Roman Catholic Church as it appeared before:
Previous FACs:
A summary of unstruck opposes:
Oppose capped by Vassyana, oppose restated below. Vassyana ( talk) 14:21, 12 October 2008 (UTC) |
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The following content has been placed in a collapse box for improved usability. |
Vassyana, I do not feel that I can reasonably act on this oppose because you do not reveal any ommision of fact nor inclusion of incorrect data. Your statement "the article completely ignores the significant portion of scholars positing that early Christianity was a very diverse creature with orthodox (small o) Christianity only becoming firmly established and forming a coherent single church at a later time." incorrectly states that we have omitted this fact - when the Roman Empire section clearly states " "Although competing forms of Christianity emerged early and persisted into the fifth century, there was broad doctrinal unity within the mainstream churches." You also ignore the most oft cited work on the Early Church, Henry Chadwick who clearly supports our text. We have represented scholary opinion according to the weight given by other scholars. I would also like to point out that two of those scholars you suggest we include have been accused of scholarly malpractice for their work with the Gospel of Judas [1] and [2]. There are a lot of authors that we have to be careful to avoid in creating an encyclopedia article - if someone has been proven to fabricate history, it is hard to be able to trust any of their other works, it just shows a lack of due care and honesty. NancyHeise talk 17:00, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
1)"The articles ignores conflicting historical information and almost completely neglects a broad swath of scholarship."
2)"The Roman Curia is only passingly mentioned, with little explanation of their bodies, organization or purposes."
3)"This ties in to the insufficient coverage of the Inquisitions, notably their evolution during the early modern era. For example, there is no mention that in the 1500s Pope Paul III established the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Universal Inquisition, nor that it continues to the current day as the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith."
4)"There is little to no discussion of the evolution and establishment of Roman papal primacy nor of papal infallibility."
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The above is an extended discussion that has been collapsed for improved usability. |
To keep things focused, here is a specific list of points that if addressed would change my opposition to neutrality or support:
I hope this helps clarify my opposition and presents my concerns in a more addressable and less confrontational manner. If I can provide further clarification or there are any questions, please do not hesitate to let me know. Vassyana ( talk) 21:04, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
I hope it helps! Vb ( talk) 14:54, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
After apparently dismissing any charges the article continues “Even so, in 2000 Pope John Paul II on behalf of all people, apologized to Jews by inserting a prayer at the Western Wall that read "We're deeply saddened by the behavior of those in the course of history who have caused the children of God to suffer, and asking your forgiveness, we wish to commit ourselves to genuine brotherhood with the people of the Covenant.” which makes the Pope seemly apologise for things that never happened. Compare this to what the Church says: ““Despite the Christian preaching of love for all, even for one's enemies, the prevailing mentality down the centuries penalized minorities and those who were in any way "different". Sentiments of anti-Judaism in some Christian quarters, and the gap which existed between the Church and the Jewish people, led to a generalized discrimination, which ended at times in expulsions or attempts at forced conversions. In a large part of the "Christian" world, until the end of the 18th century, those who were not Christian did not always enjoy a fully guaranteed juridical status. Despite that fact, Jews throughout Christendom held on to their religious traditions and communal customs. They were therefore looked upon with a certain suspicion and mistrust. In times of crisis such as famine, war, pestilence or social tensions, the Jewish minority was sometimes taken as a scapegoat and became the victim of violence, looting, even massacres.” [7]. The whole section seems a gloss over, no mention of the “perfidious Jews” that formed part of the Good Friday liturgy up until the late 1950's, nothing about how Jews were made to dress differently - [8] and so on...
The article says of Mit brennender Sorge “it described Hitler as an insane and arrogant prophet” . The encyclical doesn't mention Hitler in particular and this assertion seems way over the top in its zeal to exonerate the Church. Common sense says that a Pope has to be very careful of every word spoken, think what happened a couple of years ago in the immediate aftermath of comments spoken by Pope Benedict. In “We Remember the Shoa” it simply states “Pope Pius XI too condemned Nazi racism in a solemn way in his Encyclical Letter Mit brennender Sorge,” [9]
In the section “Catholic institutions, personnel and demographics” it mentions the substantial increase in world wide Church membership but this seems to be misleading. The world population has risen by 69% during the period mentioned in the article whereas the Church membership has increased by 72.78% . There is also the lack of balance, typical for the article as a whole outside the beliefs section, in that there is no mention of the substantial decline in the West, by way of example UK and USA. [10]. This is a significant and should be included in the article. Would I be correct in saying that the membership figures claimed in the article count so called “cultural catholics” I.e ones who do not practice the faith but hang on to the description as an expression of group identity? I think the article would be enhanced if we know exactly what counts as a Catholic.
As for the “Cultural influence” section all I can hope for is that a Catholic scholar will appear here that you will listen to and this will will lead to its deletion or a complete rewrite, for this section detracts from the rest of the article by its broad brushstroke and exaggerated tone that is hopelessly unbalanced. The appalling use of images is particularly noteworthy. A common tactic in Catholic apologetics circles is to justify what happened to the native population of the America when Columbus arrived by referring to the human sacrifice of the Aztecs as if two wrongs make a right. But read what Columbus says of the Tainos on his first arrival. “They traded with us and gave us everything they had, with good will..they took great delight in pleasing us..They are very gentle and without knowledge of what is evil; nor do they murder or steal..Your highness may believe that in all the world there can be no better people ..They love their neighbours as themselves, and they have the sweetest talk in the world, and are gentle and always laughing.” This use of such powerful imagery without proper context attempts to cast a slur over all the indigenous population of the America's whilst glossing over the cultural carnage that took place with the arrival of Columbus. I also note that it is the Catholic Church herself who keeps alive the idea that human sacrifice, I.e Calvary, is pleasing to God. You have no right to look down your noses at people who shared the same basic idea as you do now. You are using pictures and images the same way as the Nazis to demonize whole races and peoples. Imagine if someone added to this article a picture of St Faustina ,who was recently canonised, showing her vision of the reality of the Eucharist, I.e baby Jesus being ripped apart and eaten alive? How about adding a picture of Jew with the special dress they were made to wear by the Church and put it side by side with an image of the Nazis using the same technique? When the following quotation of Pope John Paul was added in order to try and balance the over the top claims made it with regard to women , culture and the rights of other peoples it was deleted: “In March 2000 Pope John Paul II prayed publicly for forgiveness for sins committed by Christians with regard to the rights of peoples, cultures and religions as well as sins against the dignity of women and the unity of the human race.”
The article mentions the persecution of the Church but fails to mention the persecution of paganism etc. In the past she has been accused of behaving inconsistently, claiming toleration and liberty for herself, but being intolerant of other religions. This was denied on the basis that they worshipped the one true God and it could not be considered persecution when acts were taken to suppress other religious traditions since "error has no rights". [11] [12] I think the article must deal with this issue in order to be NPOV
Otherwise I think the article has the making of featured status, but at present I could not treat it even as good article no matter how superficially it conforms outwardly to wiki standards. Taam ( talk) 15:52, 18 October 2008 (UTC)
Oppose. Because of my limited time, I have seen only the first part of the article, and even if it is better than in the previous FAC (thanks to NancyHeise and other editors!), it contains too many small problems to vote otherwise:
Best regards,-- Ioannes Pragensis ( talk) 10:54, 21 October 2008 (UTC)
Further comments (mostly taken from the foreign-language Wikipedias):
More examples of non-neutral structure and prose follow. Same color scheme.
Source quality. I randomly checked some sources. Dennet seems to be a scholarly neutral source. Norman, Wilken, Morris are all illustrated books for general readers. Armstrong is a school text book. Collins and Vidmar are not neutral:
One of the issues which raised my NPOV antennae is the relation of the RCC with women. The article contains (I believe) only the following passages on this subject.
I have already taken issue with the last of these. It is not that I believe it is false (even if I did, so what?). No, the point of Wikipedia is not to present The TruthTM but to describe human knowledge and beliefs, as documented by reliable sources. It is a quite common view that the church has repressed women, and there are surely reliable sources which document this. Their views are not represented in this article.
One example concerns midwives. Now, I am no expert on sources here, but I did a simple search and found this reference by scholarly authors, containing a view which is not represented in this article. Geometry guy 21:35, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
The article suggests a positive role that the church has played in the development of science. Yet, no mention is made of the dark ages and the role of the church there. This is partly about the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, but there are multiple viewpoints about the role of the church in this too. A related aspect is the elimination of "heresy" (a point of view term). This is not just about the elimination of "heretics" (Cathars and midwives being among those labelled as such), but the elimination of heretical literature. There is nothing in the article about the affect this had on the development of science and knowledge. Scholars widely credit medieval Islamic society with at least maintaining and passing on the knowledge of the Greeks while Christendom was in turmoil. This is certainly true in mathematics, and my observations on this have already been referred to on the FAC page.
Why did Western civilization not recover from the fall of the Roman Empire until the Reformation? Multiple points of view surely exist. I have again done a simple search for a strident source on the destruction of libraries and literature: here is one. This is just to show that the issue is discussed, not to suggest that this is the best source. Geometry guy 21:38, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
These are handled rather differently by the article. Concerning persecution by the church, criticism is either absent, or is itself criticised as exaggeration (see the quote "Historians note that for centuries Protestant propaganda and popular literature exaggerated the horrors of the inquisitions in an effort to associate the entire Catholic Church with crimes most often committed by secular rulers."). Concerning persecution of the church, we have (literally) graphic details, and absolutely no suggestion that these might be exaggerations, despite the fact that there are sources which question many details, such as the Tacitus passage. Random source: [13]. Geometry guy 21:38, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
By and large this article presents the Roman Catholic Church from an inside perspective (that's a gross exaggeration, I admit). There isn't much on how the Church is viewed from the outside in sociological or other analysis, for example. Here's a random text with a completely different analysis, which may or may not be a good representative of outside points of view: [14]. Geometry guy 21:38, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
Oppose. I haven't read this in its entirety and will try at some point. But browsing through I paused at Cultural influence and my jaw dropped. The POV is totally pervasive. "Aztecs were practicing human sacrifice, which ended with the spread of Christianity to the region by Catholic missionaries." Isn't that nice. Might we also add: "In order to achieve this milestone in human betterment, Aztec society was ruthlessly conquered and much of its population obliterated by warfare and diseases such as smallpox." We're told that Catholics took a lead in opposing slavery and Dum Diversas gets nary a mention. We're told that denying a right to divorce is an improvement in the lives of women. The second paragraph, meanwhile, is classic "yes, but" strawman-ing. I mean really. Marskell ( talk) 15:13, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
Roman Catholic Church as it appeared before:
Previous FACs:
A summary of unstruck opposes:
Oppose capped by Vassyana, oppose restated below. Vassyana ( talk) 14:21, 12 October 2008 (UTC) |
---|
The following content has been placed in a collapse box for improved usability. |
Vassyana, I do not feel that I can reasonably act on this oppose because you do not reveal any ommision of fact nor inclusion of incorrect data. Your statement "the article completely ignores the significant portion of scholars positing that early Christianity was a very diverse creature with orthodox (small o) Christianity only becoming firmly established and forming a coherent single church at a later time." incorrectly states that we have omitted this fact - when the Roman Empire section clearly states " "Although competing forms of Christianity emerged early and persisted into the fifth century, there was broad doctrinal unity within the mainstream churches." You also ignore the most oft cited work on the Early Church, Henry Chadwick who clearly supports our text. We have represented scholary opinion according to the weight given by other scholars. I would also like to point out that two of those scholars you suggest we include have been accused of scholarly malpractice for their work with the Gospel of Judas [1] and [2]. There are a lot of authors that we have to be careful to avoid in creating an encyclopedia article - if someone has been proven to fabricate history, it is hard to be able to trust any of their other works, it just shows a lack of due care and honesty. NancyHeise talk 17:00, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
1)"The articles ignores conflicting historical information and almost completely neglects a broad swath of scholarship."
2)"The Roman Curia is only passingly mentioned, with little explanation of their bodies, organization or purposes."
3)"This ties in to the insufficient coverage of the Inquisitions, notably their evolution during the early modern era. For example, there is no mention that in the 1500s Pope Paul III established the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Universal Inquisition, nor that it continues to the current day as the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith."
4)"There is little to no discussion of the evolution and establishment of Roman papal primacy nor of papal infallibility."
|
The above is an extended discussion that has been collapsed for improved usability. |
To keep things focused, here is a specific list of points that if addressed would change my opposition to neutrality or support:
I hope this helps clarify my opposition and presents my concerns in a more addressable and less confrontational manner. If I can provide further clarification or there are any questions, please do not hesitate to let me know. Vassyana ( talk) 21:04, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
I hope it helps! Vb ( talk) 14:54, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
After apparently dismissing any charges the article continues “Even so, in 2000 Pope John Paul II on behalf of all people, apologized to Jews by inserting a prayer at the Western Wall that read "We're deeply saddened by the behavior of those in the course of history who have caused the children of God to suffer, and asking your forgiveness, we wish to commit ourselves to genuine brotherhood with the people of the Covenant.” which makes the Pope seemly apologise for things that never happened. Compare this to what the Church says: ““Despite the Christian preaching of love for all, even for one's enemies, the prevailing mentality down the centuries penalized minorities and those who were in any way "different". Sentiments of anti-Judaism in some Christian quarters, and the gap which existed between the Church and the Jewish people, led to a generalized discrimination, which ended at times in expulsions or attempts at forced conversions. In a large part of the "Christian" world, until the end of the 18th century, those who were not Christian did not always enjoy a fully guaranteed juridical status. Despite that fact, Jews throughout Christendom held on to their religious traditions and communal customs. They were therefore looked upon with a certain suspicion and mistrust. In times of crisis such as famine, war, pestilence or social tensions, the Jewish minority was sometimes taken as a scapegoat and became the victim of violence, looting, even massacres.” [7]. The whole section seems a gloss over, no mention of the “perfidious Jews” that formed part of the Good Friday liturgy up until the late 1950's, nothing about how Jews were made to dress differently - [8] and so on...
The article says of Mit brennender Sorge “it described Hitler as an insane and arrogant prophet” . The encyclical doesn't mention Hitler in particular and this assertion seems way over the top in its zeal to exonerate the Church. Common sense says that a Pope has to be very careful of every word spoken, think what happened a couple of years ago in the immediate aftermath of comments spoken by Pope Benedict. In “We Remember the Shoa” it simply states “Pope Pius XI too condemned Nazi racism in a solemn way in his Encyclical Letter Mit brennender Sorge,” [9]
In the section “Catholic institutions, personnel and demographics” it mentions the substantial increase in world wide Church membership but this seems to be misleading. The world population has risen by 69% during the period mentioned in the article whereas the Church membership has increased by 72.78% . There is also the lack of balance, typical for the article as a whole outside the beliefs section, in that there is no mention of the substantial decline in the West, by way of example UK and USA. [10]. This is a significant and should be included in the article. Would I be correct in saying that the membership figures claimed in the article count so called “cultural catholics” I.e ones who do not practice the faith but hang on to the description as an expression of group identity? I think the article would be enhanced if we know exactly what counts as a Catholic.
As for the “Cultural influence” section all I can hope for is that a Catholic scholar will appear here that you will listen to and this will will lead to its deletion or a complete rewrite, for this section detracts from the rest of the article by its broad brushstroke and exaggerated tone that is hopelessly unbalanced. The appalling use of images is particularly noteworthy. A common tactic in Catholic apologetics circles is to justify what happened to the native population of the America when Columbus arrived by referring to the human sacrifice of the Aztecs as if two wrongs make a right. But read what Columbus says of the Tainos on his first arrival. “They traded with us and gave us everything they had, with good will..they took great delight in pleasing us..They are very gentle and without knowledge of what is evil; nor do they murder or steal..Your highness may believe that in all the world there can be no better people ..They love their neighbours as themselves, and they have the sweetest talk in the world, and are gentle and always laughing.” This use of such powerful imagery without proper context attempts to cast a slur over all the indigenous population of the America's whilst glossing over the cultural carnage that took place with the arrival of Columbus. I also note that it is the Catholic Church herself who keeps alive the idea that human sacrifice, I.e Calvary, is pleasing to God. You have no right to look down your noses at people who shared the same basic idea as you do now. You are using pictures and images the same way as the Nazis to demonize whole races and peoples. Imagine if someone added to this article a picture of St Faustina ,who was recently canonised, showing her vision of the reality of the Eucharist, I.e baby Jesus being ripped apart and eaten alive? How about adding a picture of Jew with the special dress they were made to wear by the Church and put it side by side with an image of the Nazis using the same technique? When the following quotation of Pope John Paul was added in order to try and balance the over the top claims made it with regard to women , culture and the rights of other peoples it was deleted: “In March 2000 Pope John Paul II prayed publicly for forgiveness for sins committed by Christians with regard to the rights of peoples, cultures and religions as well as sins against the dignity of women and the unity of the human race.”
The article mentions the persecution of the Church but fails to mention the persecution of paganism etc. In the past she has been accused of behaving inconsistently, claiming toleration and liberty for herself, but being intolerant of other religions. This was denied on the basis that they worshipped the one true God and it could not be considered persecution when acts were taken to suppress other religious traditions since "error has no rights". [11] [12] I think the article must deal with this issue in order to be NPOV
Otherwise I think the article has the making of featured status, but at present I could not treat it even as good article no matter how superficially it conforms outwardly to wiki standards. Taam ( talk) 15:52, 18 October 2008 (UTC)
Oppose. Because of my limited time, I have seen only the first part of the article, and even if it is better than in the previous FAC (thanks to NancyHeise and other editors!), it contains too many small problems to vote otherwise:
Best regards,-- Ioannes Pragensis ( talk) 10:54, 21 October 2008 (UTC)
Further comments (mostly taken from the foreign-language Wikipedias):
More examples of non-neutral structure and prose follow. Same color scheme.
Source quality. I randomly checked some sources. Dennet seems to be a scholarly neutral source. Norman, Wilken, Morris are all illustrated books for general readers. Armstrong is a school text book. Collins and Vidmar are not neutral:
One of the issues which raised my NPOV antennae is the relation of the RCC with women. The article contains (I believe) only the following passages on this subject.
I have already taken issue with the last of these. It is not that I believe it is false (even if I did, so what?). No, the point of Wikipedia is not to present The TruthTM but to describe human knowledge and beliefs, as documented by reliable sources. It is a quite common view that the church has repressed women, and there are surely reliable sources which document this. Their views are not represented in this article.
One example concerns midwives. Now, I am no expert on sources here, but I did a simple search and found this reference by scholarly authors, containing a view which is not represented in this article. Geometry guy 21:35, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
The article suggests a positive role that the church has played in the development of science. Yet, no mention is made of the dark ages and the role of the church there. This is partly about the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, but there are multiple viewpoints about the role of the church in this too. A related aspect is the elimination of "heresy" (a point of view term). This is not just about the elimination of "heretics" (Cathars and midwives being among those labelled as such), but the elimination of heretical literature. There is nothing in the article about the affect this had on the development of science and knowledge. Scholars widely credit medieval Islamic society with at least maintaining and passing on the knowledge of the Greeks while Christendom was in turmoil. This is certainly true in mathematics, and my observations on this have already been referred to on the FAC page.
Why did Western civilization not recover from the fall of the Roman Empire until the Reformation? Multiple points of view surely exist. I have again done a simple search for a strident source on the destruction of libraries and literature: here is one. This is just to show that the issue is discussed, not to suggest that this is the best source. Geometry guy 21:38, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
These are handled rather differently by the article. Concerning persecution by the church, criticism is either absent, or is itself criticised as exaggeration (see the quote "Historians note that for centuries Protestant propaganda and popular literature exaggerated the horrors of the inquisitions in an effort to associate the entire Catholic Church with crimes most often committed by secular rulers."). Concerning persecution of the church, we have (literally) graphic details, and absolutely no suggestion that these might be exaggerations, despite the fact that there are sources which question many details, such as the Tacitus passage. Random source: [13]. Geometry guy 21:38, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
By and large this article presents the Roman Catholic Church from an inside perspective (that's a gross exaggeration, I admit). There isn't much on how the Church is viewed from the outside in sociological or other analysis, for example. Here's a random text with a completely different analysis, which may or may not be a good representative of outside points of view: [14]. Geometry guy 21:38, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
Oppose. I haven't read this in its entirety and will try at some point. But browsing through I paused at Cultural influence and my jaw dropped. The POV is totally pervasive. "Aztecs were practicing human sacrifice, which ended with the spread of Christianity to the region by Catholic missionaries." Isn't that nice. Might we also add: "In order to achieve this milestone in human betterment, Aztec society was ruthlessly conquered and much of its population obliterated by warfare and diseases such as smallpox." We're told that Catholics took a lead in opposing slavery and Dum Diversas gets nary a mention. We're told that denying a right to divorce is an improvement in the lives of women. The second paragraph, meanwhile, is classic "yes, but" strawman-ing. I mean really. Marskell ( talk) 15:13, 1 November 2008 (UTC)