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Why did you choose a picture of Angelo Cardinal Sodano showing him with Condoleezza Rice. What has she got to do with the article? Or is it just to point out that there are different Secretary of State? --- Jan, 25. March 2006
Since nobody else has responded to my proposal about the placing of the pictures, I make bold to move them myself, though, for lack of the necessary experience, I leave the picture of Pope Benedict in reduced size. Lima 04:44, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
"In some cases this figure includes those who most readers would not consider 'members'," says TSP. What is a member? Would TSP consider that a Durham Anglican ceases to be an Anglican if that person has not been to church for a month? for a year? for ten years? Some 98% of the population of Greece are considered members of the Greek Orthodox Church, and (perhaps mainly because of considering this religion an essential part of being Greek) self-identify as such. Would TSP insist on including a rider to the effect that "this figure includes those who most readers would not consider 'members'"?
In one country with which I am familiar, and probably in others, dioceses report a lower number of Catholics than what they consider to be the reality. Why? Because the diocese's contribution to the expenses of the national episcopal conference and its commissions is in proportion to its reported Catholic population. I have had direct experience in TSP's own country of parishes that routinely reported a lower figure to the diocese for the sake of reducing their financial contribution to the common diocesan fund for Catholic schools.
On the whole, the figure for Catholics given in the Statistical Yearbook of the Church quite certainly understates the reality. And not for this reason alone. As the publication itself mentions, it receives no statistical reports from some areas, which it does not name, but which obviously include mainland China, where the members, by any standards, of the Church are not just a few.
TSP's addition, "According to official Church figures," which has confessedly been inserted to suggest that the figures are exaggerated, is misleading and inadmissible.
Lima 06:53, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
The map of Catholic population percentage seems to be strangely inaccurate, especially in Latin America. For example, Venezuela is 96% Catholic so it should be colored red. We may want to re-check the figures to make sure they match with what's in other articles.
It seems to me that there has been some massive rewrites of the article with no discussion about what should be removed. For example what happened to this statement: "The Church traces its origins to the Apostles Peter and Paul." ? -- WikiCats 14:04, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
The (Roman) Catholic Church has as its central see the diocese of Rome, founded by the Apostles Peter and Paul, but is wider than that: it comprises sees founded by other Apostles too. It traces its origins not just to Peter and Paul, but to Jesus himself and the whole body of the Apostles. (Already explained briefly at 19:12, 25 March 2006.) Lima 19:34, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
Is there any way to eliminate jargon in the lead section, and still have it technically acceptable? I wrote this revision which I considered to be a reasonable summary, in terms understandable to the average reader unfamiliar with the details of the Church or Christianity, of the content of the article. Lima, on the grounds of accuracy, made this change, which removes all explanation of why being the 'successor of Peter' might be considered important (making it effectively simply a jargon term); and adds in the unexplained jargon terms 'sanctifying', and 'Apostolic Tradition' (the first of which is unlinked; the second of which simply links to the Twelve Apostles, which seems to indicate that we are making the NPOV statement that there definitely are traditions handed down from the Twelve Apostles - Wikipedia has no article on Apostolic Tradition, which, if we consider it a common enough term to use unexplained in a Lead Section it probably should). I accept that I was wrong on one point - I'd implied that the Church's teaching was based on tradtions including those not held to be past down from the Apostles - but the correction of this seems to have introduced several terms which are inaccessible to the average reader. Is it possible to write an introduction which would be satisfactory to the various Catholic editors, but still readily understandable to the average non-Catholic reader?
Incidentally, another thing bulking out the intro at the moment is the inclusion of sources for various information, and the expression of one part of it as a quote. It's my understanding that, as the lead section is a summary, it's the one place where sources don't need to be included - because all information mentioned should be given in more detail elsewhere in the document - and quotes from primary sources aren't necessarily the best way to summarise something; particularly if (as seems likely) they contain terms which are then going to need to be explained.
Sorry if I sound like I'm whingeing; I don't mean to; but I want to get this intro as good as we can without having an edit war over it. TSP 14:48, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
I do not agree that "all information mentioned (in the introduction) should be given in more detail elsewhere in the document." I think the function of the introduction is to indicate what the article will be about. A clear definition of the subject matter will usually be the best way to do this. Other matters should be left for the body of the article.
I believe that the introduction should not attempt to go into matters that require long explanations to be properly understood, such as what exactly the Church bases its teaching upon. In my revision I left these matters stay, but signalled that I believe they are out of place in the introduction. If I had known TSP considered "therefore charged with leadership of all Christians" to be important, I would certainly have kept that too, out of deference, once again, for his opinion. I simply thought it unnecessary to include this phrase, which some previous editors had attacked as POV, and which seemed to me to be of no help towards identifying the Church that is the topic of the article.
If, in addition to explaining what the article will be about, the introduction attempts to deal with other questions, it runs the risk of giving undue importance to relatively minor matters. I felt that the out-of-context mention of "the administration of seven sacraments" gave the impression that the Church's work of "accomplishing the salvation of all people" was limited to teaching (all people or only its own members?) and administering the sacraments to, of course, its own members alone. I really should have added not just "sanctifying", but also "guiding": guiding, teaching and sanctifying are the three functions (tria munera) that the Church devotes herself to. Is sanctifying really so difficult a concept to understand?
If "successor of Peter" (with a link to "Saint Peter") is considered jargon, we can add a few words of explanation; but to add instead that the Pope is therefore charged with leadership of all Christians scarcely makes it any more comprehensible. Some would think that explaining "teaching" by a link to "Magisterium" is more certainly an insertion of jargon.
Do other editors think the introduction should speak of "Magisterium|teaching, and the administration of seven sacraments ... bases its teachings on both Scripture and the traditions ..." and/or of the Church's functions of guiding, teaching and sanctifying? I think all such matters should be left for the body of the article. What do the Wikipedia guidelines say about introductions?
Lima 19:29, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
Fair enough - you're probably right that that sentence is unnecessary. I put it back after your previous edit, along with various other bits, because I was a bit alarmed by how much you'd taken out, and replaced it with what seemed to be very dense and inaccessible - by the standards of what I'd expect from an article's lead section, anyway - technical discussion on the definition of the church. I think we probably do also need back at least a brief note on the history of the Church.
Wikipedia:Lead section says this:
This seems a pretty good, and concise, guide for what we should be aiming for. A summary of the most important points, in a form that could stand alone as a concise version of the article; and presented, even more than the rest of the article, in a way that is accessible and clear to non-specialists.
The Guide also notes that the plan for a Wikipedia 1.0 paper version is to use the Lead Section for each article; so consider what, if you were reading a general-use paper encyclopedia with just room for 3 or 4 paragraphs on each topic, you might hope to find covered in the Roman Catholic Church article. TSP 01:37, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
Thank you, TSP. I think some might say the "rose to prominence" sentence is inappropriate in the introduction (or perhaps anywhere), but I do not intend to oppose it.
Lima
04:20, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
As I say, it could probably be expressed better - the term Constantinian Shift could particularly do with being eliminated, as it is a more loaded term than I had realised. I think this summary is better than none, however. TSP 04:34, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
I've started a footnoted references section - initially spurred on by a wish not to have inline references making the initial section harder to read. However, we should really be referencing every part of this article. Here's the summary of Wikipedia's Verifiability policy - one of Wikipedia's three core content policies:
In other words, at the moment almost every part of this article is subject to someone coming along and removing it for failing to cite a source; and they would be entirely within their rights. (The Lead Section is a bit of an exception, in that information in here is probably covered, and cited, elsewhere in the article, so might be OK not cited in the lead section as long as the lack of citation doesn't give a misleading impression.)
Wikipedia requires that, for every bit of information in this article, we be able to, and preferably explicitly do, provide a reputable and reliable source for that information. Wikipedia prefers credible, third-party sources for information (e.g. respected newspapers, other encyclopedias, published books by people qualified in the subject); but official publications of non-neutral bodies are OK when making claims about themselves (e.g. the Vatican website can be considered an acceptable source for information about the Roman Catholic Church, as long as that information is not contradicted in credible third-party sources; but not for information about, say, the Church of England). Wikipedia's Reliable Sources guideline is useful for this.
Adding references is pretty easy - just put <ref>, followed by your source, followed by</ref> - so, from the current draft of the intro:
It defines itself as "the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of [[Saint Peter|Peter]]" - i.e. the Pope - "and the bishops in [[Communion (Christian)|communion]] with him" <ref>''[[Lumen Gentium]]'',8).[http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19641121_lumen-gentium_en.html]</ref>
This puts a numbered footnote marker where you've put the <ref> text, and adds a footnote containing the text you put between <ref> and </ref>. The ones I've added to the intro should show you what I mean. Wikipedia:Footnotes has more details, including how to re-use the same footnote.
I hope we can work together on this; it'll take a long time to finish, but doing so will hopefully encourage us to take a rigorous approach to only including in the article information that we can definitely say we can show to be true; as well as making an article that readers can have much greater confidence in the accuracy of than at present. TSP 02:20, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
There is plenty on the relationship with the Eastern Rite churches, and a very brief paragraph on relations with Protestant denominations, but none with other Catholic communions, such as the Anglican Communion or the Old Catholics. Would anyone object if I were to augment the material in this regard? I have some knowledge of the work of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission. Fishhead64 18:07, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
Pending the development of some consensus concerning consolidating the articles concerning Catholic topics into one page, Catholic Church, I want to survey folks about temporarily reverting it to a disambiguation page from its current status as a redirect to Roman Catholic Church. Given that the consensus in the previous survey was that Roman Catholic Church should not be renamed Catholic Church, it seems disingenuous to have Catholic Church redirect here anyway. So the proposal is: That Catholic Church be reverted to a disambiguation page as it appears here. Fishhead64 01:28, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
The result of the survey is 5 Support and 6 Oppose. -- WikiCats 02:42, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
A consensus was reached on this page that Roman Catholic Church and Catholic Church are not synonymous. I made a good faith proposal that we merge material from Catholicism, One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church and Catholic into Catholic Church, one that would include disambiguating links, and Hyphen5 has already indicated support for that. Now has enlisted the support of an obliging editor to block edits to the page, making it a redirect to Roman Catholic Church, hence rendering Roman Catholic Church and Catholic Church synonymous anyway! This not only goes against the consensus of the editors, including (I would add) in the above survey - but against Hyphen5's own consent to my proposal. I'm beginning to think that it is time to take this to RfA. Fishhead64 07:43, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
It is not possible to declare the results of a current debate to be superseded by a previous discussion. The issues surrounding the disambiguation page that are being discussed are distinct from what has been discussed at a previous time. -- WikiCats 11:44, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
Fishhead, you've GOT to be KIDDING me with your deceitfulness in all of this. There is a REVERT WAR going on at Catholic Church, and hence it should be protected. The status quo was a REDIRECT. It was like that for MONTHS until you and your friends changed it THE OTHER DAY. Now you have a vote going on immediately above this section, and you are losing it. It is IMPROPER to PREEMPT an ONGOING VOTE about this VERY TOPIC. You're trying to strongarm me and other editors into a compromise. News flash: COMPROMISES ARE SUPPOSED TO BE COOPERATIVE! Because of your conniving and immaturity about this whole thing, I will no longer support your compromise at all. This is utterly ridiculous. How would you feel if I started acting as you have with the Church of England page? -- Hyphen5 12:31, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
The vote on the redirect page was proposed by Fishhead64. Now to same contributor is proposing that the vote be declared void. There are enough editors here to come to a compromise on this issue. -- WikiCats 13:12, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
I have listed this matter over at WP:RfC and WP:CS in order to try to elicit additional input and hopefully resolve this unfortunate impasse. Fishhead64 01:32, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
At present there are 10 editors contributing to the debate on the redirect page. There was no agreement of the need to call for even more editors. There are quite enough editors to come to a compromise. I move that the request for even more help be removed. -- WikiCats 02:24, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
I seems to me the debate has been resolved. -- WikiCats 02:45, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
See proposed compromise below. -- WikiCats 09:56, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
Why is there no section on the priest abuse scandals of late? JohnnyBGood 19:40, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
Why should there be? There are lots of sex abuse scandals throughout all of the major denominations, not to mention secular and government organizations, and that never gets brought up in the majority of those articles. More people just happen to know about the one within the Catholic Church because it's more fun to talk about. Contrafool 00:29, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
Why are the scandals relevant? What I want to get at is this: What to do they explain about the Roman Catholic Church? Answer, they don't as they neither explain teaching, nor do they explain what teh Roman Catholic Church is. If you proposed an article about HOW the church dealt with teaching (incidentally, contrary at times to its own law), that I would support and/or articles dealing with specific persons or prelates involved. DaveTroy 15:48, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
The possibility of a page called Catholic Church (disambiguation) has already been mentioned twice in Talk:Roman Catholic Church.
Wikipedia guidelines ask the question: “What word would the average user of the Wikipedia put into the search engine?” If they are looking for the Catholic Church then they would put “Catholic Church”. So leave the redirect as Catholic Church.
This is the compromise:-
The article called Roman Catholic Church with the disambig. line:
"Catholic Church" redirects here. For other uses of the term, see Catholic Church (disambiguation).
-- WikiCats 07:04, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
Why not take a similar apporach as to what is done with protestants? Protestant Church is a redirect to Protestantism so Catholic Church would redirect to Catholicism. Joelito 14:10, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
I have sympathy for Fishhead’s view that not everybody sees the RCC as having ownership of “Catholic Church” or believes that the Wikipedia should promote that position.
The overriding issue here is service to the web surfer. The vast majority of inquires will be for the RCC. It would be unfair to send the majority of searches to a dab. page first on a principle. -- WikiCats 01:32, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
The result of the survey about reverting Catholic Church from a redirect to a disambiguation page was “Oppose” by a small majority.
The result of the proposal of calling the article Roman Catholic Church with the disambig. line:
"Catholic Church" redirects here. For other uses of the term, see Catholic Church (disambiguation). was agreed to by majority.
I will include the disambiguation statement in the article. The disambiguation page contains information from a previous text of Catholic Church. -- WikiCats 11:41, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
Thank you for your support. -- WikiCats 13:47, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
I dont think that it can be called backwards, as the RCC has been calling itself the catholic church from day one, before the establishment of the other catholic churched, and the eastern rite churched renamed themselves specifically to avoid being associated with the RCC after they split in the 12th(?) century. Also, the catholic church has the greatest membership of any church, and is present in the largest number of countries of any religion. So it would see to have the best right to refer to itself as universal, and other wiki articles commonly refer to the "catholic church's position" meaning the RCC's position, therefore to maintain consistency Catholic Church must redirect to RCC, preferable with a disambiguation for other (minority) uses. Phil 20686 22:30, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
Given that the difficulty in using "Roman" in the title of this article is that "Roman Catholic" might be interpreted to mean "Latin Catholic", it would probably be a good idea to straightforwardly clarify in the intro that this articles concerns the entire church, including the uniates. - Nat Krause( Talk!) 02:17, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
Latin Catholic, at least in the United States, is now used to refer to Catholic immigrants from Latin America. patsw 12:43, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
If you don't mind using the longer term you can distinguish 'Latin catholic' form the Catholic church in commuion with rome by using the term "Catholic church adhering to the roman rite" or "catholic member of the roman rite" or "congrigations folowing the roman rite", that is the phrase I've seen used by the vatican.
Given that the difficulty in using "Roman" in the title of this article is that "Roman Catholic" might be interpreted to mean "Latin Catholic"
this could be better phrased as:
Given the difficulty of using "Roman" in the title of this article is that "roman Catholic" might be interpeted to be exclusive the the Roman Rite within the Catholic church.
-- chistofishman 20:27, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
The line reading:
The Roman Catholic Church has often been seen to be in conflict with Freemasonry, a fraternity it sees as tending to anticlericalism. The Church forbids Catholics from becoming Freemasons while Freemasonry allows Roman Catholics to become members.
I propose should be removed from this section because it is not a summation and requires further information which is found in the link itself. The link is there for the further reading. This should be removed or replaced with a summation.
[Unsigned comment by anonymous 70.173.64.13]
Why doesn't the article lead with how the Catholic Church defines itself?
Defining it as "a Christian Church which is led by the Pope, the Bishop of Rome, currently His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI" is a point of view. Who's point of view is it? And why in this article should that point of view have precedence over self-identification? patsw 02:15, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
Hi. Welcome to the Roman Catholic Church article. How does the Catholic Church defines itself? -- WikiCats 03:20, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the welcome. Why doesn't the article lead with how the Catholic Church defines itself? patsw 03:33, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
The reason, most probably, is because the lead section need to be a definition of the topic. -- WikiCats 04:27, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
The definition of the Church is now a self-identification. It defines the Church concisely in terms of origin and mission. patsw 02:18, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
Don't get into a revert war. These things can be sorted out in Talk. -- WikiCats 08:07, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
OK. "Why doesn't the article lead with how the Catholic Church defines itself?" Because that is not how Wikipedia's guidelines say an article should start. "If the subject is amenable to definition, the first sentence should give a concise, conceptually sound definition that puts the article in context", says the Guide to Writing Better Articles. That - or at least an honest attempt at it - is what was in place previously.
What is now in place is a point of view. Can we say, with certainty, that the church described in this article was established by Jesus Christ? No. We can say that it is a Christian Church, and that it is headed (temporally) by the Pope; these things are well-established and generally agreed by third-party observers. We can say that the church believes itself to have been founded by Jesus Christ; and we did, later on. But that, as a matter of opinion, is not useful for definition (there may be many churches which believe the same thing of themselves), so should not appear in the first sentence.
Self-definition is not generally a good way to define a subject. Should the Prince Michael of Albany article begin "Michael of Albany is the King of Scotland"? No, because the world at large does not accept that, even if he claims it. If the right way to begin this article was, as it is now, "The Roman Catholic Church, or Catholic Church was "established" by Jesus Christ", then at least half a dozen other articles would begin the same way, and there would be no way for the reader to tell if they had found the right one. We need to stick to verifiable fact; which, of course, means that opinions can be mentioned; but, for the purposes of definition (which is what the first sentence should be doing) this is best done in terms of facts generally accepted, rather than opinions held by the body in question.
"The Roman Catholic Church, or Catholic Church was "established" by Jesus Christ" presents opinion as fact, and really should not be in the article, let alone as the first sentence. TSP 14:13, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
The simple fact which you do not like, Fishhead, is that for the vast majority of people in the world (even the majority in your own Anglican Church,) the terms CATHOLIC and ROMAN CATHOLIC are synonymous. For argumentative reasons, you may call yourself a catholic here, but we all know that the mass of Anglicans, asked to define themselves, do not say "We are Catholics." If you ask them where the Catholic Church is, they will point you to the Roman Catholic Church, not their own.
99% of people typing "Catholic Church" into their search engines will be looking for information on the body often known as the Roman Catholic Church. They will be confused if directed to some article agonising over the claims of breakaway bodies to also have some proprietorial interest in the word Catholic. Xandar 00:57, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
In the beginning of the article, it states that the head of the Catholic Church is "His Holiness Pope Benedict". Is it appropriate to give his title as "His Holiness" without putting it in quotes? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.192.174.117 ( talk • contribs) 20:47, 11 April 11 2006 (UTC) Yes, it is part of his title, and bears no relation to the personal holiness of a particular pope, any more than referring to someone as a noble implies that x is particularly noble.
Yes, I understand that the Pope is the Bishop of Rome and that this is probably his most commonly used and known titles. But, you would find that out if you followed the Pope link. In the Pope article, we are told:
According to the 2006 Annuario Pontificio, the formal title of the pope is "Bishop of Rome, Vicar of Jesus Christ, Successor of the Prince of the Apostles, Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church, Primate of Italy, Archbishop and Metropolitan of the Roman province, Sovereign of the State of the Vatican City, Servant of the Servants of God. This full title is rarely used.
I would take out "Bishop of Rome" and leave it as just "Pope".
Richard 08:08, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
Why mention "Bishop of Rome" as a title of the Pope? Because that is what is really essential. It is because he is Bishop of Rome that he is the successor of Saint Peter, and thus holds within the college of the Bishops a position analogous to that of Peter within the group of the Apostles, to which the college of the Bishops has succeeded. In short, it is because he is Bishop of Rome that he is Pope and that has whatever special duties and authority he has. All the other titles mentioned above are merely consequences of being Bishop of Rome. Lima 13:53, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
OK, tell me I'm wrong but a link to software strikes me as out of place in Wikipedia. It's bordering on violating [WP:NOT] (not a "how to"). I'd be fine with a section describing why saying the rosary is considered important but it should encyclopedic in nature not a "how to" manual.
(P.S. Personally, I think Wikipedia should include "how to" material but the current policy excludes such material.)
Richard 00:24, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
The following text should be expanded upon.
"However, some Christian denominations have developed a different understanding of many central issues concerning Christ's role in the Church and of the salvation of believers that vary greatly from the Church's historic teachings."
Maybe not at the specific point in the article and maybe not even in this article but there should be a place in Wikipedia where this bold assertion is expounded upon.
I'm not an expert on the beliefs of all the Christian denominations so I am not really aware of which denominations the above-quoted text is referring to. In particular, I'm really not clear what is meant by "central issues concerning Christ's role in the Church". Is there any Christian denomination that doesn't see Christ as the central focus of the church? As the triumphant lord and ruler of God's people on earth and in heaven?
I do understand that there are divergent teachings about whether salvation is universal or just of the elect. I also understand that there are divergent teachings about whether salvation can be lost after a believer accepts Christ as his/her Savior. This should be expounded on somewhere in Wikipedia.
I'm just not sure where. What's clear, though, is that the current text is way too terse to impart adequate knowledge to the reader.
Richard 05:36, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
The current wording allows people to know that there are differences between churches on these matters without going into them in detail - which is not really appropriate for this article.
"central issues concerning Christ's role in the Church" references the Catholic belief that Jesus's role in the Church includes an ongoing active role in maintaining the Church free from doctrinal error, and in using the sacraments of the Church as a fount of Grace for humanity. These are issues which are fundamental for Catholicism (and Orthodoxy) but which are denied by many protestants. Xandar 00:46, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
Yes, and that level of detail should be in the article followed by a reference to a more detailed discussion in the Christianity article. I'm going to do it now.
-- Richard 07:19, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
I'm not wholly satisfied with my replacement section title "Assessment of Church doctrine" but I am convinced that it is a better title than "Church and people". I am more than receptive to suggestions for a better title.
I also added subsection titles which I think helps the reader to know what the topic is.
One problem with this section is that it is a "laundry list" of criticisms of church teaching. There should be an intro paragraph at the beginning of the section that says something along the lines of "Through the years, the Catholic Church has maintained an adherence to orthodox doctrine that has been criticized from within and without the Church. Although the Church has recognized and apologized for past errors, it remains firm in teaching the true doctrine of Christianity as it understands it."
I propose the above two sentences for the intro for this section. Comments and sugggestions for improvement are welcomed and solicited.
Richard 06:28, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
1. Should not Wikipedia follow the practice of the liturgical books of the Catholic Church and the Bible translations quoted here, which do not capitalize pronouns referring to God?
2. Should we not go from the general to the particular, and keep Liturgy before Sacraments, since the former includes the latter? Liturgy is much broader than Eucharistic Liturgy.
Lima 13:19, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
I think most of the information in the "Constitutional hierarchy of the Church" section should be merged into Catholic Church hierarchy, with just a brief overview left here. This would help reduce the size of the article, and reduce some redundancy in some of the overlap between this article and the more specific sub-article. Any other opinions? Gentgeen 16:27, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
It seems to me that the Catholic sacraments article would qualify as a "Main article:" under Sacraments. -- WikiCats 10:59, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps I was too hasty in my judgement. In the "Catholic sacraments" article, the very summary treatment of, for instance, the Eucharist, made me think the qualification of "main article on the Catholic sacraments" was decidedly excessive, and that "See also" was quite enough for it. The treatment in the "Roman Catholic Church" is at some points fuller, giving it greater right to be considered, at those points, the main article. However, if others agree with WikiCats's view, I will raise no objection whatever. (By the way, why does the "Catholic sacraments" article have an "Anglican Communion" section, when it begins by stating: "This article is about the sacramental doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church. ... For those of the Anglican Communion, see Anglican sacraments"?) Lima 13:38, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
Because it is the article on Catholic sacraments then that makes it the main article. I agree it could do with some work. -- WikiCats 14:09, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
I agree. -- WikiCats 13:59, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 | Archive 5 | Archive 6 | → | Archive 10 |
Why did you choose a picture of Angelo Cardinal Sodano showing him with Condoleezza Rice. What has she got to do with the article? Or is it just to point out that there are different Secretary of State? --- Jan, 25. March 2006
Since nobody else has responded to my proposal about the placing of the pictures, I make bold to move them myself, though, for lack of the necessary experience, I leave the picture of Pope Benedict in reduced size. Lima 04:44, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
"In some cases this figure includes those who most readers would not consider 'members'," says TSP. What is a member? Would TSP consider that a Durham Anglican ceases to be an Anglican if that person has not been to church for a month? for a year? for ten years? Some 98% of the population of Greece are considered members of the Greek Orthodox Church, and (perhaps mainly because of considering this religion an essential part of being Greek) self-identify as such. Would TSP insist on including a rider to the effect that "this figure includes those who most readers would not consider 'members'"?
In one country with which I am familiar, and probably in others, dioceses report a lower number of Catholics than what they consider to be the reality. Why? Because the diocese's contribution to the expenses of the national episcopal conference and its commissions is in proportion to its reported Catholic population. I have had direct experience in TSP's own country of parishes that routinely reported a lower figure to the diocese for the sake of reducing their financial contribution to the common diocesan fund for Catholic schools.
On the whole, the figure for Catholics given in the Statistical Yearbook of the Church quite certainly understates the reality. And not for this reason alone. As the publication itself mentions, it receives no statistical reports from some areas, which it does not name, but which obviously include mainland China, where the members, by any standards, of the Church are not just a few.
TSP's addition, "According to official Church figures," which has confessedly been inserted to suggest that the figures are exaggerated, is misleading and inadmissible.
Lima 06:53, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
The map of Catholic population percentage seems to be strangely inaccurate, especially in Latin America. For example, Venezuela is 96% Catholic so it should be colored red. We may want to re-check the figures to make sure they match with what's in other articles.
It seems to me that there has been some massive rewrites of the article with no discussion about what should be removed. For example what happened to this statement: "The Church traces its origins to the Apostles Peter and Paul." ? -- WikiCats 14:04, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
The (Roman) Catholic Church has as its central see the diocese of Rome, founded by the Apostles Peter and Paul, but is wider than that: it comprises sees founded by other Apostles too. It traces its origins not just to Peter and Paul, but to Jesus himself and the whole body of the Apostles. (Already explained briefly at 19:12, 25 March 2006.) Lima 19:34, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
Is there any way to eliminate jargon in the lead section, and still have it technically acceptable? I wrote this revision which I considered to be a reasonable summary, in terms understandable to the average reader unfamiliar with the details of the Church or Christianity, of the content of the article. Lima, on the grounds of accuracy, made this change, which removes all explanation of why being the 'successor of Peter' might be considered important (making it effectively simply a jargon term); and adds in the unexplained jargon terms 'sanctifying', and 'Apostolic Tradition' (the first of which is unlinked; the second of which simply links to the Twelve Apostles, which seems to indicate that we are making the NPOV statement that there definitely are traditions handed down from the Twelve Apostles - Wikipedia has no article on Apostolic Tradition, which, if we consider it a common enough term to use unexplained in a Lead Section it probably should). I accept that I was wrong on one point - I'd implied that the Church's teaching was based on tradtions including those not held to be past down from the Apostles - but the correction of this seems to have introduced several terms which are inaccessible to the average reader. Is it possible to write an introduction which would be satisfactory to the various Catholic editors, but still readily understandable to the average non-Catholic reader?
Incidentally, another thing bulking out the intro at the moment is the inclusion of sources for various information, and the expression of one part of it as a quote. It's my understanding that, as the lead section is a summary, it's the one place where sources don't need to be included - because all information mentioned should be given in more detail elsewhere in the document - and quotes from primary sources aren't necessarily the best way to summarise something; particularly if (as seems likely) they contain terms which are then going to need to be explained.
Sorry if I sound like I'm whingeing; I don't mean to; but I want to get this intro as good as we can without having an edit war over it. TSP 14:48, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
I do not agree that "all information mentioned (in the introduction) should be given in more detail elsewhere in the document." I think the function of the introduction is to indicate what the article will be about. A clear definition of the subject matter will usually be the best way to do this. Other matters should be left for the body of the article.
I believe that the introduction should not attempt to go into matters that require long explanations to be properly understood, such as what exactly the Church bases its teaching upon. In my revision I left these matters stay, but signalled that I believe they are out of place in the introduction. If I had known TSP considered "therefore charged with leadership of all Christians" to be important, I would certainly have kept that too, out of deference, once again, for his opinion. I simply thought it unnecessary to include this phrase, which some previous editors had attacked as POV, and which seemed to me to be of no help towards identifying the Church that is the topic of the article.
If, in addition to explaining what the article will be about, the introduction attempts to deal with other questions, it runs the risk of giving undue importance to relatively minor matters. I felt that the out-of-context mention of "the administration of seven sacraments" gave the impression that the Church's work of "accomplishing the salvation of all people" was limited to teaching (all people or only its own members?) and administering the sacraments to, of course, its own members alone. I really should have added not just "sanctifying", but also "guiding": guiding, teaching and sanctifying are the three functions (tria munera) that the Church devotes herself to. Is sanctifying really so difficult a concept to understand?
If "successor of Peter" (with a link to "Saint Peter") is considered jargon, we can add a few words of explanation; but to add instead that the Pope is therefore charged with leadership of all Christians scarcely makes it any more comprehensible. Some would think that explaining "teaching" by a link to "Magisterium" is more certainly an insertion of jargon.
Do other editors think the introduction should speak of "Magisterium|teaching, and the administration of seven sacraments ... bases its teachings on both Scripture and the traditions ..." and/or of the Church's functions of guiding, teaching and sanctifying? I think all such matters should be left for the body of the article. What do the Wikipedia guidelines say about introductions?
Lima 19:29, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
Fair enough - you're probably right that that sentence is unnecessary. I put it back after your previous edit, along with various other bits, because I was a bit alarmed by how much you'd taken out, and replaced it with what seemed to be very dense and inaccessible - by the standards of what I'd expect from an article's lead section, anyway - technical discussion on the definition of the church. I think we probably do also need back at least a brief note on the history of the Church.
Wikipedia:Lead section says this:
This seems a pretty good, and concise, guide for what we should be aiming for. A summary of the most important points, in a form that could stand alone as a concise version of the article; and presented, even more than the rest of the article, in a way that is accessible and clear to non-specialists.
The Guide also notes that the plan for a Wikipedia 1.0 paper version is to use the Lead Section for each article; so consider what, if you were reading a general-use paper encyclopedia with just room for 3 or 4 paragraphs on each topic, you might hope to find covered in the Roman Catholic Church article. TSP 01:37, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
Thank you, TSP. I think some might say the "rose to prominence" sentence is inappropriate in the introduction (or perhaps anywhere), but I do not intend to oppose it.
Lima
04:20, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
As I say, it could probably be expressed better - the term Constantinian Shift could particularly do with being eliminated, as it is a more loaded term than I had realised. I think this summary is better than none, however. TSP 04:34, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
I've started a footnoted references section - initially spurred on by a wish not to have inline references making the initial section harder to read. However, we should really be referencing every part of this article. Here's the summary of Wikipedia's Verifiability policy - one of Wikipedia's three core content policies:
In other words, at the moment almost every part of this article is subject to someone coming along and removing it for failing to cite a source; and they would be entirely within their rights. (The Lead Section is a bit of an exception, in that information in here is probably covered, and cited, elsewhere in the article, so might be OK not cited in the lead section as long as the lack of citation doesn't give a misleading impression.)
Wikipedia requires that, for every bit of information in this article, we be able to, and preferably explicitly do, provide a reputable and reliable source for that information. Wikipedia prefers credible, third-party sources for information (e.g. respected newspapers, other encyclopedias, published books by people qualified in the subject); but official publications of non-neutral bodies are OK when making claims about themselves (e.g. the Vatican website can be considered an acceptable source for information about the Roman Catholic Church, as long as that information is not contradicted in credible third-party sources; but not for information about, say, the Church of England). Wikipedia's Reliable Sources guideline is useful for this.
Adding references is pretty easy - just put <ref>, followed by your source, followed by</ref> - so, from the current draft of the intro:
It defines itself as "the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of [[Saint Peter|Peter]]" - i.e. the Pope - "and the bishops in [[Communion (Christian)|communion]] with him" <ref>''[[Lumen Gentium]]'',8).[http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19641121_lumen-gentium_en.html]</ref>
This puts a numbered footnote marker where you've put the <ref> text, and adds a footnote containing the text you put between <ref> and </ref>. The ones I've added to the intro should show you what I mean. Wikipedia:Footnotes has more details, including how to re-use the same footnote.
I hope we can work together on this; it'll take a long time to finish, but doing so will hopefully encourage us to take a rigorous approach to only including in the article information that we can definitely say we can show to be true; as well as making an article that readers can have much greater confidence in the accuracy of than at present. TSP 02:20, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
There is plenty on the relationship with the Eastern Rite churches, and a very brief paragraph on relations with Protestant denominations, but none with other Catholic communions, such as the Anglican Communion or the Old Catholics. Would anyone object if I were to augment the material in this regard? I have some knowledge of the work of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission. Fishhead64 18:07, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
Pending the development of some consensus concerning consolidating the articles concerning Catholic topics into one page, Catholic Church, I want to survey folks about temporarily reverting it to a disambiguation page from its current status as a redirect to Roman Catholic Church. Given that the consensus in the previous survey was that Roman Catholic Church should not be renamed Catholic Church, it seems disingenuous to have Catholic Church redirect here anyway. So the proposal is: That Catholic Church be reverted to a disambiguation page as it appears here. Fishhead64 01:28, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
The result of the survey is 5 Support and 6 Oppose. -- WikiCats 02:42, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
A consensus was reached on this page that Roman Catholic Church and Catholic Church are not synonymous. I made a good faith proposal that we merge material from Catholicism, One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church and Catholic into Catholic Church, one that would include disambiguating links, and Hyphen5 has already indicated support for that. Now has enlisted the support of an obliging editor to block edits to the page, making it a redirect to Roman Catholic Church, hence rendering Roman Catholic Church and Catholic Church synonymous anyway! This not only goes against the consensus of the editors, including (I would add) in the above survey - but against Hyphen5's own consent to my proposal. I'm beginning to think that it is time to take this to RfA. Fishhead64 07:43, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
It is not possible to declare the results of a current debate to be superseded by a previous discussion. The issues surrounding the disambiguation page that are being discussed are distinct from what has been discussed at a previous time. -- WikiCats 11:44, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
Fishhead, you've GOT to be KIDDING me with your deceitfulness in all of this. There is a REVERT WAR going on at Catholic Church, and hence it should be protected. The status quo was a REDIRECT. It was like that for MONTHS until you and your friends changed it THE OTHER DAY. Now you have a vote going on immediately above this section, and you are losing it. It is IMPROPER to PREEMPT an ONGOING VOTE about this VERY TOPIC. You're trying to strongarm me and other editors into a compromise. News flash: COMPROMISES ARE SUPPOSED TO BE COOPERATIVE! Because of your conniving and immaturity about this whole thing, I will no longer support your compromise at all. This is utterly ridiculous. How would you feel if I started acting as you have with the Church of England page? -- Hyphen5 12:31, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
The vote on the redirect page was proposed by Fishhead64. Now to same contributor is proposing that the vote be declared void. There are enough editors here to come to a compromise on this issue. -- WikiCats 13:12, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
I have listed this matter over at WP:RfC and WP:CS in order to try to elicit additional input and hopefully resolve this unfortunate impasse. Fishhead64 01:32, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
At present there are 10 editors contributing to the debate on the redirect page. There was no agreement of the need to call for even more editors. There are quite enough editors to come to a compromise. I move that the request for even more help be removed. -- WikiCats 02:24, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
I seems to me the debate has been resolved. -- WikiCats 02:45, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
See proposed compromise below. -- WikiCats 09:56, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
Why is there no section on the priest abuse scandals of late? JohnnyBGood 19:40, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
Why should there be? There are lots of sex abuse scandals throughout all of the major denominations, not to mention secular and government organizations, and that never gets brought up in the majority of those articles. More people just happen to know about the one within the Catholic Church because it's more fun to talk about. Contrafool 00:29, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
Why are the scandals relevant? What I want to get at is this: What to do they explain about the Roman Catholic Church? Answer, they don't as they neither explain teaching, nor do they explain what teh Roman Catholic Church is. If you proposed an article about HOW the church dealt with teaching (incidentally, contrary at times to its own law), that I would support and/or articles dealing with specific persons or prelates involved. DaveTroy 15:48, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
The possibility of a page called Catholic Church (disambiguation) has already been mentioned twice in Talk:Roman Catholic Church.
Wikipedia guidelines ask the question: “What word would the average user of the Wikipedia put into the search engine?” If they are looking for the Catholic Church then they would put “Catholic Church”. So leave the redirect as Catholic Church.
This is the compromise:-
The article called Roman Catholic Church with the disambig. line:
"Catholic Church" redirects here. For other uses of the term, see Catholic Church (disambiguation).
-- WikiCats 07:04, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
Why not take a similar apporach as to what is done with protestants? Protestant Church is a redirect to Protestantism so Catholic Church would redirect to Catholicism. Joelito 14:10, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
I have sympathy for Fishhead’s view that not everybody sees the RCC as having ownership of “Catholic Church” or believes that the Wikipedia should promote that position.
The overriding issue here is service to the web surfer. The vast majority of inquires will be for the RCC. It would be unfair to send the majority of searches to a dab. page first on a principle. -- WikiCats 01:32, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
The result of the survey about reverting Catholic Church from a redirect to a disambiguation page was “Oppose” by a small majority.
The result of the proposal of calling the article Roman Catholic Church with the disambig. line:
"Catholic Church" redirects here. For other uses of the term, see Catholic Church (disambiguation). was agreed to by majority.
I will include the disambiguation statement in the article. The disambiguation page contains information from a previous text of Catholic Church. -- WikiCats 11:41, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
Thank you for your support. -- WikiCats 13:47, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
I dont think that it can be called backwards, as the RCC has been calling itself the catholic church from day one, before the establishment of the other catholic churched, and the eastern rite churched renamed themselves specifically to avoid being associated with the RCC after they split in the 12th(?) century. Also, the catholic church has the greatest membership of any church, and is present in the largest number of countries of any religion. So it would see to have the best right to refer to itself as universal, and other wiki articles commonly refer to the "catholic church's position" meaning the RCC's position, therefore to maintain consistency Catholic Church must redirect to RCC, preferable with a disambiguation for other (minority) uses. Phil 20686 22:30, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
Given that the difficulty in using "Roman" in the title of this article is that "Roman Catholic" might be interpreted to mean "Latin Catholic", it would probably be a good idea to straightforwardly clarify in the intro that this articles concerns the entire church, including the uniates. - Nat Krause( Talk!) 02:17, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
Latin Catholic, at least in the United States, is now used to refer to Catholic immigrants from Latin America. patsw 12:43, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
If you don't mind using the longer term you can distinguish 'Latin catholic' form the Catholic church in commuion with rome by using the term "Catholic church adhering to the roman rite" or "catholic member of the roman rite" or "congrigations folowing the roman rite", that is the phrase I've seen used by the vatican.
Given that the difficulty in using "Roman" in the title of this article is that "Roman Catholic" might be interpreted to mean "Latin Catholic"
this could be better phrased as:
Given the difficulty of using "Roman" in the title of this article is that "roman Catholic" might be interpeted to be exclusive the the Roman Rite within the Catholic church.
-- chistofishman 20:27, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
The line reading:
The Roman Catholic Church has often been seen to be in conflict with Freemasonry, a fraternity it sees as tending to anticlericalism. The Church forbids Catholics from becoming Freemasons while Freemasonry allows Roman Catholics to become members.
I propose should be removed from this section because it is not a summation and requires further information which is found in the link itself. The link is there for the further reading. This should be removed or replaced with a summation.
[Unsigned comment by anonymous 70.173.64.13]
Why doesn't the article lead with how the Catholic Church defines itself?
Defining it as "a Christian Church which is led by the Pope, the Bishop of Rome, currently His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI" is a point of view. Who's point of view is it? And why in this article should that point of view have precedence over self-identification? patsw 02:15, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
Hi. Welcome to the Roman Catholic Church article. How does the Catholic Church defines itself? -- WikiCats 03:20, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the welcome. Why doesn't the article lead with how the Catholic Church defines itself? patsw 03:33, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
The reason, most probably, is because the lead section need to be a definition of the topic. -- WikiCats 04:27, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
The definition of the Church is now a self-identification. It defines the Church concisely in terms of origin and mission. patsw 02:18, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
Don't get into a revert war. These things can be sorted out in Talk. -- WikiCats 08:07, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
OK. "Why doesn't the article lead with how the Catholic Church defines itself?" Because that is not how Wikipedia's guidelines say an article should start. "If the subject is amenable to definition, the first sentence should give a concise, conceptually sound definition that puts the article in context", says the Guide to Writing Better Articles. That - or at least an honest attempt at it - is what was in place previously.
What is now in place is a point of view. Can we say, with certainty, that the church described in this article was established by Jesus Christ? No. We can say that it is a Christian Church, and that it is headed (temporally) by the Pope; these things are well-established and generally agreed by third-party observers. We can say that the church believes itself to have been founded by Jesus Christ; and we did, later on. But that, as a matter of opinion, is not useful for definition (there may be many churches which believe the same thing of themselves), so should not appear in the first sentence.
Self-definition is not generally a good way to define a subject. Should the Prince Michael of Albany article begin "Michael of Albany is the King of Scotland"? No, because the world at large does not accept that, even if he claims it. If the right way to begin this article was, as it is now, "The Roman Catholic Church, or Catholic Church was "established" by Jesus Christ", then at least half a dozen other articles would begin the same way, and there would be no way for the reader to tell if they had found the right one. We need to stick to verifiable fact; which, of course, means that opinions can be mentioned; but, for the purposes of definition (which is what the first sentence should be doing) this is best done in terms of facts generally accepted, rather than opinions held by the body in question.
"The Roman Catholic Church, or Catholic Church was "established" by Jesus Christ" presents opinion as fact, and really should not be in the article, let alone as the first sentence. TSP 14:13, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
The simple fact which you do not like, Fishhead, is that for the vast majority of people in the world (even the majority in your own Anglican Church,) the terms CATHOLIC and ROMAN CATHOLIC are synonymous. For argumentative reasons, you may call yourself a catholic here, but we all know that the mass of Anglicans, asked to define themselves, do not say "We are Catholics." If you ask them where the Catholic Church is, they will point you to the Roman Catholic Church, not their own.
99% of people typing "Catholic Church" into their search engines will be looking for information on the body often known as the Roman Catholic Church. They will be confused if directed to some article agonising over the claims of breakaway bodies to also have some proprietorial interest in the word Catholic. Xandar 00:57, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
In the beginning of the article, it states that the head of the Catholic Church is "His Holiness Pope Benedict". Is it appropriate to give his title as "His Holiness" without putting it in quotes? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.192.174.117 ( talk • contribs) 20:47, 11 April 11 2006 (UTC) Yes, it is part of his title, and bears no relation to the personal holiness of a particular pope, any more than referring to someone as a noble implies that x is particularly noble.
Yes, I understand that the Pope is the Bishop of Rome and that this is probably his most commonly used and known titles. But, you would find that out if you followed the Pope link. In the Pope article, we are told:
According to the 2006 Annuario Pontificio, the formal title of the pope is "Bishop of Rome, Vicar of Jesus Christ, Successor of the Prince of the Apostles, Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church, Primate of Italy, Archbishop and Metropolitan of the Roman province, Sovereign of the State of the Vatican City, Servant of the Servants of God. This full title is rarely used.
I would take out "Bishop of Rome" and leave it as just "Pope".
Richard 08:08, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
Why mention "Bishop of Rome" as a title of the Pope? Because that is what is really essential. It is because he is Bishop of Rome that he is the successor of Saint Peter, and thus holds within the college of the Bishops a position analogous to that of Peter within the group of the Apostles, to which the college of the Bishops has succeeded. In short, it is because he is Bishop of Rome that he is Pope and that has whatever special duties and authority he has. All the other titles mentioned above are merely consequences of being Bishop of Rome. Lima 13:53, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
OK, tell me I'm wrong but a link to software strikes me as out of place in Wikipedia. It's bordering on violating [WP:NOT] (not a "how to"). I'd be fine with a section describing why saying the rosary is considered important but it should encyclopedic in nature not a "how to" manual.
(P.S. Personally, I think Wikipedia should include "how to" material but the current policy excludes such material.)
Richard 00:24, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
The following text should be expanded upon.
"However, some Christian denominations have developed a different understanding of many central issues concerning Christ's role in the Church and of the salvation of believers that vary greatly from the Church's historic teachings."
Maybe not at the specific point in the article and maybe not even in this article but there should be a place in Wikipedia where this bold assertion is expounded upon.
I'm not an expert on the beliefs of all the Christian denominations so I am not really aware of which denominations the above-quoted text is referring to. In particular, I'm really not clear what is meant by "central issues concerning Christ's role in the Church". Is there any Christian denomination that doesn't see Christ as the central focus of the church? As the triumphant lord and ruler of God's people on earth and in heaven?
I do understand that there are divergent teachings about whether salvation is universal or just of the elect. I also understand that there are divergent teachings about whether salvation can be lost after a believer accepts Christ as his/her Savior. This should be expounded on somewhere in Wikipedia.
I'm just not sure where. What's clear, though, is that the current text is way too terse to impart adequate knowledge to the reader.
Richard 05:36, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
The current wording allows people to know that there are differences between churches on these matters without going into them in detail - which is not really appropriate for this article.
"central issues concerning Christ's role in the Church" references the Catholic belief that Jesus's role in the Church includes an ongoing active role in maintaining the Church free from doctrinal error, and in using the sacraments of the Church as a fount of Grace for humanity. These are issues which are fundamental for Catholicism (and Orthodoxy) but which are denied by many protestants. Xandar 00:46, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
Yes, and that level of detail should be in the article followed by a reference to a more detailed discussion in the Christianity article. I'm going to do it now.
-- Richard 07:19, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
I'm not wholly satisfied with my replacement section title "Assessment of Church doctrine" but I am convinced that it is a better title than "Church and people". I am more than receptive to suggestions for a better title.
I also added subsection titles which I think helps the reader to know what the topic is.
One problem with this section is that it is a "laundry list" of criticisms of church teaching. There should be an intro paragraph at the beginning of the section that says something along the lines of "Through the years, the Catholic Church has maintained an adherence to orthodox doctrine that has been criticized from within and without the Church. Although the Church has recognized and apologized for past errors, it remains firm in teaching the true doctrine of Christianity as it understands it."
I propose the above two sentences for the intro for this section. Comments and sugggestions for improvement are welcomed and solicited.
Richard 06:28, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
1. Should not Wikipedia follow the practice of the liturgical books of the Catholic Church and the Bible translations quoted here, which do not capitalize pronouns referring to God?
2. Should we not go from the general to the particular, and keep Liturgy before Sacraments, since the former includes the latter? Liturgy is much broader than Eucharistic Liturgy.
Lima 13:19, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
I think most of the information in the "Constitutional hierarchy of the Church" section should be merged into Catholic Church hierarchy, with just a brief overview left here. This would help reduce the size of the article, and reduce some redundancy in some of the overlap between this article and the more specific sub-article. Any other opinions? Gentgeen 16:27, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
It seems to me that the Catholic sacraments article would qualify as a "Main article:" under Sacraments. -- WikiCats 10:59, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps I was too hasty in my judgement. In the "Catholic sacraments" article, the very summary treatment of, for instance, the Eucharist, made me think the qualification of "main article on the Catholic sacraments" was decidedly excessive, and that "See also" was quite enough for it. The treatment in the "Roman Catholic Church" is at some points fuller, giving it greater right to be considered, at those points, the main article. However, if others agree with WikiCats's view, I will raise no objection whatever. (By the way, why does the "Catholic sacraments" article have an "Anglican Communion" section, when it begins by stating: "This article is about the sacramental doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church. ... For those of the Anglican Communion, see Anglican sacraments"?) Lima 13:38, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
Because it is the article on Catholic sacraments then that makes it the main article. I agree it could do with some work. -- WikiCats 14:09, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
I agree. -- WikiCats 13:59, 29 April 2006 (UTC)