Talk:Criticism of the Catholic Church/Archive 2

Counting the bloodstains on the butcher's apron

There is something incredibly repellent in arguing over the exact numbers slaughtered in any massacre. Even though the St Bartholomew's Day Massacre (23 - 24 August 1572) was a hugely important historical event, calculating the death toll is still a disgusting business. The numbers of innocent Protestants killed are staggering. Even today some Roman Catholic apologists seek to minimise the estimated number, whilst some Protestant zealots look to do the opposite. Surely, for Wikipedians, it is crucial that we utilise the credible, up-to-date works of historians? That is what I have done in the article. Both Henry Chadwick and Felipe Fernández-Armesto are credible sources. Of course, if equally credible sources have an alternative view then the article should be amended to reflect this. However, deleting a reference simply because you don't particularly like a historian, or falsifying the evidence by misquoting "the massacre article" (in actual fact, the source is a passage from page in a book), can not be acceptable. Yozzer66 (talk) 12:02, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

After reading the discussion page on the St Bartholomew's Day Massacre article, it appears that Farsight001 was refering to the Wikipedia article on the St Bartholomew's Day Massacre rather than the Fernández-Armesto reference I inserted. Naturally, I withdraw the allegation that he was guilty of "falsifying the evidence by misquoting". Nevertheless, I think the rest of my point remains entirely valid. (Also, for the record, I've edited the St Bartholomew's Day Massacre article to better reflect the diversity of historian views on the death toll). Yozzer66 (talk) 13:58, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

The Fernandez book is described as a mischievous pop revisionist history. See (a course outline for college).Student7 (talk) 14:00, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Whilst reading advice to Westmont College students maybe important to its students, I don't think it has any credence in deciding the validity of references in an encyclopedia. Yozzer66 (talk) 14:08, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't really consider your addition to the St. Bartholomew's article an addition of balance. The 30k is stressed while the 5k is not even exlicitly mentioned. A balanced addition would have to be something like "historians vary in their estimates of those killed during the massacre from around 5k to around 30k.(citation for 5k)(citation for 30k) A consistent estimate is difficult to pin down due to X(maybe due to poor record keeping or something. I don't know the real reason)

I am also wondering if we can even use the sources you are providing. A rule of thumb is that they're notable enough if they have a wiki article on them, but that doesn't automatically make them an expert. Fernandez-Armesto is only notable because he was beaten by police outside a convention a few years ago. I'm not seeing him as a particularly notable historian and while I don't have his book in front of me, I'm suspecting him of being one of those partisan protestants trying to over inflate the number - like how some produce ridiculous estimates of 50 million killed during the inquisitions and 67 million priest molestation victims in the U.S.

p.s. - you've got the name of the book a little wrong too. It's called Reformations: A Radical Interpretation of Christianity and the World, 1500-2000. Not a huge difference, but the readers need the exact title. Being that it is, by admission of the title, a radical interpretation, that only more strongly tells me that it shouldn't be used. We're generally supposed to go with mainstream consensus on a subject. Though this is a criticism article, so it might be good to stick it in anyways, only with a "rebuttal" sentence mentioning that most historians don't provide such large estimates of the death toll.Farsight001 (talk) 23:50, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

While we are at it, where did Fernandez or anyone else get their numbers. There are only so many texts one can consult to come up with a figure. We can consult the same texts and find out if his figures match reality. Is he just "throwing darts" to make a splash? That is what the professor's comment on his book seems to imply. Student7 (talk) 00:17, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Dave Barry is mischievous and fun, too, but we don't try to quote him on serious history matters. We need WP:RELY here and Fernandez is not that. Having a footnote from "some" book is insufficient to qualify for quotation here.Student7 (talk) 13:37, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

(1) Farsight001, your edition of Fernandez-Armesto's book may be called 'Reformations: A Radical Interpretation of Christianity and the World, 1500-2000' but mine isn't. My citation was accurate. (2) A reference's validity is not based on the opinion that Wiki editors have formed of the author. We have clear object criteria covering citations. You say, "I'm suspecting him of being one of those partisan protestants trying to over inflate the number". Where is your evidence? In point of fact, Fernandez-Armesto is sometimes suspected as revisionism by more tradtional historians because he is accused of playing down the Reformation as a divisive event and over-emphasising common features between the differing tradtions. He stresses "The Reformation looks like a stage in a long transformation of Christianity, a common project of Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox reformers". HARDLY A ZEALOT! (3) After reasearching the whole issue of the death toll further it has become apparent that Fernandez-Armesto's figures are well within the mainstream of historian estimates. The main reason for the discrepency between the figures quoted is the timescales involved. The lower figures are describing the bloodshed between 23 - 24 August 1572. The higher figures are estimating the slaughter between 24 Aug. - 17 September 1572. I have several reliable references and I will be editing both relevant Wiki articles to reflect this evidence. Yozzer66 (talk) 23:48, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

What part of "Fernandez is not notable enough" don't you understand? If he, as you even admit, is known for going against the consensus of other historians, then he should not be used. Period. Farsight001 (talk) 00:18, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Are you serious? I thought your statement that "Fernandez-Armesto is only notable because he was beaten by police outside a convention a few years ago" was meant as a throw-away, tongue-in-cheek remark. The man is a Professor of Global Environmental History at Queen Mary, University of London, and a member of the Faculty of Modern History at Oxford University. He is also the Principe de Asturias Chair in Spanish Culture and Civilization at Tufts University. You really do need to get real! One of the criticisms of the Wikipedia idea by outsiders is that article can be hijacked by those with an axe to grind and, usually, little real knowledge in the disputed area. Pages such as this are particularly vulnerable to that charge and I believe that all those with the best interests of Wikipedia at heart should be more considered in their contributions.Yozzer66 (talk) 15:32, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

I've also got to add that since this is the "criticism of" article, no source can be used unless the info within is presented AS a criticism or an argument against that criticism. What this means is that if your source says "30k were killed during the massacre", then it cannot be used. The source is supposed to say something like "many criticize Catholicism for it's role in the St. Bart's massacre where 30k were killed". I have a feeling that that problem might be somewhat rampant in this article. Farsight001 (talk) 00:23, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Again, are you serious? I would have thought that criticism of the Roman Catholic Church is IMPLIED when Catholic mobs slaughter innocent Protestants and then are commended for doing so by the Pope! Yozzer66 (talk) 15:32, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I'm serious. That's how "criticism of..." articles and "objection to..." articles work. If the source doesn't make known that it is an objection, it isn't a valid source. This is not the history of the roman catholic church article.

I have numerous books on the Holocaust. None of them begin the re-telling of each example of Nazi barbarism by stating "The following is a criticism of Hitler and the Nazis..." Some things are IMPLIED. When, 500 years ago, a self-confessed Christian Church condones the slaughter of innocents then you can guarantee that modern historians are not reminding us of those events in order that the RC Church can be retrospectively praised or condoned!Yozzer66 (talk) 16:44, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Which means that those books on the Holocaust would be adequate for recounting the events of said Holocaust in wikipedia, but not for an article on criticizms of the Holocaust. I'll say it again - for an event to be listed AS a criticism, it must be called one in the source being used. That it happened could be cited to the book. That the event is criticized cannot. That's just wiki policy at work.Farsight001 (talk) 04:01, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

And "commended by the Pope"? You reveal your bias more with every post. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Farsight001 (talk • contribs) 06:43, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Don't be juvenile. A properly cited extract from the article: "Pope Gregory XIII ordered a Te Deum to be sung as a special thanksgiving (a practice continued for many years after) and had a medal struck with the motto Ugonottorum strages 1572 showing an angel bearing a cross and sword next to slaughtered Protestants".Yozzer66 (talk) 15:23, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

You have omitted the fact that the pope was told that the Huguenots were attempting to seize control of the government. So, sure, he was happy that they hadn't succeeded. Student7 (talk) 22:09, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Having a medal made means what? He might have been celebrating their deaths. But the medal may also have been made to mourn those deaths. It is not said either way, nor can we say either way. Wikipedia is for reporting what reliable source say, not for interpreting the sources ourselves. If the source doesn't say something, then neither do we.Farsight001 (talk) 02:27, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

I would have thought it impossible for such a blinkered interpretation to be sustainable. However, on the oftchance that there are others out there, I have amended the texts (with approriate citations) to address your concerns. Yozzer66 (talk) 12:00, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

You are talking like this was current stuff. It was hundreds of years ago. Protestants and Catholics were killing each other.

But that is beside the point here. You claim the source is "within the mainstream" yet you have to use his figure and no other. Why is that? If it is "within the mainstream" where are the others, who may be more acceptable, saying the same thing? And where, after all these years, are these people coming up with these figures. It is one thing for a scholar to arrive at an opinion and be quoted here. It is quite another for him to come up with a brand new figure out of nowhere after hundreds of years. Scholarship is not inventing whole new figures - it is finding meaning in the old, accepted figures.Student7 (talk) 02:02, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

I'll amend the article to reflect multiple sources. This isn't the place to explain historian's methods at reaseaching primary data and historial data. Non-scientists may wonder at a great many scientific theories but that doesn't make them any less valid.Yozzer66 (talk) 15:23, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Request for comments

Does the author have a sufficiently scholarly reputation that a new figure for deaths occurring hundreds of years can be used? Discuss.....

Henry Chadwick and Felipe Fernández-Armesto are both serious scholars with well-established reputations in their fields. However, neither of them is a specialist in 16th-century France. Chadwick was a scholar of the Early Church, while Fernández-Armesto's major scholarly contributions (as opposed to his work as a popularizer) have been in the field of Atlantic history. So, I would say that anything that either Chadwick or Fernández-Armesto has to say about 16th-century France is going to be entirely derivative and based on somebody else's research, not their own scholarly assessment of the period.

For an opinion by an expert in the field, I think that most scholars in the field would agree that the book [http://www.amazon.com/Beneath-Cross-Catholics-Huguenots-Sixteenth-Century/dp/0195070135/ref=si3_rdr_bb_product Beneath The Cross: Catholics and Huguenots in Sixteenth Century Paris] by Barbara B. Diefendorf is probably the standard scholarly work on the the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre. I don't have access to an academic library right now, or else I would look up her opinion on the topic.

Adam_sk (talk) 05:06, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Bias

An editor is insisting on exaggerated comments on the Huguenot massacres. The problem for the rest of you looking on is that all the edits that you have made will now be dismissed by unbiased readers as "nonsense" including the statements that are not exaggerated and are footnoted with article by recognized scholars and statements including people directly responsible, not just people on the periphery, like (in this case) the Pope. To retain the integrity of this article, you really need to speak up. All your edits are in jeopardy as well by association with the biased ones. Student7 (talk) 02:40, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

It is easy to allege bias in others (often whilst remaining blind to your own prejudices) on discussion pages. What is more difficult, and time-consuming, is putting the effort into researching the history and providing appropriate citations and references. In short, if your 'gut' is telling you that the text of an article is misleading then do the research. You may find that it is your gut that is wrong. Yozzer66 (talk) 23:14, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

• It would be preferable to use a more up to date source than ("H.A.L") Herbert Fisher. The edition you use may be 1969, but the 1st edn was published in 1935, when he was 70. Johnbod (talk) 04:58, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Johnbod, as a general rule, I think you are correct. Although I have to say that another editor recently used Philip Schaff whose book was published nearly a hundred years ago in 1910! Also, the advanced age of an historian (in this case H.A.L. Fisher) obviously does not prevent him from writing good and relevant work. Yozzer66 (talk) 15:14, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

No, but this is someone who was born in 1865, and appears from his article to have largely moved on from being an active historian after 1912. Johnbod (talk) 15:56, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

For the record, Philip Schaff was born in 1819 and had been dead for 17 years before the 1910 edition of his 'History of the Christian Church'. Yozzer66 (talk) 17:16, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

I think this maligning of dead historians is irrelevant and counter-productive. Let's not focus on establishing the reliability of a single source. If the source is reliable, it shouldn't be that hard to find another (perhaps younger and more active) source that says the same thing or, better yet, that cites the first source. If you can't find such a source, then perhaps the source in question represents a minority or even fringe position. --Richard (talk) 17:32, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Bias & criticism of Roman Catholic actions in history

In the sub-section titled 'Persecution and killing of Protestants', I have outlined King Louis XIV's persecutions of French Protestants. Let me clarify why I believe that such information is appropriate in this article.

It is not because Louis was deserving of condemnation and that he claimed to be a devout Roman Catholic. On that basis Myra Hindley would be included in the article and that would be ludicrous! It is because reputable modern historians have documented how leading RC Churchmen tacitly supported Louis' persecution whilst it was occurring and celebrated the outcome (i.e. the mass exodus of Huguenots from France). Moreover, and again this is well documented, the RC Church's response at that time was perfectly consistent with the opposition to the principle of religious toleration that emanated from the very top of the Church's hierarchy.

To suggest that such criticism of the RC Church actions in French history should not be included in the article is POV nonsense. Yozzer66 (talk) 19:53, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

The way you're writing it, it's about Louis. That the Catholic Church supported him might be a valid criticism (though a far more minor one than you are making it. Remember WP:UNDUE ). But what you are adding is not such a criticism. Louis' actions of course need mention, but not to such an extent.

You are also ignoring what was said earlier - that if the source itself does not call it a criticism, then the source cannot be used for this article. This is the Criticism of article. That's how it works. Sorry.Farsight001 (talk) 06:30, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

I understand your point. I simply do not believe it to be valid. During the period in question, the RC Church did not have large armies at its disposal. It relied on secular powers to take heed of its views. In France, Louis, a loyal Catholic, hated the concept of religious toleration. The RC Church, at this time, were also opposed to this principle (one that has become so widely accepted in 'western' societies that it is often difficult to imagine a time before). Louis, with the tacit support of leading Churchman, ordered acts of anti-Protestant terror. (Let's be completely honest, without the tacit approval of the Church, would a devout Catholic have been committed to such a course of action?) Some leading Churchman celebrated the outcome - a France almost completely 'cleansed' of Protestants. Now, in all the material the criticism of the RC Church is so obviously implied that this shouldn't need re-emphasising. A modern historian would not write: "The following is a criticism of the RC Church..." That is how junior school children begin their English composition answers! Yozzer66 (talk) 12:07, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Local churchmen of all denominations have often supported actions by their governments without such actions being subsequently pinned on the denomination in this way. The traumatic experience of the French Wars of Religion and similar disputes had led many if not most in Europe at this time to believe, purely as a matter of pragmatic politics, that states significantly divided in religion were inherently unstable and dangerous - exactly the same beliefs lay behind the Glorious Revolution in England at the same time. You don't mention that the Vatican, as a supporter and promoter of the League of Augsburg, later the Grand Alliance, was actually engaged in a (very successful) military alliance directed solely against France in this period. As to whether "without the tacit approval of the Church, would a devout Catholic have been committed to such a course of action", a read of Gallicanism would be a starting place for answering this. Church relations between Rome and France were much weaker and more complex in this period than you seem to think, and I doubt Louis was much troubled by what the Vatican might think on this or any other of his actions. Johnbod (talk) 14:15, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Johnbod, thanks for this comment. I think you are correct to stress the difference between local Churchmen and those higher in the hierarchy; and between secular power in a nominally Roman Catholic country such as France and the RC Church itself. If examples of Churchmen who vocally opposed Louis can be found, I would have no objection to these being added to the article as a means of mitigating the criticism of the RC Church. However, the central point remains clear: Louis inhuman actions were a logical outcome of the Vatican's long-standing opposition to religious toleration. Moreover, they were widely approved of within the R.C. Church. Yozzer66 (talk) 16:03, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

If Farsight001 had his way, the only reference that could be used in the 'Criticism of Roman Catholic actions in history' section of the article would be a publication entitled '1001 criticisms of the RC Church in history'. There is only three problems with this approach. First, to the best of my knowledge, that book has yet to be written. Second, when it is written it is likely to be researched by a 'popular' historian and may therefore lack the credibility of academic historians. Third, unless it is written by a Roman Catholic, it is likely to be viewed as biased. Therefore, in the real world, we have to draw on multiple sources where the criticism is implied. Yozzer66 (talk) 16:03, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

This is hyperbole. There are plenty of books which criticize the Catholic Church without being a compendium of criticisms. --Richard (talk) 06:55, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Quite so. That is my point. There are plenty of books that include criticism of the RC Church. However, in the field of history, most of that criticism is implied not explicit in the way that Farsight001 seems to be insisting upon. Yozzer66 (talk) 17:04, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Complaining about what is ultimately wiki policy doesn't help things any. If you don't like it, then go to the policy page and move to have it altered. If you think my pov is so twisted, then why would I not be removing citation to the two babylons or chick tracts? I let them stay because those are citicisms listed in the sources AS criticims. Farsight001 (talk) 03:55, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Fortunately, your skewed interpretation of wiki policy is only one of a number of possible interpretations. Along with Student7 and Johnbod, I have agreed to mediation. Yozzer66 (talk) 17:07, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

While I agree with Farsight001's assertion that the condemnation massacre of the Huguenots is not necessarily a direct criticism of the Catholic Church, I disagree with his assertion about what is a reliable source for this article. I think it is sufficient to establish that there is at least one reliable source who levels a criticism about the church. After that, other sources on both sides of the issue can be used to support further details about that event, policy, whatever. Farsight001's point would be better formulated if he asserted that we must establish that people really do blame the Catholic Church for the Huguenot massacre. To simply say "Well, Louis XIV couldn't have done it without the tacit consent of the church" is OR. Find a source who says that and who criticizes the church for not stopping Louis XIV from launching the massacre. --Richard (talk) 06:55, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Page protected due to edit warring

OK, that's enough. I've protected this page for a week due to edit warring. This is long overdue as this edit war has been running for several days. I had considered protecting Farsight001's last edit but was concerned that it would be considered a [{WP:COI|conflict of interest]] so I waited to protect Yozzer66's last edit. This does NOT imply any endorsement of that revision. It is deliberately picked to be the wrong version.

I had hoped the discussion on this page would result in a resolution of the dispute but that does not seem to be happening. Page protection is undesirable. If you guys (Farsight001 and Yozzer66) can't come to a resolution on this, there are other ways of stopping the edit warring (i.e. blocking).

Please consider the various methods of dispute resolution. I recommend starting with an RFC and then proceeding to mediation. If you can resolve this, I will lift the protection so that collegial, collaborative editing can resume. If not, I will lift the protection and consider blocking both of you, an admin action that I have used very rarely.

--Richard (talk) 17:41, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Clarity of the differing positions in relation to article

We have to begin to resolve this dispute somehow. As a first step, and given that the discussion has become a little hard to follow, I think it would be useful if all editors with views on the matters in dispute were to clarify exactly where they stand. In brief, my views are:

(1) The maligning of a reputable modern historian (a Professor of Global Environmental History at Queen Mary, University of London; a member of the Faculty of Modern History at Oxford University; and the Principe de Asturias Chair in Spanish Culture and Civilization at Tufts University) is utterly pointless.

If we accept historian Jules Michelet's argument that "St Bartholomew was not a day, but a season" lasting between 23 Aug. and 3 October, Felipe Fernández-Armesto and D. Wilson's quoting of "a contemporary, non-partisan guestimate" that approximately 30,000 Protestants were killed throughout the country is a VERY conservative estimate. As other reputable sources attest, by the 17 September, almost 25,000 Protestants had been massacred in Paris alone. Nearly 3,000 Protestants were slaughtered in Toulouse and this was only one of nine provincial towns and cities to have been affected by the massacres.

(2) The criticism that can be levelled at the RC Church in relation to the massacres: Pope Gregory XIII's well documented reaction to both the killing of Gaspard de Coligny and the mass slaughter. The sources may not state their descriptions of the Pope's actions as criticism. This is clearly implied. Rest assured, modern historians are not reminding us of those events in order that the RC Church can be retrospectively praised or condoned.

(3) The Edict of Nantes and the Vatican: The Edict introduced a measure of religious toleration and Pope Clement VIII despised it. Again, this opposition to religious toleration is not re-told by modern historians in a form of explicit condemnation of the RC Church. (Indeed, it would be a very clumsy, childish style that make such criticism explicit). Religious toleration is now such a popularly held conviction that the criticism is obviously implied.

(4) The anti-Protestant barbarism of King Louis XIV of France and the complicity of the RC Church: The Dragonnade policy, the Edict of Fontainebleau (which revoked the Edict of Nantes in 1685) and the mass exodus of Protestants from France was a logical result of the RC Church's long-standing opposition to religious toleration. Moreover, whilst there is a difference between local Churchmen and those higher in the hierarchy, and between secular power in a nominally Roman Catholic country and the RC Church itself, there was widespread tacit support within the RC Church for the King's actions whilst they were occurring and a revelling in the outcome. How can such matters not be an integral part of the criticism of the RC Church's actions in history? Yozzer66 (talk) 00:21, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

• Some comments:

1) I have nothing against F F-A, but he is not a specialist, and it ought to be a simple matter to obtain a figure from a more specialized work. I note the French article on the massacre, mostly sourced from a French work of 1980, says: "Au total, le nombre de morts est estimé à 3 000 à Paris, et de 5 000 à 10 000 dans toute la France." The passage in the article naively treats the whole matter as religious, but by the middle of a lengthy civil war religion had become politics.

2) The French article also emphasizes the role of the mob, and says that the trend among historians is to think that only the assassination of a small group of leaders was ordered by the King & his mother; then the mob took over. At the end of the day, no one is suggesting that the RCC was consulted about or aware of the massacre before it happened, and however deplorable and foolish the Papal reaction, it seems WP:UNDUE to allot so much space to a reaction rather than an action by the Papacy.

3)The RCC certainly did not promote religious toleration in the Early Modern period - nor did the Church of England or the Calvinist churches, to name but a few. Papal reaction to the Edict of Nantes seems an odd & unnecessarily obscure way to make this point.

4) Talk of "logical result"s in history strongly suggests over-simplification, which is certainly the case here. Louis had purely political grounds for his determination to get rid of the Huguenots, and acted equally ruthlessly against other individuals and groups who he saw as threats to his rule.

Any article of this sort, concentrating of the faults of one party in what were very complex historical events is likely to be permanently in danger of falling prey to NPOV and UNDUE. I would welcome the thoughts of editors with more knowledge of the area than those at present active, but it seems to me that the current version steps over these lines somewhat. Johnbod (talk) 02:11, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

1. It's not so much the author as it is the book. It was first released with a title declaring it a radical view of history. In other words, against popular concencus. It doesn't seem to have sold too well, and the newer version mysteriously leaves the "radical" part out of the title. This makes the book and the author's motives in this case highly suspect.

2. If it is obviously presented as a criticism, even if not outright called one, I guess that'd be fine. But I also need to point out that undue weight applies here. There are quite a bit of criticisms of the Catholic Church, and this is a seldom mentioned one. It is quite rare, and we simply can't cover every little criticism - especially at length.

3. Same as point 2.

4. I must again point out that the criticims ought to be popular enough to get a large chunk of the article. This is not a very popular one. And again - you need to concentrate a LOT less on Louis. Mention Loius' actions with one sentence, and then explain the Church's support of his actions.Farsight001 (talk) 02:51, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I'd like to thank both of you for your considered responses. Much of the heat seems to have been removed from the discussion and I would now like to proceed on that basis.

I too would welcome the thoughts of other editors. However, it is a tradition on Wikipedia that editors do not parade their qualifications. I understand that it probably wasn't meant, but the idea that the invitation be open primarily to those "with more knowledge of the area than those at present active" is unnecessarily restrictive and makes too many assumptions about those currently involved. Please, if you feel you have a valid contribution to make, join the discussion. Personally, I love the idea that historical issues can still generate such interest and passion.

There is one substantive historical issue that I would like to challenge at the outset. Johnbod wrote,"Louis had purely political grounds for his determination to get rid of the Huguenots, and acted equally ruthlessly against other individuals and groups who he saw as threats to his rule". This is a massive over-simplification. In contrast to the situation in France a hundred years previously, the Huguenots had no standing armies, no fortified towns, and no political leadership capable of challenging the King's position. On the secular political level, they presented very little threat. Sure, Louis was a secular ruler with secular motives but his was also devout. He saw himself as being in a divinely sanctioned position and believe he was obligated to defend the interests of the faith. Primarily, the Huguenots had become a challenge to the theological / ecclesiastical status quo only. Yozzer66 (talk) 11:55, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

That is your opinion; the evidence suggests it was not Louis', who had a notoriously low threshold for the perception of threat, no doubt partly because of his childhood experiences. Johnbod (talk) 13:04, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Johnbod, if the study of history was as straightforward as you sometimes regard it ("the evidence suggests..." and contrary conclusions are mere "opinions") then historians would rarely, if ever, disagree!

One thing I should have stressed in my contribution was that, in this period, the defining line between the secular / profane and the sacred was very blurred. Religious men were often very worldly and worldly men, like Louis, were frequently religious. So, yes, in the 16th century in particular, the Huguenots were both a religious and political threat. (Without a degree of political influence their religion stood no chance of surviving). By Louis' time, the quest for 'religious unity' meant stamping out French Protestantism whilst it was politically weak. Such 'unity' was usually viewed as desirable for BOTH secular and religious reasons. Does it really matter which was the primary motivation? The main point for this article is that powerful voices within the RC Church, because of their long-standing opposition to religious tolerance, approved of Louis' policies. Yozzer66 (talk) 17:33, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Can I suggest to all involved that the goal here not be to win the day by the brilliance of your argument (which is what is meant by original research) but by providing sources that make your argument? For example, is there a reliable source that makes Yozzer66's argument about the alignment of religious and political interests? Conversely, is there a reliable source that makes Farsight001's argument that the suppression of the Huguenots was a purely political and secular event internal to France? It may turn out that there are reliable sources that make both arguments in which case we should present both arguments, indicating which appears to be the mainstream one and which is the minority one. Remember, we are not out to establish the WP:TRUTH but rather to present all significant POVs in a NPOV manner without giving undue weight to minority opinions.

--Richard (talk) 17:56, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

FYI - that Louis' actions were purely political is not my argument. I don't want anyone getting confused here. Farsight001 (talk) 21:40, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Sorry about that. I've only been paying slight attention to the actual dispute. The basic thrust of my comment still stands. --Richard (talk) 23:56, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Louis XIV's Persecutions: The Pope was Innocent but the French RC Church wasn't!

Leaving aside the Vatican's long standing opposition to religious toleration, in the case of Louis XIV's actions, it appears that the Papacy can not be criticised. The wiki article on Pope Innocent XI states: "The whole pontificate of Innocent XI is marked by a continuous struggle with the absolutism of Louis XIV... To appease the Pope, Louis XIV began to act as a zealot of Catholicism. In 1685 Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes and inaugurated a cruel persecution of the Protestants. Innocent XI expressed his displeasure at these drastic measures". However, there are historians who don't even believe that the King attempted to "appease the Pope". Jackson J. Spielvogel writes that, whatever his motives, Louis's anti-Protestant policy was not aimed at currying papal favour. Louis was a defender of Gallicanism, the belief that the monarchy possessed certain rights over the Catholic church in France, irrespective of papal powers. (Jackson J. Spielvogel (1991) Western Civilization, St. Paul, pp. 523-528).

Even if we accept the papacy's blamelessness, it still doesn't let the RC Church off the hook. Will Durant and Ariel Durant stress that "it grieved him (Louis XIV) that the unity of France could not be religious as well as political... It is the view of an absolute king who has taken from Bossuet the motto Un roi, une loi, une foi--"One king, one law, one faith"... The Church herself had never approved the toleration guaranteed by the Edict of Nantes. An assembly of the clergy in 1655 called for a stricter interpretation of the edict; their assembly of 1660 asked the King to close all Huguenot colleges and hospitals, and to exclude Huguenots from public office; their assembly of 1670 recommended that children who had reached their seventh birthday should be deemed legally capable of abjuring the Huguenot heresy, and that those who so abjured should be removed from their parents; in 1675 their assembly demanded that mixed marriages be declared null, and that the offspring of such marriages be classed as illegitimate. Pious and kindly priests like Cardinal de Bérulle contended that FORCIBLE REPRESSION BY THE STATE WAS THE ONLY PRACTICAL WAY OF DEALING WITH PROTESTANTISM. One prelate after another urged upon the King the argument that the stability of his government rested on social order, which rested on morality, which would collapse without the support of the state religion... From the beginning of his active reign Louis--or his ministers with his consent--issued a succession of decrees that moved toward full revocation of the toleration edict... Louis was told that very few Huguenots were left in France, and that the Edict of Nantes had become meaningless. In 1684 the general assembly of the clergy petitioned the King that the edict be completely annulled, and that "the undisturbed rein of Jesus Christ . . . be re-established in France". On October 17, 1685, the King revoked the Edict of Nantes as now unnecessary in a France almost entirely Catholic... A minority of French Catholics privately condemned the massacres of the Revocation, and gave secret help and refuge to many victims. But the vast majority hailed the destruction of the Huguenots as the King's culminating achievement; now at land, they said, France was Catholic and one. The greatest writers--Boussuet, Fénelon, La Fontaine, La Bruyère, even the Jansenist patriarch Arnauld--extolled the courage of the King in implementing what they conceived to be the national will." (Will Durant & Ariel Durant (1963) The Age of Louis XIV. The Story of Civilization, Vol. 8, NY: Simon and Schuster, pp. 69-75)

For the record, the Durant's view of Louis' mixture of secular and religious motivations is supported by others. From the wiki article on the Edict of Fontainebleau: The lack of universal adherence to his religion did not assort well with Louis XIV's vision of perfected autocracy: "Bending all else to his will, Louis XIV resented the presence of heretics among his subjects." (R.R. Palmer, A History of the Modern World, rev. ed. 1956) Yozzer66 (talk) 22:22, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

In what follows below, let me state that I understand that there are not "national churches" in Catholicism the way there are in Eastern Orthodoxy. I'm just using the phrase as a convenient phrase to describe what is characterized as the "French RCC" in Yozzer66's post.

Yozzer66's post provides useful information. And now we need to decide whether the scope of this article should focus on the actions of the Pope or on the actions of national churches. Surely, we cannot hope to have the scope extend below the level of national churches to the diocese level but it is at least plausible to consider whether we wish to limit the scope to the worldwide church or allow it to extend to the national churches.

My personal opinion is that we should, in general, focus on the Vatican and worldwide church and leave alone the actions of the national churches except to the extent that those actions involve the Vatican and/or the worldwide church. For example, AFAICT, the sexual abuse scandal appears to have been limited to a few countries. However, it rose to a level which required involvement by the Vatican. Thus, it should be included in this article.

So which way should we go on the persecution of the Huguenots? My guess is that it should be left out but that's just my opinion. What do others think?

--Richard (talk) 00:09, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

I suspect so. Critics need to understand that there were times (a very few times) when the pope has had absolute control over the actions of all Catholics everywhere. This specific instance was not one of them.Student7 (talk) 13:36, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Quite so. In which case, isn't it incredibly short-sighted to restrict any criticism of the RC Church's actions in history to those sanctioned by the Papacy? Surely the RC Church, past and present, has to be seen as a greater entity than the Vatican and its Head? The RC Church has complicity if its laity are implicated in large numbers; if a significant number of the local clergy and bishops are involved; and if influential theologians provide the intellectual 'scaffolding' for repression to be justified by those directly involved. Of course, papal opposition is a powerful mitigating factor in any criticism. Yozzer66 (talk) 18:30, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

For starters, if we go the "national church" way, as Yozzer66 seems to imply, are we saying (with a WP:RELY reference!) that the massacre was preached to the French from the pulpit? Somehow it all seemed more spontaneous than that. Mobs, as someone has suggested,

For the overall article, there are (today) 1 billion Catholics including 1/2 million priests. At what point does "criticism" become local and personal? Is Tony Soprano a murderer because he is Catholic? Is his violence "Catholic inspired?" There must be some low level beyond which the Vatican or "national church" or some religious motivation cannot be determined. The discussion in this article and others seem to imply that this level is never reached - that all felonies are religious and/or religiously inspired. Why is there such a high standard for Catholics and not for other religions? Student7 (talk) 23:13, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Section unbalanced

The whole section: Persecution and killing of Protestants is fatally unbalanced. In every respect it recites negative lists of Catholic "persecutions" as if they happened in isolation. The Marian persecutions, for example, were a five year interlude in over a century and a half of Protestant persecution of Catholics from 1533 to at least 1700. This surely has some bearing on what happened, but is simply not stated. It is central to what happened that hundreds if not thousands of Catholics had been massacred and tortured to death in the twenty years prior to Mary's "revenge." Taking things out of their context is a major form of distortion.

On the Saint Bartholomew's Massacre. That too is presented in caricatured polemic terms as "evil Catholics murder blameless protestants." That is an over-simplification bordering on travesty, and I can see why people are angry about this. The fact is that the Protestants did represent a severe military threat - as evinced by their policy of overthrowing Catholicism by force, which led to assassinations, coups and seven periods of civil war. The protestants were not just praying and demanding religious toleration. They despised religious toleration more than the Catholics, and their aim was - as in Holland and Geneva - to overthrow and ban Catholicism. This needs to be said somewhere in the passage.

Detailed sources in English for this period are hard to come by, but a really good academic source is Catherine de Medici by Leonie Frieda, which covers the intrigues of the period in detail. Some quotes on the massacre:

Catherine now prepared to take drastic measures to protect both her son's throne and the peace of the kingdom. The ensuing tumultuous events of August 1572 have stained her name for over 430 years, creating the legend of the Black Queen. Tragically she is not remembered for her enlightened and often frequent attempts at conciliation between Protestants and Catholics but for the chaotic bloodbath known as the Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre. p286

The Chapter on the massacre describes the complex build up. Catherine's son, King Charles IX of France had taken Protestant leader Admiral Coligny as his pincipal advisor. An attempt at reconciliation had been in the wedding of her daughter Margot to the Protestant Henri of Navarre, for which the leading Protestants of France had assembled in Catholic Paris. Catherine learned that Coligny was secretly raising 14,000 troops on the dutch border. The Catholic Guise family wanted vengeance for the assassination of their leaders by the Protestants. Catherine and the Guises plotted the Assassination of Coligny while he was in Paris. Quote: "Catherine's powers of dissimulation were now to be put to the ultimate test. If her plan failed, she and her family risked being killed by the thousands of armed Huguenots present in the city." p293. The assassination was bungled, however. Coligny was wounded and King Charles, who knew nothing of his mother's plot, ordered an inquiry. Tensions rose in the following days, with the King and his mother in separate camps. As the enguiry progressed the evidence linking the plot to Catherine came closer to discovery. The Catholics began to arm against the protestants in the city.

The book states (p 306):

"As Tavannes recalled 'Because the attempt on the Admiral would cause a war, she and the rest of us agreed that it would be advisable to bring battle in Paris.' They would finish the work so badly begun by Maurevert (the assassin), but this time their victims would include not only the Admiral but his most senior Huguenot nobles and captains so conveniently lodged with the Admiral or around him in the city. This would effectively decapitate the rebel movement and, they hoped, prevent a fourth full-scale civil war. All agreed that such an opportunity would never present itself again. there were also worrying signs that if they did not act soon, the Huguenots might strike first."

After threats from Huguenots to Catherine herself, she sent an emissary to her son confessing that she had planned the assassination attempt on Coligny, and that the Huguenots now intended to attack. After pursuasion by Catherine and her party the King at last agreed to an attack on the protestant leaders in Paris.

p308:

"Finally convinced, the young, ill, and unstable king is said to have uttered the immortal cry for which he is principally remembered: "Then kill them all. Kill them all!" it is almost certain that by this, he meant all those on a list drawn up by Catherine and not, as has often been claimed, all the Huguenots in France."

The city troops were told that at that moment protestants were marching on the city, arms were issued, and the attack began. Most of the senior Huguenots were killed by dawn on St bartholomew's day. The real indiscriminate massacre followed spontaneously. Protestants were recognisable by their black and white clothes and any found by the mobs were killed. Some Catholics and moneylenders were also killed in the anarchy. A dismayed King gave an order for the killings to stop, but was ignored. The King also tried to prevent the violence spreading with despatches on 24th and 25th August, without effect. The Catholic Duke of Guise also tried to stop the bloodletting.

On numbers killed the book says (p 317):

"most experts believe that the death toll throughout the kingdom was possibly as high as between 20,000 and 30,000. In Paris alone it is thought that 2000 to 3000 people lost their lives, The Huguenots registered in paris had numbered only some 800, although there were manyb too poor to be on any list, and therefore the number is likely to have been far higher. This still leaves around 1000 dead Parisians who were not Huguenots... It might .. be argued that a high percentage of the remaining hundreds were killed as a result of general discontent, the 'haves' killed by the 'have-nots'."

The story spread by the King after the massacre was that a protestant coup had been foiled. When the true story reached Rome the commendation initially issued by the Pope was withdrawn. (p320.) I think this source provides reliable details of the actual facts of the Massacre. Xandar 00:19, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Xandar, I maybe mistaken but you don't appear to have much of a grasp of English history. In the main, English Catholics found themselves more easily accommodated in the Church of England than Protestants! Remember the CofE was a compromise from the outset - Erastian in government, Roman in ritual, and Calvinist in theology. In contrast to France and Germany, England was remarkably free of religious convulsions. This is one of the reasons why the Marian Persecutions stand out.

On the Saint Bartholomew's Massacre, you seem to want it both ways. You want us to believe that the massacre can be contextualised as an understandable response by the Catholic mob to the Protestant threat. "Protestants did represent a severe military threat - as evinced by their policy of overthrowing Catholicism by force". On the other hand, end by accepting that the Protestant threat was a myth. "The story spread by the King after the massacre was that a protestant coup had been foiled. When the true story reached Rome the commendation initially issued by the Pope was withdrawn".

Of the 30,000 Protestants slaughtered how may died on the battlefield? Answer: None. Was it an inexcusable atrocity? Answer: Of course. Should the Pope have commended such a slaughter under any circumstances? Answer: Of course not. Yozzer66 (talk) 00:54, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Yozzer, I expect Xandar has had a fit of apoplexy at that bizarre summary of English religious history, about which he knows a good deal more than you. There was less bloodshed in England than many places in the Continent, mainly because the government had much better control, but a long history of repression of Catholics, who are still uniquely discriminated against in odd corners of English constitutional law. Johnbod (talk) 03:32, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Yozzer66: I think it is you who have not delved deep enough into the specifics of English History. Repression of Catholics under Henry VIII, and Edward VI was indeed bloody. Clergy who resisted protestantism like the Carthusian Martyrs, and many other monks, were disembowelled alive. A list of such clergy is here. Groups of resisters such as those involved in the Prayer Book Rebellion and the Pilgrimage of Grace were subject to massacre. Under Elizabeth and her successors tortures, killings and massacres of Catholics continued in England, Scotland and, more so, in Ireland. The marian persecutions only "stand out", because the protestant "winners" made them stand out. While Foxe was writing his Booke of Martyrs, Catholics were being hung, disembowelled alive and torn to pieces outside in the street.

On Saint Bartholomew; I'm not "having it both ways", I'm quoting the source. I didn't make this up. Protestants did represent a real and severe military threat. There were three civil wars led by armed protestant lords accompanied by foreign troops prior to the St Bartholomew massacre. These involved a great deal of bloodshed, massacres, an attempted kidnapping of the King, and many noble deaths including Guise. see French wars of religion. My other comment was that on this occasion the king stressed a revolt that hadn't happened (yet).

This goes to the reports of the Papal reaction. Some people with an agenda, realising that the Church did not organise the massacre, plan to pillory the Pope by emphasising his alleged reaction. However they fail to specify to what he was reacting. It is well verified that the first reports that went out to all foreign nations about the events presented it as an attempted treasonable Protestant Coup against France, which Charles and Catherine had thwarted. It was these reports which the pope greeted with gladness - althopugh many try to portray it otherwise. Had such coups succeeded before? Yes. In the Netherlands, Scotland, Switzerland and elsewhere. This was no fantasy, a Protestant coup and the banning of Catholicism was planned by many in France - as in the above countries. So the story and the reaction to it were very credible, and a protestant coup could easily have happened. Xandar 13:40, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Seems to me that the criticism of the Catholic Church (warranted or not) is the Pope's reaction to the massacres, not the massacres themselves. My rationale here is that the massacres were instigated by secular authority and continued by the populace with relatively little involvement by the clergy (which were local clergy in any event, not Vatican officials). Thus, we should mention the massacres in the context of criticizing the Pope for having reacted initially "with gladness" while also explaining the background context which Xandar provided. --Richard (talk) 16:31, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

That would certainly be an improvement, though I wonder if the matter, if so treated, really justifies mention. What we really need is a wider and deeper coverage of RCC reaction to the Reformation, which heaven knows has been criticised, rather than hanging the narrative on a few specific incidents driven by secular rulers, mobs etc, in a context of widespread military and political conflict. Coverage of papal bulls, encyclicals etc is really more relevant. Johnbod (talk) 17:13, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Among my peer group, people are disparaging about Wikipedia. "Why waste your time arguing with teenagers, under-graduates and those with an axe to grind?" I've always responded that it is worth the effort. Wikipedia is widely read; its contributors are gradually inducted into the sort of good habits that will stand them in good-stead, and, besides, it is fun.

I've begun my response with that statement to explain why I'm bothering to respond in such detail, even when it increasingly appears that I am clearly in a minority and Catholic apologists, of one variety or another, appear in the ascendancy.

First, I'm uncomfortable with the direction of flow. Johnbod, in particular, seems to have a very narrow view of what criticisms should be admitted to the article. (See my comment in the above 'Louis XIV's Persecutions' section).

Second, I'm not certain how much of Xandar's contribution to the debate is relevant to the article. However, because he / she has taken the so much trouble in formulating his / her contributions, I feel duty-bound to respond.

(a) Re: The English Reformation's character - I would not like to deny the suffering of Catholic martyrs. However, the fact remains that the clergy, and majority of English people, were Roman Catholic before Henry VIII's break with Rome. Over a surprisingly short space of time, the vast majority found themselves easily reconciled to the Church of England. Hardly surprising, Henry VIII himself may have been anti-clerical but he clung to orthodoxy (see Six Articles 1539). Many of those he burnt at the stake for heresy were supporters of Protestant Reformation ideas (source: John Burke (1985) 'An Illustrative History of England', Book Club Associates, London). Both Elizabeth I and Edward VI continued to persecuted the so-called Puritans to preserve the 'compromise' that was / is the CofE. “By 1662 English Christianity had achieved its characteristic shape: a large central mass and two dissident wings (Roman Catholic Recusant and Free Church Protestant). The large central mass, ‘the Church of England’, was Erastian, Episcopalian and rather undogmatic. It was overwhelmingly ‘Protestant’ in sentiment but uncommitted to Protestant dogmatisms" (source: Adrian Hastings (1991) ‘English Christianity 1920 – 90’, pp. 32) Incidentally, English Protestant dissenters ('freechurch', 'non-conformists') remained second-class citizens until the 19th century. "Only since 1828, when the Test and Corporation Acts were repealed, had non-conformists ceased in law to be second-class citizens and during the Victoria era they remained acutely conscious of their continuing disabilities" (source: Jane Shaw & Alan Kreider (ed.) (1999) 'Culture & the Non-Conformist Tradition', University of Wales Press, 1999, pp. 49).

(b) Re: English anti-Catholic 'massacres' - Xander also refers to the "massacre" of English Catholics. The description massacre (i.e. "The intentional killing of a considerable number of human beings, under circumstances of atrocity or cruelty, or contrary to the usages of civilized people") can not be said to apply to any of the examples used in Xander's second contribution. The deaths of the eighteen Carthusian Martyrs are tragic but not usually considered sizable enough to merit the term "massacre". The other examples were secular responses to insurgency. Indeed, it was the anti-Papist Gordon Riots of 1780 which "for the first time produced a real state of terror in London" (source: Kenneth O. Morgan (ed.) (1986) 'The Oxford Illustrated History of Britain', Oxford Uni. Press, Oxford, pp. 383). 700 people died (source: History Today Companion to British History) of whom the majority were members of the Protestant mob, shot by the military, burnt alive after arson attacks, or buried in rubble (source: Oxford Companion to British History). Thus, in complete contrast to the anti-Protestant situation in France, England's worst anti-Catholic massacre was small-scale and unofficial. Indeed, of the less than 70,000 Catholics in England in 1780 "few were ever attacked or insulted" (source: Christopher Hibbert (1987) 'The English: A Social History 1066 - 1945', Books Guild Publishing, London, pp. 318).

(c) Re: English anti-Catholicism to 1700 - Xander claims that the Marian persecutions "were a five year interlude in over a century and a half of Protestant persecution of Catholics from 1533 to at least 1700". The English government's attitude to Catholicism developed in a series of phases. Even in the first, and harshest phase, ordinary Catholics were largely left to their own devices, they "FLOURISHED UNMOLESTED" (Oxford Companion, pp. 177-78) and, "in certain parts of the country, indeed, the old religion continued much as before" (Hibbert, pp. 188). Unfortunately, "the Northern Rebellion, the numerous plots linked to Mary Stuart, and the Catholic fanatism of Phillip II" mitigated against any notion that "religious recusancy was commensurate with secular obedience" (Morgan, pp. 276). Thus whilst "no Catholic had been martyred between 1558 and 1577", between 1577 and 1603 "some 200 priests and laymen were executed" (Hibbert). From 1603, measures against Catholics were again relaxed. In the second phase, the English Catholic community gave up largely gave up insurgency and "had settled for a deprived status BUT MINIMAL PERSECUTION" (Hibbert, pp. 303). In the third phase, "few of the (anti-Catholic) laws were enforced. By the mid 18th century Catholic practice was largely tolerated" (Oxford Companion).

(d) Re: The Huguenots Threat - Contrast the situation in England with that in France. From the very outset, the physical existence of the Huguenots was threatened. Henry II of France promulgated the Edict of Châteaubriant and eighty eight Protestants were burnt at the stake during his 12 year reign. Despite persecution, the Huguenots gained influence and displayed their faith more openly. Catholic hostility to them grew. The 1562 Massacre at Vassy, in which 80 innocent Protestants were slaughtered, began the French Wars of Religion. Internal religious persecution begot prolonged military confrontation in France. (When the Huguenots were broken as a political force they were 'cleansed' from France by Louis XIV). In Elizabeth's England Catholic manoeuvring on the domestic and international scenes begot a short burst of repression that left most Catholics unmolested. Yozzer66 (talk) 23:07, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

I guess the question is, does the article criticize the "Catholic Church" or does it criticize the actions of each individual Catholic? Seems like mob action from this perspective. Naturally all violence was taken then to mean it was directed from the top no matter which side it was on or whether the direction actually existed or not. And the stories were carried along into the 20th century unquestioned.

One question that (I admit) is probably more germane to the article on Huguenots) is how does one, in a city distinguish between people who otherwise look like you but worship otherwise? Are the Huguenots attacked during worship? I suspect they dressed differently but this probably changed rapidly when they found that they were being attacked.Student7 (talk) 12:47, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Disclosure - I have a grandmother who was descended from the Huguenots. Without the massacre, which caused the dispersion of her ancestors to England, I don't exist. I don't much care for a world without me in it, so I tend to favor history as it is!  :) That is, I don't really care what their motivation was, what they did was fine with me. Which gets back to my axe of not passing (negative) judgment on historical events. Student7 (talk) 12:47, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Hello, Yozzer66. To briefly respond to your points above. You allege that others of coming here with axes to grind, but it is clear from a lot of your posts on this page that you have a strong POV - namely that the Catholic Church is virtually wholly responsible for the violence of the era. However that view is not borne out by the reliable historical sources. A lot of popular or polemical histories, plays and novels present selective and grotesquely caricatured views, which lead some people to believe that catholics are the spawn of evil, and that anything else is whitewash. But real history is very different.

a)You say "Over a surprisingly short space of time, the vast majority found themselves easily reconciled to the Church of England." Did they? Or were they terrorised into compliance by the brutality of the State? The Pilgrimage of Grace and the Prayer Book Rebellion strongly support the latter view. You could as easily say "Over a surprisingly short space of time, the vast majority of Russians found themselves easily reconciled to the rule of Stalin!" Henry VIII may have clung to his own idea of orthodoxy, but that was not Catholicism, and his successors introduced more thoroughgoing protestantism, with no toleration.

b)By "massacres", I wasn't referring to the Carthusians, or the hundreds of other clergy executed for practising Catholicism. I was referring to the acknowledged massacres of civilians trhat took place following the Pilgrimage of Grace, Prayerbook rebellion and Northern Rising in England, and the similar or larger massacres of Catholics in Ireland, most famously at the Sack of Wexford and the Siege of Drogheda. (Cromwell habitually murdered all Catholic prisoners and religious he came across, in England, Scotland or Ireland.)

c) I'm not sure about the context of your quotes here that "Catholicism flourished unmolested" in England. This was clearly not the case. Only a handful of the most powerful lords could continue to worship as Catholics between 1533 and 1700. Before 1700 ruin or a horrible death awaited people practising Catholicism openly. This is a list just of clerics disembowelled, in most cases simply for saying mass. Laws still continued in force after 1700, but only those debarring Catholics from inheritance rights, education, and entry to the professions remained actively enforced.

d)Catholic France was the only major country in Europe, which even experimented with religious toleration. This began in the 1560s, but, largely because of Calvinist militancy, led to a sequence of civil wars. None of the protestant countries even attempted toleration. The "massacre" at Vassy took place following the killing of priests and monks in territories controlled by protestant nobles. This is not to justify Catholic acts but to set them in context of violence and religious threat. The Edict of nantes was finally revoked 120 years after the first experiments in toleration in France, largely for political reasons, because Louis 14th saw the Huguenots as a fifth column, always ready to side with the English and other foreign invaders. There was no revocation of an edict of Nantes in Britain because there was no "edict of Nantes" in the first place! King Janes II was removed for trying to introduce toleration for Catholics. Xandar 13:43, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Oh dear... I can see we are never going to agree. You view history through a prism created by peculiarly biased worldview. Even in the face of multiple citations from numerous reliable sources you haven't budged an inch! There are too many historical errors in your short contribution that I would be here all night formulating a proper response. For example, even though we were talking about England you raised Ireland. I could quote chapter and verse from the recent work of Irish historians overturning the traditional myth's about Cromwell, but why bother? You talk about France being the "only major country in Europe which even experimented with religious toleration". You forgot Poland, who instigated a policy of religious toleration as a reaction to the anti-Protestant slaughter in France. Moreover, the idea of religious tolerance in Christianity was born with the Reformation and championed first by marginalised Protestants. Unlike in France and Poland, this commitment was permanent and included full protection people with whom they profoundly disagreed (i.e. Roman Catholics and atheists). Yozzer66 (talk) 19:41, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Oh dear - you need to check your Swiss and Dutch history also.... "protection" is a very weaselly word here, for people entirely excluded from public life and under various other disabilities. Unfortunately, there was no religious toleration in the modern sense in Europe, except perhaps in Poland, until much later. Johnbod (talk) 20:17, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear... Johnbod, please do me the courtesy of actually reading my contribution before replying. I clearly stated "the idea of religious tolerance in Christianity was born with the Reformation and championed first by MARGINALISED Protestants". By definition, this excludes the GOVERNMENT of Holland and Switzerland or, indeed, any regent or government! In England, this group of marginalised Protestants included Dissenters martyred by the Anglican-supporting secular authorities. (Such persecution of Protestant Dissenters had a long history in England).

From the Wiki article, Christian debate on persecution and toleration:

In his book on 'The English Reformation', particularly in the chapter 'The Origins of Religious Toleration', the late A. G. Dickens argued that from the beginning of the Reformation there had “existed in Protestant thought – in Zwingli, Melanchthon and Bucer, as well as among the Anabaptists – a more liberal tradition, which John Frith was perhaps the first echo in England”. Condemned for heresy, Frith was burnt at the stake in 1533. In his own mind, he died not because of the denial of the doctrines on purgatory and transubstantiation but “for the principle that a particular doctrine on either point was not a necessary part of a Christian’s faith”. In other words, there was an important distinction to be made between a genuine article of faith and other matters where a variety of very different conclusions should be tolerated within the Church. This stand against unreasonable and profligate dogmatism meant that Frith, “to a greater extent than any other of our early Protestants”, upheld “a certain degree of religious freedom”.

Of course, Frith was not alone. John Foxe, for example, “strove hard to save Anabaptists from the fire, and he enunciated a sweeping doctrine of tolerance even towards Catholics, whose doctrines he detested with every fibre of his being”.

In the early 17th century, Thomas Helwys was principal formulator of that distinctively Baptist request: that the church and the state be kept separate in matters of law, so that individuals might have a freedom of religious conscience. Helwys said, the King “is a mortal man, and not God, therefore he hath no power over the mortal soul of his subjects to make laws and ordinances for then and to set spiritual Lords over them". King James I had Helwys thrown in Newgate prison, where he had died by 1616 at about the age of forty.

By the time of the English Revolution Helwys’ stance on religious toleration was more commonplace. However, whilst accepting their zeal in desiring a ‘godly society’, some contemporary historians doubt whether the English Puritans during the English Revolution were as committed to religious liberty and pluralism as traditional histories have suggested. However, historian John Coffey’s recent work has emphasised the contribution of a minority of radical Protestants who steadfastly sought toleration for so called Heresy, Blasphemy, Catholicism, non-Christian religions, and even Atheism. This minority included the Seekers, as well as the General Baptists and the Levellers. Their collective witness demanded the church to be an entirely voluntary, non-coercive community able to evangelise in a pluralistic society governed by a purely civil state. Such a demand was in sharp contrast to the ambitions of the magisterial Protestantism of the Calvinist majority. Yozzer66 (talk) 22:27, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't think these straws in the wind can claim precedence over many Renaissance Humanists, both Catholic & Protestant, and history shows that, as in the English Civil War, when "marginalized Protestants" actually got anywhere near power, things turned nasty fairly quickly for those not sharing their views. Johnbod (talk) 23:02, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes. While a few protestants in the period concerned may have been tolerant "in theory"; in practice, once in power, protestants were completely intolerant, banning Catholicism and the mass as their first act, often on pain of death. These are the facts. Xandar 00:25, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

All right, already. How is this discussion furthering the goal of reaching a compromise so that protection can be lifted and editing can continue? --Richard (talk) 05:19, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

As has been suggested, the Bartholomew's day Massacre, Mary Tudor, and Revocation of the Edict of Nantes sections need revision a) to keep to the point of the article i.e. the criticism, by identified groups, of the Church, rather than simply listing all ill-deeds done by people professing Catholicism. and b) to set any such criticisms in context with responses to said criticism, balancing to show the whole picture. At the moment the section has veered wildly off-course. The article in this section and the "Wars of Religion" section, is written semi-factually, but as if Catholics just went about wildly attacking saintly protestants. The figures for the Bartholomew Massacre are also hugely exaggereated, claiming 20,000 protestants killed in Paris, when only 800 protestants were registered as living in Paris at the time!Xandar 18:46, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

With regard to the St. Bartholomew's day Massacre death toll: I've provided NINE different reliable sources. Unless the Catholic apologists pursuing this "hugely exaggerated" argument can produce multiple reliable sources that contradict these sources, can I suggest a little humility? As Xander's favourite person (Oliver Cromwell) said, "I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken". Yozzer66 (talk) 19:25, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

I haven't commented on this passage before (other than to query Fisher), but looking at it now, none of the sources are up to date specialist scholarly works, and they seem to contradict each other. If "By the 17 September, almost 25,000 Protestants had been massacred in Paris alone.[105]" and also "Nearly 3,000 Protestants were slaughtered in Toulouse alone.[99]" and " The main provisional (sic) towns and cities experiencing the Massacre were Aix, Bordeaux, Bourges, Lyon, Meaux, Orleans, Rouen, Toulouse, and Troyes.[98] " - that only leaves about 2,000 between the whole of the country outside Paris & Toulouse, including the 8 other cities named, which doesn't seem right, from many other sources. For example, this interesting article on the Rouen massacre begun on Sepember 17 gives estimates of 300-600 there. This article on Montaigne gives a rough figure of 5,000 for the whole process (2,000 in Paris). The 2 sources giving a cumulative 25,000 for Paris are very weak RSs - Partner, P. (1999), Two Thousand Years: The Second Millennium, Granda Media (Andre Deutsch), Britain, ISBN 0-233-99666-4 hardback, pp. ; and Upshall, M. (ed.) (1990), The Hutchinson Paperback Encyclopedia, Arrow Books, London, ISBN 0-09-978200-6 paperback. Neither the English or French WP articles, which both seem well sourced, support this figure. Who, anyway, is the "contemporary, non-partisan guestimate" on which Felipe Fernández-Armesto and D. Wilson rely? This book cites a French specialized book for 10,000 between August & October] all over the country. Here we have 20,000. This btw, is interesting on the attitude of the church and the driving forces behind the Catholic party. Do you really believe your version stands up as it is? I am removing this passage: " Nevertheless, well into the twentieth century, Catholics - even if no longer resorting to persecution - still defined Protestants as heretics. For example, Hillaire Belloc one of the most conspicuous speakers for Catholicism in Britain, was outspoken about the "Protestant heresy"." as just silly - to Catholics Protestants just are heretics (as are many other denominations to eg Anglicans, Calvinists & Lutherans etc). The issue is how heretics are treated. Johnbod (talk) 20:20, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Of course I can't do this yet, as the article is protected. Johnbod (talk) 23:19, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

The point is to present the evidence, not artificially construct a definitive picture that minimises the slaughter. One thing that is clear from the evidence is that the figure of 30,000 deaths is very conservative. (There are numerous sources with significantly higher estimates that I chose not to use because of their antiquity). The article as it stands is perfectly fair. The sentence, "the exact number of fatalities throughout the country is not known" puts all the various estimates into context. Yozzer66 (talk) 20:43, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

It is not at all clear that "30,000 deaths is very conservative" - it seems to me that 10,000 to 25,000 is about the typical range of figures reputable modern histrians give. I have not seen 30k anywhere else. That the figure of 30k comes from a contemporary source (still un-named) does not necessarily increase its authority - he did not have 400 years to sift and assemble the evidence from all over France. The more scholarly the source, the lower the figure seems to be a general rule. You must be joking if you think "the exact number of fatalities throughout the country is not known" covers this wide range of estimates adequately. A better attempt might be: "Estimates of the number of deaths still vary widely, starting at 5,000 but often 20,000 or more". Johnbod (talk) 23:17, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

We are going around in circles! Johnbod's comments take us back to 11 January when I wrote, "The main reason for the discrepency between the figures quoted is the timescales involved. The lower figures are describing the bloodshed between 23 - 24 August 1572. The higher figures are estimating the slaughter between 24 Aug. - 17 September 1572". Yozzer66 (talk) 00:33, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Look at the links I have provided above, and many others easily found, and you will see that is just not true. Johnbod (talk) 01:07, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Guys, this is ridiculous. This kind of debate should be taking place somewhere else such as Talk:Saint Bartholomew's Massacre. If you can find someone who criticizes the Church's involvement in the persecution of Huguenot's then cite him. If you can find someone who defends the Church's involvement or lack thereof, then cite him. Please stop wasting your time debating the number of deaths. Even if you could come to some agreement, that level of detail doesn't belong here. --Richard (talk) 20:10, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Scope of this article

There are two separate issues in the "Section unbalanced" discussion above. One narrow question is about whether the persecution and massacre of Huguenots can be considered something to criticize the Roman Catholic Church for. The second, broader question is what constitutes "Criticism of the Roman Catholic Church" and is therefore within the scope of this article. I would like to address the second of these questions in a separate thread because it keeps getting lost in the detailed discussion of the first.

It is my opinion that this article should be limited to criticism of the policies, statements, actions and lack of action of the Catholic Church both official and unofficial.

What constitutes "the Catholic Church"? Well, obviously, the Pope and the Vatican.

How about the actions of Catholics at the national and local level? I would say that these cannot be "laid at the door" of the Catholic Church except to the point that the Church's response is supportive or silent. Even then, criticism of such support or silence should be documented in a citation to a reliable source.

--Richard (talk) 17:24, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

• Agreed - otherwise the article ends up deserving to be renamed Criticism of Roman Catholics! I think there are cases where a local policy clearly led or strongly promoted by local RCC hierarchies that may not have had clear support from Rome could be mentioned (I'm thinking of things like the alleged conduct of the Croat hierarchy in WW2, about which I don't know much), but in general the article should be restricted as you say. Johnbod (talk) 17:35, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

• Even in a strictly heirarchical organisation like the RC Church, authority (and therefore the ability to take decisions without resort to Rome) is devolved. (In the early modern period, even RC sovereigns often restricted the direct influence of the Pope in their territories). Thus, whilst all the responsibility for the past mistakes of the RC Church can not be laid at the door of the Vatican, it is still the RC Church. Yozzer66 (talk) 19:21, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Really? - sounds like Catholics to me. Johnbod (talk) 19:31, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

In the 'Section unbalanced' debate above, it is clear that at least a couple of editors would like us to regard Protestantism as one homogenous bloc. It can not be regarded as such. Such over-simplifications are a hindrance in grasping an accurate nuanced understanding of history. Similarly, despite its strict hierarchical authority, Roman Catholicism is not a homogenous bloc. The kind of repressive actions that were lobbied for by prominent Catholic clergymen in Louis XIV's France were not desired in other parts of Catholic Europe. French theologians in this period provided intellectual justification for repression in a form that seems not to have been accepted throughout the RC Church. Simply because of its uneven application, are we really suggesting that these matters are not a fitting subject for this article? Yozzer66 (talk) 13:31, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

It seems the other editors involved in the discussion are. You have not commented on Richard's suggestions, nor suggested any modifications to your current wordings, which all above seem to think need at the least considerable changes. Johnbod (talk) 13:39, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Try reading the lead. Obviously shows work by a committee (us! :). I was hoping to understand what the article is about. Is it (and should it be) about criticism now of what the church did then or criticism then of what the church had just done while it was fresh in the minds of the perceivers? The problem is, of course, modern history doctoral candidates have to come up with something and manage to year after year, some of which is preposterous in any field. On the other hand, some of the extra time we have nowdays can be spent getting new perspective on the past.

Does that perspective include inventing new criticism that wasn't necessarily made at the time? Yozzer would probably agree. But having said that, might it also include freeing the church from complicity in errors laid at the feet of the Vatican - not that would help Yozzer whose idea of "church' is much, much lower.

But how low? Is that one of the problems? And if Yozzer agrees that it should be at the parish level, can we take that for the next critic that comes along? Student7 (talk) 14:14, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Re: "inventing new criticism that wasn't necessarily made at the time" - Student7, the historical events that provoked this debate - the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre and the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 - were of such significance at the time that they provoked massive international condemnation and hugely added to the religious controversies of the day. I could provide a dozen reliable historian sources that would testify to this. Yozzer66 (talk) 20:31, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

I think the article is meant to cover all significant and major criticisms of the Church. However it is not meant to be a re-writing of history from the point of view of the critics - which is what it seems to have become in parts. Named and referenced critics should be highlighted (groups or prominent individuals) along with named responses, setting out both positions. Xandar 18:54, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Why not just open the article up completely to allow those with the inclination to practice Catholic apologetics? Until beginning this discussion I didn't think there would be much of a demand for such a facility. I was wrong. Similar to those fascist apologists who try to downplay and minimise the horrors of the Holocaust, why don't we give equal billing to those that claim that the St. Bart's Massacre was just a little local difficulty caused by those inherently violent Prods. C'mon, let's get a grip on historical reality here. Yozzer66 (talk) 19:38, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

I think these remarks breach WP:NPA. Johnbod (talk) 23:25, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

The flip side of this is that the entire church is held responsible for the practices of some. Persecution in some cities (remember some Huguenots managed to escape, maybe even the bulk of them) by some Catholics is laid at the door of the whole church. This might make sense for this article if the title were (oh boy, here we go with fifty new articles!) Criticism of the Catholic Church of France or somesuch. Baptists frequently lynched blacks in the south (lynched Catholics too BTW, but there weren't as many around), yet there is no article "Criticism of the Baptist Church" placing 20th century lynching at the doorstep of Baptists. (Nor am I suggesting that there should be, for the record).Student7 (talk) 23:00, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree. That is a very real danger. Surely, it is all in the wording? For example, if this hypothetical article covering criticisms of the Baptist Church was ever written, and if it mentioned the race record of Baptists in the southern states of the USA, in mitigation, the article might also mention the prominent role Baptists, particularly black Baptists (e.g. Martin Luther King), played in the Civil Right Movement . I'm all for a nuanced approach. Thus, rather than white-wash the RC Church's past by hiding behind the notion that if the Pope didn't order an action then the RC Church had no responsibility for it, why not search out the heroic examples of priests, bishops or theologians who stood up against injustice, repression and murder? Yozzer66 (talk) 00:56, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

I think we're going about this wrong. This article is criticisms of the Catholic Church, not Authentic criticisms of the Catholic Church. Some people criticze the Church for killing 50 million people during the inquisitions even though there weren't 50 million people living in all of Europe to be killed during that time. Proper estimates put the death toll at around 10,000, most killed by the Catholic governments, not the actual Church. Can we put the criticism that people were killed during the inquisitions in the article? Sure, but it either needs to be an accurate depiction of what happened to begin with, or it needs a rebuttal explaining what the historian community believes to be the actual events.

So in the case of the inquisitions, we either say (in more words) "The church is criticized because 10,000 were killed by the government during the inquisitions" or we say "The church is criticized because it is said to have killed 50 million during the inquisitions, however, proper estimates put it at around only 10,000" So - can the St. Bartholemew's massacre mention stay? Yes, but not in it's condition. It needs either historical accuracy represented in the first place, or an accurate rebuttal after this "radical" perspective is presented. Leaving it as is - innacurate with no rebuttal - is not acceptable. Farsight001 (talk) 06:29, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Unless I am sadly misinformed, the Church and the State worked together during the Inquistions and the result was that the Church handed over heretics and others to be executed by the State. Thus, AFAIK, it is a whitewash to say that the State killed them and not the Church. (Or am I deluded by a popular misconception of how things worked during the Inquistions?)

That said, I agree with the general principle laid out by Farsight001 above. All significant criticisms of the Church should be included in the scope of this article including rebuttals. However, it is not necessary to go into detail about each criticism. If the reader wants more detail about the persecution of Huguenots in general or the St. Bartholemew's massacre in particular, there are other places in Wikipedia where he/she can get that information. This is not the place to go into any level of detail about each criticism. The article would balloon quickly to unmanageable and unreadable length. We should say "Some people criticize the Church for X. In rebuttal, others defend the Church by saying Y." That's it. Provide citations and wikilinks to support the arguments and move on. If there is significant controversy about the criticism, then there should be an article about it. There are many articles about doctrines and actions of the Church. The details and the criticism can be discussed in depth in those articles.

--Richard (talk) 06:51, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. Plus what is said here should not make different claims from those in the main article, as is currently the case for St Bart's M. Johnbod (talk) 11:58, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

That's not actually true of the St. Bart's article, but that's only because Yozzer went there and changed that one too. Farsight001 (talk) 13:12, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

OK, since I looked at it. Johnbod (talk) 15:31, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

History section

I think it is pretty clear now that the "History" sections of the article contain some unreliable information, are in entirely the wrong format, critical viewpoints and opinions are presented as if they were facts, and the sections are highly unbalanced, not being in the form of "Named source" criticism" and "rebuttal." I have also noticed that in the paragraph Anti-semitism elsewhere in Europe, the extremely controversial and marginal view of one individual is presented as if it were a historical fact, namely: "It is hardly surprising then that as soon as a state became Roman Catholic an assortment of legal restrictions against Jews began in earnest and “by the end of the Middle Ages most of the elements of modern Judeophobia had been formed”. This is such a distortion, it takes the breath away. Persecution of the Jews and conversos in Spain is similarly littered with misapprehensions and distortions, which seem aimed at blaming Catholicism for a Spanish national policy, not supported by the world Catholic Church. We really need to looking into cleaning up the history section and setting it in the proper format. Xandar 16:10, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

• I think that one thing that is "pretty clear" is that some of the busiest contributors to this debate have an axe to grind. For example, I note that the passage "It is hardly surprising then that as soon as a state became Roman Catholic an assortment of legal restrictions against Jews began in earnest and by the end of the Middle Ages most of the elements of modern Judeophobia had been formed” in the 'Anti-Semitism elsewhere in Europe' section is properly attributed to a reputable historian. Surely we should all remember what Richard reminded us of: "we are not out to establish the WP:TRUTH but rather to present all significant POVs in a NPOV manner without giving undue weight to minority opinions"? Xandar, by providing reliable citations, please explain how this particular historian's analysis, along with all the other historians' work you've indirectly criticised, is outlandish. (Isn't a coincidence that these historians take a critical view of the RC Church role in the historical events in question). In short, it's time to put up! Yozzer66 (talk) 20:02, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Hi Yozzer66, let's be clear on what I was saying about WP:TRUTH and WP:NPOV. In an encyclopedia such as Wikipedia, we must state facts as facts and opinions as opinions. Authors, even well-respected scholars, do not operate under these restrictions. So, it's one thing for an author to say "It is hardly surprising..." and something entirely different for Wikipedia to say it. IMO, Wikipedia should never use such rhetorical flourishes as "It is hardly surprising...". That kind of wording is unencyclopedic

If Wikipedia says something, it must be a fact. If an author says something, it might be a fact or it might be his opinion. Authors are often biased. Wikipedia shouldn't be. If Wikipedia wants to report that author's opinion, then it should say something like "Author X argues that Y is true." Presented that way, the reader knows that this is Author X's opinion, not necessarily an indisputable fact. We should also help the reader understand how much weight to give to Author X. Does he/she represent the mainstream? The mainstream of what? Of Catholic historians? Or the mainstream of secular historians, Catholic or otherwise? What are the significant minority opinions?

As long as we keep the above in mind, I don't object to your request that other editors provide sources to show how the statement in question is "outlandish".

--Richard (talk) 20:30, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Richard. Your response is very clear and perfectly reasonable. Oh and before I forget, thank you very much for the positive role you've tried to play in this debate. From my perspective, for all the reasons I've already outlined, I am eager to safeguard the majority of the material in 4 sub-sections of 'Criticism of Roman Catholic actions in history': 'Persecution of Jews and conversos in Spain', 'Anti-Semitism elsewhere in Europe', 'Persecution and killing of Protestants', and 'Post-Reformation wars of religion'. However, I am happy for these sub-sections to be re-wrote in the way you have sketched. What I think would be a travesty is if critical historians were maligned in a misguided attempt to distort history and white-wash the RC Church's past. Yozzer66 (talk) 23:58, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

And I would think it a travesty is historians were maligned in a misguided attempt to distort history and overly soil the Church's past too, which seems to be what you're trying a bit too hard to do.Farsight001 (talk) 03:30, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

IMO, there has been too much talking in broad generalities and too much sniping at each other (see WP:NPA). These controversies are not the brainchildren of any of us. They have surely been debated in scholarly publications. If Author X makes outlandish claims and is generally dismissed as a crackpot or a biased source, then we should be able to find reliable sources that say so. Similarly, if the RCC has a "party line" which others criticize as being self-serving, then we shoudl be able to find reliable sources that say that. This article should not be a whitewash of the RCC but neither should it be a dumping ground for every criticism that Wikipedians can think of.

Let's get past the sniping at each other and get on with the job of writing an encyclopedia.

--Richard (talk) 04:50, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Catholic Church, Christianity and antisemitism

I want to agree with Xandar's statements regarding the section on Antisemitism and Spain. Let me address some of the point.

"The Reconquista, the gradual reconquest of Muslim Spain by the Roman Catholic Monarchs, had a strong religious element, just as the earlier Muslim conquest of Spain had had. Spain was being reclaimed for Christendom, not Moors or Jews."

Yes, but.... The muslim entry into Spain was a complex set of invasions. They did not seem to seek to settle the entire country, nor did they seem to seek unanimity of religion in all the times/areas of control. In the Koran, believers are urged against choosing submission to non-muslim rulers. Such an injunction was not in the new Testament, but life as a minority everwhere, including muslim spain was not always easy. However in the first five hundred years, specially after the coming of the Party Kings (Taifas), alliances between christian and muslim rulers were common, and they fought together against both muslim and christian rulers. The legendary "El Cid" is a classic example for this. Thus some of the conquests were not for the religion, but for power, or greed.

"Hostility towards Spain’s resident Jews became more pronounced over time, finding expression in brutal episodes of anti-Jewish violence and oppression. Thousands of Jews sought to escape these attacks by converting to Catholicism; they were commonly called conversos or New Christians".

I am not certain that this was true. Terrible "pogroms" ocurred in Barcelona and Zaragoza in the 13th century. But they also occurred in France and Germany. England in Medieval times expelled all the Jews. Of course, there was a religious component to such antisemitism. Many of the pogroms were stoked by the usual blood libels. But for example, the pogrom in Barcelona was stoked by the workers and poor folk, and the Jews sought protection with the authorities including the bishop. The politics of conversion to Christianity was complex. Of course, much of it was due to fear, but some of it was by Jews who sought advancement. Another complex part of the equation is that many rulers relegated the unpleasant task of taxation to Jews, further amplifying animosity. But many Jews rose to prominent positions, right up to the Alhambra Decree. It is difficult to say that antisemitism increased in Spain, clearly the Alhambra decree, and the conquest of Granada gave it a more institutional ukase. Ultimately, scholars are somewhat at odds at what exactly prompted the Alhambra decree. We have many reasons, instigation by the inquisitors, the royal's ultracatholicism, fear of a fifth column, greed, etc, but what made the Catholic Kings change their prior pattern of tolerance at that exact moment is not exactly clear. Also, antisemitism also existed in Muslim kingdoms, and the destruction of the caliphate at Cordoba by the Berbers took the lives of nearly all the Jewish community there.

"In many ways, the Spanish Inquisition was a culmination of years of discrimination against conversos from which people of Jewish descent often found it impossible to escape. The Spanish Inquisition, established by Roman Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile with the support of Pope Sixtus IV,[82] led to more than 2,000 people being burnt at the stake and many more were cruelly tortured. Most victims were converts from Judaism to Christianity who were suspected of Crypto-Judaism, i.e. retaining Jewish beliefs and observances. In conclusion, “Spanish mistrust of these converted Jews revealed a deep suspicion of Jews in general and brought about ugly and novel stereotypes, particularly the belief that Jewish blood was bad (mala sangre), caused bad character, and was irreversible because it was transmitted by heredity from one generation to the next”."

This is fairly simplistic and quite erroneous. You need to remember that always-centrifugal Spain still maintained a large muslim minority in Granada, who had ties to Morroco. Piracy flourished in the Mediterranean, and both Christian and Muslims raided coastal villages and took slaves (many of the fleeing jews ended up being fleeced, killed, or enslaved by their transports, including muslim and genoese ships. I do not agree that antisemitism was unique to Spain. Spain in 1492 had more non-christians than either France, England, or Germany. The inquisition in Spain was aimed at Jews, Muslims, Arians, Erasmians, Necromancers, etc. The later establishment in the 16th century of "pureza de sangre" was a more idiosyncratically Spanish event, and again, the exact equation that led to these laws was complex. I also wanted to point out that Jews and others from Spain protested to Sixtus about the inquisition, and he supposedly asked that the standards for accusation be revised, adding more judges etc. I would agree that in the early 16th century, most of the targets of the inquisition were suspected of Judaism; this was not true in later incarnations.

Historian Klaus P. Fischer believes that, in this way, Spanish Catholic prejudice led to “biological racism” making “its first appearance in history”.

Nonsense. Hogwash. Bigotry is as old as ethnicity. "Biologic racism" as opposed to what? The enslavement of Asiatics or Nubians by Pharaonic egyptians. The treatment of gauls, germans, celts, carthaginians by the Romans?

There is no doubt, that christianity and catholicism and orthodox christianity and islam has each in the past fostered/sponsored brutal antisemitism. But to lump a criticism of the Catholic church with the events in Spain are just a feeble reworking of the "Black legend". Not all catholic communities killed or expelled their Jewish neighbors. It is remarkable, for example, that Jewish communities were able to exist in Catholic Italy for centuries (though often mistreated), but unlike England, France, Rhineland, and Spain, these Jews were not exiled or killed. Why? Doesn't that merit an entry into how Italian Catholicism was more tolerant of Judaism than other religions/countries?

Antisemitism is a highly complex issue; and while some causes are universal, the root causes differ from region. I think one could dedicate endless books to the Spanish attitudes to Jews. This subtopic merits a seperate entry in Wikipedia. It does not merit to be under the heading of this entry: Criticisms of the Catholic Church. I URGE THAT THIS ENTIRE ENTRY BE DELETED! I have pointed out why this one section is so simplistic as to be pointless. I find the rest of the article in similar vein. It is a flimsily referenced rant, chock full of bigoted simplifications. Baroque1700 (talk) 07:31, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Baroque1700, I think you've missed the point. The aim should be to provide a well referenced alternative analysis from a reputable historian and then present both cases. There is a tendency in this debate to assume that because an editor doesn't agree with the material it can simply be deleted. Moreover, the arguments used for deletion are based on the POV of the editor. Little or no attempt is made to provide the appropriate citations from acceptable sources. You obviously have a particular interest in Spain in the early modern era. Do the research and an present alternative view in a way that can be used in an encyclopedia. Yozzer66 (talk) 13:35, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Re- "Hogwash. Bigotry is as old as ethnicity. 'Biologic racism' as opposed to what?"

In ancient Rome, for example, those tribes who opposed the expansion of Roman rule where often enslaved. However, slaves could become freedmen and their offspring free-born citizens. Foreigners often become full Roman citizens.

Klaus P. Fischer argues that the Spanish Catholic treatment of the Jews was very different. Mistrust of converted Jews "revealed a deep suspicion of Jews in general and brought out ugly and novel stereotypes, particularly the belief that Jewish blood was bad ('mala sangre'), caused bad character, and was irreversible because it was transmitted by heredity from one generation to the next. It was in this way that biological racism made its first appearance in history". Yozzer66 (talk) 14:08, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

How exactly does the "Spanish Catholic" treatment of the Jews differ from the "Spanish" treatment of the Jews? Once again, the actions and attitude of a whole nation are laid at the door of the RCC. Johnbod (talk) 14:33, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Isn't a more relevant question: How exactly does the "Spanish Catholic" treatment of the Jews help form and contribute to the "Spanish" treatment of the Jews? In this respect, the present wording of the article is a very useful starting point. Yozzer66 (talk) 15:45, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

No, the more relevant question for distinguishing the actual role of the church is: how and why does the "Spanish Catholic" treatment of the Jews differ from the "French/Italian/etc Catholic" treatment of the Jews. Johnbod (talk) 16:26, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Right: let's have a look at the article sentence: "It is hardly surprising then that as soon as a state became Roman Catholic an assortment of legal restrictions against Jews began in earnest and “by the end of the Middle Ages most of the elements of modern Judeophobia had been formed”.

The sentence is intended to imply two falsehoods; 1) That "Roman" Catholicism is the unique or leading source of Judeophobia in the world, and 2) That Catholicism uniquely, as soon as it came to power, outworked across the world in Anti-Jewish proscription and persecution. Both are just complete nonsense historically. The only place where this could begin to approach reality was Visigothic Spain - which had its own particular reasons for its attitudes. So lets look at both allegations:

1) Did Catholics uniquely invent Judeophobia? It was the Pagan emperors Claudius and Tiberius who first expelled the jews from Rome. Pagan Titus and Vespasian were responsible for the destruction of the temple and massacres of 70AD. Pagan Emperor Hadrian attempted to force the Jews to accept his worship and in Palestine "hundreds and thousands of Jews were killed in the ensuing battles and the whole country was devastated... Simeon himself was killed during the campaign and Rabbi Akiva was captured by the Romans and flayed alive. Jews were forbidden to live in the ruins of Jerusalem, and a new Roman city was built on the site, known as Aeolia Capitalina." (A Short History of Judaism: L and S Cohn-Sherbok 1994. p42) That's how the Jews were driven from Palestine - not by Catholics but by Pagans. Moving on: "Initially Muhammad had hoped to convert the Jews to his vision, but the community refused to accept him, and he denounced the Jewish nation as infidels... By 626 two Jewish tribes had been expelled from the city of Medina, and a third had been exterminated." Under the Muslim 7th century Pact of Omar, Jews, among other restrictions "had to wear distinctive clothing."(A Short History of Judaism: L and S Cohn-Sherbok 1994. p53). Once again there is no uniqueness to Jewish disability under Catholic nation states as implied. In fact it was Islam that first introduced distinctive clothing and badges for Jews, not Christianity.

2) As soon as states turned Catholic, did they "begin legal restrictions against Jews in earnest..." ??? Outside Spain and Constantinople, no. "For other Mediterranean regions scholars have asserted undisturbed Roman citizenship and the high social status of Jews, to continue unabated until the end of our period...(500-1050AD)" (Vol 1. New Cambridge Medieval History, The Jews in Europe 500-1050: Michael Toch. 2005. p567). What about other areas that "turned Catholic"? In France and Germany Jews were tolerated and protected in this period, and their population grew strongly. "expulsion went against the teaching of the church fathers, councils, and popes who had advocated the protection of the Jews, not their disappearance or destruction; the salvation aimed for by the church in its redemptive work was to come by their conversion to Christianity. Accordingly, during the persecutions that accompanied the crusades during the eleventh to thiorteenth centuries, the church did not fail to intervene to put down popular outbursts of hatred in the name of humanitarian values and, above all, in the name of order... Jewish accounts of the persecutions accompanying the crusade of 1096 mention the protection offered by certain bishops. The church cannot in any case be held responsible for the massacres perpetrated against the Jews. During the second crusade, in 1146, the intervention of Saint Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, slowed persecutions against the Jews; the memory of this is preserved in Jewish chronicles." (The Jews of France By Esther Benbassa, M. B. DeBevoise) Another major country that turned Catholic was Poland: "There is little reason to doubt that jews had lived in Poland from the earliest times, ... But no separate legal provisions were necessary until the mid-thirteenth century when the new powers of city corporations might have been used to harass the Jews or exclude them altogether. As a result the new General Charter (of Jewish Liberties of 1264) specifically listed the right for Jews to travel round the country without molestation, to engage in trade, to pursue their own religious practices.. and to be exempted from slavery or sefrdom." (Norman Davies, Gods Playground A History of Poland. OUP 2005) Xandar 18:16, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

OK... so the fact is that there are at least two sides to this question (Catholic Church was responsible as a driving force for Judeophobia and Catholic Church was not responsible as the driving force). Actually, it gets more complicated because one can argue that the Catholic Church did not necessarily start Judeophobia "as soon as a state became Catholic" but it might have been complicit in driving it later (for example in mid-thirteenth century Poland) or in condoning it tacitly. We need to move the description of these opinions to the top of the section and leave much of the details for other articles (e.g. Antisemitism in Spain or Antisemitism in Poland). We cannot hope to discuss in this article the details of antisemitism in every Catholic country. What we should do here is give the "lay of the land" and then point the reader in the direction of articles and sources that can provide more detail. --Richard (talk) 19:22, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

On those particular two sentences. I don't think they are seriously supported at all. They are obvious nonsense as history. The book they are from is not about the period, but is an opinion book on the Nazi holocaust, The History of an Obsession: German Judeophobia and the Holocaust, by Klaus Fischer. (The title isn't fully listed in the article citation.) The book does not cover the period concerned as history, and would only be admissable as evidence of an opinion held by Mr Fischer. Xandar 20:26, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

OK, but is there not a significant opinion that the Church was complicit in European antisemitism? There is a body of opinion that believes that antisemitism originates with the anti-Jewish polemic of the New Testament. Whether you credit that line of thought or not, it seems clear that the Church did not consider defense of Jews from antisemitism to be a priority. For that matter, official pronouncements notwithstanding, it seems the popular conception is that the Church at least tacitly condoned antisemitic acts. It's just a matter of finding reliable sources who can be used as the basis for supporting this body of opinion. NB: I'm not saying that we should present only that POV and not the POV that defends and exculpates the church. We certainly should present both and we should make some effort to determine which is the mainstream opinion (not the truth but the mainstream). --Richard (talk) 21:30, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

I beg to differ again from those supporting this entry. For example, I think Yozzer66 entirely misses the point: this is not a well-referenced analysis, but only a footnoted screed. Of course, you could attempt to footnote every counterpoint after every sentence, but that leads to a dubious listing of counterpoints. And the counterpoints here would be to say: "the previous sentence makes little sense, since the facts seem to be different from the prior opinion". The mere heading "criticism of the Catholic church" is non-neutral POV. I think this should be relegated to message boards, and not an encyclopedic heading, certainly not one as broad as what is stated above.

Again, I would not deny antisemitism in Spain, nor the role of the Catholic Inquisition in part of the persecution, but why place this under this heading. Again, was the antisemitism of some Medieval Germans an outgrowth of their then-catholic faith, or was it a similar impulse to that of their Lutheran descendants a few centuries later? It would be appropriate to write an entry on antisemitism by the Catholic church, and list official acts and papal declarations regarding Jews both in the Papal states and outside, across the centuries, but to provide a blanket entry like this, and then list everything that happened in Catholic countries as a criticism of the Catholic church is wrong. Anyway this is a lost cause to argue, because persons like Yozzer66 equate footnotable facts with encyclopedic knowledge. What is to stop someone from using Mein Kampf as a source of encyclopedic facts? I do not think encyclopedic entries should be opinion pieces; this one sounds like a footnoted update of the Black Legends spread by English Protestants about the invidiousness of Franco-Spanish-Catholicism that was trying to reclaim the crown of England. Each of the facts has some truth. For example, the propaganda of Black Legends depicted Spaniards burning native americans alive, cutting limbs off, and pouring molten metal into their mouths. I must agree that all of this did occur at some point, but was it the official policy of Spain or the catholic church.

Again, the problem here is not that people like me fail to add the counterpoint to the text, it is that the entry is a screed, not worthy of editing.Baroque1700 (talk) 02:33, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

There is an article titled Christianity and antisemitism where many of the details can be presented. This article should provide only a high-level summary. I agree with Baroque1700 that the approach should not be to provide supporting evidence for a POV but to state the POV (e.g. the Catholic Church is responsible for antisemitism) and then provide a citation to someone who has expressed that opinion. --Richard (talk) 03:55, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

That doesn't seem to me to be what he is saying. Account must be taken of the balance of scholarly views, here as in all history-type articles on WP, or the article will rapidly beome a series of breaches of WP:UNDUE. Johnbod (talk) 04:34, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Let's not spend so much time looking at individual trees that we lose sight of the forest. Let's step back a bit and look at "the big picture".

I think there is no doubt that Christianity in general and the Catholic Church included has been complicit in European antisemitism and arguably the exportation of those ideas around the world.

That said, it is reasonable to present arguments that antisemitism was not invented by Christians (as well as arguments that it was e.g. roots in the New Testament and the Patristic writings). We also have to be careful to separate antisemitism fomented by the Church from any latent ethnic, cultural, socioeconomic and political reasons for antisemitism. That is, not all antisemitism was purely based on religion.

Finally, there has been a sea change in the way that the Catholic Church views antisemitism and that has to be documented. We can document the pronouncements of Popes via primary sources but it would be better to cite secondary sources who describe the change and how it came about. Certainly the Holocaust was a catalyst.

And yes, we need scholarly support for all of this but I think it can be found if we try. --Richard (talk) 17:10, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Persecution and killing of Protestants

At 89kilobytes, this article is too long. The History section is too long and the section titled "Persecution and killing of Protestants" (among others) is too long. We have to start somewhere and so I propose that we start here.

Without endorsing the specifics of the current text, I propose that we trim this section to the following paragraph:

Before the Reformation, the Roman Catholic Church had a uniquely powerful position in the political order of medieval western Europe; its clergymen occupied a privileged location in the social class structure; and, theologically, it claimed to be the only legitimate Christian Church. Because Protestantism emerged from within the Roman Catholic Church, and began as a protest (hence the name ‘protest-ant’) against Roman Catholic worldly practice and religious doctrine, the Papacy and Catholic rulers felt compelled to deal with Protestantism as a dangerous, destabilising influence in politics and society, as well as characterising Protestants as heretical and schismatic. Minorities could be dealt with harshly but where Protestants gained a degree of political influence the Roman Catholic Church were willing to support full-scale wars of religion. This willingness occasionally led to complete success. For example, as historian Jardslav Jan Pelikan pointed out, “the victory of the Habsburg Counter-Reformation in Bohemia and the defeat of Czech Protestantism were a consequence of the Battle of White Mountain (1620)”. Elsewhere in Europe, the Roman Catholic Church was ultimately obliged to accept the reality of co-existence with Protestants. A great many people died in religious wars before this settlement.

We can quibble later about the wording of this paragraph and whether it is biased or not. My primary focus right now is that this is meant to be a summary article and the "Persecution and killing of Protestants" section (among others) is just way too long. We can find an appropriate place to put this detail even if it means creating a new article.

My primary objective right now is to help get this article back to a readable scope and length. If no one objects, I will trim the section per the proposal above. If we agree to trim the section, I would like to hear opinions as to where the deleted text should go.... an existing article? a new article? if new, what would the title be? --Richard (talk) 04:53, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Certainly an improvement, although, as an indication of how poor the text is throughout "theologically, it claimed to be the only legitimate Christian Church" should be removed, as the Orthodox Churches were accepted as "legitimate" in any normal sense of the word by the RCC. It really needs rewriting throughout. I can't imagine a new article where this stuff would go - it would be a POV fork. I have added links and corrected typos. Johnbod (talk) 11:26, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Yeh, I agree on the need for rewriting. I figure we should come to an agreement on what the scope of the article is first and then quibble about the specifics of the text afterwards although some of this work can be conducted concurrently. As for where the deleted stuff would go... there is Persecution of Christians#Persecution of Christians by Christians and Anti-Protestantism. Which kind of leads us into a wider discussion of whether it is reasonable to have an article Persecution of Protestants when it could be argued that Catholics were persecuted in Protestant countries as well. Should all of this just fall into articles on the Reformation or Religious wars in Europe so as to avoid POV forks? It's not that the material is unencyclopedic. It's more that it is unbalanced and biased. --Richard (talk) 16:38, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

European wars of religion, new to me, seems comprehensive & well-balanced on a quick look, & frankly not in need of having this stuff added. I've added a redirect to the redlink, & linked it in the "draft" above. I actually think some of the other stuff should be in, in very summarized form with links to the relevant articles. A continuation (or maybe replacement for the last part) of your draft might be:

Within a few decades after the Reformation, governments in most of Europe sought to impose a particular religion, whether Catholicism or a variety of Protestantism, on all the population they ruled. Apart from outright war, members of the "wrong" church were often persecuted or driven into exile. In Catholic countries, the Spanish Inquisition and the Council of Troubles in the Habsburg Netherlands were among the bodies pursuing persecution by judicial means. In France, the French Wars of Religion included numerous massacres, most notoriously the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre of 1572. After a long peace following the Edict of Nantes in 1598, Louis XIV reopened the issue in the late 17th century, and the persecution known as the Dragonnades was followed in 1685 by the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes and the expulsion of all French Protestants. Religious refugees from both sides were common in many parts of Europe. The Vatican long remained opposed to the limited religious toleration that gradually became accepted in many parts of Europe. Johnbod (talk) 16:43, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm OK with this except that now you're writing something that belongs in a "History" article. This article is about "Criticism of the Catholic Church". Whether we personally agree with a criticism or not, we have to present what the criticism of the Catholic Church is and then present the other side. So, we would need something that runs along the lines of "Some lay the lion's share of the blame for these religious wars at the doorstep of the Catholic Church. However, others argue that the blame lays on both sides." In addition, we might add after the last sentence of yours, "This opposition to religious toleration caused the Catholic Church to be seen as illiberal and an obstacle to freedom and progress. It was not until the Second Vatican Council that the Catholic Church opened the door to a more ecumenical tolerance of other Christian denominations and other religions in general." --Richard (talk) 19:45, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

In this sort of area criticism is necessarily in a historical context. There's no doubt everyone involved has been criticised extensively over the whole period. I think one would struggle to find a reputable modern historian laying the lion's share of the blame anywhere, though Yosser may be able to unearth one. I wouldn't agree with the last added sentence - mixing religious ecumenism with political religious toleration is confusing here, and the Vatican abandoned opposition to the latter long before Vatican II, if somewhat grudgingly, & without fanfare. Johnbod (talk) 21:40, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

The trim is a good first step to bringing the scope of the article down to criticisms of the Church rather than of things done by certain catholics. However it is still stating "facts" rather than presenting cited positions. The same goes for Johnbod's continuation. There are statements in both segments I could argue with. We need the viewpoints teased out, and to see what references there are in support of each. Oh. and the title "persecution and killing of Protestants" is a bit over-the-top in the emotiveness stakes. How about simply "Persecution of protestants" or "Relations with Protestants" Xandar 00:37, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

I've been away for a couple of days. I come back to the new 'Reformation' sub-section (which replaced the previous 'Persecution and killing of Protestants' and 'Post-Reformation wars of religion' sub-sections). This revision doesn't "trim" the historical section of the article it decimates it. Moreover, it now reads like some clumsy attempt at an "even-handed" summary of the Reformation. However, anyone wanting such a summary would not be looking at this article. The purpose of the article is the appropriate presentation of criticism. What is absent is CRITICISM!

Sentences like:

"governments in most of Europe sought to impose a particular religion, whether Catholicism or a variety of Protestantism, on all the population they ruled. Apart from outright war, members of the "wrong" church were often persecuted or driven into exile";

"Religious refugees from both sides were common in many parts of Europe"

are embarrassing in an article that is explicitly for the criticism of the RC Church.

By all means, rebuttals of criticism (with approximate cites) or contextualised responses (again, with appropriate cites) are fine, but, as it stands, this new sub-section stinks to high heaven. Yozzer66 (talk) 21:30, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Being now familiar with your attitude, I'm afraid it comes as no surprise that you find WP:NPOV "embarrassing" and "stinks to high heaven". The subject of this article, which many feel is in itself a breach of NPOV, means that we have to be more attentive to the policy, not less. Johnbod (talk) 14:53, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

In this article, we are not out to establish the WP:TRUTH but rather to present all significant POVs in a NPOV manner without giving undue weight to minority opinions. What is absent in your decimation and re-drafting of the article is any significant POVs (i.e. CRITICISM!), which happens to be the purpose of the article. It, therefore, comes as no great surprise that you would like to see the whole article deleted.Yozzer66 (talk) 15:11, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

It comes as no surprise that you once again leap to attribute particular views to other editors on no evidence at all. I do not support the deletion of this article; isn't it likely that if I did I would have said so in my many contributions to this page? If you look at the section above you will see I was adding back criticism (without citations, but of course these are needed) to Richard's more drastic trim. Johnbod (talk) 15:24, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

please explain what your comment "The subject of this article, which many feel is in itself a breach of NPOV" is supposed to mean? Yozzer66 (talk) 15:35, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

See above, and the archive. All the "Criticism of .." articles are objectionable to many, see [1] and similar debates and articles. Whether this has ever been AFD'd I can't be bothered to check, but there are many links here from AFD debates. Others think it should be merged to RCC or other articles. Johnbod (talk) 15:52, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Welcome back, Yozzer. I'm sorry that you are not happy with the current text of the section. If you read above, you will see that the lack of focus on criticism was one of my concerns. However, I felt that we should move ahead and get rid of the excessive detail to help us focus more on the high-level overview that I proposed and for which I got support from some editors. I would support reinsertion of criticisms (properly sourced, of course) as long as they focus on the substance of the criticism (what exactly are we criticizing) rather than providing just a compendium of actions and statistics which is what the previous text had become. --Richard (talk) 22:17, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Richard. One possible re-writing of the criticisms of the RC Church's action in history section could be along the lines of:

(a) "The charge" - contemporaneous or retrospective criticism from a reputable historian or a combination of both (with cites)

e.g. (1) that the most popular Catholic preacher in Paris "legitimatised in advance the events of Saint Bartholomew's Day" (cite: B.B. Diefendorf (1991) 'Beneath The Cross: Catholics & Huguenots in Sixteenth Century Paris') and that the Massacre that followed was not random "but patterned after the rites of the Catholic culture that had given birth to it" (cite: Mack P. Holt (1995) The French Wars of Religion);

e.g. (2) The Dragonnade policy was a "monumental act of cruelty" (cite: McManners, J. (ed.) (1990) The Oxford Illustrated History of Christianity) which was the culmination of pressure on the King from the French Roman Catholic Church including Cardinal de Bérulle who contended that "forcible repression by the state was the only practical way of dealing with Protestantism" (cite: Will Durant & Ariel Durant (1963) The Age of Louis XIV. The Story of Civilization, Vol. 8);

e.g. (3) that the revocation of the Edict of Nantes was a "tragic blunder" and it was "almost entirely due to" the French Roman Catholic Church's "religious intolerance" of Protestants (cite: Adolphus William Ward et al (eds) (1908) 'The Cambridge Modern History Volume V: The Age of Louis XIV');

(b) brief outline of the case for "the prosecution" (with cites);

(c) The defence (with cites), mitigating factors (with cites) or a wider contextualisation of "the crime" (with cites).

This approach has the advantage of being focused on the article's primary purpose and it allows for rebuttal.

(Because of the examples I've used (all French with little Papal culpability), it is safe to assume that there will be objections along the same lines as those previously expressed - how can it be criticism of the RC Church if it is criticism of a 'national Church'? Surely, if it isn't authorised by the Pope then it isn't Catholic? etc., etc. Well, I'll come to that in due time! In the meantime, what about the Rap-sheet / defence concept?) Yozzer66 (talk) 22:54, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Yozzer, you seem to be misunderstanding the details of a criticism article. It is not an exercise to cite the most inflammatory (and potentially misleading) piece of phrasing you can find. The idea is to cite reputable criticism of the church with substantial support behind it. Your chosen "quotes" (the most popular Catholic preacher in Paris "legitimatised in advance the events of Saint Bartholomew's Day" (cite: B.B. Diefendorf (1991) 'Beneath The Cross: Catholics & Huguenots in Sixteenth Century Paris') and that the Massacre that followed was not random "but patterned after the rites of the Catholic culture that had given birth to it") are again dressed up as facts without anything solid behind them. Who is this Catholic preacher? What did he say exactly? What was the actual influence of this on the events. And how does it constitute legitimisation in advance? Similarly, how were the massacres "patterned after the rites of Catholic Culture?" These are just wild, extreme, (and rather incredible) assertions which do not appear substantively based. To respond to them would require going into considerable detail about particular instances, and this besides taking a great deal of space, misses the point of the responsibility of the Church as a body. In addition your quote 3 seems to be heavily tampered with to reflect presumably your own view, with the "Roman Catholic Church" chipped into the statement by yourself.

There shouldn't be attempts to present "facts". Criticisms should be set out something like "Some historians believe that the Catholic Church's policies on x led to the unfortunate action y", and quote sources. Or "many Protestants condemn x, y and z", and quote. Xandar 12:25, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Xandar, I deliberately didn't go into any detail (and your suspicions about example 3 are completely groundless). They were examples and, anyway, the detail would be outlined in (b). Of course, these examples wouldn't be claimed as facts. The exact wording wasn't outlined in my short contribution. It would have to be made crystal clear that the analysis belonged to a particular historian. Incidentally, B.B. Diefendorf (1991) 'Beneath The Cross: Catholics & Huguenots in Sixteenth Century Paris' is essential reading for many British under-grads. It is far from being an obscure or disreputable source. Yozzer66 (talk) 15:02, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Now I am passed the age when I am normally expected to answer them, I love short essay questions! In relation to the Diefendorf (1991) quote that the most popular Catholic preacher in Paris "legitimatised in advance the events of Saint Bartholomew's Day", Xandar asked "Who is this Catholic preacher? What did he say exactly? What was the actual influence of this on the events. And how does it constitute legitimisation in advance? Similarly, how were the massacres "patterned after the rites of Catholic Culture?"

The full quote from historian Barbara B. Diefendorf, Professor of History at Boston University, was Simon Vigor "said if the King ordered the Admiral (Coligny) killed, 'it would be wicked not to kill him'. With these words, the most popular preacher in Paris legitimised in advance the events of St. Bartholomew's Day" (Diefendorf, B.B. (1991) 'Beneath The Cross: Catholics & Huguenots in Sixteenth Century Paris', Oxford University Press, paperback: 0-79-507013-5, pp.157). At first sight, this statement seems incredible but as the respected historian Mack P. Holt, Professor at George Mason University (he previously taught at Harvard and Vanderbilt universities), explains many participants in the massacre believed they were carrying out the will of the King and felt that the extermination was God's will. Vigor, "the best known preacher in Paris" was identified as a crucial factor in developing this perception. (Holt, M. P. (1995) 'The French Wars of Religion 1562 - 1629', Cambridge University Press, hardback: 0-521-35359-9, pp.88 - 89) This view is also partly supported by Cunningham and Grell (2000) who explained that "militant sermons by priests such as Simon Vigor served to raise the religious and eschatological temperature on the eve of the Massacre" (Cunningham, A. & Grell, O. P. (2000) 'The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse', Cambridge University Press, paperback: 0-521-46701-2, pp. 151).

To fully comprehend this reasoning, one has to understand the de-humanising depths of popular intolerance against the Protestant 'heresy', fermented by the French Roman Catholic Church since before the First War of Religion; the Church's and the state's obsession with religious 'unity', which was the product of the Vatican's "imperialist approach, which declares that there is only one empirical church which deserves to be treated as the true church" (McGrath, A. E. (2000) 'Christian Thought: An Introduction' (second edition), Blackwell, Oxford, paperback: 0-631-19849-0, pp. 484); and the complete esteem with which the sovereign's office was held, justified by prominent French Roman Catholic theologians (e.g.. Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet), and that the special powers of French Kings "were accompanied by explicit responsibilities, the foremost of which was combating heresy" (Holt, pp. 9). Under such circumstances (this line of reasoning continues), when their 'flock' begin to act with vicious sectarian passion, encouraged by prominent local Churchmen, the French Roman Catholic Church can hardly claim innocence.

Holt, notable for re-emphasising the importance of religious issues, as opposed to political / dynastic power struggles or socio-economic tensions, in explaining the French Wars of Religion, also re-emphasised the role of religion in the St Bartholomew's Day Massacre. He insists that "violence was not random at all, but patterned after the rites of the Catholic culture that had given birth to it" (Holt, pp. 88) He stressed that "Huguenots not only had to be exterminated - that is, killed - they also had to be humiliated, dishonoured, and shamed as the inhuman beasts they were perceived to be. The victims had to be de-humanised - slaughtered like animals - since they had violated all the sacred laws of humanity in Catholic culture" (Holt, pp. 87). Also, Holt continues, "many Protestant houses were burned, invoking the traditional purification by fire of all heretics. Many victims were also thrown into the Seine, invoking the purification by water of Catholic baptism" (Holt, pp. 87).

The Encyclopaedia Britannia (2008) estimates that the number that perished in the Massacre, "which lasted to the beginning of October, have varied from 2,000 by a Roman Catholic apologist to 70,000 by the contemporary Huguenot Maximilien de Béthune, duc de Sully, who himself barely escaped death". Yozzer66 (talk) 17:07, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

This works for me. There might be scholars who disagree with McGrath and Holt but, in the interest of NPOV, we should document those alongside with the statements of McGrath and Holt. I'd like to see arguments as to which side represents the mainstream of historical scholars.

I think I want to modify an earlier assertion that I made about the scope of this article. I don't know of any examples where a "national church" (not that these actually exist in the Catholic Church) went "off the reservation" and did something completely against the Vatican but, if such an example exists, criticizing those actions would not be a criticism of the Catholic Church but of that "national church". The argument here seems to be that the French Catholics were not "off the reservation" but, in fact, in keeping with a general anti-Protestant culture across Europe condoned and, in fact, encouraged by the CAtholic Church. We should spend less time on details of "number of deaths" (there are other places on Wikipedia to document those) and focus on the issue of Catholic involvement in the European wars of religion. With 20/20 hindsight, we look back from our era of religious toleration and abhor these bloody wars of religion. The criticism here is the extent to which the Catholic Church instigated, supported and condoned these wars. Can we find scholarly sources to either indict or exonerate the church from these charges?

What is the historical context of the French persecution of Protestants? Did they come up with this entirely on their own or did they do it against a backdrop of persecution of Protestants across Europe? Was the massacre of Huguenots the worst example of persecution of Protestants? Was it one of the first or one of the last?

In asking these questions, I reveal my abject ignorance about this period but I think that I can provide value by posing questions that the average reader would want answered.

--Richard (talk) 17:32, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

The trouble is that both 2,000 and 70,000 seem way outside the range of say 5 to 30K that modern historians endorse - see the discussion and links above. I must say I find it surprising that this wide range still seems to exist - one would have thought it could have been narrowed by now. But we should use this, or rather the StBM article should - given the huge range it may be best to avoid any figures here. The Netherlands, mentioned in the reduced text, and the Czech lands after the Habsburgs took over again are probably the most notorious areas, because the Protestant populations were the largest. In Spain, Italy etc the few Protestants generally went into exile sharpish. The executions under Mary were specifically advised against by the Spanish, but Mary (as a typical Tudor, some might say) insisted. I'm not sure you've quite grasped the scale of the French Wars of Religion - this was a full scale civil war, with various Catholic notables fighting on the Protestant side at times, for reasons too complicated to go into. It was marked by mob violence and massacres by both sides at many points, though mostly much smaller in scale than 1572. This is exactly the sort of thing an article like this tends to misleadingly obscure, and what we need to guard against. In the same way, the most consistent and powerful member of the "Protestant" side in the Thirty Years War was France under Cardinal Richelieu. The very divided tone of the period was essentially set, I think most historians would agree, by very aggressive, and successful, Protestant polemics in the first half of the 16th century, which the Catholics initially struggled to compete with (Yosser is a fine representative of the last days of this tradition). In this context it is rather silly to talk of "a general anti-Protestant culture"; both sides had a Cold War-style fear of what the other would do if they took control in a particular place. Johnbod (talk) 18:02, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Cold War is a very useful analogy for me because I grew up during the tail end of it but studied it in high school and college as a very real and present phenomenon. People criticize the USSR and others criticize the US but you have to understand their actions in the context of the Cold War, McCarthyism, redbaiting, etc.

When I said "historical context" that sort of thing is what I meant. Narrowly criticizing the St. Bart's massacre without providing "the big picture" can give the wrong impression in the same way as criticizing US involvement in Vietnam without understanding the domino theory and what was going on in Malaysia and Indonesia at the same time. We have to say that some people criticize the Catholic Church as the "heavy" in all this because some people do. We can also say that others suggest a more balanced perspective (Who?). I doubt that we can exculpate the Catholic Church entirely. --Richard (talk) 20:27, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm not suggesting we do at all, but we do need to provide the overall context. What mostly decided which religion became standard was the rulers, and the Catholic church held on to more of these in the large countries, though not the small princes of Germany. Only the Dutch Protestants really managed to fight their way out from under a Catholic ruler, and only at the price (another modern analogy) of an Indian Partition-style mass movement of people into the new confessional states (also seen in Germany). France went part way along this route. Other countries looked on in horror at both, with wars lasting decades. Johnbod (talk) 21:02, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Johnbod, up to this point, I've been reluctant to declare my POV. However, after being described as "a fine representative of the last days of (the) tradition" of "very aggressive Protestant polemics", I have to declare myself. I am a Protestant, but much more important I am a religious liberal. I am theologically unorthodox and I believe in freedom of religious belief and association; I try to respect religious (not just Christian) plurality; I believe in the separation of church and state; and I am a republican (not the US political party, still less the northern Irish separatists, but the type opposed to monarchy). In England, this strand of thought has a tradition stretching back hundreds of years, as well as a long history of being persecuted BY OTHER PROTESTANTS (of the 'Magisterial' variety)!

Because I may (at times) have given the impression of being a Protestant zealot, merely wishing to highlight Protestant suffering, I'd like to quote the US historian Diane Pinto, "the most important lesson for the future is that democracies can only exist and prosper if they contain citizens, not a collection of competing victims".

Accordingly, I'd like to amend my own contribution on the St. Bart's Massacre and delete the Encyclopaedia Britannia quote and replace it with a universal message and warning to present-day generations:

H.G. Koenigsberger (who until his retirement in 1984 was Professor of History at King s College, University of London; a Fellow of the British Academy; and has received an Economienda from the King of Spain in the Order of Isabel la Catholica) wrote that the Massacre was deeply disturbing because "it was Christians massacring other Christians who were not foreign enemies but their neighbours with which they and their forebears had lived in a Christian community, and under the same ruler, for a thousand years"(Koenigsberger, H.G. (1987) 'Early Modern Europe 1500 - 1789', Longman, Harlow, paperback: 0-582-49401-X, pp. 115). He concludes that the historical importance of the Massacre "lies not so much in the appalling tragedies involved as their demonstration of the power of sectarian passion to break down the barriers of civilisation, community and accepted morality" (Koenigsberger, pp. 115). Yozzer66 (talk) 23:36, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks to Yosser fore the filling in of detail. However this does show up the dangers of "Re-presenting" what others have said. For example the sentence: "the most popular Catholic preacher in Paris "legitimatised in advance the events of Saint Bartholomew's Day"" Would have led me to believe that the preacher had called for the Massacre of protestants, (the most famous "event" of Saint Bartholomew's day), when in fact he had only "legitimized" the assassination of Coligny. Similarly what Yosser reads in to McGrath does not seem to be backed by the limited quote actually provided. As far as Holt goes, my reading of the point that he is making is that the SPECIFIC ACTS of the mob (humiliation, burning of houses, mock-trials, throwing bodies in the river etc.) were rooted in Catholic culture - not the actual massacre of Protestants in itself. Holt says in page 85. "Fully expecting that Paris was about to be invaded by a Protestant army, the young king was ultimately convinced that a pre-emptive strike was the only option left open to him." He goes on to say that once the limited killings intended by the King had begun, the religious tensions in the city made a wider-scale massacre almost inevitable. I notice that Holt also states that the number of those killed in Paris was 2,000, rather than some of the more amazing numbers sometimes bandied about. So lets be absolutely sure what the sources are saying. Xandar 23:06, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

2,000 in Paris, plus c. 3,000 in the provinces (p. 91 & 95, attributing the latter figure to the estimates of Philip Benedict, so finally we have a scholarly origin for a figure! The last para of p. 91 reinforces my point above - 7 of the cities "had actually been taken over by Protestant minorities during the first civil war... " and then returned to Catholic control.) Johnbod (talk) 00:56, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Xander, your ability to view all sources through this Catholic apologist prism of yours is breathtaking. Most of the points you raise are utter nonsense and really don't require a considered response. Incidentally, the full quote from McGrath is: "An imperialist approach, which declares that there is only one empirical church which deserves to be treated as the true church, with all others being fraudulent, or at best approximations to the real thing. This position was characteristic of Roman Catholicism prior to the Second Vatican Council (1962 - 5), which took the momentous step of recognising other churches as separated Christian brothers and sisters". Yozzer66 (talk) 23:36, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Having now read Holt (except for a few pages not accessible), I would agree with Xandar on that point. Like most historians he emphasizes it was a plot to assassinate a handful of leaders that went out of control in the hands of the mob, but more than most he emphasizes the perceived reality of the Protestant threat to Paris at that point, a notion I seem to remember you dismissing completely a few feet above. Johnbod (talk) 01:13, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Johnbod, the point is NOT the intentions (and fears) of the King and those around him (such matters are dealt with in detail in the St Bart's Day Massacre article), the point is what the mob BELIEVED and how they came to believe it!

Not for the first time, it appears that we are arguing at cross purposes. However, after having re-read my contribution of 17:07, 1 February 2009, I can see how the misunderstanding began. Nowhere did I discuss the King's own intentions (and fears) merely the mob's interpretation of them (shaped by militant preachers like Simon Vigor) - after all it was the mob that did the killing not the King. However, with the benefit of hindsight, it may have been sensible to say something of what was in the King's mind. Yozzer66 (talk) 12:43, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

And I still argue that most of this belongs in another article... not here. IMHO, the whole episode deserves at best two or three sentences in a section about European wars of religion. Mention the religous tensions, the King's fear that Paris would be attacked by a Protestant army, his instructions for limited killings, the influence of militant preachers on the mob and the ensuing massacre of thousands. Provide links to the appropriate Wikipedia articles. Then let's move on. --Richard (talk) 15:27, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

On 2 Feb, Johnbot began the first of his 50 edits to the St Bart's Day Massacre article. That is why the debate here has gone quiet. We have made progress on the article but, unfortunately, some of the unresolved issues here have merely been transfered to that arena. Yozzer66 (talk) 21:50, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

And, as I have indicated above, that is one of the arenas where these sorts of issues should be presented. Two or three sentences should suffice to cover the topic in this article. --Richard (talk) 00:11, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Reformation

As it stands, the 'Reformation' section is virtually worthless in an article such as this. Yozzer66 (talk) 13:18, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

The problem with hyperbolic phrases like "virtually worthless" is that it hints at an extreme position which does not foster collegiality. Instead of using antagonistic phrases like that, please be specific about your concerns. I have looked over the section and I agree that there are now problems of not presenting the criticisms relevant to this period. The problem that I have had with your (Yozzer66's) approach is that it spends too much time describing individual trees rather than describing the forest. Now that we've gotten rid of the tree descriptions, let's try to do a better job of describing the forest.

So, for instance, let's look at this sentence "the Papacy and Catholic rulers felt compelled to deal with Protestantism as a dangerous, destabilising influence in politics and society, as well as characterising Protestants as heretical and schismatic." Someone put a {{fact}} tag on it. Well, we should provide a citation but we need to go one step further and explain what the criticism is here. Reading the sentence as its written, a Catholic might come away and say "So what? The Protestants were a dangerous, destabilising influence and they were heretical and schismatic. What's the criticism?" We need to go one step further and state that some people feel that the Catholics were too intolerant, persecuted the Protestants and committed or condoned many acts that we would consider unjust and inhumane. With citations, of course. But as broad generalizations, not a laundry list of specific acts because that would get too long. So we could assert that they instigated wars, tried and executed individuals as heretics, etc. I've made a first effort at doing that but I'm not an expert so I don't know the specifics. That's where you can help.

Now let's consider the section on religious wars. The problem is that we are so busy being NPOV that we fail to make any criticism of the Catholic Church. Right now, it reads like history and extremely neutral history, at that. This is not a history article; it is an article of criticism of the Catholic Church. What is the criticism of the Catholic Church here? That it persecuted Protestants? We have that. That it fomented religious wars? We don't have that. This article doesn't make any suggestion of that until the end where we indicate that religious wars came to an end "over the Pope's objections". Well, what was the role of the Pope during the religious wars? Was he issuing encyclicals pleading for the violence to end? Or something else? --Richard (talk) 14:09, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

I think we should consider putting some of the stuff that you presented. I like these quotes from Holt, McGrath, Koenigsberger and Cunningham and Grell.

the complete esteem with which the sovereign's office was held, justified by prominent French Roman Catholic theologians (e.g.. Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet), and that the special powers of French Kings "were accompanied by explicit responsibilities, the foremost of which was combating heresy" (Holt, pp. 9)

McGrath is: "An imperialist approach, which declares that there is only one empirical church which deserves to be treated as the true church, with all others being fraudulent, or at best approximations to the real thing. This position was characteristic of Roman Catholicism prior to the Second Vatican Council (1962 - 5), which took the momentous step of recognising other churches as separated Christian brothers and sisters".

H.G. Koenigsberger (who until his retirement in 1984 was Professor of History at King s College, University of London; a Fellow of the British Academy; and has received an Economienda from the King of Spain in the Order of Isabel la Catholica) wrote that the Massacre was deeply disturbing because "it was Christians massacring other Christians who were not foreign enemies but their neighbours with which they and their forebears had lived in a Christian community, and under the same ruler, for a thousand years"(Koenigsberger, H.G. (1987) 'Early Modern Europe 1500 - 1789', Longman, Harlow, paperback: 0-582-49401-X, pp. 115). He concludes that the historical importance of the Massacre "lies not so much in the appalling tragedies involved as their demonstration of the power of sectarian passion to break down the barriers of civilisation, community and accepted morality" (Koenigsberger, pp. 115).

Cunningham and Grell (2000) who explained that "militant sermons by priests such as Simon Vigor served to raise the religious and eschatological temperature on the eve of the Massacre" (Cunningham, A. & Grell, O. P. (2000) 'The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse', Cambridge University Press, paperback: 0-521-46701-2, pp. 151).

I don't much care for the following quotes from Holt. I think they are "over the top".

"violence was not random at all, but patterned after the rites of the Catholic culture that had given birth to it" (Holt, pp. 88) He stressed that "Huguenots not only had to be exterminated - that is, killed - they also had to be humiliated, dishonoured, and shamed as the inhuman beasts they were perceived to be. The victims had to be de-humanised - slaughtered like animals - since they had violated all the sacred laws of humanity in Catholic culture" (Holt, pp. 87). Also, Holt continues, "many Protestant houses were burned, invoking the traditional purification by fire of all heretics. Many victims were also thrown into the Seine, invoking the purification by water of Catholic baptism" (Holt, pp. 87).

--Richard (talk) 14:29, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Yosser has now migrated most of his stuff to the Massacre article itself & you should maybe see the talk page there. You should be aware of some points -

Holt does not mention Bossuet at all - he lived 1627-1704 - about a century after the massacre. I would object to this quote here in a general article, as this feeling was common to nearly all Europe at the time, whether Catholic, protestant or Orthodox.

The McGrath book (as the Vatican II bit suggests) does not mention the massacre at all

Koenigsberger seems far too general & merely stating the obvious

I thought we wanted just 2-3 lines on the massacres? Johnbod (talk) 15:16, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

My proposal would be 2-3 lines on the massacres; maybe a paragraph on the Reformation and another paragraph on the religious wars. Note that the main body of the text should make these points without providing the full verbosity of the quote which can be put in the footnotes.

But, my real concern is not about length but about scope. I just don't think this is the place to get into any details about any of the massacre or even the religious wars. We need to focus on the criticisms, not the historical details.

As for the first Holt quote, I suspect that it only supports the assertion that the special powers of French Kings "were accompanied by explicit responsibilities, the foremost of which was combating heresy" (Holt, pp. 9)

If I understand you correctly, the issue is that Bossuet lived a century after the massacre so a different theologian is needed here, one that lived before or contemporaneously with the massacre.

Or no theologian at all. For the nth time, it needs to be demonstrated that this was a particularly Catholic position, which cannot be done, at least until centuries later. Otherwise it belongs on Criticism of Christianity, if not Criticism of religion, given that every major religion has produced similar periods. Not that the record of non-religious ideologies is the slightest bit better, in fact ..... Johnbod (talk) 01:39, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

I disagree with you a bit about McGrath and Koenigsberger. McGrath might not mention the massacres but, IMO, this section should not be about the massacres at all. And to the extent that it is about the wars of religion, it should focus on the Catholic Church's role in those wars. Not just the specific actions of the Church but the backdrop of imperial Christianity vs. democratic chaotic Christianity. (That's been my point in all this.)

Yosser has resisted several highly direct appeals on the other period from myself and Folatin to disclose the context of this quote, but it appears to me it relates to the 19th or 20th centuries. We should be able to do much better. Johnbod (talk) 01:39, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

My perspective on all this is that this whole thing is part of a 1700-year debate over the roles and interaction of church and state. In this perspective, the problem was that Constantine didn't just make Christianity legal, he made it the official state religion thus giving the church not just spiritual power but temporal power as well and thereby making the church and state allies in maintaining a stable society and a stable government. That sounds good but therein lies the seed of religious strife for the next 1700 years. Sectarian disputes became matters for the state to take sides on as is shown tragically in the European wars of religion. This wasn't the first time that temporal power was used to accomplish spiritual unity. The ecumenical councils were convoked by the Eastern Roman emperor. Consider the number of times the Emperor of the Byzantine Empire took sides in religious disputes such as iconoclasm). The dysfunctions of this tight interaction between church and state laid the foundation for Separation of church and state and religious tolerance. To me, these are points that have yet to be made in this article. The Catholic Church held on to temporal power for as long as they could until the dissolution of the Papal States in the 19th century. Only then did they come to grips with the fact that they had to exercise power primarily through their spiritual position. This is part of what Vatican I was about. This coming to grips with the reality of operating inside secular states independent of the Vatican has led to the modern Catholic Church as we know it today. (Well, yes, I know that's just one POV but it's mine, just so you know. I do think it's not too far from the mainstream.)

Now it may be that there are better sources than Koenigsberger to make these points. I think this is the real criticism of the Catholic Church. Not just that it was excessive in its attempts to enforce religious orthodoxy but the very fact that it was willing to use force to do so. The fact that the Protestant states were willing to do likewise is just an indication that this was the mindset of the entire 1600 years between the Edict of Milan and the dissolution of the Papal States. (I.E. it is arguably a criticism of Christianity and not just of the Catholic Church. However, we need to present the fact that the criticism is made of the Catholic Church and then present the fact that others make the same criticism of the Orthodox and Protestants as well.)

I wouldn't say that the Reformation intended for there to be separation of church and state. I would say that one unintended consequence of the Reformation and the ensuing religious wars was a feeling that only separation of church and state would lead to a stable peace. And, IMO, by and large, it has. (well, at least until we substituted ideological wars for the religious wars).

The last few hundred years after the European wars of religion are a period of increasing religious tolerance and increasing separation between church and state although that trend has been challenged in the U.S. by fundamentalist/evangelical Christians and in Muslim countries by Islamic fundamentalists.

Whew! Nuff said?

--Richard (talk) 16:49, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Hmmm. There are a lot of "chicken and egg" scenarios there. Separation of Church and State is not something I believe had a great impact on the creation of peace after the religious wars. I'd say it was the other way round. The religious wars burned themselves out, people became disenchanted with militant protestantism and catholicism, and this led to a reaction against all doctrinaire religion in the 18th Century. That reaction outworked in the idea of separation of Church and state. People then found other things to fight and persecute each other about. As far as religious coercion goes: can it be laid primarily at the door of the Catholic Church? I'd say there were a lot of other factors involved. Xandar 00:50, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't think we disagree about disenchantment with the religious militancy behind the religious wars being the motivation for separation of church and state. There is no "chicken and egg". Intertwining of church and state came first. Disenchantment came later resulting in separation of church and state.

All I was saying is that the problem did not arise with the religious wars. They were simply the last straw. The problems of intertwining church and state ran all the way back to the establishment of Christianity as the state religion of the Roman Empire by Theodosius I. It wasn't until after the European wars of religion that people started seriously advocating doing something different.

As for the blame for religious coercion being laid primarily at the door of the Catholic Church... yes, unfortunately it can but let us be clear about the sense in which I say this... before the East-West Schism and the Reformation, the Catholic Church was the entire Christian Church. The Orthodox and the Protestants share in the legacy of the Christian Church before they split off, including the willingness to coerce religious orthodoxy. We must admit that religious coercion is a hallmark of the 700 years between 380 and 1054/1517. What we need to ask is whether the Eastern Orthodox and the Protestants shed that legacy or if all of Christianity continued to share that legacy. It's clear that the Eastern Orthodox had many religious disputes, at least some of which were bloody. I don't know much about Orthodox history so I don't know if they killed as many heretics as the Western church. You have argued that the Protestants were just as coercive as the Catholics. I will accept that assertion unless someone can offer sources to disprove it. --Richard (talk) 01:42, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Re:Chicken and egg. Religion and state were one as long as anyone can remember. Julius Caesar is a fairly recent example - Pontius Maximus for many years. Egyptians before that for a few thousand and when artifacts are dug up, there appears to be connections there as well. Separation of Church and state is a recent innovation, the result of all that, I suppose. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Student7 (talk • contribs)

Yes, obviously religion and state were intertwined back into prehistory. The point is that there was a time Christianity was NOT the state religion and then it became the state religion. The argument put forth by some is that becoming the state religion was a serious detriment to Christianity. I confess I can't remember where I read this (25 years ago) but it was transformative in my understanding of the history of Christianity. Previously, I had always been taught that becoming the state religion was a major victory for Christianity.

Yes, becoming the state religion enabled it to not only survive and grow exponentially but it also inserted some pernicious elements that would plague it for the next 1700 years. The temptations of secular power corrupt the purity of spiritual power. There is "separation of religion and state" but, in particular, there is "separation of Christian church and state" which drives much of the last 500 years of Western history.

--Richard (talk) 18:57, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

On the issue of coercion I would say two things.

1) I would argue that there is nothing in particular about Catholicism that made it more or less coercisive than any other religion in a position of power. In other words, when you have no power it is easy to say you are a tolerant religion or philosophy. It is when you come into power that the truth of this comes out. It is pretty clear that in power Protestantism has generally been at least as coercive as Catholicism. Orthodoxy, while in control of political power (ie: before the Muslim take-over of Constantinople) was similar. The same case could be made for Islam, for Judaism prior to 70AD, and even for Roman pagan religion, which, while apparently more tolerant, only tolerated religions that could be syncretised and absorbed within its world-system. Communists and freethinkers too - out of power, the most pluralist and democratic of people. In power - Your gulag awaits.

2) Historically Catholic intolerance has been very mixed up with the pre-18th Century view that the security of the state was dependant on having a population with one unified belief system. This ideal pre-dated Christianity and was immediately applied by Constantine. In other words, the state had as great, if not a greater interest than the Church in enforcing religious uniformity. Rulers saw that where their Kingdom was disunited religiously, civil-strife and worse soon followed. The Monophysite controversy hamstrung the Byzantine Empire in defending itself against Islam. The Paulicians had a similar effect. The medieval inquisition developed after the wars over the Cathars. The Spanish Inquisition was the initiative of the Spanish State, and run by it, being directed chiefly at the "security risk" of muslim and Jewish remnant populations. Xandar 21:52, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Xandar, let us focus less on what you think and more on what reliable sources who criticize Catholicism and Christianity think. You wrote "I would argue that there is nothing in particular about Catholicism that made it more or less coercisive than any other religion in a position of power." If we take your sentence and insert Christianity, I think there are those who would assert that maybe it was more coercive than other religions (e.g. Buddhism). I'm not saying it's true but we should ask if there are notable criticism to this effect. And yes, there is sort of a "chicken-and-egg" thing as to whether the state wanted religious unity or the religion wanted temporal power. Either way, this is a criticism of Christianity in the first 1600 years after it became the state religion of Rome.

And, by the way, the argument "but the other religions do it too" isn't a completely effective defense. It merely means that the other religions are also criticized for the same thing.

Which allows me to segue into another point made, I think, by Johnbod. See below.

The point is: The criticism needs to come first, the rebuttal afterwards. If the (legitimate and valid) historical criticisms can be identified, referenced to sources and put in order, then we can look into rebuttal views. I'm probably not the proper person to put the "critical" case together in the first instance, though I might object to the relevance, accuracy or sourcing of particular criticisms, such as the one claiming Catholicism always accompanied Jewish persecution a few sections above, which was inaccurate and marginal. Xandar 17:15, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Criticism of Catholic Church or of Christianity

Is this article about "Criticism of the Roman Catholic Church" or "Criticism of Christianity"? Yes, I know there's an article Criticism of Christianity and frankly it's a mess. But the problem is... for at least 700 years after it became the official state religion of Rome, the Catholic Church was the only game in town.

If people criticize the Catholic Church for actions and policies during those 700 years which can be shown to have continued in the split-off branches of Eastern Orthodoxy and Protestantism, does this mean the criticism is only a "Criticism of Christianity" and the Catholic Church gets a free ride excusing it self from culpability for those actions and policies? I don't think so. The Catholic Church only starts to become distinguishable from Christianity after 1054 and 1517 but before 1054, a criticism of Christianity IS a criticism of the Catholic Church. --Richard (talk) 22:23, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't think that's quite right. The Western & Eastern churches functioned pretty seperately in practice from long before 1054, & for example there was some harsh treatment of the other side by both sides in the Iconoclasm dispute, which it would be silly to include here. Likewise treatment of the Copts, or the Nika riots (where you pretty much had to speak Greek even to understand the supposed points at issue). Equally Charlemagne was certainly a Catholic. I think the scope here should be the Western church after 454 or some such cut-off. Johnbod (talk) 23:00, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps we should be specific in the lead what the scope of the article is. I don't have a firm position on this question. It's been nagging me since you suggested that something should be in Criticism of Christianity and not here. I started to ponder this and couldn't come up with an obviously right and clear answer. The Fourth Crusade we charge against the Catholic Church because it's post-Schism but the suppression of Iconoclasts is charged to Eastern Christianity because they were separated physically but not officially (i.e. it was pre-Schism)?

--Richard (talk) 23:28, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes to both points. Rome was consistently anti-Iconclast, but could only despatch letters & send representatives, which had little or no effect on events. The suppression of Iconodules seems to have been harsher, when the Iconoclasts were in charge, from what little info remains, although there was little actual bloodshed. The 4th Crusade is hard to pin on the church, being essentially political and mercenary, and its diversion to Constantinople opposed strongly by the pope as I recall (yes - see the article), but it was done by Catholic "Franks" against Orthodox Greeks. Johnbod (talk) 09:00, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

I have amended the header to the history section to "This section, organized chronologically, covers historical actions for which the Western church after 454, and the Roman Catholic Church, have been criticised." - but if people want alternative dates or wording, let's discuss. I think this should be restricted to the history section; extending it to cover the theology etc seems POV & very complicated. All the current contents fit this definition of the scope. Johnbod (talk) 00:50, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Umm... why 454? Surely you're not suggesting that the Roman Catholic Church began in 454? Are you saying a criticism of pre-454 early Christians is a criticism of Christianity but not of the Catholic Church? That opens the door to some interesting POV arguments that I don't think you really want to get into.

I think it's better to go ahead and provide a summary of all significant criticisms of Christianity up to 1154 and 1517 and then exclude any criticisms that are specific to the non-Catholic churches after those dates. This would include any criticisms of the pre-1154 Christians even if they were not under the control of the Pope in actuality. This gets dicey with the iconoclast controversy but not doing it that way suggests that the Eastern Orthodox were not members of the Catholic Church prior to 1154 and that opens up another can of worms. I think it's better to discuss the significant criticisms and then comment where appropriate that the Roman Pontiff had little control over the situation.

--Richard (talk) 01:15, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

454 is deliberately a political date, chosen to avoid POV issues about if and when the RCC differs from Early christianity. In fact the current article covers no historical content that comes from this period so far. Johnbod (talk) 05:05, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

The 454 date is going to cause far more trouble than it solves, I think. Better to do as Richard suggests, and explain criticism in debatable places/times as it arises. Xandar 22:11, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Ok, I have removed the date. But I am sure it would be wrong to include Iconoclasm etc stuff, not that anyone seems to want to. Johnbod (talk) 00:44, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Anti-semitism in Europe

I am removing the sentence "It is hardly surprising then that as soon as a state became Roman Catholic an assortment of legal restrictions against Jews began in earnest and “by the end of the Middle Ages most of the elements of modern Judeophobia had been formed”." as discussed above. The sentence is a) palpably untrue; b) stated as a fact, not an opinion, and c) a marginal opinion at best with little or no scholarly backing and cited to a book not on the period it covers. If anyone wants this charge restored, I think it needs more support, and certainly would need to be clearly presented as an opinion. Xandar 22:18, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

I have tried to edit the section on Antisemitism in Spain, and find it hopeless. Again, this article is a modern rephrasing of the Black Legend. It is a bigoted screed. I am not here to deny that antisemitism did not occur in Spain. But I don't think it was a "Catholic thing". It occurred all through Europe. It was likely more prominent in 15th century Spain than say in 15th century England; because I would estimate some 10-20% of the population of Spain was Jewish or Muslim, while no Jews were left in England. To say Catholicism brought on the pogroms is wrong. As I said before, there were pogroms in Barcelona in the 13th century, brutal ones in which the whole community was nearly slaughtered, and sought refuge with the bishop. But Alfonso el Sabio had important advisors in his court who were Jews. And it also occurred in Al-Andalus, during the Fitnah, the Almohads massacred many of the Jewish communities. Jews under the Muslims, as with the Christians, were often employed as tax-collectors.

Again, I also think the "blood racism" charge misunderstands the nature of "blood" laws among Spanish. For one, I restate, the use of bloodlines, ethnic lines is as old as the Bible and older. Fisher's statement is crap. Spain was different from many European countries in this emphasis on "purity of ancestry", but one has to understand that this was not seen in other Catholic countries at this level. Why? I am not sure you can then look to "Roman Catholicism" for the answer. It was intertwined with the National Religion, but I do not think the National religion led to this. Part of the reason was to exclude "Marranos" from ecclesiastical posts. One of the first blood laws arose from a controversial appointment in the early 16th century of a bishop in Toledo. But why view this as Catholic? Did Cromwell name Catholic Irishmen to Government posts? He didn't have to call it blood laws. Why not say that this was an issue about power, about having old northern Castillian elites seeking a way to protect their positions of power against members of other "tribes" of new-comers. Again this is only a fragment of the complexity of the subject, as it is treated here, the analysis of history is a restating of Anglo-Saxon Protestant anti-Catholic propaganda. The Black Legend lives.Baroque1700 (talk) 06:14, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

I suspect that it will be impossible to fix this unless we decide to start all over by discussing Christianity and antisemitism as an independent major section. It seems that we cannot discuss the history of antisemitism in Spain without putting it in the historical context of antisemitism in medieval Europe. Consider removing the entire section on Persecution of Jews in medieval Spain and replacing it with a section on the Catholic Church's role with respect to antisemitism in medieval Europe. Did the Catholic Church instigate and initiate antisemitism in Europe? If not, did it condone it? It certainly didn't fight very hard against it. Once we have discussed the larger picture in an NPOV way, it should be easier to write a section on antisemitism in medieval Spain. --Richard (talk) 06:51, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Russia and Eastern Europe

I deleted some text in this section about the closeness of Catholic and Orthodox beliefs. I'm not sure who wrote the original sentences but, besides the fact that they were written in much too casual a tone, they fail to accurately represent the nuances of the relationship between the two churches. See East-West Schism for a detailed discussion of the differences between the two churches. These differences should not be minimized and dismissed the way the text I deleted did. --Richard (talk) 17:58, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Absolutely right - nor was it especially relevant here. Johnbod (talk) 18:00, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Persecution of Jews and Conversos in Spain

I have removed this section because despite repeated statements that the information is false, nobody changes it. Let me start by stating facts: 1) Spain has often thought of itself as more catholic than the pope 2) Antisemitism, often brutal, has been prevalen and perpetrated in Spain by Catholics for centuries.

On that much I agree, but a criticism of the Catholic churches role in this is very complicated and not served by the nonsense in this section.

Let me criticize point by point: 1) The Reconquista, the gradual reconquest of Muslim Spain by the Roman Catholic Monarchs, had a strong religious element, just as the earlier Muslim conquest of Spain had had. Spain was being reclaimed for Christendom, not Moors or Jews.

Yes and no. Troops from Morocco and beyond invaded Spain in 700. There was a great deal of conversion, both forced, true, and gainful of Jews and Christians to Islam. Others became slaves or went into exile. Some were killed. The "moors" looted northern spain. By around the year 1000, the moors became a fractious set of petty kingdoms. The Northern Christian kingdoms started taking lands held by the moors. They started looting the southern kingdoms. Jews and Muslims were forced to convert, killed, enslaved, or exiled. But the Reconquista was a messy affair. For some 200-300 years there was feuding between and among Muslims and Christian rulers. Jews might be aligned with one or the other or both or neither. El Cid is a classic example of a knight of the reconquista, who fought, alongside a muslim emir, againts a Christian king. That does not support the notion that the Reconquista was a singleminded crusade for Christianity. El Cid did not exile all the muslims of Zaragoza; he even employed some in his armies, but he did convert mosques into churches.

2) Hostility towards Spain’s resident Jews became more pronounced over time, finding expression in brutal episodes of anti-Jewish violence and oppression.

False. In the 1200s, "pogroms" in Barcelona and other towns massacred the Jewish communities. In comparison, was the exile of Jews in 1492, more pronounced or not. Both are antisemitic, but there was no progression. In "Dogs of God: Columbus, the Inquisition, and the Defeat of the Moors" (Paperback) by James Jr Reston, the book notes that the exile of the Jews with the Decree of Alhambra, was occuring at the same time as Spain sought independence from the Vatican. Rather than label the jewish expulsion as a Catholic point, we can view it within the Spanish situation. It was not only religious, but to quote The Godfather, it was "only business", or at least partly so, and a very crass and cruel business.

3) Thousands of Jews sought to escape these attacks by converting to Catholicism; they were commonly called conversos or New Christians... In many ways, the Spanish Inquisition was a culmination of years of discrimination against conversos from which people of Jewish descent often found it impossible to escape.

Not really. The Spanish Inquistion was a post-reformation creation, the blood laws, while starting earlier, did not gain strong currency in the realm until after 1500. Again, blood laws were more expressly stated in Spain; this therefore seems more of a "spanish" phenomenon than a Catholic one. Again, Shakespeare himself railed against miscegenation tendencies in Othello; was that biologic racism? If you want a hundred further claims that Fisher's comments are a bunch of nonsense, I will provide them. The blood laws in Spain are more of tribal phenomenon, than a religious one. Tribal purity has always been the dream of tribal nationalists.

Finally, in Spain there were fluid religious affiliations throughout Medieval times. Conversos were either forced or elected to change for self-benefit. Ultimately it became exile or death as a heretic, once expulsion orders were in force. Many specially in the royalty sought to whitewash their non-christian backgrounds. Again, one has to explain why this push for tribal purity was so strong in Spain Italy, as opposed to Catholic Italy. I would not say it was unique to Spain, but Spain had the likely largest intermingling of tribes in Europe of its day, with substantial percentage of its population either muslim or jewish.

4) Like many Spanish Catholic clerics of his generation, the influential Dominican, Bishop Lope de Barrientos supported the prohibition of Judaism, believing that Judeo-Spaniards had to convert or leave. However, the Bishop defended conversos, arguing that "it would be unjust and cruel to debase and defame all people of Jewish heritage".

Again yes and what about the hundred other opinions of his day. Why is this Catholic issue as opposed to a Spanish one? One could dedicate sections to Spanish Catholic treatment of Arians, Erasmians, Canary island natives, native Americans, Moors, Jews, Black Africans. Each has a complex nature to it. There were Catholic defenders of the minorities, such as Bernardo Las Casas and persecuters. But how is this a Criticism of the Catholic Church.

If anyone wants to edit this section please state how the Catholic hierarchy responded to the Spanish Inquisition. Why was its power not truncated for centuries? Why was the priviledge given the the monarchy to appoint tribunals? Was the hierarchy openly supportive or critical of the inquisition? Was the Catholic hierachy both in Spain and Rome in favor of the expulsion of Jews? Why were they then expelled from Spain, but not Rome? Were the excesses of antisemitism in Spain perpetrated by Spaniards in positions of the local Catholic hierachy, but appointed by the local kings, and working to the advantadge of themselves and their families? Why were Jews less tolerated in Catholic Spain than in Catholic Venice?

Again, the arguments of the Black Legend equated the actions in Spain in the New World with the irrational passions of Catholicism, but this was propaganda. Yes there were excesses but I don't think they were necesarilly "Catholic". Cortes did not march into Mexico for the Cross, he marched for greed.Baroque1700 (talk) 03:04, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes. In fact a fair case can be made for the persecution of the church by Spain during this time. For example, they insisted on the suppression of the Jesuits, who opposed Spain's enslaving Native Americans. Done by a reluctant pope. And running their own Inquisition.Student7 (talk) 13:07, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Disagree with removal of the section as a topic but not necessarily with removal of this particular version of the text. I'm not in a position to evaluate whether or not the charges of antisemitism are valid or not. However, I disagree with removing the section if the criticism is a significant POV in the real world. It is not ourjob to determine which criticisms of the church are valid and which are not. It is our job to determine which ones are significant and to document them. If there are significant rebuttals, we should present those also but NPOV requires that we present all significant criticisms of the church, valid or not. --Richard (talk) 18:11, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

I tend to agree. There's no doubt there has been tons of criticism on these issues, of both church & state. The old version was pretty poor, as I recall. But little of this article is of an ideal standard. Johnbod (talk) 18:41, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't think Spain deserves a section of its own with regard to jews. The Spanish situation was pretty specific, but can be dealt with under the overall Jewish-related heading, with the unique circumstances explained. Xandar 11:03, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

I agree but I do think we need to spend at least a paragraph on this topic since, whether the criticism is valid or not, it is a very widely known and accepted criticism. In fact, if Wikipedia provides a service to the reader, it may be to provide the often unknown rebuttals to the criticism. --Richard (talk) 17:07, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Disbelief in Islam a valid criticism?

How can any religion be attacked for failing to belief in a religion introduced later? Should Jews be criticized for not believing that Jesus was a prophet? Please name one Christian religion that "believes" (teaches) that Mohammed was a prophet. How can they still be Christians and believe that? Or in Mary Baker Eddy or Mormonism? One may criticize a religion for many things, but criticizing it for integrity seems specious, at best. Student7 (talk) 17:51, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree. However, your complaint is based on interpreting the sentence as a criticism. I think the sentence was meant to provide background context and does a poor job of doing so.

IMO, the problem is far greater than this one sentence. The real problem is not that Roman Catholics don't accept Islam. As you say, only an extremely ecumenical universalist approach to religion would expect that. The question that this article should be trying to answer is... what have been and are the results of such non-acceptance both historically and currently? The entire history of Christian-Muslim relations is primarily one confrontation between Catholic/Orthodox on one side and Islam on the other. We need to discuss that history including the Moors in Spain and the Crusades. What was Pope Benedict really saying when he quoted that Orthodox patriarch? What has been the RC stance towards Islam in the 20th century. What is it now? --Richard (talk) 18:18, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Mormonism and Christian Science (founded by Mary Baker Eddy) *are* branches of Christianity, being based on the teachings of Jesus Christ. Some other branches can't or won't accept that they are, and that is a separate issue. --averagejoe (talk) 20:08, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I got carried away with with my analogy.Student7 (talk) 23:06, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Eastern Orthodox criticisms

Why does it appear as if this article is avoiding the myriad of criticisms the EOC has been making for probably longer than any other of these groups so far represented? Deusveritasest (talk) 06:44, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

You make a valid point. The reason would appear to be that the English Wikipedia is dominated by Anglophones who inherently have a Western bias, particularly an Anglican and Protestant bias. We have only recently (in the last couple of years) included the Orthodox POV via articles such as History of the Eastern Orthodox Church, East-West Schism and Catholic–Orthodox theological differences. If you want to take a whack at summarizing the criticisms of the Roman Catholic Church from the Orthodox POV, please be WP:BOLD and have at it. --Richard (talk) 07:23, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Another reason is that the RC church has apologized for its past behavior and admitted the EOC to full communion, though asking attendees to "observe the restrictions of its church" recognizing that the EOC still has the RC church on its hate list! Student7 (talk) 12:45, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't think you quite get it. While the "past behavior" of the RC is something covered in this article, namely in the Crusades, that is really all that is addressed. And the EO really do not view this as the primary point of tension, to tell you the truth. People keep overlooking the fact that there are numerous various in doctrine and practice between the two traditions. And for most of the EO, some of these differences are truly fundamental. Many EO even view the RC to be heretical. It is our differences in the understanding of the Christian religion that is viewed as the main source of tension, not previous political grievances. And also, just because you have welcomed us to Holy Communion in your Church doesn't mean that we are substantially in full communion. For the EO, a requisite for legitimate intercommunion is agreement in dogma, and many EO would say that we do not have agreement in dogma yet and thus we cannot intercommune. Deusveritasest (talk) 21:02, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree that Student7 is off-base in what he wrote. Nonetheless, the articles that I mentioned (especially East-West Schism and Catholic–Orthodox theological differences) make an attempt to describe the points of difference and contention. Perhaps you would care to distill these down into a section for this article. --Richard (talk) 21:24, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Proper Sense

A new editor added that the phrase "(including the Anglican Church)" to a statement that was made by the Pope that Protestant communities are not "churches in the proper sense". Other then the fact that the reference used to support that statement is now broken. The real reference never made the statement directly addressing the Anglican church. In other documents and talks both at the time Cardinal Ratzinger and previous Popes have said that the Anglican church is a protestant church, but it wasn't said in that speech. If you add Anglican you would have to add every other "church" that considers themselves Catholic but the Catholic church considers Protestant. Marauder40 (talk) 20:07, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

None of those other churches are ever questioned as being Protestant. The Anglican Church is the only one where this is the case. Thus it is the only group that needs to be specified that it is included. Deusveritasest (talk) 00:42, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

This doesn't seem like a good idea in this context. It is confusing. It suggests that Protestants don't normally include Anglicans (Episcopals?). If there is a point to be made about Anglicans, it needs to be done in a separate sentence and probably should include other hierarchical religions as well, like the Lutheran (but not Eastern Orthodox which RC does recognize). Student7 (talk) 12:41, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

It does not suggest that Protestants don't normally include Anglicans. It suggests, rather, that Anglicans are the one group that are sometimes not included as Protestants, and thus it is proper in this situation to clarify that they are being included among "Protestants" in those that the Pope does not consider legitimate churches. Because some people understand "Protestant" to not include Anglicans, if this clarification were not added, they very well could be left with the impression that Anglicans are not among those that the Pope regards as not legitimate churches. And given that the status of Lutherans as Protestants is never questioned (unlike Anglicans), I don't see why any addition to "Protestants" need be made on their part. Deusveritasest (talk) 20:16, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Many churches, not just the Anglicans consider themselves Catholic. Adding just the Anglican church is POV, and OR since the quote does not mention the Anglican church by name. You have to combine different quotes from different speeches to be able to include Anglicans. Yes the Catholic church considers Anglicans protestants, yes the Catholic church considers all Protestants "churches" communities not churches, combining the statements in this sentence is OR. Marauder40 (talk) 13:59, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm aware that plenty of groups that are included under "Protestant" consider themselves to be Catholic. That is not the issue at hand. The issue at hand is rather who is considered to be Protestant. And as I pointed out, there really is no other group other than Anglicans where that status is questioned. Thus there need be no other group clarified other than the Anglicans, because everyone will know that said groups are already included within "Protestants". While it may be the case that the RCC simply includes Anglicans among Protestants, not all people do, and thus to convey the proper information, the mention of Anglicans must be made. If need be, Apostolicae Curae could simply be cited. Deusveritasest (talk) 20:16, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

The problem is that what you are stating is OR related to the quote that was referenced in the original article. The original quote does not reference Anglicans in any way. To add "(including Anglicans)" is OR. More could be added with references to explain how this also applies to Anglicans but IMHO isn't necessary within the scope of this article. The Catholic church does not question whether Anglicans are Catholic or not it is only the other way around, similar to other Protestant groups that claim to be Catholic. Marauder40 (talk) 20:38, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Freemasonry section

This article is supposed to be about Criticism of the Roman Catholic Church; the section on Freemasonry is not relevant to this subject - it's more about the RCC's stance on Freemasonry. As such it should be removed. Any objections? --TraceyR (talk) 21:18, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

You are quite right that it doesn't fit. However, I would not like to see it removed. Rather, I would prefer to see, since this is the criticism of article, some mention of the conspiracy theory carp about the freemasons being in cahoots with the Catholics or other weird stuff.Farsight001 (talk) 02:34, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

As long as it is framed as criticism of the RCC it has a place here.--TraceyR (talk) 08:43, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

I suggest that sources be cited, if they exist, in which Freemasonry is critical of the RCC - that, after all, is the raison d'être of this article. The current section contains nothing of relevance: Away with it, I say! If there is "weird stuff" about "freemasons being in cahoots with Catholics", would even that be relevant? This is about the RCC, not RCs in general.--TraceyR (talk) 17:50, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Be careful here. This article is about criticisms of the CC, not only a listing of the criticisms themselves. So if most of the section is about the Church's response to claims, its actually ok. Though the Freemasonry section doesn't mention anything about such a conspiracy, so it's out of place. There are claims about a conspiracy between the CC itself and the Freemasons, and it, being a criticism of the CC, would be relevant. But since it's not mentioned here, then that section as it stands doesn't really belong. I'd leave it for a bit longer and see if anyone with some sources comes along, sees this conversation, and adds the relevant info. After a few days, I say we nix it.Farsight001 (talk) 01:48, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Mary Worship

Somehow this section was excised and abbreviated so much that it no longer even made sense. I have restored a few of the pertinent points that will make it easier for folks to understand that there are charges leveled against the Catholics by certain groups that they worship Mary, and additionally that for at least 158 years the usual Catholic explanation of dulia or hyperdulia has been criticized as well. In distant times this entire section was more efficiently organized and actually presented the facts of the matter from both sides. What was left (until today) was a very, very vague quotation with no contextual information presented. Sukiari (talk) 23:25, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

I hope it will continue to be improved a bit. I made a small change in removing the jesus-is-savior source as it really isn't credible for anything whatsoever. Seeing as how it also has an article about the government trying to cross spiders with goats to make bulletproof milk (no, seriously[[2]] ) and that many people suspect that the guy running it is an atheist mocking Christianity, it seems a questionable source to use, even about it's own claims. I put up a fact tag there, and I'd like to see it sourced, but I'm not entirely sure its needed. It seems like a kind of a "duh!" statement that people still think we worship Mary. (like they know what's in our hearts. :P )Farsight001 (talk) 02:02, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Looking for input

This is freaking ridiculous. I checked a dozen maps and all of them show quite clearly that Vatican City is NEXT TO and not IN Rome. User Tracey R seems completely determined to ignore this excruciatingly easy to see fact. Either that, or I'm hallucinating. Someone else provide input please. To Tracey R - inserting such patently false information like this is pretty much vandalism. I know that if the Vatican is not contained within Rome, then it can't be the whore of babylon, but tough cookies.Farsight001 (talk) 14:02, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Calm down, Farsight001! I really can't understand why you are so upset and are even suggesting vandalism on my part. Surely on a talk page about the RCC one could expect the assumption of Good Faith (just a joke!).

I'm not determined to ignore an obvious fact; I named my source (Wikipedia itself). If the article Vatican City is wrong, by all means correct it, then WP has been improved and we're both happy (of course I can only speak for myself on that! ;-)). At present it states (my emphasis):

Vatican City ..., officially the State of the Vatican City (Italian: Stato della Città del Vaticano),[10] is a landlocked sovereign city-state whose territory consists of a walled enclave within the city of Rome, the capital city of Italy.

Further down, in the section Transport, it also states:

As the Vatican City has no airports (it is one of the only independent states in the world without one), it is served by the airports that serve the city of Rome, within which the Vatican is located,...

Google Earth also shows the Vatican within the built-up area of Rome, but since it doesn't give the city boundary of Rome itself it isn't conclusive.

The Tiscali encyclopaedia's entry on the Vatican City

also contains the statement

Locator map for the European country of Vatican City State. The country is a sovereign area within the city of Rome, Italy

The site wikitravel.org has this to say:

Situated within the city of Rome in Italy, the Vatican is the world's smallest state.

So all in all, perhaps Farsight001 will understand why I made the edit about Vatican City being enclosed within the city of Rome. Perhaps I inadvertently touched a nerve, being unaware of any implication about the "Whore of Babylon", but that was not my intention.--TraceyR (talk) 10:43, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

FWIW, Encyclopedia Britannica (1986 edition) also describes Vatican City as an enclave in Rome.--TraceyR (talk) 16:49, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Of course, the Vatican owned Rome until the unpleasantness of the 19th century. The Vatican did not move but a small conclave within the city was allowed. Pretty much like the British Embassy in Washington DC. It is usually described as being in Washington DC. But of course, it is in the UK, technically. But that seems silly and no one describes it that way. Student7 (talk) 20:49, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Please elucidate. I haven't a clue what you're talking about. And who mentioned conclaves? --TraceyR (talk) 21:05, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Of course Student7 means enclave, not conclave.

All foreign embassies-- like say the British Embassy in Washington DC-- are legaly considered the home soil of that nation, e.g. Britian. Thus a non-America (or America I guess) could go there and seek asylum from the America goverment. Not sure if this is considered so for all legal purposes, but it might be as far as I know. ^{Carlaude:Talk} 00:18, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure how this helps to clarify whether Vatican City is either (a) entirely surrounded by the city of Rome (as stated in Vatican City) or (b) "next to Rome", as Farsight001 vehemently claims above. So far no evidence has been given for this latter viewpoint. Farsight001 mentions that "a dozen maps" support his/her case but has failed to back this up with sufficient evidence to warrant changing the article. Input has been requested and supplied; as yet nothing has been given to support Farsight001's claim.--TraceyR (talk) 06:45, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Well-- it doen't. It is basicily an analogy, so it could at best be OR. In fact, even if he posted a map of Rome on this page it would still be all WP:OR-- unless it also had text saying what he wants Wikipedia to say. ^{Carlaude:Talk} 06:56, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Blah. This is nuts. Anyone looking at a map can see it clearly next to Rome, and yet all these quite qualified sources say in. Maybe it's just easier to say that way, but no matter - we go with the sources. I don't like that much, but whatever.Farsight001 (talk) 07:06, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

There's a map on wikitravel showing Vatican City surrounded by the city of Rome, so which map(s) does one accept? I suppose it would be too much to expect Farsight001 to withdraw the intemperate remarks made in the first entry on this thread and apologise for the unwarranted accusation of vandalism? Either that or admit to hallucinating ;-) Hang loose!--TraceyR (talk) 07:31, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

I confess to not having read the fine print (or even the large print) in the Lateran Treaty, but I would be surprised if the treaty did not allow for the pope/RC Church to use whatever he felt like using as his stated residence, since "Rome" is quite central to the concept of the church. Vatican City has a separate name because it is sovereign and needs a name. Like the British Embassy in DC, is it sovereign but that really makes no difference to the world at large.Student7 (talk) 14:29, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

I've been checking up on this, to find a definitive statement on the status of the Vatican City; most sources state that it is an enclave, either without giving a reference or referring to the Lateran Treaty of 1929. The map in Annex I to the treaty (available on Commons) is unclear; a more recent CIA map (also available in Commons) shows that Rome has a common boundary with the Vatican City on the northwest, the northeast and the southeast but not, crucially, on the southwest. In the following publication, a legal journal, I have found what must be considered a definitive statement:

Title: The Status of the Vatican City

Author: Herbert Wright

Reference: The American Journal of International Law, Vol. 38, No. 3 (Jul., 1944), pp. 452-457

(article consists of 6 pages)

Published by: American Society of International Law

The relevant page (452) can be seen here. It states:

"The liberation of Rome by the Allied forces on June 4, 1944, has served to focus attention on the legal status of the State of the Vatican City, a 108-acre enclave within the city of Rome".

That would appear to settle the matter. Any modern maps which contradict this fact must be considered inaccurate. --TraceyR (talk) 08:24, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Catholic vs Roman Catholic

I thought that Episcopal, Lutherans, and probably Orthodox described themselves as Catholic. I am satisfied if you want to make this article Catholic=Roman Catholic as the header describes, but it does confuse some of the statements where not only the RC, but all catholics say the same thing.Student7 (talk) 20:52, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

The terms "Catholic Church" / "Universal Church" describe, according to one at least general purpose (and independent) dictionary, the whole Christian Church. By this definition, all 'churches', including the Roman church, the various Orthodox churches, the Protestant churches etc. are all denominations within this Catholic or Universal Christian Church. This would be irrespective of whether each church cares to define itself as 'Catholic" or not. The term "Roman Catholic" is therefore necessary to distinguish this church from the other members of the Universal Church. It's not how the RCC generally refers to itself (but it does so, in some contexts), but that's another matter. Unfortunately Wikipedia's 'consensus' requirement opens such things up to skewed voting rather than logic, but that's one of its major weaknesses and not one which is going to change any time soon.--TraceyR (talk) 19:08, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Confessional Lutherans

There seems to be a awful lot of criticism by "Confessional Lutherans". While this may be accurate, based on numbers, it seems a bit WP:UNDUE IMO. Maybe we want a separate section covering all the criticism of Confessional Lutherans!  :) (I'm not serious!). Student7 (talk) 15:40, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Reorganizing?

It seems to me, looking back that criticism may be grouped a bit differently. The historical organization is more or less okay IMO.

The rest could be grouped a bit differently. Some are religious criticism, per se. For example, prayers for the Jewish people, proselytizing, pope's comment on Islam, that sort of thing.

A lot of the remainder, though, are humanistic criticism. I define humanistic as "man as the center of all things and making him the measure of all things." In that category would be clerical celibacy, for example, as well as teaching on other matters regarding sexuality. Also woman's rights, ordination of women. Maybe separation of church and state, since sidelining the church tends to be a political goal (humanistic) rather than a moral one.

Just a thought.Student7 (talk) 22:29, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Why does this even exist?

This page shouldn't exist, but I don't want to PROD it and then get cited for a COI. I'm a Catholic, but I went to lurk around other Churches like Protestantism and such on Wikipedia, this is the only Church with an expansive Criticism section. Why? (I Guess the larger the Church the more criticism it receives, but still) --Rockstone (talk) 20:10, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

And why would this not exist? Would you rather this be merged the main Catholic Church article instead?

There seems to be expansive Catholic Church articles on everything else. ^{Carlaude:Talk} 23:35, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Not sure this should be here

"Sisters of the Missionaries of Charity, founded by Mother Teresa, were imprisoned on proselytism charges in India. Church officials reply that the nuns were illegally imprisoned and that they do not proselytize the dying AIDS patients they are caring for.[85][86]" This seems mostly persecution rather than mere "criticism' per se? Shouldn't it go into that article? Student7 (talk) 17:18, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Peculiar criticisms

I suppose we can't select who criticizes, but some of this seems so off-base (or maybe misworded) that we should take other criticism, that is more on target.

The quote: "Mother Teresa and the missionaries of charity have been heavily criticized by Christopher Hitchens[87][88] and Aroup Chatterjee for soliciting money from military dictators and mass-murderers, forcibly preventing cures for patients so that they may be baptized in death, and carrying out questionable financial practices.[87]"

Okay, for starters, "may be baptized in death and carrying out questionable financial practices" seems fair game.

But "soliciting money from dictators and mass-murderers"?? This is not good policy in America for office-seekers, but so what anyplace else? What is wrong with money from (say) Gadhafi, from the late Pol Pot, or anybody else for "good works?" people have tried to salve their conscience for millenia with contributions? The accusation makes no sense on its face.

"forcibly prevent cures for patients" may be misreported. The "patients" are people who are dying, and, by definition, can't be "cured" by the Mayo clinic or anyone else. They were gathered off the streets in a dying condition! I'm thinking that someone meant not giving patients analgesics. This is certainly possible, but, of course, they weren't getting any analgesics when they were lying in the gutter on the street dying either. These last two "criticisms" seem preposterous. I wonder if we shouldn't be looking at more rational critics? Are we required to publish nonsense along with reaonable criticism? Is all criticism equally valid? Student7 (talk) 17:18, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

"Birth control" or "contraception"

There was recently an edit to change the reference to the Catholic Church's condemnation of "birth control" to a condemnation of "contraception". I just wanted to ask people here how appropriate they thought this was? I can see merit in either phrase. "Birth control" would indicate that the Catholic Church condemns all 3 major forms of birth control, including abortion, contragestion, and contraception, which is true. On the other hand, to refer simply to contraception would clarify the particular point of the CC's condemnation of contraception, given that many other Christian groups condemn abortion and contragestion but not contraception, as the CC does. Thoughts? Deusveritasest (talk) 23:59, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

? Contraception is birth control. The church does not oppose birth control, only artificial means of birth control. So neither is correct without a modifier. Student7 (talk) 13:18, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Contraception is not birth control. Contraception is a FORM OF birth control. As I pointed out, there are numerous types of birth control, including abortion, contragestion, and conctraception. Birth control is, broadly, any method of preventing a birth from resulting from the sexual intercourse of a fertile man and woman. The definition of contraception is more narrow. It means the prevention of fertilization. Contragestion, the prevention of the implantation of a fertilized egg, is thus birth control, but it is not contraceptive, as fertilization has already occurred. Abortion, removal after the fact of fertilization and implantation, thus is also a form of birth control, but it is neither contraception nor contragestion. There are thus at least three major forms of birth control that are each distinct from each other, contraception being one of these three. Deusveritasest (talk) 23:28, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

The link to "contraception" is redirected to the article on "birth control." This has a paragraph on natural methods. The church does not oppose some of these natural methods. Either the link it wrong or the article it points to is wrong. Or the modifier "artificial methods of" should be replaced. Student7 (talk) 15:19, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

The term contraception] appears to be broader than the description above. Student7 (talk) 15:58, 29 October 2009 (UTC)