Talk:Désiré-Joseph Mercier

Deleting the cartoon

Someone wants to delete the cartoon, although it is an original cartoon of that period (see for instance the orthography of the Dutch text, under the French). The cartoon illustrates and reflects perfectly a historic reality, although I guess catholic extremists do want to keep a 'clean' image of the cardinal.

Jbr

Thank you for using the talk page. The image, on Wikimedia Commons, has been tagged, not by a catholic extremist, but by a piece of software (Orgullobot) because the image does not have sufficient information on its copyright status. With a cartoon of the given period you will probably need to know who the cartoonist was so that we are sure he died more than 70 years ago.

If it an be justified with properly sourced material I would welcome a more balanced view of the cardinal, whose image in the English-speaking world seems to have been frozen in about 1917 purely as as figure of resistance to the German occupation: an embodiment of "gallant little Belgium". (Not that there's any shortage of Catholic extremists around here, but they have bigger, fish to fry). With or without the cartoon the article can cover the fact that he is viewed by some as a Walloon chauvinist. William Avery 21:30, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

La Belgique sera latine ou elle ne sera pas

Is there any source for this quote? It was removed from the French Wikipedia because it was unsourced. William Avery 21:30, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

La Belgique sera latine - Cartoon

This quote has become almost general knowledge for the Belgians. You can search the net to find it quoted on undoubtedly serious sites. The reason why they remove it from the French Wikipedia is probably due to the fact that some share the ideology of a superiour Latin race, but do not want that to be known officialy.

Another hint for the originality of the cartoon is, except the style of the drawing, also the spelling of the Dutch part of the text of the cartoon, which is in the spelling in use before the Second World War.

I must give you a general warning about the French Wikipedia. Some people there just seem to want to use Wikipedia to influence public opinion through Wikipedia, and this for political or ideological purposes. Some biographies of politicians for instance are real hagiographies, like the one of Philippe Moureaux (made by someone who works for the political party of that politician, as I happen to know). Catherine de' Medici, for the historical part, becomes almost a Marianne of the French Revolution, if you can trust the French Wikipedia.

And they don't like to discuss on the French Wikipedia; they treat you in a rather awesome way : in order not to have to discuss to you, they immediately block you, even immediately after having invited you to discuss! By the way, Clem32 compares even, on his discussion page, his election as a moderator on Wikipedia even with the election of an African dictator! Those who want to delete the cartoon, and also the quote that was part of the original article as far as I know, do want to do something with history that fits their own ideology.--BogaertB 19:16, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

• "La Belgique sera latine" was not a saying by Mercier (this is in fact an urban legend widely spread in Belgium), but by Charles Rogier, who said that in 1830. I suppose this source is reliable? There is also a problem with the other quote. The cartoon text at Het Vlaamse Kruis says "le race" and claims that it was said to a Flemish priest personally. But memo6 by Willy Schuermans (a text book for use in Flemish schools, so we are dealing with a reputable source, while many of the other references found by googling are Flemish nationalist sources) says that it was in a letter to Flemish priests, "de Vlaamse geestelijkheid", all Flemish priests in general probably. So, he could actually have meant that he, as a bishop, was there to lead the church, but they as priests had to serve (the church and their parishioners). Surely, this sentence was generally interpreted the way it is presented here, but the fact remains that it may have been more an expression of hautain aloofness rather than hate for the Flemish or Dutch language. Suppose for a moment he had written this to all French speaking priests, how would his words have been interpreted? Do you think Mercier was a racist? Google books stores the Schuermans book, by the way: [1] I suppose our text here needs a caveat, at least the link must be changed. I am not a Roman Catholic, and I have my reasons to not particularly like this guy (understatement), but we need to write the truth. --Paul Pieniezny (talk) 17:04, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

wild allegations

"In the Imperial German atrocities that ensued, thirteen of the priests in Mercier's diocese were killed, not to mention many civilians, by Christmas 1914." If one makes such wild allegations, one should have at least have an excuse of a source. --196.210.139.30 (talk) 17:44, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Scouting?

Wilson links him to Boy Scouting, was there a connection?--Kintetsubuffalo (talk) 04:54, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

References