating violence or engaging in partisan politics.[393] Liberation Theology is still alive in Latin America today, although the Church now faces the challenge of Pentecostal revival in much of the region.[392]"
This is too much on liberation theology, and it reads like an advertisement. I don't think it even belongs here as there are plenty of dissident groups, and if we are giving these folks a place here, then we are leaving out others. Remember, this is one priest. Why don't we have anything on Opus Dei? This is about the only pastoral movement of which we hear anything about, which places again, undue weight. Benkenobi18 ( talk) 09:49, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
"It is known for its ability to use its transnational ties and organizational strength to bring significant resources to needy situations[citation needed] and operates the world's largest non-governmental school system.[412] Although the number of practicing Catholics worldwide is not reliably known,[191] membership is growing particularly in Africa and Asia.[vague][188]"
Not a particularly well-worded section. Could be excised without losing anything. Benkenobi18 ( talk) 09:52, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
"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.[406]"
Amazing, how this comes up every single time. You can excise things like the occupation of Rome, but leave this in. Breathtaking bias. Nothing about Pope Leo talking to Attila, and this is here. Benkenobi18 ( talk) 10:06, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
Ok, there are also several breathtaking omissions. Nothing is mentioned in the article that the Catholic church opposes sodomy, and that the Catholic church opposes abortion. I cannot vote in favour of any edit which somehow omits the two most important topics of Catholic social teaching today. Absolutely unacceptable edit. I vote for [b]REVERT[/b] to the previous version. Benkenobi18 ( talk) 10:10, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
The fundamental problem with this article - and all the disputes associated with it - is that it tries to include far too much information on far too many issues. The only solution, it seems to me, is to make this article considerably shorter and only include the most essential historial and theological issues information. Information on more complex issues should be moved to other - or new - articles that are focused on those particular issues and internal links and directions added for these articles. The best approach is often to say more by saying less - the more you say the more there is to argue about. Afterwriting ( talk) 11:36, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
Yes the correct fundamental problem has been identified here. The question is what do you do about it, and whenever a specific proposal is put forth, wars erupt in this talk page, preventing any actual change. This has been the basic filibustering strategy of some users for the past two years, and this article will never change if this kind of obstructionism cannot be softened a little bit. UberCryxic (talk) 17:28, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
I realize that this is the least preferred solution to a POV imbalance - but looking on the article's history of problems I can't help thinking that a lot of the partisanship could be avoided by having a short summary of the article on Criticism of the Catholic Church. That would move the pro/con pileup out of the other sections and into that one. Then the trick would just be to limit the section to being a summary of the criticism article. Just a suggestion feel free to disagree vehemently. ·Maunus·ƛ· 16:11, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
(edit conflict)
Yes, SandyGeorgia, I agree that this is always a potential problem and, unfortunately, Criticism articles are usually poorly written and magnets for POV-pushers. That said, the issue here is not always about having too much detail about controversies although that is a constant battle. The question is how to adequately summarize criticisms since it would be POV to remove them altogether and it is difficult to figure out how to say just enough without getting into a long discussion of the controversy. My general approach is to mention the controversy in the article text and provide a hopefully short Note outlining the controversy. All significant controversies should have their own article which explains the creation of articles such as Catholic Church and slavery, Catholic Church and science and Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust. I started work on an article about Catholic Church and women but no one else seemed interested in helping so that effort went way back on the backburner. -- Richard S ( talk) 17:11, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
It seems to me that there is no consensus for either version at this time. If anything, the tide of opinion seems to be running towards UberCryxic's shortened version but this does not seem likely to get support of an overwhelming supermajority in the 75-80% range (although it may be more of the 60-70% range).
I would like to suggest that a model for moving forward that might help us reach consensus. UberCryxic asserts that his shortened version has 5700 words of readable prose. Some editors have proposed setting an upper limit of 6000 words of readable prose. I suspect that this limit is too stringent and will never get the agreement of editors such as Xandar, Nancy, Johnbod and Yorkshirian. I myself might find that a little too stringent for my taste.
What I propose is that we not think of this as a binary decision of choosing between the "version prior to UberCryxic" (190kb) and "Ubercryxic's version" (115kb). Even UberCryxic has not framed the process in this way although his straw poll does tend to frame the decision in such a way as to lead editors to conclude that there is a binary decision to be made.
Instead of this binary decision, I would suggest that we imagine that our goal is a 150kb article (which is about halfway between 115kb and 195kb). Instead of deciding between 115kb and 195kb, we can view what we're doing as one of two approaches. Either we are deciding what to put back into UberCryxic's 115kb version to bring it back up to 150kb OR we are deciding what to take out of the 190kb version to bring it down to 150kb.
I view UberCryxic's pared-down 115kb version as a kind of "zero-based budgeting". That represents the absolute bare-bones minimum (from his perspective) of the article. Any additions to that baseline must be justified by discussion on this Talk Page and should be done with the limit of 150kb in mind. This does not mean that everything in UberCryxic's version is sacrosanct. Some of that text might be deleted or summarized. The point is that we accept 150kb as the goal and discuss all text changes in the view of priorities inside that limit.
As a first step, it would be useful to go through the sections of UberCryxic's proposed version and identify exactly what has been taken down and ask ourselves... "Is that OK? Can we leave it out?" If we find stuff that was removed but should not be left out, then we put the "should not have been deleted" items on a list for consideration to be put back in. Perhaps that list can be prioritized into "absolutely must be put back in" and "should be put back in if space allows". Then, we put stuff back in until we reach the budget of 150kb. I would suggest that the History section be carved out and give its own space budget (say 50 or 60kb).
If we follow my approach, we can move to constructive discussion of what text is important to put back in rather than vague generalizations like "UberCryxic's version takes too much important stuff out". My response to such comments is: "Well, OK, what exactly is that stuff? Let's discuss it."
In response to comments like "Too much weight is given to x, y or z", my response is "OK, so do you want x, y and z deleted or can we summarize it with a link to a fuller discussion in a subsidiary article?"
Let's try to stop talking past each other and work together to improve the article.
-- Richard S ( talk) 17:02, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
I was just re-reading some of the previous discussions and noticed that SandyGeorgia wrote:
That is what I was trying to say when I started this section. I understand that counting words is preferable to counting bytes. I only used byte counts because they were readily available and counting words of readable prose is a more involved process. I don't care ultimately about counting bytes vs. counting words. The point is that we get away from discussing the flaws in UberCryxic's version (which he readily concedes are there) and focus on the goal which is shortening and improving the article.
As for 6000 words vs. 7000 words, I think we should take a first step by just splitting the difference between the two article versions. It may be that we can pare down the article even more after we've done the detailed analysis. My concern is that we spend all this time talking in broad generalities and not getting down to brass tacks. UberCryxic's version is a "line in the sand" or "throwing down the gauntlet". You don't like his version? Fine, tell us what you don't like and why it MUST be put back in. Then let's discuss it. That's how we'll make progress. -- Richard S ( talk) 17:28, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
I don't want to prejudge exact totals Richard, but I would consider anything between 60 and 70 percent as a notable consensus to change the article. Not strong, but notable. Xandar agrees (see userpage) that only a majority should be needed to change the article, and I happen to agree with that as well (one of our rare points of agreement, now that's consensus!). These are Xandar's own words in a request to be unblocked:
My main concern is that we build an article by negotiation that the majority of editors are happy to sign off on. UberCryxic (talk) 17:24, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
The straw poll is essentially posing the exact same question that you are, Richard - do we try to improve Uber's version or do we try to improve the current version. No one has suggested that we have to keep Uber's version sacrosant, and if they do I'll loudly protest that too. We need to have some sort of definitive answer on which version we are going to start with before we can work on how to fix that version - or we end up just continuing the arguments that version X is too flawed to work with. Perhaps I'm missing something... Karanacs ( talk) 18:40, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
I predicted shenanigans with the Straw poll and it turns out I was right. I have just removed
this edit from an
anonymous user who had never edited Wikipedia before. The anon is located
in Florida, which is also where Nancy lives (public information on her userpage; I'm not disclosing anything confidential). I left notes to both
Tom and
Nancy about this. It's impossible for me or anyone else to be absolutely sure if someone is meat puppeting, and that needs to be emphasized quite clearly. The circumstantial evidence here, however, is very strong—strong enough for a ban if Nancy weren't already banned. Let this be a lesson to everyone: Wikipedia is not a democracy, it's not a place to bring in your mom and dad for an opinion. Do not pull tricks like this in the future because they will not end well. Please see
Nancy's talk page.
UberCryxic
(talk)
19:50, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
With Nancy and Xandar blocked there's no need for the straw poll (and little legitimacy in it at this point anyway), and no need for me to continue. I've unprotected the page, and the page can develop however the remaining participants want it to. I can already imagine someone preparing to cite this diff as evidence that Evil Nancy has driven the admin mediator from the page. That's not the case. It's disappointing, and at least partly my fault for not managing it better, that this has devolved into a (successful) campaign to get Nancy and Xandar. Tom Harrison Talk 22:17, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
I see, and support, that Uber has installed the shorter version. As he said, it is a work in progress; he did not pretend to fix any errors of substance. I encourage everybody to comment here on what needs to be added; I expect to support most proposals on substance, even if I disagree on phrasing.
I will oppose any efforts to restore the older version because it was the older version, or "consensus". Where it was better, let's have the merits.
Please list proposals below (level 2 sections for the archiving software please). Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:00, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
I thought Uber's move to change the base version in the mainspace was the right one. Yorkshirian reverted, saying "WP:BRD. You made a bold innovation. Numerous users have active sections which you have not discussed proper. Thus it is reverted, solve open issues on the talk before more bold POV innovations" This appears to me an abuse of WP:BRD. I am not sure what Yorkshirian means by "active sections", but part of the point of being bold in the way that Uber has been, is to break the logjam and get people working again on construction of a better article. Yorkshirian made another point in a previous edit summary that was also not accurate, referring to the old version as "Last stable version by Tom Harrison". Tom locked the thing while issues got discussed, and the last version wasn't stable, it was bogged down in edit wars, which is hardly the same thing. I do not understand why editors including Yorkshirian and Johnbod and others can't work to improve Uber's version, rather than wholesale reversion of something that has widespread (not consensus - hence i didn't use the word) support. Also, Yorkshirian might like to read the whole of BRD, including: "There is no such thing as a consensus version: Your own major edit, by definition, differs significantly from the existing version, meaning the existing version is no longer a consensus version." and "Do not accept "Policy" , "consensus", or "procedure" as valid reasons for a revert..." We need a new version of some sort, and Uber's looks better than the current one, for all the flaws in both. Why don't we focus on editing the alternate version rather than preventing it from being considered? hamiltonstone ( talk) 00:27, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
I support trimming the article down and having a more compact presentation. However, there are many specific content issues which have been raised by users, including myself and Benkenobi18, yet UberCryxic has not addressed these at all (in case of the latter) or satisfactorally/directly (myself).
Unfortunetly, UberCryxic, while wanting to shake the article up to cut it down (a positive thing), doesn't actually seem to know or have read much about the church outside of liberal polemic and thus is making unilateral cuts as self-apointed "glorious chairman" of what is relevent to the Catholic Church, omitting some important info in the process, inserting erronous and undiscussed innovations, as well as leaving in not so relevent parts.
What I would like to suggest is, that Tom Harrison re-protects the article in its original stable form and then other users actually discuss the content and work together in the sandpit to create the new smaller, cut down version. Dicussing the content specifics first, rather than UberCryxic's contentious innovations. UberCryxic was bold, he was reverted, now lets dicuss rationale on specific points and create a consensus version in the sandpit before any innovation is made - Yorkshirian ( talk) 00:27, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
I can support the compromise, to change the structure and restore the previous history section. However, this had the effect of removing the changes I had made to consolidate the Origins/Mission section and Cultural Influences section, meaning that information is effectively gone right now. I'm going to make a few edits to reinsert this information into the history section, because the intent was not to lose that information. Karanacs ( talk) 01:49, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
The introduction should note that the church organization refers to itself formally in English as the Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church. Acsenray ( talk) 21:26, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
closed section
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Per the GA criteria, this article currently fails 1, 4, and 5. It fails 1 because it's anything but well-written: it's filled with choppy prose and it fails WP:MOS on many levels, including an ugly and bloated TOC. It fails 4 because several editors have raised important and valid objections about its neutrality (see the article's talk page). Finally, it absolutely fails 5 because it's been the subject of massive revisions and edit wars in the last few weeks. To call this article "stable" would be a joke. I recommend that it be removed from the GA list. UberCryxic (talk) 02:06, 11 March 2010 (UTC) GA Reassessment review and comments
This article no longer meets the Good Article Criteria on several grounds.
Comment. Hmm. When i first came to the article late last year, i could understand why someone might query its GA status, as I had thought it did not meet at least a couple of the criteria. At the same time, i thought the intensive level of work on the article, and the careful (if not always reliable) footnoting, suggested that a GAR would not be productive. While I am inclined to agree with Uber on this, I think
(undent) Comment Revert to stable version. Protect. KEEP GA. Are there admins watching for trolls and POV warriors here? • Ling.Nut 02:29, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
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There are concerns that the article does not meet GA criteria for stability and other issues. User:EyeSerene and I will conduct a joint GAR, and any decision regarding delisting or keeping will be a joint decision. Due to stability concerns this GAR will run until at least 13 April 2010; if there are disruptive edits between now and the end of this GAR the article will be delisted as unstable. As there are significant positive edits and changes being made to the article at the moment, this GAR is put onhold until 20 March to allow editors to proceed unhindered. EyeSerene and I will start to look closely at the article after that date, and make observations as to how we feel the article meets GA criteria. SilkTork * YES! 18:57, 13 March 2010 (UTC)
The hold has been extended to April 13. This will be after the planned closure of Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Catholic Church, and after the return of EyeSerene who is currently on a break. SilkTork * YES! 14:10, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
I note that the RfC has now closed with a consensus to build on the existing "short" version. The article appears to be stable, though I note that there are several citation needed tags. After having this GAR on hold for over a month I feel that it is time for EyeSerene and myself to look at the article, give some comments and make a decision. SilkTork * YES! 16:09, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
Per WP:WIAGA:
Conclusion: I believe the major issue for this GA assessment is the article stability; I think at some point we must close this GAR, so my inclination is to delist the article for now with the recommendation that it be submitted for a new GA review once major work has finished. Please note, however, that this conclusion is tentative and subject to modification in the light of SilkTork's comments. I also sincerely wish the article writers well with its development and congratulate them for making such fine progress with this difficult subject. EyeSerene talk 14:15, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria
I have read through EyeSerene's review. Interesting to note the areas where we have different views and the areas where we concur. Our conclusions, though arrived at via different routes, are the same, that the article should be delisted at this stage as it is still being developed. As such I will delist. SilkTork * YES! 11:27, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
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The History section should be moved to the front of the article. This Suggestion does not involve content disputes, although future ones will. Here we're just talking about the location of the section itself. UberCryxic (talk) 03:34, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
Numerous people have asked for this on this very talk page. Every time they are pointed to some really old version of "consensus" or told the section is too long for the top, and then you insist that no one ever asked (and yes, it has brought up at FAC)??? How many people, besides you and Johnbod (and I assume Xandar) have explicitly asked for the history to be last? I also note that the article previously had the history first - that is, until January 16, 2008, when you (Nancy) changed it [1], with the justification that you were following the guidance of Islam, which is an article on a religion (like Christianity), not a particular denomination. You essentially changed the article, without consensus, to reflect a layout that is not the norm for an organization/denomination. Karanacs ( talk) 23:07, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
The history section belongs in the article, obviously. But my contention, one I have held for a long time, is that there is far too much recentism. The "industrial" to "present day" sections, can be merged down from three headers into one. On a whole, a lot of information, which at the end of the day is going to be of minor significance in the 2000 year history of the church has too much focus. History is very important, but the last two hundreds years of the overall 2000 have far too much airtime. - Yorkshirian ( talk) 21:59, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
This one is on content. In Cultural influence, I propose to remove the word "slavery" from the following sentence: The church rejected and helped end practices such as human sacrifice, slavery,[note 9] infanticide, and polygamy in evangelized cultures throughout the world, beginning with the Roman Empire.
I submit this Suggestion for a simple reason: the claim is not true. Slavery ended largely due to the actions of modern and secular states. In 1794, the French government abolished slavery in its colonies, and the radical liberals who made the vote in the National Convention were distinctly anti-Catholic and anti-Christian in general (most were atheists or deists, in fact). The British abolished the slave trade and slavery in the early 19th century largely from pressure by the Whigs, and Catholicism was not an important factor. Slavery ended in the United States after a brutal war. Again, Catholicism was not a factor. Abolitionism in many Western countries did have strong religious support, but Protestant support, not Catholic. Catholicism is not known for helping to end slavery. That claim is totally ludicrous and I propose that it be amended as suggested. UberCryxic (talk) 02:49, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
As for the rest of the sentence: At last, in the year of the City 657,[[97 BC] Cneius Cornelius Lentulus and P. Licinius Crassus being consuls, a decree forbidding human sacrifices was passed by the senate Pliny, Natural History 30.3.
Polygamy was also illegal at Rome; it was one of Anthony's scandals that he (like Caesar) had asked to be exempted from this law. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 06:03, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
I have more to come, but let this be a preliminary salvo. The following reputable and scholarly sources provide important information that everyone engaged in this debate needs to appreciate and understand.
(that Christianity actually legitimized slavery)
Christianity was to provide institutional support and religious authority for the advanced slave systems of medieval Europe and of the modern Americas...Christianity was not alone among the major world religions in legitimizing slavery.
Throughout most of their history, Christian churches and their theologians have unfortunately accepted slavery as God’s will for some persons, especially when those persons have not been Europeans.
(a bit of scholarly and intellectual history, which is useful knowledge to possess in our debate)
Mallet, Le Clerc du Brillet, and many later writers on the history of slavery credited Christianity with the abolition of slavery in early medieval France...The role of Christianity in the abolition of Roman slavery during the Middle Ages was an object of passionate debate by professional historians of the nineteenth century. In 1884...it was asserted that…the Catholic Church sought to stamp out slavery and to ameliorate the conditions of the serf. That notion was challenged by arguing that the Church had little to do with increasing manumission during the Middle Ages, historians citing secular social motives instead. More recently, the influence of Christianity has been overshadowed by economic or sociopolitical analysis of the problem.
(on a major Christian thinker and slavery)
Augustine apparently believed slaves should accept their condition and make the best of it.
(supporting my point that slavery never went extinct in the Middle Ages)
Slavery never completely disappeared from Europe during the Middle Ages.
Christian scholastic thinkers in the Middle Ages had portrayed slavery as part of the natural and necessary hierarchy of the universe.
More modern stuff...
(On the French Revolution)
When the National Convention came into power, the issue was revisited and on February 4, 1794, guided by ideals of equality, the government abolished slavery in the colonies.
And just for some fun
statement by Jefferson Davis (this is how religious people typically thought about the issue, then and at all times prior)
Slavery was established by decree of Almighty God...It is sanctioned in the Bible, in both Testaments, from Genesis to Revelation...it has existed in all ages.
These sources accomplish a number of important tasks...
Based on the above (overwhelming) evidence, all instances throughout the article saying that the Church somehow influenced the decline or the end of slavery should be permanently removed. UberCryxic (talk) 05:35, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
(ec)The trouble is that when these links are followed, they show you are quoting highly selectively, and always in the direction of your (perhaps unwisely) pre-announced POV. For example you have twice quoted the Cambridge Economic History of Europe but not the passage, imediately after one you have quoted "one of the finest achievements of Christian ethics was the enforcement of respect for this maxim [that free Christians could not be enslaved], slowly to be sure, for it is still being recalled in England early in the eleventh century, but in the long run most effectively." This would make a fine ref, from an unimpeachably independent source, for a limited claim such that the church "helped end" slavery, but of course we are never going to hear of anything going in a similar direction that comes up in your researches. Following other links you provided has similar results. For example the very interesting book on Ancien Regime slavery. That is without going into the big picture that the Enlightenment, French Revolution, etc, occurred in societies formed for a thousand years in a Christian, for most of that period Catholic, environment rather than a Hindu, Confucian etc one. Johnbod ( talk) 15:56, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
To the anon above: generally speaking, even the speeches, official pronouncements', or various writings of people from the Church or those associated with it do not indicate that the Church actually wanted to end slavery or tried to end slavery. Yes, you might come up with some isolated cases here and there, but the general history of the Catholic Church reveals that it was very much interested in preserving hierarchical social institutions (slavery, serfdom, patriarchy, etc). None of the modern and secular states that actually abolished slavery were "prompted to action" by the words of the Catholic Church. And like I mentioned above, where religious support did exist for the abolition of slavery, it usually came from Protestants, not Catholics. It doesn't matter how you want to play around with the words: the Catholic Church did not end slavery, it did not "help end" slavery, and it did not "influence" any of the major actors of the last three centuries who actually ended (well, "ended") slavery. "End slavery" and "Catholic Church" should not appear in the same sentence together unless that sentence is something like "The Catholic Church did not help end slavery and was instrumental in its longevity as a prominent institution of human history."
Johnbod: you are the one quoting selectively, and I already spoke about the part you mentioned. The following is the sleight-of-hand being used to say the Catholic Church "helped end" slavery: Church says Catholics can't be enslaved, gets historically lucky in converting much of the European population (supports serfdom instead), and by default you're claiming it "helped end" slavery...when that was never really its goal, and never really what it did anyway. But even the description I've given is not really supported by more modern scholars, who, in general, do not attribute the decline of slavery during the Middle Ages to the actions or the statements of the Catholic Church. UberCryxic (talk) 17:34, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
Is there a reliable source that explicitly says the Catholic Church helped end slavery? Tom Harrison Talk 17:40, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
I've said this before but no one seems to have taken it on board so I'll try to say it again more explictly. The reason you are having this debate is because you want to turn this into a yes/no decision. Did the Church "help end slavery" yes or no? Well the answer is "yes" and "no". Someone mentioned MLK. Well, MLK was never for segregation whereas the Church did accept slavery as an established institution of society and worked to mitigate its more egregious evils. Someone else mentioned Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln is perhaps a slightly better though by no means perfect analogy. He was not the "emancipator of the slaves" that popular myth makes him out to be. I won't rehash all the details but his primary goal was not the abolition of slavery.
At the end of the day, the truth is that Catholic Church has both condoned slavery as a practical fact of life at some earlier points in its history and condemned it at later points in its history. If we just accept that 2000 years is a long time and both the Church and Western society have changed during that period, we can more accurately represent what happened at different points in time. It is also reasonable to consider that what the Vatican says and what the hierarchy and the faithful do can be two different things. In the antebellum South, the U.S. hierarchy interpreted In Supremo Apostolatus to apply to slave trading but not to slave ownership. The fact that most U.S. Catholics at the time were whites living in slave-holding Maryland and Louisiana might have had something to do with that position.
The truth is that we are arguing over whether the one word "slavery" can be included in a list of "good things" that the Church has done. (and many of the other items in the list are also being challenged).
If we can abandon the attempt to attack or defend the Church on this (and other issues!), we can more easily arrive at an NPOV description of its history. What if we do away with the sentence in question altogether and replace it with a series of sentences on each of the items. For example, vis-a-vis slavery, we could use my earlier sentence which went something like this "Although the Church initially accepted slavery as an established social institution and worked primarily to mitigate abuse of slaves, it later opposed slavery first of Christians and eventually of all human beings." To me, this neither attacks nor defends the Church, it just states what happened. One could say the same thing of the United States or most European nations. I don't think it is possible to say definitively who gets how much credit for ending slavery. I think abolition was an evolution in the social conscience of Western society that took several hundred years. The Catholic Church as well as some Protestant churches contributed to this evolution. We should not attempt to judge specific individuals too harshly unless we take into account the mores of the time in which they lived.
In any event, any detailed treatment of specific individuals and/or actions is way outside the scope of this article. If you have an interest in the details, come help improve Catholic Church and slavery.
-- Richard S ( talk) 19:30, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
There are several problems with this, besides the absence of sources. If that were fixed it might alleviate most of the other problems:
Reading the text of Sublimus Dei (to which our article links) reveals that the key phrase is the said Indians and all other people who may later be discovered by Christians, are by no means to be deprived of their liberty or the possession of their property, even though they be outside the faith of Jesus Christ. This prohibits the reduction of anybody into slavery; by implication it may prohibit the slave trade. But this was issued in 1839; the web of international treaties against the slave trade had been in place for decades, and most major slave-holding countries had long since abolished it - the United States in 1807. It prevented little; and for those already in slavery, it does nothing. It liberates nobody. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:57, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
Karanacs makes a good point: if it's turning out to be so insanely controversial, we don't even have to mention slavery at all! As I see it, it's an important part of the history of the Catholic Church, but not central by any stretch of the imagination. It could be left out. What is absolutely unacceptable is the current version, which just blithely credits the Catholic Church with helping to end slavery and does not explain the complicated relationship that readers need to know about. UberCryxic (talk) 22:44, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
"Although the Church accepted slavery as an established social institution, it slowly succeeded during the Middle Ages in suppressing new enslavement of Christians, except as a punishment, while long continuing to accept the enslavement of others, such as Muslims and pagans." That can be referenced from several books linked above. Johnbod ( talk) 04:13, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
All of this discussion would be great over at Talk:Catholic Church and slavery. However, I think we are focusing on too much detail for this article. My basic thesis is that in the first few centuries after its founding, the Church accepted slavery as an established part of the social fabric. Today, in the year 2010, the Church opposes slavery. The transition from acceptance to opposition didn't occur in a single year, a single decade or even a single century. It was a slow evolution. To argue whether secular society changed the Church or the Church changed secular society is kind of like debating the chicken-and-the-egg question. Clearly, they influenced each other and one can find arguments on both sides. The basic thrust of my proposal was to state the initial position (the Church accepting slavery but counseling the humane treatment of slaves) and the final position (the Church opposing slavery). Both of those are fairly indisputable facts. Everything else is historical interpretation which is not the appropriate level of detail for this article. This is probably not the article to discuss how effective the Church's opposition to slavery was in actually ending slavery. Save it for the article on Catholic Church and slavery. --~~
PManderson wrote "If a source can be found making Johnbod's argument, or Richard's, that would be a different matter." I'm sorry... it's unclear to me which argument of mine, you are referring to. Can you clarify so I can either find a source or retract the argument? Thanx. -- Richard S ( talk) 16:57, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
Richard, what do you say to the idea that we not mention slavery at all in Cultural influence? UberCryxic (talk) 18:34, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
Oppose removing the term. Mostly due to the United Stateism, Anglo-centric contention that removing would be based on. The word "slavery" itself in secular humanist and recent identity politics currency, is used mostly in reference to the slavery of black Africans brought into North America. "Slavery" itself is a much, much wider practice than that and the Church has historically opposed it in many places, including in South America, with the creation of the Jesuit Reductions. Reading through the commments, Johnbod comes to tackling this correctly. We must remember, there is whole world out there where Catholicism pervades that is outside the realm of the English-speaking world. - Yorkshirian ( talk) 22:05, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
There are three approaches here:
1) spread out discussion of slavery throughout the History section as a theme that keeps getting revisited
2) mention slavery in the Cultural Influences section
3) say nothing at all about slavery
I think doing #1 is hard to do well and risks giving undue weight to slavery as a major theme in the history of the Church which I really don't think it is. I think we are converging on a consensus with respect to #2. I could accept #3 but I think other editors would not and so I suspect we will wind up having to go with #2. -- Richard S ( talk) 14:55, 5 March 2010 (UTC)
4) add a very few lines brutally summarizing the whole history, with lots of links, at a single appropriate point in the history.
-I think I favour this, probably in the "Age of Discovery" which is the crunch point for the church and slavery, as our readers feel, probably correctly. None of them show signs of giving a monkey's about the degree to which the church did or did not help medieval Slavs etc. This is one of those areas where no mention is taken as inherently demonstrating pro-Catholic apologetics bias, regardless of the motives that led to the lack of coverage. Or the same summary could be in "cultural influences". Johnbod ( talk) 15:08, 5 March 2010 (UTC)
Thanks, Johnbod. That saved me from having to re-read the voluminous discussion. That quotation seems to refer only to the abolition of slavery of "free Christians" in the Middle Ages. Now, we could read the phrase "in the long run most effectively" in the above quote to mean that the prohibition of enslavement of free Christians in Europe ultimately had an indirect on the influence the subsequent abolition of slavery worldwide (culminating in the abolition of slavery in Brazil and Cuba in the late 19th century). Seems like a stretch to me. Does anyone actually make such an argument explicitly or is that original research on our part? The phrase "in the long run most effectively" could also be read more narrowly to mean the enslavement of free Christians in Europe was slow but ultimately came to be universally enforced. Such a reading would make no inference about the influence of the Catholic Church on the abolition of slavery with respect to people of all races and faiths.
My perspective is that the Catholic Church has influenced first the mitigation and eventually the aboition of slavery over the centuries while at times participating in the institution as slaveholder and sanctioning its practice by Catholics. If we are to insist on mentioning slavery as an important issue, we should be careful to mention all the points in the preceding sentence. To just say that "the Church helped end slavery" is true but open to attack due to the ancillary issues.
-- Richard S ( talk) 17:12, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
I agree that the page just fizzled out before and we needed a final section the Church today to tie it up. However, I don't think Nancy's text does that for one simple reason: it's nearly all about the Pope rather than the Church, apart from the final sentence which everyone agrees is POV (for different reasons) and is unreferenced anyway.
I have a proposal to fix this: we move the Institutions, personnel and demographics section to the end of the page given that it does describe the current state of the Church. Haldraper ( talk) 15:32, 5 March 2010 (UTC)
There are still serious POV issues with this section, hence the tag: the "challenges" the Church faces are clearly only seen as such from the POV of the Church and as others have pointed out it is a phrase more approriate to a 'mission statement' than an encyclopaedia article. Like the alleged oppression/persecution/discrimination against the Church by other religions and "secular governments" however I can see why Nancy is pushing for its inclusion.
Where I struggle to see her logic is when she replaces clear statistics such as percentage points with vague phrases - "a slight decrease...steadily rising...decreases in the US and Europe" - especially when they both come from the same sources, the former journalists' paraphrasing and the latter them quoting the 2007 Pontifical Yearbook. Haldraper ( talk) 18:51, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
I'm just reiterating my opposition to a "Present" section and much of what is on the list above. That is giving undue weight (and the list as given reflects a very Church POV) to the last few years of history. Haldraper's suggestion of moving the demographics section down is an excellent one. This provides the perfect snapshot of what the Church is at present - how many members are there, where do they live, etc. Karanacs ( talk) 21:56, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
This compound diff restores two pieces of text which nobody defends as they stand, even the reverter, on the plea that there is no consensus to remove them. This is disingenuous and unacceptable; if this continues, I shall conclude and say to ArbCom that it is impossible to make progress until Xandar is banned from this page.
In one case, the Spanish Civil War, everybody, even Nancy, agrees on a short text; the open question is whether the text as it now stands is short enough or should be shorter still.
In the other case, the miscellaneous and factually challenged sentence on how the Church ended slavery, human sacrifice, and a number of other things with which she had little or nothing to do, the sentence as it stands was undefended, unsourced, and every word of it is contrary to reliable authority.
Johnbod has some much more specific points about the laws of war in the early middle ages; his last post on the subject suggests he doesn't think them important enough to mention in this article, but if he does, I encourage him to add them, with sources.
There is also an ongoing discussion about whether and where to mention slavery at all; but nobody proposes to say what this sentence does; most people seem to want Dum diversas mentioned, if anything is - and this sentence does not. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:23, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
<-- I am removing the clothespin from my nose just long enough to acknowledge the message I left at Tediouspendant's talkpage.
I am glad we got some healthy new blood at this page (Tom, Uber, Mamaj), but the behaviour of many otherwise good editors on this page continues to disappoint, and new blood like that little science stunt is something the project is clearly better without. Please, everyone drop the chips from your own shoulders and remember this is meant to be a serious and respectable reference work. Baccyak4H ( Yak!) 03:11, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
I think everyone has understood my point. The way this article is edited there is not the slightest chance of getting proper neutral or balanced coverage of any significant controversies - such as the treatment of Galileo and other scientists, the Inquisition or the Crusades. This should not be a space for axe-grinding, but nor should it be a page reserved solely for hagiography and apologetics. The fact that I can add a brief paragraph on Science and the Church in the current style of this article (with highly selective use of verifiable pro-church facts and complete evasion of major problematic ones), absurdly co-opting Galileo as a Catholic Scientist embraced by the Church, and get the response from Nancy that The science bit is a little too much detail I think although I do like it proves my point. If we really can't achieve full and fair coverage of major differing POVs in this article then I suggest that an introductory note is added explaining that this article gives the official position of the Church, together with a link to another article in which all the past and present controversies surrounding the Church are properly explored. -- Tediouspedant ( talk) 15:06, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
A few words on
It has been discussed at some length above. No-one defended it; no-one agreed with it; it is unsourced, polemical, and contrary to reliable sources. That is consensus and reason to remove - and the burden of adding or retaining material rests on those who would include it. Our reverter, despite mentioning BRD, has not actually discussed content.
I am therefore removing again; and if anyone reverts without actual discussion of what good this falsehood does the encyclopedia, I will tag this article as inaccurate; as well as concludiong it is hopeless, a waste of the time of good editors; if that happens, I shall therefore request permanent protection until Xandar and Nancy are banned, as they deserve to be. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:14, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
Slavery has been an unchallenged institution in virtually every human society, except Christian society. where it has been challenged and slowly abolished, first in the medieval period - and then, when it was revived on the New World Plantations. With regard to Human sacrifice, this was prevalent in Celtic societies of the pre-christian period, and in Nordic and Baltic-slavonic societies. Human sacrifice was also prevalent throughout pre-columbian America, and in some other societies. Infanticide has been practiced in a variety of European societies with sickly infants. Polygamy is also widely documented around the world. It is often a status thing, where those of high status have many spouses and those of low staus, none. Xan dar 02:34, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
← Rates of infanticide during the late 20th/early 21st century in predominately Christian countries are lower than in, say, much of India or China. See, for example, the current issue of The Economist. Majoreditor ( talk) 04:20, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
Could it be that what we are talking about is the development/evolution of a number of moral/ethical norms in modern Western society to which the Church is certainly a contributor but not necessarily the sole or even the primary force?
What are we really trying to say about slavery? That it existed in Greco-Roman society but eventually evolved into serfdom and then ultimately into the civil liberties/civil rights ethos of today. How much contribution did the Church have in this evolution? Some, maybe even a lot. It is credited by some by helping end slavery in medieval Europe but did it inveigh against the serfdom that took its place? I haven't heard of it doing that. Like the rest of Western society, its record is not lily-white. The Pope sanctioned slavery of non-Christians and this was used to enslave first Native Americans and Africans. Certainly, 18th and 19th century abolitionism was not driven by the Catholic Church.
While human sacrifice and polygamy may not have been elements of Roman civilization at the time of Christ, they were elements of various "pagan" cultures which eventually dropped these practices after being converted to Christianity. Presumably, it's not too POV to present these changes as salutary events. However, the Catholic Church was not alone in effecting these changes. Protestant missionaries also inveighed against these practices and convinced the peoples that they evangelized to abjure them eventually. I don't know much about the Orthodox but presumably they affected the peoples that they converted in similar ways.
I don't know whether infanticide was present in Roman civilization at the time of Christ but it has been and is an element of certain non-Christian cultures. Once again, cultures which have converted to Christianity have dropped this practice in accordance with Christian sanctions against them. And once again, we are talking about all Christians, not just the Catholics.
I think then that what we are saying is that Christianity has played a part in ending these practices or, at least, in getting governments to make them illegal. We could argue whether the sanctions against a particular practice originated in Christianity or were already present in Judeo-Greco-Roman society. However, at the end of the day, I think we should be more interested in Christianity's role in spreading these moral norms than in nailing down exactly where the norms originated from.
This is an article about the Catholic Church but we should still be a little careful not to give the impression that the Catholic Church deserves sole or even primary credit for something that all Christians have done and still do. Moreover, some actions were made by secular governments which were nonetheless motivated by a combination of Christian and secular moral sentiment. By the time you get to the 19th century (and maybe even before that), it is hard to be 100% clear whether a government action is based on Christian morals or a developing secular morality. Certainly the secular morality of Western civilization has its roots in Christian morality.
I think the "Cultural influences" section would seem less like pro-Catholic cheerleading if we drafted a somewhat more nuanced sentence that more accurately portrayed the history of Christianity vis-a-vis the prohibition of these practices in Western (and ultimately the "global") society.
-- Richard S ( talk) 07:00, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
PMAnderson did the right thing in removing that sentence, which was atrocious due its lack of context and POV pushing. UberCryxic (talk) 21:45, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
Catholic opposition to divorce should be mentioned, in a neutral fashion, in any final version of this bit. Johnbod ( talk) 22:11, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
Bokenkotter is a Catholic priest, Duffy is a member of the Pontifical Historical Commission: neither is a third party source per WP:INDEPENDENT. Do either of them describe popes as "leaders in the campaign against slavery"? If they are "well respected sources in mainstream history academia" I doubt it somehow. Haldraper ( talk) 22:34, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
It's obviously up to Tom to determine what's best for this article's stability, and I appreciate his even-handed involvement in this process. Tom has really epitomized the best qualities in an administrator at Wikipedia. Unlike the first page protection, I actually agree with this one. However, I'd also like to say for the record that—compared to earlier editing disputes that I went back and analyzed for this article—the general behavior has improved significantly. The edit warring is still insane, but that's down from apocalyptic, so I really think we're making progress here. Good job everyone. UberCryxic (talk) 03:07, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
The hallmark of honesty, I've always thought, is self-criticism, and to that end I'd like to propose something new, if you're brave enough. I suggest that this second page protection be lifted on the condition that the following users agree not to edit this article for one month starting from when the protection is removed, except in cases of obvious vandalism as defined by Wikipedia, and obvious vandalism only. Other editors and administrators can always be notified to fix tendentious or other kinds of bad edits, given that this group will not be allowed to do that (this condition is meant to be deliberately brutal: vandalism only). The users that this moratorium should apply to are:
I'm crazy and disciplined enough to do this. I hope you are too. Obviously, however, this can only work if you all agree to do it. This will never work if only one person imposes self-moratorium. I don't think this proposal will result in substantial changes or improvements to the article. What I mainly want to test is how disciplined this group is. If we can't get the discipline right, this article will be a quagmire forever. If you feel like you have done wrong by this article in the past and want to confess your sins by adding yourself to this list, do not hesitate to do so. No one's perfect.
I do not propose any punishment whatsoever for someone who breaks the agreement. It is assumed that we are all quasi-stable, semi-rational human beings who would be able to comply with such an agreement. The only thing that will be tarnished if you break it is your reputation. UberCryxic (talk) 04:23, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
I personally have no problem making this promise - I very rarely edit the article itself. However, I don't see that this moratorium will actually make any difference. There were weeks of discussion in Nov/Dec on certain issues, and changes were made to the article based on consenus from those discussions. NancyHeise was deliberately taking a break from the article (as she has mentioned) during that time frame, and when she returned last month she began reverting the changes to be closer to the state it was in when she last edited. Not editing for a month will stop the immediate edit wars, but it will take a much larger personal commitment to result in any real change. Karanacs ( talk) 15:26, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
Nancy, I think you're referring to the sentence you added to the end of the World War II section about the "special significance" of John Paul II's apology to the Jewish people which was cited with a ref to CARA which is clearly a non-third party source. I deleted it because: a) it struck me as POV b) the lack of an independent source. On reflection, I thought it might be better to just add a citation tag, however the page protection then cut off that option. Haldraper ( talk) 22:28, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
If the page is locked for two weeks, that will give us time to agree some section wording changes without extraneous issues arising. So can we not simply agree that the presently protected version, as it stands, is the BASE version. And that no substantive changes are to be made to this without talk-page consensus? That consensus to be judged over a fair amount of time - say 4 days to a week. That would stop a lot of the troublesome edit-wars that threaten to raise their heads. I have to say I disagree with Karanacs interpretation that consensus is needed to KEEP referenced text. Consensus is required to change text, but if disagreement exists over existing referenced text, we work together to achieve agreement. That is the essence of Bold, Revert, Discuss. Xan dar 22:52, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
The protection is to prevent disruption, slow things down a bit, and maybe encourage people to use the talk page to agree on some text. Protection will last no longer than it has to - hopefully I can unlock it shortly. We need to get past simply undoing each other's work. It's better to make small changes, discuss, and rewrite to address concerns. Take it slowly. There's no point in immediately reverting and condemning the other party for not having consensus, when hardly anyone has had a chance to see and consider the change. Similarly, don't rewrite big chunks or make wholesale changes or removals - it's disruptive. Make incremental changes to what's there, or work out something on talk. Tom Harrison Talk 00:02, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
For WP:IAR, our encyclopedia's most controversial rule: Ignore all rules. A lot of people here are talking about the desirability of consensus and that's the last thing they're getting. Let's face it: when even the most minor issues spark explosive arguments on this talk page, consensus doesn't mean much, and the last few days bear this point out. I had hoped that Arbcom would have provided some remedies, but unfortunately they failed to take up the case. The following is a list of things that have gone wrong with this article and that need to be changed. Let me state unequivocally that I do not care if there is no consensus to implement these changes. If consensus is going to get in the way of improving the article, then consensus can be ignored per IAR.
That should be enough to keep me busy for a while. After that, I'll see where the article stands and carry out further changes as necessary. UberCryxic (talk) 00:25, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
Hilarious! Johnbod ( talk) 03:15, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
As far as the article's basic categorization goes, I'm done. Regardless of what you think about actual content, which so far has remained intact as it was during the protection, this categorization is easy on the eyes (unlike the previously obese TOC) and fairly rational. The next stage is the (vastly) harder one: rewriting these sections into summary style and cutting out extraneous material. I'm aiming to make this article roughly 100 kb. Even that's very large, but for an organization of such fame and prestige, it's easy to justify a very large article. UberCryxic (talk) 04:29, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
Ok I'm now going to start the second part of the process: cutting down the size. I plan to follow a basic strategy: synthesize and summarize. I will try to do as little rewriting as possible in order to avoid content disputes. My main task will center on excising extraneous material that achieves nothing but the presentation of one more meaningless fact. I'll focus on what's important instead. The rest belongs in daughter articles. I plan to explain all of my changes with detailed edit summaries, and I will also remove a few irrelevant images. That should help in making the article smaller.
Major, I've been a Wikipedia editor for over four years and I've made nearly 14,000 edits. To my recollection, I've never invoked IAR before this moment, but I'm more than justified in doing so now. We're dealing with an article that's had the same problems for years, and those problems have not been resolved despite countless attempts at dispute resolution (Arbcom was the latest incident) and scores of failed FAC nominations. The intrinsic mechanisms of Wikipedia have failed the article on the Catholic Church. This is exactly why IAR was instituted: Wikipedia's policies and guidelines work superbly 99.9% of the time (and should be followed 99.9999999% of the time), but there are moments when Wikipedia's internal structure reveals its defects. This article —along with Race and intelligence (among very few others)—is almost a perfect example. Here we have a gigantic, 190 kb article and we're told above that the current mess should be the "base version." When you're faced with obtuse, uninformed, and entrenched opposition like that, IAR is all you have left, and it's a credit to this community that it even imagined such a wonderful precept.
Obviously, however, I am not invoking IAR indefinitely. I am only operating under IAR—ie. totally ignoring the misinformed opinions of editors like Xandar—until I can crunch down this article to about 100 kb. After that, I will behave through Wikipedia's rules on consensus again. I have made clear my intentions to Tom and have also informed him that he can ban me at any moment he feels I'm being disruptive. But whatever happens, my conscience is clear because I am staying true to the fundamental intentions of Wikipedia. UberCryxic (talk) 07:10, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
I am done with major changes for now. The article has contracted from 190 kb when I started to 179 kb currently. We still have about 80 kb more to go, but that's fine because I just worked on the first two sections of History. I removed sizable amounts of extraneous content and a few images that I thought did not aid our understanding of the subject. Richard, I declared my sixth suggestion dead because Nancy and Xandar refused to comply with that request, and I specifically mentioned that it would never work unless everyone agreed to it. I do not expect anyone to stand by while I edit: I wholeheartedly encourage everyone to improve the article by removing extraneous content. If I had done as you suggest with my sandbox, I am sure the final version (whatever it ended up being) would have been soundly rejected for making the exact kind of drastic cuts that the article needs. The whole point behind these changes is that I can carry them out live and step by step. You are all encouraged to do the same. It would mean less work for me. UberCryxic (talk) 08:08, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
I haven't looked at the changes in detail, but they seem very poorly done to me. You won't I think be able to reference the new jump between the sentences at "From the 8th century, Iconoclasm, the destruction of religious images, became a major source of conflict in the eastern church.[90][91] The resulting disagreements between the western and eastern sides ultimately prompted the Pope and the Patriarch to excommunicate each other in 1054, commonly considered the date of the East–West Schism.[92]" The old text covered the 220-odd years betweeen the ending of Iconoclasm & the final break. Having the history first looks as bad as I feared. It appeals to people who think the history is the most, or only, important thing about the church, but not to those who are actually interested in the church as such. The establishment of the Holy Roman Empire seems to have disappeared! The last 2 paras of the Middle Ages are just bizarre - stuff that should go, like "according to historian Thomas Noble" is left, but important stuff goes. I hope it is not all like that. Johnbod ( talk) 16:25, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
It's 'Bold, Revert, Discuss.' Boldness has worked well, and the changes have been substantial; now there's been some progress, let's pause for some discussion. Tom Harrison Talk 16:27, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
It'd be good if an objection on the talk page and the suggestion to discuss led people to stop editing and discuss. Tom Harrison Talk 16:41, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
I apologize if my actions led to the reprotection - that was certainly not my intent. I didn't check my watchlist while I was doing those changes and did not see Nancy's post. Overall, I think Uber's reorganization was a very good thing. I agree with Johnbod that the text is now choppy and needs work, but that is something that we can fix. I made two bold changes which I'll break into other sections for discussion. Karanacs ( talk) 16:59, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
Ok the day-time editing for this article is furious and intense, so I plan to hold off until later at night with my continuing changes. Will start cleaning the kitchen at 1 am. Edit Wikipedia at 3 am. That, my friends, is a dedicated editor. You all just don't know how lucky you really are to have me. UberCryxic (talk) 17:52, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
I merged Origin and Missions with the rest of the article. Origin and history are the same thing, they are just two different perspectives of it. The two paragraphs that begin the Origin/Mission section now begin the History section (with no wording changes), so that the article still begins by presenting this information that I've been told is critical to understand the Church. This is a net neutral change. I placed the Mission piece in the Beliefs section, as that paragraph flowed very well from the text that already introduced the beliefs section. (Note that the mission sentences are already in the lead, meaning readers will get to see that right away.) Karanacs ( talk) 16:59, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
Agree with this decision. UberCryxic (talk) 17:48, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
Nancy, can we resolve your objection by rewording the lead? Do you have any suggestions for how that should look? Karanacs ( talk) 20:38, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
I removed the Cultural Influences section and got most of the way through integrating it into the history section (I cancelled my last edit when I saw that protection had been reapplied). Much of the information in this section was already listed in the history section. As discussed in one of the sections above, I moved the information from the slavery note to be spread across the history section. I moved other information from the cultural influence section into its appropriate place in history as well. I believe that part of the text that was in the cultural influences section could also be placed in the lead, as in some cases it is a good summary of what is later discussed. Karanacs ( talk) 16:59, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
Agree with this one too. UberCryxic (talk) 17:48, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
The lead is the appropriate place for a summary. Why don't we work on finding a better way to structure the lead to make sure that this information can be there? Karanacs ( talk) 19:44, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
Given that the protection was readded soon after a lot of work, there are some glaring typos/small issues that we didn't have a chance to fix. I request that we make the following small edits:
Thanks. Karanacs ( talk) 17:03, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
Karanacs already spoke here and Haldraper can speak for herself or himself. I am not going to prejudge anyone's comments. As for me....what part of "I am operating under IAR" do you not understand? I will be officially in IAR mode until the article comes down to around 100 kb, according to the guidelines I established before. Your comments above—steeped, as they are, in endless minutiae and foot-dragging—perfectly highlight why I chose to invoke IAR. I don't know what other editors are doing, but I'm in IAR, so leave me out of your misguided attempts to form consensus. Any administrator who thinks he or she has a good case to ban me for being in IAR can go ahead and do so, as I told Tom repeatedly. But right now, for this article, the rules of Wikipedia have become a useless albatross. UberCryxic (talk) 19:02, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
Proposed action I will wait until Uber is done with his edits and then revert to the previous consensus form, move his changes to a user/subpage as Richard has suggested, open a content RFC, as Karanacs suggested, and post a note on everyone's page who has worked on this article since the last two FACs. We can have each person look at the page with Uber's undiscussed edits and compare it with the previous consensus version. I'm sure that can't be called canvassing because it includes everyone. If needed, maybe we can open a mediation on the Cultural Influences and Origin and Mission section eliminations if it doesnt get resolved at the RFC. NancyHeise talk 19:35, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
I'm sorry, just because certain editors (some of whom have just come to the page) are impatient that they don't get their way when thewy want it, doesn't give them the right to disrupt and overturn five years of article building and make a mess of the whole article without consensus.
This whole process seems to be an attempt to hijack and disrupt the article and make it impossible to make ordered changes or deal with arguments in a patient or proper manner. If Ubercryxix and Karanacs want to propose alternative wordings, they are free to do so. and discuss them on the talk page. They have failed to do this, and are attempting to make radical changes to the page without consensus. This is a breach of Wikipedia rules, and is not on. If people want to do things properly I have already suggested formal mediation. I know that takes patience and negotiation - skills that some have little practice in. But that, not disruption, is the way forward. Xan dar 01:57, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
(ec) May I point out that there was already a loose consensus on this page today for the history section to be first? The following editors have posted today in support of that change: UberCryxic, Majoreditor, Richardshusr, Nancy!, Karanacs. I can't tell whether Bonifacious likes the changes or the fact that IAR was invoked. Three editors disagree with putting the history first: Johnbod, Xandar, Yorkshirian. Xandar and Yorkshirian's objections came after a lot of the discussion and the reverts were made without any discussion and no specific complaints have been raised (by Xandar) other than the process used. There isn't enough discussion here yet to determine whether there is consensus to keep or remove the changes I made (moving the origins/mission information and moving Cultural Influence text to other sections). I would like to know what, exactly, would satisfy you, Xandar, before the history section can go first? Karanacs ( talk) 02:55, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
Just a point of note, in response to some messages earlier up the page. The Catholic Church is not, nor has it ever been a "denomination". In some cultures, for instance in China, Catholicism and Protestantism are regarded as entirely separate religions. The Protestant concept of an invisible super "Christian Church", removed from the actual Catholic Church itself, it not held in Catholic dogma. Catholicism is a whole, not a "slice", not a "sect", not a "bit part", not a "denomination". It should have the same MOS as other complete religion articles, like Islam. - Yorkshirian ( talk) 03:41, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
Now that the article has been protected again, I have been instructed by Tom to carry out my proposed changes in userspace. I'll be working on that over the next few days and we'll see how to move on from there. In the meantime, I want you all to relax, even though I know you won't. Look at it this way: it could be a lot worse. You could have been debating Haldraper on whether the Liberal Democrats are centrist or center-left. Be glad for what you have, and see you in a few days. You can track my changes at my sandbox, where I've now placed the entire article. Obviously you are not allowed to edit that, but I wanted to give you all a link because what I do there will probably reflect the shape that this article takes in a few weeks. Love you all (you too Haldraper), hugs and kisses, etc. UberCryxic (talk) 04:23, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
We have three editors who are very vocal against the restructuring that UberCryxic and I attempted (Johnbod, NancyHeise, and Xandar, although Nancy seems to give tepid support to the history section move). Yorkshirian has expressed disapproval with the history section being first but did not comment on the other changes. Several other editors have expressed support for the full restructured version (Uber, me, PMAnderson, Mike Searson, Haldraper, MoreThings). Majoreditor and Richard appears to support the history section being first but have not commented on the changes to Origin/Mission and Cultural Influence.
By the numbers, this is an obvious consensus to have the history come first (3 opposed, 7 in favor, Nancy neutral, Richard neutral to weak oppose). As to the changes I made, by the numbers we have a smaller consensus for the change (3 opposed, 6 in favor, 3 who did not express a particular opinion). (I obviously can't judge strength of argument here because I'm too involved in the discussion.)
My question to the group is, at what point do we consider that there is consensus for - or against - the structure change? (At this time, let's ignore any question on trimming - we can always change the structure without trimming the history section for now.) What parameters are we using to determine when consensus is reached? A certain percentage of editors in favor? A certain percentage (or raw number) of editors opposed? Specific editors have to approve? I am being very sincere in posing the question, and I'd appreciate to-the-point answers to this question. Karanacs ( talk) 16:02, 10 March 2010 (UTC) amended per Richard's clarifications below Karanacs ( talk) 16:48, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
I am finished with my changes to the article. You can review what happened in my sandbox. The following description of my changes is based on a similar comment I left on Tom's talk page.
The first thing to remember is that even my version has huge problems that will need to be fixed later on. At this first and early stage of the process, however, I was trying to resolve two fundamental issues that I consider to be beyond discussion (hence my invocation of IAR): length and categorization. To that end, the version I present to you all is down from 190 kb two days ago to 115 kb now (and only 5,700 words in readable prose, so pretty good). That's actually still long, but at least we're down from insanely long. I achieved such a reduction in length through the removal of extraneous content that belongs in daughter articles and the consolidation of related paragraphs. The second fundamental problem was categorization, and here I wanted to lighten the TOC by presenting a more rational layout for the article. The TOC you see there now is due half to me, half to Karanacs, who had removed some unnecessary sections and summarized the content in other locations when the article was unprotected.
I want to assure everyone, in particular, that I made my changes with a veil of ignorance. I was not trying to answer the question "Here I have the Catholic Church article: what can I do to change it how I want?" Instead I thought of it as "Here I have a Wikipedia article: what can I do to make it better?" My personal feelings aside, I removed content that could both inspire sympathy with the Church or condemnation against it. On the latter front, I removed various internal and external controversies in the early history of the Church that I thought were too extraneous to its development. I also completely removed the very controversial paragraph on the sexual abuse scandals in the Modern times section because I thought it gave undue weight to a relatively minor event in the history of a very old institution. On the former front, I removed content on the persecution of Catholic priests in Mexico and the Soviet Union because that information, while historically notable, is also relatively unimportant to the overall history of the Church. I even left in the controversial opening sentence that prior consensus had agreed to modify significantly. I don't know who reinstated it, but I did not touch the lead at all. In other words, although I do have my own biases about what this article should say, these changes were not about content or POV disputes, and I left intact all tags. My thought process was very simple: "Set categorization. Crunch down the article." That's all there was to it. I just wanted to get the basics down, and I think I did.
Now I am here to request your support for the new version. But what exactly does supporting the new version mean? First, it emphatically does not mean that we cannot change it in the future. Banish that thought from your head. Here's what supporting it means. Earlier, Xandar was talking about the current version becoming the "base version" on which future redactions will be based. I rejected that proposal because the current version is hopelessly flawed and needs to be destroyed. There's no other way to it. Instead, this new version should become the standard around which to edit in the future. The new model is not great either—it's got numerous prose, content, and POV issues inherited from the earlier version—but at least it's not irreparably hopeless like what our readers are currently facing. To that end, I would like to speed things up, and I have another proposal for you.
A straw poll. If you support making the new version the standard model, say Support. If you want to keep the current version as the base version, say Oppose. Lacking any other authority willing to step in and resolve this issue, the straw poll should have firm executive power. Whoever gets a simple majority wins the prize, and the article must change to reflect the winner of this vote. Bear in mind, however, that whoever wins the straw poll will not necessarily win indefinitely—just until the issue is brought up again for some other kind of review. I still consider myself in IAR and will remain in IAR until, somehow, the size of this article comes down and its categorization becomes simpler. However, I am willing to participate in this consensus-building process because I have been asked to do so and, who knows, we might actually get somewhere this time. There is no magic number for how long the straw poll should last. I prefer to leave that decision for Tom, but I would personally say five or six days is fine.
Finally: Only registered users with accounts that have had at least 500 mainspace edits and have been active for longer than six months can vote. I've been through enough straw polls to know the kinds of shenanigans that people play with anons and new accounts.
UberCryxic
(talk) 17:58, 10 March 2010 (UTC) See just below,
Tom Harrison
Talk
21:40, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
It would be appropriate to mention this straw poll to relevant projects. I'll leave that to people who are active in the area. Tom Harrison Talk 21:53, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
I notice that Nancy has also jumped in the canvassing game, even though Karanacs just left a note there! I think we should probably stop this canvassing business entirely. Look, if there are people who really care about this article, hopefully they care enough to come in here at least once a week. If they don't, their commitment to the article is questionable, and they shouldn't be participating in this poll anyway. UberCryxic (talk) 01:31, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
The editors at that article did two things right. First, they avoided extraneous detail. The two sentences above could easily be turned into two paragraphs. Deliberately, the editors avoided such expansion. This is the biggest difference with RCC; you have POV concerns in part because your article is so long. Second, they avoided apologetics and value judgements. Go to the family life section (also added for FAC): it doesn't imply that you should like or dislike polygamy. It states that a man may take four wives and moves along. Marskell (talk) 11:18, 7 November 2008 (UTC) (See User:Marskell/RCC)
The straw poll is now dead. See below for more details.
I would like to remind everyone to include detailed comments about the straw poll or my changes here, not in the straw poll itself. The straw poll is a poll (a vote), not a forum for discussion. UberCryxic (talk) 21:14, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
Nancy has objected to the proposed reorganization of the article on the grounds that "the former article followed the scholarly format used by other encyclopedias like Brittanica, World Book and Encyclopedia Americana. There is no scholarly precedent for what Uber is proposing."
Here is the top-level organization of the article on "Roman Catholicism" in Britannica Online:
I'd say that's plenty of "scholarly precedent". It's certainly a much closer match to the proposed new structure than it is to the former one. (And note that it also entitles the article "Roman Catholicism", not "Catholic Church"--another issue that probably ought to be revisited at some point.) Harmakheru ✍ 03:24, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
SandyGeorgia, consider this a warning to focus your comments on the content of this article and not other editors. You seem fixated on Nancy and you have crossed the line. Should you continue, I will be more than happy to report your sick edits, which will result in you being blocked.-- Storm Rider 22:22, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
I just did a quick scan of the "History" section in UberCryxic's version and I have to say that it is a short and breezy read. It's much less dense and ponderous than the previous version which really did fatigue me when I read it. And I'm actually quite interested in the subject!
I am inclined to support using UberCryxic's version as a baseline. After all, even if his 115kb version grew by 20%, we would still be at "only" 138kb which is a huge improvement over 190kb.
Before I cast my vote, however, I'd like to hear more from those who oppose going to Uber's version as a baseline. Specifically, NancyHeise characterized that version as "ridiculously incomplete". I would like to know what topics Nancy feels are absolutely critical and undeleteable. My interest is in the History section but others might be interested in developing a similar list for the other parts of the article.
-- Richard S ( talk) 03:56, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
In the sandbox version, UberCryxic makes various cuts which either, do not give a full informative presentation or are inherently bias against the Church IMO. Here is one example, there are many others. Specifically in regards perecutions of the Church, UberCryxic claims to be cutting down what he deems as largely incosequential information, "not important to the Church". But in actuality the following happens;
Plutarco Elías Calles, an anti-clerical, Grand Orient Freemason, persecuted the Church and many of its followers during his time in control of Mexico, including during the Cristero War. This is directly relevent to the Church and Mexico is an important Catholic nation, but is cut. Also removed was the persecution of Catholics by Communist regimes. Some of the most brutal persecutions of the Church, directly inspired by Marxist-Leninist ideology, were carried out under the watch of the Soviet Union and its satellites. Before we even get into the anti-clericalism, there is the Katyn massacre in Catholic Poland, inumerable slaughters of the Catholics in Hungary and of course, Holodomor, in which 11 million Ukrainians were intentionally starved to death by Marxists, many of the victims were Catholic. Obviously important to the Church.
At the same time, when it comes to the off-topic and irrelevent ethnic conflict between Jews and Germans, even the supposedly "cut down" article rattles on for an entire paragraph. This conflict is largely insignificant to the history of the Church, not involving it and doesn't need to be in the article at all. Yet fringe and non-scholary, secularist polemic about Pius XII predominates, the authors of which were simply motivated by a crude, fast cash making sensationalist grab (like the author of " Hitler's Pope") or ideological/politically motivated by hatred of the traditional Catholic religion of which Saint Pius XII is a prominent figurehead. Communism and the Catholic conflict with it is relevent to this article, the Third German Reich and its conflict with the Jews is not. All that needs to be mentioned about the Third Reich, is a very brief mention explaining the ideologically different nature of it to authoritarian governments which the Church had a far more healthy and open relationship with; ie - Franco, Salazar, Dollfuss type Christian corporatist conservatives.
Obviously, such changes are why this needs to be put under the microscope and any change done a bit at a time, rather than a rash wholesale, controversial and undiscussed cut. - Yorkshirian ( talk) 04:14, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
"Although in the past some Biblical scholars thought the word 'rock' referred to Jesus or to Peter’s faith, the majority now understand it as referring to the person of Peter.[43] Some historians of Christianity assert that the Catholic Church can be traced to Jesus's consecration of Peter,[41][44] some that Jesus did not found a church in his lifetime but provided a framework of beliefs,[45] while others do not make a judgement about whether or not the Church was founded by Jesus but disagree with the traditional view that the papacy originated with Peter. These assert that Rome may not have had a bishop until after the apostolic age and suggest the papal office may have been superimposed by the traditional narrative upon the primitive church[46][47] although some of these assert that the papal office had indeed emerged by the mid 150s.[48][49]"
This section is plagued with issues. There are zero direct quotes here. Who said what and when. I cannot favour that this section be left as is because it places disproportionate weight on criticisms of the Catholic church. I come to this page to read what the Catholic church believes, not the 1000 and 1 old grudges. Benkenobi18 ( talk) 08:56, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
"The Nicene Creed also forms the central statement of belief of other Christian denominations.[58] Chief among these are Eastern Orthodox Christians, whose beliefs are similar to those of Catholics, differing mainly with regard to papal infallibility, the filioque clause and the Immaculate Conception of Mary.[59][60] The various Protestant denominations vary in their beliefs, but generally differ from Catholics regarding the Pope, Church tradition, the Eucharist, veneration of saints, and issues pertaining to grace, good works and salvation.[61]"
This is no different then discussing why Rafa Nadal is a good claycourter on Roger Federer's page. Again, this does not need to be here on the Catholic church page. We don't care what the Orthodox church believes, or what the Protestant churches believe. We care about the question, what is it that the Catholic church believes. Again, I cannot support this new edit which removes pertinent information while retaining information irrelevant to the topic at hand. Benkenobi18 ( talk) 08:59, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
"There is evidence from the UK[102] and USA[103] that at least three-quarters of professed Catholics do not adhere to this requirement of canon law."
Why is this trivia here? Benkenobi18 ( talk) 09:03, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
"While some consider this to be evidence of a discriminatory attitude toward women,[156] the Church believes that Jesus called women to different yet equally important vocations in Church ministry.[157]"
This needs to be substantially reworked. "Some people" is a key weasel word. This omits entirely the Catholic doctrine that the priest acts in Personae Christae, and as Christ was a man, therefore the priest must also be a man. This, again is nowhere in the article and must be there. Anything that says, "some people", etc ought to be immediately removed. Benkenobi18 ( talk) 09:08, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
"Adults who have never been baptized may be admitted to Baptism by participating in a formation program such as the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults"
True, but misleading. RCIA is for all adults who wish to enter the Church, irrespective of their previous baptism. This must be reworked. Benkenobi18 ( talk) 09:13, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
"although the number of practicing Catholics worldwide is not reliably known.[191]"
If it's not reliably known, why are we wasting precious space discussing it? Strike this out. Benkenobi18 ( talk) 09:15, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
When this turned into an "appalling massacre",[270] he instituted the first papal inquisition to prevent further massacres and to root out the remaining Cathars.[270][271][272] Formalized under Gregory IX, this Medieval inquisition put to death an average of three people per year for heresy.[265][272]"
If it killed three people a year, why is it significant? This doesn't sound like an 'appalling massacre' to me.
"Over time, other inquisitions were launched by secular rulers to prosecute heretics, often with the approval of Church hierarchy, to respond to the threat of Muslim invasion or for political purposes.[273] King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain formed an inquisition in 1480, originally to deal with distrusted converts from Judaism and Islam to Catholicism.[274] Over a 350-year period, this Spanish Inquisition executed between 3,000 and 4,000 people,[275] representing around two percent of those accused.[276] In 1482 Pope Sixtus IV condemned the excesses of the Spanish Inquisition, but Ferdinand ignored his protests.[277] 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.[278][279][280] 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.[275][281] The inquisition played a major role in the final expulsion of Islam from Sicily and Spain.[241]
This whole section is schizophrenic. I'm not quite sure what bearing this has on Catholic church. As we see here, that Pope Sixtus condemned the inquistion, the inquistion was founded by a King, not the Church. Couple things here, the Albigenisian crusade is only one among many. There were Crusades against the Prussians (as seen in the Teutonic Knights), and Crusades against the moors. I would strike both these sections out. We need to be very careful to attribute to the Catholic church only those actions sanctioned by the Church and not the individual states of the time. Benkenobi18 ( talk) 09:24, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
"John Wycliffe and Jan Hus crafted the first of a new series of disruptive religious perspectives that challenged the Church. The Council of Constance (1414–1417), condemned Hus and ordered his execution, but could not prevent the Hussite Wars in Bohemia. In 1509, the scholar Erasmus wrote In Praise of Folly, a work which captured the widely held unease about corruption in the Church.[286] The Council of Constance, the Council of Basel and the Fifth Lateran Council had all attempted to reform internal Church abuses but had failed.[287] As a result, rich, powerful and worldly men like Roderigo Borgia (Pope Alexander VI) were able to win election to the papacy.[287][288] Personal corruption and abuses of power by these men and other members of the hierarchy preceded the Protestant Reformation - which began as an attempt to reform the Catholic Church from within. Catholic reformers opposed the ecclesiastic malpractice - especially the sale of indulgences, and simony, the selling of clerical offices — which they saw as evidence of systemic corruption of the Church’s hierarchy. Subsequently, reformers began to assault many of the historic doctrinal teachings of the Church.
In 1517, Martin Luther included his Ninety-Five Theses in a letter to several bishops.[289][290] His theses protested key points of Catholic doctrine as well as the sale of indulgences.[289][290] 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.[232][291]
In Germany, the reformation led to a nine-year war between the Protestant Schmalkaldic League and the Catholic Emperor Charles V. In 1618 a far graver conflict, the Thirty Years' War, followed.[292] In France, a series of conflicts termed the French Wars of Religion were fought from 1562 to 1598 between the Huguenots and the forces of the French Catholic League. The St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre marked the turning point in this war.[293] Survivors regrouped under Henry of Navarre who became Catholic and began the first experiment in religious toleration with his 1598 Edict of Nantes.[293] This Edict, which granted civil and religious toleration to Protestants, was hesitantly accepted by Pope Clement VIII.[292][294]"
This reads like a history of the Reformation. This is not the point of the article. The article must discuss first and foremost, the history of the Catholic church in the time of the Reformation. This is a distinct difference, and why I don't think this meets the standard we are looking for here in an article about the Catholic church.
For one, there is zero mention of Avignon, and we jump straight into Hus and Wycliffe. Zero mention is made of Gutenberg. Zero mention is made of the issue of the Vernacular. This is not good enough if we want this into the article. Important details essential for understanding the period are omitted, while others are inflated out of proportion. Benkenobi18 ( talk) 09:32, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
"From the seventeenth century onward, a philosophical and cultural movement known as "the Enlightenment" attacked the power and influence of the Church over Western society.[331] Eighteenth century writers such as Voltaire and the Encyclopedists wrote biting critiques of both religion and the Church. One target of their criticism was the 1685 revocation of the Edict of Nantes by King Louis XIV which ended a century-long policy of religious toleration of Protestant Huguenots."
What does this have to do with the Catholic church? This is an argument between Louis XIV, and Voltaire et al. If you are doing commentary here, much needs to be said about the Catholics who were executed during the reign of terror, and the consequences for the Catholic church in this period, more then just two sentences. Benkenobi18 ( talk) 09:36, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
The entire industrial period is a mess. Zero mention of the Kulturkampf? Look, I think if you want to do this right, you need to go through each of the papal histories (the recent ones are quite good), and then go through all the issues listed there. There are so many omissions here, Soviet opposition to the Church, the issues with Marx and communism dominated the era. Marx saw the Catholic church as a threat to their control of the working class. Benkenobi18 ( talk) 09:41, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
"Changes to old rites and ceremonies following Vatican II produced a variety of responses. Although most Catholics "accepted the changes more or less gracefully", some stopped going to church and others tried to preserve what they perceived to be the "true precepts of the Church".[388] The latter form the basis of today's Traditionalist Catholic groups, which believe that the reforms of Vatican II have gone too far. Liberal Catholics form another dissenting group, and feel that the Vatican II reforms did not go far enough."
This can go. Again, we aren't really interested in the response to Vatican II, which ironically takes up more space then describing the actual document. This falls under the same heading of 'criticism'. Benkenobi18 ( talk) 09:46, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
"In the 1960s, growing social awareness and politicization in the Church in Latin America gave birth to liberation theology, a movement often identified with Gustavo Gutiérrez who was pivotal in expounding the melding of Marxism and Catholic social teaching. A cornerstone of the Liberation Theology were ecclesial base communities, groups uniting clergy and laity in social and political action. Although the movement garnered some support among Latin American bishops, it was never officially endorsed by any of the Latin American Bishops’ Conferences. At the 1979 Conference of Latin American Bishops in Puebla, Mexico, Pope John Paul II and conservative bishops attending the conference attempted to rein in the more radical elements of liberation theology; however, the conference did make a formal commitment to a "preferential option for the poor".[390] Archbishop Óscar Romero, a supporter of the movement, became the region's most famous contemporary martyr in 1980, when he was murdered by forces allied with the government of El Salvador while saying Mass.[391] In Managua, Nicaragua, Pope John Paul II criticized elements of Liberation Theology and the Nicaraguan Catholic clergy's involvement in the Sandinista National Liberation Front.[392] Pope John Paul II maintained that the Church, in its efforts to champion the poor, should not do so by advocating violence or engaging in partisan politics.[393] Liberation Theology is still alive in Latin America today, although the Church now faces the challenge of Pentecostal revival in much of the region.[392]"
This is too much on liberation theology, and it reads like an advertisement. I don't think it even belongs here as there are plenty of dissident groups, and if we are giving these folks a place here, then we are leaving out others. Remember, this is one priest. Why don't we have anything on Opus Dei? This is about the only pastoral movement of which we hear anything about, which places again, undue weight. Benkenobi18 ( talk) 09:49, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
"It is known for its ability to use its transnational ties and organizational strength to bring significant resources to needy situations[citation needed] and operates the world's largest non-governmental school system.[412] Although the number of practicing Catholics worldwide is not reliably known,[191] membership is growing particularly in Africa and Asia.[vague][188]"
Not a particularly well-worded section. Could be excised without losing anything. Benkenobi18 ( talk) 09:52, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
"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.[406]"
Amazing, how this comes up every single time. You can excise things like the occupation of Rome, but leave this in. Breathtaking bias. Nothing about Pope Leo talking to Attila, and this is here. Benkenobi18 ( talk) 10:06, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
Ok, there are also several breathtaking omissions. Nothing is mentioned in the article that the Catholic church opposes sodomy, and that the Catholic church opposes abortion. I cannot vote in favour of any edit which somehow omits the two most important topics of Catholic social teaching today. Absolutely unacceptable edit. I vote for [b]REVERT[/b] to the previous version. Benkenobi18 ( talk) 10:10, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
The fundamental problem with this article - and all the disputes associated with it - is that it tries to include far too much information on far too many issues. The only solution, it seems to me, is to make this article considerably shorter and only include the most essential historial and theological issues information. Information on more complex issues should be moved to other - or new - articles that are focused on those particular issues and internal links and directions added for these articles. The best approach is often to say more by saying less - the more you say the more there is to argue about. Afterwriting ( talk) 11:36, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
Yes the correct fundamental problem has been identified here. The question is what do you do about it, and whenever a specific proposal is put forth, wars erupt in this talk page, preventing any actual change. This has been the basic filibustering strategy of some users for the past two years, and this article will never change if this kind of obstructionism cannot be softened a little bit. UberCryxic (talk) 17:28, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
I realize that this is the least preferred solution to a POV imbalance - but looking on the article's history of problems I can't help thinking that a lot of the partisanship could be avoided by having a short summary of the article on Criticism of the Catholic Church. That would move the pro/con pileup out of the other sections and into that one. Then the trick would just be to limit the section to being a summary of the criticism article. Just a suggestion feel free to disagree vehemently. ·Maunus·ƛ· 16:11, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
(edit conflict)
Yes, SandyGeorgia, I agree that this is always a potential problem and, unfortunately, Criticism articles are usually poorly written and magnets for POV-pushers. That said, the issue here is not always about having too much detail about controversies although that is a constant battle. The question is how to adequately summarize criticisms since it would be POV to remove them altogether and it is difficult to figure out how to say just enough without getting into a long discussion of the controversy. My general approach is to mention the controversy in the article text and provide a hopefully short Note outlining the controversy. All significant controversies should have their own article which explains the creation of articles such as Catholic Church and slavery, Catholic Church and science and Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust. I started work on an article about Catholic Church and women but no one else seemed interested in helping so that effort went way back on the backburner. -- Richard S ( talk) 17:11, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
It seems to me that there is no consensus for either version at this time. If anything, the tide of opinion seems to be running towards UberCryxic's shortened version but this does not seem likely to get support of an overwhelming supermajority in the 75-80% range (although it may be more of the 60-70% range).
I would like to suggest that a model for moving forward that might help us reach consensus. UberCryxic asserts that his shortened version has 5700 words of readable prose. Some editors have proposed setting an upper limit of 6000 words of readable prose. I suspect that this limit is too stringent and will never get the agreement of editors such as Xandar, Nancy, Johnbod and Yorkshirian. I myself might find that a little too stringent for my taste.
What I propose is that we not think of this as a binary decision of choosing between the "version prior to UberCryxic" (190kb) and "Ubercryxic's version" (115kb). Even UberCryxic has not framed the process in this way although his straw poll does tend to frame the decision in such a way as to lead editors to conclude that there is a binary decision to be made.
Instead of this binary decision, I would suggest that we imagine that our goal is a 150kb article (which is about halfway between 115kb and 195kb). Instead of deciding between 115kb and 195kb, we can view what we're doing as one of two approaches. Either we are deciding what to put back into UberCryxic's 115kb version to bring it back up to 150kb OR we are deciding what to take out of the 190kb version to bring it down to 150kb.
I view UberCryxic's pared-down 115kb version as a kind of "zero-based budgeting". That represents the absolute bare-bones minimum (from his perspective) of the article. Any additions to that baseline must be justified by discussion on this Talk Page and should be done with the limit of 150kb in mind. This does not mean that everything in UberCryxic's version is sacrosanct. Some of that text might be deleted or summarized. The point is that we accept 150kb as the goal and discuss all text changes in the view of priorities inside that limit.
As a first step, it would be useful to go through the sections of UberCryxic's proposed version and identify exactly what has been taken down and ask ourselves... "Is that OK? Can we leave it out?" If we find stuff that was removed but should not be left out, then we put the "should not have been deleted" items on a list for consideration to be put back in. Perhaps that list can be prioritized into "absolutely must be put back in" and "should be put back in if space allows". Then, we put stuff back in until we reach the budget of 150kb. I would suggest that the History section be carved out and give its own space budget (say 50 or 60kb).
If we follow my approach, we can move to constructive discussion of what text is important to put back in rather than vague generalizations like "UberCryxic's version takes too much important stuff out". My response to such comments is: "Well, OK, what exactly is that stuff? Let's discuss it."
In response to comments like "Too much weight is given to x, y or z", my response is "OK, so do you want x, y and z deleted or can we summarize it with a link to a fuller discussion in a subsidiary article?"
Let's try to stop talking past each other and work together to improve the article.
-- Richard S ( talk) 17:02, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
I was just re-reading some of the previous discussions and noticed that SandyGeorgia wrote:
That is what I was trying to say when I started this section. I understand that counting words is preferable to counting bytes. I only used byte counts because they were readily available and counting words of readable prose is a more involved process. I don't care ultimately about counting bytes vs. counting words. The point is that we get away from discussing the flaws in UberCryxic's version (which he readily concedes are there) and focus on the goal which is shortening and improving the article.
As for 6000 words vs. 7000 words, I think we should take a first step by just splitting the difference between the two article versions. It may be that we can pare down the article even more after we've done the detailed analysis. My concern is that we spend all this time talking in broad generalities and not getting down to brass tacks. UberCryxic's version is a "line in the sand" or "throwing down the gauntlet". You don't like his version? Fine, tell us what you don't like and why it MUST be put back in. Then let's discuss it. That's how we'll make progress. -- Richard S ( talk) 17:28, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
I don't want to prejudge exact totals Richard, but I would consider anything between 60 and 70 percent as a notable consensus to change the article. Not strong, but notable. Xandar agrees (see userpage) that only a majority should be needed to change the article, and I happen to agree with that as well (one of our rare points of agreement, now that's consensus!). These are Xandar's own words in a request to be unblocked:
My main concern is that we build an article by negotiation that the majority of editors are happy to sign off on. UberCryxic (talk) 17:24, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
The straw poll is essentially posing the exact same question that you are, Richard - do we try to improve Uber's version or do we try to improve the current version. No one has suggested that we have to keep Uber's version sacrosant, and if they do I'll loudly protest that too. We need to have some sort of definitive answer on which version we are going to start with before we can work on how to fix that version - or we end up just continuing the arguments that version X is too flawed to work with. Perhaps I'm missing something... Karanacs ( talk) 18:40, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
I predicted shenanigans with the Straw poll and it turns out I was right. I have just removed
this edit from an
anonymous user who had never edited Wikipedia before. The anon is located
in Florida, which is also where Nancy lives (public information on her userpage; I'm not disclosing anything confidential). I left notes to both
Tom and
Nancy about this. It's impossible for me or anyone else to be absolutely sure if someone is meat puppeting, and that needs to be emphasized quite clearly. The circumstantial evidence here, however, is very strong—strong enough for a ban if Nancy weren't already banned. Let this be a lesson to everyone: Wikipedia is not a democracy, it's not a place to bring in your mom and dad for an opinion. Do not pull tricks like this in the future because they will not end well. Please see
Nancy's talk page.
UberCryxic
(talk)
19:50, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
With Nancy and Xandar blocked there's no need for the straw poll (and little legitimacy in it at this point anyway), and no need for me to continue. I've unprotected the page, and the page can develop however the remaining participants want it to. I can already imagine someone preparing to cite this diff as evidence that Evil Nancy has driven the admin mediator from the page. That's not the case. It's disappointing, and at least partly my fault for not managing it better, that this has devolved into a (successful) campaign to get Nancy and Xandar. Tom Harrison Talk 22:17, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
I see, and support, that Uber has installed the shorter version. As he said, it is a work in progress; he did not pretend to fix any errors of substance. I encourage everybody to comment here on what needs to be added; I expect to support most proposals on substance, even if I disagree on phrasing.
I will oppose any efforts to restore the older version because it was the older version, or "consensus". Where it was better, let's have the merits.
Please list proposals below (level 2 sections for the archiving software please). Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:00, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
I thought Uber's move to change the base version in the mainspace was the right one. Yorkshirian reverted, saying "WP:BRD. You made a bold innovation. Numerous users have active sections which you have not discussed proper. Thus it is reverted, solve open issues on the talk before more bold POV innovations" This appears to me an abuse of WP:BRD. I am not sure what Yorkshirian means by "active sections", but part of the point of being bold in the way that Uber has been, is to break the logjam and get people working again on construction of a better article. Yorkshirian made another point in a previous edit summary that was also not accurate, referring to the old version as "Last stable version by Tom Harrison". Tom locked the thing while issues got discussed, and the last version wasn't stable, it was bogged down in edit wars, which is hardly the same thing. I do not understand why editors including Yorkshirian and Johnbod and others can't work to improve Uber's version, rather than wholesale reversion of something that has widespread (not consensus - hence i didn't use the word) support. Also, Yorkshirian might like to read the whole of BRD, including: "There is no such thing as a consensus version: Your own major edit, by definition, differs significantly from the existing version, meaning the existing version is no longer a consensus version." and "Do not accept "Policy" , "consensus", or "procedure" as valid reasons for a revert..." We need a new version of some sort, and Uber's looks better than the current one, for all the flaws in both. Why don't we focus on editing the alternate version rather than preventing it from being considered? hamiltonstone ( talk) 00:27, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
I support trimming the article down and having a more compact presentation. However, there are many specific content issues which have been raised by users, including myself and Benkenobi18, yet UberCryxic has not addressed these at all (in case of the latter) or satisfactorally/directly (myself).
Unfortunetly, UberCryxic, while wanting to shake the article up to cut it down (a positive thing), doesn't actually seem to know or have read much about the church outside of liberal polemic and thus is making unilateral cuts as self-apointed "glorious chairman" of what is relevent to the Catholic Church, omitting some important info in the process, inserting erronous and undiscussed innovations, as well as leaving in not so relevent parts.
What I would like to suggest is, that Tom Harrison re-protects the article in its original stable form and then other users actually discuss the content and work together in the sandpit to create the new smaller, cut down version. Dicussing the content specifics first, rather than UberCryxic's contentious innovations. UberCryxic was bold, he was reverted, now lets dicuss rationale on specific points and create a consensus version in the sandpit before any innovation is made - Yorkshirian ( talk) 00:27, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
I can support the compromise, to change the structure and restore the previous history section. However, this had the effect of removing the changes I had made to consolidate the Origins/Mission section and Cultural Influences section, meaning that information is effectively gone right now. I'm going to make a few edits to reinsert this information into the history section, because the intent was not to lose that information. Karanacs ( talk) 01:49, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
The introduction should note that the church organization refers to itself formally in English as the Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church. Acsenray ( talk) 21:26, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
closed section
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Per the GA criteria, this article currently fails 1, 4, and 5. It fails 1 because it's anything but well-written: it's filled with choppy prose and it fails WP:MOS on many levels, including an ugly and bloated TOC. It fails 4 because several editors have raised important and valid objections about its neutrality (see the article's talk page). Finally, it absolutely fails 5 because it's been the subject of massive revisions and edit wars in the last few weeks. To call this article "stable" would be a joke. I recommend that it be removed from the GA list. UberCryxic (talk) 02:06, 11 March 2010 (UTC) GA Reassessment review and comments
This article no longer meets the Good Article Criteria on several grounds.
Comment. Hmm. When i first came to the article late last year, i could understand why someone might query its GA status, as I had thought it did not meet at least a couple of the criteria. At the same time, i thought the intensive level of work on the article, and the careful (if not always reliable) footnoting, suggested that a GAR would not be productive. While I am inclined to agree with Uber on this, I think
(undent) Comment Revert to stable version. Protect. KEEP GA. Are there admins watching for trolls and POV warriors here? • Ling.Nut 02:29, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
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There are concerns that the article does not meet GA criteria for stability and other issues. User:EyeSerene and I will conduct a joint GAR, and any decision regarding delisting or keeping will be a joint decision. Due to stability concerns this GAR will run until at least 13 April 2010; if there are disruptive edits between now and the end of this GAR the article will be delisted as unstable. As there are significant positive edits and changes being made to the article at the moment, this GAR is put onhold until 20 March to allow editors to proceed unhindered. EyeSerene and I will start to look closely at the article after that date, and make observations as to how we feel the article meets GA criteria. SilkTork * YES! 18:57, 13 March 2010 (UTC)
The hold has been extended to April 13. This will be after the planned closure of Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Catholic Church, and after the return of EyeSerene who is currently on a break. SilkTork * YES! 14:10, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
I note that the RfC has now closed with a consensus to build on the existing "short" version. The article appears to be stable, though I note that there are several citation needed tags. After having this GAR on hold for over a month I feel that it is time for EyeSerene and myself to look at the article, give some comments and make a decision. SilkTork * YES! 16:09, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
Per WP:WIAGA:
Conclusion: I believe the major issue for this GA assessment is the article stability; I think at some point we must close this GAR, so my inclination is to delist the article for now with the recommendation that it be submitted for a new GA review once major work has finished. Please note, however, that this conclusion is tentative and subject to modification in the light of SilkTork's comments. I also sincerely wish the article writers well with its development and congratulate them for making such fine progress with this difficult subject. EyeSerene talk 14:15, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria
I have read through EyeSerene's review. Interesting to note the areas where we have different views and the areas where we concur. Our conclusions, though arrived at via different routes, are the same, that the article should be delisted at this stage as it is still being developed. As such I will delist. SilkTork * YES! 11:27, 20 April 2010 (UTC)