Status of Medjugorje edit

Hi -- the article in question is newly created and not, I feel, encyclopedic. It's way outside my domain but seems to fall into the domain of this wikiproject, so I wonder if anybody is around who would like to take a hand with it? Looie496 (talk) 23:25, 7 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

Needs to be merged with Our Lady of Međugorje. The information, quality not withstanding, is in the wrong place. -- Secisek (talk) 23:40, 8 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

Requesting template assistance edit

I have been doing a lot of work to update attribution templates on Wikipedia.

I think we should add the source category Category:Wikipedia articles incorporating text from the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia to the {{Catholic}} template, by adding the code <includeonly>[[Category:Wikipedia articles incorporating text from the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia]]</includeonly> to the template. I cross-posted this message on both templates' talk pages.

If any admins out there feel like doing this, I thank you in advance. It may take some time for all the pages to show up in the category, due to system lag. If anyone here has any questions for me, let me know on my talk page. --Eastlaw (talk) 10:16, 18 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

Notability criteria for Catholic Media. edit

There's currently an Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Christian Order AfD going on to get rid of Christian Order which is a very conservative Catholic monthly based in the UK and in continuous publication since 1960. The (stated) argument seems to be that as Catholics are a minority in the UK and that conservatives make up a minority of Catholics then it can't be notable. Of course there may be an WP:IDONTLIKEIT argument, but ignoring that has the "Catholics are a minority, and so their magazines aren't notable" argument come up before and how has the argument been dealt with?

I'm looking for precedents on the argument and not responses to any anti-Catholic assumptions that may have come from the deletionists.

17:38, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

See below - about Una Voce. It looks like we're facing a massive attack by deletionists on the articles about traditional Catholic organizations, personalities (Michael Davies (Catholic writer)), etc. Hithlin (talk) 13:20, 25 February 2009 (UTC)Reply

Looking for help to improve Pastor aeternus edit

I was surprised to find that, while we have an article on Lumen Gentium, there was no article on Pastor aeternus. Instead, it redirected to Papal infallibility#Dogmatic definition of 1870. This didn't seem right so I created an article and put some basic information in it. I need help fleshing this out as I don't know much about the topic. --Richard (talk) 20:28, 24 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

Milestone Announcements edit

 
  • All WikiProjects are invited to have their "milestone-reached" announcements automatically placed onto Wikipedia's announcements page.
  • Milestones could include the number of FAs, GAs or articles covered by the project.
  • No work need be done by the project themselves; they just need to provide some details when they sign up. A bot will do all of the hard work.

I thought this WikiProject might be interested. Ping me with any specific queries or leave them on the page linked to above. Thanks! - Jarry1250 (t, c) 21:44, 1 February 2009 (UTC)Reply

Our Lady of America edit

An editor has expressed concern about the lack of sources for this article and has indicated that without improvement it may be headed for deletion. If anyone wishes to begin the needed improvements, please step forward! -- The Red Pen of Doom 14:53, 18 February 2009 (UTC)Reply

Una Voce edit

The information from the article Una Voce has been removed, and the article itself made to redirect to Tridentine Mass#Opposition to the latest revisions of the liturgy, which does not mention the Una Voce movement. It has to be mentioned that Una Voce is not about "opposition to the revisions" but about the preservation and restoration of the classical Roman rite, something in which it now enjoys the support of Pope Benedict XVI.

The deletion has been done under the pretext of "lack of notability". However, the International Federation Una Voce is the world's largest association of lay Catholics attached to the Tridentine Mass, having a history since 1964, present in more than 30 countries, including dozens of chapters in the United States, and recognized by the Holy See. The vast majority of independent sources (see Talk:Una Voce) provided in order to support this assertion has been dismissed by User:Hrafn because of being linked to web sites interested in the same matters as the Una Voce movement - i. e., traditional Catholicism, though in no way dependent on, or bound to, the structures of Una Voce. This does not seem to be a fair criterion of dismissal.

I would like to ask help in providing for the restoration of the original text as well as in improving the article.

Please see the talk page and join the discussion. Hithlin (talk) 07:33, 24 February 2009 (UTC)Reply

  • The article is back with (apparently) undisputed sources. Good job.Chonak (talk) 17:47, 27 February 2009 (UTC)Reply

Coordinators' working group edit

Hi! I'd like to draw your attention to the new WikiProject coordinators' working group, an effort to bring both official and unofficial WikiProject coordinators together so that the projects can more easily develop consensus and collaborate. This group has been created after discussion regarding possible changes to the A-Class review system, and that may be one of the first things discussed by interested coordinators.

All designated project coordinators are invited to join this working group. If your project hasn't formally designated any editors as coordinators, but you are someone who regularly deals with coordination tasks in the project, please feel free to join as well. — Delievered by §hepBot (Disable) on behalf of the WikiProject coordinators' working group at 05:04, 28 February 2009 (UTC)Reply

Query re: content edit

Got the following email in via OTRS, I lack the subject knowledge to do anything about it but hopefully you guys do.


At  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Face_Medal
In the second paragraph under The Image it is stated:
"Although the Shroud of Turin has been publicly displayed by Roman Catholics
at least since the 16th century (and perhaps before) the faint image of the 
Holy Face on it can not be clearly seen with the naked eye and was only
observed with the advent of photography. In 1898, amateur Italian
photographer Secondo Pia was startled by the negative of the image in his
darkroom as he was developing the first photograph of the shroud. The
happenstance by which Secondo Pia received the King's approval to attempt
the first photograph of the Shroud for an exhibition was unusual in its own
right. And Pia later said that on the evening of May 28th, 1898 he almost 
dropped and broke the photographic plate in the darkroom from the shock of
seeing the image of a face on the Shroud (for the first time ever) that
could not have been clearly observed with the naked eye."
However in this article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shroud_of_Turin under
the title Analysis of the Image as the Work of an Artist in the first
paragraph titled Correspondence with Christian Iconography it states:
"In opposition to this viewpoint, the locations of the piercing wounds in
the wrists on the Shroud do not correspond to artistic representations of
the crucifixion before close to the present time. In fact, the Shroud was
widely dismissed as a forgery in the 14th century for the very reason that
the Latin Vulgate Bible stated that the nails had been driven into Jesus'
hands and Medieval art invariably depicts the wounds in Jesus' hands."
Clearly if the image "can not be clearly seen with the naked eye and was
only observed with the advent of photography" the shroud could not be
"dismissed as a forgery in the 14th century for the very reason that the
Latin Vulgate Bible stated that the nails had been driven into Jesus'
hands."  Obviously they could see the image.

Cheers, Daniel (talk) 13:41, 2 March 2009 (UTC)Reply

Searching for Marcel Catholic Church in Abidjan edit

I would like to try and get confirmation that the Marcel Catholic Church exists in Abidjan, and that it has a Priest by the name of Rev.Partrick Bamba.

Help Please !


Jenny Uzzell e-mail: gorgeview@telkomsa.net —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jenuz (talkcontribs) 15:11, 13 March 2009 (UTC)Reply

Discussion regarding project organization edit

Any comments regarding the structure and function of Christianity related material are welcome at Wikipedia:WikiProject Christianity/General Forum#Project organization. Be prepared for some rather lengthy comments, though. There is a lot of material to cover there. John Carter (talk) 17:47, 13 March 2009 (UTC)Reply

Knights of Columbus edit

Hi, this article is currently near the top of the wp:featured articles/Cleanup listing as it is in 5 maintenace categories: Articles needing additional references (Dec 2008), Articles with unsourced statements (Jun 2008, Jul 2008, Aug 2008, Feb 2009). Anyone finding time to make improvements would be appreciated, thanks Tom B (talk) 15:35, 14 March 2009 (UTC)Reply

I have nominated Knights of Columbus for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets the featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" in regards to the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. DrKiernan (talk) 08:34, 30 March 2009 (UTC)Reply

Category deletion proposed edit

Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2009_March_13#Category:Apostolic_exhortations. Johnbod (talk) 16:45, 14 March 2009 (UTC)Reply

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Thanks. — Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 08:56, 15 March, 2009 (UTC)

Recentism issues at Pope Benedict XVI and Judaism; assistance welcome edit

The Pope Benedict XVI and Judaism article is less than a month old and while has a good skeleton of sections present to flesh out, it suffers from serious recentism, apparently due to editorial focus on the Williamson fiasco. All eyes welcome with improvement of the page in mind. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 15:52, 2 April 2009 (UTC)Reply

Shroud of Turin needs more cites edit

Shroud of Turin is templated as "within the scope of WikiProject Catholicism".
The article currently has a dozen or so statements tagged as "citation needed", which ideally we should cite or delete. -- 201.37.230.43 (talk) 01:42, 7 April 2009 (UTC)Reply

Proposed move Maundy Thursday to Holy Thursday edit

Council of Paderborn is ultra-stub edit

Council of Paderborn is currently an ultra-stub, if anybody is interested in working on it.
(Also is in the present tense, which is probably wrong per WP:STYLE.)
I will not be working on this myself. -- 201.37.230.43 (talk) 15:00, 10 April 2009 (UTC)Reply

Fixed the tense. Needs work still. --Secisek (talk) 20:32, 11 April 2009 (UTC)Reply

Help with article title needed edit

I have requested that the Holy Week in Malta article be renamed since the article is about far more than Holy Week. (It covers most of Lent as well as Easter.) Please provide suggestions here if you care. — AjaxSmack 00:20, 17 April 2009 (UTC)Reply

Copyright problem: Forty Hours' Devotion edit

Hello, and welcome to Wikipedia! We welcome and appreciate your contributions, such as Forty Hours' Devotion, but we regretfully cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from either web sites or printed material. This article appears to be a copy from http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06151a.htm, and therefore a copyright violation. The copyrighted text has been or will soon be deleted. While we appreciate contributions, we must require all contributors to understand and comply with our copyright policy. Wikipedia takes copyright violations very seriously, and persistent violators will be blocked from editing.

If you believe that the article is not a copyright violation, or if you have permission from the copyright holder to release the content freely under the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL), versions 1.3 or later then you should do one of the following:

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  • If you own the copyright to the material: send an e-mail from an address associated with the original publication to permissions-en(at)wikimedia(dot)org or a postal message to the Wikimedia Foundation permitting re-use under the GFDL, and note that you have done so on Talk:Forty Hours' Devotion.

It may also be necessary for the text be modified to have an encyclopedic tone and to follow Wikipedia article layout. For more information on Wikipedia's policies, see Wikipedia's policies and guidelines.

If you would like to begin working on a new version of the article you may do so at this temporary page. Leave a note at Talk:Forty Hours' Devotion saying you have done so and an administrator will move the new article into place once the issue is resolved. Thank you, and please feel welcome to continue contributing to Wikipedia. Happy editing! Þέŗṃέłḥìμŝ LifeDeath 12:22, 21 April 2009 (UTC)Reply

Um, may I ask why this was posted here? John Carter (talk) 14:23, 21 April 2009 (UTC)Reply


Motu proprio needs light rewrite for comprehensibility edit

Motu proprio is one of those articles based on the 1911 Catholic Encyclopedia, and I find it quite difficult to understand. Anybody have any interest in doing a light rewrite for comprehensibility? Thanks. -- 201.37.230.43 (talk) 16:48, 21 April 2009 (UTC)Reply

What do you not understand? --RandomNumberSee (talk) 15:06, 5 May 2009 (UTC)Reply

Bishops edit

Excuse me, I'm a italian user, I need a information: does it exist a rule for a "right of presence in the encyclopedia" for Catholic Bishops? Winged Zephiro —Preceding undated comment added 18:43, 27 April 2009 (UTC).Reply

Any bishop who is "notable" may have an article. Discussions at "Articles for deletion" have generally said that an archbishop (arcivescovo) or bishop who governs a diocese can be presumed notable by office, but it's not clear that applies to an auxiliary bishop (vescovo ausiliare). Gimmetrow 19:12, 27 April 2009 (UTC)Reply

Possible rename of Portal:Pope edit

I have to think the name of the above portal is a bit misleading. On that basis, I have proposed that it be renamed Portal:Vatican, or, potentially, Portal:Vatican City, to more accurately reflect the contents. The discussion for renaming can be found at Portal talk:Pope#Requested move. All interested parties are encouraged to take part in the discussion. Thank you. John Carter (talk) 21:55, 4 May 2009 (UTC)Reply

CfD of interest: Category:Cardinals_by_nationality edit

Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2009_May_4#Category:Cardinals_by_nationality. Johnbod (talk) 16:19, 6 May 2009 (UTC)Reply


Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse: Catholic Church connection? edit

Re Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse (recent news story in Ireland): The coverage of this that I'm seeing in the general press seems to emphasize that this is a "Catholic Church" issue. Our article hardly mentions the Catholic Church. We want to make sure that our article is NPOV and neither over-emphasizes nor under-emphasizes the facts. -- 201.37.230.43 (talk) 16:46, 21 May 2009 (UTC)Reply

Emeritus edit

Editing Cormac Murphy-O'Connor to reflect the fact he's just been replaced, the infobox doesn't look right. He's no longer Cardinal Archbishop, so that title doesn't work. But if the title's changed to Cardinal Archbishop Emeritus, it makes it look like his predecessor, Basil Hume, and successor, Vincent Nichols, were/are also Emeritus. The same applies in the case of Bernard Francis Law. It seems that the situation only gets tidied up when they die, and the whole Emeritus phase of their life is effectively wiped out, as for Jean-Marie Lustiger. Suggestions? Or other examples that handle the situation neatly? Bazj (talk) 17:33, 21 May 2009 (UTC)Reply

I would assume that CMOC would be styled 'Cardinal Archbishop Emeritus' as that
seems the most logical title. Basil Hume died in '99 at age 76, in office, so he never had the opportunity to retire and assume emeritus status. If +Nichols were to retire without being awarded his red hat(most unlikely), he would be referred-to as the 'Archbishop Emeritus of Westminster'.
You are correct in assuming that, upon death, their biographies would refer to them as 'Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster'; the qualifier 'emeritus' would be
lost. At least, that has been my experience in reading about past prelates.--Lyricmac (talk) 04:02, 22 May 2009 (UTC)Reply
Agree 100%. The problem (as I see it, you may not see a problem) is:
Until yesterday the infobox on CMOC carried the title 'Cardinal Archbishop' and listed Hume as his predecessor. Which is true.
Now the infobox on CMOC carries the title 'Cardinal Archbishop Emeritus' and lists Hume as his predecessor. But Hume was never emeritus. And just as bad, his successor Nichols looks like he starts off as Emeritus.
I feel the infobox may need to be altered to handle an Archbishop's emeritus years separately from his in-post years. Bazj (talk) 05:26, 22 May 2009 (UTC)Reply
I see your point. Let me look at the infobox and see if there is a solution.--Lyricmac (talk) 18:04, 22 May 2009 (UTC)Reply
I've had a crack, added an emeritus flag, and used it at CMOC. Bazj (talk) 18:34, 22 May 2009 (UTC)Reply
So did I, funny thing, I must have tromped on yours- see what you think.--Lyricmac (talk) 18:43, 22 May 2009 (UTC)Reply
The word "Cardinal" is not part of the official title of an archbishop of a diocese. For example one would say "Cardinal Roger Mahony, Archbishop of Los Angeles," not "Roger Mahony, Cardinal Archbishop of Los Angeles." So when he retires, he would be"Cardinal Roger Mahony, Archbishop Emeritus of Los Angeles" or perhaps more properly "Cardinal Roger Mahony, Retired (or Former) Archbishop of Los Angeles" because he would no longer be archbishop of Los Angeles, but he would remain a cardinal. There is no such thing as a cardinal emeritus; cardinals remain so until they die, unless they are elected pope.Ericstoltz (talk) 07:19, 22 September 2009 (UTC)Reply
Just to clarify, the proper title for a retired bishop is Bishop Emeritus, not "Retired (or Former)". See Canon Law 402§1. --Dcheney (talk) 14:45, 25 October 2009 (UTC)Reply

Categories untagged edit

I am not sure but it appears there is little interest in this project re project tags in category talk pages? Have been doing some and suprised by the lack of project tags on what I would have thought were important categories. SatuSuro 01:35, 25 May 2009 (UTC)Reply

Oh, believe me, I'm trying to get to them all eventually, for all the Christianity projects. I'm also trying to start a category tree list, so that we can know which might benefit from retitling. But by all means tag as many as you would wish. I would personally prefer the use of the {{ChristianityWikiProject}} template with the Catholicism parameters, because that allows them to appear on the article alerts section of that project page, but feel free to use whichever you prefer. John Carter (talk) 17:26, 26 May 2009 (UTC)Reply

Dunbarton College of the Holy Cross edit

Just a heads up - I've tagged the article with your project. APK lives in a very, very Mad World 17:35, 3 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

Pope Benedict XVI GAR notice edit

Pope Benedict XVI has been nominated for a good article reassessment. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to good article quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status will be removed from the article. Reviewers' concerns are here.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 00:43, 4 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

GA Reassessment of Roman_Catholicism_in_Mongolia edit

I have done a GA Reassessment of Roman Catholicism in Mongolia as part of the GA Sweeps project. I have found the article to need some work, there is a dead reference link and I feel that more could be added to the article. My review is here. I will hold the article for a week and I am notifying interested projects of the possibility that the article will be delisted if improvements are not made. Please address any questions to my talk page. H1nkles (talk) 04:13, 5 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

Pope categories up for deletion edit

I have nominated the smallest of the categories of Roman Catholic popes for deletion. Of the group nominated, the largest of the categories contains six individuals. Please feel free to take part in the discussion here. Thank you. John Carter (talk) 21:25, 6 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

Wikipedians at Talk:Roman Catholic Church are discussing the merits of changing the article name as such.
Roman Catholic ChurchCatholic Church. Please share your opinions there. --Carlaude talk 12:14, 13 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

Expulsion of Jesuits from South America edit

User:Truthkeeper88 who is copy-editing the Jesuit Missions of the Chiquitos article asked a question concerning the reason for the expulsion of the Jesuits from Spanish America in 1767 on this talk page. Quoting from there: From what I can tell the sequence of events was: 1. Political tension between Portugal and Spain over control of the region; 2. the general expulsion of all Jesuits from Spanish territories in 1767. Is that correct? Was the political tension prior to the general expulsion, and was it a cause of the general expulsion? Since I am unsure of the answer to these questions I am looking for help from the Catholicism WikiProject. Thanks bamse (talk) 22:08, 17 June 2009 (UTC)Reply


"Purga" of four Illuminati in Angels & Demons: Fictitious or historical? edit

I apologize for asking a possibly idiotic question, but I'd like to know the answer and haven't found it anywhere else.
In the recent film Angels & Demons, one plot device is a "purga" in which four supposed Illuminati were branded and executed by the Roman Catholic Church, and the Illuminati are now ostensibly seeking revenge through parallel actions against four Catholic cardinals. Dan Brown is noted for "artistic license" with the facts. I haven't seen any info anywhere else on this "purga" and I've been assuming that Brown (or screenwriter Akiva Goldsman) invented it. Does anyone have any definite source on this one way or the other? (I posted this question to Talk page of Angels & Demons (film) a few days ago and no one's responded yet.) Thanks. -- 201.37.230.43 (talk) 01:18, 18 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

I think you answered your own question when you stated "Dan Brown is noted for "artistic license"! : ) NancyHeise talk 03:07, 22 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

Template needs an admin to change edit

The Catholicism template (the yellow one, not the blue one) links to the page Ten Commandments. I wanted to change this to go to the featured article Ten Commandments in Roman Catholicism but the template is locked so that only and admin can change it. Are there any nice admins roaming around here who would like to make the switch? Thanks in advance! NancyHeise talk 03:05, 22 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

List of Roman Catholic saints edit

I think it would be more convenient for the project and for readers if there was a page specifically listing Roman Catholic saints, as opposed to the current go-to page (list of saints) which is incomplete and by definition is supposed to list all saints. I think it would help more if there were more specific pages (e.g. a page for Roman Catholic saints, a page for Anglican saints, etc.).

Does the Vatican keep an official list of canonized people? Is there any kind of source like that, which can be observed for help trying to make a definitive list? 70.108.234.157 (talk) 19:16, 23 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

"Mixed marriage" edit

A long time ago I inserted this information into the article titled mixed marriage:

The term mixed marriage originated in Roman Catholicism, where it refers to a marriage between a Catholic and a non-Catholic. It may refer to:

In its present form, the page is a disambiguation page. Can someone deny or confirm that the Catholic Church is where the term came from? And, since this is, after all, Wikipedia, can someone supply a "citation"?

(My understanding is that the word "mix" came into being through the process of back-formation from the past participle, mixta, of the Latin verb miscere (but I haven't looked this up recently). The Latin origin of the word makes the assertion about the origin of this concept somewhat plausible.) Michael Hardy (talk) 03:47, 25 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

"Capital Punishment in Vatican City" edit

This article states Saint Ambrose encouraged clergy to execute people, but the article does not have a citation. In fact, Ambrose disagreed with the execution of a heretic by a "Christian" prince. Saint Ambrose also wrote: "God drove Cain out of his presence and sent him into exile... so that he passed from a life of human kindness to one which was more akin to the rude existance of a wild beast. God, who preferred the correction rather than the death of a sinner did not desire that a homicide be punished by the exaction of another homicide." See Capital Punishment: A Balanced Examination by Mandery Rakovsky (talk) 08:03, 28 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

It is St. Thomas who defends it in certain circumstances.

--94.37.172.194 (talk) 20:32, 4 February 2010 (UTC)Reply

Christian debate on persecution and toleration edit

When it comes to the views concerning persecution and toleration, there was a very substantial intellectual shift within Christianity. Starting in 17th-century England, Christianity came to a full rejection of religious persecution and approved the concept of civil toleration. The Catholic Church, as well as many Protestant Churches, went further and have nowadays approved religious freedom; relevant for the view of the Catholic Church is declaration Dignitatis Humanae of the 2nd Vatican Council. Since this intellectual shift is quite important when discussion topics like the Persecution of Christians (which was quite often done by Christians), I wrote the article Christian debate on persecution and toleration for Wikipedia, using material that was already present. And now, some atheists and neopagans are apparently trying to deny that this intellectual shift ever occurred and are out to destroy that article. Help, and further comments, would greatly be appreciated. Zara1709 (talk) 05:55, 5 July 2009 (UTC)Reply

Folk saint edit

Folk saint has just been imported from Citizendium (via WikiProject Citizendium Porting) and is in need of improvement. Since it falls under this project's purview, thought I'd mention it here in case anyone's interested. --Cybercobra (talk) 22:31, 6 July 2009 (UTC)Reply

Religious response to ART edit

Hi, I'd like for one of the experts here to review what I wrote about the church positions on assisted reproduction here: Religious response to ART. I did my best but a check over or an expansion would be really useful. Thanks, Joe407 (talk) 21:17, 11 July 2009 (UTC)Reply

Rationalizing the use of "Catholic" vs. "Roman Catholic" in article titles edit

As many of you know, the title of the article Roman Catholic Church has recently been changed to Catholic Church. During the discussion of this change, it was agreed that the decision would be restricted to that article only so as to avoid getting mired into a free-wheeling discussion of all the many hundreds of articles that include "Catholic" in their title.

This is an initial attempt to identify the various groups of articles that have "Catholic" or "Roman Catholic" in their title. In general, my proposal is to change all such articles to use "Catholic" only and not "Roman Catholic". However, I recognize that there might be instances where this might not be appropriate. Let's get it all out on the table and look at it and start making some decisions to rationalize the use of "Catholic" vs. "Roman Catholic".


Category:Roman Catholic Church edit

This is the top level category. I propose that we move it to Category:Catholic Church. In general, I propose that all subcategories that include "Roman Catholic" be changed to use just "Catholic" instead.


Category:Roman Catholic Churches edit

The organization of this Category:Roman Catholic churches category's subcategories is a bit muddled because Category:Eastern Catholic churches is one of the subcategories. IMO, a more logical organization is to have Category:Catholic churches be the top-level category with Category:Roman Catholic Churches and Category:Eastern Catholic churches as subcategories.


That would be wrong, since regardless of the the rite or particular sui iuris church one may belong to, it is still part of the Holy Roman Catholic Church.

It is a particularity of the Church. Its structure rose out of the old Roman Empire. It was part of Divine Providence. So if anything, you can have subcat Latin Church and Eastern churches, but really only the Eastern churches would really need a subcategory, because regardless of the richness of Eastern churches, it only represents like 1 % of Catholics. --94.37.172.194 (talk) 20:39, 4 February 2010 (UTC)Reply

Category:Roman Catholic Church by country edit

This category has 102 entries. I propose that the category be moved to Category:Roman Catholic Church. Most of the subcategories are of the form Roman Catholic Church in X, e.g. Category:Roman Catholic Church in Algeria

I propose that every subcategory in this category be changed accordingly. Thus, Category:Roman Catholic Church in Algeria would be moved to Category:Catholic Church in Algeria. NB: This could be problematic if we need to differentiate between the Category:Catholic Church in X and the Category:Eastern Catholic Church in X.

There are many articles whose titles are of the form Roman Catholicism in X.

I propose that all these articles be changed to have titles of the form Catholicism in X


Category:Roman Catholics edit

In all likelihood, this category includes only "Roman Catholics" and not "Eastern Catholics". If this is true, we could arguably leave the category named "Roman Catholics". On the other hand, we could rename it Category:Catholics and leave it open to include "Eastern Catholics" as well.

Catholic Archdiocese of X vs. Roman Catholic Archdiocese in X edit

My proposal is to change all articles to use only "Catholic Archidocese of X" and not "Roman Catholic Archdiocese of X". This could be somewhat problematic if we need to distinguish between Roman Catholic archdioceses vs. Eastern Catholic archdioceses in the same city. I am not knowledgeable enough to know if this is a real issue or not. At the moment, there seems to be only one article of this type, "Eastern Catholic Community in Hawaii"

Catholic Archdiocese of X

Roman Catholic Archdiocese of X

Again, the sui iurisEastern churches have, as sui iuris indicates, their own structure, comparable to the Latin church structure but diffirent. Eparchies, etc. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.37.172.194 (talk) 20:43, 4 February 2010 (UTC)Reply

Roman Catholicism in X vs. Catholicism in X edit

There are ten articles whose titles are of the form Roman Catholicism in X

There are also ten article whose titles are of the form Catholicism in X

Roman Catholicism in England redirects to Roman Catholicism in England and Wales

Catholicism in the Philippines redirects to Roman Catholicism in the Philippines

My proposal is to rename all articles whose titles begin with "Roman Catholicism in X" to be titled "Catholicism in X".

--Richard (talk) 02:51, 12 July 2009 (UTC)Reply


I wholeheartedly agree, Richard. To do this properly, I think WP requires discussion on each page, which would take a lot of time. But, it would be worth it. I would suggest starting with Spanish speaking countries. In Spanish the terms "Iglesia Catolica Romana" and "Catholico Romano" simply do not exist, so to use those terms for them is to project English language issues where they do not exist. This is one approach anyway. --EastmeetsWest (talk) 00:59, 11 August 2009 (UTC)Reply

Wow! Exactly how did all this come about and how many people agreed to it? Sounds like a disaster to me.... real disaster... many people, myself included, will ONLY follow Roman Catholic issues and do not associate with other Catholic issues. And many of these churches say Roman on their doors... And please remember that we have a huge potential audience in the far east, India etc. And many of these people only feel comfortable with the church of Rome because their own churches are called "Roman Catholic church of Saint ABC" etc. If they are not sure if some doctrinal issue refers to Roman vs Eastern, they may not read through the whole article. This type of change will be a real dis-service to Wikipedia users.... Must stop now.... Take the case of Roman Catholic theology. Recently a single editor removed the word Roman from the content of that article with a few keystrokes. How can anyone be sure that some of those theological issues did not become incorrect" What proof is there that all that theology also applies to the Eastern church? As a Roman Catholic how can I be sure that as I read that article I am getting theology for the church of Rome and not the Eastern churches? If an article is written with significant effort over time, a sudden change may render the content inaccurate. With this type of rapid, sudden and less than careful change based on some naming convention claim valuable content that has been there for long may be suddenly rendered inaccurate. This train wreck must stop now... History2007 (talk) 21:46, 13 August 2009 (UTC)Reply
I think for the countries with "Roman Catholicism in" titles, it would be better to have it as "Catholic Church in". - Yorkshirian (talk) 08:34, 14 August 2009 (UTC)Reply

But the content needs to be very carefully modified first to be sure that it refers to the whole Catholic church and not the Church of Rome only. Else this type of "few keystrokes" change will create errors in content. If you have an article about "business law in California" and change the title to "business law in the US" the content may become incorrect. Yes, California is part of the US, and acknowledges the US president and congress, but an article on US businesslaw needs to be totally rewritten. It is not just a name change.

Actually, I am amazed that I have to spell this out in so much detail, but I will do it anyway, because this "name substitution game" has prompted some users to go about on a search and destroy mission for the word "Roman". That must stop.

So to make things clear, as an example, let us assume that there is a country called Bureaucland and that there is an existing Wikipedia article called "Roman Catholicism in Bureaucland". Assume that the article includes the following 4 facts:

  • In 1912, 47.5% of the population of Bureaucland was Roman Catholic.
  • In 2004, 61.5% of the population of Bureaucland was Roman Catholic.
  • The first Roman Catholic church in Bureaucland was built in 1621.
  • There were 673 Roman Catholic churches in Bureauclandin 2005.

Furtheremore assume the following true facts which were not included in the article, because the article was researched and written about the Church of Rome. The facts not included are:

  • In 1912, 7.5% of the population of Bureaucland was Eastern Catholic.
  • In 2004, 9.5% of the population of Bureaucland was Eastern Catholic.
  • The first Eastern Catholic church in Bureaucland was built in 1579.
  • There were 37 Eastern Catholic churches in Bureaucland in 2005.

Now, change the words "Roman Catholic" to Catholic and see what happens. You get a set of "completely false" statements.

Is this clear?

And the situation gets even more serious when complicated doctrinal/dogmatic issues are involved.

In more general terms, the change from "Roman Catholic" to Catholic amounts to a movement up the Ontology structure. Indeed the Wikipedia category structure is itself an Ontology. A predicate asserted about a specific node within an ontology is hardly likely to be valid as we move upwards within the Ontology structure. So statements given as examples above are likely to fail as we generalize above Roman Catholic to Catholic. I do not want to get carried away writing about the obvious technical issues of containment in hierarchies, etc. But I think the simple example above should illustrate that one can NOT just change a few words in a few minutes without introducing serious errors into valuable content. Is this clear? History2007 (talk) 13:10, 14 August 2009 (UTC)Reply

The above contention has a few problems. They include the fact that it seems to assume that the phrasing will be changed in each and every instance in wikipedia, which to the best of my knowledge is (1) contrary to what we have already been told, and (2) such an incredible amount of work that, frankly, I doubt anyone would ever do it. It also seems to assume that whoever or whatever is doing the changing would basically pay no attention to the content around the term, which I believe is also unlikely to happen except in the rather minimal amount of cases we might" already see from people making ill-advised edits in general. So far as I know, the discussion was about changing the titles of articles, and the assumption that there would be uniform changes across the board, and that whoever might make such changes across the board anyway would not take into account how the language is being used. So, yes, while it is clear, I think it is operating, at least in part, on an error of logic almost equal to that it seems to be arguing against. I can and do see how "Roman Catholic" or similar terms could reasonably be used in article content as indicated, and I don't think that I've seen any clear evidence to date that blind changes of that terminology are being anticipated.
Bringing it back to the point of the matter about which this thread is nominally about, which is about changing titles of a few articles. I do not see how instituting those changes would necessarily keep content regarding Eastern Catholic churches (or, for that matter, Traditional or other Catholic churches) from being included in the articles, if there is sufficient reason for there to be such content. In a few cases, it might not be particularly reasonable to have separate sections, or, in some cases, even mention explicitly certain statistics regarding Eastern Catholic churches. If it were to be the case, which it is not, that there were a total of 25 Maronites in Canada, I cannot see how that would have a separate article in any event. It is also possible that such information might be removed from an article regarding Catholicism in Canada, but at least in such instances I don't see how there would necessarily be any loss of content because of the change to what probably seems to at least some as being the more "inclusive" title. John Carter (talk) 16:02, 14 August 2009 (UTC)Reply

Well John, first you are right that it would have been unlikely for people to make that kind of dramatic change all of a sudden. But on August 11, 2009 user EastmeetsWest made "exactly" that kind of sweeping change to the content of Roman Catholic Mariology, removing every instance of the word Roman from that article. That rendered many statements in that article as inaccurate. I reverted that, but that trend seems to be spreading to other articles, where the word Roman is being metaphorically persecuted. So the suggestion to make a few changes has had far reaching consequences. Secondly, you are right that it would be a tremendous amount of work to check what statements have been rendered inaccurate by simple name changes. So the issue is more serious than it may seem at first. Cheers History2007 (talk) 18:41, 14 August 2009 (UTC)Reply

History, your Bureaucland example above also seems to confuse the terms Roman Catholic and Latin-Rite Catholic. They are not the same, of course, and the comparison you make (RC v. Eastern Catholic) is a false one (I attribute no ill intent on your part!). It's a distinction between Latin-Rite and Eastern-Rite Catholics, both in communion under the umbrella of the Catholic Church (aka Roman Catholic Church). You do still raise a valid point regarding a need for vigilance, however. I suspect that the confusion between RC, EC, Latin-Rite, Eastern-Rite, Catholic, Roman Catholic, etc. has caused more than a few errors in various articles. So instead of avoiding any changes to the status quo, we should take this opportunity to check the various articles for accuracy, specifically correct terminology, and where appropriate, change the title. It certainly should be a case-by-case analysis, and not something done with the click of a button or implementation of a bot program. --anietor (talk) 19:09, 14 August 2009 (UTC)Reply
Hi, regardless of the terms, as you correctly observed Anietor, my example shows that if an article title is blindly changed errors come in. My logic about ontologies and lable changes is inherently correct... I used to be a logician... Cheers. History2007 (talk) 19:17, 14 August 2009 (UTC)Reply

Anietor, I am not sure on what authority you are speaking, but Eastern Catholics are not members of the Roman Catholic Church. We are not Roman Catholics. We are members of the Catholic Church. Rome had nothing to do with the development of our liturgies or our ancient theology. Roman Catholic is not the same as Catholic. RCC and CC are two very different things. I speak as an Eastern Catholic.--EastmeetsWest (talk) 19:14, 14 August 2009 (UTC)Reply

By the way, I just realized there is a parallel discussion of this topic here as well And user Taam expressed EXACTLY what I was trying to say:
"the new article name means that I can no longer be sure what the Church in communion with the Bishop of Rome now teaches whereas the previous title makes it clear."
It is clear that these sudden name changes create ambiguity and lack of clarity on what specific churches teach. Period. History2007 (talk) 20:57, 14 August 2009 (UTC)Reply
I know some Eastern Catholics do not like being referred to as "Roman Catholics." However, as they are in communion with the Pope, the Bishop of Rome, and are part of the Roman Catholic Church. When referring to the Catholicism of both Eastern Catholics and Latin Catholics, I would believe it would be appropriate to call it Catholicism. The Roman Catholic Church, or those in communion with the Roman Pontiff, includes Eastern Catholics and Latin Catholics. --Minimidgy (talk) 19:14, 17 August 2009 (UTC)Reply
Er. While you are up.... The Catholic Churches in the US are all categorized correctly into their local diocese, then categorized correctly into their local province which in turn is categorized into "Category-Roman Catholic dioceses in the United States." They, of course, are already higher than that level and should be rolled directly into Catholic Church of US or whatever (there may be more than one and one may already be correct). If we are contemplating a change, it might be easier to correct this directly at that time. Thanks. Student7 (talk) 02:02, 27 August 2009 (UTC)Reply
I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "Catholic Churches" in this context. If you could clarify that a little? John Carter (talk) 13:33, 27 August 2009 (UTC)Reply
For example, in "Category:Roman Catholic Ecclesiastical Province of Miami", it rolls up to "Category:Roman Catholic dioceses in the United States". This is okay at a lower level. Okay for the Archdiocese of Miami to roll up to "dioceses in the United States" but wrong for an ecclesiastical province to roll up to a diocese. The terminology is wrong. Okay for the provinces to roll up (have as the next higher category) "Catholic church in the United States." My point is that provinces are not dioceses. Dioceses are provinces. Provinces are comprised of dioceses. (I wasn't really trying to mess up your discussion here just wanted to put in that point if everything is going to have to change anyway). Student7 (talk) 11:58, 28 August 2009 (UTC)Reply
No problem, and you didn't "mess anything up". It does make sense that the categorization for achdioceses should be separate and potentially "higher" than that for regular dioceses. I'm in the process of making a category tree of all the relevant categories to Christianity, with the intention of straightening up the categorization that I find once I'm done, and the point you raise is a very relevant and material one. I'm not sure when I'll be done, but I will make a point of trying to include such in the final proposals, provided that there are multiple provinces in a country or the province's boundaries are different from the national boundaries, which there aren't in all cases, or other matters which might in rare cases appear as well. Thanks for the tip. John Carter (talk) 13:28, 28 August 2009 (UTC)Reply
You are of course aware that an archdiocese is not a province: it is one of the "dioceses" (in the more general sense of "diocese") that constitute a province. With some very few exceptions (dioceses that have the rank of archdiocese without heading a province), archdioceses are metropolitan archdioceses and head an ecclesiastical province because its bishop (again in the more general sense of "bishop") is the metropolitan archbishop of the province, with some extremely limited rights with regard to the other dioceses in the province (see canons 435-437 of the Code of Canon Law). So there is no need to separate archdioceses from other dioceses. There is need to separate ecclesiastical provinces from dioceses of whatever rank. Lima (talk) 13:59, 28 August 2009 (UTC)Reply
Picked a bad example, I guess. Yes, for this purpose, archdiocese and diocese are identical (actually for almost any purpose, but anyway...). Taking the "Diocese of Orlando", instead - it rolls up into the Ecclesiastical Province of Miami. What I am trying to do here, is stop the province from being rolled up into "US Catholic dioceses." It is fine for the archdiocese and diocese to be rolled up into US Catholic dioceses. It is the province that is superior to the diocese/archdioceses which should be rolled up into "US Catholic Church" or whatever. Thanks for pointing out the possible ambiguity. Student7 (talk) 18:28, 28 August 2009 (UTC)Reply

Catholic Canon is not the Bible edit

Just an important fact I thought needed to be stated.Cosmos0001 (talk) 06:14, 17 August 2009 (UTC)Reply

If you could indicate where the comment might be relevant, it would of course be useful? John Carter (talk) 13:42, 17 August 2009 (UTC)Reply

GA Sweeps Reassessment of Lope de Barrientos edit

Lope de Barrientos has been nominated for a good article reassessment. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to good article quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status will be removed from the article. Reviewers' concerns are here. --Malleus Fatuorum 20:14, 18 August 2009 (UTC)Reply

Requested move of Catholic Church to Roman Catholic Church edit

There is a discussion regarding a proposed move of Catholic Church to Roman Catholic Church. This is motivated by the complaints of some editors that the recent move of Roman Catholic Church to Catholic Church was done out-of-process and without adequate consultation of the "wider community". Please express your opinion at Talk:Catholic Church#Requested Move --Richard (talk) 05:51, 21 August 2009 (UTC)Reply

GA reassessment of Papal conclave, 1492 edit

I have conducted a reassessment of the above article as part of the GA Sweeps process. I have found some concerns with the article which you can see at Talk:Papal conclave, 1492/GA1. I have placed the article on hold whilst these are fixed. You are being notified as the talk page has a banner for this project. Thanks, GaryColemanFan (talk) 07:15, 15 August 2009 (UTC)Reply

Roman Catholic writers category edit

Some might be interested in this discussion about whether artist like James Joyce should be included in the category: Category_talk:Roman_Catholic_writers#Writers_.22informed_by.22_Roman_Catholicism. (John User:Jwy talk) 17:52, 2 September 2009 (UTC)Reply

Proposal for new article: Catholic Church during World War Two or something like it edit

This discussion is copied here from Talk:Catholic Church because I think it deserves a project-level discussion. We might choose to create one or more articles to cover the relevant topics and it would be good to have a wider discussion before charging off and creating new articles willy-nilly. The original discussion can be found here. --Richard (talk) 03:27, 23 September 2009 (UTC)Reply


Might it not be better to create a Catholic Church during World War Two or Catholic Church during the 20th century article and just have a smaller paragraph here? The subject is certainly one to be explored, however, as it stands it leaves the article open to much recentism (either the neutral or polemical anti-Catholic version). When we're dealing with an a instiution which should be considered more on the basis of centuries, rather than decades. - Yorkshirian (talk) 00:29, 21 September 2009 (UTC)Reply

I believe there are already numerous smaller articles on the subject, perhaps too many already. I do not agree that we need a shorter paragraph. The event was probably the most major event of this era and warrants more space, especially when we have to include criticisms and all POV's to meet Wikipedia policy. I think the section is comprehensive while also being concise. NancyHeise talk 09:59, 21 September 2009 (UTC)Reply
I disagree with NancyHeise and agree with Yorkshirian with respect to the section on WWII being too long. The problem is not solely with length but with the fact that it is too detailed and too argumentative. This is not the article to have those arguments. There are many other places to get into the details of these kinds of arguments. This article should summarize the sides of the debate without attempting to decisively and conclusively resolve the debate (which is not really Wikipedia's role anyway). --Richard (talk) 17:33, 21 September 2009 (UTC)Reply
The section now hows enough detail to merit its own article. Majoreditor (talk) 00:28, 23 September 2009 (UTC)Reply
FAC criteria require the article to be comprhensive, NPOV and mention notable controversies. We might be able to trim some of the JPII stuff as it is a bit long but I would rather keep it for now and let it be considered by the peer reviewers. I am keeping stuff like this because it is important to let everyone see it and come to consensus when we are ready for peer review. That is how the article has persistently progressed through all previous peer reviews, FAC's and mediation. I am not opposed to trimming, I have already done it several times in the past only to add more info as FAC reviewers complained that it needed more not less. That was the overwhelming response on all the FACs and which could be considered a long, ongoing consensus for a longer article. NancyHeise talk 02:07, 23 September 2009 (UTC)Reply
Yup, an obvious example of how the FAC process is seriously broken... the problem is that every Tom, Dick and Harry who wants to see more information on a particular topic gets to hold the FA status of the article hostage to his/her demands. Without meaning to cast aspersions on Nancy's yeoman efforts on this article, this article is increasingly approximating a camel (you know, a horse created by committee). --Richard (talk) 02:55, 23 September 2009 (UTC)Reply

Yorkshirian's suggestion consists of two parts: (1) create a new article and (2) shorten the text in this article. I support both parts but, if we defer to Nancy's recommendation, the second part will have to be postponed for now.

So, let's look at the first part. We should first take note of the fact that there are already articles on History of Christianity, Christianity in the 20th century and Christianity and antisemitism. We also have History of the Catholic Church and History of the Papacy. So what new articles should we add to this mix?

--Richard (talk) 03:27, 23 September 2009 (UTC)Reply

So here are some possibilities...

Chronologically organized

Roman Catholicism in the 20th century or Catholic Church in the 20th century

Of course, this suggests that we would have similar articles for other centuries starting with the 11th century (1054AD being the start of the Great Schism).


Catholic Church during World War Two

This leaves open the question of how to deal with Reichskonkordat and Mit brennender Sorge.

Topically organized

Catholic Church and Nazi Germany

Catholic Church and Nazism

These suggest a separate article for Catholic Church and Fascism

Then, there is the question on whether there is a need for Catholic Church and antisemitism as separate from Christianity and antisemitism. Such an article would allow a more in-depth treatment of the charges of antisemitism leveled at Pope Pius XII.

Thoughts?

--Richard (talk) 04:30, 23 September 2009 (UTC)Reply

It is my sincerest hope that Nancy and others do not think that my saying the current section is too long is in any way a criticism of their extraordinary efforts regarding this article. I can and do see that it might make sense for there to exist multiple articles on the history of the Catholic Church over time. Henri Daniel-Rops wrote I think a five- or six-volume history which had to be broken up into two paperbacks per volume, so there is a fairly clear precedent for such. That being the case, the question under discussion would be what the scope of each of these articles should be, and whether the basic subject of the Catholic Church World War II, its prelude and aftermath, is sufficient to merit its own article. My guess here, and I acknowledge it is a guess, is yes. Part of our purpose is to reflect the mateial available from reliable sources, and I think there are a sufficient number of works dealing with the subject of the Church and World War II to merit such an article. I think there are already articles on each of the significantly involved countries in the war and the war, and I think the Catholic Church is probably a large and significant enough party to merit such an article as well. John Carter (talk) 14:00, 23 September 2009 (UTC)Reply
I like Richard's suggestion of new articles, both chronologically (e.g., Roman Catholicism in the 20th century or Catholic Church in the 20th century, and "similar articles for other centuries starting with the 11th century") and topically (e.g., Catholic Church during World War Two, Catholic Church and Nazi Germany, Catholic Church and Nazism, Catholic Church and Fascism, and Catholic Church and antisemitism (separate from Christianity and antisemitism)). Eagle4000 (talk) 15:20, 23 September 2009 (UTC)Reply
Nancy's work is to be commended. It's a good thing when a section of an article reaches enough critical mass to be spun off. Heck, many Featured articles are "The History of..." or some other flavor of daughter articles. So yes, I think it makes sense to create a new daughter article. My gut tells me that this shouldn't be a mojor problem at FAC; most of the regulars there are reasonable fellows. Majoreditor (talk) 22:42, 23 September 2009 (UTC)Reply
My only reservation about the above statement is that "commended" strikes me as being, well, insufficient, really. "Praised" is probably a better word. And I tend to think that the FAC people would think that the comments here requesting the spinout would be sufficient basis for them to accept it. John Carter (talk) 22:59, 23 September 2009 (UTC)Reply

I have, for the time being, decided against the title Catholic Church during World War II because almost all the material that is being "spun out" is about the relationship of the church to Nazi Germany and so I feel the article title should be titled Catholic Church and Nazi Germany. I decided against Catholic Church and Nazism because Nazism could be considered to have survived Nazi Germany in the form of neo-Nazism and that is getting out of the scope that I want to deal with.

Also, two of the most important events (Reichskonkordat and Mit Brennender Sorge) did not technically occur "during World War II". As to Nancy's comment about the number of existing articles, I have discovered Pope Pius XII and Judaism and Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust. There is a lot of overlap here between those two articles and my proposed scope. However, those articles focus on Pius XII rather than including the period between 1931 and 1939 when Pacelli was elected Pope.

I want to tell the entire story from roughly 1931/1932 when the Nazis were rising in power until they were defeated in 1945. Accordingly, I have created Catholic Church and Nazi Germany. At the moment, the article is almost entirely copy/paste from other articles. A lot more work will be needed to turn this mess into flowing prose. Your assistance would be welcomed.

--Richard (talk) 17:13, 24 September 2009 (UTC)Reply

Canonizations by Pope edit

I've proposed Category:Canonizations of Pope Pius XII for deletion. Please contribute to the discussion if you have an informed opinion one way or the other. -choster (talk) 21:47, 24 September 2009 (UTC)Reply

Polish-American Roman Catholic parishes in New England edit

I already finished articles about parishes founded by Polish immigrants in New England (78 parishes listed in above table) as the first part before I start write articles about all Polish parishes in USA.

But the same day, all of them had been marked up for deletion as not notable. Discussion is in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/St. Joseph Parish, Norwich. I need your opinion to write other, similar, articles in line with the Wikipedia, which are part of Polish and Polish-American history.

--WlaKom (talk) 00:25, 7 October 2009 (UTC)Reply

--WlaKom (talk) 20:43, 15 October 2009 (UTC)Reply

GA Sweeps Reassessment of Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago edit

Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago has been nominated for a good article reassessment. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to good article quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status will be removed from the article. Reviewers' concerns are here. --Malleus Fatuorum 18:22, 17 October 2009 (UTC)Reply

Names of the Catholic Church edit

During the mediation over the "official" name of the Church, I created page with the idea that it might be developed into an article unto itself someday. I lost enthusiasm for the project partly due to the fact that is seemed there would be endless dispute over the article text.

However, now that the dust has settled somewhat, I thought I would bring this page to the attention of fellow project members and ask for feedback regarding whether there is a legitimate article topic here.

I admit that having an article titled Names of the Catholic Church seems really strange to me. However, so much information has been dug up from a wealth of reliable sources that I think it's a waste not to make it part of our inventory of articles.

The "proposed article text" at the beginning of the page is a zeroth draft. I am not wedded to any specific wording and will welcome suggestions for improvement as long as they are in consonance with WP:NPOV, WP:V and WP:RS.

Comments?

--Richard (talk) 20:03, 17 October 2009 (UTC)Reply

It may be a worthwhile endevour. However, I feel a bit burned out on the topic after the last few months of discussion. Majoreditor (talk) 20:57, 17 October 2009 (UTC)Reply
The page looks pretty good as is. Give me a few days to review what I can get before offering any additional comments, but I like what I see so far. John Carter (talk) 16:09, 18 October 2009 (UTC)Reply

Roman Catholicism in Somalia edit

I appreciate interventions in the Roman Catholicism in Somalia article. Moslem Somalis are creating some problems. Sincerely.--LittleTony (talk) 05:33, 18 October 2009 (UTC)Reply

Not sure why this merits a separate article though many of the African countries have one. This is a one-diocese country in a land which today has insufficient Catholics left alive to form a decent-sized parish. Merging this article into the diocese makes sense to me. Student7 (talk) 16:47, 22 October 2009 (UTC)Reply
I appreciate your intervention in the article, Student7. Many moslem countries have the same small amount of catholic followers (or even less, like in the Arabian peninsula), but they are all worth to be included in an encyclopedia like ours. That is what makes worlwide renowned Wikipedia. Furthermore, the somalian diocese has been receiving so many "shots" (guess from whom...) in the last years and so needs help in any way: even with most articles possible in our wiki.--LittleTony (talk) 16:22, 23 October 2009 (UTC)Reply
Furthermore, look what is doing now (after quickly erasing the Student7 post in Roman Catholicism in Somalia) this moslem activist with the artice Christianity in Somalia......--LittleTony (talk) 16:49, 23 October 2009 (UTC)Reply

Personal Ordinariate(s) edit

Given the current lack of official details regarding the new structure that was recently announced, it might be wise to keep to a minimum the writing on this topic - at least until the actual document is released that creates the new structure. The related article changes that I've seen so far are at very best misleading (but generally they are just flat wrong).--Dcheney (talk) 14:37, 25 October 2009 (UTC)Reply

I've described Pope Benedict's initiative briefly in the article on the Traditional Anglican Communion, but ultimately there will probably be a need to develop an article on the personal ordinariates for Catholics of the Anglican tradition, perhaps by expanding the current article on the Pastoral Provision. Chonak (talk) 04:28, 26 October 2009 (UTC)Reply

Category:Roman Catholic schools edit

I have nomed this cat for renaming here. --Kevlar (talkcontribs) 01:28, 7 November 2009 (UTC)Reply

Nomination of bishops edit

How do bishops get nominated? Not the basics. That's readily known, but the subtleties? Answer question here please. Thanks. Student7 (talk) 23:31, 8 November 2009 (UTC)Reply

I've added an answer over there. I don't really think there is anything that should be added to the article on provinces.--Dcheney (talk) 16:20, 9 November 2009 (UTC)Reply

Consistency on Popes, Cardinals, and Bishops edit

Could we have consistency on the description of when Popes, Cardinals, and Bishops become Popes, Cardinals, and Bishops in their individual biographical articles?

There is silliness in articles where terms like "reigned", "enthroned", "created", "named", "nominated", "consecrated", "raised to", "elevated" are used. I don't know if this is editors being medieval or whether it is mockery.

  • Popes are elected. They become a pope upon acceptance of election.
  • Cardinals and Bishops have many ceremonies associated with their office. In modern times, the public announcement of their appointment is when they become a cardinal or bishop. The other actions are significant but only consequential to the appointment by the Holy See.

Also, there is no "the end of the reign", "end of term", "end of appointment", etc. It ends with death, retirement, resignation, or deposition. patsw (talk) 02:44, 12 November 2009 (UTC)Reply

While you may not like the terminology, all the terms mentioned are proper with the exception of the "end of ...".
Cardinals obtain their rights and responsibilities of their office at the consistory where they are "created" - not at the public announcement that is typically a month or so beforehand.
A Bishop does not obtain his rights and responsibilities until he is "installed" (the older term is "enthroned") - not at the public announcement of the appointment. In the case of a priest being named a bishop, this installation is usually (in modern times) integrated into his "ordination" ("consecration" is also an acceptable term).--Dcheney (talk) 02:59, 12 November 2009 (UTC)Reply
And it's been a while, but a pope who is not already a bishop at the time of the election becomes pope upon his episcopal ordination, not at the acceptance of the election. Gentgeen (talk) 03:04, 12 November 2009 (UTC)Reply
A priest who accepts an appointment as bishop does obtain certain limited rights prior to episcopal ordination, e.g., the right to wear the zucchetto and pectoral cross. (See also: Pontifical vestments.) Eagle4000 (talk) 03:02, 14 November 2009 (UTC)Reply
Also, regarding cardinals, St. John Fisher, bishop of Rochester [England], was created cardinal by Pope Paul III in May 1535 (13 months after Fisher was imprisoned), "apparently in the hope of inducing Henry [VIII] to ease Fisher's treatment. The effect was precisely the reverse, Henry forbade the cardinal's hat to be brought into England, declaring that he would send the head to Rome instead." Cardinal Fisher was beheaded a month later, on June 22. Eagle4000 (talk) 04:29, 14 November 2009 (UTC)Reply

The pro-inconsistency consensus edit

So is the consensus here to persist the inconsistency in the biographical articles on individual bishops? So that in one article we find a bishop "appointed", and in another article a (20th century) bishop is "enthroned", and so on. And yes, "installed" is another term. patsw (talk) 23:23, 14 November 2009 (UTC)Reply

Proposed MoS addition regarding Cardinals edit

I started a thread on Wikipedia:WikiProject Catholicism/Strategy to bring everyone's attention to a discussion to create a rule about how to refer to Cardinals in article text. Please continue any conversation there. Gentgeen (talk) 22:22, 13 November 2009 (UTC)Reply

Cathedral names edit

Any particular convention regarding the naming of articles about churches/cathedrals? I came across Archcathedral Basilica of St. Peter and St. Paul, Poznań, which I would rename to something far more recognizable, like "Poznań Cathedral". Is there some special reason for using full official names in such cases?--Kotniski (talk) 11:20, 17 November 2009 (UTC)Reply

I'm not aware of a policy, but nearly all or all the French and Italian ones (excluding Rome maybe) have been renamed to "Place Cathedral", after some ridiculously long and confusing ones before. Capital city Cathedrals are sometimes different; no one ever talks of London/Paris/Rome/Vienna Cathedral, but Notre Dame de Paris etc. Johnbod (talk) 13:03, 17 November 2009 (UTC)Reply
I would suggest using the proper name of the cathedral as the name of the page, but use a common name as a redirect. So in your example, Archcathedral Basilica of St. Peter and St. Paul, Poznań, would be the page name and Poznań Cathedral would redirect to that page. This is useful if multiple denominations or rites have a cathedral in the same location. In these cases, the redirect would then become a disambiguation. Also, some churches are incorrectly commonly called cathedrals, or they may be former catherdrals, so the building would be properly referenced as a cathedral for documents from that time.Npeters22 (talk) 20:31, 17 November 2009 (UTC)Reply
It is true the longer names are likely to be necessary in the US & Canada, but in Poland, as in most parts of the world, it is normally perfectly clear which denomination has "the Cathedral". Otherwise WP:COMMON should apply, which generally means the short version. The full name should normally in the lead sentence however, "more formally known as ...."Johnbod (talk) 20:39, 17 November 2009 (UTC)Reply
Tend to agree with Jonund here. Even in some US cities with multiple cathedrals, like, say, Anglican and Catholic and maybe others, it is probably generally the case that one will get more media attention than the others and probably be the one regularly referred to as "the Cathedral". The others might then be referred to locally as "the (Anglican, for example) cathedral", the "(short form of proper name) Cathedral", or whatever. Particularly in those areas where Catholicism is by far the more common religion I believe that is probably the standard even there. John Carter (talk) 21:04, 17 November 2009 (UTC)Reply
I should have included Oz & NZ with Nth America, plus the few English & Scottish cities with both (normally the RC English cathedrals are deliberately in different cities). If "Place Cathedral" qualifies in terms of local usage, it is because there is little possibility for confusion. Of course in many places in Europe apart from the UK "the Cathedral" is Protestant, even if technically it no longer acts as a cathedral - see St. Martin's Cathedral, Utrecht aka the "Domkirk", though they have a Catholic one too. Johnbod (talk) 23:43, 17 November 2009 (UTC)Reply

Father Victor White edit

I have recently started an article on the Dominican priest Father Victor White, who collaborated with Carl Gustav Jung. If any one has special knowledge of this figure (he was a Roman Catholic, and lived from 1902 to 1960) I shall be grateful if she or he could extend the article. Many thanks, ACEOREVIVED (talk) 23:53, 17 November 2009 (UTC)Reply

I wikified the link above. The article needs inline citations. You can look at almost any biographical article and see examples. Page numbers in the cites are helpful if you have the books themselves. Also, use of "Father" in an article title is certain to be challenged and since there is another Victor White, it would be your option to rename to Victor White (Catholic priest). patsw (talk) 14:24, 20 November 2009 (UTC)Reply

Article request edit

Could someone here write at least a stub on the Society of the Precious Blood (also known as Missionaries of the Precious Blood) to help me? I've been doing some work on churches in western Ohio (see {{Cross-Tipped Churches}}) that have been served by priests of the society since their establishment in the mid-19th century, and I'd like to have an article instead of a redlink. Nyttend (talk) 04:03, 22 November 2009 (UTC)Reply

Hmm, I hadn't realised that "Missionaries" was a blue link. I'll simply create "Society" as a redirect. Nyttend (talk) 04:03, 22 November 2009 (UTC)Reply

Reference help edit

Could I have help from someone with an actual copy of the Catholic Encyclopedia? I'd like to add a simple citation to St. Patrick's Catholic Church (Glynwood, Ohio) (originally an Irish church) to say that St. Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland, but I don't have access to a print copy, and the only versions of the encyclopedia that I can find online are at sites such as Wikisource and newadvent.org, which I don't know that I can trust to give the original encyclopedia text without changes. Nyttend (talk) 17:31, 22 November 2009 (UTC)Reply

That surely counts as common knowledge, which does not need referencing! Johnbod (talk) 17:37, 22 November 2009 (UTC)Reply
Agreed it probably doesn't need referencing, but if you really want one history.com says he's the patron of Ireland here.

, and it mentions the patronage here, and I think it's probably reliable enough for these purposes. John Carter (talk) 17:42, 22 November 2009 (UTC)Reply

The Catholic Encyclopedia can be found on Google Books, so you can see the scan of the page to look for any oddities versus the other sites (which are quite common).--Dcheney (talk) 03:20, 23 November 2009 (UTC)Reply
Thanks for the help. I'm not too comfortable with including material without references, even if it's something so commonly-known as his patronage, so I'll be using something that you've given me. Nyttend (talk) 06:09, 23 November 2009 (UTC)Reply

Stephen alathara edit

I draw the project's attention to this article. As I see it, it's a not-very-well sourced autobiography by an insufficiently-notable priest, and I am tempted to take it to WP:AFD. But before I do I would like to give the opportunity to someone here to rescue it. Philip Trueman (talk) 18:03, 23 November 2009 (UTC)Reply

I vote for afd. Not a bishop. Appointed, not elected. nn IMO.Student7 (talk) 14:05, 27 November 2009 (UTC)Reply
I also vote for afd-exceedingly bad form to start an autobiography, also seems less than noteworthy enough to be included in Wiki.--Lyricmac (talk) 06:53, 28 November 2009 (UTC)Reply

Parish edit

IMHO, the parish is not just a group of people, it is the church + cemetery + more than 100 year history of our ancestors from all around the world (almost half the time the existence of the USA). Churches do not create the story. Church, temple of other religious groups, it is just an empty building and as such should never be considered as a notable. It parishes founded by immigrants formed the history of the United States, what is obvious for US citizens. It is the average immigrants, grouped in parishes, developed the city and created history.
Wikipedia articles are created to broaden our knowledge about the past, discover it, rather than eliminate because it is not widely known at the time. Of course, "parish" will never win with this "exciting" slogans like: sports, entertainment, people, porn stars and local politics. The name "parish" is obviously boring and not interesting for many. But thousands of people browsing the Internet in search of their roots, information on how their ancestors lived. Then travel long distances to these places to see, touch.
I personally, for about 10 years, engaged in collecting and updating data on the Polish-American parishes in the U.S. This theme is very pristine and demanding development, and involvement of many people in their expending, as I had hoped, when writing about these parishes. Some parishes are already closed. People I know are too old to give me more information or to indicate the source. So, before I write an article about the parishes (now I'm writing it on the Polish Wikipedia), I have a question to all of you to decide:

  1. Are parishes and other religious organizational units are notable, or not?
  2. Are parishes and other religious organizational units are encyclopedic, or not?
  3. Are national parishes are encyclopedic, or not?--WlaKom (talk) 09:44, 15 December 2009 (UTC)Reply
I don't see why there should be any doubt about the notability of (some) parishes. Of course, not all parishes are notable. Nor are all villages. Yet there are Wikipedia articles on (some) villages. In England, a parish is also a civil administrative division, not just a religious one. Have I misunderstood the query? By the way, in Europe a parish of a mere hundred years of history would be considered rather recent. Lima (talk) 10:14, 15 December 2009 (UTC)Reply
The fundamental rule is that things are "notable" if they receive "notice". If regional and national media "notice" them enough to write about them, then they are notable. If the regional and national media ignore them, then they are not notable.
Most parishes in the US would not be notable, because they get no "notice". (It's worth noting that in Louisiana, what the state calls "parish" is what the other 49 states call a county, and is not a religious institution at all.)
I would expect to find sufficient reliable sources about nearly all dioceses to justify articles on them; I would expect to find the necessary level of sources for very few local parishes.
However, inclusion of information about a given parish might be WP:DUE in a larger article, e.g., the parish (or deanery) of Grinnell could be mentioned in the article on the Roman Catholic Diocese of Davenport. Similarly, individual Polish-American parishes may not be notable, but there are certainly enough books and scholarly sources to justify an article about the role of the parish in Polish-American immigration experience.
Additionally, religious buildings may certainly be notable for their architecture. See Category:Church architecture. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:56, 15 December 2009 (UTC)Reply
A bit of reality: Most Wikipedian editors are not religious and look for articles on churches to delete them. It is probably a mistake not to include the building which is often historic and can be justified on that basis alone. So I put "Mary, Mother of God Church" and go from there - to the building, to the community and to the school which almost has to be included since it is usually elementary and usually not notable in its own right.
And nevermind that Catholics have fewer churches than many other religions but with a lot of people, often thousands. Quantity doesn't seem to cut any ice. A controversy also helps. Wikipedians love controvery since it is "notable." Student7 (talk) 01:15, 22 December 2009 (UTC)Reply

Two new articles on Roman Catholicism in Latin America edit

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

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

Your assistance is solicited to improve this new article.

--Richard S (talk) 17:14, 23 December 2009 (UTC)Reply

I have now added History of Roman Catholicism in Latin America History of Roman Catholicism in Hispano-America which, at the moment, focuses on anti-clericalism in Latin America and Liberation Theology. More needs to be added to make this article a more comprehensive treatment of the topic. Your assistance is solicited to improve this new article. --Richard S (talk) 23:15, 23 December 2009 (UTC)Reply

Update - the article History of Roman Catholicism in Hispano-America now covers the period from the Spanish conquest through Liberation theology. --Richard S (talk) 01:14, 24 December 2009 (UTC)Reply

Autograph letter edit

I've just created a new stub article titled: Autograph letter. It's a near-orphan: only one other article links to it. I don't know which articles and lists should link to it. Michael Hardy (talk) 21:52, 28 December 2009 (UTC)Reply