Talk:Catholic Church

Recent edit war over note

I'm not going to revert this edit again; rather, I'm just pleading for some reasoned action by the parties edit warring over the section. I realize that in mediation, you seem to have agreed that the church prefers to call itself the "Catholic Church". I take no position on the issue, but at least one editor is disputing a statement being added into the article to that effect without a secondary source. This is required per WP:V, no matter your opinion on the issue. It doesn't seem like it should be that difficult to find a secondary source simply stating that the church prefers to call itself as such.

Anyway, as a non-involved admin, I'm going to be watching the page for edit warring, and I will not hesitate to block editors who revert each other without reason or discussion. --Andy Walsh (talk) 22:42, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

I already explained this. 1.) Secondary sources are PREFERRED, not required. 2.) Extremely obvious statements require NO citation in the first place. Thus, that you say a secondary source is required is in no way, shape, or form, remotely true.Farsight001 (talk) 23:07, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Agree with Farsight. This sentence is not claiming anything about the name of the Catholic Church. It is just being used to state a fact - an acceptable use for primary sources. The note was agreed line by line in the mediated consensus, and also contains the unreferenced sentence "The Church is referred to and refers to itself in various ways, in part depending upon circumstance." which Gimmetrow and Laserbrain curiously do not want to remove. The sentences are both based on primary sources and point in different ways. Both are part of the mediated wording. Xandar 23:47, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Do you have any evidence whatsoever that "Catholic Church" is used more commonly than every other term the Church uses in its own documents? I am disputing this sentence because I believe it is wrong - that there are other terms used as frequently or more frequently than CC in the Church's own documents. Do you actually dispute that the Church refers to itself in various ways? This is not related to the page rename - this is about a claim in the text for which you have failed to provide sources or clarify, despite a proposal on the table two months ago that was agreeable to most people and would have addressed this issue. At this point, because of the refusal to change the text or discuss the issue, it is an issue of WP:Verifiability policy. Gimmetrow 00:39, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Grimmtrow, you have long since crossed into the realm of disruptive editing. I have explained repeatedly to you why your request is unnecessary and silly and you simply continue saying the same thing over and over and over again, whilst completely ignoring the fact that I'm saying anything. The page on disruptive editing describes this sort of action as a clear identifying mark of a disruptive editor - "repeatedly disregards other editors' explanations for their edits." If you want us to take you seriously, ignoring our explanations and repeating yourself rather vainly I must say, is not going to help you achieve that at all.Farsight001 (talk) 02:22, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

And I have explained to you that the assertion in the text is not obvious and therefore, if editors will not change it or provide sources as required by Wikipedia's Verifiability policy, then the assertion doesn't belong. You have not provided any evidence. Gimmetrow 04:25, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Farsight, have you considered that you might be able to find a secondary source that backs up your claim within like five minutes and put this whole thing to rest? --Andy Walsh (talk) 04:55, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

So is this your Farsight and Xandars way to tell Gimmetrow to please shut up? You know like you both have already done to Taam and Cody and others here? Or maybe you can call Encyclopedia Britannica rubbish again.LoveMonkey (talk) 03:42, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

I disagree with Farsight001 and Xandar but without agreeing with 100% with Taam, Cody and LoveMonkey. I kind of agree with Gimmetrow although I'm not as exercised about this issue as he is.

The challenged statement needs a citation to a reliable source that says exactly that. To point to a handful of documents and make an assertion based upon textual analysis of those documents is already original research; to widen the assertion to documents beyond those cited is totally unacceptable. I doubt that we will find a citation that supports the assertion made in the current text and so the best course of action is to rewrite the text so that it is supportable.

I think the best direction to head towards is to say "In some of the Church's core documents (e.g. Catechism, Lumen Gentium, Humani Generis, whatever), the title 'Catholic Church' is used far more frequently than 'Roman Catholic Church'.] This avoids making assertions beyond what we can support with citations.

--Richard (talk) 17:37, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

This is where misuse of policies takes place; when the tide goes against find any policy to throw up to cause contention. Richard, with your statement the next word out of Gimme's and Cody's mouth is how frequently? How many more times is it used? What source for that? Suffice it to say this language was the result of a months long mediation. If anything, Gimme and company need to stop editing the article, bring the issues solely tot he discussion page until such time as a compromise is reached.

This is petty, it is choking on gnats, and follows closely in their POV and resistance to accept reality. I again strongly suggest you fellows get a personal blog where you can pontificate on your personal views to your heart's content.

There are no references for citing what names the church uses most; they do not exist. I am not aware of a single academic that has counted the names of the Church in all of the documents for its 1700 to 2000 year history. Frankly, I think it an impossible task because one cannot be sure to have obtained a view at each and every document for the entire history. What is self-evident is that the Church uses Catholic Church on all of its most significant documents. That is all the sentence is attempting to reflect to the reader; nothing more and nothing less. Guys, patience is one thing, but you appear to seek a special place in the minds of each editor on this page. That type of karma will reap some really bad things. It is time to back off for a short while and accept reality. Just a thought. --^StormRider 19:00, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

StormRider wrote "There are no references for citing what names the church uses most; they do not exist. I am not aware of a single academic that has counted the names of the Church in all of the documents for its 1700 to 2000 year history. Frankly, I think it an impossible task because one cannot be sure to have obtained a view at each and every document for the entire history."

Richardshusr responds: Yes, precisely. And that is why the sentence in question should be altered or removed. It's the same argument as the one about the "official name" of the Church. If you can't find a source that says it, then the sentence cannot stand.

StormRider continued "What is self-evident is that the Church uses Catholic Church on all of its most significant documents."

Richardshusr responds: Saying something is "Self-evident" works in Declarations of Independence but not it won't fly in Wikipedia. However, if we allow ourselves some leeway regarding Original Research, we can examine these so-called "most significant documents" and determine whether the assertion is true for the ones that we pick. The proposed change to the current article text is to narrow the assertion to be limited solely to documents where we have visually inspected the text and determined the truth value of the assertion. With citations, any reader can verify whether or not the assertion is true for those documents. Since we would make no assertion about the frequency of use in any other documents, we would stand on unassailable ground.

--Richard (talk) 23:26, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

I personally think we have already crossed boundaries into subjective territory here. Neither party can argue that they are firmly within a policy-bound right to either include or remove the sentence. As such, it would seem prudent to stick to the statement agreed on in mediation. --Andy Walsh (talk) 19:10, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

The relevant policy is WP:V. The editor who wrote the disputed sentence (the same editor who wrote the text that originally led to mediation, by the way), refused to discuss it during mediation, which therefore prevented the formation of consensus. However, if you think the mediation result should stand, then at the end of mediation the sentence was tagged with [citation needed]. Recall, it took multiple RFCs and a mediation over the course of a year to get one unsourced, biased word removed from the article. During that time, the editor who originally added the text refused all attempts at compromise. The same editor also wrote the now-disputed sentence, also unsourced and biased, refused to discuss it during and after mediation, and still continues to refuse all attempts at resolution. Some might characterize that sort of behaviour as obstructive WP:OWNership. Indeed, you might say this issue is "petty", but petty issues shouldn't take 4+ months to resolve. Remember, there was a proposal on the table months ago that I, Richard and Sunray supported, and it didn't get implemented because of an objection from the same editor. Gimmetrow 19:20, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't disagree with you—but I'm not sure folks are ever going to see eye-to-eye on this. Articles "should" be based on reliable, third-party sources. But what if several editors are hell-bent on putting the text in and insisting that there are no secondary sources and the primary ones should appease readers? I'm trying to view this from a casual reader's perspective. Will they read that note and think, "How do they know that's what the church prefers?" and start looking at the sources? Further, will they reject the Vatican sources as proof of this statement? Dunno... and the ArbCom case is going to be rejected because it was poorly-constructed and unclear in its scope. I don't see a clear answer on how WP:V should be interpreted here. --Andy Walsh (talk) 19:29, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

This is a complete falsehood, Gimmetrow. Several compromise versions of the text of this very line were presented to you, including one that you had suggested yourself earlier. You rejected all these alternative wordings and changed your position yet again. After that some of us gave up, since you seemed resolved never to come to agreement. Similarly you have not commented on the other uncited statement in the note which I mentioned just above: namely "The Church is referred to and refers to itself in various ways, in part depending upon circumstance." Should this be removed as well, although it tends to support your positions? The fact is that we agreed not to make a direct statement that "X is the Church's official or proper name" partly on your insistence - where secondary references WERE found for that form of wording, but you then started quarrelling with them at length. We then agreed to include the two factual primary-source-based sentences, one of which you are now cavilling at. One of the reasons that these "petty" issues took SO long to resolve, was your continuous pedantic obstructiveness. For example trying to argue that "The Church" is the proper name of the Catholic Church. Xandar 19:38, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Xandar, I think the issue is between using a universal quantifier and an existential quantifier. To wit, the universal quantifier asserts something on the order of "in all the Church's official documents and contexts, it uses 'Catholic' more frequently than it uses 'Roman Catholic'". Using an existential quantifier asserts "In certain specific documents (which are cited), the term 'Catholic' appears more frequently than 'Roman Catholic'." If we can agree to use an existential quantifier rather than the universal one, I think we can resolve this issue. --Richard (talk) 23:26, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Self-evident only for Declaration of Independence? Alas, then "to wit" would need to be limited to Shakespeare.:)

IF we are to pursue this line of thinking, then we cannot say "more frequently" because the sources do not support that it appears more frequently. We can support that in some of the most significant documents of the Catholic Church it uses Catholic Church to refer to itself. Issues of frequency would need to be supported by the source(s).

I have to agree with Xandar that the entire mediation was full of straining on wording, bending over backward to find support. It is unbelievably strange that the participants still want to fight about the agreement. It begins to reek of bad faith. --^StormRider 03:21, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

StormRider, it is really unfortunate that this discussion was brought to ARBCOM and, as a result of the mediation being referenced, the entire mediation proceedings were deleted to protect the privilege of confidentiality of mediations. I think this is truly unfortunate and would hope that the mediation proceedings are restored after the case is rejected by ARBCOM (if that hasn't already happened).

In the meantime, I cannot prove my recollection of the mediation and so I have ask you to trust my good faith attempt to remember the end phase of that process.

My recollection is that the mediation ended with an agreement that the core of the mediated agreement was based on these four points:

1. a change of the lead sentence to mention "Catholic Church" and "Roman Catholic Church" in that order
2. an agreement to say nothing as to whether there was an "official name" of the Church, much less what that name might be
3. an agreement to seek support of a wider audience for a change in the title of the article
4. an agreement not to lock down every last word of the note as there were still some outstanding concerns about the specific wording

Xandar remembers Gimmetrow's last minute objections and a general feeling that he was the last holdout in achieving consensus. Gimmetrow agreed to go with the overall consensus provided that his issues could be raised after the mediated agreement was implemented. I also had some relatively minor issues with the wording but they were more stylistic as opposed to Gimmetrow's objection which was (from his POV) more substantive. Both Gimmetrow and I agreed to let the mediation move forward as long as the wording of the Note was not considered "cast in concrete" and was open to further discussion and fine-tuning after the mediation was closed.

I write this so that you and others will understand that while Gimmetrow's raising of the issue may be annoying, it is not, as you charged, "bad faith".

--Richard (talk) 07:38, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

I fail to see why this continues to be discussed. It has been debated ad nauseam. Gimmetrow does not accept the wording, but has not been able to get consensus for his view. To continue raising it, putting tags on the phrase, and editing warring is simply disruptive. Please give it a rest, folks. Sunray (talk) 08:00, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

You, Richard and I supported a sentence two months ago that would have resolved this. And again, I remind you for the last time, Sunray, address content. You could, for instance actually add sources to the article text. Gimmetrow 14:17, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

All the major documents on the Vatican website were searched, and as I recall, only five major pronouncements in the last 200 years even contained the wording "Roman Catholic Church". The statement in the note is beyond dispute. Xandar 15:26, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

One reason that I've never thought that the sentence in question needed a reference is that there are a total of four references in the next two supporting sentences. However, I realize that this may not be clear to folks who were not involved with the drafting of the note. Here's a simple solution to the problem: The Whitehead citation [1], which appears in the note as #7 actually supports the first sentence very well. I suggest that we move reference #7 to follow the sentence "The name "Catholic Church", rather than "Roman Catholic Church", is usually the term that the Church uses in its own documents." Would this make things clearer? Sunray (talk) 16:38, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Please don't bring up Whitehead again!!! I thought there was some consensus that he was an inappropriate source for statements of fact, just for opinion? Karanacs (talk) 17:43, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

There were lengthy discussions about Whitehead as a source. It was decided to use Whitehead as a secondary source to back up the primary sources referred to in this part of the note. So Whitehead is being used that way in the note. I am only suggesting that we move that reference to a preceding sentence in that part of the note. Would you be able to accept it on that basis? Sunray (talk) 18:30, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

The sentence in the article makes a claim about more than CC and RCC. If the sentence remains, I want it clearly restricted to a statement about only those two terms. Two months ago Richard and Sunray supported this sentence: "In its own documents, the Church uses the term CC more frequently than RCC." I also support that. Is that a consensus? I would also support Richard's suggestion above to restrict the statement to particular documents (such as: "In X, Y and Z, the term CC appears more frequently than RCC") but that wasn't my main concern here. Gimmetrow 18:48, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

I do not think that any proposal suggested since the end of the mediation is better than the one agreed by consensus of editors at mediation. The editors of EWTN, a member of SIGNIS use Whitehead as their source to explain the Church's name,[2] they are all scholarly experts on the Church.[3] We did not need Whitehead in the agreed mediation but since some people can't stop challenging us, like Gimmetrow, maybe we should put him back into the article. There are no bad reviews of this source even though Gimmetrown and Soidi have tried and tried to discredit it. NancyHeise ^talk 23:47, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree with an editor above that suggested that Gimmetrows continued involvement in this matter is violating WP:Disrupt. I wish someone with power could do something about it because our article is prevented from moving forward because of this disruption. Thanks. NancyHeise ^talk 23:56, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Nancy, the text in the article asserts that the term "Catholic Church" is used in the Church's documents more than any other term. Whitehead does not support that claim. Indeed, editors have consistently said that there are no sources which could support such a claim. It is the editors who continue to support an unsourced, biased claim, contrary to policies of WP:Verifiability and WP:Neutral point of view, that are disruptive to the article. Gimmetrow 00:15, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

The sentence is cited to Catechism of the Catholic Church and the documents of the Second Vatican Council, the documents the Church calls its "Constitutions". No where in these documents does the Church use the term Roman Catholic Church to refer to itself, the sentence is thus cited and this cited sentence was agreed by consensus at mediation. Please stop being disruptive Gimmetrow, if it werent for your other types of help on Wikipedia I would think you were just a troll. I think you should consider that is what your participation on this page has become. NancyHeise ^talk 00:28, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Nancy, the claim in the article is about relative frequency of terms. What you just said has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the disputed claim. Please address content and avoid personal attacks. Gimmetrow 00:40, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

The citations were agreed at mediation. I see someone has now deleted the entire mediation page. I don't see that as helpful. The citations to original documents were used as it was agreed that in some instances, original documents can be used and this sentence was one of those instances. As mentioned earlier, if you are uncomfortable with this, we can add Whitehead as another reference because he says the same thing. What I don't understand is why you are disputing a consensus agreed text over and over again when you know that the sentence is a)true, b)cited, c)other unused sources also say the same thing and d)you don't have any source that disputes the sentence. I can understand if it were a contentious statement but it isn't and there are no sources that argue your point. If you want us to eliminate the sentence, then provide a source that says otherwise. The mediation clearly validated the fact that there are no sources that say otherwise. NancyHeise ^talk 02:51, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Here we go again. This is the same pattern of behaviour from you that led to mediation. You do not get to add a biased, unsourced statement in the article and then demand others to provide contrary "sources". You are required per WP:Verifiability to provide sources for all material you add to the article. That is your burden of evidence, and you have failed to provide that for months, exactly like you did before. Gimmetrow 03:18, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

No Gimmetrow, a consensus of editors agreed at mediation to this sentence and sources after detailed examination of issues and sources. You are not respecting that mediation which agreed that the burden of evidence has been met. NancyHeise ^talk 03:23, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Your invocation of consensus here is a violation of good faith and civility. The sentence I am disputing is most likely incorrect, and Sunray even admitted as much. It is clearly unsourced, as editors have acknowledged above. Gimmetrow 03:26, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Invocation of consensus is hardly a violation of anything. Indeed, having consensus on your side trumps having a personal bias every time. Gimmetrow, you don't agree with consensus. That is your right. But you are in a minority, and your arguments have not persuaded the community. You are being disruptive.--anietor (talk) 03:39, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

The consensus at mediation was that these issues would be discussed later. It's possible that the "agreement" of editors who refuse to discuss the issue, who regularly invoke procedural arguments to stifle discussion, who obstruct improvements on even "petty" issues for months at a time, who refuse to follow Wikipedia's content policies, and who have established a long-term pattern of refusal to follow such policies, might be characterized as disruptive WP:OWNership rather than consensus. Gimmetrow 05:00, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

With the respect to the bad faith which is being imputed to Gimmetrow I would just like to point out an Encyclopedic source that seems to share his doubts:"Roman Catholic Church, Christian church headed by the pope, the bishop of Rome (see papacy and Peter, Saint). Its commonest title in official use is Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. “Roman Catholic” is a 19th-century British coinage and merely serves to distinguish that church from other churches that are “Catholic” (see catholic church). The term “Roman Church,” when used officially, means only the archdiocese of Rome. Roman Catholics may be simply defined as Christians in communion with the pope." (Columbia Encyclopedia on-line, accessed 29 August 2009) I'm only placing this here in response to the name calling (once again) brought against an editor who just happens to be looking for a reliable source - a good thing for Wikipedia - it doesn't mean I share the view expressed. Taam (talk) 07:19, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

p.s I noticed Nancy Heisse has added to the reference book list the following: "THE ENTITY: FIVE CENTURIES OF SECRET VATICAN ESPIONAGE By Eric Frattini" which reviews say describes how the Vatican has operated hit squads and top secret rat-lines to allow Nazi's to escape etc and the pursuit of people they don't agree with. It seems an extremely strange addition since she normally leans heavily towards an unblemished account of Church history and also since the book has been panned in a review I read in NCR. Are you trying to tell us something Nancy about how the Church will deal with people who don't agree with you :-), but anyway I don't think it is a reliable source for what is being asserted in the relevant article section which appears now to be very loaded in an apologetics sense. Taam (talk) 08:55, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately, Taam, many encyclopedias are not always reliable ( especially with religion-related information ) and often contain incorrect information - such as the incorrect claim you've cited that "Roman Catholic" is of 19th century British origin. The origin of the term is much earlier than this. Afterwriting (talk) 13:48, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

I personally disagree as I alluded to in my post. However my opinion or yours is not what matters but what reliable sources say, if there is no reliable sources to confirm something we shouldn't be asserting it. In this instance the Colombia Encyclopaedia may have been using your reliable source Whitehead who in part states: "The term Roman Catholic is not used by the Church herself; it is a relatively modern term, and one, moreover, that is confined largely to the English language." Now even an outsider such as I knows this is nonsense, but as you say you can't always trust an encyclopaedia. Anyway my point was I thought it wrong that Gimmetrow was being marginalised and name-called when he has at least one major encyclopedic source that contradicts what the team here asserts without any reliable source. Taam (talk) 15:54, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

RFC: Does a sentence without a source meet WP:Verifiability requirements?

The article currently asserts:

The name "Catholic Church", rather than "Roman Catholic Church", is usually the term that the Church uses in its own documents."

This sentence has no source. It appears to be based on a google search of documents on the Vatican website. The sentence appears to claim that 'CC' is "usually the term" the Church uses in all its documents to refer to itself. However, the Church uses other terms (besides CC and RCC) to refer to itself, and some of those are used as frequently or more frequently than CC in documents I have checked, so I have disputed this sentence. I have been asking that the sentence be rephrased so that it clearly refers solely to CC and RCC, or that it be removed. Back on 5 July 2009, Richard proposed and Sunray agreed with the rephrasing

"In its own documents, the Church uses "CC" more frequently than "RCC".

That would have resolved the problem, but over two months later, nothing has changed in the article.

It has also been alleged that making the claim of all Church documents, rather than a select set, is a logical jump of original research. An editor above also proposed limiting the claim to refer only to some select set of Church documents.

This RFC asks: Does the disputed claim need a source? Does it need clarification? If it is not changed, is the disputed claim in violation of WP:Verifiability, or not? Gimmetrow 13:37, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Outside comments

I think Gimmetrow your separation of "insiders" from "outsiders" reveals a lot about the problems with this article. As was pointed out last year the most common name by which she refers to herself on the Vatican web site is the "The Church" (5,580) followed by "Catholic Church" (3,500 hits). The "Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church" that appears in so many official Church publications relating to, for example, the order of the mass doesn't feature really on the Vatican site but the numbers involved must be very large I guess. Taam (talk) 14:06, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Further information

The sentence referred to by Gimmetrow is followed by two supporting sentences. When drafted, it was a paragraph (though paragraphs were dissolved when the note was finalized). Nevertheless the sentence only makes sense if you read the following two sentences:

The name "Catholic Church", rather than "Roman Catholic Church", is usually the term that the Church uses in its own documents. It appears in the title of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. It is also the term that Pope Paul VI used when signing the documents of the Second Vatican Council.

Notes

The foregoing passage was drafted during the mediation and accepted by consensus. Attempts to modify it on this page have not achieved consensus. Alternate wordings seem moot now, since the question asked is: Does a sentence without a source meet WP:Verifiability requirements? It has been suggested that the Whitehead source at the end of the third sentence supports the statement and could easily be moved to the end of the first sentence. Again, this proposal did not gain consensus. Since most people are fine with this section of the note as is, perhaps the best option is to leave it alone. Sunray (talk) 16:46, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Discussion

Sunray, is it your explicit position that a group of editors acting against Wikipedia' content policies may form not just a majority, but a consensus to disregard those content policies to defend an unsourced sentence disputed by others as factually incorrect, biased and original research? Gimmetrow 00:14, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

I disagree that Whitehead would be a valid source for this statement (not only does his article not say this, but the article is not scholarly and is more an opinion piece). There is a lot of "consensus" around this article that ignores basic Wikipedia policies. WP:V is a central policy that should not be abandoned, and as yet editors have not provided a source that verifies this sentence. Karanacs (talk) 01:56, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

No one is ignoring WP policies. There is a great deal of evidence to corroborate the statement. Leaving aside Whitehead, the first three references present that evidence rather well, IMO. Sunray (talk) 03:28, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Funny. None of those sources refer to the relative frequency of the term CC compared to all other terms the Church uses to refer to itself, and in the documents apparently referenced, not only are other terms used more frequently, but in some of those documents, 'CC' is not used at all. [fails verification]. Gimmetrow 03:55, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Gimmetrow, it is not a choice between consensus and WP policy. That is a false choice, and a rather disingenuous suggestion. It is, as in most cases in WP, a choice between competing positions, whose editors all believe their positions are supported by WP policy. It is a rather hollow argument for you to say that consensus is trumping policy because consensus didn't agree with your view. Assume good faith, and assume that editors are not disregarding WP policy when they state a position. Your argument is no stronger than if Sunray, or any other consensus-supporting editor, said YOUR view is invalid because they believe your position is not supported by policy. It's really just a $50 version of saying "You're wrong because I know I'm right." That's why we value consensus. Otherwise there would be no resolution to anything. --anietor (talk) 04:10, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

You have still failed to provide any valid source for the claim in the article, and have not rephrased the claim in article to avoid the dispute. You have, indeed, restored the disputed claim, although WP:V says that the "burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material". Can you identify the source in the article which "unambiguously supports the information as it is presented in the article" as WP:Verifiability says it must? Gimmetrow 04:46, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Is this really a substantive request for comment, or is it, as it might seem to many, simply one editor who refuses to accept what was agreed it during the previous mediation? If the latter, might not WP:DE apply? I was not myself a party to the mediation, but it seems to me that the sourcing is sufficient, particularly given the lengthy discussion which took place earlier. John Carter (talk) 16:11, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

The article claims that term A, rather than term B, is used more frequently in documents, which I dispute because terms C, D and E appear to be used at least as frequently as term A. So where is the source that "unambiguously supports the information as it is presented in the article"? The only sources referred to so far are the primary source references in the sentences following this claim. Unfortunately, in these very primary documents, term C appears more frequently than term A. Please elaborate on your statement that "the sourcing is sufficient", since I really don't see how it is sufficient. Gimmetrow 20:59, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

First some disclosure, I am a reasonably scholarly Catholic and am familiar with the language the Church uses. I have a number of points to make on the issue.

• The terms documents use depends on context and what it is actually talking about. There is a difference between a church (a building), the Church (the organisation), a Catholic church (a building that is administered by the organisation), a catholic church (either a building or organisation that seeks to be universal), the Catholic Church (the big thing the Pope leads), the Church of Rome (the particular organisation based in Rome and overseen by the bishop of Rome (who also happens to be the Pope)), the Roman Catholic Church (as opposed to other Catholic traditions - Greek, Coptic, etc.) and a Roman Catholic church (a Catholic church that follows the Roman tradition).

  Crudely and in brief, "the Church" is a divine institution while "the Catholic Church" is a human institution that manifests "the Church".

• Blindly counting words is irrelevant, if not purely because it does not take into account what the document is actually talking about.
• The sentence in question does not claim that "Catholic Church" is the most-used term, but that it is used rather than "Roman Catholic Church".
• As this article is titled "Catholic Church" I assume is it about the Catholic Church, which does indeed refer to itself as the "Catholic Church" in official documents, as demonstrated by the supporting sentence given by Sunray that should also be included.
• The definitive definition of the Church by herself is thus: "This Church constituted and organized in the world as a society, subsists in the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the Bishops in communion with him."—Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, section 8 [4].

In conclusion, the statement in question is both true, and moreover is verifiable. It may however, be slightly unclear, resulting in this dispute. OrangeDog (talk • edits) 04:17, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your comments. Indeed, I have said before that "the relative frequency of use of various terms in a document is likely to depend on the context and purpose of the document." If the claim in the article depends on analysis of context, we don't tell the reader enough info to even verify the thought process, let alone verify that it is not WP:Original research. The sentence claims that "A, rather than B, is the most-used term". As presented, this is a purely statistical claim. The "rather than" clause doesn't restrict the main clause, so it does assert that "A is the most-used term". If a claim said that "A, rather than E, is the vowel usually chosen by contestants in game X", it would be saying that "you might think E is the most common, but it's really A". I understand that people may not read the sentence that way, but I think it clear that it can be read that way. The text hasn't been changed to remove this reading, either. Gimmetrow 11:40, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

I note that after months of dispute, the disputed sentence has still not been changed to address the disputed point, nor has any source been provided in the text to support the disputed point. How can this be consistent with Wikipedia's content policies? Gimmetrow 15:51, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Why not use the source I just gave? OrangeDog (talk • edits) 18:39, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

If you mean the quote from Lumen Gentium, it doesn't address the disputed point, which is a text in the article which claims that one specific term is the term "usually used" by the Church to refer to itself. Gimmetrow 19:08, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

The reason it hasn't been addressed is because it's not "the disputed point." It's YOUR disputed point. Consensus, policy, etc, etc. It's all been said before. Moving on... --anietor (talk) 19:17, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

No, it's a claim in the article. If you don't want to make that claim, then why have you refused for months to rephrase or remove the claim in the article? Gimmetrow 19:26, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Could the article itself not better be called the 'Roman Catholic Church' as all denominations of Cristianity are derived from catholisism.(Monkeymanman (talk) 20:40, 3 October 2009 (UTC))

Note that this RFC is not about the name of the article, or even the name of the entity. It is about a claim in the article which doesn't have a source attached, and which, as it is presented in the article, I consider incorrect. Gimmetrow 15:50, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Looks like original research to me. Have you tried WP:ORN? Peter jackson (talk) 10:18, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

More Research

I have been doing some more research on this subject trying to find some ways that the article is lacking. I have found that this article really is lacking in the cultural impact section as so many other encyclopedias and scholarly sources discuss the way the Church is responsible for the hospital system, the legal system, the justice system, the educational system that emerged in Western Civilization. We need to include these facts on the page and in the lead. An organization responsible for such enormous impact can not be harrassed to hide these facts just because some editors have a personal image of the Church that is not supported by scholarly sources. NancyHeise ^talk 20:03, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree. That section is way too short at the moment. It needs to be ten times longer, at least.Haldraper (talk) 20:32, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Ten times might be a bit long, we do have to be concise. I think we might be able to add a paragraph and cover the necessary points. We can include wikilinks to separate pages that cover those particular subjects to adhere to WP:summary style. One purpose of this article is to be a hub of wikilinks to other Catholicism articles. I want to help the article accomplish that goal. NancyHeise ^talk 20:43, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, Nancy I was joking (English irony I think it's called). I think the section's long enough as it is, it's only supposed to be an overview after all with a link to the main page on the subject.Haldraper (talk) 20:48, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Another Brit? Oy vey! (just kidding - I am over 50% English myself) : ) NancyHeise ^talk 20:55, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

That's more than me - I'm half-Irish -:) --— Preceding unsigned comment added by Haldraper (talk • contribs)

Just because the article is too long doesn't mean that there aren't some sections that are too short. I agree with NancyHeise that the cultural impacts mentioned by her (i.e. the hospital system, the legal system, the justice system, the educational system) have been given short shrift.

Any attempts to correct POV issues regarding slavery and women's issues should not be misconstrued as a desire to slam the Catholic Church or a negative POV agenda against the Church. It's just that slavery and women's issues are complex topics and one cannot simply say "the Church fought to abolish slavery" without mentioning the fact that the Church accepted, condoned and even authorized the spread of slavery of non-Christians to Africa and the Americas.

The article IS too long AND the "Cultural impacts" section IS too short. One place to reduce the text is the overly detailed defense of Pius XII. (This is not to say that Pius XII shouldn't be defended just that the details needn't be presented in the article text. Some of the defense can be linked to and some can be placed in the note.)

--Richard (talk) 02:00, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Richard, I agree with your general reasoning about POV issues but I think my original point stands. The cultural influence of the Church already has its own page, the section here is an overview. It could be a bit longer but not much. I think we'd have to cut some of the detail in it now to fit in all the new stuff Nancy wants.Haldraper (talk) 07:53, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Sorry but I have to disagree with both Richard and Haldraper. We need a wider group of editors to consider these issues which will be brought up at peer review. (My volleyball season ends after next Saturday.) NancyHeise ^talk 02:36, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Volleyball and Wikipedia! Where do you find the time? :-)Haldraper (talk) 08:03, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Nancy, I'm so glad you are finding more information for this section! This is one of the issues I brought up in the very first FAC. The Catholic Church had a huge cultural impact (both positive and negative) on the western hemisphere, and this information (both positive and negative) is necessary to place the church in its proper historical context. Beyond the things that you mentioned, I would like to see more emphasis on how the church impacted European politics in the Middle Ages, as I think that is also not handled well in the article. Fleshing out these two topics will help the article seem more balanced. Karanacs (talk) 13:58, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Here's an example of the type of political information I mean -

Civilization of the Middle Ages by Norman Cantor p 74 "One of the most progressive factors in the Middle Ages was the continuing struggle between church and state. Both institutions were authoritarian, both wanted to control the people's mind...Later, rebellious men could play off pope against emperorer, church against state, and thus make room for intellectual freedom" p 209 of this book discusses the habit in feudal Europe of kings/dukes giving fiefs to bishops and abbots; this placed the bishops and abbots in an awkward position - bound by loyalty and their oath to the pope but also considered a vassal to a secular ruler. This then gave some of the secular rulers veto power over selection bishops, etc, because he owned the lands and wouldn't give them to men he didn't approve of. Karanacs (talk) 15:00, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Hi Karanacs, I agree that this could be improved upon. I have some research to do before I can legitimately take the article to the next FAC. I was hoping to get comments like this and source suggestions that would result in article improvement. Thank you for your suggestion. My understanding about the Church in the Middle Ages comes from Bokenkotter's analysis of a statement made by Francis Bacon who stated that even though the Church had corruption in its ranks, the end result was that the people still got exposed to the Gospel and that this ultimately influenced Western Civilization in a positive way. Diarmaid MacCulloch also notes that one of the results of the religious wars of the Reformation was the birth of religious tolerance, something unique to humankind that began in Western Civilization. NancyHeise ^talk 16:36, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

On another note, several sources discuss how there was a power vacuum in Europe after the barbarian invasions that was filled by the Church. The Church, throughout the Middle Ages and the present age, has filled many government roles such as providing education, hospitals, and many other social services that secular governments then took over. Yet the Church was essentially the model for these later governments to follow in caring for their people. The Napolean wars provided the final break for the Church in their slavery to old European monarchies, something that was bad for both Church and State. This is mentioned in the history section but could be moved to cultural influence section too. NancyHeise ^talk 16:41, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Eucharist

I have thought for a long time that the Eucharist section was over-complex and difficult to understand. Seeing the Justin Martyr quotation in the Christianity article, I thought that explained things a lot better and more simply! So I've included it here and slightly re-arranged the section to make it simpler. I also put some very specific and detailed stuff about Protestants receiving Catholic sacraments into a note. Xandar 09:35, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

The removal of the Justin Martyr quote does once again leave the section failing to explain what the eucharist actually is. We may all know that, but a lot of the readers won't. I'm a bit worried that the article is not explaining the basics in some respects. Xandar 22:31, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

I think the quote is unhelpful. I agree with Justin Martyr but I don't think his explanation is simple enough. There are so many modern catechetical sources we can use to say the same thing and get the point across in a more concise and simple manner. Can we explore some of these sources and just try to make the section simple and concise? Its like the priest with the long sermon and the one with the short sermon. The long one may be beautiful and eloquent but people ultimately remember the short one better : ) NancyHeise ^talk 16:46, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Cultural influence section concerns

It's been a while since I've read over the article, and since Nancy brought up the idea of expanding the cultural influence section I started there. The first two paragraphs strike me as quite POV and possibly inaccurate in how they discuss slavery and women.

Slavery

• Nothing in the note suggests that the church actually helped end slavery. It actually suggests the opposite; although the church may have officially stated that slavery was wrong, they were widely ignored. Is there evidence of how they actually helped to disband this practice?
• The sentence church campaigned against and helped end practices such as human sacrifice, slavery,[note 7] infanticide, and polygamy in evangelized cultures throughout the world, beginning with the Roman Empire. suggests that the church campaigned against slavery

beginning with the Roman Empire times, and I don't think that is accurate (the note contradicts this claim as it states that the church officially tolerated slavery after the Roman Empire ended). A reword of this sentence is probably in order so that it will be more clear

Karanacs (talk) 16:37, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Karanacs, I agree that the sentence needs rewording. Another editor has previously brought up this issue because the sentence also can be read to mean that human sacrifice and polygamy were practiced in the Roman Empire. Nancy has resisted reading the sentence this way but I agree that the sentence is awkward as written because it tries to say too much in a single sentence (one of Nancy's challenges as a writer is she tries to pack a lot into every sentence and sometimes packs too much in, resulting in these kinds of issues). I'm not convinced that the phrase "beginning with the Roman Empire" is critical to this sentence but Nancy seems attached to it.

It is probably more accurate to say that the Church initially accepted slavery as part of the social fabric of society during the Roman Empire and early antiquity, campaigning primarily for humane treatment of slaves but also admonishing slaves to behave appropriately towards their masters. During the early medieval period, this attitude changed to one which opposed enslavement of Christians but still tolerated enslavement of non-Christians. Monastic orders which were formed to free slaves were focused on the freeing of European Christians who had been enslaved by Muslims (an important distinction that is glossed over when the existence of these orders are mentioned by Catholic apologists).

The history of the Catholic Church and slavery is a bit more complex during the late medieval period and into the Renaissance and the Age of Discovery. Somewhere between 1400 and 1800, the Catholic Church starts to come down hard against slavery although Catholics in the U.S. still manage to interpret the 1839 papal encyclical (In Supremo Apostolatus) as condemning slave trade but not slavery itself. See the article on Catholic Church and slavery for more details. (NB: That article is still a work in progress but it makes an attempt to cover the entire history of the Catholic Church's attitude towards slavery over the last two millenia.)

--Richard (talk) 17:15, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

I really like your second paragraph above. With the addition of sourcing, I think it would be appropriate to put that almost verbatim into the article (leaving off the parenthetical reference, of course). A following sentence could mention that the Church has been influential in ending practices such as human sacrifice, infanticide, and polygamy in certain cultures. (these practices still exist in other cultures, so we can't see the church ended them completely). Karanacs (talk) 17:22, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Richard, I saw that you inserted that text into the note about slavery. That's a good start, but I think those particular facts might belong more in the article itself (not everyone reads notes, and the article text is misleading). The details should remain in the note. Karanacs (talk) 21:43, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Karanacs, I started to put the text into the article text but realized that doing so would require rewriting the entire paragraph. At that point, I figured I'd back off and see what other editors think (since Nancy has an itchy revert trigger finger and I didn't feel like putting a lot of work into something that was likely to get reverted anyway).

If you can suggest how the current paragraph can be reworked to provide a fuller description of the Church's record vis-a-vis slavery, we can all discuss whether or not to expand the text in that direction.

--Richard (talk) 01:46, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Excesses of the colonial era

• What type of "excesses of the colonial era" are meant? I have no idea what that sentence means. Karanacs (talk) 16:37, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

We're talking primarily about the ill-treatment of native Americans and Africans by the European colonists; in particular, slavery and the slave trade. --Richard (talk) 17:15, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

I think the statement needs to be made a bit more specific so that it will make more sense to readers. Karanacs (talk) 17:17, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Equality of the sexes

• I question the quoted "the critics of Christian tradition" in the sentence that Church teachings say female inferiority is divinely ordained. The idea that the Catholic Church views women as inferior is certainly not restricted to just critics of "Christian tradition", but applies to many critics of Catholic tradition (after all, many Protestant denominations, which are quite Christian, treat women very differently). Even if I give the benefit of the doubt that only those particular critics of Christianity talk about "female inferiority [being] divinely ordained", many, many modern critics believe that the church has subjugated women, and the sentence as written does not reflect that. I know this is briefly touched on in the section on ordination, but this needs to be mentioned here to provide a balanced viewpoint of the church's actual effect on women. Here are a few links (not suggesting these are the best sources, but they are examples that this opinion exists and is quite widespread)
  • from the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia (see pages 687/688 ->

[5]

• • "Declamation on the nobility and preeminence of the female sex" the introduction I cite

written by a scholar and pub. 1996 by University of Chicago Press; see pg xiii-xiv to begin with [http://books.google.com/books?id=mm4ZnRV0giUC&pg=PR10&dq=catholic+female+inferior&lr=#v=onepage&q=catholic%20female%20inferior&f=false "These passages from the New Testament became the arsenal employed by theologians of the early church to transmit negative attitudes toward women to medieval Christian culture"] (this is specifically discussing the Catholic church)

• • Shulamith Shahar, The Fourth Estate: a history of women in the Middle Ages" (pub by

University Press, Cambridge). p 23 "The concept of the equality of the sexes as regards salvation was never denied by the medieval Church, but yet it never advocated equality in the terrestrial Church"

• • Medieval women by Eileen Power and Michael Moissey Postan (esp the first chapter,

Medieval attitudes, pub by Cambridge University Press [6]

• • New Catholic women: a contemporary challenge to traditional religous authority by Mary Jo Weaver

"The texts, traditions, language, pastoral care, and structures of Catholicism all contain explicit, implicit, and structural devaluations of women" (p 54)

• • "Catholic hierarchy ...opposed woman suffrage"
  • The church and the second sex By Mary Daly - the book is about the church's historical

attitudes toward women that are decidely unequal; from page 83 "These text [from the Bible] have been used over the centuries as a guarantee of divine approval for the transformation of woman's subordinate status froma contingent fact into an immutable norm of the female condition. They have been cited to enhance the position of those who have tried to keep women from the right to education, to legal and economic equality, and to access to the professions."; note that Daly was a lecturer at Boston College when she wrote the book.

• • Why we're equal: introducing feminist theology By Val Webb
  • Good Catholic girls: how women are leading the fight to change the church by Angela Bonavoglia. "The Church sees natural law as applying to everyone, which is why the targets of its sexual repression are not just Catholic women but all women"

I don't think that the section needs a large amount of information added to it (that would be more appropriate in an article on the Catholic Church and women) but the current paragraphs need to be reworded. Karanacs (talk) 16:37, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

• I agree with Taam's concern (now archived), that the sentence on official Church teaching about women is misleading. Yes, the Church today (or at least since Vatican II) teaches that women areq equal, but that was not always the case (see sources provided above for other views). We need to make it very clear that today's interpretation is not necessarily that of yesteryear. Perhaps splitting the second half of the sentence into its own, like "Since Vatican II, official Church teaching considers...."

Karanacs (talk) 17:18, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

There has been very little of substance cited above to back up these sentiments. Most of the above are blind links gained by googling "Catholic women inferior". Those that do actually link to something readable, end up with a 16th century book actually concentrating on ancient Greece and Rome, and some vague anachronistic moans from a couple of modern feminists. There's nothing at all there identifying actual changes in womens real circumstances brought about by the church - which is what this section is discussing. Xandar 23:11, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

The problem is that the article is only talking about positive changes that the church made, and does not accurately discuss the opinions of those who think the church had a negative impact. This is not a fringe viewpoint, and needs to be addressed to make the article properly balanced. Karanacs (talk) 00:16, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

But nobody has so far shown any real, verifiable negative impact on women caused by Catholicism as opposed to what existed previously, or even as opposed to whatever contemporary ideology (say Islam or Hinduism), that might otherwise, in the absence of Catholicism, have dominated society. This section is about the actual influence of Catholicism on wider society, not the opinions of a few modern people annoyed because women can't be priests. Xandar 00:35, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Xandar, this is not an article about sociology and we need not prove that the Catholic Church has had a "real, verifiable negative impact on women as opposed to what existed previously". Negative perceptions and opinions are real and can be documented. If you want to counterbalance the presentation of those negative perceptions with a reliable source that says they are biased and have no factual basis, then go ahead. However, NPOV requires that we mention the difference of opinion. --Richard (talk) 01:42, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

No. This section is about the cultural influence of the Church upon society. Therefore any information placed in the section needs to refer to concrete incidences of the Church's influence on society in this respect. It isn't a platform for people to make non-specific moans that they don't like the Catholic Church, or repeat that they have "perceptions" that the Catholic Church is in some way "anti women". If you have verifiable and significant specifics of some important way in which the Catholic Church worsened women's position in society, then that might be a candidate for inclusion in the section. But just quoting individuals who don't like the Church's position on this (or other) issues is not relevant here. The only way I copuld see "perceptions" having a place would be in a sentence like: "Although there have been negative perceptions about the Church's influence on women's place in society, the facts show..."Xandar 15:18, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

<outdent>three points:

• a) Wikipedia articles are not supposed to determine the "facts" of any matter. Instead, we are supposed to represent all significant viewpoints without making a value judgement. It is a "perception" held by some scholars that the church helped women; other scholars perceive differently. It is not up to us to determine which of these viewpoints is "true"
• b) The sentence as written currently makes it sound like only "critics of Christian tradition" are unahppy with the church's stance on women. As noted above, this is not true. Some of the examples I cited are feminist tracts and others are written by historians
• c) Several of these sources specifically discuss that the Church's attitude towards women significantly contributed to the negative way women were viewed and treated in the Middle Ages (and beyond).

This is a significant viewpoint, and thus must be represented in some way. WP does not require "proof" that the church harmed women in some specific ways, just that scholars believe that the church did not only affect women in positive ways. Karanacs (talk) 15:48, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Well so far I've seen nothing solid at all. The negative sentence in the paragraph already seems more than enough to cover what has been brought forward.

• • a) Just because some scholars claim to have a "perception" of X, doesn't make that perception notable or relevant. The information supporting the perception that the Church helped women is backed up by solid points and incidences - and there are quite a few more that could have been added. For material to be added the other way, we would need to have something of substance. Some people may believe that President Obama hates white Americans, but unless something substantial and factual is brought forward to back it up, such opinions deserve little space.
  • b) Both feminists and historians have been critics of the Christian tradition. I presume the current wording is used because it reflects that in the sources. What wording would you prefer?
  • c) Here again we have vagueness. In what negative way were women viewed and treated in the Middle Ages that was due to the Catholic Church? I think most serious sources would indicate otherwise - especially in comparison with the previous Greco-Roman culture. But again the nub is that if there isn't firm information on these points then those criticisms are most probably not notable enough for inclusion except on the basis of being unsubstantiated claims at variance with the majority of learned research. There are a lot of "urban legends" about the Church, some of which get repeated as asides in books. That's why we need to consider only solidly evidenced academic research. Xandar 23:53, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Xandar, I recommend that you actually read some of the sources presented above, especially the ones dealing specifically with the Middle Ages. Again, this is not a fringe viewpoint. Karanacs (talk) 20:04, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

If you have solid information on this, the onus is on you to present it. The links you posted that could be read, seem to contain no more than vague POV opinionising. The bigger the claim, the better the evidence required to support it. Xandar 00:18, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

I have attempted a more NPOV treatment of this topic in the article text. While I wouldn't agree 100% with this article, I think it raises some useful points:

1. The message of the Christian gospel calls for women to be treated with "openness, respect, acceptance, and tenderness"
2. "Not just a few" members of the Catholic Church have committed wrongs
3. Some doctors of the Church (e.g. Aquinas) have failed "to live up to their calling in their treatment of women"

My proposed text makes an effort to incorporate some of these points. The details of this discussion belong elsewhere (perhaps in an article titled Catholic Church and women). However, this article should acknowledge that there is a difference of opinion about the Catholic Church's influence on women's rights without taking a position as to which side is right.

--Richard (talk) 14:47, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

That is definitely better, but I question whether the article should say that it is only feminists who disagree. Is that supported? Karanacs (talk) 17:56, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

I have reverted some of the misleading and unbalanced material added to the section by Richard. In effect the sentences: "Despite this history, there is a perception that Christianity in general and the Catholic Church in particular, have supported the oppression of women over the course of history. While acknowledging and apologizing for the wrongs committed by members of the Church, Pope John Paul II reiterated that the teaching of the Christian gospel " goes back to the attitude of Jesus Christ himself [who] treated women with openness, respect, acceptance, and tenderness"." These contain precisely the sort of vague, misleading and unreferenced innuendo I was pointing out above. There is no evidence whatsoever as to what "oppression" the Catholic Church is supposed to have placed on women "over the course of history". And I note that no one seems to have been able to produce specifics of this alleged oppression. In addition the quotation from Pope John Paul is misleading and misrepresented, by no means covering the content or intent of his letter. I've left in the bit about feminists opposing the Churchs stance on abortion, divorce etc. since that is at least factual. Xandar 00:01, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Xandar, I was using this article Does the Catholic Church Hate Women? as a source for what I was writing. The quote was lifted directly from that article. Do you disagree with what Christopher Kaczor wrote? --Richard (talk) 05:44, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Richard, you seem to have taken mostly negative material from the article (an essay again written in response to vague unsubstantiated claims), and then presented it inappropriately. "There is a perception"? Who has this perception, and with what do they back it up? "Catholic Church in particular".. Who says this, and on what basis has the Catholic Church been more "oppressive" than say, Protestant, Orthodox, Syriac or Coptic churches? "..supported the oppression of women over the course of history" - a very big claim which needs a LOT of back-up. If I claimed that white settlers in the US had oppressed Native Americans over the course of history, I could back it up with detail of masssacres, dispossessions, the Trail of Tears, broken treaties, splitting of reservations, policies of replacement, population collapse, etc. etc. I would probably still get arguments. The statements above aren't actually in the article at all but seem to be a spin or interpretation of selected passages.

Similarly the misapplication of Pope John Paul IIs many "apologies" to all sorts of people is a standard tactic of anti-catholics. Not that I'm accusing you of being anti-Catholic. It is just a tactic that such people often use, misunderstanding the purpose and careful wording of these statements. The "apologies" were and are intended as exercises in Christian love, meant to say basically, "If you believe we or any of our members have harmed or offended you in any way, we apologise. Let us start anew." However many people have instead taken them as forced confessions of guilt - and as such, that all their "charges" against the Church are "proven" without the need for further evidence. The wording the Pope used was "..if objective blame [for offenses against the dignity of women], especially in particular historical contexts, has belonged to not just a few members of the Church, for this I am truly sorry." First word is "IF", second, this is not about "oppression" but "offences against dignity", third, he speeks of "not a few," members of the Church, a phrase chosen not to minimise nay-sayers on women in history, but not to state they were the dominating voices, or a majority either. Also the quotation used does not accurately summarise the views of Pope John Paul on this topic as presented in his letter.

Such as is gleaned from Christopher Kaczor's article tends to be one-sided. Other quotes in the article include

These statements of the equality of man and women—not the statement of male superiority—were new and radical. The specifically Christian attitude toward women—not the pre-existing pagan attitude—was new and radical.

and

The myth of Catholic misogyny is well addressed in terms of the practical care the Church offers to women (and men) throughout the world. Has any institution educated more women? Fed more women? Clothed more women? Rescued more female infants from death? Offered more assistance or medical care to mothers and their born and unborn children?

and this from Chadwick:

Christianity seems to have been especially successful among women. It was often through the wives that it penetrated the upper classes of society in the first instance. Christians believed in the equality of men and women before God and found in the New Testament commands that husbands should treat their wives with such consideration and love as Christ manifested for his Church. Christian teaching about the sanctity of marriage offered a powerful safeguard to married women (Henry Chadwick, The Early Church, Penguin, 58–59).

Xandar 10:35, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Xandar, I agree with you that "there is a perception..." may suggest too much truth to the perception. I was trying to say "Some people believe..." without stating whether or not the perception was true. Perhaps different wording would help. After all, you accepted the statement about feminists (while Karanacs feels that the assertion is not limited to just "feminists"). I don't buy the "critics of the Christian tradition" bit. That suggests the wrong thing; as if only anti-Christians have this position. Let's work on getting this bit right.

I'm fine with capturing more of what Kaczor and Chadwick wrote in the quotes you presented. I think the problem is that the section has been too short. If we devote a paragraph to the discussion of women, we are more likely to get across the idea accurately.

--Richard (talk) 14:01, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

I'll work on a proposal and post it today or tomorrow. Karanacs (talk) 18:59, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Universities/research

• The third paragraph of the cultural influences section mentions "Catholic universities". Perhaps the information from the history section about catholic schools being the precursor to modern universities could be moved here. That would be a great introduction to the information presented in the rest of the paragraph.
• I would reword the first sentence of the third paragraph to something like "Many important scientific advancements have resulted from research undertaken by Catholic priests or at Catholic universities". I don't think that you need the long list of priest-scientists; this is especially distracting at the beginning of a sentence because the reader gets distracted and doesn't know where you are going with that.
• The sentence beginning "most research took place"...is vague. Is this Jesuit research? Is this research at Catholic universities (in which care this is redundant)? It is research by Catholic priests (again, redundant). Does this mean modern (last 50 yearS) research or medieval research or something else? I would either remove this sentence or reword it to make it clearer and move it towards the beginning of the paragraph.
• How could the Pontifical Acadamy of SCiences have been created "in part because of the lessons learned from the Galilei affair" if it was founded 30 years before Galileo was arrested?
• Do we need to know here that the Pontifical Academy of Sciences "developed over time" (most organizations do) and "reach[ed] its present form by 1936"...when we don't know what the present form is? I'd just remove this half of the sentence; it should be covered in the article on the Academy.

Karanacs (talk) 17:18, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

I think these are very good suggestions. I want to copy these to peer review. I am finishing my volleyball season this week so I will probably open the peer review next week. NancyHeise ^talk 16:25, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Art

• Why is the opposition to Byzantine iconoclasm an important contribution? We probably need more information here (but just a little bit more).
• The sentence "Important contributions include..development of the Romanesque, Gothic, and Renassiance styles of art and architecture." Did the church actually develop these styles or did the artists who were paid by the church develop the styles? This is a very key difference. Either way, the church played a major role, but we need to not misrepresent what the role was.
• The two clauses of the sentence on music do not agree. "Catholic monks developed the first forms of modern Western musical notation"... and "an enormous body of religious music has been composed for it". In this usage, "it" should be musical notation, and I think that is not what is meant. These should be two sentences, and the "it" reworded.

Karanacs (talk) 16:57, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Byzantine iconoclasm - if successful, could have killed Western Art at birth, as well as destroying much of what has survived of pre 8th Century Christian art.

Romanesque, Gothic and Baroque are the three forms of architecture and art into which the Church had most direct input. The significant forms were laid down and dictated by Catholic doctrine and practice. Baroque was specifically devised to directly and emotionally express and pass on Catholic teaching in the most effective way. Xandar 23:21, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

I think the information about why the church's opposition to iconoclasm is considered a good thing for art should be briefly included. Many of our readers won't know those facts. Karanacs (talk) 17:54, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Fair enough. The iconoclast movement led many artists from the Byzantine empire to move west to Charlemagne's empire, producing what we call Carolingian art. Gimmetrow 19:34, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Persecution of Catholics in the Soviet Union

The article text reads "In the Soviet Union an even more severe persecution occurred."

There are many problems here. The first is one of balance. If "an even more severe persecution occurred", then why is only one short sentence with no numbers or other details devoted to this, one slightly longer sentence devoted to the persecution of Catholics in Poland and two long paragraphs devoted to persecution of Catholics in Germany and defense of Pius XII with respect to the Holocaust? This suggests an editorial agenda of defending Pius XII (not that I feel he should be condemned) over presenting a "History of the Catholic Church".

Once again, I believe the defense of Pius XII belongs in other articles and not here. The text defending him could be much reduced or at least relegated to a Note.

That said, another issue is one of chronology. The sentence is written almost as an aside... "Oh, by the way, an even more severe persecution occurred in the Soviet Union, but I won't tell you anymore about it because it's not that important. And neither really is the persecution of Polish Catholics. Certainly not compared to refuting the allegations against Pius XII."

Because of the positioning and the brevity, it's hard to tell what is being discussed here. The impression I got was one of persecution of Catholics inside the Soviet Union contemporaneous with the Nazi era. In fact, per our articles on Holy See – Soviet Union relations and the Terrible Triangle, the persecution started in the early years of the Soviet era under Pope Benedict XV and continuing on under Pope Pius XI. The Soviets targeted "not only the Catholic Church but religion as a whole". In particular, the Orthodox Church was a primary target and suffered much more than the Catholic Church if only because it was so much larger.

Thus, our single lonely sentence omits mention of the larger background of Soviet oppression of Christians in general and gives the wrong impression as to when the persecution occurred (starting from the Bolshevik revolution and continuing beyond the end of WWII). I'm not saying that there was no oppression of Catholics contemporaneous with the Nazi regime; I'm just saying that the period of oppression was much longer and thus the positioning of the sentence and its brevity gives the wrong impression.

I am moving this sentence to be part of a general discussion of the Terrible Triangle. At the same time, I am moving the text discussing the anticlericalism of Peron and Castro to be discussed after the end of World War II rather than before.

--Richard (talk) 15:46, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

In responding to my comment above, Xandar and NancyHeise have focused on my changes (subsequently reverted by Xandar) regarding Pius XII and the Holocaust. (see discussion in section below) That is a separate discussion. The problem that I am raising is one of balance, confused chronological time spans and general choppiness of prose.

Here's how the current article reads:

Pius XI later warned that antisemitism is incompatible with Christianity. When Dutch bishops protested against the wartime deportation of Jews, the Nazis responded by increasing deportations[383] rounding up 92 converts including Edith Stein who were then deported and murdered.[391] "The brutality of the retaliation made an enormous impression on Pius XII."[391][392] In Poland, the Nazis murdered over 2,500 monks and priests and even more were imprisoned.[393] In the Soviet Union an even more severe persecution occurred

Now, please re-read my comment at the beginning of this section. Somewhere along the line, the sentence "Pius XI later warned that antisemitism is incompatible with Christianity" got reduced to meaninglessness. The point we are making is that Pius XI was not antisemitic and neither was the Church... so say that. If you want to reference the speech to 250,000 pilgrims at Lourdes in a footnote, then do that but you got to tell the reader what you want him to know.

Same problem with the Dutch bishops... the point here is that the "enormous impression" made on Pius XII is that denunciation can result in retaliation making the denunciation counter-productive. We need to say that. Don't make the reader connect the dots. Just because we know what we mean by this doesn't mean that the reader knows what we mean.

"In Poland, the Nazis murdered over 2,500 monks and priests and even more were imprisoned."

This sentence drops out of the clear, blue sky and gives the reader no idea of why it is being mentioned. It is almost "apropos of nothing". It is not related to the sentence before or even to the overall paragraph which seems to be about Reichskonkordat and Mit brennender Sorge. Why are we even mentioning the persecution of Polish Catholics now? (I know why we're mentioning it but the reader is likely to be lost if you don't hold his hand a little.)

Same problem with the persecution in the Soviet Union. Why are we mentioning this? These two sentences might constitute the beginning of a separate paragraph but right now they are just random "facts" without any explanation why this is relevant. What's the point we are trying to get across here?

Also, review what I said at the beginning of this section about the timespan of persecution in the Soviet Union. The juxtaposition of the two sentences (one on persecution in Poland and the other on persecution in the Soviet Union) would lead the average reader to conclude that the persecution in the Soviet Union was contemporaneous with the persecution in Poland and that leads to a mistaken impression. The persecution in the Soviet Union started much earlier, lasted much longer, was focused on a minority rather than a majority and was part of a general attack on Christianity rather than focusing on Catholics.

Please... this paragraph is very badly written and needs attention. If you won't let me fix it, won't you please consider these issues and address them?

--Richard (talk) 21:04, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Criticism of Pius XII

Xandar is responding my comment above about the changes that I made (and he reverted) to the "Industrial age" section, specifically the text discussing Pius XII and the Holocaust. --Richard (talk) 20:49, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

While I agree that this section will need shortening, you actually lengthened it with an additional section stressing criticisms of Pope Pius. The new material made certain presumptions about the circumstances, and Papal actions that are by no means agreed, and tended to present criticism as if it was made at the time, and as if the Pope was the odd one out in his response to what was occurring. I have therefore restored the previous wording. Xandar 00:10, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Xandar, I think what I wrote was an improvement on what existed before and what you reverted to. However, if you think it was "misleading", I would hope that we can fix those issues in what I wrote and move forward from there.

Let's examine the "presumptions about the circumstances and Papal actions" that you consider to be in dispute and see if we can reach a mutual understanding about them. (I think the problem may be either with my specific wording or your understanding of what I was trying to say. I was actually trying to defend Pius in what I wrote.)

My edit attempted to make more explicit the arguments that the previous text only hinted at. It provided "facts" without connecting the dots for the reader.

Let me lay out what I have learned and then let's discuss how to summarize this for this article.

The British government and the Polish government-in-exile were asking Pius XII to denounce the Nazis. He declined to do so and explained why privately but not publicly. Pius was the odd one out but, as he explained it, he was concerned that denunciations and excommunications would only make things worth worse for Catholics living in territories under Nazi and Fascist control. The whole point about the Dutch bishops and Edith Stein is that the Archbishop of Utrecht had been warned by the Germans not to oppose the deportation of Jews and, when he did, the Gestapo expanded the order to include converted Jews such as Edith Stein. This incident "made an immense impression" on Pius. He started to see denunciations as "empty words" which had real, terrible consequences on the lives of real people. This next point is my personal speculation but I think we have to consider that the British government and the Polish government-in-exile had every incentive to denounce the Nazis for propaganda reasons but Pius XII had pastoral concerns. It was his sheep that were being slaughtered and he had little to gain by making the denunciations (as much as he wanted to) and much for his flock to lose.

NB: We may need to modify what I wrote somewhat because there are two primary lines of defense against the criticisms of silence: (1) Pius XII was not as silent as some charge (2) to the extent that he was "silent", this was more out of concern for the retribution that denunciations would bring than due to any sympathies for the Nazis or the Fascists.

What I wrote focuses on point (2) and does not make the case for point (1). I was trying not to make the text longer than it needed to be but perhaps I was wrong not to mention point (1).

In A Righteous Gentile: Pope Pius XII and the Jews, David Dalin writes:

Pius XII publicly and privately warned of the dangers of Nazism. Throughout World War II, he spoke out on behalf of Europe's Jews. When Pius learned of the Nazi atrocities in Poland, he urged the bishops of Europe to do all they could to save the Jews and other victims of Nazi persecution. On January 19, 1940, at the Pope's instruction, Vatican radio and L'Osservatore Romano revealed to the world "the dreadful cruelties of uncivilized tyranny" that the Nazis were inflicting on Jewish and Catholic Poles. The following week, the Jewish Advocate of Boston reported the Vatican radio broadcast, praising its "outspoken denunciation of German atrocities in Nazi [occupied] Poland, declaring they affronted the moral conscience of mankind."

In his 1940 Easter homily, Pius XII condemned the Nazi bombardment of defenseless citizens, aged and sick people, and innocent children. On May 11, 1940, he publicly condemned the Nazi invasions of Belgium, Holland, and Luxemburg and lamented "a world poisoned by lies and disloyalty and wounded by excesses of violence." In June 1942, Pius spoke out against the mass deportation of Jews from Nazi-occupied France, further instructing his Papal Nuncio in Paris to protest to Marshal Henri Petain, Vichy France's Chief of State, against "the inhuman arrests and deportations of Jews from the French occupied zone to Silesia and parts of Russia."

The London Times of October 1, 1942, explicitly praises him for his condemnation of Nazism and his public support for the Jewish victims of Nazi terror. "A study of the words which Pope Pius XII has addressed since his accession," noted the Times, "leaves no room for doubt. He condemns the worship of force and its concrete manifestations in the suppression of national liberties and in the persecution of the Jewish race."

Pius XII's Christmas addresses of 1941 and 1942, broadcast over Vatican radio to millions throughout the world, also help to refute the fallacious claim that Pope Pius was "silent." Indeed, as The New York Times described Pius' 1941 Christmas address in its editorial the following day, it specifically applauded the Pope, as a "lonely" voice of public protest against Hitler: "The voice of Pius XII is a lonely voice in the silence and darkness enveloping Europe this Christmas…In calling for a 'real new order' based on 'liberty, justice, and love'…the Pope put himself squarely against Hitlerism. Recognizing that there is no road open to agreement between belligerents 'whose reciprocal war aims and programs seem to be irreconcilable,' Pius XII left no doubt that the Nazi aims are also irreconcilable with his own conception of a Christian peace." The Pope's Christmas message of 1941, as reported by The New York Times and other newspapers, was understood at the time to be a clear condemnation of Nazi attacks on Europe's Jews.

So, too, was the Pope's Christmas message of the following year. Pope Pius XII's widely-discussed Christmas message of December 24, 1942, in which he expressed his passionate concern "for those hundreds of thousands who, without any fault of their own, sometimes only by reason of their nationality or race, are marked down for death or progressive extinction," was widely understood to be a very public denunciation of the Nazi extermination of the Jews. Indeed, the Nazis themselves interpreted the Pope's famous speech of Christmas 1942 as a clear condemnation of Nazism, and as a plea on behalf of Europe's Jews: "His [the Pope's] speech is one long attack on everything we stand for…he is clearly speaking on behalf of the Jews…he is virtually accusing the German people of injustice toward the Jews, and makes himself the mouthpiece of the Jewish war criminals."

In his recent history of the modern papacy, Professor Eamon Duffy of Magdalen College, Oxford University, substantiates the fact, ignored by Pius' critics, that the Nazi leadership viewed the Pope's 1942 Christmas message as an attack on Nazi Germany and as a defense of the Jews. "Both Mussolini and Ambassador Ribbentrop were angered by this [the Pope's December 24, 1942] speech," notes Duffy, "and Germany considered that the Pope had abandoned any pretence of neutrality. They felt that Pius had unequivocally condemned Nazi action against the Jews."

In Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust, Wikipedia writes:

President Franklin D. Roosevelt sent Myron C. Taylor as his special representative to the Vatican in September 1941. His assistant, Harold Tittman, repeatedly pointed out to Pius the dangers to his moral leadership by his failure to speak out against the violations of the natural law carried out by the Nazis. Pius XII responded that he could not name the Nazis without at the same time mentioning the Bolsheviks.

After reviewing documents that had been in the control of the Secret Services and of Hitler's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Robert Kempner determined that Pius XII and the Catholic Church had, in fact, sent a great number of protests, both direct and indirect, diplomatic and public, secret and explicit, to which the Nazis never responded. Kempner publicly defended the role and charity endeavors of Pius XII.

From Pope Pius XII Vicar of Christ Servant of God

Did Pope Pius XII help the Jews? Indeed he did. Nor can one claim he was "silent." Rather one must speak of his "prudence." In his Christmas radio messages of '41, '42, and '43 following this audience, Pope Pius XII denounced theories that attribute rights to "a particular race." He revealed that "hundreds of thousands of people, through no fault of theirs, sometimes only because of nationality or race, were destined to die."

Here's the rub, Pius XII made oblique references to the Nazis and the Jews. His defenders point to these radio messages and argue that it's clear who he was referring to. The Nazis clearly knew who he was talking about. The Americans, British and Polish government-in-exile all wanted him to come out and explicitly name the Nazis. Pius refused to for reasons stated above. After the war, people criticized Pius for his "silence".

Read Dalin's discussion of the question of using excommunication (on p. 78 of The Myth of Hitler's Pope)

In [7], David Dalin writes:

Late in 1942, Archbishop Sapieha of Cracow and two other Polish bishops, having experienced the Nazis' savage reprisals, begged Pius not to publish his letters about conditions in Poland. Even Susan Zuccotti admits that in the case of the Roman Jews the pope "might well have been influenced by a concern for Jews in hiding and for their Catholic protectors."

In Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust, Wikipedia writes:

On April 30, 1943, Pius wrote to Bishop Von Preysing of Berlin to say: "We give to the pastors who are working on the local level the duty of determining if and to what degree the danger of reprisals and of various forms of oppression occasioned by episcopal declarations... ad maiora mala vitanda (to avoid worse)... seem to advise caution. Here lies one of the reasons, why We impose self-restraint on Ourselves in our speeches; the experience, that we made in 1942 with papal addresses, which We authorized to be forwarded to the Believers, justifies our opinion, as far as We see.... The Holy See has done whatever was in its power, with charitable, financial and moral assistance. To say nothing of the substantial sums which we spent in American money for the fares of immigrants."

In the spring of 1943 Pirro Scavizzi, an Italian priest, told Pius that the murder of the Jews was "now total", even the elderly and infants were being destroyed "without mercy". Pius is reported to have broken down and wept uncontrollably.

Pius said to Father Scavizzi “I have often considered excommunication, to castigate in the eyes of the entire world the fearful crime of genocide. But after much praying and many tears, I realize that my condemnation would not only fail to help the Jews, it might even worsen their situation… No doubt a protest would gain me the praise and respect of the civilized world, but it would have submitted the poor Jews to an even worse persecution.”

OK... that's what I was trying to distill down into a couple of sentences. Perhaps it was, as you claim, "misleading". Tell me how to get this across in just a few sentences.

--Richard (talk) 05:29, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

I'll have a go - only not right now, since I have to go out. One of my main objections to your text was that it carried the presumptions a)That the Pope knew exactly what was happening, when in fact even Allied troops were shocked by what they found in 1945. b) That he didn't protest (covered above), and c) That the allies and everyone else were loudly denouncing Hitler for his treatment of Jews and that only the Pope was "silent". (and that is leaving aside the fact that it is much easier to denounce the Axis from London than from the centre of a major Axis capital. ) Xandar 10:54, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Re your points

(a) Disagree. The Pope knew more than most what was going on and was actively working to help the Jews.

(b) We agree. He did protest but did not protest according to the formulas that the British, Americans and Polish-in-exile wanted him to. Nazis were angered by his pronouncements anyway.

(c) We agree. There wasn't a lot of public denunciation on the part of others. Some of this was ignorance; part of the ignorance may have been somewhat willful and convenient due to "other priorities" or even, as some charge, latent anti-semitism. And, yeh, Hitler or Mussolini could have marched into the Vatican and taken Pius XII prisoner at any time. However, Pius said he was not so much afraid for himself as for the impact on his flock. Also, with 50,000 Jews hidden in Vatican City, he would have been putting them at risk as well. Rome saved a higher percentage of its Jews than any other major city in Europe.

--Richard (talk) 13:52, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

My suggestion in this section is to try to identify the main issues addressing the Church during World War II. Remember that the Pius controversy is notable and to mention both sides of the controversy and remember that the article is about the Church, not Pius. Therefore, our wording stresses what happened to the Church during the war and what the Church did during the war. If I were to add something to that section it would be to mention that the Church does not posess and army and that Pius XI and Cardinal Pacelli's actions trying to work against Hitler and Mussolini are well established facts among scholars that are not in dispute. The only dispute is that people have suggested that Pius XII could have done more in their opinion. We have mentioned this and provided the other side to the dispute per WP:NPOV. Some editors arguing over this section seem to want an overview of Pius XII when such an overview really belongs on the article about Piux XII - we just provide note of the dispute and a wikilink in keeping with WP:summary style. NancyHeise ^talk 16:53, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

All right. I've accepted Richard's challenge and attempted a rewording, and slight reduction, of the wartime section of the article:

Atrocities committed against Catholics and Jews following the German invasion of Poland in 1939 led to the first of numerous protests and denunciations of Nazi actions ordered by Pope Pius XII. When Dutch bishops protested against the wartime deportation of Jews, the Nazis responded by increasing deportations[384] and rounding up 92 Catholic converts including Edith Stein, who were then deported and murdered.[393] According to Vidmar, "the brutality of the retaliation made an enormous impression on Pius XII."[393][394] When allied governments pressed the Pope to strengthen his condemnations, he feared that such action would be counterproductive and only provoke further persecutions. In Poland alone the Nazis murdered over 2,500 monks and priests, imprisoning a far greater number.[393]

After the war, Pius XII's efforts to hide and shelter Jewish people threatened with deportation to the camps were recognised by prominent Jews including Albert Einstein and Rabbi Isaac Herzog.[394] However, the Church has also been accused by some of encouraging centuries of antisemitism and Pius himself of not doing enough to stop Nazi atrocities.[395][396] Prominent members of the Jewish community have contradicted these criticisms.[397] The Israeli historian Pinchas Lapide interviewed war survivors and concluded that Pius XII "was instrumental in saving at least 700,000, but probably as many as 860,000 Jews from certain death at Nazi hands". Some historians dispute this estimate[398] while others consider Pinchas Lapide's work to be "the definitive work by a Jewish scholar" on the holocaust.[399] Even so, in 2000 Pope John Paul II on behalf of all people, apologized to Jews by inserting a prayer at the Western Wall.[400] This papal apology was especially significant because John Paul II emphasized Church guilt of, and the Second Vatican Council's condemnation of, anti-Semitism.[401] His papal letter We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah, urged Catholics to "renew the awareness of the Hebrew roots of their faith."[401][402]

Comments? Xandar 18:21, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

This is better than the previous text. I still think there is too much discussion of Pinchas Lapide; the fact that some dispute his estimate and others consider it the "definitive work..." should be in a Note not in the main text. Similarly, there is too much detail about JPII's apology; that detail should also be in a Note. However, we can deal with those issues later.

In the portion that you changed, my primary comment would be to suggest that we mention that bishops in Germany and Poland were urging Pius XII not to openly denounce the Nazis. I'll dig up some citations to support that assertion in a little while.

--Richard (talk) 19:50, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Oh, one more point, Xandar's text is a little misleading because the reader could conclude that the Catholic Church did not begin to condemn Nazi persecution of the Jews until after the September 1939 invasion of Poland. Pius XII's denunciations did not begin until that point because he had only become Pope in March of 1939. Clearly, Pius XI had been lodging protests through Pacelli from shortly after the signing of the Reichskonkordat up until shortly before his death. Perhaps it would be better to say something like Pius XII continued to lodge protests although as war broke out, he decided that a certain amount of circumspection was advisable given the precariousness of the Vatican's situation and the negative consequences of Nazi retaliation on both Catholics and Jews living under the Nazi regime. According to Peter Kent, Pius XI was more inclined to open confrontation whereas Pacelli was a career diplomat who preferred negotiation and diplomacy. (See NancyHeise's summary of Kent' thesis here)

--Richard (talk) 20:09, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

I think the John Paul II personal opinion piece (or those of the liberals who manipulated him) should be removed entirely from that section. Since it seems to be cherry picked and he was not the contemporary Pope of that era (it is not cronological). There are four Popes between Saint Pius XII and John Paul II, why is the most ultra-ecumenical (somebody who was manipulated to act more as a "showman" than a usual Pope) the only opinion used? He wasn't there at the time and was very irregular in terms of orthodoxy. The only Pope who should be quoted there is Saint Pius XII. - Yorkshirian (talk) 03:32, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

What happened is what happened. We can't choose to ignore what happened because we don't agree with it. JPII said what he said and it is relevant. Does it deserve as much space as we currently devote to it? I don't think so but not for the same reasons as Yorkshirian presents. My concern is more that it is unnecessary detail as is the bit about Pinchas Lapide. --Richard (talk) 16:17, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

I think we need to keep the text and I do not think it is too much - especially since Readers have been so concerned about this aspect of Church history. I find that in areas of greater Reader interest, it is important to have the best sources and use quotes as well as cover the most controversial aspects in a way that does not slight those controversies. If these are covered in more detail than you would like Richard, please consider that it is done with respect to Reader comments in this section. Our Jewish editors like Taam, wanted more on JPII's apology and I provided that. It was a very notable event in Church history that deserves mention. It also helps satisfy the NPOV requirement regarding the scholarly dispute (also mentioned in the text) about what the Church did or did not do in history regarding the woes suffered by Jews in Europe. NancyHeise ^talk 04:24, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm fine with the detail being in a Note. I just don't think it belongs in the main article text. However, since this is an issue of style rather than substance, I'm willing to defer the discussion for now as there are more substantive issues to resolve. --Richard (talk) 05:43, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

The problem is though, its not cronological and so it fails the general WP:MOS on history sections. For instance, say we were writing about the Islamic conquests of Syria in the 7th century, it would be completely out of line to write "PS - John Paul II later kissed the Koran". Or for instance if we're writing about the Jesuit Reductions in age of Discovery section, "PS - left-wing academia has not quite decided whether this was politically correct or not, but John Paul II probaly apologised anyway". I just don't see why we should use JPII in that section at all, IMO this sort of stuff belongs only on his own article—we must keep that section contemporary to its period, ie - only quote contemporary clergy and Saint Pius XII himself. That is the only way a fairly balanced presentation can be achieved. - Yorkshirian (talk) 06:11, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

I have to agree that the section has been slightly too long and at risk of being Undue Weight, and needed some condensing in a manner that keeps the principal elements intact. If people are that interested in additional detail and lengthy personal quotes, they can be directed to the other articles on this topic. We are never going to satisfy everyone. The danger with adding something to satisfy X, is that we then have to add Y to balance it or set it in context, and the section gets too long. I can see a point in a brief JPII quote, but not at the length it was prior to my edit. I think a lot of the quotes in the notes are unnecessarily long as well, and this is making the text all show red when it is edited, since the software can't handle the paragraph length. Xandar 22:39, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Liberation theology

I've made some relatively minor edits to the paragraph that discusses liberation theology in the "Second Vatican Council and beyond" section. The primary change I made was to clarify the phrase "the bishops' conference"; I felt it needed to be clarified that this was the 1979 Latin American Bishops Conference. Without that clarification, it could have been understood to be a conference of Mexican bishops or even a conference of all Catholic bishops (yeah, I know that would be a council but the average reader wouldn't know that).

However, in reading that section, I feel that more work is needed here as the text doesn't quite present what happened accurately.

I think we should consider incorporating some of the ideas from this article from St. John's University School of Law in the text.

Here are what I see as some key points that need to be made:

• The concept of “the preferential option for the poor” has deep biblical, patristic and papal magisterial roots, but was refined through a new theological methodology developed in Belgium in the 1930s and refined in Latin America in the 1960s and 1970’s. The process was reinterpreted by Gustavo Gutierréz in a series of articles and lectures leading up to the second meeting of the Latin American Bishops’ Conference at Medellín, Colombia in 1968.
  • The point being that liberation theology didn't spring up in 1979 but much earlier. Nor is it a phenomenon that developed solely in Latin America
• The rise of the “base communities” in Brazil and throughout Latin America in the post-Vatican II era, combined with the vision of Pope John XXIII that the Church should be a “Church of the poor,” gave impetus to this movement, along with progressive directions assumed by the Church under the advisement of papal advisors Msgr. Pietro Pavan and Father Louis Lebret, who served as staff to Pope Paul VI for his 1967 encyclical, Populorum Progressio. At this point, the papal preference for a theology of “development” began to shift towards a theology of “liberation.” This thrust gained impetus through the 1971 synodal document, “Justice in the World,” along with Paul VI’s 1971 encyclical, Octagesima Adveniens.
  • Obviously this needs to be cut back but the point is that liberation theology had some support from earlier Popes.
• With the election of Pope John Paul II in 1978, a crackdown occurred on liberation theology, orchestrated by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. John Paul II objected to the methodological pointers borrowed from Marxism and employed by liberation theologians, and felt that the term “preferential option for the poor” was divisive and wont to promote class conflict. Individual liberation theologians such as Gustavo Gutierréz and Leonardo Boff were disciplined and admonitions were issued on their work by the C.D.F.
  • Make it clear that there is a shift in the Vatican's stance towards liberation theology.
• At the third conference of the Latin American Bishops (C.E.L.A.M.) held at Puebla, Mexico, in 1979, John Paul II adopted certain language of liberation theology, but modified the concept of the “preferential option for the poor,” to include a qualifier that it not be seen as exclusive. He preferred to use such terminology as “love of preference for the poor,” as seen in his 1987 social encyclical Solicitudo Rei Socialis.
  • The current text suggests that the 1979 C.E.L.A.M. conference was endorsing liberation theology. According to the St. John's University article, the conference didn't adopt “preferential option for the poor” as an endorsement of liberation theology but actually as a co-opting of the phrase by John Paul II to redirect the good aspects of the movement while distancing the Church from the class conflict aspects.

I don't have time to do all this right now but I wanted to share these thoughts with the other editors of this article to get their feedback and enlist their assistance.

--Richard (talk) 16:13, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

I think this is going into too much detail, and I'm not convinced by claims of major changes in stance by the Vatican. Wasn't it simply that Liberation Theology came into wider prominence in John Paul's time, with Priests playing a major part in the Nicaraguan and other revolutions? Xandar 14:34, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

This is the section we are discussing:

In the 1960s, growing social awareness and politicization in the Church in Latin America gave birth to liberation theology with Peruvian priest, Gustavo Gutiérrez, becoming a primary theorist. The 1979 Conference of Latin American Bishops at Puebla, Mexico formally committed itself to a "preferential option for the poor".[418] Archbishop Óscar Romero, a supporter of the movement, became the region's most famous contemporary martyr in 1980, when he was murdered by forces allied with the government of El Salvador while saying Mass.[419] Both Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI (as Cardinal Ratzinger) denounced the movement.[420] The Brazilian theologian-priest Leonardo Boff was twice ordered to cease publishing and teaching.[418] Pope John Paul II was criticized for his severity in dealing with proponents of the movement, but he maintained that the Church, in its efforts to champion the poor, should not do so by advocating violence or engaging in partisan politics.[421] The movement is still alive in Latin America today, although the Church now faces the challenge of Pentecostal revival in much of the region.[420]

What impression do you get from reading the above text regarding what happened at the 1979 CELAM at Puebla, Mexico? Doesn't it read as if the 1979 CELAM endorsed liberation theology? Then what happens? The way I read the current text, it almost seems as if JPII and Ratzinger denounced the liberation theology movement against the endorsement of the 1979 CELAM. This isn't what the source I provided relates. That source suggests that earlier CELAMs (1979 having been the third) endorsed liberation theology within an umbrella of papal support for the general concept "preferential option for the poor". How much popes prior to JPII supported liberation theology is perhaps an interesting discussion but not one that we need to get into for this article.

In any event, according to the source I provided, liberation theology started to "go off the rails" in the 1970s and Cardinal Ratzinger and JPII saw a need to pull it back. I remember hearing liberation theology castigated among conservative Catholics as early as the mid 1970s so "no, it was not only in the 1980s that it was targeted as unacceptable teaching". As a result of the general move towards conservatism in the Church following the election of JPII, JPII and Ratzinger intervened at the 1979 CELAM to endorse the "preferential option for the poor" while, at the same time, condemning the more extreme Marxist class-conflict elements of liberation theology. In essence, they said "Of course, the poor are important but Marxism and class conflict are not the Christian response to their plight." As a result of this papal intervention, liberation theology was transformed because it was no longer "OK" for Catholic bishops and clergy to espouse those extreme elements. I would have to do more research into the status of liberation theology today before I can comment intelligently on the sentence "The movement is still alive in Latin America today". However, I think it is important that we present the chronology of events more accurately than the current text which misrepresents what happened. --Richard (talk) 16:20, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Richard, User:jbmurray wrote the liberation theology paragraph for this page. He is a professor of Latin American studies at a Canadian university. NancyHeise ^talk 04:27, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Unverified statement

The statement in the lead that many historians share the view that the (Roman) Catholic Church is the continuation of the original Christian commmunity founded by Jesus" is still unverified. The quotation ""Some (Christian communities) had been founded by Peter, the disciple Jesus designated as the founder of his church. ... Once the position was institutionalized, historians looked back and recognized Peter as the first pope of the Christian church in Rome", which is presented as the source for this statement, only says that historians saw Peter as the first pope/bishop of the local Church "in" Rome, which (unless personal interpretation is added) is not what has been put in the lead. "Drawing conclusions not evident in the reference is original research" (WP:OR). (Do people who look back on Peter as the first bishop/patriarch of the local Church in Antioch, another of the Christian communities (plural) that he founded, thereby declare that the present-day Church of which the Patriarch of Antioch is part is the (i.e. one and only) continuation of the original Christian community founded by Jesus?) Soidi (talk) 05:02, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Soidi, I think has a good point. In the first situtation he brings up about Peter, would it be more appropriate to introduce the concept of belief...many Christian historians share the "belief" rather than view? Peter and Apostolic succession is foundational to Catholicism and should be treated as a belief. I acknowledge this as a sacred topic and do not wish to offend; I would look to Nancy and Xander for their thoughts. It would also be important to qualify which historians are being presented; are they apologists who are historians or are they historians with a secular background? --^StormRider 05:26, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Soidi and others that this sentence as written is problematic. Part of the problem is that we are trying to pack too much meaning into too few words. This would be a good place for a Note.

I've been meaning to weigh in on this question for some time now but refrained from doing so because I didn't have time to compose a cogent argument. What follows is perhaps pedantic but I figure we should lay out the argument in detail and then figure out what we can source and how to present it.

There are continuations of the original Christian community founded by Jesus and there are valid continuations of that community; "validity", of course, is in the eye of the beholder. If you leave doctrinal bias out of it, all of "mainstream" Christianity can be considered a continuation of the original Christian community because Orthodoxy, Anglicanism and Protestantism can claim the heritage of the first 1000 years of Christianity when all those churches were in communion. Okay, you have a few churches that splintered off earlier such as the Oriental Orthodox but even they have a claim to part of that heritage.

It is important to note that, from the Orthodox point of view, they did not "splinter" off from the Catholic Church. Instead, it is the "Roman Church" which splintered off from the rest of the bishops. Remember that, via apostolic succession, all the churches headed by Orthodox bishops are "valid" continuations of the original Christian community.

The argument that the Catholic Church makes about "mainstream" Christianity is that the Body of Christ on earth comprises all Christians, some of whom are sadly separated from the "one true church" by schism (Orthodox and Anglicans) and heresy (Protestants). Thus, all of "mainstream" Christianity is part of the continuation of the original Christian community. I'm not 100% sure but I would wager that, by this definition, even the Restorationists such as the LDS Church and the Jehovah's Witnesses count as part of that continuation (heretical, perhaps, but part of the continuation in the sense that anybody who accepts Jesus Christ as Savior is part of the continuation). NB: the Restorationists reject any claim to the heritage of "mainstream" Christianity because they consider it to have been corrupted shortly after the beginning of church history. They don't see themselves as a "continuation" but a "restoration" that rejects the corrupt continuation represented by mainstream Christianity.

The Catholic Church claims that it is the "valid" continuation on the basis of apostolic succession, the Primacy of Simon Peter and the Primacy of the Roman Pontiff. Based on apostolic succession, it accepts the Orthodox Churches and Anglican Churches as "valid" continuations that are separated from communion with the Roman Pontiff, primarily due to schism. The Orthodox and Anglican churches more or less share this view with the primary difference being a different interpretation of the Primacy of Simon Peter and the Primacy of the Roman Pontiff. Well, the Orthodox also consider the Catholic Church to be heretical but that's perhaps not very relevant to this discussion.

The Catholic Church does not see the Protestant churches as "valid" continuations because they have not preserved apostolic succession. It also sees those churches as heretical although it does work towards healing the rifts between them because, after all, they are still part of the Body of Christ.

In summary, only the Catholic, Orthodox and Anglican churches define "valid" continuation as dependent on apostolic succession. Catholic historians would see the Catholic Church as the one "valid" continuation. Orthodox and Anglican historians would see the three "branches" as equally valid (excepting certain heresies which can always be remedied by other people coming to their senses and renouncing their heretical beliefs).

Protestants based "validity" upon fidelity to God's will as embodied in the Scripture. They clearly see themselves as part of the continuation.

Based on the above, it is hard to believe that secular historians would assert anything about who is and who is not a "valid" continuation. I would suspect that secular historians would not really discuss the concept of "continuation" at all.

What that leaves us is what historians with specific beliefs assert. I don't see how we can make any statements about what historians "agree with" unless we characterize what the religious beliefs of those historians are.

Not only do I believe that we should drop the phrase " a view shared by many historians of Christianity", I also believe we need a Note explaining how the Church's view of itself contrasts against the views of other branches of Christianity.

--Richard (talk) 06:50, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Whether or not some non-affiliated historians might express a view on "valid" continuations, without perhaps venturing to plump for "the" (one and only) valid continuation, the point is that the citation given does not in fact call the Church in question "the" continuation. The idea that it does express that view is only Original Research. Soidi (talk) 07:12, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Soidi's position seems simply nit-picking. Historians see Peter as the first Pope of the Christian Church in Rome - verified. The Pope is the head of the Catholic Church - any arguments about that? This foundation is not a belief but a historical conclusion drawn from the evidence. As for the issue of "validity", I think that is a red herring in this context. What we are talking about is the recognition by historians that the Catholic Church is that same Church founded by Peter in Rome - which is an important thing. Peter also founded the Church in Antioch, and perhaps others. But Rome is where Peter and his successors remained in continuing leadership of the Church. Xandar 01:20, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Except that the Orthodox disagree vehemently with what you wrote and have done so for over 1000 years. What you put forth (that the Bishop of Rome and the leadership of the Roman Church are the leaders of the Christian community founded by Jesus Christ) is a uniquely Catholic viewpoint. The Orthodox see their churches as also continuations of that community, perhaps even more valid continuations because they have not fallen into heresy as the Catholics have (from the perspective of the Orthodox). I'm not as familiar with the viewpoint of the Anglicans but I am under the impression that they have more of a "live and let live" attitude (three equally valid branches). In the context of these issues, it is hard to assert that the Catholic Church is "the continuation" unless you emphasize the Primacy of Simon Peter based on Matthew 16:18.

Do you then assert that the Orthodox, Anglicans and Protestants are not continuations of the Christian community founded by Jesus Christ?

--Richard (talk) 01:34, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Xandar, please read WP:SYN. Your argument above is a clear example of violation of this Wikipedia policy. So is the statement at present in the article. Soidi (talk) 06:55, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Either I've got the wrong statement in question, or WP:SYN doesn't apply here as there is one source for the statement, and a syn violation requires multiple sources. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Farsight001 (talk • contribs) 08:15, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

I think some people are tying themselves in knots here by reading things into the wording that aren't there. The article lead currently states (struck through section currently omitted):

Through apostolic succession, the Catholic Church sees itself as the continuation of the original Church founded by Jesus Christ in his selection of Saint Peter,[22] a view shared by many historians of Christianity.

I'm not sure how this is claiming that other churches aren't "continuations" of or part of the original Church? On related issues, I'm not sure that even the Orthodox deny that the Pope is legitimate successor of Peter, or that Peter and his successors have a primacy. They only challenge the monarchial nature of the primacy. As far as Anglicans are concerned, their claim to continuance has to come through the Catholic Church. I know there are some protestant and other groups that claim separate lineage from the original church, but such claims have not been supported by academic historians. It would also be better to discuss all proposed wording or reference changes here rather than everyone having to keep checking the main page. Xandar 14:29, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Are you trying to create a new trinity? "The Catholic Church is the Church, the Orthodox Church is the Church, the Anglican Church is the Church, yet not three churches but one Church"? The natural reading of the statement that the RCC is the Church is that others aren't, but at best parts of it.

"Historians see Peter as the first Pope of the Christian Church in Rome - verified." False. In fact even the very earliest list of bishops of Rome, given by Irenaeus, says the Roman Church was founded by Peter and Paul. Even this goes too far historically. There was no bishop of Rome till the mid 2nd century:

Clarke & Beyer, The World's Religions, Routledge, 2009, page 166: "Within a generation of this, a successor of Anicetus, now recognisable as a 'bishop' of Rome ...

... By the third century it was becoming normal for there to be in each Christian community one bishop ... the organisation of Christian communities before the third century was much more fluid ..."

Edwards, Christianity: The First Two Thousand Years, Cassell, 1997, page 52: "Polycarp ... mentioned no bishop in his letter to Rome and ... the letter to Corinth from that church does not suggest that there was a bishop in the Ignatian sense in either place. Hermas speaks of bishops and presbyters as one group and Justin mentions only a 'president' of the presbyters. It seems that the church in Rome was so conservative that it kept this New Testament pattern for its clergy for years after the development of the Ignatian-style bishop in Asia Minor ...

[page 53] ... there is definite evidence of such a bishop in Rome from the 140s."

That's just what comes immediately to hand. No doubt I can find plenty more. Peter jackson (talk) 15:44, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

No doubt you could find many more. But what is the relevance? The article says "a view shared by many historians." It doesn't say shared by all historians. As it is now, that means some agree, some don't agree. Peter, you are using this talk page as a forum to discuss the actual validity of the claim. That's not what the talk page is for. Nor is it what the article is for. Your list of sources doesn't really get us anywhere, unless you are advocating the language say "shared by many historians, but not all of them." That would be redundant. "Many" doesn't mean "all". There is no need to qualify it further. --anietor (talk) 16:13, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

(Edit conflict with Soidi below)

But "many" is an NPOV weasel word that tends to lend validity to the assertion. I attempted to change the text to read "shared by some but disputed by others". That edit was reverted by Farsight001 on the grounds that we don't "we don't give equal validity to minority viewpoints". I object to that reversion because the only argument that the assertion in question is the majority viewpoint would be based on the fact that Catholics are the majority (barely) of all Christians. I haven't seen any arguments to assert that the majority of historians share this view. Even if we could establish that the majority of historians share this view, it would have to be a near consensus to allow us to omit the minority viewpoint. This is the core of NPOV. We do not need to give "equal weight" to minority viewpoints but they do need to be represented and we are not doing that in the current text.

No doubt most historians share the view that the Catholic Church is part of the continuation of the original community founded by Jesus Christ. The question at hand is how historians view the Orthodox, Anglican and Protestant faiths. Anglicans and Protestants are clearly splinters from the Catholic Church. And, as I argued earlier, the LDS and Jehovah's Witnesses are continuations descended from the Catholics and the Protestants even if they reject such linkage. The Orthodox have a different claim since it is much harder to establish anything other than doctrinal authority of the Roman Church over the Eastern Churches (e.g. AFAIK, Rome never appointed bishops in the East). Thus, to assert that the Catholic Church is the continuation violates NPOV.

Part of the problem may lie in differing definitions of the word "continuation". Different people may be reading this word to have different meanings. That is why I raised the issue of "valid continuations".

--Richard (talk) 16:37, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Xandar, since the Orthodox do not accept that the (R)CC is the continuation of the original Church, something that they claim for themselves, would you accept then, in line with what you have written above, a change from "the continuation" to "a continuation"? I don't suppose so. It is not the same thing.

You have made a synthesis (or have you instead merely stated your own original-research view?) by combining what is actually in the citation (about the local church in Rome) with the following, which you imply you can source: "The Pope is the head of the Catholic Church - any arguments about that? ... the Catholic Church is that same Church founded by Peter in Rome ... Rome is where Peter and his successors remained in continuing leadership of the Church." You have thus manipulated the citation so as "to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated" by the source. Soidi (talk) 16:25, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Anietor, the cited source doesn't say many historians share the view that the (R)CC is the continuation of the original church. The Talk page is for, among other things, discussing the verifiability of claims such as this. Soidi (talk) 16:31, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Richard, since the claim in the article is not verifiably supported, there is no point in adding to it an opposing claim, verifiable or not. Soidi (talk) 16:36, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

The problem here is an attempt to turn an ecclesiological issue to a historical fact. Catholic scholars of Church history will assert one thing and Orthodox scholars of Church history will assert another one. Imagine we were writing in the Cold War period. How would we have represented an issue that was disputed by pro-U.S. scholars vs. pro-Soviet scholars ? We wouldn't care which side was in the "majority". We would say "some scholars say X and others dispute Y". This is the essence of NPOV. We present the dispute and let the reader decide which side to agree with. --Richard (talk) 16:43, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree that the problem is an attempt to turn an ecclesiological issue to a historical fact, without presenting in the article as source even a Catholic scholar who says it is a historical fact, though such exist. The cited source doesn't say what is attributed to it. Soidi (talk) 18:09, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Soidi. Saying "a" continuation" is inaccurate in the other direction, making it sound like one of hundreds, and that the Catholic Church acknowledges such wording. Would "the principal continuation" answer your objection? That would allow for other continuations, but retain the Catholic position. Xandar 01:11, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Soidi's tag of the statement is improper. The sentence has four references. The National Geographic says that historians looked back for centuries and saw Peter as the first pope of the Church in Rome - the book is speaking specifically of the Roman Catholic Church in this paragraph. I do not see the need to tag a sentence because of the objections of one editor with a history on this page of making unsubstantiated claims that are not supported by either consensus or reliable sources. If there is an WP:RS that disputes the claim made in National Geographic, then we can tag the sentence or eliminate it or expose the scholarly dispute. However in this case there is no scholarly dispute - it is a fact that many scholars agree with the historical view of the Church regarding its own origins. NancyHeise ^talk 03:28, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

No, Nancy, the claim that many historians agree that the (Roman) Catholic Church is the continuation of the Church founded by Christ - and thanks to Xandar for agreeing that there is a big difference between "the continuation" and "a continuation" - is presented as supported by only one reference, not four. And that one reference speaks of "the Church in Rome, not of the (Roman) Catholic Church. You yourself have in the past been very insistent on the distinction between the two and on interpreting "Roman Church" as meaning only the Church in Rome. So the claim that many historians hold that the (Roman) Catholic Church is the continuation of the Church founded by Christ is at present unverified. It may be a fact that many scholars agree with the (Roman) Catholic Church's view regarding its unique origins, so please cite a reliable source that says so.

Xandar, I have never disputed nor do I dispute that the (Roman) Catholic Church considers itself the (one and only) continuation of the Church founded by Christ. All I have asked for is a reliable source - one would be enough - that supports the article's claim that many historians agree with that view. I thought that was clear. Soidi (talk) 05:35, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Nancy, I see now that you have at last responded to the objection (not only by me, but also by Storm Rider and Richard) by adding two further references - I hope they are valid - but you have still kept the citation that does not support the claim in the article. Soidi (talk) 05:49, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Anietor, it wasn't me who turned this into a forum. I was merely responding to Xandar. To return to the official topic here, this is what policy (WP:OR) says:

"Even with well-sourced material, however, if you use it out of context or to advance a position that is not directly and explicitly supported by the source used, you as an editor are engaging in original research". The boldface is in the original, not my addition.

So has anyone cited any RS that directly and explicitly supports what the article says, let alone many? As I suggested earlier, you might ask WP:ORN. Peter jackson (talk) 10:40, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

There is a dispute about whether the RS supports the article text. Some of us believe it does, a couple of others don't. Personally I think in essential the reference is correct, and the precise reference argument is another of these nitpicky disputes that go into minute detail of wording of concern to certain editors but not to readers. Basically one of the principal foundations of Catholic history and theology is that it is The Church founded by Jesus on Peter. It is a Catholic essential that Jesus founded only ONE Church, not many, that Peter led that One Church, and that his successors continue to lead it from Rome. The fact that Peter founded other dioceses is immaterial, since they were all part of the One Church led from Rome. Many historians support this view. That too is a fact that needs to be expressed. We also know that many Liberal historians do not support the view because they think the foundation may have been mythical. And Orthodox and some other Christians oppose the view for a different reason, that while accepting the Primacy of Peter and his successors in Rome, they feel that Rome departed from truth, and the true Church continued in their own communion. We are getting these things mixed up.

Having gone through these "reference" disputes before, I feel that some people will reject any other reference supplied that does not word for word duplicate the exact text in the article. And that is an unreasonable objection. References do not have to be word for word. So to cut through all that, I would ask those opposing the wording to suggest here alternative wording that covers the facts. Xandar 23:05, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for stipulating that this is a Catholic viewpoint and that there may be a sectarian bias that governs which historians share the view and which do not. What was wrong with my edit (the one that Farsight001 reverted) that said "shared by some historians and disputed by others" with a Note to explain what the dispute is about? I'm not sure that we can easily characterize which historians share the view (certainly the Catholic historians but probably the Anglicans as well as well as some Protestants). Therefore, I think it is easier to assert that the historical perspective is driven by sectarian issues and just lay out what those issues are. (In a Note, of course!) --Richard (talk) 00:08, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Jargon?

Since an editor added an incorrect Jargon tag, {{Jargon}}, I changed it to {{Cleanup-jargon}}. However, the editor has not indicated where the "jargon" is, so I thought I had better ask you all what you think. Is there any jargon that needs to be clarified/removed? If not the tag should be removed. Jubilee♫clipman 23:32, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

The editor concerned particularly mentioned the Lead. An article like this has to use a good deal of specialised terminology, but a lot of additional jargon seems to have crept into the Lead recently. That is a constant danger with this type of article. I have givenm the lead a bit of a clean-up and removed the jargon tag. Xandar 02:15, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Catholic instead of roman catholic

suggestion to include points in article Re:title

refer for argument points: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13121a.htm

Reference: Thurston, H. (1912). Roman Catholic. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13121a.htm