Talk:Catholic Church/Archive 41

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Reichskonkordat/Mit brennender Sorge: some more radical trimming?

Looking at this passage in the Industrial Age section, I feel it has the same problems and could benefit from the same trimming we applied to the passage on sex abuse by Catholic clergy. Again, the two main considerations are that this is supposed to be an overview and both the Reichskonkordat and Mit brennender Sorge have their own pages.

Here's the current version:

On 20 July 1933, the Vatican signed an agreement with Germany, the Reichskonkordat, partly in an effort to stop Nazi persecution of Catholic institutions.[393][394] When this escalated to include physical violence, Pope Pius XI issued the 1937 encyclical Mit brennender Sorge.[393][395][396][397] Drafted by the future Pope Pius XII[398] and read from the pulpits of all German Catholic churches, it "condemned" Nazi persecutions, neopaganism, racial superiority and "Hitler himself" (although not by name).[397][399][400][401] Some Catholic scholars have called it the "first great official public document to dare to confront and criticize Nazism" and "one of the greatest such condemnations ever issued by the Vatican"[399][400][402][403] while others see it as less significant.[404] According to Eamon Duffy of the Pontifical Historical Commission, "The impact of the encyclical was immense"[403] and the "infuriated" Nazis increased their persecution of Catholics and the Church[405] by initiating a "long series" of persecution of clergy and other measures.[399][406][403]

Of the five sentences, only the first two contain undisputed facts (and then only in part as we shall see). The next three present contrasting academic opinions on the importance of Mit brennender Sorge and Nazi reaction to it. This is dealt with in much greater depth on its page. I don't think a few sentences does justice to that debate and it would be better to cut them than have the superficial rendering of it we've got now.

The first two sentences also have problems. The words "in an effort to stop Nazi persecutions" were added to the end of the first sentence after much haggling because it was felt to be anti-Catholic POV to stand on its own. I still feel that we can report it as a fact and let people draw their own conclusions. You could write a book on the multiple motivations the Chuch had for signing the Reichskonkordat - and people have - but "partly" is inadequate to convey that fact. In an overview we shouldn't be attempting to: that's what its own page is for.

'Physical violence' also strikes me as slightly narrow, it clearly occurred but wasn't the only complaint the Church had against the Nazis: inteference in schools and youth issues for e.g. was a major grievance as the encyclical makes clear.

Here's my proposed version:

On 20 July 1933, the Vatican signed an agreement with Germany, the Reichskonkordat. Violations of this by the Nazis led to Pope Pius XI issuing the 1937 encyclical Mit brennender Sorge. Haldraper (talk) 10:10, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

No. Because this reduction is too radical. It gives the uninformed reader no clue whatsoever as to what the Reichskonkordat was, or what Mit brennender sorge said. This is going beyond summary style into the totally uninformative, leaving people to have to guess what each was and why it happened. Some will "guess" that the "concordat" was signed by the Church out of love and shared goals with the Nazis, others will have different guesses. Many will not click through. We're not here to leave people guessing, especially if such guesses are likely to be wildly misinformed "What's a concordat?" "Why mention only the German one?" "Why was it signed?" I think the existing sentences are already very concise:
On 20 July 1933, the Vatican signed an agreement with Germany, the Reichskonkordat, partly in an effort to stop Nazi persecution of Catholic institutions.[393][394] When this escalated to include physical violence, Pope Pius XI issued the 1937 encyclical Mit brennender Sorge.[393][395][396][397] Drafted by the future Pope Pius XII[398] and read from the pulpits of all German Catholic churches, it "condemned" Nazi persecutions, neopaganism, racial superiority and "Hitler himself" (although not by name).
If a reduction were needed, it could be reduced to something like:
In 1933, the Vatican signed an agreement with Germany, the Reichskonkordat, partly in an effort to stop Nazi persecution of Catholic institutions.[393][394] Violations of this by the Nazis led to Pope Pius XI issuing the 1937 encyclical Mit brennender sorge.[393][395][396][397] which publicly condemned Nazi persecutions, neopaganism, and the culture of racial superiority. Xandar 13:37, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
This is not my area of interest and I am not caught up on the myriad discussions on this paragraph. I did read the WP articles on Mit brennender Sorge and the Reichskonkordat. I think that this article should absolutely not go into reasons why the concordat was signed, as these appear to be many. As a compromise, perhaps a phrase on what the concordat was supposed to do? Something along these lines....
In 1933, the Vatican and the German government signed the Reichskonkordat, which guaranteed Germans the right to practice Catholicism. Germany soon violated many provisions of the agreement, leading Pope Pius XI to issue the 1937 encyclical Mit brennender Sorge, which publicly condemned some Nazi practices.
Karanacs (talk) 20:55, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
Agree with Karanacs and Xandar (wow, there's an unusual sentence on this page). Karanacs' rewritten version is very good, IMO. If people want to tweak it, do please keep it nice and simple; consider the interests of the reader (=avoid painfully obvious "committee" compromises of wording). The reader needs a definition of what the Reichskonkordat was, such as Karanacs' "which guaranteed Germans the right to practice Catholicism"—nice and simple and clear—and the reader needs a link to the article Reichskonkordat. And the reader should be spared all imputation of specific motives. This is the principle I would like to see throughout Catholic Church, incidentally. I believe that if it's applied, this important article might conceivably be ready for FAC one day.
P.S. Have people noticed that Xandar and Pmanderson have been blocked for edit warring? Bishonen | talk 23:38, 14 December 2009 (UTC).
And I have been unblocked. My purpose, to establish a record of other people's blind reversion, is accomplished; if it continues to be impossible to improve the article, I will indeed request protection.
On the substance, Karanacs' new wording seems reasonable. Some has no real function; condemned Nazi practices is equivalent in content, and stronger in form. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:49, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

I also agree with Xandar and Karanacs. I like the wording proposed by Karanacs although "guaranteed the Catholic Church in Germany certain rights and freedoms" is probably better wording. Also "condemned some Nazi practices" sounds too namby-pamby and only hints at what MBS was attacking; I prefer Xandar's wording "which publicly condemned Nazi persecutions, neopaganism, and the culture of racial superiority." says Richardshusr

Can we establish an in-tray section for these new revision topics? The page is so complicated they should form a queue, & we just have one or two active at a time. I will attempt to set up such a system. Johnbod (talk) 23:42, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
I have reinstated the above comment, and will not be considering this matter until other topics are settled. I recommend that other editors adopt the same approach. Johnbod (talk) 03:09, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
I agree with most of the above comments and accept that my proposed trimming was too radical. I'll have a go at a rewrite based on Xandar and Karanacs' suggested wording.Haldraper (talk) 08:46, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
"Condemned racial superiority" is not a summary of our article, and does not appear to summarize the encyclical well either. The key passage is "Whoever exalts race, or the people, or the state, or a particular form of state, or the depositories of power, or any other fundamental value of the human community—however necessary and honorable be their function in worldly things—whoever raises these notions above their standard value and divinizes them to an idolatrous level, distorts and perverts an order of the world planned and created by God".
That acknowledges race as necessary, honorable, and fundamental - while protesting against idolatry of it. Now it is arguable that "idolatry of racism" is exactly what was wrong with Naziism; but any approach which summarizes this as condemning the "standard value" of racism is -er- flawed. 21:19, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
The biggest reason my version summed it up as "some Nazi practices" is because I didn't want to have to get into the various interpretations of what the Pope was actually trying to say. I suspect almost all historians would agree that the document condemned something, just not sure they would all agree with the specifics of what was being condemned. Again, not my area of expertise, so nothing to back up these thoughts. Karanacs (talk) 21:24, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
Well we actually said "condemned the culture of racial superiority", which i think sums up what was said quite well. Xandar 22:50, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
It doesn't say that either; in fact, Mit brennender Sorge regards race as being as essential a part of human culture as government; merely, like government, not divine. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:33, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

It would be nice if we could get in "scientific racialism", to show how the National Socialists built on so-called "Enlightenment" concepts and methods, while Saint Pope Pius XII was defending against this innovation. - Yorkshirian (talk) 23:31, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

I have to go against the tide somewhat and agree with Haldraper, that a radical trim is best. The National Socialists and Hitler are not very important to the history of the Catholic Church overall. There is far, far too much recentism in the history of this article; Peter, Constantine, Charlemange, Colvis and so on do not get as much room as WWII, Novous Ordo and other out of proportion elements. - Yorkshirian (talk) 23:42, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
I agree that radical trim is in order but I would suggest that the problem is not just too much detail but that the lens is focused on the wrong topic. I agree with Yorkshirian that WWII is not important to the history of the Church overall but it was important to the history of the world, of Europe and thus to Catholics and therefore did affect the Church.
I would suggest that we shift the focus away from the detail of Reichskonkordat, MBS and Pius XI/Pius XII. Instead, we should "zoom out" the lens and focus on the rise of totalitarianism (Nazism, Fascism and Communism) and the Church's dilemma in confronting it. In truth, the Church in the early 20th century was focused on the threat of socialism and Communism (cf. anti-clericalism in Mexico and Latin America in the 19th and early 20th centuries). Because of these persecutions, the Church saw right-wing anti-communist regimes as allies against left-wing anti-clericalism and attempted to come to some accomodation at least with Nazism and Fascism in Germany, Italy and Spain. However, the Church came to realize that such accomodation was not possible and then came out in opposition to these regimes as their true nature became known. Catholics in Germany, Italy and occupied Europe suffered terribly at the hands of the totalitarian regimes. The Catholic Church opposed persecution of Catholics and non-Catholics alike and attempted to assist those who were persecuted including Jews. That's all that needs to be said in this article. The details and related controversies can be laid out in subsidiary articles such as Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust. --Richard S (talk) 02:48, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
Date and source for this realization, please; and for the claim that opposed persecution of Catholics and non-Catholics alike. The Church opposed the persecution of Catholics - as is perfectly natural; it opposed the persecution of non-Catholics far less often and far less strongly. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:34, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
Heh, heh... can't slip anything by you, huh? Look, it's not as if there was a specific date where the Vatican said "oops, so sorry, Nazi not good like we thought, Nazi very, very evil, us got it all wrong before". Nonetheless, there is an evident (to my eyes anyway) shift away from right-wing authoritarian regimes (this is most noticeable with Franco's Spain but also evident with Italy and Germany). I don't think this is total OR; in fact, I think I read it during my researching on the Reichskonkordat. Are there no scholars who propound the same opinion? I'll root around the Internet for a source but I would think some of the more knowledgeable editors here could help out.
Indeed there was a shift away from Franco's Spain; but this was not during the war. (There was also a shift away from the Axis in 1943; as the Vicar of Bray would have done.) There are certainly scholars who claim more; there are also scholars who would dispute even what I admit, and this article should stick with the minimal amount that is consensus.) Some inconvenient details for those who would claim more:
Now, you're going off the rails. You are mixing apples and oranges. What individual Catholics or groups of Catholics do must be differentiated from what the Vatican does and what it sanctions that individual prelates and religious orders do.
Yes, initial support for Franco's Spain and the subsequent withdrawal of support cover a wider period than just WWII but that's exactly my point. The Church's relationship with Hitler's Germany and Mussolini's Italy must be seen as part of an overall narrative that starts with the French Revolution, continues on through anti-clericalism in the 19th century especially in Mexico and Latin America and into Revolutionary Spain. If the Church sought the protection of right-wing authoritarian regimes, it is because it was persecuted by left-wing socialist ones. Over the course of several decades, it began to see that this was making a pact with the devil.
In any event, the facts are that left-wing governments persecuted the Church. The Church sought refuge by supporting right-wing regimes. Eventually, the Church abandoned support for the right-wing regimes in Germany, Italy and Spain.
Why the Church did so is historical interpretation, not historical fact. We must distinguish between what is fact and what is interpretation and provide attribution to a reliable source for any interpretation.
Should the Church be criticized for supporting right-wing authoritarian regimes? That's not for us to say. It's clear that many do make such a criticism. We certainly can document that. Me personally, I am inclined to think that, in most cases, the Church was in a difficult situation where it was trying to protect its interests and those of its faithful. Caught between the left and the right, it is understandable that the Pope and other church leaders thought that protection might be found on the right. They were wrong.
Whether one judges this part of Church history harshly or compassionately depends in large part on your world perspective (Weltanschauung). There is a wide range of opinions, all of which should be presented in some subsidiary article.
Of course, those who believe in the indefectibility of the Church wouldn't want to cast things this way but that's how I see history.
NB: It seems to me that the Church's posture in Latin America is still unsettled. Certainly, liberation theology has been repudiated in its pure form. What the "preferential option for the poor" means today is unclear to me.
--Richard S (talk) 16:54, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
You've stumbled over your point of view again. the facts are that left-wing governments persecuted the Church is an oversimplification of most of this conflict; it's not consensus: The Latin American revolutionaries (since 1910) would (mostly) respond that their peoples were oppressed and persecuted by the land-owning religious orders, supported by the Vatican. (My personal opinion is that both sides have something to complain of; but that's nothing to the article.) Again, we don't have room to explicate this here. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:08, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
Ok, touché, it may be a gross generalization to say that "left-wing governments persecuted the church"; perhaps exceptions can be found and, in any event, "left-wing" is difficult to define.
Nonetheless, there is an animosity towards the Church that starts with the Enlightenment and becomes really ugly during the French Revolution. There is the anti-clericalism of the 19th century and even Marx asserting that "religion is the opium of the masses". Then we move into the 20th century with the Cristero war in Mexico and the Republicans in Spain. This leads Pius XI to complain of the "Terrible Triangle" of Mexico, Spain and the Soviet Union. This is the backdrop for some of the relationships that the Church has with right-wing authoritarian governments in Spain, Germany and Italy. In Italy, you also have the Vatican trying to recover from the loss of the Papal States. I read somewhere that the charge laid against the Vatican is that it was so preoccupied with defending itself from anti-clericalism, that it was blinded to the evils of authoritarianism. I read elsewhere that as early as 1891 Rerum Novarum pointed out the dangers of authoritarian governments. Rerum Novarum rejects both capitalism and socialism.
The point is that we should not get mired in the details of the Reichskonkordat, MBS or even Pius XII and the Holocaust. There are detailed subsidiary articles for that.
The "big picture" is the anti-clerical assault on the Church, the rise of capitalism and authoritarian states, the rise of socialism and the Church's responses to these huge social changes. What Pius XI and Pius XII did during the Nazi era is a less important topic by comparison.
--Richard S (talk) 20:00, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
This is a fairly good overview of trends. However turning it into a workable account covering the period 1700 - 1950 is likely to be a challenge. However, it could be used as a sort of guiding narrative, with major indicative events described in the nature of illustrations of the overriding theme. Xandar 23:53, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
Richard, you "talk of this terrible Revolution as if it were the only harvest ever known under the skies that had not been sown — as if nothing had ever been done, or omitted to be done, that had led to it — as if observers of the wretched millions in France, and of the misused and perverted resources that should have made them prosperous, had not seen it inevitably coming, years before, and had not in plain words recorded what they saw." Nor was anti-clericalism an unseeded and miraculous harvest.
You also talk as though the Revolution were all of a piece, and all anti-clerical. Each year was a different issue, between different contestants; the Church policy of the Revolution began as the Gallicanism traditional to the Most Christian Kings of France, and, even during the dread year 1794, under the Committee of Public Safety, a bishop took a turn as President of the National Assembly, and passed a major bill (since it was on slavery, you might have come across it). Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:47, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
Indeed many churchmen were in support of elements of the French Revolution, but quite quickly the more bitter and determined anti-clerical elements took over - as they did in Mexico and elsewhere, and channelled their efforts in an anti-Church direction. Attacking the Church has always been the diversion that Radicals most commonly get derailed by. Xandar 00:03, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
the more bitter and determined anti-clerical elements took over Less than half a truth: the Hebertists, who ran religious policy for Paris (not the rest of the country) for a couple months late in 1793, were ousted by less anti-clerical men - who in turn fell at Thermidor to men less anti-clerical still; and so on, back and forth, for the next decade. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:30, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
As for "opposing the persecution of Catholics and non-Catholics alike", I confess that this is sloppy writing on my part. I didn't mean to suggest that the Vatican was indifferent as to the faith of those who were persecuted. Of course, it was more concerned about Catholics than non-Catholics. However, it is not as if the Vatican only protested the persecution of Catholics. They also drew attention to the persecution of others outside the faith. If someone can suggest better wording to express this idea, I'm open to hearing it.
--Richard S (talk) 05:18, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

I like the idea of framing this more in terms of the global anti-clerical patterns of the last two centuries. I think that overall the history section is deficient in properly portraying the Church against the broader patterns of history, instead focusing narrowly on this incident, and then that incident (this has been brought up by others at previous reviews too). To do this proper justice, would, as Awadewit once suggested, take a great deal of time and likely of research. Karanacs (talk) 17:02, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, the basic idea of a wider view is sound; don't let my quibbles at Richard's version obscure that. I do not think we should criticize the Church; but neither should we present as consensus statements which the critics would vehemently dispute. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:10, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
As should be evident by now, I am fine with you "quibbling" with what I write. I see this as collegial and collaborative. It's the way Wikipedia should work. As for "stumbling over my POV", I certainly hope not. I am not a staunch defender of the Church's past actions but neither am I as sharply critical as others might be. If I do lose sight of NPOV, feel free to point it out. My commitment is not to attacking or defending the Church but to presenting an NPOV and encyclopedic narrative. --Richard S (talk) 20:03, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
WP:NPOV is wiser than most of us in acknowledging that we all have a point of view; for all of us not divine, it must be a limited one. The question is whether editors are committed to their point of view or to striving for neutral narrative; I have no doubts that Richard falls in the latter class. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:14, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

To PM Anderson - why would it be "inconvienent" in this context, that the Blue Division took revenge on the Soviet Union and international communism for invading Spain and mowing down thousands of churches with their tanks? Maybe they went to take back their gold that Juan Negrín had looted from the Spanish people and whisked off to the Soviets? - Yorkshirian (talk) 22:28, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Inconvenient for the case that the Church ceased collaborating with the Axis some years before, which Richard was attempting to outline. (Perhaps you have no interest in making such a case.)
But really: "Soviet invasion"?!? What "reliable" source are you following? Falangist propaganda is a WP:FRINGE view, nowadays; and, while I (who quoted Orwell) have a low view of all Stalinist foreign policy, and lowest perhaps of the Spain intervention, still it would be nice to discuss the physically possible. It is a thousand miles from Moscow to Barcelona, and neither by land nor sea could an invasion find its way - unless you can substantiate the little-known Red Navy domination of the Western Mediterranean.
The only invasion of the Second Spanish Republic was in July 1936 - from Morocco. Left and Right may agree that it was unfortunate that the Government of the Republic had to accept the assistance that was offered; but that argument is off-topic. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:49, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

talk page section deleted?

What happened to this section [1] of this talk page which used to be listed just under the "Slavery" conversation above? NancyHeise talk 04:09, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

It was archived, because no one was discussing it. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 05:49, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
I have been accumulating sources because we all were discussing improvments to the Cultural Influences section. I do not see where it was decided that we should not improve the section. Richard has included that section in his tray of issues yet to be resolved. I don't think it should have been archived yet. Nevertheless, I have created a sandbox page to serve as a source accumulation site. When everyone is ready to discuss improving that section we can reference it then. See User:NancyHeise/cultural influence sandbox NancyHeise talk 21:05, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Anti-clericalism in Latin America

On further reflection, I realize that I know relatively little about anti-clericalism in Latin America. I have further concluded that Wikipedia does not cover this topic very well. To remedy these deficiencies, I have done some very basic research and created an article titled Anti-clericalism in Latin America. This is really just a somewhat longish stub. It is not even a start as it only covers the subtopics that have been discussed in Catholic Church and other related Wikipedia articles.

The article needs to be expanded to provide a more comprehensive treatment of the topic.

Your assistance is solicited to improve this new article.

--Richard S (talk) 10:52, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

New lead additions

Two of us have removed the following addition from the lead, and I thought it best to have a discussion here. I will not be removing this type of text any more.

Text added:

The Catholic Church affirms Christ's teaching on the Sanctity and Dignity of every Human Being, and supports the fundamental, unalienable Right to Life that is endowed to every Human Individual from our Creator, God. The Church continues to affirm the inherent, complementary, ordered nature of Marriage between one Man and one Woman, and God's Universal Call to Holiness. For this reason, the Catholic Church does not support abortion or sexual relationships that are not consistent with God's intention for Sexual Love within a Holy Marriage.

My comments - I think this is inappropriate. It is not written in an neutral point of view. It is also overly detailed for the lead, and probably for this article in general. Although we briefly touch on most of these issues in the article as examples of current challenges for the Church, a detailed discussion on these beliefs and how they are derived is best set in one of the more specific articles. Thoughts? Karanacs (talk) 17:44, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Agree. Without checking, I think this is all covered below, without the Insistent Capitalization. Johnbod (talk) 17:47, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
Agree with all K's points. This content can all be covered, only please not in such an unencyclopedic way. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 17:54, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
I think this is just a case of a new user not knowing their way around the system yet. I don't think it is something to get to concerned about. Marauder40 (talk) 17:56, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
Marauder40 is probably right; although the capitalization suggests that the newbie may not understand WP:COPYVIO either. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:41, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
I completely concur with Marauder, but I was hoping to avoid an edit-war with some nice discussion. (Plus I wanted to follow my own advice about being extra careful when reverting.) I do appreciate all the responses. I'll follow up on the user's talk page per her question below. Karanacs (talk) 19:16, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Hi. Perhaps you can explain to me how one could be neutral in regards to the Sanctity of every Human Life and God's intention for Sexual Love within a Holy Marriage and be in Communion with The Catholic Church, to begin with. Thank you, Nancy Danielson —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.61.28.164 (talk) 19:09, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Despite the evidence of this talk page, ;-> Wikipedia is neutral because it is not a polemical organization; it discusses the positions within the Church but does not endorse them. For those positions, seek out the organizations which espouse them; one less formal explanation is the very long tradition of combining occasional commmunion with the Church with indifference to the tirades of theologians. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:25, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Canon 750 of The Catholic Church makes it clear that one can not be neutral regarding the Sanctity and Dignity of Human Life and The Sacrament of Marriage, despite the tirades of some theologians and their kindred spirits. N.D. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nancy Danielson (talk • contribs)

This is Wikipedia, however, not a pulpit. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and contributions should adhere to its policies, including neutral point of view. I've left a longer explanation on your talk page, and you are welcome to reply there. Karanacs (talk) 20:21, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Clearly Wikipedia is not a pulpit, but when writing an article with the intention of capturing the essence of The Catholic Church, one must begin by affirming that The Catholic Church only recognizes one Truth, The Word of God, as He Has revealed Himself to His Church in the trinitarian relationship of Sacred Tradition, Sacred Scripture,and the teaching of the Magisterium. Since Truth is not a matter of opinion, your neutrality clause does not apply. Nancy Danielson —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nancy Danielson (talk • contribs) 01:30, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

I think the reason why the Catholic Church takes the positions on these issues that it does is suitable material for the article, if presented as concisely as possible. However what you have written is certainly too detailed for the Lead section of the article, which is meant to be a very tight summary of the main points of the entire article. Xandar 01:37, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
It's also important to cite reliable sources and present information in a neutral tone. Majoreditor (talk) 01:51, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

God's intention for the Sanctity and Dignity of Human Life and the complementary, inherent ordered nature of Marriage was revealed to us In The Beginning... which is why I believe it is appropriate to include the "text" in the beginning. I have simply stated the position of the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church is not neutral in regards to The Word of God. We are called to bear Witness to The Truth. If one compromises The Truth, The Truth becomes error. One can not profess to be Catholic while professing error simultaneously. Nancy Danielson

We are not here to preach; we are not here to host preaching. Those who cannot in conscience be neutral are free to join those institutions, including Conservapedia and Wikinfo, which have other values. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:49, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
Nancy Danielson, welcome to Wikipedia! We want your input here on the Catholic Church article. I was helped to learn to edit Wikipedia by a very nice experienced editor who put up with my mistakes in the beginning and kindly showed me the correct way to do things. Please see your talk page for some tips I posted there. If you need any more help don't be afraid to ask someone for help. There are some rude people on Wikipedia but there are also some very nice people too. Please take some time to read the policies linked on your talk page and feel free to contribute to our discussions on improving Wikipedia's articles. Thanks. NancyHeise talk 04:01, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
We shall see. The last thing we need is more people attempting to use Wikipedia as a bullhorn. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 06:52, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
Sept, Wikipedia editors get involved in the editing process by editing pages in which they have an interest. That usually leads to editing of other pages and so on. If you hit newcomers over the head just for showing an interest, however misguided, Wikipedia will not be improved. We need to be careful not to violate WP:bite. NancyHeise talk 21:08, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
Yes, Wikipedia editors get involved in the editing process by editing pages in which they have an interest. That's one of our major problems. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:27, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
I agree that it's one of our major problems. Nonetheless, it is a core principle of Wikipedia that it is an encyclopedia that anyone can edit as long as they stay within the policies and guidelines. We shouldn't [[WP:BITE}bite]] newcomers. This one (N.D.) is a bit extreme but I have seen much worse. Whether she will become a valued contributor or not remains to be seen. If you won't encourage and mentor her, then at least don't get in the way of those who are willing to. --Richard S (talk) 23:54, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
N.D. demonstrably has no interest in doing what Wikipedia intends; there is a difference between mentoring the well-intentioned but ill-informed and recruiting the malignant to join one's cabal. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:15, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

I would hope that the intention of Wikipedia is to represent truth, not misrepresent the truth. That being said, Catholics are not called to "recruit the malignant to join one's cabal". Catholics are called to Caritas in Veritate, Love in The Truth. The Catholic Church continues to affirm The Truth of God's Love from The Beginning. We are called to live our Lives in a communion of Love, respecting the Sanctity and Dignity of every Human Life, and respecting God's intention for Marriage and the Family. For this reason, The Catholic Church affirms the Sanctity and Dignity of every Human Life, supporting the unalienable Right to Life that has been endowed to each one of us from our Creator, and affirms the complementary, inherent ordered Nature of Marriage between one Man and one Woman, as well as God's Universal Call to Holiness. The Catholic Church does not support elective abortion or sexual relationships that are not consistent with God's intention for Sexual Love within a Holy Marriage.

God is Love. Love exists in relationship. We were made "in the image of God", Who Is The Blessed Trinity, THE complementary, inherent, ordered Nature of Perfect Love, that gives us Life to begin with. "Let Us Make Man In Our Image." - Genesis —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nancy Danielson (talk • contribs) 22:16, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

May I suggest that "held the position of chief apostle" be changed to "was preeminent" or something like that, since the phrase "position of chief apostle" implies that there was a position or office of "chief apostle:" an idea basically consistent with Roman Catholic ecclesiology, but flatly denied by the Orthodox and by Protestants. Most Christians understand Peter to have been, at the very least, the first among equals; his preeminence is attested to by Scripture and the Church fathers alike, but not all would agree that he was the "chief." I pulled this off an internet dictionary: chief (among other things): "Highest in rank, authority, or office." The Orthodox, for example, would not agree that Peter was "chief" in this way. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.14.32.178 (talk) 09:56, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Happy Christmas

Have a good one everyone.Haldraper (talk) 08:41, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

O come, O come, Emmanuel/And ransom captive Israel Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:14, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
A Merry and Peaceful Christmas to all! Xandar 23:38, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
Kala Christouyenna & Milad Majeed! Majoreditor (talk) 00:59, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
My wiki-card is Nativity at Night (Geertgen tot Sint Jans); and a happy New Year! Johnbod (talk) 01:33, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
A belated Merry Christmas to all. Peace on earth (and at Wikipedia); goodwill to all editors.--Richard S (talk) 06:55, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Industrial Age

I've been looking at other parts of this section. They are not without their problems.

The passage on the role of the Catholic Church in the European colonisation of Africa strikes me as POV by implicitly offerring the apology that the Church was merely responding to a demand created by others:

By the close of the 19th century, European powers had managed to gain control of most of the African interior.[382] The new rulers introduced cash-based economies which created an enormous demand for literacy and a western education—a demand which for most Africans could only be satisfied by Christian missionaries.[382] Catholic missionaries followed colonial governments into Africa, and built schools, hospitals, monasteries and churches.[382]

That seems to leave out any evangelising, soul-saving aspect of missionary work that in the eyes of those carrying it out justified riding roughshod over local customs and beliefs.

There is also this:

In Latin America, a succession of anti-clerical regimes came to power beginning in the 1830s.[383] One such regime emerged in Mexico in 1860. Church properties were confiscated and basic civil and political rights were denied to religious orders and the clergy.[384] The Calles Law eventually led to the "worst guerilla war in Latin American History", the Cristero War.[385] Between 1926 and 1934, over 3,000 priests were exiled or assassinated.[386][387] In an effort to prove that "God would not defend the Church", Calles ordered Church desecrations where services were mocked, nuns were raped and captured priests were shot.[385] Despite the persecution, the Catholic Church survived and prospered; nearly 90 percent of Mexicans identified as Catholic in 2001.[388]

In the twentieth century, confiscation of Church properties and restrictions on people's religious freedoms generally accompanied secularist and Marxist-leaning governmental reforms[389] such as those in Cuba, Argentina, Venezuela and Bolivia. During the Spanish Civil War, Spanish republicans and anarchists targeted priests and nuns as symbols of conservatism, murdering large numbers of them.[390] In the Soviet Union, persecution of the Church and Catholics[391] continued well into the 1930s. In addition to executing and exiling many clerics, monks and laymen, the confiscating of Church implements and the closing of churches were common.[392]''

The first paragraph is written from a Catholic rather than neutral POV. The issue of confiscation of Church land is complicated in countries where the Church was one of several major landowners who had their property redistributed amongst the peasantry by a revolution. We need to distinguish land reform from the suppression of the right of individuals to practice their faith. The last sentence is also rather peacocky.

The second paragraph has a lot of vagueness: 'generally accompanied'; 'large numbers'; 'well into'.

Rather than attempt a rewrite, I'll post some tags and await comments here.Haldraper (talk) 08:58, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Once again, I do not see the profit in posting large tags on article sections. I thought we had decided not to go down this road since it leads to confrontational attitudes. Tags should be used to highlight issues for discussion by editors, and we are already discussing issues in order as they arise. So long as we are following that procedure I don't see any need for tags. We certainly can't have tags pasted all over the article simply because individuals don't like the style of certain long-standing passages. I haven't removed the tag for the moment, so long as we and the tagger stay focussed on a productive resolution of this one issue, and don't start diverting on to others or posting more tags. I would have preferred Haldraper to put forward productive and referenced suggestions that would meet his objections. Xandar 00:53, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
Re: European colonisation of Africa - agree, where did this "demand" come from? From the colonists or the colonized? If the colonists, then we should not make the paragraph sound as if the Church was doing a great and glorious thing. The Church has gone into colonies as part of the colonial effort. One POV would assert that, for the most part, the Church was complicit in the abuses and oppression of the colonial system. Others might wish to argue otherwise but we should not present solely an apologetic narrative here.
Re: Land reform - also agree; the Church was not necessarily singled out but rather seen as an integral part of the existing oligarchical power structure; this theme runs throughout the anti-clericalism from the French Revolution to the Russian Revolution (admittedly the Orthodox Church there but it's the same issue, different church). For the most part, anti-clericalism wasn't about persecution for religious reasons, it was about rooting out part of the power structure.
In response to Xandar's comment below, I'd like to amend my comment above... wrt to the Reform War in Mexico, the Church does seem to have been the primary focus of expropriation of properties and other legal restrictions. This was done in the backdrop of a conflict between liberal and conservative forces but the Church was certainly a primary target. However, if we look at anti-clericalism as a global phenomenon, the general context is usually one of liberal/left reformers against a conservative alliance of Church and landed aristocracy. --Richard S (talk) 03:49, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
Do you mean primary target, or disproportionate target? IIRC various Church bodies owned a quarter of the land in Mexico in 1911, long after Juarez; it would be hard to have any meaningful land reform program without making that mass of land a primary target. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:22, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
Re: "in the twentieth century" - I'm not sure what your point is here. I agree with the substance of the paragraph. If your issue is about style, we can tighten up the prose to be less "vague".
--Richard S (talk) 09:45, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
On your last point Richard, yes. I've not read the sources but I'd be surprised if they're as vague as the text here: surely the number of priests and nuns killed in the Spanish civil war and the suppression of the Church in Stalin's Russia are well-documented enough for us to give more precise figures and dates.Haldraper (talk) 14:03, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
The problem with all of these is that all sides had no hesitation about inventing figures and atrocity stories; the Spanish Civil War was Orwell's justification for claiming that history had ceased to be possible in 1936. Published works repeat each side's claims; now a thorough and careful reading should be able to identify who the neutral and cautious historians are - but will we do it? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:05, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
On the issues being raised:
  • Missionaries. I don't think the stated reason for sending missionaries is that important to the article. I don't particularly see it as being "apologetic" though, just an attempt to set context. As for "riding roughshod over local traditions", that may be one POV, but I don't think it is justified since conversion or not was voluntary. It's a bit like saying TV rides roughshod over local traditions. It's just a part of change and the spread of ideas.
  • I don't see how the next para is written from a "Catholic POV", or what Haldraper's idea of a "neutral" POV would look like. This seems an incredibly vague objection.
  • On confiscation of land, is there evidence that the Church was not particularly targetted? It would seem from my readings that this would tend to be so, particularly with reference to monastic lands (strangely, the ones most communally owned). In some places there were general land seizures and redistributions, but this was by no means the majority.
  • I have no objections to sorting out the "vagueness" in the last quoted paragraph. Better figures can probably be found from reliable sources. Xandar 01:09, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Xandar, I don't see posting a tag as disruptive or confrontational: as the pov-section one says, it's to highlight the fact there's a discussion on the talk page to try to resolve the issue. Whether the passage is 'long-standing' is neither here nor there, it may just mean no one's noticed or challenged the POV before.

I was going to let other some people comment before proposing my alternative but given Xandar's objection, here goes. It's based on Karanacs' points that less is more and that we shouldn't attempt to speculate on the Church's motives or offer alibis for its actions but merely describe them so the reader can form their own opinion.

By the close of the 19th century, European powers controlled of most of the African interior. Catholic missionaries followed colonial governments into Africa, and built schools, hospitals, monasteries and churches.[382]

In Latin America, a succession of anti-clerical regimes came to power beginning in the 1830s.[383] Church properties were confiscated and basic civil and political rights were denied to religious orders and the clergy.[384] During the 1936-39 Spanish Civil War, in which the Church supported Francisco Franco's Nationalist forces, [x} priests and nuns were killed by republicans and anarchists.[390]

In the twentieth century, confiscation of Church properties and restrictions on religious freedoms were carried out by various left wing governments[389]. In the Soviet Union, persecution of the Church [391] continued until 193[?] with the execution and exiling of clerics, monks and laymen, confiscation of Church implements and closure of churches.

Haldraper (talk) 09:23, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

  • Tags, particularly general tags, are tending to get misused (see below). If everyone who disagreed with the tone or the content of a WP article was allowed to keep a banner tag on it there would soon be no significant WP articles without such tags. The purpose of tags is to alert editors to a problem, and generally this is after taking it to the talk page has not produced a response or debate.
  • On the specific text points... Most of this is okay with me. However I think there should be a link to the Cristero War, as an example, and the words "anti clerical regimes" should be linked to Richard's new article. My main complaint is the Spanish Civil War wording which suggests Church support for Franco prior to the massacres. I haven't seen good support for that. The first attacks on the Church came well before Franco's action. I would propose:
By the close of the 19th century, European powers controlled of most of the African interior. Catholic missionaries followed colonial governments into Africa, and built schools, hospitals, monasteries and churches.[382]
In Latin America, a succession of anti-clerical regimes came to power beginning in the 1830s.[383] Church properties were confiscated and basic civil and political rights were denied to religious orders and the clergy.[384] In Mexico this eventually led to the Cristero War. At the start of the 1936-39 Spanish Civil War, in which the Church eventually supported Francisco Franco's Nationalist forces, [x} priests and nuns were killed by republicans and anarchists.[390]
In the twentieth century, confiscation of Church properties and restrictions on religious freedoms were carried out by various left wing governments[389]. In the Soviet Union, persecution of the Church [391] continued until 193[?] with the execution and exiling of clerics, monks and laymen, confiscation of Church implements and closure of churches. Xandar 02:59, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
After what I wrote below, I feel a little discomforted to ask for more detail but I do think a little more detail is needed.
  • "succession of anti-clerical regimes" - in what countries? Mexico is obvious, perhaps Colombia, Argentina and Venezuela as well? See Anti-clericalism in Latin America. I wouldn't provide any details of what happened in those countries. Just mention them e.g. "succession of anti-clerical regimes in countries such as Mexico, Colombia, Argentina and Venezuela".
  • I also don't like that we start out saying "In Latin America..." and then jump to "At the start of the 1936-39 Spanish Civil War". It almost sounds like we don't know that Spain isn't in Latin America. I would like to add just a few words to separate the two ideas e.g. "Anti-clericalism also resulted in violence and expropriation of Church properties in Spain and the Soviet Union." The word "also" indicates that we are no longer talking about Latin America.
  • "carried out by various left wing governments" - once again, which ones? Soviet Union and Cuba. Anyone else? Let's not be vague here. We need not provide details but we should mention specific countries and time periods.
--Richard S (talk) 03:18, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
One problem with this is that left wing is an ill-defined term. Is anti-clericism by itself enough to make a regime left-wing? Some will say so, others will not. For those who think so, large parts of this are redundant; for those who do not, it is wrong. (There is an old jibe that Latin American politics is two gangs of generals playing Ins and Outs, with the only policy difference between them being Church policy. It's dated considerably, and it was never wholly true; but it's a good first cut.)Septentrionalis PMAnderson 06:31, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
Looking at this again, I think a little more rewriting/cutting would eliminate both the POV and vagueness problems without losing the meaning we want to convey:
In the 19th century, Catholic missionaries were sent to the new European colonies in Africa where they built schools, hospitals, monasteries and churches.[382]
In Latin America, anti-clerical regimes came to power beginning in the 1830s[383] which confiscated Church properties and denied basic civil and political rights to religious orders and the clergy.[384] During the 1936-39 Spanish Civil War, priests and nuns were killed by republicans and anarchists.[390]
In the twentieth century, confiscation of Church properties and restrictions on religious freedoms were carried out by governments in Argentina, Bolivia, Cuba and Venezuela[389]. In the Soviet Union in the 1930's, persecution of the Church included the execution and exiling of clerics and the confiscation and closure of churches.[391] Haldraper (talk) 09:47, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Combining in suggestions from Richard and Haldraper above, and keeping in a link to the Cristero War we would have something like:

By the close of the 19th century, European powers controlled most of the African interior. Catholic missionaries followed colonial governments into Africa, and built schools, hospitals, monasteries and churches.[382]
In Latin America, beginning in the 1830s, a succession of anti-clerical regimes came to power in countries such as Mexico, Colombia, Argentina and Venezuela.[383] These confiscated Church properties and denied basic civil and political rights to religious orders and the clergy.[384] In Mexico this eventually led to the Cristero War.
Anti-clericalism also resulted in violence and expropriation of Church properties in Spain and the Soviet Union. During the 1936-39 Spanish Civil War [x} priests and nuns were killed by republicans and anarchists.[390] In the Soviet Union in the 1930's, persecution of the Church included the execution and exiling of clerics and the confiscation and closure of churches.[391] Xandar 00:27, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
I think we could avoid the extra sentence on the Cristero War, which is a bit undue weight in an overview of the history of the Catholic Church, by converting the words 'anti clerical regimes' into a piped link to Anti-clericalism in Latin America. On priests and nuns killed in the Spanish civil war, the page on the so-called Red Terror in Spain claims 6,832 but I'm not sure how contested that is or how reliable the reference it's based on is.Haldraper (talk) 09:09, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Neutrality

I would ask the following questions of any sentence in this article, in order:

  • Does it tend to prove a point?
  • Is the point more controversial than "Benedict XVI is the present pope?"
  • Are both sides discussed, without verbal indicators favoring one side or the other?
  • Is there some clear advantage to the reader to discussing both sides in this very long, summary-style article?


If the answers to all of these are not satisfactory, the sentence should be recast or omitted. Much of this article fails those simple tests - as do most of the proposals above.

I await discussion of why this article should be absolved from WP:NPOV. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:22, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Nobody has suggested that the article be absolved from WP:NPOV - only from some people's personal interpretation of what is and is not POV, namely anything that departs from their own preconceptions. Xandar 23:53, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
Were there a distinction between absolving fromm NPOV and insisting on stating one's own POV, Xandar might be entitled to the benefit of it; but I don't think there is. But by saying this, he has avoided an answer to the real queastion: Why, then, as Xandar repeatedly demands, should this article argue the case for his POV? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:06, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
This running spat about NPOV/POV between Xandar and Pmanderson (mostly) and Johnbod (to a lesser extent) is getting tiresome. There's been at least a few violations of WP:NPA although they've been just low enough on the hostility meter to avoid warranting serious admin response. Please desist. We know that Xandar has a strong POV and tends to stick up for that particular POV. Take his demands with a grain of salt. He doesn't own the article any more than NancyHeise does. If you can't get him to agree to an NPOV treatment, then follow the dispute resolution procedure. Sniping at him in this manner is not productive.
To me, NPOV means that all significant POVs are presented without giving undue weight to any of them. Of course, the consensus or majority POV should be given most weight and minority or fringe POVs should be identified as such. If we mention a POV that is minority or fringe, we should provide counterbalancing information to ensure that the reader doesn't uncritically accept the minority or fringe POV as gospel truth. Now, if the for and against discussion gets too lengthy, then we should punt the entire treatment to a subsidiary article and only note the existence of the debate here with perhaps a very concise summary of the key issue without getting into the details. It is important to make sure the reader knows whether there is a consensus or majority opinion in the debate. However, we need not provide a point-by-point refutation of the minority or fringe opinion here in this article.
--Richard S (talk) 02:57, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
Thanbk you for returning to the intended topic of this section. Can we summarize with An article is neutral if, after reading it, you cannot tell where the author's sympathies lie? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:41, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Spot on PMAnderson. Some editors seem to think - and have said in the past - that this page should be a place where readers' 'misconceptions' about the Church are 'put right' and its actions put into context, explained away, downplayed, alibied, justified or otherwise defended. But as you say, the real test of NPOV is whether after reading text you can tell if the person who wrote it is coming from a a particular POV or not. Haldraper (talk) 16:33, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

I am not ready to sing accolades for PMA before a discussion has actually taken place and those who are are just showing their colors. For me the topic alone introduces POV; what is absolutely clear is that everyone has POV issues. We are thinking people that have made conclusions and thus we have a POV. There is no such thing as a completely neutral article or editor. There is aways a POV because we are the editors. The tone of any article can be written from any position. What one calls neutral another can easily call scathing or overly supportive. It seems to me when even simple statements are attacked, it is clear we are not seeking neutrality, but a specific tone.
Fundamentally, I think an article should answer the simple questions of what, who, when, where, why. Readers come to an encyclopedia to learn and if an article does not inform, but rather only serves to argue particular positions, we have failed miserably to educate. In this article I don't think it is necessary to argue whether X pope was a Nazi sympathizer, womanizer, moral derelict, or not. It is irrelevant. The point is what is the Catholic Church, what does it believe, how does it differ from other Christian churches, what is peculiar to it, how has it changed over the years, where is it's headquarters, etc., how is it governed, etc., etc., etc.
Too often on Wikipedia articles become the grounds for philosophical wars for advocates of polemical positions to play. Religious topics are particularly prone for this type of silliness. State the facts, provide specific, reputable sources and move on; educate readers.
Of course this article should clear up misconceptions. The issue is what misconceptions? This is not a church tract or a place for apologetics. However, it is also not the playground for critics and anti-Catholics either. Before anyone starts clothing themselves in neutrality it might be time to ask how others perceive your own edits. It appears to me too many editors don't realize their own POV. --StormRider 17:59, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
I wasn't asking anyone to 'sing accolades for PMA', merely pointing out he had correctly defined NPOV: an article is neutral if, after reading it, you cannot tell where the author's sympathies lie.
Of course every editor has their own POV, that is not the point, it is whether they can set that aside when writing text. I like to think I have got better at that while working on this page.
StormRider writes: "an article should answer the simple questions of what, who, when, where, why". Unfortunately, while the first four might be simple, the 'why' rarely is, as the long-running debates on here about the motivation for the Church's actions attest.
I don't hide my own POV: I am a lapsed Catholic who is now a critic of much of what the Church teaches and does. As I say, I try to exclude that from my editing on this page and am happy for examples of my failing to do so to be pointed out to me.Haldraper (talk) 19:04, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
PMA is trying to shroud himself in the gleaming robes of Paragon of Neutrality and Apple Pie. But quoting statements of neutrality is all very well. The problem lies in how they are applied. Saying "If you can tell what POV it comes from, it's POV" is highly dependant on your personal POV. Some people will see any statement that disagrees with their preconceptions as POV. That is not an objective standard. So in practical terms, we must go down to the facts as reliably referenced and weighted as to their notability. Arguing "fact x is pro-Catholic, we must exclude it", gets us nowhere. And yes. Articles are here to provide solidly referenced information, and thereby counter misconceptions. I think it is quite possible to agree a text the overwhelming majority of editors can support, but we must head off the personal attacks and allegations of bad faith. Xandar 23:56, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
Haldraper, I did not mean to offend you; if you feel I did I apologize. It was simply a poor way to open my edit.
I agree with you that editors must set aside their personal POV as much as possible when writing, but to do so includes two different facets. First, is to allow reputable experts to guide editing (using appropriate references, etc.). Second, or the other side of coin, is the tone in which an editor writes. We both can use references, but the manner, or tone, in which we write leads readers to different conclusions. For me, it is an issue of attempting to guide or influence readers.
Religion related topics are notoriously problematic because editors have deeply emotional feelings about the topic. The editors drawn to the topic are most often of two extreme sides: the critic and the faithful adherent. The worst problems develop when editors of the two extreme don't realize their own deeply held POV and only see neutrality if it meets their emotional "attitude" on the topic.
As a non-Catholic I think I approach this topic neutrally. I can be a doctrinal critic, a historical critic, and a social critic; however, what is of most interest to me is to explain the topic. For example, take Marian devotion. This topic should be explained, but I am not sure there is any need to attack it from a doctrinal position. At most, we can say it is not practiced by most, if not all, of the Protestant churches. I think that is a neutral way of addressing the topic. Another example is the topic of priests that have broken their vow of celibacy. I would group all abuses under this subtopic; how is it broken, with whom, etc. In this top level article there is no need for the detail because we are reporting on an organization that has almost 2,000 years of history. Focusing on the last ten years is to imbalance the article. I know this conflicts with those who value current events, but it is only my opinion as a historian.
I am beginning to blather and will stop. Suffice it to say that I am very tired of the rancorous manner in which much of the discussion takes place on this page. I am not very interested in managing the emotional baggage of other editors, but this article is of value and we need to move forward in a more collegial manner. Happy New Year to all.--StormRider 01:51, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
No problem StormRider, you didn't offend me so no need to apologise. Happy New Year.Haldraper (talk) 08:58, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

POV tag

This whole article is slanted toward the Catholic POV. Perhaps that's inevitable. Given the history of this page, it seems that WP policies are really not sufficient to get this sensitive topic the fair treatment that it deserves. The defenders of the Catholic POV are able to stall every effort on every front to make the article NPOV. Let's inform the reader of the situation up front so that the stalling tactics don't mislead our readers into thinking that the article is balanced. Leadwind (talk) 02:19, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

If you have legitimate POV concerns, please state them. I'm removing the tag until those concerns are stated - otherwise how are they supposed to be addressed? Mamalujo (talk) 02:30, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
Please read the tag. Don't remove the tag until the dispute is resolved. The issue here is that the article has several POV problems, and the defenders of the Catholic POV stall each discussion so that the page doesn't progress. The various POV issues have been pointed out long ago. Leadwind (talk) 02:40, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
Mamalujo, OK, here's what's biased about this article.
Most encyclopedias use the term "Roman Catholic Church" for their entries on this branch of Christianity. WP uses the RC-approved title of "Catholic Church," a term that historians use for the united East-West church that prevailed until 1054.
The Great Schism is described as the East splitting from the West, when in fact it's the West that innovated the filioque, Papal supremacy, original sin, and other details that differentiated it from the East and from the united past.
The history of the "Catholic Church" largely follows the RC POV that the early, unified church was the RCC. Historians disagree, labeling the RCC as the Western branch of the church that split with the Eastern branch.
The origin section states the RC view but never plainly states the historical view.
In accord with the RC POV, Protestant churches are referred to not as "churches" but as "denominations." In RC POV, the RCC is the "church" but the Baptists don't comprise a "church," nor the Lutherans, etc.
The text makes no distinction between ecumenical councils (the last in the 9th century) and the strictly western councils that occurred later. Vatican II was not ecumenical because it excluded the East, etc.
Unusual elements of RC practice, such as adoration of statues of saints, is downplayed, even though it's characteristic of Roman practice.
History ignores changes in the RCC, such as the "birth" of purgatory in the 12th century.
The various Inquisitions are methodically downplayed.
The disgraceful history of the popes prior to the Reformation is downplayed.
The establishment of papal infallibility in 1870 is downplayed.
The pope's reasons for not opposing the Nazis more strongly are given lots of positive play.
The sex abuse scandal is not described at all, except for the pope's response to it.
Leadwind (talk) 03:15, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
This is an odd list of "POV" complaints; IMHO, they say more about your own POV than that of the article.
  1. A church is entitled to call itself what it chooses. It is the very height of neutrality to allow any entity to name itself and that has been done for this article just as we do for any other. Several of your points seem to relate to this issue. What other encyclopedias do is irrelevant and actually may be an example of being POV also.
  2. The fact of the schism is there was a split. It is possible that putting either church in a superior position is POV, but I am not certain. This is hardly something to label an entire article as POV, but if you think it is significant then both church article should be changed to reflect there was a schism where both separated from the other.
I am getting the impression your position is that of the Eastern Orthodox Church and reflective of age old complaints between these two venerable institutions. As a non-Catholic, I tend to not buy into these type of "disagreements" because that is what they are and they are not POV issues. The rest of your points follow this tiresome tirade that is most often seen in all things critical of the Catholic Church. When placing a tag it is required that you give specific examples and not these broad brush strokes. I would advise you to specifically bring forward the sentences and how you propose they be changed so that this can be quickly remedied.
Please remember that neutrality is not the absence of position, but that both sides are given equal standing. It is perfectly letimate that an article's topic be primarily told from its position as long as critical position is also stated. This article does that. --StormRider 03:48, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
Agreed. I certainly don't say that the article, and its language, should not be improved on some of these points, but others just reflect that this is not a traditional Evangelical blasting of the Church, which it is not. On the first point, I suggest Leadwind look briefly at the endless arguments that produced the new name in the summer, which should dispel any illusion that the motives for the current name are those he suggests. The bit "Unusual elements of RC practice, such as adoration of statues of saints...." well displays both Leadwind's POV and his ignorance, both of which we have seen before. Johnbod (talk) 04:42, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
  • This is an article about which i was aware there was some intense discussion, but I had not contributed to, nor read. I happened across Leadwind's comments (while looking for something else), and decided to read the article. I was, to put it mildly, somewhat surprised by the content and, Storm Rider's comments notwithstanding, I have to largely agree with Leadwind. The over-arching problem appears to be that the article tends to report what the church says it is and does, rather than what independent third-party sources say about these things. It is not enough to occasionally use phrases such as "The Church believes that..." There then needs to be text primarily based on what those analysts outside the church say about it. Storm Rider was asking for specific examples. It is hard to know where to start, but there are a few below. Incidentially, surely Storm Rider is incorrect in saying "It is perfectly letimate that an article's topic be primarily told from its position..." This reads to me as a fundamental rejection of the Wikipedia pillar of NPOV. Anyway, some examples:
  • "Cultural influence: "The church rejected and helped end practices such as human sacrifice, slavery,[note 7] infanticide, and polygamy in evangelized cultures throughout the world, beginning with the Roman Empire." The crucial information lies in note 7, not in this fatuous sentence. This surely borders on propaganda compared to what independent scholarly analysis of the history of the church would show. In reality, this church (and others) followed a complex and uneven path toward developing views about a range of issues such as slavery. The path was neither filled only with honour nor dishonour. Other non-faith related factors played significant roles in the domestic and international politics and economics of, for example, the slave trade. It is not a matter of either blaming or exonerating the church. It is however a matter of representing these things in a neutral manner. This particular sentence is beyond the scholarly pale.
  • "Catholic universities, scholars and many priests including Copernicus, Roger Bacon, Albertus Magnus, Robert Grosseteste, Nicholas Steno, Francesco Grimaldi, Giambattista Riccioli, Roger Boscovich, Athanasius Kircher, Gregor Mendel, Georges Lemaître and others, were responsible for many important scientific discoveries". Placing this sentence under the heading "cultural influence" makes it sound as though their intellectual contributions were a product of their catholicism. For some, this would certainly be true; for Copernicus it would appear a stretch. And having no citations at the end of this sentence is all the more astonishing, as I would suggest that the claim that the discoveries by these people is in some way related to their catholicism appears to me a claim that requires verification.
  • "Over the course of its history, the Church has influenced the status of women, condemning infanticide, divorce, incest, polygamy and counting the marital infidelity of men as equally sinful to that of women. The official Church teaching[228] considers women and men to be equal, different, and complementary." This is an appallingly unbalanced reflection of non-church independent scholarly discussion, not to mention some emanating from within the church. If this text is to stand, i would expect at least two more sentences on other views about thehistorical church's influence on the status of women, and current alternative views about its existing influence.
  • "Mary and the saints": "Devotional journeys to the sites of biblical events or to places strongly connected with Jesus, Mary or the saints are considered an aid to spiritual growth, and can become meritorious acts if performed with the right intention". No citation for these claims, the last one being truly extraordinary. "can become meritorious acts if performed with the right intention" - says what independent third party source?
  • "Western Europe alone has more than 6,000 pilgrimage destinations which generate around 60 million faith-related visits a year" = a subtle example of advertising-like language and hyperbole being used: this one I've fixed myself - the use of the word "alone" here is inappropriate.
  • "Ordained members and holy orders": "The Church teaches that since the twelve apostles chosen by Jesus were all male, only men may be ordained as priests.[180] While some consider this to be evidence of a discriminatory attitude toward women,[181] the Church believes that Jesus called women to different yet equally important vocations in Church ministry.[182] Pope John Paul II, in his apostolic letter Christifideles Laici, states that women have specific vocations reserved only for the female sex, and are equally called to be disciples of Jesus." By structuring the discussion sentence in the "While..., the Church believes..." format, and then following this up with the apostolic letter, the section favours the official church view, rather than a dispassionate analysis. The article also uses the language "the Church believes...", which reveals a particular theological stance - that the church is a unitary entity capable of belief. This itself is a Catholic view, and should not be retained in Wikipedia article text. The correct language would be "Official church doctrine states..." or "Papal teachings have stated..." or similar.
These are just a few thoughts, and i hope the article will be overhauled in stages to place more reliance on the content of reliable third-party peer-reviewed scholarship in some key areas where it apepars to be lacking. Regards, hamiltonstone (talk) 04:29, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
Storm Rider, "I am getting the impression your position is that of the Eastern Orthodox Church." Not even close. It's just that the Eastern church was under the thumb of the Emperor and had no room to innovate doctrine. The Western church, on the other hand, had no emperor over it and was free to make up all sorts of stuff. And details like the Filioque were useful for converting western, Arian barbarians. The Eastern Orthodox Church is measurably and demonstrably more like the early united church than the Roman Catholic Church is. Leadwind (talk) 04:47, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

In general, I agree with Leadwind and Hamiltonstone that there is a strong POV-bias to this article. Some of these points (e.g. slavery and women) have been raised before and have not been settled yet. I like Hamiltonstone's analysis better than Leadwind's but many of Leadwind's points are also worth considering. I would urge the editors of this page not to dismiss their points summarily but to weigh each one individually and consider whether the wording could be changed to address the issue that is raised. Such an effort will help the article pass FAC. --Richard S (talk) 04:55, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

The page is protected again due to edit warring over the POV tag. I was going to say this is getting old, but that's so last millennium. --Spike Wilbury (talk) 05:30, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
Good. Protection merely formalizes the existing stalemate, and it does (like a tag) warn the reader to take this cum grano salis. Let's make it perpetual. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:54, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Procedural complaints

Unfortunately this is what happens when we (mistakenly) allowed one person to start putting tags on the page. Immediately everyone else with an anti-Catholic POV turns up, and starts edit-warring more and more tags onto the page - disrupting the article and the whole constructive discussion process.

There would be some small justification for tags if editors here hadn't tried to establish a process to discuss and come to reasonable agreement on any disagreements, in which we discuss facts and sources. However some people don't seem to want this. What we get are people like Leadwind who has clearly not bothered to read even the recent discussions on the talk page, and comes in with a list of ridiculous anti-catholic rants and no intention of co-operation. Instead he decides to edit-war his Personal POV on to the top of the article and so disrupt the whole process. I do not see how we are ever to make progress on the article when this sort of disruption is tolerated - and given support by blocking editing of the article. If every POV-pusher who dislikes the Catholic Church is free to disrupt the article with tags instead of participation - and so block progress endlessly - we will never get anywhere. This it seems is what PMA wants, but we are going to have to keep and enforce ground rules on the page to make progress.

We can't have people jumping in, tagging the page and running off - as people like Carlaude have done. Nor can we have people tagging the page because they don't personally like the tone - or the fact that positive things are said about the article's subject occasionally. We have a process for systematically and rigorously going through the text to identify genuine, evidence-backed changes that need to be made. People who do not want to input constructively into that process, without tagging, edit-warring and other disruptive tactics, should be ignored. I am quite prepared to discuss genuine points evidentially, but what we too-often see on this page are people who come in with a combative attitude, based on prejudice or misconception. We do not see these people complaining at Golden Age of Islam or other articles on religion which take a far less critical stance than this article does, and that leads me to believe that factionalism is what is inspiring a lot of this disruption. Xandar 01:55, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Xandar, aw don't be so mean. I know you'd like everyone to ignore me, and I know you think I'm just an ignorant anti-Catholic bigot. But maybe I'm a legitimate, fair-minded editor with good points that other editors agree with. Meanwhile, I see that you have side-stepped the content of my criticisms. Leadwind (talk) 02:22, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
If there is a vote on removing the POV tag, please count me in on the removal. The tag has no place here, and I predict that after a large amount of useless verbal flagellation by all concerned it will be removed in time. These types of tags and other items usually show up on Good Friday, end of the year etc. not just on this page but also other places such as Crucifixion in March/April etc. The timing seems to be part of the laws of nature. The end result will be less than 2% change to the article which will make no major difference to the readers at large, except creating sad memories for all involved in the debate. Merry Christmas. History2007 (talk) 05:23, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
If we accept your premise about it being the "laws of nature" and what you believe to be the author of those laws, do you not think your conclusions are in opposition to the law giver?Taam (talk) 19:07, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
  • No, Xandar, this is what happens when several editors think that there are pervasive POV problems with an article, discussions are stonewalled, and one point of view declines to acknowledge the presence of disputes.
  • Saying that we have a "thorough and rigorous" (bolded or not) process is like praising the swiftness, impartiality, and responsiveness of the United States Senate; in the participants in the logjam, it is vanity and deception; in anyone else, it would be a joke.
  • The justification for general tags remains exactly what it was: when most of the individual sections of an article are subject to complaint, the whole thing is open to question. The way to get rid of general tags, as of any tag, is to fix the article so that almost everyone can tolerate it. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 06:22, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
We all seem to agree that it will take a long time to work through the issues on this page. Let's just leave the tag up until we're done. Seems pretty simple. Leadwind (talk) 16:37, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
Agreed. The article in key sections is very POV, in particular the Cultural influences section created by Xandar and Nancy Heise from an apologetics perspective. What seems to happen is that they have the right to impose such material then defend every single word that is subject to change. They both have the habit of taking what seems the legitimate and substantive criticism raised by other editors and then sarcastically using the same words against their "opponents" - reeking of deception in the process. This is my sincere wish for Christmas eve and without any hint of malice: please Xander and Nancy Heisse leave this page alone and let peace and goodwill prevail in 2010. Taam (talk) 17:07, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
Certainly not. We're not having the article littered with misleading banner tags, put up by people with individual peeves, and wanting them to stay in place until they are personally satisfied. We've already seen that when one person gets away with placing a tag instead of engaging, then all sots of others think they have a "Right" to do so. That way every Wikipedia article would be a mess of misleading banner tags, since every article will have people who disagree with its tone or aspects of content selection and presentation, and want their personal tag to remain forever - or until the article is rewritten to suit them. Which will of course make the article "POV" to someone else - who will then add more tags.
General tags on the whole article are ridicuous when the genuine issues raised amount to about 2% of the content of the article. Moans about the "tone" and theological misconceptions not included. The way to raise serious points is to engage constructively on the talk page, and be prepared to see other people's positions. The way forward is to raise any individual issues, come up with solid reliable references to back up your position and then discuss and attempt to reach agreement - not to make a load of general accusations of POV and plaster banner tags everywhere. As for Leadwind's specific points, he would get a lot better reception if he had come in with the right attitude. I don't think anyone can genuinely say that we are not prepared to discuss all topics, and adapt to criticism. However there are references for virtually everything in the article, and if you want changes you need to argue a very good case. A lot of Leadwind's points show a failure to read through recent debates when issues such as origins of the Church, abuse, the Nazis and naming were discussed in depth. the split between east and West has also been heavily discussed, and leadwind's comments on this and the naming of Ecumenical councils seem to represent a factional viewpoint. Points such as alleged "adoration" of statues of saints, and the supposed invention of purgatory, reflect the sort of criticisms that emerge from low-quality websites with a deep misunderstanding of Catholioc theology. Leaving aside all this, there is very little meat in leadwind's objections at all to justify a tag of any sort, let alone a general one. Leadwind is free to continue to make his points, but he needs to bring them up in the context of the various sections that are being reviewed. Xandar 00:02, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
I post this reply with some reluctance, it being hardly seasonal; but this really contains too many absurdities to ignore.
  • As a minor point, it would be pleasant to have statistics, even rhetorical statistics, make some sense. This article is long, but 2% of its whole length is only 4100 characters ≈ 750 words; 2% of the text would be much less. The matters already in queue, including Hamiltonstone's samples (and they are only samples of a much wider problem) amount to more then that.
  • I don't think anyone can genuinely say that we are not prepared to discuss all topics, and adapt to criticism. I do so say, genuinely and with the utmost conviction. This is another quarter-truth; the people Xandar calls "we" are willing to repeat ad nauseam that their text is "perfect, consensus of all editors, and can be objected to only by bigots". This is not discussion - especially in response to an editor who dissents. They also revert-war, and have meat-puppets revert-war against any changes - or even acknowledge that there is a conflict (this is why the article is presently protected).
  • supposed invention of purgatory. Xandar has a fine hand at invective, but a most parochial understanding of the republic of letters; consider, pray, the results of a search for "the invention of purgatory". Some of the results are indeed theological treatises, both Protestant and Catholic, but Jacques Le Goff, Stephen Greenblatt, Andrew Cowell, Robert A. King, Richard K. Fenn suppose it; are they writing low-quality Protestant websites?- and that's just the first page of hits.
This last may in fact reveal the root of the problem; there are all too many here for which the alternatives are (1) their own school of theology within the Roman Church and (2) Protestant lies; there is nothing else - not the history of ideas, not psychology, not analysis of texts. This may well be heresy; but it is certainly not compatible with "Wikipedia is not a battlefield", which is policy; as here. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 07:44, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
  • But let us see whether this adaptability is more than self-praise: a dozen sentences are criticized in this (second-level) section, mostly above the break. Is there a proposal to abandon any single one of them, especially in this overlong and overburdened article? I will reconsider my opinion of anyone who does so, even our two most prominent stonewallers. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 08:21, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
My main point is that the amount of solid points produced by Leadwind (not recently discussed, or vague, or from a factional worldview) are few, and in applicable to limited sections of the article. Some of his points (more on inquisitions, popes, abuse etc,) directly contradict the thrust of other complaints, making my point that if his tag was justified - a pov tag would always be on the article - and most others. Xandar 00:34, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Regarding the Filioque, it was not an innovation. If it is true that in the inherent, complementary, ordered Nature of The Blessed Trinity, that Jesus Christ is ONE IN BEING WITH THE FATHER, then The Holy Spirit must proceed from both The Father and The Son, to begin with.Nancy Danielson (talk) 20:17, 27 December 2009 (UTC) N.D.

Nancy, could you find a good historical source that agrees with you that the Filioque isn't an innovation? Arians taught that the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Son, and the Third Council of Toledo added "filioque" to the Creed at the same time that the local Arian Visigoths agreed to join the Catholic Church. Coincidence? Leadwind (talk) 22:34, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
I believe that Nancy Danielson means that the doctrine is not an innovation, since it follows necessarily from the rest of the Creed. Of course, we cannot say this, since it is (patently) not consensus - the Eastern Churches do not agree. (How far back the deduction goes is another question.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:25, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

The Eastern Churches believe that Jesus Christ is ONE IN BEING WITH THE FATHER. If it is true that Jesus Christ is ONE IN BEING WITH THE FATHER, then the Holy Spirit must proceed from both The Father and The Son.Nancy Danielson (talk) 05:47, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure why people are so worked up about the POV tag, as if it's some sort of vandalism. There are ongoing neutrality disputes over this page, from its title to its sources, and the tag alerts the reader to this issue. That seems to be what POV tags are for. Leadwind (talk) 22:34, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

No. POV tags are temporary and specific items, to alert editors, not readers, to a specific dispute. They are not intended to be placed on whole major articles at the whim of any person who has POV disagreements with certain aspects of the article. If Leadwind's ideas on tagging were accepted, every major article would hacve a permanent set of tags on it. Leadwinds "disputes" are largely items in discussion already or ones recently resolved through proper procedures. The fact that he doesn't like what was decided doesn't give him or anyone else the right to post misleading tags. Xandar 22:45, 29 December 2009 (UTC)
Do you claim a source for this, or are you making up policy again?
It is true that any given set of tags can be removed quickly, and should be removed when the dispute is settled. The way to settle it is to settle the dispute by working out a new text which can be tolerated by those who objected to the old text, thus actually creating a broader consensus. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:35, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
Which is what we are doing. However we cannot have misleading semi-permanent banner tags placed on top of major articles on the basis of one or two editor's vague peeves against small parts of that article. That is not what tags are for. If we wait until everyone in the world is totally happy with every WP article then all the articles would be permanently tagged. Xandar 02:44, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Problems with the History section

There are a number of editors who have expressed the opinion that this article is too long. One area of focus is the History section which has been characterized both as too long and having a POV bias. It has been suggested that shortening the History section will help to reduce the amount of bias. I agree with these assessments and with the suggestion to shorten the History section.

With this in mind, I have re-read the History section and my assessment is that the first part of it (the part before the "Age of Discovery") is actually reasonably well-written. There are perhaps some areas in the first part that need attention to fix POV bias but it is hard for me to see how it could be trimmed very much.

However, starting with the section on the "Age of Discovery", the prose starts becoming more detailed and more verbose. I attribute this to a desire to address various controversial issues with each side attempting to add more information to counterbalance the points made by other side and all in the name of NPOV. This is what happens with our current presentation of slavery as well as our presentation of the Reichskonkordat and Mit Brennender Sorge.

IMHO, what we need to do is to trim back the treatment of the last few hundred years of Church history to match the summary style used to present the first 1500 years or so. We need much less detail in the main text. If there is a need to present detailed information, it should be done in a Note.

We need not, for instance, go into detail about the anti-clerical violence in Mexico. It would be sufficient to mention that it happened and give the period in which it happened. IMHO, it is far more important to communicate to the reader that anti-clericalism was not an isolated phenomenon popping up in some countries but was rather a liberal attack on the Church which was, at the time, generally associated with conservative, landed power structures.

--Richard S (talk) 21:24, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree with almost all of this; the last sentence may be a difference in phrasing, which would be emended in actual drafting. However, speaking of a "liberal attack" on the Church is an oversimplification; most of the anti-clericals would have been content with "a free Church in a free State". The liberales supported toleration, economic efficiency (including equitable taxation), and (in some cases) an agrarian law; the Latin American clergy opposed all of these - the first in principle, the other two because they would have borne some of the costs.
But this is no more "an attack on the Church" than the numerous Italian princes who have found themselves at war with the Papacy. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:34, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
  • I agree with the general point, although more recent periods should be given some more space than remoter ones. But there is more trimable in the later than early sections. Johnbod (talk) 01:16, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
I don't see any problem with a trim, but we do need to agree to work through the sub-sections IN ORDER. Just constantly dotting about from one topic to another is getting us nowhere and is really frustrating. We do need some discipline here. If we are agreed on the sections prior to Age of Exploration, let us all say so, note the agreement on this page, and pass on to the next, deal with that and move on etc. No tagging, no edit-warring, no dealing with topics out of the agreed rotation. People may list their concerns here, but we deal with them in the strict, decided, order. That way we could get this thing sorted in a couple of months (hopefully.) Xandar 02:11, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
I agree, Xandar. I was just reporting my overall assessment. To my mind, the question is whether we take the subsections in chronological order (possibly starting at the very beginning of the History section) or whether we start later in time (e.g. at the "Age of Discovery"). I personally think we get more "bang for the buck" focusing on the last few hundred years and then revisiting the first 1500 years afterwards. However, other editors may have a different order of priorities. --Richard S (talk) 03:03, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
I agree too. I don't mind what order things are done in, so long as we actually resolve things before moving on. At the moment issues get raised, debated for a while, & then die down without any real resolution, while another bunch of issues are opened for the same treatment. Johnbod (talk) 20:01, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
No section is "resolved"; very little novel wording has been accepted anywhere, and all the sections seem to retain both error and bias. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:15, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
Actually I just don't think it is true that "very little novel wording has been accepted anywhere". Most of the issues raised have resulted in changes, but not necessarily ones that have a wide degree of acceptance. Johnbod (talk) 17:19, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
I'll accept the distinction. The changes have not, in general (except perhaps in the lead), satisfied those of us who were dissatisfied before; but there certainly have been verbal - if not substantive - shifts. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:49, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
Ok. On the whole I think this is because we have not stayed with issues long enough to hammer out a widely accepted version, but been distracted by new issues being raised. Heaven knows, it is tedious work fine-tuning draft wordings, but I think the possibility for generally aagreed wordings is there. As it is, the passages get left before that stage is reached. Johnbod (talk) 21:51, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
I don't believe that, but let's test the hypothesis. Pick one of the sentences questioned by Hamiltonstone - or anything else already mentioned, and we can make it the only item currently being worked on. We will see if any expression (including silence) which does not constitute special pleading can be accepted by our dualist contingent. If you are interested, say so now; but take time to consult on which. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:55, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
On the whole, I think a sentence would make a better test case; my position on the inquisition paragraphs below is that about 70% of them are simply improper, as NPOV violations. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:31, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Happy now? Pt1: Albigensian Crusade & Inquisitions

Fine - let's see if we are finished with the Albigensian Crusade, which flows on the Inquisitions. The old text was:
12th century France witnessed the emergence of Catharism, a belief which stated that matter was evil, "prohibited marriage, encouraged suicide, and ... combined asceticism with immorality."[299] After a papal legate was murdered by the Cathars in 1208, Pope Innocent III declared the Albigensian Crusade.[300] Abuses committed during the crusade prompted Innocent III to informally institute the first papal inquisition to prevent future abuses and to root out the remaining Cathars.[301][302] Formalized under Gregory IX, this Medieval inquisition put to death an average of three people per year for heresy at its height.[295][302]
Over time, other inquisitions were launched by secular rulers to prosecute heretics, often with the approval of Church hierarchy, to respond to the threat of Muslim invasion or for political purposes.[303] King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain formed an inquisition in 1480, originally to deal with distrusted converts from Judaism and Islam to Catholicism.[304] Over a 350-year period, this Spanish Inquisition executed between 3,000 and 4,000 people,[305] representing around two percent of those accused.[306] In 1482 Pope Sixtus IV condemned the excesses of the Spanish Inquisition, but Ferdinand ignored his protests.[307] Some historians argue that for centuries Protestant propaganda and popular literature exaggerated the horrors of the inquisitions in an effort to associate the Catholic Church with acts committed by secular rulers.[308][309][310] Over all, one percent of those tried by the inquisitions received death penalties, leading some scholars to consider them rather lenient when compared to the secular courts of the period.[305][311] The inquisition played a major role in the final expulsion of Islam from Sicily and Spain.[270]

Now we have:

Twelfth century France witnessed the emergence of Catharism, a dualist heresy that had spread from Eastern Europe through Germany. After the Cathars were accused of murdering a papal legate in 1208,[301] Pope Innocent III declared the Albigensian Crusade against them. When this turned into an "appalling massacre",[302] he instituted the first papal inquisition to prevent further massacres and to root out the remaining Cathars.[302][303][304] Formalized under Gregory IX, this Medieval inquisition put to death an average of three people per year for heresy.[297][304]

[Next para all the same]

Are we all happy with the current text? The first para is nearly all changed, the second all unchanged, so please distinguish between them. Johnbod (talk) 23:23, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

No, certainly not. It's very long, and very defensive - as one of Raul's Rules says, if you can tell what point of view the text was written from, it's not neutral. This is well out of my field, so I cannot speak off-hand about accuracy - except for the final sentence, which equivocates between "expulsion of Islam", as a ruling power (the normal meaning, in which sense it is false) and suppression of Islam, by religious persecution (in which sense it is weasel-wording). Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:40, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
Well suggest an alternative draft then. Johnbod (talk) 03:16, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Not my field, but:

Twelfth century France witnessed the emergence of Catharism, a dualist heresy that had spread from Eastern Europe through Germany. After the Cathars were accused of murdering a papal legate in 1208,[301] Pope Innocent III declared the Albigensian Crusade against them. When this turned into an "appalling massacre",[302] he instituted the first papal inquisition to prevent further massacres and to root out the remaining Cathars.[302][303][304]
Over time, other inquisitions were launched by secular rulers to prosecute heretics, often with the approval of Church hierarchy, to respond to the threat of Muslim invasion or for political purposes.[303] King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain formed an inquisition in 1480, originally to deal with involuntary converts from Judaism and Islam to Catholicism, who might be still practicing their original religion.[304]

is at least an improvement. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:37, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

[Note - 1st para unchanged except for cutting the last sentence] I doubt if most would see it as such. It will be much too short for the frequent visiting Black Legend fans, and does not include the facts that run against popular Hammer Films preconceptions. but let's see what others think. Johnbod (talk) 04:02, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
I am a long way out of my field. For example, the references above to Black Legend and Hammer Films both mean nothing to me. However, since I jumped in earlier, I want to try and make a constructive contribution. The general tone and referencing of PMA's text is the kind of thing I would be expecting in this article. One reservation (and it is one i haven't thought through that carefully) is that I would at some point want a sense of what the inquisitions were and/or what they did (in the sense of what was their nature, what kind of institution were they?) At present we have "...first papal inquisition to prevent further massacres and to root out the remaining Cathars". What I would want is a phrase or sentence about here that explains what an inquisition is. And, again as a lay person, a version such as suggested by PMA that did not use the phrase "Spanish Inquisition" together with a link would seem rather to avoid mentioning the most readily-known example that someone might look for in the text. Finally, i thought the sentence "In 1482 Pope Sixtus IV condemned the excesses of the Spanish Inquisition, but Ferdinand ignored his protests" was interesting in that it helps to show the complexity of the relationship between church and state in these matters. Earlier on in the text the point was made that inquisitions often had the approval of the church, yet in this particular case, the church went on to criticise their administration. I think that is an interesting point to try and retain if possible. These remarks aside, I like the general approach of PMA's text. hamiltonstone (talk) 11:48, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
Sorry, Black Legend and Hammer Films. Presumably the bit you want back is regarded as POV by PMA. Of course it is easier to avoid POV accusations by saying nothing about anything, but this does not help meet FAC comprehensiveness requirements. Johnbod (talk) 12:38, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
(ec) The "Black Legend" is an opprobrious nickname for unfavorable accounts of Spanish colonialism in the Americas; it is thus off-topic for this section - and probably for this article; Hammer Films is a producer of lurid (and inaccurate) historical films. In short, Johnbod is expecting an inwash of lumpish Protestant teen-agers, whom we should take the opportunity to re-educate.
I am strongly opposed to this. We will get middle-school students - every general topic article does, and some part of them prove their presence by vandalism; but we are not here to ladle knowledge down our readers' throats (especially by presuming they have seen one side of the issue from an Ian Paisley clone, and making our account counteract what we presume by leaning over the other way just as far). First of all, the presumption is false; many teenagers have seen nothing. More seriously, that approach gives a slanted account to everybody, which is clean contrary to policy.
In short, Hamiltonstone's questions and approach are well-taken, and when I get back to sources I will also rewrite for content. This includes the sentence on Sixtus IV - although the present phrasing does tend to imply that he spoke like a time-travelling Amnesty International representative, and what he said was somewhat (and interestingly) different. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 13:01, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
My comments (without the age-bias suggested by PMA - if anything it is older editors who are more prone to preconceptions I would guess; teenagers today are morely likely to be merely ignorant) are merely based on watching this page intermittently over a long period. I suggest he reads Black Legend, which will correct his idea of what this means. From it I find the useful link to Historical revision of the Inquisition - exactly the sort of link a summary style article like this is supposed to contain, but which has I think never been linked here. If we are "not here to ladle knowledge down our readers' throats" then what are we here for? Amusing ourselves by endless talk page battles with other editors? Johnbod (talk) 13:13, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
Agree with PMA, the Black Legend article is a good example of whitewashing of history and Wikipedia should not be an apologetic's web-site - people can go to Catholic-Answers for that. The Cathars are interesting from the pov of what fueled the movement and its popular support e.g the perceived widespread corruption within the official Church. My own opinion is that the article continuously seeks to apologize for the very human failings of the Church, e.g. the issue is not how many people were willing to be put to death for their beliefs during the period of inquisitions but rather the issue of religious toleration and coercion that the Church only emphatically dealt with during V2, in the aftermath of the holocaust and the Church's own experience of being on the receiving end of such intolerance in some communist states. EB treats the Inquistion wrt to to the Cathars as follows: "In 1252 Pope Innocent IV licensed inquisitors to allow obdurate heretics to be tortured by lay henchmen. It is difficult to determine how common this practice was in the 13th century, but the inquisition certainly acquiesced in the use of torture in the trial of the Knights Templar, a military-religious order, in 1307. Persecution by the inquisition also contributed to the collapse of Catharism, a dualist heresy that had great influence in southern France and northern Italy, by about 1325; although established to defeat that heresy, the inquisition was assisted by the pastoral work of the mendicant orders in its triumph over the Cathars." Taam (talk) 13:35, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
And clearly you have your own POV here! So "Spain and Spaniards" are indeed" "cruel", "intolerant" and "fanatical""? Johnbod (talk) 17:10, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
The only usage of cruel and fanatical in this section are in Johnbod's post; he flees where no man pursueth.
Is the alternative of conversion or exile - said conversion not to be retracted under penalty of death - "intolerance"? All I can say is that that is a widely held point of view; there is indeed a point of view, advocated by some Christians, some Communists, and some Muslims, that it is a higher tolerance, such as the Truth has the right to exact. "We are entitled to persecute you because we are right; you are not entitled to persecute us because you are wrong." Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:34, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
I was quoting from the Black Legend article, as was fairly clear I would have thought. Pity you didn't bother to look at it to find out what the term really refers to. Johnbod (talk) 19:09, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
The phrase used at one time in catholicism was "error has no rights" and it took some time to recognise and promote the concept of "human rights", largely through the experience of being on the receiving end of the former ideology. Taam (talk) 18:50, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
Protestants have been intolerant on the same argument; the colony of Massachusetts put two Quakers to death for coming back and preaching error in New England again. But the issue, I think, is whether it is possible to discuss anything with people who misquote others, and scream POV whenever anyone dares use intolerance about the conduct of the Catholic Kings. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:11, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
Such as? Now you are the one who "flees where no man pursueth". Johnbod (talk) 19:15, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
Such as this edit. As it stands, it is an accusation that Taam is a bigot who thinks "Spain and Spaniards" are cruel, fanatical, and intolerant, when he did not say the first two, and the third (which he did say) is clearly about Ferdinand and Isabella, not "Spaniards". No reason was given; Johnbod now explains that he deduces it from Taam calling our article Black Legend a whitewash. That is insufficient: It is perfectly possible to admit that there is a Black Legend and still consider our article a whitewash. If Johnbod cares to revise and extend his remarks so that they are not a personal attack and an accusation of personal attacks, I will respond further. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:33, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
I was referring only to his opening point: "the Black Legend article is a good example of whitewashing of history and Wikipedia should not be an apologetic's web-site - people can go to Catholic-Answers for that" I suggest you avoid making inferences from other people's comments, since you are usually very wide of the mark. Johnbod (talk) 22:15, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
I was not impressed by the Black Legend article because it seems to attribute all of the commonly held criticisms of the era of conquest to legend, e.g the product of protestant bigots. The only counter viewpoint is tacked on in small paragraph at the end of a long article. It is a good example of forking a subject into a narrow category where the basic premise, i.e "Black Legend", is treated as an absolute truth into which any perfectly valid criticisms of the era of colonization can be written off as bigotry. It is apologetic's, of the dreary nationalist genre, masquerading as history. Taam (talk) 20:33, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
I don't know why you & PMA are obsessed with colonization here; the Eighty Years War, Antonio Pérez, and other domestic events in Spain are much more what the Black Legend is about; it was created long before anyone was very bothered about what had been done to natives of Latin America. The article does not purport to deal with the whole of Spanish history in the period, and it is a notable topic in historiography. Re-examining "commonly held" views is an essential function of history, and links to such articles should not be suppressed here. Johnbod (talk) 22:26, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
Johnbod, I think you do highlight a good point unwittingly, when you characterize people as obsessive. My own, albeit limited experience, of PMA is that he would efficiently delete anything that came from an anti-catholic bias, he is certainly not the stereotypical bigot that seems to be the all pervasive model of the those who have constructed this article. My own pov is that the article should not be structured as an apologetic hit list to address infantile prejudice because in the process in makes editors in question look like immature Christians with a weak faith that collapses in the face of realism, but at this point my feeling is that if even you can be so hostile this is an "exit stage left, pursued by a bear" situation Taam (talk) 13:29, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
Sorry, you've lost me completely there, but I can only say you are no better at inferring my views than PMA. If you had longer experience of this article, talk page and its FACs, you would I think understand how very many editors demand to have such matters addressed properly. PMA's text would be regarded by very many as a Catholic apologetic "whitewash", to use your term, and I have considerable sympathy with that position myself, though I'm equally sure such was not PMA's intention. Johnbod (talk) 14:05, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
  • What indeed are we here for? To write from a point of view that neither sympathizes with nor disparages its subject, nor does it endorse or oppose specific viewpoints; Johnbod may find the page behind the link interesting - if he has expressed his view clearly, he will be surprised by its attitude.
  • Those who are not here for that should be encouraged to go elsewhere; either to articles where they are not present to fight, or to projects which do not have neutrality as a core value.
  • In accordance with this, we should not endorse nor disparage any one school of historical research. Historical revision of the Inquisition should be linked to from a balanced account of ecclesiastical historiography; it would be nice if this page contained room for one, but it doesn't. Linking to it from here would be like linking to an article on Cold War revisionism - by itself - from Cold War. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 13:51, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
Mentioning something does not mean endorsing it. In the absence (I presume) of "a balanced account of ecclesiastical historiography", it is better to link Historical revision of the Inquisition from here than not - the existing text, unlike yours, has a very suitable place to hang the hook. Believe it or not, I have read WP:NPOV. Johnbod (talk) 17:10, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
To quote Saint Basil, "You have read, but you have not understood; if you had understood, you would have agreed." Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:24, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

← I'm fine with the text PMA proposed (see above under "Not my field") with one minor tweek: let's use another term besides refer to Catharism using a term other than "heresy". Wikilinks can be added as needed. As other editors have mentioned, brevity is essential so that this article isn't bloated. Majoreditor (talk) 22:28, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Would you suggest one? As far as I am concerned, "Catharist heresy" is the standard term, whatever its history; it retains no more ideological color than, say, Edward the Confessor, which is equally theological at root. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:26, 28 December 2009 (UTC)


In addition to PMAs wording, I think it would be notable to retain mention of Sixtus's disapproval of Ferdinand's inquisition, and/or mention of the percentage of executions of accused by the inquisitions. Xandar 00:40, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
This is a proposal of no substantive change in the version we began with. Let us know when you have a novel proposal, Xandar. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:17, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Now let me see if I have Johnbod's position clear:

  • He supposes that the text he began with may be acceptable to all (including FAC reviewers?), although it includes long tendentious passages about the Inquisition wasn't So Bad, After All - at least one of them based on equivocation and error.
  • He also says that the text I proposed (as an improvement, not the best available text by miles) would be regarded by "very many as a Catholic apologetic "whitewash"." I see no evidence of this; I did my best to include nobody's whitewash.

Let him then present a draft which would not be regarded as a Catholic whitewash. (As with mine, which reused much existing language, I will not hold him to detail; I merely confess to extreme confusion as what he has in mind. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:31, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

I asked if the current text is acceptable to all (at the time I chose this passage I had long lost touch with what the current version was). I stand by my comments on his draft, which I expect will be understood by anyone who has been watching the page for a year or more. Omission of any detail on medieval inquisitions would certainly, and rather understandably, be regarded as pro-Catholic bias by very many editors who have complained about this for far lesser things. In the PMA draft, a Martian would find it hard to understand why the Spanish Inquisition is even mentioned. I will have a go at a draft later - or anyone else is very welcome to try. Johnbod (talk) 04:29, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
I doubt that; the complaints of pro-Catholic bias have generally been for explicit and express pro-Catholic bias, such as the sentences I removed from my draft. (Some people prefer to respond to encomia by including the other side; I find silence easier - that's a question of rhetoric and length.) In any case, no, this section - both as it stands and as the version in text - is radically unacceptable. Is there still anyone who doesn't understand why? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:53, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
"the complaints of pro-Catholic bias have generally been for explicit and express pro-Catholic bias" is simply not true, although I am certainly not going to dredge up diffs for that. Johnbod (talk) 22:14, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
I don't believe Johnbod; I further observe that the statement about FACs above is false; every FAC has contained complaints of POV backed by specific objectionable statements from the article, many still there. It may well be that some comments in article space have assumed that what is meant by "pro-Catholic POV" would be obvious to any honest editor - as indeed they should be. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:20, 29 December 2009 (UTC)
Nonsense - "there's nothing about foo..." comments about the article litter all the various locations for discussion. I rather think some current participants here entered on that sort of note - look up Leadwind's initial comments for example. Johnbod (talk) 00:49, 29 December 2009 (UTC)
  • What Leadwind said repeatedly is "downplayed"; that is a relative term - and he applies it to inquisitions, about which the existing text is certainly not silent. This therefore means "palliated", which the article does. If he said it before, presumably he meant the same.
  • In any case, this is a dilatory and disruptive complaint. If we stop viewing the Inquisitions through rose-colored glasses, we will deserve fewer objections of this kind, and can answer them - by refutation or concession - when they arrive.
We are only discussing two paragraphs. If there is no draft in 24 hours, however clumsy, I shall take this thread as abandoned - in exchange for this sort of pointless recrimination. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:07, 29 December 2009 (UTC)
Would that be an "unconditional demand"? Johnbod (talk) 01:11, 29 December 2009 (UTC)
No; you are perfectly free to supply one or not. I, however, do not propose to pretend this thread is active when no progress is being made on it. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:56, 29 December 2009 (UTC)
  • On the substance, I commend this passage, from Ludwig Pastor's History of the Popes from the close of the Middle Ages, IV, 398-405 (Thus it goes on for several pages). It makes clear that there were several letters from Sixtus, most of them the foundation documents of the Inquisition as it spread over Spain, and the abuses he wished curb were the lawless use of the Inquisition against enemies of the Crown who never had been Jewish. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:14, 30 December 2009 (UTC)


I'm wondering whether PMA is serious. He suggests a cut-down text, to which i say we should at list mention the numbers sentenced or Sixtus's disapproval, and PMA states that I want the whole original text kept unchanged! Clearly not. I was attempting to reach some sort of compromise - a concept apparently alien to some. As Johnbod says, when cutting things down, we need to keep some solid information. So hopefully most of us can agree a compromise text for this section. Xandar 22:54, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Eminently serious.
Henry Ford is supposed to have answered someone who asked what colors the Model-T was available in with "Any color you want, as long as you want black." Similarly, Xandar will agree to any text, as long as it's biased in favor fo the Church; I am underwhelmed. To review the bidding:
  • Johnbod asked whether the text at the head of the section was acceptable.
  • It is not. It makes two apologies for the Church: that the Inquisition Wasn't Really That Bad, since it didn't kill that many people; and that Pope Sixtus reined it in, so the Popes are Good Guys.
  • Neither is as strong an apology as it looks, and honest apologists would avoid them; but we're not supposed to be arguing for the Church at all - any more than we are supposed to be arguing that the Church is Icky.
  • So, when challenged to produce a text, I drafted one which omitted both pieces of special pleading and preserved almost all of Johnbod's text otherwise.
  • Xandar declined to agree to this, unless it included both pieces of apologetic. This -again- is verbal, but not substantive flexibility.
  • Xandar now professes surprise that I view him as intransigent.
If this is not bad faith, what would be? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:49, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
I don't have "a text", though I hope to produce a draft, which will not now be until, er, next year. Johnbod (talk) 01:41, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
When you have one, we can discuss it. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:17, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
No. The wording is NOT an apologetic, it merely states the FACT of what number or percentage of inquisition subjects were subject to which penalty. Since this is a matter on which there is widespread misinformation, I think it is a very pertinent fact to include. That PMA sees including such an well-supported fact as "apologetic" suggests more about his outlook than mine. Many reliable sources go further and state that, contrary to popular misconception, the inquisitions were actually the most well-ordered and lenient courts of the period. I wouldn't insist on keeping that in this article, because it is a potentially controversial statement, but including facts about what the inquisitions actually did should not be considered POV, even if it does upset some misconceptions.
Nor did I demand BOTH pieces of information be included (Sixtus and the figures). Check again. I said "or". But just to say the church ran inquisitions, and to mention the (notorious) Spanish Inquisition, without any mention of key facts or complexities, is not NPOV.
Again, I did not, as PMA suggests, demand retention of all the original wording. I made no objection to the elimination of half the original wording, nearly all favourable to the Catholic position namely "Some historians argue that for centuries Protestant propaganda and popular literature exaggerated the horrors of the inquisitions in an effort to associate the Catholic Church with acts committed by secular rulers.[308][309][310] Over all, one percent of those tried by the inquisitions received death penalties, leading some scholars to consider them rather lenient when compared to the secular courts of the period.[305][311] The inquisition played a major role in the final expulsion of Islam from Sicily and Spain.[270]"
I think this goes a LONG way to demonstrate good faith. Xandar 00:38, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
Let's see. As a matter of form and law, the Inquisition was not a court, any more than it was a temporal institution - this is shown at length in the passage from Pastor linked to above, which remarks that this is why its subjects were released to the secular arm, with a formal recommendation to leniency.
Xandar claims as a merit that he only insisted on one argument that the Inquisition was Not So Bad After All, instead of three. I'm whelmed; neutral point of view would not argue for any controversial point at all - but Xandar is at base opposed to neutrality. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:17, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
PMA remains apparently unable to see the difference between making arguments on the page, and the presentation of relevant, significant and uncontroverted facts. Presenting the facts on sentences without interpretation, he interprets as arguing FOR the inquisition. This seems to me an illogical viewpoint - like arguing that saying 300,000 people were killed in Iraq is making a point either way. Xandar 23:38, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
  • It is all too clear that Xandar is capable of telling that making statements can be a method of argumentation, since he insists only on inserting those claims which do make up a specific set of arguments.
  • So does policy; that's why we have WP:SYNTH, which says Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources, even if (as it adds) each point so combined is reliably sourced. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:07, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Alban Butler?

Does the good soul responsible for this edit realize that

  • Alban Butler died in the eighteenth century?
  • That it is unsound practice to ascribe notes to a book, added by somebody else, to the original author?
  • That hagiographies are rarely reliable, and never neutral, sources? After all, Alban Butler - the actual, living, man - can be cited for the 11,000 deaths of the companions of Saint Ursula, who were sheer fantasy. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:37, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

I doubt I need ask whether he knows anything about the course of the Spanish Civil War; but there was a rather brisk war within Barcelona, fought by the forces of the Republic against the anarchists. The present phrasing denies this. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:42, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

    • No doubt you take the same firm line against Webster's Dictionary? Johnbod (talk) 22:20, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
      • I don't attribute it to Noah Webster. It is, however, a reliable source for American English - although there may well be better ones, depending on the topic. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:43, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
        • I deliberately didn't put a figure on the number of priests and nuns killed in the Spanish civil war as I suspected it would lead to this kind of POV dispute. Having said that, Red Terror (Spain) at least uses an academic history journal as its source rather than a Catholic hagiography.Haldraper (talk) 10:53, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Reading the sentences in question again, it strikes me there may be other problems apart from the source.

Anti-clericalism also resulted in violence and expropriation of Church properties in Spain and the Soviet Union.[385] During the 1936-39 Spanish Civil War, over 6,000[386] priests and nuns were killed by republicans and anarchists.[387]

I haven't read the quote from Norman as it's not part of the limited preview on Google Books but I suspect we may have slipped into WP:OR and WP:SYN here: the Spanish republicans were anti-clerical, priests and nuns were killed by them in the civil war, therefore their motivation was anti-clericalism. Red Terror (Spain) does not attribute all the killings to anti-clericalism, giving a more rounded picture that includes links between the Church and the Nationalist side in the civil war. That is beyond the scope of an overview so I suggest we fix the problem by saying:

The 1930's also saw violence against clergy and expropriation of Church properties in Spain and the Soviet Union.[385] During the 1936-39 Spanish Civil War, over 6,000[386] priests and nuns were killed by republicans and anarchists.[387] Haldraper (talk) 19:15, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

If they were killed by revolting peasants in 1936-7, we should probably say so. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:08, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

"basic civil and political rights"

Haldraper's edit "clarifying" the phrase "basic civil and political rights" is an improvement since that phrase was ambiguous and the concept of "basic civil and political rights" in the Latin America of the 1830s is a bit anachronistic. It should be pointed out that Haldraper's new text isn't really a clarification of the previous so much as it is a substitution of vague text with dubious support with specific text making a different point. Perhaps the editor who originally inserted "basic civil and political rights" can explain what they meant. --Richard S (talk) 17:50, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

  • That would be this edit. I would call Haldraper's text (Church properties were confiscated, the collection of clerical fees from the poor regulated, the number of religious holidays reduced and clerical dress in public prohibited.) specific, but that may be a question of what "substitution" (above) means. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:45, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
    • Sorry, I was in a hurry when I wrote the initial comment and apparently didn't express my thought very clearly. My point is that the phrase "basic civil and political rights" is vague and unsupported. Haldraper's new text is specific but the actions he describes did not attack "basic civil and political rights" so his new text substitutes a different point for the one that was being made before. I don't know if there is a valid point about "basic civil and political rights" to be made here. To talk about "basic civil and political rights" in the Latin America of the 1830s seems to be a retrojection of 20th century thinking into a barely post-feudal 19th century society. I was hoping the original writer of that phrase could clarify what his/her intent was. --Richard S (talk) 20:25, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
  • It may be worth distinguishing the "anti-clerical" program of the 1830's from that of the 1920's - and perhaps Mexico from other countries. The Mexican Revolution was not Santa Anna, and it was not really similar to the liberales elsewhere. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:50, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
I think the phrase is part of one of Nancy's edits, so I'm not that clear as to its origins. I know that priests in Mexico were not allowed to teach, wear clerical vestments, hold services or processions or take part in political processes. Xandar 23:22, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
Yes and in the 21st century, those prohibitions would violate what we consider to be "basic civil and political rights" (even a priest is allowed to participate in politics as long as he is not supported by funds from a not-for-profit organization). Even in the 19th century, the basic principles of freedom of speech and freedom of religion were established (if not fully elaborated) in the United States. But, was this true in 1830s Latin America? The point here is that discussion of "basic civil and political rights" in the context of 1830s Latin American seems to be somewhat anachronistic. If the phrase came from Nancy, I would like to know if it is her own writing or if she is quoting from a source. If the latter, then we should look at what the source said exactly and evaluate whether it is reasonable to express the idea this way. A simple solution would be to avoid using the locution ""basic civil and political rights" altogether and just say what was prohibited as Haldraper has done. --Richard S (talk) 02:55, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
But, was this true in 1830s Latin America? Evidently not; the clericals refused to recognize any such rights in non-Catholics. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:54, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

More generally, this is not two different sets of facts, but a confusion between genres. If we were writing a legal brief, or a declamation on the Thousand Sorrows of the Virgin in Latin America, we would indeed call Haldraper's specifics violations of the rights of property and the right to exercise of religion, and in so doing declare them "basic civil and political rights". This would give the reader a vague impression of much more than actually happened - but that would be the rhetorical purpose.

We, however, are supposed to be writing an encyclopedia, and rabble-rousing is inappropriate. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:02, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Church in WWII

Another section that needs a radical trim to cut POV, undue weight and peacock problems.

As it stands:

Pius XII, elected pope in March,1939, sought to prevent war by intervening with the leaders of European countries.[402] After the war began in September 1939, he "sought to limit the extension of the conflict, to assist its victims, and to reach a just peace".[402] Pius XII's October 1939 encyclical Summi Pontificatus condemned the invasion of Poland.[402] He condemned the 1940 Nazi invasions.[402] When Dutch bishops protested against the wartime deportation of Jews, the Nazis responded by increasing deportations,[398] rounding up 92 Catholic converts including Edith Stein, who were then deported and murdered.[403] According to some scholars, "the brutality of the retaliation made an enormous impression on Pius XII"[403] who felt that further denunciations would only lead the Nazis to extend their persecution to more people.[404] When allied governments pressed the Pope to strengthen his condemnations, he feared that such action would be counterproductive and only provoke further persecutions.[404] In Poland alone, the Nazis murdered over 2,500 monks and priests and even more were imprisoned.[405]

After the war, Pius XII's efforts to protect their people were recognised by prominent Jews including Albert Einstein and Rabbi Isaac Herzog.[406] However, the Church has also been accused by some of encouraging centuries of antisemitism and Pius himself of not doing enough to stop Nazi atrocities.[407][408] Prominent members of the Jewish community have contradicted these criticisms.[409] The Israeli historian Pinchas Lapide interviewed war survivors and concluded that Pius XII "was instrumental in saving at least 700,000, but probably as many as 860,000 Jews from certain death at Nazi hands". Some historians dispute this estimate[410] while others consider Pinchas Lapide's work to be "the definitive work by a Jewish scholar" on the holocaust.[411] Even so, in 2000 Pope John Paul II on behalf of all people, apologized to Jews by inserting a prayer at the Western Wall.[412]''

My proposed alternative:

After the Second World War began in September 1939, the Church condemned the invasion of Poland[402] and the 1940 Nazi invasions.[402]

After the war, Pope Pius XII's efforts to protect the Jews were recognised by Albert Einstein and Rabbi Isaac Herzog.[406] However, the Church has also been accused by some of encouraging centuries of antisemitism and Pius himself of not doing enough to stop Nazi atrocities.[407][408] In 2000, Pope John Paul II, on behalf of all people, apologized to Jews by inserting a prayer at the Western Wall.[412]'' Haldraper (talk) 21:35, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

I'd suggest combining your two paragraphs as the first is only one sentence long. And I think that an abbreviated version of Pinchas Lapide's findings would be useful to include in the article. Majoreditor (talk) 00:23, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
By some is logically redundant. Please remove. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:37, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
  • Oh for heaven's sake! Can we actually deal with some of the several already being discussed before starting new hares? Johnbod (talk) 00:53, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
    • No, apparently we can't; every effort to deal with one being met with unconditional demands for apologetic, accusations of anti-catholicism, and other stonewalling. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:14, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
Most of the "unconditional demands" are coming from you these days. Maybe you should try discussion rather than invective. Johnbod (talk) 01:30, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
Physician, heal thyself. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:32, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
After you! Johnbod (talk) 01:35, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
Please strike this entire thread. I have made a proposal, and expressed willingness to alter it when it was discussed in detail; here I have suggested, with a please, omitting two words which are both logically void and rhetorically question-begging; my only unconditional demand is neutrality. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:41, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

I have no problem with striking those two words, they are not mine, they are from the current version (added I think for 'balance', although I don't see the sentence as having an anti-Catholic POV without them). Also, in the final sentence, "on behalf of all people", an attempt to deflect attention from Catholic anti-Semitism, is unsupported by the text of the Western Wall Prayeror any ref so is WP:OR.Haldraper (talk) 09:02, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Arbitrary section break

Opposed to the proposed wording, with the radically anti-Catholic, Abraham Foxman-esque propaganda. As well as the out of context, non-contemporary Wojtylaisms (Wojtyla also "prayed" with pagans at Assisi, why not rewrite the section on the Age of Discovery's Catholic-New World relations to mention his mockery there? Or the Crusades? Or surely anything else). Contemporary Pius XII quotes for that period or no cherry picked quotes at all. A less ethnocentric focus and sticking to the subject of the article would also be advisable. A major WWII event directly relevent to the Catholic World should be given space in that section; the genocide against Catholic Poles at Katyn, inspired by Marxism's anti-christian ideology. - Yorkshirian (talk) 09:20, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Yorkshirian, can you be more specific about what you see as "radically anti-Catholic" about the wording? There is actually no new material in my proposed version, I have just trimmed that which is POV, undue weight or peacocky, so I find your objection a bit strange.
I know we've discussed the relevance of Pope John Paul II's prayer at the Western Wall before and I'm not particularly attached to that sentence. I also know that as a person he offends your religious sensibilities but I hardly think we can go on to rewrite the page to conform to your tradionalist Catholic POV. Similarly, I take your point that "sticking to the subject of the article would also be advisable" so neither can we include Stalin's murder of the Polish army officer corps in WWII in an overview of the history of the Catholic Church! Haldraper (talk) 13:21, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
  • For a start this version is hopelessly lazy in only linking to three biographies. There is a good number of articles on precisely these matters, and as many as possible should be linked. That is the essence of summary style. Johnbod (talk) 13:30, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
That's a very minor criticism Johnbod and one that's easily fixed. You say "For a start", what else do you have a problem with? Haldraper (talk) 16:05, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
See above, I am not considering this section until it hits the front of the queue. Johnbod (talk) 18:27, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
It is on the front of the queue; since you and Xandar have made clear that it is not possible to make progress on the inquisitions. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:59, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
I'll save that ridiculous comment for your RFC. You were claiming to be awaiting my draft, and Xandar has made one comment on one point of yours. Johnbod (talk) 22:11, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
Thanks, I've already had one. You have given no draft, and on this point you have first objected to this page (by making the best the enemy of the good) and then declined to defend or discuss this objection. Both are frivolous, and the combination disruptive. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:44, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
I made a preliminary comment, which does not appear to need discussing or defending, as it has been conceded, though not acted upon. I still have not actually (recently) read the existing text, or the rest of this debate, and I'm sure only you find this either "frivolous" or "disruptive". Johnbod (talk) 15:58, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
How about this?
When the Second World War began in September 1939, the Church condemned the invasion of Poland[402] and the 1940 Nazi invasions.[402] After the war, Pope Pius XII's efforts to protect the Jews were recognised by Albert Einstein and Rabbi Isaac Herzog.[406] The Israeli historian Pinchas Lapide interviewed war survivors and concluded that Pius XII "was instrumental in saving at least 700,000, but probably as many as 860,000 Jews from certain death at Nazi hands". Some historians dispute this estimate[410] while others consider Pinchas Lapide's work to be "the definitive work by a Jewish scholar" on the holocaust.[411] However, the Church has also been accused by some of encouraging centuries of antisemitism and Pius himself of not doing enough to stop Nazi atrocities.[407][408] In 2000, Pope John Paul II, on behalf of all people, apologized to Jews by inserting a prayer at the Western Wall.[412]
We may also want to add a sentence on Catholics who were imprisoned and murdered during the war; certainly that's important enough to merit mention. Thoughts? Majoreditor (talk) 16:54, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
That's a pretty good attempt although I'd cut a couple of WP:UNDUE WEIGHT bits whose only function is to cancel out each other's POV. There is also the WP:OR issue I identified in the last sentence (which has been objected to on other grounds as well). My revised version would be:
When the Second World War began in September 1939, the Church condemned the invasion of Poland[402] and subsequently the 1940 Nazi invasions.[402] After the war, Pope Pius XII's efforts to protect the Jews were recognised by Albert Einstein and Rabbi Isaac Herzog.[406] However, the Church has also been accused of encouraging centuries of antisemitism and Pius himself of not doing enough to stop Nazi atrocities.[407][408] Haldraper (talk) 17:38, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

I think we're still getting bogged down in a few details. I don't see how Einstein's opinion on this is really relevant. How about something along the lines of

During World War II, Nazis targeted Catholic clergy, sending several thousand to concentration camps. Although Pope Pius XII condemned Nazi invasions in 1939 and 1940, according to <??> he feared further denunciations would prove counterproductive. In the decades since, scholars have debated the extent of Pius's efforts to combat antisemitism.

Karanacs (talk) 18:00, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

This strikes me as a step backwards Karanacs: "several thousand" and the final sentence are both very vague. The treatment of Catholic clergy in concentration camps is already adequately covered in the caption to the Dachau photo. And it was not Pius' general antisemitism that was criticised but his alleged inaction to speak out against deportations to the death camps. Einstein like Herzog was included as a prominent member of the international Jewish community but maybe we could confine them both to the refs.
I think however we're in danger with your version of again seeking to speculate on the motives of or offer alibis for the Church's actions: "he feared further denunciations would prove counterproductive". How about this?
When the Second World War began in September 1939, the Church condemned the invasion of Poland[402] and subsequently the 1940 Nazi invasions.[402] After the war, Pope Pius XII's efforts to protect the Jews were recognised[406] although the Church has also been accused of encouraging centuries of antisemitism and of not doing enough to stop Nazi atrocities.[407][408] Haldraper (talk) 18:46, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
One of my biggest issues is raising the argument of whether or not Pius protected the Jews. I think this is too much detail here, and I don't think that Einstein for one is an acceptable source at all for this information. Herzog also appears to be an unacceptable source - he is a politician, not a historian or social scientist. I suspect we can quote all kinds of individuals who think the opposite of these two men - so I don't think we really need to bring up any of that. It should be enough to say that there is a disagreement, although you are probably right that we should be a bit more specific on what the disagreement is, as "antisemitism" is likely too vague. I also don't like confining information solely to captions - I tend not to read those. Karanacs (talk)
You raise some valid points there Karanacs about undue weight and acceptable sources. How about this?
When the Second World War began in September 1939, the Church condemned the invasion of Poland and subsequently the 1940 Nazi invasions.[402]
Since the war, historians have discussed both the Church's role in European antisemitism [407][408] and its response to the Holocaust.[409][410][411] Haldraper (talk) 19:49, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
I think that is better, but I'm not familiar with the opinions of historians to know if this is fair (it seems so, but not my field). I don't like the word "response" as that could be interpreted as either the response during WWII or the response after the war ended (like Hutton Gibson's belief that the Holocaust did not occur). Karanacs (talk) 20:09, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
"Since the war, historians have discussed both the Church's role in European antisemitism [407][408] and its response to the Holocaust." That's just too vague to be worth anything. How about: When the Second World War began, the Church condemned the invasion of Poland[402] and subsequently the 1940 Nazi invasions.[402] Pope Pius XII made substantial efforts to protect Jews from the Nazis,[406] though the Church has been accused of encouraging centuries of antisemitism and of not doing enough to stop Nazi atrocities.[407][408] Leadwind (talk) 22:42, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
Omits that Pius XII has been among the chief object of those accusations; a touch of undue weight. Leave him out entirely? Again, it is not the purpose of this page to defend him. ''When the Second World War began, the Church condemned the invasion of Poland[402] and subsequently the 1940 Nazi invasions.[402] The Church has been accused of encouraging centuries of antisemitism and of not doing enough to stop Nazi atrocities.[407][408]
The versions which Karanacs and Leadwind proposed above aren't bad. In contrast, reducing the history and role of the church in WWII seems a bit much, especially if one of those sentences reads as The Church has been accused of encouraging centuries of antisemitism and of not doing enough to stop Nazi atrocities, which strikes me as narrow and POV. Majoreditor (talk) 04:47, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree that in eliminating POV and undue weight there is a danger of losing context and meaning. I've tweaked my version to take on board Karanacs' and Leadwind's comments while still avoiding POV and undue weight:

When the Second World War began in September 1939, the Church condemned the invasion of Poland and subsequently the 1940 Nazi invasions.[402]

Since the war, historians have debated both the Church's role in European antisemitism [407][408] and the extent to which it assisted the Jews during the Holocaust.[409][410][411] Haldraper (talk) 08:49, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Hal, that may be a bit too minimal. Both Karanacs and Leadwind have proposed OK versions. Below is an attempt to merge their two proposals; it takes all of Leadwind's text and adds Karanacs' initial sentence:
When the Second World War began, the Church condemned the invasion of Poland[402] and subsequently the 1940 Nazi invasions.[402] Pope Pius XII made substantial efforts to protect Jews from the Nazis,[406] though the Church has been accused of encouraging centuries of antisemitism and of not doing enough to stop Nazi atrocities.[407][408] During the war, Nazis targeted Catholic clergy, sending several thousand to concentration camps.
Does this work? Majoreditor (talk) 15:31, 29 December 2009 (UTC)
I actually like Haldraper's last version, with Majoreditor's last sentence (the one borrowed from me) added on.
Text to go along with contorted explanation
When the Second World War began in September 1939, the Church condemned the invasion of Poland and subsequently the 1940 Nazi invasions. During the war, Nazis targeted Catholic clergy, sending several thousand to concentration camps. Since the war, historians have debated both the Church's role in European antisemitism [407][408] and the extent to which it assisted the Jews during the Holocaust.

I am concerned about the statement "substantial efforts to protect Jews from the Nazis" - I believe that the sources this is cited to in the article are not adequate for this comment, and I'd rather not make this a "person A think this but other people don't" argument again. It seems best to me to just mention a debate without detailing the positions of the two sides. Karanacs (talk) 16:23, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

The assertion that the Nazis targetted Catholic clergy requires a source. (Some Catholic clergy, for example, were in the Resistance; but were they targetted in a sense which the lay members of the Resistance were not? Others were in the German Centre Party, but they went to concentration camps long before the war, and - again- no more so than other non-Nazi political leaders. Lastly, and the category which makes thousands: some Catholic priests were converts - or descended from converts - from Judaism.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:14, 29 December 2009 (UTC)
I have tried to meet NPOV by using open formulations that do not lead the reader to a conclusion, hence "historians have debated both the Church's role in European antisemitism and the extent to which it assisted the Jews during the Holocaust", which is the most neutral tone I think we're going to achieve with these controversial issues, rather than "the Church has been accused of encouraging centuries of antisemitism and of not doing enough to stop Nazi atrocities" which reads as if the Church is guilty as charged on both counts despite the "has been accused" bit.
I agree with PMAnderson, we shouldn't be trying to guess people's motivations ('the Nazis did this because they were Catholics..') but rather stating what happened with appropriate refs (as the Dachau chapel photo caption already does). Haldraper (talk) 21:35, 29 December 2009 (UTC)
Ksranacs: I am concerned about the statement "substantial efforts to protect Jews from the Nazis."' It seems like historical fact that substantial efforts were made, but I won't dig in my heels on this issue. I'd like those editors who consider me an anti-Catholic bigot note that here I'm arguing for a more pro-Catholic treatment. Leadwind (talk) 22:07, 29 December 2009 (UTC)
Leadwind, if you look at the refs you'll see that point is heavily disputed by historians, something I've tried to convey in my proposed version without getting into the usual 'X said A but Y countered with B' tennis match style that does nothing to illuminate the issue for the reader and is a pointless exercise in cancelling out opposing POV's.Haldraper (talk) 22:25, 29 December 2009 (UTC)
I'm not sure which reliable sources "heavily dispute" church attempts to protect jews from the Nazis. I would have thought a lot of these actions were beyond dispute. I'm also worried by taking attempts to avoid potential POV so far that the passage conveys little of use to the reader, asi in: "historians have debated both the Church's role in European antisemitism and the extent to which it assisted the Jews during the Holocaust". This says nothing tangible and doesn't even provide a link to a useful article.
In this case majoreditor's version seems better to me, even at the risk of a little "tennis match" to and fro - which at least serves the purpose of alerting the reader to the nature of the argument. To address other concerns, I would amend it slightly to:
When the Second World War began, the Church condemned the invasion of Poland[402] and subsequently the 1940 Nazi invasions.[402] Pope Pius XII made substantial efforts to protect Jews from the Nazis,[406] although the Church has been accused of encouraging historic antisemitism and of not doing enough to stop Nazi atrocities.[407][408] During the war several thousand Catholic clergy were imprisoned in Nazi concentration camps. Xandar 23:37, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Sorry to introduce a different approach so late in the discussion... it's been a busy holiday season.

  • First of all, I'm a little concerned about "when the Second World War began...". This is a bit of retrospective hindsight. At the time of the invasion of Poland, war broke out because various European powers declared war on Germany but no one could be sure that this would be a "world war". After all, the fall of Poland was followed by the Sitzkrieg of 1939/40. More importantly, it suggests a delineation between what the Vatican did before September 1939 and after September 1939. I'm sure there was a difference in degree and frequency but I'm not convinced that the Vatican suddenly began to denounce Nazi Germany more strenuously after September 1939. We don't say that it did but the "when the Second World War began" phrasing could be read that way by some without their even fully recognizing the inference that they are drawing subconsciously. I would therefore suggest something more along lines of "The Vatican denounced the invasion of Poland and other acts of aggression committed during World War II, drawing special attention to atrocities inflicted upon civilians of all faiths and nations." - This phrasing takes the focus away from September 1939 which was an important moment but is really just an arbitrary date in an escalation of aggression and military hostilities.
  • I would propose making a slight modification to the second sentence "In addition, Pope Pius XII directed the Church hierarchy to take substantial efforts to protect Jews from the Nazis[406] including sheltering them in the Vatican." (full stop)
  • Keep this sentence "During the war several thousand Catholic clergy were imprisoned in Nazi concentration camps."
  • Now, let's raise the issue of criticism: "After the war, however, many included the Church among those institutions responsible for historic antisemitism. The Church, in particular Pope Pius XII, was criticized by some for not speaking out forcefully enough and not acting vigorously enough to protect Jews from the Holocaust. Debate over the validity of these criticisms continues to this day."
  • Then, add a Note providing a brief outline of the debate (Hitler's Pope, Pinchas Lapide, Einstein, etc.)
  • I don't insist on having the Note but that is the place to put the details if we must have them in this article.

--Richard S (talk) 00:38, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

It was viewed as a Second World War at the time; the distinction between the European War of 1939-41 and the World War of 1941-45 is A.J.P. Taylor's, some twenty years afterward. It did immediately involve British and French colonies around the world, and naval battles in Madagascar and the South Atlantic. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:55, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
The phrase "at the beginning of the Second World War" is the least of my concerns and I can live with it if no one else agrees with me. It was a mistake for me to argue as to whether the war was seen as the "Second World War" in September 1939. That wasn't my point. My point was that September 1939 is a key date in military and diplomatic history but, in terms of the Church's posture towards Nazi Germany, it is not so clear to me that it represents a change in anything other than the severity of the concern that the Church already had prior to that date. Thus, I wouldn't emphasize the "beginning of the Second World War" in the sentence in question because it doesn't really add any information except for those that don't know that the European part of the Second World War is considered by most to have begun with the invasion of Poland. --Richard S (talk) 07:12, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
Thank you for clarifying; that is a valid concern, to which I cannot now comment. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:26, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Richard's version is generally OK although I have a few minor reservations:

  • 'substantional' is vague and unnecessary and should be cut, verb should also be 'make' before 'efforts'? We will of course need a ref to support the point about Jews being sheltered in the Vatican.
  • 'among those institutions' is similarly vague and unnecessary and should also be cut, I would also create a piped link to Christian anti-semitism here.
  • Catholic clergy in concentration camps are already adequately covered in the caption to the Dachau chapel photo, it seems duplicative to also have a sentence on it in the overview.

I like the last sentence and the idea of a Note. Haldraper (talk) 09:05, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Mention of imprisoned/murdered Catholic clergy shouldn't be isolated to a photo caption. Majoreditor (talk) 12:16, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
That's right; it shouldn't be made at all, unless there is consensus (among the sources) that it is unusual. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:22, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
I can agree most of Richard's suggested changes.
The fact of thousands of Catholic clergy held in concentration camps is very notable, and completes the picture of the Church in WWII.
"Substantial" sounds okay and useful to me. I don't really see the point of those on WP who hate useful but numerically imprecise words such as "substantial", "some", and "many". Just to "make efforts" to save Jews could mean anything from housing and sheltering 200,000, to donating some old clothes to Jewish charities. It seems too imprecise. However if we start talking numbers there will be endless arguments. "Substantial" indicates significant or more than token efforts, and there must be some way of saying that without POV.
Similarly, if we remove 'among those institutions', the relevant sentence would read: "After the war, however, many included(held?..accused?) the Church responsible for historic antisemitism." Such a formulation would make the accusations too strong, since very few, even among her critics, have held the church solely responsible for historic antisemitism -which such a sentence would be wrongly implying. Xandar 00:10, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
Useful? Useful to what, besides sending the reader a message of the Church as Victim? If you want to send a message, get Instant Messenger. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:24, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
I agree with Richard's proposals. And mentioning that clergy were imprisoned and killed is entirely appropriate as it was a significant repression. Majoreditor (talk) 03:55, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
Any other thoughts/comments? Majoreditor (talk) 04:02, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
If you can tell what side the article's on, it's not neutral. Richard's proposal fails this test; so does the present text. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:20, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

This is the present article text: "On 20 July 1933, the Vatican signed an agreement with Germany, the Reichskonkordat, which guaranteed the Church certain rights and freedoms.[390][391] Violations of this led to Pope Pius XI issuing the 1937 encyclical Mit brennender Sorge[390][392][393][394] which publicly condemned Nazi persecution of the Church, neopaganism and the culture of racial superiority.[394][395][396][397] Catholic Mortal Agony of Christ chapel at Dachau concentration camp. Of the 2700 ministers who were imprisoned there during World War II, over 2600 were Catholic priests, 2000 of whom ultimately did not survive.[398] After the Second World War began in September 1939, the Church condemned the invasion of Poland and subsequent 1940 Nazi invasions.[399] During the war, several thousand Catholic clergy were imprisoned in Nazi concentration camps.[398]In the Holocaust, Pope Pius XII directed the Church hierarchy to help protect Jews from the Nazis.[400] However, the Church has also been accused of encouraging centuries of antisemitism and Pius himself of not doing enough to stop Nazi atrocities.[401][402] Debate over the validity of these criticisms continues to this day.[403][404][405]" I don't think this is very good at all.

  1. It does not tell reader why the Church signed the concordat with the Nazis. Omission of that reason makes the statement very POV.
  2. It misrepresents what Mit Brennender Sorge condemned - see the quotes in the refs after that sentence. If all the sources use language that punctuates the importance of this document in condemning Nazism and its leaders on the eve of the war, we are remiss to omit that fact as well as the Nazi waves of persecutions against the Church that followed.
  3. The caption in the picture uses language that changes the meaning conveyed by the source.
  4. The section on the Holocaust debate is not better than before but seriously worse. We have eliminated useful and interesting facts in the effort to be concise. FAC criteria requires us to provide context, discuss notable criticisms and offer both sides of the argument. This chop does not help the article meet those criteria. NancyHeise talk 05:31, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
Nancy, re point #1 above, the text reads "which guaranteed the Church certain rights and freedoms". Are you saying that this is not why the Church signed the Reichskonkordat? If it is not, then what was the motivation? --Richard S (talk) 05:50, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
Our sources say that it was to protect lives. Violence against Catholics by Nazis precipitated the signing of the Concordat. NancyHeise talk 05:53, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Latin America

In Latin America, beginning in the 1830s, a succession of anti-clerical regimes came to power in countries such as Mexico, Colombia, Argentina and Venezuela

Really, this won't do either. I am not sure whether whoever put it in realizes that, as it stands, it is an assertion about the regimes in four specific countries in the 1830's; but it is - and it is not true. These are the regimes of Paez, Rosas, and Santa Anna, and at least two endemic civil wars; none of those leaders had time or energy to worry about Church policy. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:54, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Finally, a topic that lies partially within my realm of research! Santa Anna's first administration did take steps to reduce the Church's power within Mexico as part of a series of actions designed to move away from a centralist form of govermnent. Many of the changes were rolled back because the army objected to similar limits on their own authority; any further actions against the Church were not anti-Catholic so much as anti-anyone-but-me(Santa Anna)-having-power. Catholicism continued to be the official religion in Mexico for many years. So yes, I agree that this sentence is inaccurate. Karanacs (talk) 18:05, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
So... what exactly is inaccurate? I think it is the use of "anti-clerical" in the phrase "anti-clerical regimes". I think what we are saying is that some of these regimes (such as Santa Anna's) took actions against the church which might fall in the general category of "anti-clericalism" but that weren't so much motivated by a specific "anti-clerical" bent of the regime per se but rather a general effort to aggrandize power unto itself and since the Church was part of the power structure, the regime naturally attacked it along with the rest of the power structure.
What if we shifted the focus away from the idea of "anti-clerical regimes" and put the focus on the Church as target of these measures. Something like... "Because the Church constituted such a major part of the power structure in Latin America, it was a natural target of regimes which wished to reduce the influence of the Church. These attacks were most often launched by liberal regimes with an agenda of secularization." This could use some work (the first sentence is a bit tautological) but I'm sure other editors will help improve it.
--Richard S (talk) 19:18, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
The point I think a lot of this discussion misses is that liberal and left-wing movements historically were not just 'anti-clerical'/secular but were also in favour of land reform which in many countries brought them up against the power of the Church as a major landowner itself.Haldraper (talk) 19:45, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
  • This all sounds very weaselly POV to me! Johnbod (talk) 19:49, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
Johnbod, I'm unclear as to what you're complaining about. What specifically is the POV that you see here?
I originally would have agreed with Haldraper but I think it's not quite so cut-and-dried as "liberal land reformers" against oligarchical private landowners and the Church as a landowner. Sometimes, the regimes targeted all the land owners, secular and clerical. Other times, they targeted just the Church. The Church was not only targeted because it owned land but because they controlled all aspects of society (i.e. from marriage to baptism to last rites and burial on church grounds). Secular reformers saw this as a stranglehold whereby the Church could get anything it wanted not just from owning land but by controlling who could marry, have a legitimate child or even "die within the Church". The Church was also targeted because it tended to support the landowners in a conservative alliance. Finally, the Church was targeted by a number of revolutionary regimes because it had supported the Spanish monarchy against the rebels. You can't really blame them but it doesn't help to have supported losing side. --Richard S (talk) 20:13, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
Yes, many of the same people who wanted land reform wanted toleration or religious liberty (neither of which this section mentions); all this led to the division between Liberals and Conservatives. Let us say so. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:59, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
This section now has a clarification tag on it which I think is fair enough but it's difficult to address as the footnote merely says "Fontenelle, p. 164" without any citation in the References section which makes it difficult to find in Google Books and thus rewrite in a clearer manner based on the source itself.Haldraper (talk) 12:27, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
Less than verifiable, then. Mone of the Fontenelles I can find seem to have written on Latin America; is this some annotated edition of the Plurality of Worlds? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:00, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Footnote 380

In Latin America, a succession of anti-clerical regimes came to power beginning in the 1830s [380].

This may well be an entirely uncontroversial statement. However the citation given—Lee Stacy, Mexico and the United States (2003), p. 139 (here, on Google Books)—has little relevant to say about the 1830s. There is a brief reference to the Mexican government (it doesn’t specify when this regime came to power) secularising the church in 1832 (church land was redistributed to private individuals, missions were closed, and missionaries ‘lost control’ of the Indians); and mention is made of the Texas Revolution (1835–6) ‘which led to the declaration of the Republic of Texas by white American settlers, [and] resulted in the destruction of some parishes and schools and the death of some priests in Texas’.

Perhaps a different page number was intended? Or perhaps the citation was intended to support a different statement? Ian Spackman (talk) 12:52, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't consider that an uncontroversial statement. I gave more details in a section further up, but I don't believe these regimes (especially not Mexico), were anti-clerical per se; at least in Mexico, they made changes to the power structure, and the Church just happened to be a large part of the power structure (the army faced similar restrictions). I think the sentence ought to be removed as the sources don't support this and likely can't. Karanacs (talk) 15:41, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I've removed the entire paragraph, as we've established that the first sentence is not properly source, and the remaining sentences on Mexico are taken drastically out of context. This is the paragraph as it was

In Latin America, a succession of anti-clerical regimes came to power beginning in the 1830s.[1] In Mexico, Church properties were confiscated, the collection of clerical fees from the poor regulated,[2] the number of religious holidays reduced and clerical dress in public prohibited.[3]

Karanacs (talk) 15:47, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I have reworded, reinserted, and added a new reference. This is quite a significant phase in Catholic Church history. Xandar 00:19, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Soviet Union?

Come to think of it, what Catholic properties in the Soviet Union of the 1930's were there to expropriate? Here we genuinely could use more detail. Within the historically Orthodox lands of the Russian Empire, it would be surprising to find any; so also for Armenia and the Islamic countries of Central Asia. Catholic Poland was not part of the Soviet Union, nor Lithuania; nor were (Lutheran) Latvia and Estonia.Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:15, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

There have always been a great many Eastern Catholics in the Ukraine and elsewhere. Their churches sufferred particularly. Xandar 01:11, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
The Western Ukraine was part of Poland from 1921 to 1939. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:18, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
We are not just talking of the western Ukraine, (a territorial transfer which in any event involved population resettlement). Poles are Western, Latin-rite Catholics, unlike the Ukrainian Catholics - who are Eastern-rite. Xandar 01:39, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
There were substantial numbers of Eastern Catholics in the Soviet Union but relatively few Roman (ie, Latin-rite) Catholics. Majoreditor (talk) 04:00, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
That would also be worth saying, if true. But (as often), even the Catholic Encyclopedia of 1904 disagrees, saying that itwas destroyed by the Russians, after the partition of Poland, using methods of the utmost violence; the Britannica, in several articles, discussed a state-promoted union with Orthodoxy under Catherine, and persecutions under Nicholas I and Alexander II. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:22, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
I'm refering to the western part of the Ukrainian SSR which was annexed by the Soviet Union in 1945. The article on the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church which says that Soviet documents of 1945 indicates a collaboration between Joseph Stalin, Nikita Khrushchev and Patriarch Alexy I of Moscow to dismantle the Greek Catholic Church in the then recently-annexed western areas of Ukrainian SSR. But what happened in the western Ukraine is small compared to what happened to what the Soviet Union did to Eastern Catholics when its forces occupied Eastern Block countries such as Poland, Hungary, Romania and Czechoslovakia, where the Ruthenian Catholic Church and the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church were persecuted by Soviet authorities.
Rather than going into great detail in this article we may want to consider adding a small sub-section on the Eastern Catholic Churches with one or two paragraphs which then branch to the articles on Eastern Catholicism and the particular churches. Thoughts? Majoreditor (talk) 01:04, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
Indeed, much of the Uniate Church was destroyed by the Tsars in the 19th Century. However, many Catholics remained, chiefly in the Ukraine and Belarus in early Soviet times, and were persecuted. From 1939 persecution of Catholics in the USSR increased drastically as many more came under its control. Xandar 01:55, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
Really? Something occurred to me as I read that last sentence. Starting around 1941, there was a rapprochement between Stalin and the Russian Orthodox Church (a kind of "bury the hatchet" until the common enemy has been defeated). See this section in History of the Russian Orthodox Church. So, what we appear to have is a Stalinist persecution of Catholics concurrent with a rapprochement with the ROC. Any chance that the persecution was instigated or at least supported by the ROC? All of this is just wild speculation on my part but I was wondering if anybody had run across reliable sources that put forth a similar hypothesis. --Richard S (talk) 02:12, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
Richard, I think I've seen something to that effect. If I come across anything I'll send it your direction. Majoreditor (talk) 02:50, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
  • The present text says: In the Soviet Union in the 1930's, persecution of the Church included the execution and exiling of clerics and the confiscation and closure of churches. That's not discussing what happened after 1944. (One possible fix for this sentence would be to remove the bolded words, in which case it would be.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:30, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
Agreed, the sentence needs to be rephrased. Removing the phrase "in the 1930's" is a potential solution. Majoreditor (talk) 02:50, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
Actually I removed those words in my last edit because I thought '1930's' in the opening sentence of the para covered the following two on Spain and the Soviet Union.Haldraper (talk) 08:40, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
As far as I can see the book cited is discussing the sufferings of Mindszenty. This, of course, is not in the 1930s. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:36, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Roman Catholics and Rock Choppers

Like it or not this is how many Christians refer to the Catholic Church. They also call them Rock Choppers. I added the referenced sentence below but it was deleted on the grounds it was 'trvial' information. No wonder the article has a neutrality warning.
Members of the Catholic Church are often referred to as Roman Catholics, particularly by Protestants and in some countries the related colloquial term is 'Rock Choppers." ref Edmund Campion. Rockchoppers: Growing Up Catholic in Australia Penguin Books. Ringwood, Vic. 1982.203.129.61.83 (talk) 12:18, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

A reference to the once common ( but no longer ) Australian slang term of "Rock Choppers" was removed by me and described as "trivial" information because that's exactly what it is. Why not fill the article with all sorts of other trivial and irrelevant information? You don't seem to have any sense of what sort of information belongs in encyclopedia articles - or in putting things in an appropriate context, such as your edit regarding the sex abuse scandals which was incorrectly placed in a context in the article in which it clearly doesn't belong. And if you want your comments to be respected then get yourself a user name. Afterwriting (talk) 12:38, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
"Roman Catholic" is in the first line of the article. "Rock Choppers" must be exclusively Antipodean; it was completely new to me. One for the Strine WP? Or List of derogatory terms for Catholics? Johnbod (talk) 14:13, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

For goodness sake I've provided a reference to a book by a notable Catholic Priest and with term Rock Chopper in the title. Talk about denial.203.129.61.83 (talk) 18:08, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

I live in a city with many Catholic people, and am of Irish descent. And I've never heard the (apparently now uncommon) Australian term "Rock Chopper". It is surely non-notable, and even if notable it had been added in poor format and context (Had a "Slang names for Catholics" section been appropriate, then the comment might have been relevant, but I'm sure we don't want to go down that avenue). The "Roman Catholic" comment was also badly out of place, and really not needed at that place in the article. And please, if you disagree, don't edit-war - wait for the consensus here to be reached.Oscroft (talk) 18:20, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Then why not help me and put it somewhere else. You are deleting a sentence supported by a book reference in which teh contentious term appears in the title. You place your own local knowledge ahead of a book title. Does that accord with wikipedia policies?203.129.61.83 (talk) 18:24, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

See Mackerel Snapper, Papist, Romanist etc. We don't seem to have Left-footer (Scottish). But, like these it's not for here. Adding to List of religious slurs might be enough. Johnbod (talk) 18:34, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
I'm not helping you put the "Rock Chopper" comment in "the proper place", because there is no proper place in this article. A list of derogatory names for Catholics is not appropriate - even if you do have a book with it in the title. As for "Roman Catholic", see note 1 of the article. Oscroft (talk) 19:16, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
Um - just wondering what a rock chopper is? I'm Catholic but I haven't chopped any rocks lately : ) Can someone explain this to me? NancyHeise talk 05:37, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
Apparently the Australian slang term "Rock Chopper" for a "Roman Catholic" ("R.C.") originally was a reference to the Irish convicts sent to Australia and / or the later poor Irish immigrants - both of which groups tended to only have menial manual labour jobs such as breaking up rocks. I'm Australian and can't recall the term being used at all in recent decades - it's very much a pre-ecumenism kind of slang of the kind which is now virtually extinct in Australia. Afterwriting (talk) 07:43, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Rock Chopper' is not a derogatory colloquial term for Roman Catholics. It just happens to be a term that is often used in Australia. The editor provided a reference to a book which has that term in the title ('Rockchoppers-Growing Up Catholic in Australia). The author (Edmund Campion) is well known Catholic priest in Australia-he certainly doesn't consider the term derogatory. Perhaps Australian Catholics have a better sense of humour.58.163.110.243 (talk) 05:35, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Even if the term is not intended to be derogatory (but just because one priest used it doesn't mean it isn't derogatory - does the word "n....." (abbreviated to avoid bot-reversion) become fine because a black person uses it?), that doesn't solve the main issue, which is whether a list of slang names for Catholics is appropriate in this article at all. I, along with others here, don't think it is appropriate. But even if it is deemed appropriate, a one-off "they're also called Rock Choppers" statement for a near-obsolete Australian term just stated as being a general fact is misleading. The term is not in general use (not even in Australia any more, going by the comments from most Australians here). So it would need to be placed in context (ie that it is a near-obsolete Australian term, unused anywhere else). And if this term is included, then other slang terms (some of which are far more common) should be included too - but do we really want a whole list added? That would duplicate some of the contents of List of religious slurs, and duplicating information is not a good idea - the two copies are bound to diverge (as I have recently discovered after some hard work merging duplicated info on some other pages). So if it is to go anywhere, I'd say that's the place for it, not here. Oscroft (talk) 07:16, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
PS: Read this and then tell us it's not derogatory. Oscroft (talk) 07:55, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
As I have already clearly stated, the Australian slang term "Rock Chopper" isn't now in common use. It isn't "often used in Australia" and, in fact, is virtually never used. The comments above defending mentioning it in this article seem that they may have been written by the same anonymous editor who first put it in. The fact that a prominent Australian priest used the term for the title of a book is absolutely no valid reason at all for including mention of the term in this article. Some editors just don't have a clue when it comes to assessing what kind of information properly belongs in particular articles. Afterwriting (talk) 08:18, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

sexual abuse of minors as a "major issue confronting the Church"

Afterwriting, you reverted User:203.129.61.83's addition of "sexual abuse" as one of the "major issues confronting the Church". While I can see an argument for asserting that it is not one of the major issues, it's not obviously inappropriate as a member of the list. User:203.129.61.83 appears to be an Australian with an anti-Catholic agenda. Nonetheless, I think it would be good to explain your reasoning so that your reversion of his edit does not seem arbitrary. --Richard S (talk) 17:26, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the usual ad hominem introduction. The point is that to the rest of the world sexual abuse of children is a more important issue than the Catholic Church's attitude to abortion etc all of which are mentioned here. You discuss those elsewhere too-why not delete them? Because all you want up front are positive statements about the Catholic Church. That's why the article has a neutrality warning. It's becoming a polemic for this cult. A good comparison might be with the wikipedia article on Scientology.203.129.61.83 (talk) Lucky all you can do in terms of protecting your polemic here is to accuse me of vandalism. A few centuries ago I'd have been burnt alive at the stake.But still it moves.203.129.61.83 (talk) 18:21, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

It is an important issue, but if it is to be included in the article, it most be presented in an NPOV form in an appropriate context, and explained properly with some proper referencing. It should not just be plonked wherever in the article you first think of in a form that makes you sound very anti-Catholic. And it should not be done in tandem with trying to add derogatory terms for Catholics. Also, you should WP:AGF and not reply to other Wikipedia editors with comments like "You are persecuting me rather than fix the article. Some things never change with the Catholic Church." Oscroft (talk) 18:50, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
Sorry, I'd confused the two issues and had incorrectly associated the sexual abuse issue with the "Rock Chopper" one - and I reacted to your earlier accusation "You are persecuting me rather than fix the article. Some things never change with the Catholic Church". I agree the sexual abuse issue is an important one, but it does need to be treated with a careful WP:NPOV approach. Oscroft (talk) 21:11, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
Why not try to alter what the person tried to put into the article to more of a NPOV rather than just delete it, how about you put an example of what you would like included in the article here under this heading and comments can be left to what should / should not be changed to meet an overall NPOV?(Monkeymanman (talk) 21:47, 10 January 2010 (UTC))
The reason I deleted it is because I had confused it with the reversion of another edit (one that added one colloquial Australian term for Catholic), which I didn't think belonged there at all. So what I thought I was reverting was not something that just needed an NPOV adjustment. Had I realised I was reverting the wrong thing, I would indeed have done what you suggest, if I'd had the time - if not I would have just left it alone. Oscroft (talk) 08:28, 11 January 2010 (UTC)


I have only just caught up with this section and Richard S's comments avout my deletion of the sexual abuse scandals from the list of issues. The list of issues concerned is a list of more "external" or societal issues rather than a list of "internal" church issues. Therefore the list is concerned with confronting issues arising from its relationship with the "outside word". Reference to the church's own sexual scandals issues therefore belongs elsewhere and not in this context. Afterwriting (talk) 08:27, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
While I have no view about where in the article this should be addressed, I find the comment that this is "internal" to the church both disappointing and inaccurate. It is not internal to the church in at least the following respects: significant numbers of victims are outside the church - in some cases probably because of the abuse; the abuse involves the breaching of jurisdictional laws (indeed, one aspect of the issue in some countries is the relationship between church and non-church authorities in the processing of allegations); non-church organisations are involved in dealing with the damage caused by abuse; and the publicity and debate around these cases is a public one, as the numerous stories in, for example, the mainstream Australian press attest. While I am happy to see the matter addressed elsewhere in the article, I find the deletion of merely a link - not even a full textual discussion - surprising and one that, were it not for the edit war already underway, i would normally revert. Do other editors have a concrete proposal for where else in the article and how it should be covered, if they wish to revert inserting the link? hamiltonstone (talk) 02:01, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
It should have been clearer to you that I was in no way asserting that sexual abusive within the church was only an internal issue without connections to the wider world. To read my comments in the way you have done is an injustice to me. The point I was making was that the particular list of issues in the article at that point are concerned with the church's teachings being in some degree of conflict with trends in the modern world. Since the church's teachings on this issue are not in conflict then it shouldn't be included in this list - as I have constantly maintained. I agree that the issue of sexual abuse within the church ought to be appropriately addressed within the article - with links to other relevant articles - the inclusion of it in the article at the place in contention isn't appropriate. This is all about context - it is not about avoiding or diminishing the significance of sexual abuse within the church. Afterwriting (talk) 06:33, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
No, that particular list is in the lead, which summarises the whole article. It is the only point in the lead in which "issues", however defined, are listed in summary point. In the lead as presently constructed, it is the correct place for the link. The fact that the lead is biased toward a summary of chruch structure and doctrine, and away from history and "issues", however defined, is a separate problem and probably best not tackled until the body of the article has undergone more extensive and rigorous reform. But the insertion that was made appears an appropriate one. See also discussion in new talk page section, below. hamiltonstone (talk) 09:10, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
You seem to missing the point. Regardless of whether it's in the lead or not, any mention of the sexual abuse scandals needs to be made within an appropriate context and the section on "issues" as it is at present isn't appropriateis. Therefore it will need rewriting to make it appropriate. I don't object to this. What I do object to is inserting it into the article - as it is at present - where it doesn't belong. It isn't an appropriate insertion in this context at present. Afterwriting (talk) 10:25, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Inappropriate edit

This edit seems to me to be totally inappropriate in tone and style. A typical sentence is Challenges faced include suppression of non-Islamic religious practices by Muslims in Sudan and a high rate of AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Really, that is more suitable to a coach cheering on his team at the half than to an encyclopedia article. Does it contain any useful information or is merely it more collective self-pity?

Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of tracts. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 05:37, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

That is a summary of what the scholarly source is saying. That source is used by all major newspapers when gathering information about Church statistics. NancyHeise talk 05:39, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
"There are three classes of lies: lies, damned lies, and Church statistics." -Benjamin Disraeli. However, if you had cited this book, scholarly or not, for statistics, I would not have objected; but you did not - nor did you change the figures we already have. But "challenges faced" is the topic of a pep-talk - or, if distinguishable, a middle-management meeting. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 05:44, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
Additionally, PMAnderson, you reverted my edit [2] without discussing it here first. That information has been part of the article that went through the last peer review and has not been flagged as an item to cut. I replaced the information because a single editor cut it and used wording that did not convey what the references were saying. I am just trying to keep the article accurate according to the references used. If you want to cut information, please discuss here first. Thanks. NancyHeise talk 05:47, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
Regarding your lies comment - do you have a scholarly source or bad review for the Frohele book used by all major newspapers as a source for Church statistics? If not, can you please lose the inflammatory language because it violates WP:civil. NancyHeise talk 05:49, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
If there is any inflammatory language, it is Nancy's - and Disraeli's. My position is (again) if you had cited this book, scholarly or not, for statistics, I would not have objected. What part of that did you not understand? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 06:11, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
I have been trying to keep quiet about the POV issues in this article - i made one contribution a couple of weeks ago, and have since continued to observe developments. PMAnderson has beaten me to the punch. This edit is surely beyond the pale. Three points. First, "as the number of ordinations has fallen" got changed to "the number of priests has not increased in proportion to the number of Catholics". I read the citation. The former version was a fair representation of the point it makes; the latter avoids the point it makes. Second, i don't care if someone writing about the Catholic church thinks the diversity of Indigenous peoples is a "challenge" - those people may well be relieved that it makes them harder to be evangelised. Whatever - this language has no place in a WP article. Third, has anyone read about the publisher of the source material? Its aims are: "to increase the Church's self understanding; to serve the applied research needs of Church decision-makers; to advance scholarly research on religion, particularly Catholicism" (About Cara) Then it gets worse, as it explains how it offers "a range of research and consulting services for dioceses, parishes, religious communities and institutes, and other Catholic organizations". How is anythig published by CARA an independent third party publication in relation to the Catholic Church as a subject? There is a reliability issue here, revealed by the POV implicit in the material for which Froehle and Gautier have been cited. I suggest the recent additions be reverted, and the article be checked to examine other material that relies on this source. hamiltonstone (talk) 05:58, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
"as the number of ordinations has fallen" got changed to "the number of priests has not increased in proportion to the number of Catholics" - The second quote is what the source says - the first is a rewrite that misrepresents the source. The number of ordinations has steadily increased, not fallen but the increase in the number of priests has not increased in proportion to the number of Catholic lay people which increased even more so. The statement "as the number of ordinations has fallen" is a blatantly false statement unsupported by this or any source. NancyHeise talk 06:02, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
CARA is the source used by all major newspapers. Do you have a better source for us to use? NancyHeise talk 06:03, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Edit warring by PM Anderson

Information that has not been flagged for cutting was replaced in the article section entitled "Catholic Insitutions and Personnel" by me after a single editor eliminated it without discussion. Since then, PM Anderson has reverted my edit twice [3] [4] with no consensus for eliminating it on this page. In fact there is no discussion at all for eliminating the information. The cut created wording that changes the meaning conveyed by the source to which it is referenced. I will not revert him but I would like to know what others think of his actions here. Thanks. NancyHeise talk 06:02, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

The burden lies on the editor who inserts or retains material.
Until this complaint, this has been largely in accord with WP:BRD: Nancy boldly added some sentences. I reverted, since they were vacuous and loaded. I immediately discussed. Nancy replied to the discussion, and then restored the dubious sentences, with an edit summary claiming no discussion had been done.
That edit summary is false; I don't see how Nancy could not have known it to be false. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 06:08, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
I replaced information that had been agreed by consensus in the last peer review and went through the last FAC with ZERO objections. A single editor, without discussion, changed wording that made statements not referenceable to the cited source. I was correcting that error and readding consensus approved information that no one has agreed to eliminate on this talk page. You reverted my good faith edit twice without gaining consensus for removal. NancyHeise talk 06:13, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
Nancy, please stop repeating that invalid argument. FAC is not expected to point out every problem with an article; it is more than sufficient to fail, as this article always has, if there are some serious and unaddressed problems. This has been said repeatedly; please learn to listen. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 06:18, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

(ec):OK, there are two separate issues. One is the change to the sentence based on the news story Catholic Priest Shortage. The other is the introduction of sentences based on Froehle and Gautier. I'm addressing the first for now - i may get to the other some other time. The original version of WP contained a list of specific countries that Nancy's edit made more general. I have no issue with that change, but for the record, the specifically named countries were all named in the article. The article also used the phrase "Europe and North America", but that does not preclude it being summarised in the way that it was. Nancy's edit also removed the phrase "the number of ordinations has fallen". The article includes these comments: "The winds of social change and sex abuse scandals have made the priesthood — with its lifetime commitment and mandatory celibacy — an unpopular career"; "But in the United States and Europe — which accounts today for nearly half of the total — numbers [of priests] have fallen about 20 percent over the period"; (talking about Ireland): "The seminary had about 600 students annually in the 1960s. When Hillery arrived a decade ago it had 220. Today there are 60, and fewer than two-thirds are expected to stay the seven-year course."; and there are more examples in the article. Using ""the number of ordinations has fallen" as a summary of the trend being outlined was accurate if brief. Inserting "number of priests has not increased in proportion to the number of Catholics" bears no resemblance to the main theme of the article. PMAnderson picked up the issue immediately; so did I. His revert appears very reasonable and I would have done the same thing. Regards, hamiltonstone (talk) 06:16, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

This article is about the whole Church, not just the Church in US, Ireland and Europe. Yes, the article is correct in saying that priestly ordinations in those countries has fallen. But not in Africa, Asia (including India) or all the other places in the world where ordinations have actually increased. Overall, worlwide ordinations have steadily increased according to the sources used by all major newspapers, the one we use in this article unless someone has a better source they can offer. NancyHeise talk 06:33, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
Does that mean that every sentence in it has to discuss the whole world? How then do we bring in Attila? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 06:46, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
Ordinations in US and Europe registered "a small decline" but on the whole, Church ordinations have continued to increase throughout the world per Zenit article [5] and USA today [6]. I think the section should reflect the facts, not make false statements that misrepresent sources.NancyHeise talk 06:55, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
What the sentence says is France, Ireland, Spain and the United States have experienced a shortage of priests in recent years as the number of ordinations has fallen On what basis do you call that false? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 07:12, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
I have added "...in those countries.", to clarify the wording, which tended to imply ordinations had fallen worldwide. Xandar 00:16, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
That seems a good idea, thanks. hamiltonstone (talk) 00:30, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

As the editor who made the original changes, I feel I should comment.

1. As I said in the edit summary, and as PMAnderson and hamiltonstone have said, much of the deleted material was written from the POV of the Catholic Church: challenges 'we' face, problems 'we' have to overcome in recruiting and retaining members, ordaining more priests. I expect that in a diocesan handbook, not an encyclopedia.

2. I rewrote the sentence on the shortage of priests so that it reflected the source more closely, pretty uncontroversial I thought but maybe not.

3. Nancy, I'm not going to get into a dispute about your sources but please, let's not pretend they're independent of the Church. If anyone wants a laugh, do what I did and click through the link in hamiltonstone's post above to Cara, the picture on the right is a classic.Haldraper (talk) 09:08, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

The "POV" of the Church on its own membership is quite unremarkable as a source. Xandar 00:16, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
For its membership numbers and similar data, yes (unless other sources dispute them). For the "challenges" it faces and ther such material? No. hamiltonstone (talk) 00:30, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
  • The USA Today article is not a POV source and neither is CARA. The fact that CARA is trusted by the world's major newspapers to provide accurate statistics is evidence of its acceptance by the mainstream. Does anyone here have any reliable mainstream source that says otherwise?
  • The article text as of right now is incorrect. Worldwide ordinations have increased, not decreased except for "a slight dip" in certain areas of the US and Europe. There has never been a decrease in Latin America or any other part of the world and most of the US does not have a priest shortage. The only shortage I know of is in Wisconsin. Ireland's seminaries have certainly emptied from what they once were, must be due to the rot that was recently exposed there - too bad - we have so many terrific Irish priests here in the US - a jovial, hardworking and merry group they are too.
  • The paragraph on ordinations should be corrected to state the fact that ordinations have increased. We can use the USA Today and/or Zenit articles if you like [7] [8].
  • I also do not see where "in those countries", added by Xandar exists. What this reverted as well? The information has to match the source. Whoever edits that sentence, please read the references first. The USA Today and Zenit articles evidence that ordinations experienced a "slight dip" in those countries (does not say anything about France specifically).
  • Additional challenges faced by the Church around the world are not mentioned in this section and we may want to correct that. There is violence against Catholics on a regular basis in India by Hindu extremists upset about converts to Catholicism from Hinduism. There is violence against Catholics in Phillipines by Muslim extremists and threat of violence against Catholics in Malasia. Vietnam Catholics have experienced suppression by the government there as well as in China. Africa has outright wars against Catholics and all Christians by Muslims. These need to be mentioned in this section in a concise manner. NancyHeise talk 19:38, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
    • Several of these answer objections which have not been made; does Nancy understand the one which have been made? The last point is characteristic: Nancy, we are not here to indulge or express collective self-pity; not from any national or sectarian cause. We are not a megaphone. There are plenty of outlets for "Help, Help, we're being repressed" - whether true or false. This is not one of them; it's an encyclopedia. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:56, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
      • I agree that we don't need to go into detail on current repression of Catholicism, especially as in most places this appears to be a problem for Christians in general, not just Catholics. Is there a List of places where Catholics are repressed article? If necessary, I could see a sentence stating something general like "In some parts of the world, Catholicism, like other forms of Christianity, is repressed." with a link to an appropriate subarticle. Karanacs (talk) 20:08, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

"Catholic Insitutions and Personnel" should be just that, a statistical overview of the number of Catholic clergy, religious and laity and where they are in the world. As Karanacs says, it is not List of places where Catholics are repressed. Once we go down that road and start listing countries as Nancy suggests ("There is violence against Catholics on a regular basis in India by Hindu extremists upset about converts to Catholicism from Hinduism. There is violence against Catholics in Phillipines by Muslim extremists and threat of violence against Catholics in Malasia. Vietnam Catholics have experienced suppression by the government there as well as in China. Africa has outright wars against Catholics and all Christians by Muslims.") we are bound to run into POV. Even the word "challenge" is loaded as hamiltonstone has pointed out: what the Church sees as the challenge of converting non-Christian peoples may well be regarded as unwelcome interference by those peoples themselves. I doubt the Islam page has a sentence claiming that one of the "challenges" it faces in converting North America is the dominance of Christianity there.Haldraper (talk) 18:18, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Challenges facing the Church - "clerical sexual abuse of minors" among others

There are a couple of threads regarding "challenges facing the Church".

It seems the problem is that we write "the challenges that the Church faces are X, Y and Z..." and the implication is that this is somehow a statement that can be made as an objective truth (that is, as if the statement "one challenge that the Church faces is X" has a binary truth value: TRUE or FALSE).

In fact, such assertions are purely subjective by their very nature. Even the Pope does not make such assertions with infallibility. No one in the Church can make such assertions as objective statements of fact. Such assertions are inherently subjective judgments of importance and priority. Even if the Pope did say, "I think these are the challenges that we face...", the rest of the Church is not obliged to agree with him as to the members of the list or their priority. In fact, I seriously doubt that all Church leaders agree on what the challenges are. Liberals will differ from conservatives. United Statesians will differ from Latin Americans who will differ from Europeans who will differ from Africans who will differ from Asians. You get my drift?

Thus, if someone want to insist that the direct quote of a single source can state unequivocally what the canonical list of challenges is, forgive me while I pick myself off the floor laughing. The only way that we could present such a list would be if we were willing to admit any "challenge" for which a reliable source can be provided. I'm sure you can find a reliable source within the Church who views dealing with clerical sexual abuse as an "ongoing challenge". BTW, if any Wikipedian attempts to assert unequivocally that X is or is not a "challenge facing the Church" based on his/her own personal reasoning, that is original research. And, if anyone wants to concoct a list of challenges from various sources, that borders on synthesis especially if the resultant list does not appear in any published source.

Which brings me to the next point... What makes people "inside" the Church the only valid sources for determining what challenges the Church faces? If some or all of the Church leadership are in denial about a challenge that confronts the Church, does that make the challenge disappear?

In conclusion, I think this is an unwinnable battle as the assertion is currently phrased. My preference would be to remove it from the article altogether. However, if we must discuss "challenges", then we should source each and every challenge and state explicitly who sees it as a challenge for the Church. We should also avoid restricting the acceptable sources to only those that represent the Church. Instead, we should be willing to accept sources who can reasonably assert that "X is a continuing challenge for the Church". Thus, in the case of "clerical sexual abuse of minors", I think we should accept a citation to Thomas Doyle, Richard Sipe or Patrick Wall. If anyone wants to dispute inclusion of this challenge, then let them provide a source who says it is not a challenge for the Church.

--Richard S (talk) 02:24, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Indeed, and I agree the language of "challenges" would be best removed altogether. i would expect a section that read something like this, (illustrating it in part using the clerical sex abuse issue):
"Contemporary analysts of the Catholic Church have argued... (cites). In Papal (encyc / as appropriate), Pope X has said Y (cite). However, (insert issues from independent cites about the same issue). John Doe, considering the B trend / issue, has observed that (whatever). In several countries, investigations of clerical sexual abuse have led to commissions of inquiry (cite), and to concerns that (whatever).(cite country A)(cite country B)(cite country C). At the same time, the Church has been increasing its (whatever) (cite)." And so on.
You comment that we "should also avoid restricting the acceptable sources to only those that represent the Church." That strikes me as understating the position. We should ensure that most of the sources are not those that "represent the Church". This goes back to fundamental principles concering reliability of sources, and use of independent publications, and ensuring this is an article about the Church, written from an external point of view. hamiltonstone (talk) 02:57, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
PS I don't agree with you about a risk of synthesis, though. Lists of stuff assembled from multiple sources are normal here. A problem would only emerge if one tried to imply that sources relating one of the issues on the list were somehow suggesting the full range of issues existed. hamiltonstone (talk) 03:00, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
Heh, heh... well, everybody has their own intepretation of NPOV, OR and SYNTH. A couple of years ago, I got my head beaten in by another Wikipedian who didn't like my writing the lead of an article to say "There are four major theories about X's relation to Y". He didn't think that there were any valid theories about X's relation to Y and so he thought it was synthesis to suggest that there were four such theories. In any event, what I meant is that we have to be careful to assume that we can construct a canonical list of "challenges to the Church". AFAIK, there is no such canon and we should be careful not to imply that there is one. --Richard S (talk) 06:24, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
And yet the edit warring continues over inclusion of "clerical sexual abuse scandal" as a "major issue facing the Church". If the edit war continues, I will ask an admin to step in. Xandar and Afterwriting, Hamiltonstone and I have suggested ways in which this dispute can be resolved. Please consider finding another way other than reversion. Administrative action may follow if this dispute is not resolved. --Richard S (talk) 06:32, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
To accommodate a reference to the sexual abuse scandals in the "issues" section it will require rewriting - not just an insertion. I don't object to this. I object to the reference being constantly inserted in an inappropriate context - especially by an anonymous editor with a personal agenda against the Roman Catholic Church who won't engage in discussion in a resonable and intelligent manner but instead goes on with all sorts of nonsense about being "persecuted". It is his/her contentious editing and attitude that is the real problem - and reversion is appropriate unless the article is rewritten to appropriately include reference to the sexual abuse scandals. Please direct any proposed "administrative action" where it properly belongs - to the anonymous and contentious editor who keeps putting the reference in for his/her own ideologically-driven reasons. Afterwriting (talk) 10:49, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

If the edit-warring continues, I will ask an admin to intervene and let the chips fall where they may. My personal perspective is that the anon has a point even if he is inserting the phrase in "the wrong place". Edit-warring is inappropriate and harmful to the project. If you can see an appropriate way to accomodate the anon's attempt to contribute, then please do so. Just because he/she has an agenda that you don't agree with doesn't mean you should work to frustrate that agenda. Do a little wiki-jiu-jitsu and turn his/her inappropriate edit into something that improves the article.

Or, if you can't get the anon to discuss with you, use Hamiltonstone and I as surrogates. You and I have both been editing this article for some time now. I think you can trust my willingness to work constructively on this article even if we disagree.

My perspective on this is that the Church hierarchy would like to see the clerical sexual abuse scandal as something that they've put behind them. Policies and procedures have been put in place that they think will bring the problem under control. Thus, from their perspective, this is not a "major issue" going forward. Some people disagree with them and think that there is something deeper to fix. Or, they just don't like the Church and want to use this issue to attack it.

To my mind, this makes it an issue or challenge facing the Church. Now, it appears you and others want to talk about a different set of issues and not commingle those with issues like the sexual abuse scandal. How can we talk about both set of issues and yet differentiate the two kinds of issues? Can we characterize the two sets as different in some way?

--Richard S (talk) 11:43, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

I am not attempting to "frustrate" anyone's "agenda" - but the fact that the anonymous editor has an agenda is not irrelevant to this edit war. The reasons for the reversions of the anonymous edits have been adequately explained in a moderate manner but have been responded to with abusive comments. Of course sexual abuse is an "issue facing the church" but the anonymous editor is failing to understand the context in which his/her edits are being made. As I have already written - and you seem to agree - to include the issue in the way the editor wants the article needs some reasonably significant rewriting. If you are willing to begin this process I will be grateful. Afterwriting (talk) 12:08, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
The anonymous editor seems to be a single-issue account, devoted to spreading anti-catholic polemic across various articles. His knowledge of Wikipedia formatting and tools gives rise to the suspicion that he may well be a banned editor, returning on a "mission", or using WIkipedia as a platform. As such, and from his evident refusal to discuss the matter rationally on the talk page, I would regard continued reversions by him as vandalism, not subject to the three-revert rule. The "moral equivalence" Richard appears to see between this person and the long-term editors who have reverted his edits, and who told him to discuss matters, is therefore mistaken.
On the issue of mentioning Sex Abuse cases in the lead. 1) The lead reflects the weighting and content of the main article, in which the sex abuse cases in certain countries have a particular weighting, with respect to the rest of the content of the article, which describes the faith as a whole, its organisation, beliefs and 2,000 year history. This article weighting, following the principle of avoiding WP:Undue Weight does not qualify the topic for placement in the Lead of this article. 2) In the articles on certain particular national Churches, article coverage of the cases may be significant enough for Lead mention, that is not so here. 3) Reference to the cases is also an aspect of "recentist" tendencies, not germane in the "big picture" of encyclopedic coverage of the religion as a whole, worldwide and over history. Recentism, wrongly emphasising a subject because it has recently been in the media, is to be avoided in WP articles. As far as the "issues facing the Church" sentence goes, those in the list were agreed on as major worldwide issues, of long-term duration, and germane in every one of over 200 countries with Catholic heirarchies. Xandar 23:59, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
I'm not otherwise going to involve myself in the discussion, but I'd like to clear up the speculation about the anonymous editor a bit. I ran into the person, when he was still editing as a registered user (and as a coincidence, I also know his real life identity). He stopped using that account quite a while back, but continued editing anonymously. He has been editing actively from multiple different IPs and also owns a new registered account that seems to be somewhat active at the moment, too. He has otherwise been a benevolent contributor. It seems that this IP has been purposefully isolated for edits of a more controversial nature. I don't believe this single-purpose account use has been disruptive, however, since I can confirm, that his overly-emotional manners have been—unfortunately—equally problematic on earlier, unrelated occasions. However, the editor has never been banned, as far as I know. I am not going to reveal his account names in respect for his anonymity. —Quibik (talk) 17:24, 16 January 2010 (UTC)
Then this would seem to be a sockpuppet account - which is also very seriously against WP rules. Xandar 00:18, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
  • The sentence in question is Modern issues facing the Church include secularism, "Modernism", sex abuse of children by Catholic clergy and opposition to the Church's teachings on abortion, euthanasia, birth control, and sexual ethics. This is, as a whole, more cheerleading - and, as a claim about "every one of over 200 countries", it is extraordinarily dubious: a citation for the modernist threat to the Church of Uzbekistan, or the euthanasia crisis in the Church of Zambia, would be most welcome. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:27, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
  • The only source listed for this is Shorto, Russel (8 April 2007). "Keeping the Faith". The New York Times. Retrieved 29 March 2008.. This does not contain the list in question; it includes neither "Modernism", "Modernist", nor "Euthanasia"; it does, however, discuss the sex-abuse scandal at some length, and quote a notable theologian on it's being indicative of wider structural problems. Therefore this sentence does not represent the source; and the current edit-war drives it further from what the source actually says. (Not that incidental comments by reporters in NYTimes Magazine articles are the best source for this sort of thing anyway; but at least it would be a source; as it stands the statement has none.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:39, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

I put the reference back in. I am an editor. I am an admin. I am a Catholic. It is a legitimate point that the Church faces major social challenges across the world these days. Sexual abuse by minors has been proven to be not only widespread, but also covered up by individuals as far ranging as the current Holy Father. This situation is well within the bounds of a defined "challenge" to the organization. For those of us who are Catholic, this is a humiliation, and it is a humiliation because it is true. We have to deal with that, and denying the truth of it is by far the wrong approach. What Would Jesus Do? My guess is he would write an honest encyclopedia article. Hiberniantears (talk) 00:23, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Although child sexual abuse is certainly sensational, it is not accurate. The main issue is the vow of celibacy for those in the priesthood. This is a sacred vow that demands strict adherence from all sexual encounters. From its beginning it has never been observed perfectly. Attempting to limit the topic to the sensational is shortsighted; frankly I dislike sensational stories because it always appeals to the lowest common denominator of humanity. The Church should deal with it, but the focus is observe vows, personal righteousness and purity. It is not exclusively, "don't abuse children". Painting the topic as such is dishonest and is the wrong approach. --StormRider 01:02, 16 January 2010 (UTC)
The main issue is the vow of celibacy for those in the priesthood. That is an opinion; it belongs on an Op-Ed page, not an encyclopedia.
As a mere matter of history, no vow of complete abstinence was required "from the beginning" - although it has been required for a very long time. Such vows have indeed never been perfectly and universally kept (what vow ever has been?); but there is a grievous difference between violating a vow of celibacy with consenting adults and with minors, as the Church (when it finally faced the question) admits; many Catholics would hold that there is also a difference between violations per and contra naturam.
I suppose we should be glad that our anti-sensationalist is not editing, say, the Hindenburg disaster. Would he leave out the fire as sensational? It surely was; but it was also consensus. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:11, 16 January 2010 (UTC)
Are you attempting to engage in a personal attack? Please don't begin, you are out of your league. Children should know better than to speak when adults gather. This rule applies when the ignorant gather where the learned discuss.
I am not a Catholic and never have been. I have no vested interest here. However, I believe it is folly to discuss a recent tragedy as if it was a major criticism for an entity that has been around for arguably 2000 years. It is short-sighted. Please do not attempt to correct something where no error existed. You interpreted poorly; my statement was from the beginning of celibacy, not the beginning of the church itself.
You seem to want to skim over the issue. The issue is that priests have made a commitment to live one way and some have problems with their vows. I have problem listing the way in which they have problems, but attempting to paint the entire priesthood as having a problem again falls into the same old problem of sensationalized writing. I can see why some might enjoy reading the National Enquirer, it titillates, but it does not inform nor discuss the issue from a macro level.
All I am proposing is covering the issue first from the macro level and then moving to the micro level. In doing so, we are able to cover the history of the church and not simply cover current events. Capisce?--StormRider 05:06, 16 January 2010 (UTC)
You are missing the point, but rightly pointing out that there are other issues. The abuse and the violation of the vows by the abuser. The controversial element is not that there were bad priests, but that the Church hierarchy was aware of the crimes and actively shuttle offending priests around from parish to parish and turned the victims into pariahs. You are correct that the Church has been around for thousands of years, which is why we include bad things like the Inquisition, or the cover up of child rape alongside the good things, like Mother Theresa. Hiberniantears (talk) 16:01, 16 January 2010 (UTC)
We had a longer section on the abuse issue, which most editors here decided to shorten only a few weeks ago. Hiberneantears is free to look at the discussion that took place then. His personal sensationalised and emotionalised view of what took place is not relevant to an encyclopedia treatment, which is based on facts and due weight. Xandar 23:42, 16 January 2010 (UTC)
My objection is not to the sexual abuse issue (which says no more than the source will support), but to the rest of the sentence, which is an indiscriminate laundry-list, owing much more to the prejudices of certain editors than to the source. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:54, 16 January 2010 (UTC)
The sexual abuse list and book quote don't belong in the lead - which is designed to be a proportionate summary of the whole article, avoiding Undue Weight. On those criteria, and on criteria of recentism and Undue Weight, this does not belong in the lead. I know certain people want to define Catholicism via a largely US "scandal", but that is an attempt to push an anti-Catholic political view which is not tolerable. As far as the world church is concerned this is a local issue. Xandar 23:30, 16 January 2010 (UTC)
The same argument would show, much more strongly, that modernism, secularism, euthanasia, gay rights, and so on, do not belong in the lead, and indeed they do not; they are concerns for some Catholic Churches, not for all, and they are concerns for the twenty-first (or in the case of modernism, of the nineteenth) century, not of all time. This is why I propose to remove this unsourced laundry-list. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:29, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Arbitrary section break

First of all, I still think it could be useful to consider two lists of "challenges": first, a list of challenges as viewed by the Church leadership and second, a list of challenges as viewed by objective (to the extent that this is possible) outsiders.

Obviously, both lists will overlap but how they are worded will depend on the perspective of the list-maker. I think we should be able to source the elements of the first list (i.e. all we have to do is find pronouncements of various Church leaders and opinion-makers). The second list may be harder to find but I think it would be worth looking for.

Secondly, StormRider wrote "All I am proposing is covering the issue first from the macro level and then moving to the micro level." This makes obvious sense. So... what are the "macro level" issues? There is a macro level issue around the fact that the Catholic Church has a distinctly different perspective on human sexuality than liberal secular humanists do. However, the Catholic sexual abuse scandal is not directly related to that (unless you accept the proposition that this scandal is about homosexual priests).

The issues surrounding human sexuality include: abortion, contraception, premarital sex, open sex, homosexuality... all of these are issues where the Church takes one stance and some part of the world outside the Church takes the opposite stance. In the case of the Catholic sexual abuse scandal, the issue is actually mostly an internal one. It is a question of how to prevent sexual abuse, report it when it happens and respond appropriately to the reports that are made. This is about internal policies and procedures which, from the Church's perspective, have largely been put into place at the level of the Vatican (Congregation of the Doctrine of Faith), at the level of the episcopal conference and at the level of the diocese and parish. Whether these policies and procedures are adequate is open to debate. Those who wish to bash the Church may argue that it is not. Only time will tell. We cannot possibly resolve such a controversy here and now. Wikipedia is not a crystal ball. We can only note its existence.

Can we come up with wording which captures the above nuances?

--Richard S (talk) 00:00, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Maybe, but the LEAD isn't the place to do this. The lead SUMMARIZES what is in the main article text. It is not for writing and referencing new material. If there is to be a section on this, it has to be a new sub-section within the MAIN article text. Xandar 00:21, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
The lead should not have reference to sexual abuse unless we want to also include references to persecutions of Catholics around the world in places like India, Iraq, Malaysia, Africa etc. The lead is a summary of general issues related to the whole church. Sexual abuse is one of those issues that has only affected certain specific areas like US and Ireland. In the US, this was an issue that was in the news for a certain period of time. We never hear about new sex abuse cases anymore here in the US. I think the issue falls under the category of "recentism" which Wikipedia policy asks us to be careful about. This article has covered the sex abuse crisis and conensus overruled my efforts to have a more in depth coverage of the issue in favor of a brief mention with a wikilink. Based on this - I don't see how the issue merits a mention in the lead when consensus of mainly non-Catholic editors practically wiped it out of the article. NancyHeise talk 16:00, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
We are not Amnesty International, which is one venue to publicize obscure claims of religious persecution. Take your agenda and write a blog; that's what they're for. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:31, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
Based on the above arguments, I would be inclined to take all mention of issues facing the Church out of the lead. If we do mention issues facing the Church at all, it should be in the History section. I do think clerical sexual abuse should be included in any such list. Just because the issue has been "settled" in the U.S., doesn't mean it has been settled everywhere. There are ongoing investigations in Ireland, for example. --Richard S (talk) 00:10, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
Support that. Executing. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:57, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
I now support use of the POV tag since the article has now elimnated any mention of how the Church implemented changes to prevent future sexual abuse or any mention of its prevalence in other institutions that teach children like the US public school system where it is reportedly "ten times worse". We want an article that is WP:NPOV which requires us to give reader both sides of the story. Right now, it tells reader nothing except one side with a very anti-Catholic POV sentence. NancyHeise talk 05:44, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
Shorter Nancy: The article doesn't apologize for the Catholic Church and present her as the misunderstood good guy by presenting everything which might be said in her defense. No, that's not neutrality; that would be presenting Nancy's point of view, which is fully, perhaps excessively, presented in the subarticle (to which this links). Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:23, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Tags again

A third banner tag was added to the article top without an attempt to define or justify its existence. One of the existing two has not been justified or defended since insertion, and the remaining POV tag, is one on which discussion on specific issues seems to have dried up, I have therefore removed all 3 as unjustified. As I said, when this tagging outbreak started - these tags are being misused. Top Banner Tags are not justifiable, when what is being argued about are matters that only pertain to certain sections of an article. They are not justifiable when no resolvable issues have been raised. Nor are they justifiable when there is no constructive ongoing discussion of issues that can be resolved. Tags are not meant to be permanent features of all articles, and we cannot have an ever-increasing billboard of misused tags litering the article. Xandar 23:52, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

I put them back. Let's settle this issues first, then remove the tags. Leadwind (talk) 01:18, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
No. There is no justification for these tags on the whole article, and you don't have a right to try to keep them there as permanent fixtures to suit your own POV, and which remain until the article matches your anti-catholic POV. a) None of them refer to the whole article - so they are in the wrong place b) at least two of them are not being particularised or discussed by their originators at all - there is no attempt to properly raise "settle issues" so these must go, c) the other tag refers to local issues which need to be particularised and (if vitally necessary) tagged locally, not misleadingly on top of the entire article. That is why local and inline tags exist. As I said before, and have been proved correct, allowing one tag merely encourages other people with POVs to add more and more with less and less relevance and justification. Now we're up to three unjustified tags. This has to stop. Xandar 12:03, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

To avoid extending this dispute again, I have added a SINGLE temporary template to the top of the article, which covers all matters. This does not mean that I agree the template is justified, since only certain sections of the article are actively disputed, and some of the issues raised are never going to be agreed by everyone. However it is offerred as a solution to the banner-tag creep afflicting the article, until more issues are settled. Xandar 12:35, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Lead, do you actually think the entire article is POV or do you think specific sections are? IMHO, the tags that were used were not legitimate. First, I have heard no editor state the entire article is POV. Second, if there is not specific list of legitimate areas of correction, the tag is meaningless. Third, it is not appropriate to use tags unless others support the claims being made. Personal preference is not a legitimate reason to use tags. If there are truly sectional complaints, then please add them there and not tag the entire article.--StormRider 12:37, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
My objection to these sorts of tags covering the whole article is that they mislead readers into distrusting the 90% of information that no-one disputes. As such they are misleading and disruptive to the purpose of Wikipedia. I put the REVIEW tag in place before StormRider's comments, but that too will mislead readers as to the unchallenged sections of the article if it remains where it is. I therefore propose that this (or any other tag) should be moved to cover the section in dispute ONLY. Xandar 12:52, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
I disagree with the tags as well. I just removed a tag that told Reader that the article is currently under review. What is the purpose of that tag? This aritcle is under review like all Wikipedia articles are under review - all the time : ) NancyHeise talk 15:55, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
It's a miracle! Nancy just undid an edit by Xandar. (Now removing the tongue from my cheek.) Afterwriting (talk) 16:07, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

At least half of every section I have considered in this article is either slanted or erroneous. Therefore I seriously doubt that 90% of it is acceptable (and even if it were so, the reader needs to warned to trust nothing; 10% error rate is too high).

The way not to be tagged for writing propaganda is not to write propaganda. Some editors plainly find this price exorbitant. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:13, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Overapplication of banner tags is a scorched earth policy. We don't need them three-deep on top. Majoreditor (talk) 18:56, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
Yes, overapplication of banner tags is a problem, but so is 'under-application'. My point is, articles end up with as many tags as there are problems. They serve to alert other editors to issues needing attention; they serve to alert readers to known issues or disputes regarding the article. The discussion on this talk page appears to me to indicate the accuracy of the bias and factual accuracy tags. i have no issues about the article length, but accept that others might. Xandar suggests one should not tag the whole article when some sections are not problematic. I however lean toward PMAnderson's views about the extent to which there is problematic content. Just a small number of examples of all sorts of issues:
  • Whatever one thinks of what the lead should say, everyone here is aware that there are problems with the lead's final sentence and its relation to the body text.
  • There is no section on etymology or the differing views about the name. I am well aware there has been a debate about the name of the article itself etc, but it is odd for the article to have no equivalent section to that that begins the article on Islam.
  • "According to Catholic doctrine, the Catholic Church is the original Church founded by Jesus Christ". I don't think Christians are the only ones who have churches, but the word Christian is missing from the sentence.
  • "One of these, Simon Peter, was made their leader when Jesus proclaimed "upon this rock I will build my church ... I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven ... " This sentence lacks a qualifier such as "Catholics believe that..." While such a phrase would be repetitive if used every single time one was referring to beliefs, in this sentence it is important, because this sentence flags an important area of doctrinal dispute (as I understand it - this isn't really my field).
  • "Although in the past some Biblical scholars thought the word 'rock' referred to Jesus or to Peter’s faith, the majority now understand it as referring to the person of Peter." Well, do they? This is an awfully important point. And what is the citation? An encyclopedia britannica entry! In any case, given the lines that follow this sentence, the text is arguably misleading.
  • The beliefs section appears to lack an external analysis of Catholicism as a religion. I don't think i've found text that describes it in comparative or abstract terms, for examples as being a monotheistic religion. Its geographical or historical origin is not properly placed (eg. "The Catholic Church has its origins in the region of the Middle East now known as Israel / however one might quite put this, with the birth of an individual called Jesus and known as Jesus Christ, approximately 2000 years ago"). No, not those exact words, i'm not a great scribe, but you get the idea.
  • The section on beliefs, subsection on social teaching, begins: "In addition to operating numerous social ministries throughout the world..." This phrase is irrelevant to beliefs and should simply be deleted. Its presence however may have a POV-pushing effect by putting a particular spin on the context of social beliefs.
  • The introduction to prayer and worship states "All Catholics are expected to participate in the liturgical life of the Church, but individual or communal prayer and devotions—while encouraged—are a matter of personal preference" - which is fine i guess, but this is the kind of description where i would want to see independent third-party publications also making this assessment - the cited source is not.
  • The section on intercommunion - the sentence "The same is not true for Protestant churches." lacks a citation, where one is most certainly needed.
  • "Religious orders often make praying the Liturgy of the Hours a part of their rule of life; the Second Vatican Council encouraged the Christian laity to take up the practice". Is there no literature that analyses the extent to which this is the case? And why is "Liturgy of the Hours" a separate (and preceding) section from "devotional life and prayer"?
  • Almost all of the text of "devotional life and prayer" is cited to the Catechism. There must be a plethora of secondary sources and some external analysis by students of comparative religions, for example, of the devotional life of the Catholic Church. This section is incredibly deficient in this regard.
  • "Devotional journeys to the sites of biblical events or to places strongly connected with Jesus, Mary or the saints are considered an aid to spiritual growth, and can become meritorious acts if performed with the right intention" - I have previously pointed out the POV of this sentence, particularly its latter part, and the lack of a citation for the sentence is a further problem. However the entire section on Mary and the saints lacks any insight from independent analysis of this distinctive feature of Catholicism - one which i thought had attracted much commentary.
  • Church organisation: no citation for "The pope is assisted in the Church's administration by the Roman Curia, or civil service. The Church is governed according to formal regulations set out in the Code of Canon Law."
  • "All 23 particular Churches of the Catholic Church..." Have we been told what this means? If so, i missed it.
  • "While some consider this to be evidence of a discriminatory attitude toward women,[181] the Church believes that Jesus called women to different yet equally important vocations in Church ministry" This sentence is structured to imply that the "some" are outside the Church. However some are inside the church, and this is not therefore an adequate representation of the debate.
  • "Since the Church condemns all forms of artificial birth control, married persons are expected to be open to new life in their sexual relations" What on earth is this supposed to mean? Truly church jargon, and POV jargon at that.
  • "Church law makes no provision for divorce, but annulment may be granted when proof is produced that essential conditions for contracting a sacramental union (valid marriage) were absent." This appears not in the section on doctrine, but on church organisation and community. The lack of any mention of the way in which i this works in practice in contemporary societies is bizarre. If an alien came to earth and read this sentence, together with the later sentence about there being a billion (or so) Catholics in the world, it would reasonably conclude that this billion people never get divorced. I think i can confidently say that that is nonsense.
  • "Tertiaries and Oblates" - no cites past the first sentence.
  • "Catholic institutions, personnel and demographics" - the text of this section is made problematic in all sorts of ways, but principally by being written to highlight ways in which the Catholic Churhc is growing or large. If it is small, as in Asia, we are told "yet it has a large proportion of religious sisters, priests and parishes relative to the total Catholic population". If there was a balanced para covering each continent, this would not necessarily give rise to a POV issue, but as it stands it is a problem.
  • I'm not going to touch the history section, which is in worse shape, but about which i know less than other able critics like PMAnderson.
So, some specifics were asked for - there are a few examples. Is every sentence and para a problem? Not in my view. Are there questions of accuracy and neutrality in every major section? I believe so. hamiltonstone (talk) 00:02, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
I have to say, the above list, as "justification" for banner tags on the whole article, is the biggest load of rubbish I have seen for a long while. Most of the above cavills and niggles have not been mentioned before, and others are so minor as to require no more than a mini-tag next to the point, requesting better citation. However do points such as "church administration is assisted by the Roman curia" really need a separate citation? Are these points that rate the whole section of the article POV or factually incorrect? I don't think they come close. We have always been willing to deal with individual points as they are brought up, but a lot of this seems bogus dregs and detritus to try to retrospectively justify the tags. Other topics above are merely matters of hamiltonstone's personal opinion on tone and sourcing. As far as etymology goes, that has been covered in Note 1 , which was produced and agreed at great length through the arbitration process. There is little of any substance in the above list, and certainly nothing to justify tagging the whole article as POV or factually inaccurate. Xandar 01:42, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
No, you have seen at least one bigger load of rubbish: the article you and Nancy have ruined. Every section of this article is POV and factually incorrect; and you both revert every effort to fix them, and remove the tags intended to attract neutral editors and warn innocent readers. If this happens again, the article should be protected until Xandar and Nancy are banned. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:56, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
This demonstrates Xandar's deep and lasting bad faith:
  • We have wide-ranging disputes, covering many sections of the article. That would be sufficient, in any other article, to justify tags, even if there were sections which were consensus; as there are not here. But Xandar objects because the discussions are focused - as Johnbod not unreasonably requested.
  • Hamiltonstone just went through and listed issues throughout the article, as requested. Xandar now objects because they are novel.
This is Morton's Fork: if you spend much, you must be rich and can afford more taxes, if you spend little, you are saving money and can afford more taxes; but that is famous as an example of corrupt reasoning. So here. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:07, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Y'all sure know how to make a man feel welcome arahn here. Xandar, i apologise for not meeting your high standard. You are quite right, some of the items i picked up were niggles not directly related to the templates, forgive me for mentioning them. Remove them from the list, however, and the problems still stand. Whether something has been mentioned before is not relevant, a point that i see has been raised on this talk page previously. I didn't edit here until a few weeks ago, and i'm getting some clear feedback on why i and others might not last the distance. I suggest you look at my edit history, my GA reviews, some of my other contributions as a reviewer and ask which is more likely: that I'm an anti-Catholic POV pusher, a twit, or someone who might be trying to help. I'm sure if some editors work hard enough, new minds with new perspectives can be kept away from this article, but that would be to its detriment. This isn't my field. I've said that a few times now - i'm offering an independent perspective from a reviewer's point of view, and I can only hope that some of the ideas are taken up. Why information as important as that contained in Note 1 is not in the main article text is beyond me, but i will assume good faith that the arbitration had a consensus that this was a good encyclopedic solution to whatever the issues were. In the meantime, i will try and periodically continue to contribute to the discussions here. hamiltonstone (talk) 02:39, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Xandar is correct to point out that raising issues on talk is supposed to precede, or coincide with, tagging, and very few of these mostly very reasonable points had AFAIK ever been mentioned before, though now of course they have been. Make sure you keep taking the pills, PMA. Johnbod (talk) 03:04, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
Hamilton, I have to agree with John; your points are fine, but attempting to use them as justification for the tags is just pure folly. Also, a few of them are simple edits that are not controversial, just make them and be done with it. I become mystified when worship needs a third party reference, rather than the Church itself stating what it believes. I am curious, how do you know the quality of the history section as you have admitted that you are not qualified to comment. That sounds too accusatory, but being direct is worthwhile and I hope you get the drift. Some points, I simple think amount to your personal preference and I happen to have a different opinion.
As a non-Catholic I am confident I have no ax to grind and no one could accuse me of being "pro" Catholic. PMA has a definite ax to grind, but seems to think he is neutral; he is anything but neutral. Be bold, make what edits you want and don't be surprised is some stay and others don't. That is life here at Wikipedia. But attempting to use those comments for reasons of placing a tag are not appropriate here or on any other article. --StormRider 03:16, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
Thanks Storm Rider. I didn't place the tags there. I'm responding to complaints by others that nothing was raised here. Just trying to help the discussion, though it isn't quite being taken in that way.
While I haven't read back through the talk archives, i would have thought that the range of issues regularly and recently identified on this talk page was consistent with the tagging (perhaps with the exception of the 'length' tag) - i would have thought an element of common sense was involved. Based on the conduct on this talk page, i find it hard to believe any edits i mentioned above would be non-controversial (other than finding missing sources, which i am not in a position to do). Which did you have in mind? As to your comment "I become mystified when worship needs a third party reference, rather than the Church itself stating what it believes", this remark exemplifies one of the issues with a number of articles about religion, not just Catholic Church: beyond a summary of doctrine (and not always then, in my view), it simply isn't acceptable only to cite what the church itself believes. When we write a biography of John Doe, we do not rely to any significant extent on John Doe himself, except when establishing his own views; why do we rely on sources internal to a church for our understanding of a church? It is one source that can be used to establish formal church teaching or theology, but that's about it. You ask: "I am curious, how do you know the quality of the history section as you have admitted that you are not qualified to comment". The answers are first: because i am a scholar who understands about the use of sources and about the construction of a reasoned argument. Second: because I have some experience as a historian and therefore some knowledge of what this section should 'look like' - accepting that i am not particularly familiar with the specific subject of this history. Third: because i am reading some of the debates on the talk page and can make a lay person's (i don't mean that in the ecclesiastical sense) judgement about what is going on in those arguments.
Like others above, i don't think PMA's reactions were particularly calm, but neither have been some of Xandar's posts (was it really necessary to brand my list "the biggest load of rubbish I have seen for a long while"?). Like the top of the page says, discussion here can get heated. I've been around Wikipedia for over three years, Storm Rider; I have a pretty good idea what life here is like. And on most of it, it is not the way it is on this talk page. Yes, I've seen worse; but i've seen much better. Regards, hamiltonstone (talk) 03:41, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
The {{length}} tag is sufficiently justified by the length of the article; recommended article size is 32K. But since removing the "goo and dribble", the special pleading and the dishonest quotations of irrelevant sources, will do a great deal to shrink the bloat, I would be prepared to wait to see the results of a small experiment.
If efforts to solve Hamiltonstone's list of problems can proceed in an expeditious manner, without revert warring and hysteria, there may be no need to retag. If these fail, I see only two alternatives: tagging as an atrocity, or protection as a failed article. (Well, dispute resolution is a third, but it does not promise anything short-term, even given such appalling behavior as the owners of this page exhibit.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 06:57, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
The point is that banner tagging of the whole article is disruptive both for readers and editors - this is especially so when, prior to Hamiltonstone's list of largely minor points, the only sections under which continuing disagreements have arisen have been some of those under History and effect on society. None of this justifies tagging the whole article with accusations of POV and factual falsehood. That is the genesis of my "biggest load of rubbish" comment. The points individually may in some cases have minor merit. The "rubbish" was the attempt to raise them as some form of afterthought justification for mischievously placed tags. I could go to any significant article on Wikipedia and (given a free hour) produce a list of niggles like Hamiltonstones. (And the gnats of possible POV on which some people choke, pale into insignificance compared to bloated camels such as Islamic Golden Age, which some people swallow easily.) If I went to United States article, for example, I could raise dozens of similar "issues" and many more serious, with regard to POV self-praising language, US-based sources, cover-up of the extermination of the native peoples, relations with Mexico, non mention of controversial US foreign policy etc. etc. If I went there or to any similar major article and started banner-tagging it for similar concerns, the tags would not last more than minutes in most cases. I am quite prepared to go through Hamiltonstones list of concerns and try to settle them. What I object to is using them as an excuse for past disruptive tagging. Xandar 10:48, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
  • I think the text at Wikipedia:Template messages/Cleanup bears some reading: "The purpose of such templates is to inform other editors and readers at a quick glance what potential problems there are with article content and to spur improvement in the spirit of Wikipedia...In articles that are heavily edited or discussed, templates can be used to indicate ongoing problems or disputes in order to attract outside help and caution readers that the content may be shortly subject to change." "Tagging of the whole article" is something Xandar calls disruptive. I would say first, that it is consistent with the intended purpose of banners, and second, is less disruptive to a reader than section tagging is. I will repeat myself though: i didn't put the tags there. I'm supportive of their presence while these discussions take place. If someone didn't do a thorough job of explaining their tagging, well, two wrongs don't make a right. However, IIRC, Leadwind triggered much of this discussion recently with a tagging which s/he did immediately explain at the talk page. It was just that some other editors didn't like what s/he said.
  • If you think all my points were minor, then i clearly haven't expressed them well. I will have another try when i have more time. But to spell out something that i did not make clear as i quickly jotted that list: the absence of references in places isn't just a matter of looking for one to match the text - it is something that also alerts us to potentially insufficiently researched sections.
  • PMA, "tagging as an atrocity, or protection as a failed article"?? Surely we can continue to disagree at a cooler temperature than that? I first came across your work at a couple of other articles on, IIRC, ancient history and mediaeval history, and you were doing a great job there, including setting me right on a couple of things. Let's keep working on the content.
  • Finally, i'll repeat myself again. I came here as an outside voice and as a reviewer, not intending to be a content contributor. I got bugged into doing a bit (see below), but i really didn't and don't see that as my role. Anyway, gotta go. Cheers, hamiltonstone (talk) 11:13, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
  • Concerning Wikipedia:Template messages/Cleanup, the majority of the relevant text was not quoted by Hamiltonstone. It reads. "In general, an editor who places a template message to indicate a problem like this should explain their rationale fully on the talkpage of the article. If the consensus of the other editors is that there is a problem or an editorial dispute that deserves such a clean-up template, then the editors should work to fix the problem as quickly and cleanly as possible so the template message can be removed. If the consensus is that there is no problem, then the message can be removed immediately. For heavily monitored articles, please do not add or remove template messages of this sort without using the talk page." Quite a few of these principles seem to have been ignored by the banner-tag posters. I certainly don't believe there is a consensus that the tags were justified either in content or location.
  • Similarly tags are meant to highlight issues or areas of dispute. Tagging the whole of a major article when only certain areas are in dispute is clearly misleading and disruptive. Leadwind's tag was a clear example of this. In addition tags are there as temporary indicators, to be sorted and removed as quickly as possible. This is not possible where template posters do not specify exact and specific curable problems and work actively and in good faith to solve them. Tags are not there to be stuck on an article semi-permanently - until editor X deigns to come down from the heights to okay the article suits his preferences.
  • Hamiltonstone's issues are only valid if he is actively helping solve them. Post a wodge of complaints and then buzz off is not helpful to the article. Xandar 23:37, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Xandar, I'm sorry for putting back all three tags. The POV is the most important one. So this time that's the only tag I restored. Let's keep the helpful, informative POV tag in place until we get the POV issues handled. Leadwind (talk) 23:57, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

A number of problems arise here
  1. Your complaints, when challenged on the Tag here, on 23rd December, were almost exclusively on the History section. The tag, if proper, should therefore be on that section, not the whole article.
  2. Many of the issues you raised were a scattergun of criticisms, some of which depend on assertions of whether the Orthodox or Catholic viewpoint of certain issues is the more neutral one, others are in my view based on errors on your part (eg purgatory, infallibility), while some others are issues about which the majority of current editors have taken a different view (space given to inquisitions, abuse etc.) Solving these to your satisfaction might make a majority of editors opposed. You have presented no proposed solutions to these "problems" to see how they fare.
  3. This brings us to the other issue which is your good-faith active participation to resolve the issues you raise in connection with the tag. Since the placement of the tag you have not attempted to further discuss the issues you have raised, or put forward alternative wording based on NPOV sources. If a tag is to remain anywhere on the article the tagger needs to do this and make a genuine effort to produce well-weighted NPOV text. And if a consensus you don't like emerges from discussion, you don't have a veto. You haven't done this so far, which severely weakens your right to maintain a tag. Xandar 00:45, 19 January 2010 (UTC)
I type astonished. Xandar has managed to cut, paste, and emphasize guidance while showing no signs of having read it. If there were a good-faith effort to resolve a problem, there is no need for a tag; but Xandar's chief effort has been to deny problems. Similarly, were there consensus there were no problem, there should not be a tag; but (contrary to Xandar's repeated assertion) a few editors is not consensus. Is anyone but Xandar and Nancy prepared to claim that the issues which have filled this talk page for months, under several different hands, do not exist? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:21, 19 January 2010 (UTC)
People, people! Instead of engaging in unnecessary ad hominem argumentation and mudslinging in general, let's make a serious effort to get this article NPOV. Put all prestige aside and concentrate on the content of the article. Antique Rose — Drop me a line 09:03, 19 January 2010 (UTC)
My point remains. The tag has been put in the wrong place, and if its originator does not raise the issues that it supposedly serves, and work in good faith to speedily resolve them, then the tag is illegitimate, and has to go. So lets see if Leadwind is ready to state his remaining issues, and we can determine what the consensus view is on each of them. Xandar 02:36, 20 January 2010 (UTC)
  • The article is thoroughly disputed. Does anybody have the chutzpah to deny this?
  • The tags are in the right place to indicate this.
  • The chief reason that the atrocious text and sourcing of the article have not been cleared up is revert-warring by certain editors.
  • The way to deal with such gentry - short of dispute resolution - is to make them use up their reverts elsewhere
I am therefore restoring. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:36, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

HEY! What a freakin' waste of time all of this is. This section alone ("Tags again") is 33kb long. Good grief! A pox on both your houses. The presence or absence of the tags is not going to achieve anything. It's a minor tactical issue and we're just getting bogged down in this silliness. Can we get back to discussing the substantive issues? Pmanderson and others, you know I sympathize with many of the issues that have been raised here but I just can't see how this obsession with tags is going to help resolve any of them. If you feel that you cannot achieve a resolution to this dispute, then open one or more RFCs as a precursor to mediation. --Richard S (talk) 19:08, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree that too much heavy weather has been made of them; but - again- the way to make tags go away is to improve the article. I will defer the {{accuracy}} tag until there is another revert war for an unsourced, unverifiable, or absurd claim; let's see how long it takes. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:44, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
PMA Your contributions here over ecent weeks have been almost entirely negative - largely limited to backing anyone, with whatever cause, who is attacking or disrupting the article in any way, and making ad-hominem attacks on editors. The point remains that there is no serious dispute on 90% of the article text, and what disputes remain are largely concentrated in certain sections - thereby making the tag(s) improper and misleading. I would agree with Richard that we should get down to the active work of producing text that is accurate and agreed by most reasonable editors. I also repeat that if no good faith attempts are made to raise, discuss and resolve the specific issues any tags refer to, those tags should go, Xandar 23:35, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
All of this article is in dispute; all of it deserves to be in dispute. Hamiltonstone's list, immediately above, selects from sections throughout the article. It is shameful enough that some editors can see nothing better to do with Wikipedia than an orgy of self-pitying apologetic, but they should not be surprised when their efforts to violate core policy are tagged, which is absolutely minimal - a real clean-up would begin with throwing out half the present text root and branch. I see no purpose in further discussion with a propagandist and a liar. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 06:32, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
I think the article is POV but not for the reasons stated by PMAnderson. My concerns center on the changes made by PMAnderson and others that hide the good done by the Church during World War II, significant contributions to developement of modern society glossed over in the Cultural Influence section, and cut out of the sexual abuse section that told reader about how changes were implemented to prevent future abuse and that showed how it is "ten times worse" in US public schools. These changes make the article clearly POV against the Church. WP:NPOV requires providing reader with both sides of the story if there are two sides. In these instances, we clearly have two sides - FAC criteria requires us to cover notable controversies - these, presently, are not covered very well. NancyHeise talk 05:53, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
This is the same complaint as above: The article doesn't apologize for the Catholic Church and present her as the misunderstood good guy by presenting everything which might be said in her defense. No, that's not neutrality; that would be presenting Nancy's point of view, which is a very partial, not to say partisan, representation of a complex situation. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:21, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Catholic institutions, personnel and demographics

Having been upbraided by a couple of editors, i thought i would look further at some of the issues i identified, only to find more edit warring and removal of tags by Xandar, now after at least two editors had set out some reasons why they would be a good idea. I suggest everyone actually read the intro text at Wikipedia:Template messages/Cleanup, i'm not sure I would read it as supporting much of the conduct here - whether it comes to placing tags without discussion at the talk page, or removing them. Be that as it may...
I see there has been some dispute, esp between Nancy and PMA, over (amongst many other things) this:

France, Ireland, Spain and the United States have experienced a shortage of priests in recent years as the number of ordinations has fallen in those countries.[4]

which Nancy altered it to this:

While some areas of Europe and the US experienced a dip in the number of new seminarians in recent years[5] church ordinations throughout the world since 2000 have continued to steadily increase.[6]

I have no issue with the latter part of Nancy's version, but the former is not neutral, nor accurate. It is not a particularly fair reflection of the particular source (which is, after all, headlined Catholic Priest Shortage). It also reflects a disinclination to make a simple search for other sources (not that this is Nancy's particular responsibility). So here are some others:

I hope these can be put together to stabilise the text on this subject. hamiltonstone (talk) 04:09, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

I would suggest that the "aggregation of sources" mentioned above, is cherry-picked by a particular group with an agenda, even though it does contain some factual nuggets. The Pope Benedict homily is a primary source which is ambiguous without interpretation. As far as the newspaper articles go, most are vague and apocryphal. The 2008 article is the best source here, which applies mainly to the US and quantifies the decline ther, but adds that overall worldwide there has been an increase in priest numbers.
From your post above, it seems your problem could be quite easily solved by changing the sentence to:
While some areas of Europe and the Americas have experienced a significant decline in the number of new seminarians in recent years[7] church ordinations throughout the world since 2000 have continued to steadily increase.[8]

Xandar 00:03, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks - i already made a change to reflect the sources. You are not assuming good faith Xandar. That list was arrived at in a perfectly simple manner: i googled "Catholic priest shortage", and they all came from the first page of hits, apart from the homily, which i found at a related Wikipedia article. i would not consider the news articles to be "vague and apocryphal", and at least they come from reasonably reliable sources. They have the added merit of being from third parties - independent of the issue. However, i've added a good scholarly book as well, so the strength of the material is greatly improved. hamiltonstone (talk) 00:14, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

the mass church may be kind of boring but it depends —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.75.27.124 (talk) 02:54, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Related point, same section of article

Currently, the text includes this: "Known for its ability to use its transnational ties and organizational strength to bring significant resources to needy situations,..." However, the cite for this is a book i would argue is published from within the church (see my earlier remarks about the publisher, Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, Georgetown University). I think Froehle and the book are OK sources for facts such as church size and structure, but not for claims about the church's reputation, which is what the above clause involves. The clause needs a source external to the church, or to be deleted and replaced with other facts. For example, it might be something like "The church maintains a worldwide development aid organisation X (cite), and its branch Y is an international crisis response organisation with a budget of Z (cite)..." The latter version would be better anyway, as it gives the reader more information than the current vague wording. hamiltonstone (talk) 01:23, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree the sentence is a bit vague as it stands. I would appreciate something a bit more solid. Xandar 22:58, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
I think some recent edits by Haldraper have improved the article. The map is useful, but it needs a caption, and to be separated slightly from the table on institutions and personnel. There's only one point on which i disagree - H. removed the expression "Some countries including..." While i generally favour precision in WP articles, the expression in this particular case was designed to avoid a "shopping list": they were not the only countries covered by the available references. IIRC, Mexico was included, as may have been "Western Europe" or "Europe" in general. While less precise, i would favour returning to a wording that makes clear that the effect is not as narrowly confined as "France, Ireland, Spain and the United States". hamiltonstone (talk) 23:24, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Xandar for fixing the map image to address the points made by hamiltonstone. I'll also check the ref he talks about re list of countries but I'm pretty sure it only mentions the ones in the text.

I see "Known for its ability to use its transnational ties and organizational strength to bring significant resources to needy situations,..." has been slipped back in, despite the consensus here that we need a source independent of the Church for it. I won't cut it for now as long as someone comes up with one.

I've also firmed up the sentence on the priesthood with Vatican statistics reproduced in the source on numbers of priests and those preparing for ordination rather than the journalist's own very vague "slowly but steadily rising" which gives a slightly misleading picture on its own.Haldraper (talk) 10:29, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Actually Hal, unless it changed in the interim, "Known for its ability..." seems to have been replaced with a better clause, about the existence of transnational relief organisations. This is better, though it would be great to get a second cite, directly to the relevant orgs, not just to the Froehle book. I am otherwise happy with how this paragrraph is shaping up - thanks for your improvements (and Xandar's). hamiltonstone (talk) 11:47, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
I just took a look at the map and it will not pass FA because it causes sandwiching of article text. I think the section looks better without the map. Also, this section needs to include references to Caritas, Catholic Relief Services and Catholic Charities, it is incomplete without mentioning these very large, worldwide Catholic charity organizations. NancyHeise talk 04:11, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
The map adds significantly to the information in the section and is a good graphic. It will need a reference. But Nancy's suggestion would be a case of the tail wagging the dog. The map is valuable, so we will find a way to make it work. The table is actually of less interest - or shoudl i say harder to interpret - than the map. But i expect we will find a way to keep both. The section already mentions the groups listed by Nancy in aggregate terms, where it says "Church operates transnational relief organisations across the world..." I don't think CRS or Catholic Charities should be mentioned specifically, as they are single-country orgs (United States). Mention them, and we will be off into another shopping list. For this reason I have removed reference to them from the lead (where their appearance is even less appropriate). Mentioning and/or describing Caritas in a sentence would be good. That could be an extension of the existence sentence in the section, or a stand-alone sentence. hamiltonstone (talk) 06:25, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
I'm not sure that this map is reliable. for example, look at how the source data for the map (a data table from Catholic-Hierarchy.org) claims that the population of Syria is 42.5% Catholic. That just isn't the case. Similarly, the map shows Lebanon as blue color (less than 20% Catholic), while most estimates range between 25% and 45% Catholic. Majoreditor (talk) 01:58, 29 January 2010 (UTC)
This is certainly an argument for the map to be properly referenced. If there are estimates that differ, from sources that might be more reliable, then the map should be revised accordingly, and the refs added. But as long as it is built on sources that meet WP:RS, then i think it is better in than out. hamiltonstone (talk) 10:58, 29 January 2010 (UTC)
The map is unreferenced. I am removing it. If someone wants to add a map, please provide a ref too. This is the same reason the first map we had in this section got canned by other editors. NancyHeise talk 02:12, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

I have only been at this article a few weeks, but i'm finding the way people work here pretty frustrating. Nancy, the map is not unreferenced. The referencing is currently confined to the image page itself (File:Catholicpopulationsnew.png). Whether the website in question should be regarded as reliable is another matter. However, the author of the cite sets out the sources, and unless anyone wants to bring forward alternative figures that are regarded as reliable, i don't see the justification for responding to the issue by deleting the entire thing. It is one of the most useful objects in the whole article, and i cannot understand this approach to its summary deletion. Let's keep it and work on the sources - perhaps have a discussion section on the talk page here where people can bring in data sources and discuss them? hamiltonstone (talk) 12:04, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Numbers of priests etc - again

Editor Nancy Heise recently changed this: "The Church in Europe and North America has a shortage of priests due to the number of ordinations there falling." to this: "Some dioceses in North America have experienced a shortage of priests because the number of ordinations have not increased in proportion to the Catholic population". While there are some questions around how exactly to represent the sources, this change - essentially a reversion to an inadequate text of some weeks ago - is not the answer. I am adding more sources and will change the text again. If Nancy wishes to alter it further, i suggest she brings to the talk page the details of evidence regarding what the sources say. Here's my summary:

  • CBS News: "Catholic Priest Shortage": Article talks about how "Reversing the decline among American and European men [becoming priests] will be a major challenge for the next pope". It contains data on "collapse" in seminarian numbers in France and Ireland, and "decline" in Spain. It says "But in the United States and Europe — which accounts today for nearly half of the total — numbers [of priests] have fallen about 20 percent over the period [1978 to 2003]."
  • Reuters: "Mexico's Catholic Church faces priest shortage": "a shortage of priests in one of the world's most Roman Catholic nations..." (not just "some dioceses"). "How to deal with the shortage of priests and the closing of parishes in many parts of the world has vexed the Vatican for decades...As the number of priests dwindles,..."
  • Schoenherr: "a staggering loss of Diocesian priests...forecasting a 40 percent loss in the priest population...one of the most pervasive changes in the Catholic ministry since the Reformation."

New sources I will add:

  • MSNBC News: (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7384580/) "Priest shortage plagues U.S. Catholic Church": "...because while the American Catholic population is growing, the number of priests is shrinking — falling some 26 percent since 1980."
  • Homily of the Holy Father in 2006: "God's harvest is indeed great, and it needs labourers: in the so-called Third World - in Latin America, in Africa and in Asia - people are waiting for heralds to bring them the Gospel of peace, the good news of God who became man. But also in the so-called West, here among us in Germany, and in the vast lands of Russia it is true that a great harvest could be reaped. But there is a lack of people willing to become labourers for God's harvest."
As a side note, since you are talking numbers, you may somehow just fit in the interesting fact that in 1790 there were 29 Catholic priests in the US for 30,000 Catholics. It gives some perspective. Source: John Fletcher Hurst, Short History of the Church in the United States, A.D. 1492-1890, published by Bibliolife, 2008, ISBN 0554544997, page 82. History2007 (talk) 15:25, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
That would be an appropriate addition to Roman Catholicism in the United States rather than this page which covers the worldwide Church.Haldraper (talk) 18:02, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
  1. ^ Stacy, p. 139.
  2. ^ Kirkwood, Burton (2000). History of Mexico. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group, Incorporated. pp. 101–192. ISBN 9781403962584.
  3. ^ Hamnett, Brian R (1999). Concise History of Mexico. Port Chester, NY: Cambridge University Pres. pp. 163–164. ISBN 0-521-58120. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: length (help)
  4. ^ Pogatchnik, Shawn (13 April 2005). "Catholic Priest Shortage". CBS News. Retrieved 4 April 2008.
  5. ^ Pogatchnik, Shawn (13 April 2005). "Catholic Priest Shortage". CBS News. Retrieved 4 April 2008.
  6. ^ "Vatican: After decline, number of priests rises slowly". USA Today. 28 April 2009. Retrieved 17 January 2010.
  7. ^ Garber, Kent (18 April 2008). "What to Do About the Priest Shortage". US News and World Report. Retrieved 17 January 2010.
  8. ^ "Vatican: After decline, number of priests rises slowly". USA Today. 28 April 2009. Retrieved 17 January 2010.
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