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Catholic church and civilization

It's quite strange this section which covers art, literature, music, science, economic development, and which quotes non-Catholic scholars was removed peremptorily without much discussion. This part is important for Wikipedia as it is important for the treatment of the Catholic church in other encyclopedic works. It might read as apologetics to some, but that is not enough basis to remove an articulation of significant knowledge, which quotes experts on the subject matter. I removed though the extensive quotes on hospitals in accordance with Wikipedia's summary style, and Benedict XVI' s comment on the Church's charitable works. I know what he is saying is important, but it is better in this context that a historian says it rather than the Pope. Lafem (talk) 12:08, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

I did not mean to offend anyone by removing that section of the page. I am trying to bring the page to FA status and that section is so long and could reasonably be an entire wikipedia page unto itself that it will prevent the page from meeting FA status. Some of the points in each section could be included in this page with one or two brief sentences in the appropriate history section. I have included already a mention of the importance of the monasteries in Middle Ages with a third party reference. What do you think about moving it to it's own page and then wikilinking it to this page via the SEE AlSO section? NancyHeise (talk) 13:18, 4 February 2008 (UTC)


Have not reviewed the merits of the new section. Would strongly suggest that the editor voluntarily and temporarily withdraw the section so that the main article, in its current review status, move forward in its progress towards GA. The next cycle around will be time enough for this large section to be added and properly discussed. Student7 (talk) 13:52, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
FYI, I have created a new wikipedia page called Role of Catholic Church in Civilization I moved that section of the article onto its own page and then wikilinked it here both in the main section of Church History (at the top) and in the SEE ALSO section. If you look at Church History under Middle Ages, there is already a summary of how important the Church was in forming civilization specifically the monasteries so I think that would suffice as an appropriate summary of the subject. NancyHeise (talk) 13:46, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

"Church" v. "church"

Sorry to bring this up again. I read through a discussion on "Church" v. "church" in an archive, and I'm still confused as to what consensus was. I think I read that consensus was to leave instances as "church" unless specifically referring to a shortened version of "Roman Catholic Church". Was anyone else around for that discussion months ago? I ask because I was about to go change a few instances before realizing it was probably an issue. Thanks! Stanselmdoc (talk) 18:58, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

When I was working on the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Miami FA, the FA reviewer said that you use the lower case. Also, I do not like Stormrider's edit where he is trying to eliminate the white space at the top. I think it looks worse. NancyHeise (talk) 02:35, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
I am old school on the format and was an initial proponent in all "church" articles that you refer to the entity as Church when referring to the topic; however, I was corrected by the MOS. You use lower case.
As far as format goes, I changed it around a bit in an attempt to delete white space. Any more thoughts? The "Catholicism portal" is getting lost; it is just too small. Does anyone have any thoughts on how to handle this or is it just me? Also, what if we put the TOC after the RCC infobox? Something else at the top rather than the TOC may look better. Thoughts? --Storm Rider (talk) 02:55, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
User:Cheyinka, we can move the picture of the Keys of Heaven up next to Origin and Mission easy enough and it may not look as cluttered, but the infobox may need to be at the top, then the TOC or the picture, etc. My objective is only to delete the white space and hopefully produce a better format. What should be at the top? --Storm Rider (talk) 03:02, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
White space is OK - see Featured Articles Girl Scouts of the USA and Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Miami NancyHeise (talk) 18:35, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Recent reworking

The recent comprehensive reworking of the article is a major improvement in my opinion. Xandar (talk) 13:11, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Renominated for GA

After addressing all of the last GA reviewers comments (jackturner) both here and on my talk page and addressing all of the peer reveiw comments, I have renominated this article for GA. Thanks, NancyHeise (talk) 15:45, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

GA Review

GA review (see here for criteria)
  1. It is reasonably well written.
    a (prose): b (MoS):
    The history section has been vastly improved based on the suggestions I have provided.
  2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.
    a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):
  3. It is broad in its coverage.
    a (major aspects): b (focused):
  4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.
    Fair representation without bias:
  5. It is stable.
    No edit wars etc.:
  6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.
    a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
  7. Overall:
    Pass/Fail:
    jackturner3 (talk) 15:30, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

nominated for FA

I reworked the references for catechism and gospel so they are consistent and go to online sources. This article meets FA criteria and I have nominated it. NancyHeise (talk) 20:23, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

five solas

I removed the phrase "Aside from administrative and liturgical differences, Catholic belief mainly differs from Protestant Christians in that they do not believe the five solas", as I think this is misleading. I don't think that most modern Protestants would immediately identify the five solas as a core part of their beliefs, if they had heard of them at all; and the source given only identifies them as one of the differences between the beliefs of Catholics and some conservative protestants.

It is going to be very hard to single out the differences between Catholic and Protestant belief, as Protestantism is not a body with homogenous beliefs. The 'five solas' were one 16th century attempt to encapsulate the reformation's major objections to Catholic beliefs, but if we reference them we need to make sure that they're not presented as some Protestant creed. I'm not sure what the best thing is to write here. TSP (talk) 12:05, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

I've attempted a more moderate draft, acknowledging the differences between churches but picking out the major common beliefs. Let me know what you think. TSP (talk) 12:18, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
Much better! I think its brief and thorough - perfect. Thanks! NancyHeise (talk) 13:04, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

"citation-needed" tags over-enthusiasm

Surely someone is going over the top on placing "citation-needed" tags on every statement in parts of the article. Surely such tags are only needed for information that is likely to be challenged, controversial or unusual. In this article people are tagging stuff like "Catholics are encouraged to honour Mary"! or direct quotations from Canon Law. This is surely common knowledge, and to provide a reference for every factual statement in article would make the whole thing unworkable. People will be asking for citations for "it gets dark at night," next! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Xandar (talk • contribs) 15:15, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Pretty much what I was thinking, the vast majority of things tagged are common knowledge or trivially obvious from a preceeding statement (which in many cases is referenced). David Underdown (talk) 15:21, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
I haven't looked at every tag, but in general I think he's right. These statements may seem obvious to Catholics, but if this hopes to be a featured article then it really needs to look at the topic from the point of view of someone who knows nothing about Catholicism, and offer justification for everything it states. This is a good way to keep an article 'tight' and factual; if the statement is a vague or interpretative one like 'Catholics are encouraged to honour Mary' or 'Through catholic schools, universities, hospitals, shelters, ministries to the poor, families, elderly and marginalized, and various lay ministries, the Church tends to both corporal and spiritual needs of "the sheep".', and that proves hard to source, consider whether it actually needs to be in the article at all, or whether the sourced facts that generally precede these statements are sufficient without adding the gloss of interpretation. TSP (talk) 15:23, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
I am responsible for the new citation needed tags. Some of them were also added because they statements contain weasel words or what could be considered POV if not cited ("great Cathedrals"...etc). The vast majority of my family are Catholic so I am familiar with Church practices, but many, many people are not. Karanacs (talk) 16:06, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Suggestions for Improvement

NOTE:ALL OF THESE COMMENTS HAVE BEEN ADDRESSED AND ARE ANSWERED ON THE FAC LEAVE COMMENTS PAGE ON THE TAG AT THE TOP OF THE ARTICLE ON THIS PAGENancyHeise (talk) 11:34, 12 February 2008 (UTC) This is cross-posted on the FAC nomination.

  • The lead does not properly summarize the article (it needs to be lengthened)
  • I've marked a lot of statements as needing citations.
  • Create a separate article called Beliefs of the Roman Catholic Church or Roman Catholic Church beliefs. You can then summarize that information here, and it will allow you to go more in-depth in the beliefs article.
  • In the beliefs section, Bible verses and an interpretation of what they mean are cited directly to the Bible. For example, "Historically, the New Testament contains warnings against teachings considered to be only masquerading as Christianity,". This is original research. There are multiple interpretations of just about every verse in the Bible, and these types of statements should be able to be sourced to a reliable, third-party source (or two or three).
Islam became an FA some time ago, which means the criteria for an FA may very well have changed. For the article to take Biblical verses, make a statement summarizing them, and then apply that to the Catholic Church, while only citing the Bible is WP:OR. Find a source that distills that information from the Bible verses and then directly relates that with the Church and there won't be any issues. Karanacs (talk) 19:21, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Need to expand on the influence of the Catholic Church on art and architecture. There is only one sentence on architechture in the history sentence, which does not really convey the Church's tremendous impact on this field.
Per WP:SUMMARY, that article should then be summarized here. That is incredibly important information in putting the Church's worldwide influence in context and it absolutely needs to be mentioned here. Karanacs (talk) 19:21, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
  • There are a lot of weasel words that aren't cited ("significant contributions to the development of...", etc). I've added citation needed tags for a lot of these too.
They are allowed when cited; hence the citation needed tags. Karanacs (talk) 19:21, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
  • I think there needs to be a little more explanation of what the Cathar heresy was.
Can it be summarized in a single sentence? Incidents that are not widely known should be given a little bit of historical context or you lose people. Karanacs (talk) 19:21, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
  • POV issues:
    • "various institutions broadly referred to as the Inquisition, were established aimed at suppressing heresy and securing religious and doctrinal unity within Christianity through conversion, and prosecution, of alleged heretics." - this sentence makes it sound like the Inquisition was a very good thing. This needs to be more balanced with the addition of a little information about the horrors that it brought about
That's nice that it went through PR and GA, but that doesn't make it NPOV. As it stands, this is not balanced, but presents only a favorable picture of the Inquisition. Karanacs (talk) 19:21, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
    • "the cycle of persecution continued with the Marian Persecutions of Protestants during the five year reign of Mary I of England and then followed with 140 years of persecutions of Catholics by the English monarchs Elizabeth I, James I, Charles I, and Charles II." This is very POV. There were not 140 straight years of persecution, as the source cited even says (two of these monarchs were even Catholic or had strongly Catholic leanings). There were sporadic episodes of persecution during this time, and some of it was related more to fear of Spanish invasion rather than fear of Catholicism.
Not a reliable source, and the source doesn't say what the article does. Karanacs (talk) 19:21, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
    • "Lasting a period of just over one hundred years, these crusades ultimately failed to recapture Jerusalem and the Holy Land from Muslim rule and even contributed to Christian enmity with the sacking and occupation of Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade." - This pretty much glosses over the huge impact of the Crusades both for Europeans and Muslims. It might be possibly to incorporate a little more from "[Crusades#Legacy]], and it would be wise to make it clearer that the Christians sacked Constantinople, and that the Christians did, in fact, hold pieces of the Middle East for a time.
Yes, but by only wikilinking to negative content and not mentioning it more in the article or putting it in context you are introducing POV. Karanacs (talk) 19:21, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
    • There is no mention of the Church's position on science in the Middle Ages - that any science deemed in contradiction to a literal meaning of the Scriptures was heresy. This ought to at least be mentioned (Galileo is a good example)
Again, that article needs to be summarized here to be a proper application of WP:SUMMARY. And again, GA is not FA. Karanacs (talk) 19:21, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
    • "A person can excommunicate themselves from membership in the church by committing certain particularly grave sins." -> No, the person does not excommunicate themselves; a church official excommunicates that person in response to an act the person committed
Per the dictionary and even excommunication, the act of sinning (or at least committing certain sins) is not generally considered "excommunicating yourself". The excommunication is the act of censure given by a church official. Karanacs (talk) 19:21, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
That was my point -why pick one and not all? I think if you only want one example, the College of Santa Cruz de Querétaro might be the best. Karanacs (talk) 19:21, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
  • There is no mention of the dual Popes (the Avignon Papacy and the Western Schism).
  • Is this just in Mexico? "Between 1926 and 1934 over 3000 priests were eventually eliminated either by assassination, emigration or expulsion"
That needs to be specified, then.Karanacs (talk) 19:21, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
  • There's no mention of the continued religious fights in Ireland between Protestants and Catholics
No, I absolutely don't think that the Church's impact on the world should be completely in another article. The Catholic Church has had such a tremendous impact on the history of the world that I don't think it is possible to fully explain the Church without touching on its impact. Having only a dry explanation of facts (this happened, then we had this conference and this changed) without explaining what that actually meant and what consequences came out of it is not only uninteresting but doesn't give the context and the full understanding of what was going on in the world. Karanacs (talk) 19:21, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
  • There's no mention of the Traditional movement in Catholicism - the people who are unhappy with the reforms of the Second Vatican Council
I'd say they deserve a very very brief mention (Some groups are upset with the Second Vatican Council reforms.).
  • I strongly believe that there is an issue with the citations in this article. WP is based on verifiability, meaning that information can be found to verify a fact in a source that is not selfpublished. There are literally thousands of books written about the Catholic Church since its founding, by both people within the church hierarchy and those without. These sources should be used instead of the official church writings.
The article is not supposed to regurgitate what the Church says, just as a biography is not supposed to simply paraphrase what the subject wants people to know about themselves. For biographies, we are supposed to find reliable sources that talk about the subject, and the rule should be the same for an article about the Church. The information is certainly available (there are over 40,000 books published about the Church). Karanacs (talk) 19:21, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
No, a university professor is not necessarily an expert in the field. Unless the information has been peer=reviewed or fact-checked, it is not considered a reliable source. And if the professor is an expert, he or she will have published at least one book on the subject. All you need to do is find the book. Karanacs (talk) 19:21, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
      • Catholic Fun Facts, culturalcatholic.com
      • Major Branches of Religions. adherents.com.
      • Chart of Catholic & Protestant Beliefs from ReligionFacts
      • Robinson, B.A. (2007). Comparing the beliefs of Roman Catholics with those of conservative Protestants. Religious Tolerance.org.
      • Messianic & Apocalyptic Biblical Texts", UNCC.edu, 24 October 2007.
      • Scott, Jr, J. Julius (1992). The Jerusalem Council, The Cross Cultural Challenge in the First Century. Wheaton College. Retrieved on 2008-01-30.
      • The Great Schism: The Estrangement of Eastern and Western Christendom. Orthodox Christian Information Center. Retrieved on 2008-02-09.
      • Applied History Research Group (1997). The End of Europe's Middle Ages. University of Calgary. Retrieved on 2008-01-31.
      • Anastos, Milton V.. Constantinople and Rome. Myriobiblos Library. Retrieved on 2008-02-09.
      • King Henry VIII. History Mole. DOI:2008-02-01.
      • Knox, Skip. The Reformation in Germany. Boise State University.
      • Council of Trent. Boise State University. Retrieved on 2008-02-02.
      • Shimabara Castle. Japan National Tourist Organization. Retrieved on 2008-02-02.
      • Sommerville, Professor J.P.. Louis XIV, Religion and dissension. University of Wisconsin. Retrieved on 2008-02-02.
      • Terry, Karen; et al (2004). John Jay Report. John Jay College of Criminal Justice.


    • The sources should not be used by themselves because they are published by the subject of the article (the Catholic Church)
      • Paul VI, Pope (1964-11-21). Lumen Gentium. Chapter 3. Vatian.
      • Catechism of the Catholic Church
      • Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Chapter 2 paragraph 15. Libreria Editrice Vaticana (1964).
      • 1983 Code of Canon Law. Vatican.
      • Sacrosanctum Concilium. Vatican
      • Humanae Vitae. Vatican.
      • Apostolic Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on Reserving Priestly Ordination to Men Alone. Vatican.
      • Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People. United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
    • The Bible should not be used as a source for an interpretation of the words in the Bible - that is WP:OR.

Karanacs (talk) 16:06, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

I did a quick search through Amazon, and these are just a few of the 42000+ books available about the Roman Catholic Church that would make great sources for this article:

  • The Catholic Church through the Ages: A History by John Vidmar
  • Scandals in the Roman Catholic Church by Otto von Corvin
  • The Lonely Cold War of Pope Pius XII: The Roman Catholic Church and the Division of Europe, 1943-1950 by Peter C. Kent
  • The Roman Catholic Church: Its Origins and Nature by John F. O'Grady
  • The Canon Law of the Roman Catholic Church and Church of England: A Handbook (Dictionary) by Rhidian Jones
  • Priesthood: A History of Ordained Ministry in the Roman Catholic Church by Kenan B. Osborne
  • The Church Visible: The Ceremonial Life and Protocol of the Roman Catholic Church by James-Charles Noonan and Archbishop John P. Foley
  • The Roman Catholic Church In The Modern State by Charles C. Marshall
  • Ministry: Lay Ministry in the Roman Catholic Church: Its History and Theology by Kenan B. Osborne
  • Roman Catholic Church by John L. McKenzie
  • Liturgical Renaissance in the Roman Catholic Church. by Ernest Benjamin. Koenker

Karanacs (talk) 16:06, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Exactly, this is a subject that has been VERY well-researched, yet your sources are for the most part primary sources, newspaper articles, and websites. Why??? Karanacs (talk) 19:21, 11 February 2008 (UTC)


I don't want to turn this into a negative commentary on the church (I've pointed out some good stuff that the Church influenced that has been left out of this article). I think it ought to be more balanced and NPOV, and from your own comments on this article and the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Miami I think you are very focused on combatting what you feel is a negative perception of the church. The majority of my family is Catholic (including my husband), and I was married in a Catholic ceremony, so it's not like I have a vendetta against the Church. I read a lot of history books, and the Church often figures predominantly in them simply because it governed so many aspects of people's lives. It's an absolutely fascinating organization, and I feel this article loses a lot of that by what was excluded. That may partially be the result of the sources chosen, too, which don't appear to always provide the historical context that a book might. I do highly recommend that you read about reliable sources again, and go to the reliable sources noticeboard if you have questions on whether you should use a particular source. Karanacs (talk) 19:21, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

New Citations

Since Karanacs tagged most of the sentences in this article with citation needed tags, I took the time to go through and put citations on all of those areas. Please note the use of a very reliable non self published third party source used in the belief section to supplement the Catechism references and Canon Law references. It is a textbook published by Sadlier called One Faith One Lord with ISBN number and other book info provided as appropriate. I have also incorporated a school textbook on church history and I also went to the library and checked out another book called Saints and Sinners which is a history of the popes and events surrounding them. I am adding content to address the Avignon papacy per Karanacs comments. I will not incorporate Karanacs specific comments that conflict with the GA reviewer Jackturner whose comments are on this talk page and on my talk page. He gave his advice throughout the rewriting of the history section and the finished product was peer reviewed. I will not eliminate bible references that are appropriately used in compiling the belief section using FA Islam as an example. I feel that Karanacs is inventing some of these issues not to achieve FA but to be unreasonable. Hard not to think that when other FA's have standards that Karanacs seems to think that I am not allowed to follow here.NancyHeise (talk) 02:29, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

That is definitely the kind of source I was talking about Nancy - thank you for going to find it. You might also want to check to see if your library participates in Netlibrary.com; they have digital scans of thousands of books that you can read (or search!) on your computer to find facts. My library subscribes and it is very very easy to use.
I've looked at Jackturner's comments and I haven't seen anything that contradicts with what I've said. I saw that he was concerned with the history section and how it did not put events in historical context. That is much of what I am concerned with too. While it looks like you've fixed it to satisfy him (which means it was likely a big change), that doesn't mean there aren't still issues with that section. I think it needs to go further in putting the Church in context and stressing the impact the Church had on the world. GA requires a certain level of writing and content; FA requires a higher level. Karanacs (talk) 02:40, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

All Karanacs comments have been addressed

Since the appropriate place to address FA comments is on the FA leave comments page, I have answered all of Karanacs and other reviewers comments there. The citation tag needs to be removed from the article. Thanks. NancyHeise (talk) 10:54, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

I put the original research tag there because so much is cited to the Bible (not just the verses, but interpretation of the verses). Any commentary on the meaning of a particular Bible verse needs to be cited to a reliable source. Karanacs (talk) 16:46, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
Please see the page again, every commentary of the Bible is referenced to a reliable third party source except when the sentence just states what the Gospel says and makes no commentary. In that case I changed wording to make sure the sentence just states the Gospel passage. It is then followed with commentary of Catholic interpretation referenced to the third party plus the Catechism which is necessary to show link to Catholic source. If you leave the tag after this message, you should specify exactly which areas are of concern to you, or eliminate the tag please. NancyHeise (talk) 22:13, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Role of Mary

"Catholics have endowed Mary with many adoring titles such as…"

The term here is venerating, not adoring. Adoration or worship is an activity reserved solely for God. The idea that Mary is worshipped by Catholics is a misconception outside the church. --78.16.150.23 (talk) 14:06, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Grammatically, I'd say "Catholics venerate Mary using honorifics such as…" The.helping.people.tick (talk) 19:44, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
Thank you, I changed the wording in that sentence to address your concerns. NancyHeise (talk) 22:14, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Disambiguation

The following links need a disambig:
arian
calvin
charles V
constantine
dioscorus
frederick II
john carroll
origin
romanesque
saint francis
saint irenaeus
saint paul
schism
seven sacraments
vatican
Randomblue (talk) 18:56, 12 February 2008 (UTC).

Thanks for checking these, I would have missed them completely. I corrected all pages that went to a disambiguaiton page so now they go directly to the correct wikipage. Thanks again. NancyHeise (talk) 00:30, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Original Research tag needs to be removed

The editor who placed the Original Research tag, Karanacs, provided a list of reasons why the tag was placed on the page. Those concerns have all been addressed in detail in the leave comments page of the FA nomination tag at the top of this discussion page. The tag needs to be removed. NancyHeise (talk) 13:53, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Hi Nancy. Thank you for doing so much work to try to address the concerns about OR. I reread through the section and found a few areas that should be better cited so as not to be OR.
  • This is cited only to the Bible: "A person is helped not to fall into sin and to do good instead by following the words and example of Jesus Christ which are found in the four Gospels.

This sentence was not cited at all. It preceeds a sentence that provides further explanation and is cited to the Sadlier textbook. I did not think I had to have a citation at the end of every single sentence but I added the Sadlier citation just to make this clear. NancyHeise (talk) 18:33, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

The Gospel of John refers to Jesus as "The Word" who is God and who was with God from the beginning and through whom all things were made.."

I added a third party reference to the end of this sentence to compliment the bibleref.NancyHeise (talk) 18:49, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

  • Although this is not an interpretation of the Gospels, it is inserted into the paragraph without really putting it in context with the church, and could still be considered OR (because the article authors are choosing Biblical verses that fit, rather than reliable sources pointing out the verses): "Jesus states in the Gospel "all who hunger and thirst for righteousness will be satisfied" and "If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him!"

This is the sentence that follows those two: "Participation in the sacraments, offered to them through the church, is how Catholics obtain forgiveness of sins and formally "ask" for the "good thing", the Holy Spirit.[6] These sacraments are:" I think it is clear how those two sentences fit into the article, they are providing the biblical source for the action of asking for the holy spirit in the church sacraments. If you have said yourself they are not original research then these sentences should not prevent you from removing the tag. NancyHeise (talk) 19:02, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Do you have a source that links these Bible verses with the text that comes after? That would solve any potential problems. (I didn't say that this wasn't OR, but that I wasn't sure.) Karanacs (talk) 03:43, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
  • This sentence offers an interpretation of the scriptures and is only sourced to the Bible. It needs to be sourced to a reliable source that discusses the meaning of those verses: "Historically, the New Testament contains warnings against teachings considered to be only masquerading as Christianity,[46] and shows how reference was made to the leaders of the church to decide what was true doctrine"

I have added a third party reference to this sentence to address your concern. This is a subject well covered by many historians. Throughout history as you can see even in this article, it the leaders of the church who eventually decide true doctrine based on these Bible references. NancyHeise (talk) 19:20, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

  • This is an interpretation of a Biblical verse and needs to be sourced to something else: "This Gospel discourse speaks of a day when Jesus sits in judgment of all mankind. He specifies that certain people will inherit God's kingdom while others will go off to eternal punishment."Karanacs (talk) 14:40, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
This sentence is after a sentence that references the Sadlier textbook. It is not referenced to the Bible at all but states the Bible passage number in the body of the sentence - then references the sentence to the third party - this is appropriate.NancyHeise (talk) 19:46, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
I eliminated the second sentence. Please take another look. I also expanded the section with a new paragraph that comes entirely from the Sadlier textbook. I did not put that ref at the end of every sentence even though I could. I put it at the end of the paragraph. Do you think I need to put the ref at the end of every sentence? NancyHeise (talk) 19:44, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
Citing secondary or tertiary works is no guarantee against bad scholarship. Many books are either written with strong POV, or are just plain wrong. I think the bible verses quoted above are quite clear, especially if they are cited by Catechisms as a basis for the beliefs discussed. Demanding that some academic be produced to "prove" the Church believes what it says it believes is a little perverse IMO Xandar (talk) 17:41, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
The basis for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not "truth". We can not judge whether a source is right or wrong... we simply report what it says. Now, to the issue at hand, if we wish to say that a particular Catholic doctrine is based upon a given interpretation of a biblical verse... we need to cite a source that points out the connection between the verse and the doctrine. It is that simple. Blueboar (talk) 19:35, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
I have added third party refs where appropriate to address all of Karanacs comments. Original Research tag should be removed now, thanks. NancyHeise (talk) 19:48, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

There is another instance that I am concerned about:

  • "Historically, the New Testament contains warnings against teachings considered to be only masquerading as Christianity" - this is cited to several Bible verses. I think this may be more due to a confusion of the referencing rules, however. In general, all information between one <ref> tag and another is considered to be cited to the last ref. For example, "I am a sentence.[1] I mean two thing[2] and this is one of them[1]" If the article takes the information for "I mean two things" from both ref 1 and ref 2, then it needs to say so, because this form of reference says that "I mean two things" ONLY comes from ref2. Otherwise, it should be cited like this: "I am a sentence.[1] I mean two thing[1][2] and this is one of them[1]" Nancy, is that the case here? Karanacs (talk) 03:43, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Church history

As Nancy warned the Church history section is getting too long and turgid. If negatives have to be put in and balanced with positives in proportion to history, the size and impenetrability of the section starts getting out of control. I had to change some very POV (and misleading) wording on the Crusades and inquisitions. Misleading popular legend rather than fact is creeping back into the article.(eg. Crusades=Christian-only massacres; Inquisitions arrested all non-Christians)Xandar (talk) 17:41, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Most of this stuff should probably be transferred to History of the Catholic Church and simply (and briefly) summarized here. Yes, you need to mention that there are negative POVs... but you don't need to spell them all out in this article. Blueboar (talk) 19:44, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for your comments. I have incorporated criticism issues into the body of the History section and in the opening paragraph in Beliefs. I think the history section is good. It covers things without getting out of control. NancyHeise (talk) 19:52, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
Please be careful when making changes, though, that the new wording reflects the information from the sources (or add new sources). I'm also doing some copyediting to try to tighten the prose a bit. Even though I've added information from a few new sources, overall the size of the article is going down. Karanacs (talk) 20:08, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

I finished my first pass at a copyedit of the history section. Please read through it to make sure that it is still accurate. If you feel that any of it is POV let's discuss here. I still think it needs information about the church's impact on art (although I did expand the architecture section a bit). There are a few places that confused me, and there are some facts which I feel could be eliminated from this article (but should be retained in the History of the Church article). As I am not an expert on Church history, I didn't want to do that without consensus. What do you guys think?

  • This sentence doesn't make that much sense to me - "Efforts by the pope to unite Catholic nations against the danger of the Turks resulted in further alienation between France and Rome"

France was a catholic nation; why did the pope trying to unite Catholic nations further alienate the two?

  • Can we remove reference to the Gray Nuns and the Passionists? This doesn't add much understanding to readers who aren't already familiar with those topics.
  • Part of the Middle Ages section reads too much like proseline. There are a lot of councils mentioned with the name of a teaching they disliked, but there is very little historical context, so the paragraphs (or sentences within them), don't flow well. For example, the information about Photius is just...there...without really fitting in with anything around it. If it should not be removed, could it perhaps be expanded by a sentence or two to describe what Photius believed? In that case, it should also be noted that the decision on Photius reversed an earlier decision.
  • "The Council of Ephesus also declared the Nicene Creed, the most widely used statement of belief in most Christian churches today, including the Oriental Orthodox Church, to be a permanent doctrine of the Church" - I would remove this.
  • Is this paragraph necessary in this article? "The Church continued to evolve during the Middle Ages. Pope Gregory the Great dramatically reformed ecclesiastical structure and administration. The Second and Third Ecumenical Council of Constantinople rejected the teachings of Origen and Monothelitism. In the 8th century, Byzantine emporers sponsored iconoclasm, possibly as a result of the advance of Muslim armies into Western Europe. The popes challenged Byzantine imperial power and preserved the use of images outside the empire. The dispute was resolved in 787 when the Second Council of Nicaea ruled in favour of icons."

Karanacs (talk) 20:56, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Well the Nicene Creed really is pretty fundamental, and the argument s over the filioque cause which is (or isn't) part of it are also a large part of the eventual schism with the Eastern Orthodox. David Underdown (talk) 21:01, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
I should have specified; that was the second mention of the Nicene Creed. The first mention in several paragraphs earlier "Constantine was also instrumental in the convocation of the First Council of Nicaea in 325, which sought to address Arianism and formulated the Nicene Creed". The Filioque clause is mentioned later in the article. Karanacs (talk) 21:21, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

History section does not need further improvement or elimination

Since the history section was GA reviewed in depth and was expanded to meet the criteria, I would appreciate not eliminating these things. I would also appreciate not eliminating sourced information that was put into the article to satisfy both GA and FA reviewers comments. I do not think Karanacs suggestions improve the article but actually will detract. The questions being asked by this editor are able to be answered easily by going to the wikilinks within the sentences. NancyHeise (talk) 22:05, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
After looking over the new changes made by Karanacs to the History section, I made a couple of minor adjustments to improve word flow and put situations in places where they belong. I think the History section is fine. Adding to it will make it too long and eliminating from it will violate the GA reviewers comments causing it to lose its GA. NancyHeise (talk) 23:36, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
Nancy, I think I am missing something here. I am unsure what GA comments you keep referring to. Can you please provide a diff? Karanacs (talk) 03:08, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
My biggest concern with these passages is that they don't flow well with the rest of the sections; usually because there is not enough information to put it in context. Are those facts that important that they need to be in this article rather than in the main History of the church article? Karanacs (talk) 03:20, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
If you leave the facts out, it makes it incorrect because it doesnt say what the ref says and in at least one case, makes the sentence a POV when the original sentence was actually stating something else. I mentioned this in my edit to correct this.NancyHeise (talk) 18:30, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
Nancy, I am not sure what you are referring to here? Karanacs (talk) 18:43, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Inquisition text

Nancy, you removed the text I had changed about the Inquisition on the grounds that your version is shorter. Your version is actually longer (mine only appears longer because it has more citation information). Taking out the citation info on both sides, my version is 102 words (715 chars), while yours is 138 words (878 chars).

Here is the text I propose: The Inquisitions were intended to identify and prosecute heretics. The accused were encouraged to recant their heresy and those who did not could be punished by fine, imprisonment, or execution by burning. In 1252, the Church authorized torture as a method of questioning. Some of the Inquisitions also prosecuted bigamy, usury, witchcraft, apostasy, and blasphemy, and some accusations were made for political rather than religious purposes. Scientists, including Galileo Galilei, were also subject to the Inquisition. Although Pope Sixtus IV originally gave Spain permission to carry out their Inquisition under state control, the Church regained control after hearing reports of its ruthlessness.

All of this is cited to 2 books on the Inquisition. I believe the version that is currently on the page is factually incorrect. That version says that "Anyone suspected of following a faith other than Christianity was arrested." which is an exaggeration. It also states that "Although the pope issued strict guidelines about how to conduct these trials, abuses occurred including torture and execution", which is not true either; execution was an expected outcome, and torture was explicitly allowed. The version I propose also contains the information that people accused were not necessarily executed, as well as the fact that the Church took over the Spanish Inquisition because the Spanish were being too ruthless (which is a point in favor of the Church). Is there anything specific in my version that you dislike? Karanacs (talk) 03:08, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

1. A lot of articles on the Inquisition mention execution and burning as punishments without stating what proportion of incidents ended this way. This leads people to believe that a large percentage of Inquisition cases ended in burning or other form of execution. Execution may have been AN expected outcome, but except for a 20 year period under Torquemada, you had to try pretty hard to get executed. (Repent, conform, and then relapse into a previous serious heresy) In fact the number of executions was around 2% of those charged. (verified in kamen and other studies.) This needs to be made clear. This was a considerably lower number of executions than in most civil courts at the time.
2. Generally the Inquisition did not get involved in witchcraft trials or witchcraft mania. This is again part of Black legend folklore. Most areas with the Inquisition strongly present largely escaped widespread witchhunting.
3. If torture is mentioned, again it should be made clear that this was specifically limited. Only one session of torture was initially allowed. (although later this could be "suspended" and resumed), and (unlike the Black legends which immediately bring to mind racks, iron maidens and long knives) blood was not allowed to be shed and the principal method used was strappando, hanging by the wrists behind the back. :
Yes mention the specific "Nice" tortures used Strappado and Toca. (Hypnosadist) 16:06, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
4. The Galileo case is mentioned elsewhere in the article. One mention is enough. Saying "Scientists were subject to the inquisition" is unnecesary. Bakers were subject to the Inquisition, and Soldiers, and Milkmaids. Using such wording falsely implies that scientists were particularly targeted.
Scientists were specifically targeted because they challenged the Churchs view(and hence Gods) of the universe. (Hypnosadist) 16:08, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
5.Distinction needs to be drawn between National Laws eg the expulsion of Jews and Moors from Spain, and things done or authorized by the Church.
6. Basically, as long as there is a link to the main article for those interested, we do not need a long section on the Inquisition in an article that is principally on the present-day Catholic Church.Xandar (talk) 15:51, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
This section is on the history of the Church, and this is an important event in the history of the Church. I have no problem removing mention of witchcraft and this is the only mention of Galileo, but I'll agree to remove that as well because you are right that lots of professions were subject. Please note that execution is listed as the last punishment option in my proposed version. If you can find a source on the proportion of each type of punishment that was given, that would be excellent to include here. I haven't found one yet. There should be agreement, at least, that the existing text is inaccurate. Karanacs (talk) 16:45, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

New proposal to address Xandar's concerns: Karanacs (talk) 16:45, 14 February 2008 (UTC) The Inquisitions were intended to identify and prosecute heretics. The accused were encouraged to recant their heresy and those who did not could be punished by fine, imprisonment, or execution by burning. In 1252, the Church authorized torture as a method of questioning. Some of the Inquisitions also prosecuted bigamy, usury, apostasy, and blasphemy, and some accusations were made for political rather than religious purposes. Although Pope Sixtus IV originally gave Spain permission to carry out their Inquisition under state control, its ruthlessnes led the Church to bring the Spanish Inquisition back under Church control.

Your version, while concise, did not pass through either a peer review or a GA review. My version did pass. You removed my version to replace it with something that is really POV and misleading. While torture was approved in 1252 for one inquisition, it was not approved for the other inquisitions and the references actually state that the popes not only did not approve of the torture used by the states, but they had strict guidelines for questioning. Your version is more incorrect, less edited and more POV than mine. I don't see how you can reasonably insist that it belongs. I think you should leave it the way it was - the way that multiple editors and even Peer and GA approved. Thanks.NancyHeise (talk) 18:35, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
Nancy, please understand that GA criteria are much lower than FA criteria. The fact that an article passed GA does not mean that it is of FA status, nor does it mean that the article should remain as it was. Your version is factually incorrect - torture was officially approved in at least one instance, and not all non-Catholics were arrested. I do not understand how my version is POV and would like additional clarification. I am going to add a cleanup tag to that area until this is resolved because I think it is currently POV and inaccurate. Karanacs (talk) 18:47, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Inquisition sources

I found several sources about the Inquisition, including one that listed the percentage of executions in the Spanish Inquisition.

James Casey, Early Modern Spain: A Social History, published by Routledge, 2002 this is relevant to the Spanish Inquisition only p 229 "Overall, cases of heresy—Jews, Moriscos, Protestants (almost all foreigners) — accounted for only about 40 per cent of Inquisition business between 1540 and 1700, as the tribunal became more concerned instead with policing the faith and morals of the majority Old Christian population" p 230 The severity of these punishments seems to have depended on family background, with more indulgence shown towards the nobility and those of Old Christian ancestry. Formal heretics were ‘reconciled’ to the church, losing their property and being gaoled for a period, Only 3 or 4 per cent of trials ended with a death sentence, and about half of these were against those who had escaped abroad anyway


Christopher F. Black, Early Modern Italy: A Social History", published by Routledge, 2001 p 200 about the Inquisition in Venice: Once under way the inquisition tribunals operated very legalistically, under rule books and guidelines in the hands of well-trained lawyers, with theological advisers. Prior investigations and subsequent trial proceedings were more thorough than in other ecclesiastical or secular courts. Physical torture was used sparingly, and under fairly strict regulation – though there could be significantly effective psychological torture through the lengthy investigations carried on while many accused remained in prison, and the nature of the accusation and the accusers often remained unrevealed. Death sentences were rare and usually reserved for heretics deemed to have lapsed, and to be a threat to others p 202 The laity could readily use the inquisition for their own advantage, to seek revenge on enemies or punish a practitioner of magic who failed to deliver what was required by denouncing her as whore and witch p 203 The Italian inquisitions and other ecclesiastical courts, backed by episcopal decrees and legislation, campaigned against many superstitious practices, and ‘witchcraft’, which were seriously attempted by men and women

S.E. Filner, The History of Government from the Earliest Times Volume III: Empires, Monarchies and the Modern State, published by Oxford University Press in 1999 p 1295 Their task as inquisitors was to search out heresy, try the accused, give him the opportunity to recant, and if not hand him over to the secular power for punishment—which, at its most extreme, was to be burned alive. Their procedure was inquisitorial. The accused was interrogated with the testimony of witnessess, and in 1252 Paul IV authorized the use of torture to extract confessions. (This use of torture was in no way confined to the Inquisition. It was widespread in such secular tribunals as used inquisitorial procedures and for an identical reason: that they could only find an accused guilty on the strength of a confession.) p 1296, referring to the Inquisition after the Church took over from the Spanish authorities This 'New Inquisition' was a duly constituted court, with a supreme Consejo presided over by the Grand Inquisitor, and inferior tribunals in the larger towns. Its procedure encouraged delation and torture and was used for political as well as religious purposes, for it could and did strike at any person or class of persons in the country, and it could intimidate even by mere threat. Furthermore, its remit ran further than heresy, for it encompassed cases involving apostasy, witchcraft, bigamy, usury, and blasphemy

New attempt at more neutral and factually accurate language

The sources for this are above.

Catharism arose in the 12th century, with Cathars advocating extreme asceticism and denying the value of the Church sacraments. Pope Innocent III encouraged secular rulers to stamp out this heresy. To secure religious and doctrinal unity within Christianity, several popes conducted Inquisitions. Historians distinguish between the Medieval Inquisition, the Spanish Inquisition, the Roman Inquisition, and the Portuguese Inquisition, some under state and others under church control. The Inquisitions were intended to identify and prosecute heretics. The accused were encouraged to recant their heresy and those who did not could be punished by fine, imprisonment, or execution by burning (fewer than 4% of the accused were sentenced to death during the Spanish Inquisiton). In 1252, the Church, following the model of some secular tribunals, authorized torture as a method of questioning and issued guidelines on when it was allowed to be applied. Some of the Inquisitions also prosecuted bigamy, usury, apostasy, witchcraft, and blasphemy, and some accusations were made for political rather than religious purposes.

In an effort to be more POV, this version puts in a percentage of people who were executed and mentions that torture was used by secular courts as well, and that there were guidelines for its use. I added witchcraft back in because it appeared in several of the sources I found. Is this version acceptable now? Karanacs (talk) 19:49, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Changes to text on church hypocrisy during pre-reformation period

Nancy, is this text not able to be cited to the Church history ref? This is just a paraphrase of what it in the existing paragraph, and if it is not cited to that source then it needs to be cited to something. Respect for the Church and papal authority declined in the late Middle Ages due to these internal disagreements, clerical corruption and abuses of power, and perceived misuse of finances. Some ordained men were considered hypocrites, as they live luxurious lifestyles or maintained mistresses and fathered illegitimate children.[3] —Preceding unsigned comment added by Karanacs (talk • contribs) 03:12, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

This is able to be ref'd to several of my sources because they all say those same things right before they talk about the Reformation. NancyHeise (talk) 18:37, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

You removed this saying that it was not part of the reference. If it is part of the references, then I will add it back. Karanacs (talk) 18:51, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
I never removed that saying, I was the one who put it there in the first place. I wanted it left alone because it is factualy accurate. Also, what is with you and tags? The Middle Ages is not disputed. My information is not only referenced, it passed peer and GA review. What information do you possess that makes you decide that it is not factualy accurate and POV? Did you notice you are the only editor who is disputing this referenced information? NancyHeise (talk) 19:25, 14 February 2008 (UTC)


Inquisition Discussion continued

"The Medieval Inquisition in 1252 was part of the campaign against the Cathars also known as Albigensianism. At the time, heresy was seen as an attack on both the state and the Church and any remedy was considered acceptable, even torture." This is the sentence that passed GA and peer review. As you can see, torture is mentioned. Torture was acceptable to both the state and church - as it says in the sentence and reference. the only inquisition where the church approved torture was the 1252 one, not the other ones in fact the popes issued strict guidlines for the Spanish and Portugese and the Roman Inquistion was even milder. Your text says this: "The Inquisitions were intended to identify and prosecute heretics. The accused were encouraged to recant their heresy and those who did not could be punished by fine, imprisonment, or execution by burning. In 1252, the Church authorized torture as a method of questioning.[81] Some of the Inquisitions also prosecuted bigamy, usury, witchcraft, apostasy, and blasphemy, and some accusations were made for political rather than religious purposes.[81] Scientists, including Galileo Galilei, were also subject to the Inquisition." Galileo did not burn as a heretic nor was he subject to torture as your paragraph would lead the reader to believe. He was under house arrest until he died. Your version is unbeleivably incorrect and POV and misleading. I don't see how you can reasonably insist on its inclusion and then place a tag on the page that has passed both peer and GA review. I am hoping the FA reviewer will come to the rescue on this article. Help! NancyHeise (talk) 19:44, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
Please see the new proposal above that attempts to incorporate your viewpoint as well (sources are listed verbatim in the paragraph above). Don't feel too badly about the tags; I've seen FAs that have POV tags put on them the day they are listed as Today's Featured Article on the Main Page. The more people who look at an article, the more likely you are to have all issues found and addressed. Karanacs (talk) 19:53, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
The original text that passed GA and peer review included all facts including torture. Why you are trying to replace it with your version I do not know - it is not shorter and does not adequately address the different inquisitions - it lumps them all together. Why are you spending so much time to make this item so vague when it was fine before - passed GA and peer. You think FA has higher standards and then offer a replacement paragraph that offers less facts and is not any shorter in length. I think you should leave the history section alone and remove the tags because it is not POV. NancyHeise (talk) 19:58, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
GA and Peer Review don't usually verify facts. The existing paragraph did not pass GA, you expanded the paragraph due to a request at FA (diff of first addition: [1]). The existing version is factually inacurrate – All non-Catholics were NOT arrested, and torture WAS specfically condoned by the church (it was not an "abuse"). In the realm of this article, it is more important to summarize what the Inquisition was than to have a list of "this Inquisition took place in these years". By ignoring what the Inquisition was in favor of a list of the Inquisitions that took place, POV has been introduced. Can we please debate the merits of the paragraph I proposed? What do you think is wrong with the new one?Karanacs (talk) 20:29, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

DEBATING MERITS OF PROPOSED PARAGRAPH BY KARANACS: "Catharism arose in the 12th century, with Cathars advocating extreme asceticism and denying the value of the Church sacraments. Pope Innocent III encouraged secular rulers to stamp out this heresy. To secure religious and doctrinal unity within Christianity, several popes conducted Inquisitions. Historians distinguish between the Medieval Inquisition, the Spanish Inquisition, the Roman Inquisition, and the Portuguese Inquisition, some under state and others under church control." I AM FINE WITH THE ABOVE SECTION


"The Inquisitions were intended to identify and prosecute heretics."

THE ABOVE SENTENCE DOES NOT LET THE READER KNOW THE LINK BETWEEN INQUISITIONS AND THE EFFORT TO DRIVE OUT THE MOORS IN SPAIN, AN IMPORTANT FACT OF THE TIMES

"The accused were encouraged to recant their heresy and those who did not could be punished by fine, imprisonment, or execution by burning"

THE ABOVE SENTENCE INCORRECTLY MAKES IT APPEAR AS IF ALL INQUISITIONS EXECUTED PEOPLE BY BURNING WHEN THAT IS NOT THE FACT

(fewer than 4% of the accused were sentenced to death during the Spanish Inquisiton). THE ABOVE SENTENCE IS OK IF IT HAS A REFERENCE, MY REFERENCES SAID NOTHING ABOUT THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE EXECUTED

In 1252, the Church, following the model of some secular tribunals, authorized torture as a method of questioning and issued guidelines on when it was allowed to be applied.

THE ABOVE SENTENCE, WHILE FACTUAL, IS NOT HELPED LATER IN THE ARTICLE TO SHOW THAT TORTURE WAS NOT APPROVED BY THE CHURCH FOR LATER INQUISITIONS, ONLY THE ONE IN 1252


Some of the Inquisitions also prosecuted bigamy, usury, apostasy, witchcraft, and blasphemy, and some accusations were made for political rather than religious purposes.

THE ABOVE SENTENCE LUMPS ALL THE INQUISITIONS TOGETHER WHEN THE OTHER VERSION GIVES THE READER MORE ACCURATE INFORMATION AND IS NOT LONGER THAN KARANACS VERSION.

NancyHeise (talk) 21:29, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Hi Nancy, all of this is referenced above. One of the references specifically states that torture was also used in Italy. Another one says that in Spain, only 40% of the cases dealt with heresy. The other 60% dealt with other things, including some or all of what was listed there. In this overview, is it necessary to go into detail about what each Inquisition did, since much of that information is duplicated (no Inquisition dealt with only one issue)? Also, if we're going to explicitly mention that one of the Inquisitions was partially due to fear of the Moors, it needs to be mentioned later in the article that part of the reason England persecuted Catholics was fear of Spanish invasion. Karanacs (talk) 21:41, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

difficulty getting knowledgeable people to help

This comment was on my talk page after an admin asked me to consult with this person he considered an expert. This is what that person said:

I am sorry that I have not been able to intervene as requested. Perhaps I am not the best person to ask to polish an article, rather than merely to search out factual information. Besides, I fear that an editor who has taken a dislike to me and my editing might be drawn to intervene in what you and I would consider to be a negative way. Perhaps, too, people with prejudices against what the article is about will in any case make it impossible for you to achieve your aim, no matter how perfect you make the form of the article. Lima (talk) 20:29, 14 February 2008 (UTC)


I think it is clear that people like me who are trying to build a non POV article get harrassed by people who are somehow anti-Catholic and wish to turn these Wikipedia pages into propaganda against the Catholic church. I am very discouraged working with Karanacs after seeing her edits to the sensitive issues of Crusades and Inquisitions. I think her edits are very POV, mine were neutral - they told the plain facts. She has spun those facts into something that makes it POV. Other editors have said the same thing, she is the one owning the page and not listening to others. I am trying to bring an important article to FA - this editor is doing her best to block that effort. NancyHeise (talk) 01:44, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Nancy, I think you must acknowledge that you have a pro-Catholic POV. Many editors on the FAC nomination, not just me, have pointed out POV problems in this article. I am trying to help you fix them, and I am trying to use the talk page to work out wording, but you continue to make attacks and insist that the text remain unchanged. I have no idea who Lima is or why she is reluctant to help, but that does not mean that there is an anti-Catholic harrassment going on. Karanacs (talk) 02:12, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Infallibility

I've found a solid Catholic source about infallibility. I am typing up some quotations to share here for discussion. Vassyana (talk) 13:42, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Book quotes and title information: /infallibility. Any suggestions for how it might be put to use most effectively and appropriately in the article? Vassyana (talk) 15:36, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

I wonder if there needs to be a bery brief section on how Catholic beliefs are defined (maybe as the first paragraph of the beliefs section, before all the subsections). This could be something along the lines of (note: the only sources I have at the moment are the ones linked)
Catholic belief on all subjects is summarized in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, a book published by the Vatican.[19][5] These beliefs have been developed by the Magisterium, often through ecumenical councils. In rarer instances, a Pope has invoked papal infallibility to unilaterally define certain dogma. Other "church teachings ... have been commonly accepted as divinely revealed even though they have never been solemnly defined by a pope or council". When all bishops have consistently taught a certain belief, it is generally accepted to be a part of Catholic doctrine.
Karanacs (talk) 16:42, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Expansion of Eastern Orthodox material

The new Eastern Orthodox material seems unnecessary to me - it doesn't seem to have much relevance to this article, and, as I've marked, I'm not sure about one of the statistics. If people want to know more about the Orthodox churches per se (as distinct from their relationship with the Roman Catholic Church), they can go to that article. Which comment on the FA was it intended to address? TSP (talk) 14:11, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

While I agree with you on the inclusion of this material, do the math. 1,100,000,000 + 350,000,000 = 1,450,000,000 rounded up that's pretty damn close to 3/4 of 2,000,000,000. --Mike Searson (talk) 14:21, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
Mmm, that's taking the extreme values from several different sources, though, which aren't necessarily comparable, then rounding up again. The RC figure is an extreme because, as I understand it, at least for some areas of the world (where census data is not available) it includes all people who have been baptised and never formally left the church; who may theologically be considered Catholics but would not be considered so by most sociological methods (as I understand it, it can even include active worshippers of other faiths, as long as they have not submitted a formal document leaving the Catholic Church). The Eastern Orthodox figure is taking the very top of an estimated range.
The Encyclopedia Britannica, quoted on adherents.com, gives 1995 estimates of Catholic: 968,000,000, Protestant: 395,867,000, Other Christians: 275,583,000, Orthodox: 217,948,000, Anglicans: 70,530,000. This gives the Catholics (which I think in this case would include non-RC "Catholic" denominations like the Old Catholics, but these are mostly fairly tiny) almost exactly half; but the sum of Catholic and Orthodox under two-thirds. TSP (talk) 15:09, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
Perhaps it would be best to list an estimated range of membership size (cited to the multiple sources that provide those numbers) and leave out the percentage. Karanacs (talk) 15:57, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
Now I take a look, the sources for the RCC membership actually seem pretty consistent; the Britannica figure is signficantly lower, but then it is 13 years old. The World Christian Database actually has it slightly higher, apparently (though I can't get to that information). I'm not sure if there is enough of a range to be worth noting. Of course, all these figures may actually be emanating from the same source; I don't know if there are any completely independent attempts to estimate the church's size without drawing on church-published statistics. TSP (talk) 16:02, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
Here's a more recent number from the BBC(not exactly a pro-catholic organization) 1.086 billion from 2005[2]--Mike Searson (talk) 16:56, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
...which identifies it explicitly as a church-provided figure ("The Roman Catholic Church - the largest branch of Christianity - says there are a total of 1.086 billion baptised members around the globe."). I expect that'll be the figure from the Statistical Yearbook of the Church prior to the edition we use. (Incidentally, is there no more recent edition than 2005?)
The figures on RCC membership seem pretty consistent, though; it's more the Eastern Orthodox numbers which don't match the current claims in the article.
There used to be a footnote noting the exact meaning of the Statistical Handbook figure; I'll see if I can dig out what it was. I don't mean to suggest that the figure is unreliable, but I do seem to remember that what the figure represented was slightly different from what you might expect. If it is, as the BBC implies, 'baptised members' - i.e. all those who have been baptised in a Catholic church, whether or not they would now consider themselves Catholic - then that would include people who would not be called 'Catholics' by most measures. TSP (talk) 17:03, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
I do not believe it means "Actively practicing", more than likely it is just the baptized. To tell the truth, I do not think there is an accurate method of measuring practicing Catholics, reverts, converts to other faiths, etc. However there are Baptismal and Confirmation records. According to the article...Baptism is what makes one a member.--Mike Searson (talk) 17:15, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
I added a citation and changed the language - what do you think now? NancyHeise (talk) 17:16, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
I'm still not really sure why the content is there at all - it doesn't relate to the subject of the article. It feels like it's trying to make some point. Yes, the Roman Catholic Church plus the Eastern Orthodox Church make up a decisive majority of Christians; so do, say, the Roman Catholic Church plus the African Indigenous Churches. If you will excuse my phrasing, so what? We seem to be implying that this fact is notable, but not providing a reason why. As the source does not comment on the fact that the two constitute a majority, merely provides figures from which this could be established, this probably constitutes an original research synthesis. TSP (talk) 03:24, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

TSP, I put this information in the article to give the reader a perspective on what the majority of Christians beleive. If you look back on these talkpages, you will see people who have suggested the Catholics are not Christians at all, that we are some sort of cult. I think this is a necessary point to make in the beleifs section primarily for this reason. NancyHeise (talk) 21:11, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Inquisition proposal

We really need fresh eyes on the text for the Inquisition paragraph, so I'm taking the liberty of posting again. Here is my proposed paragraph:

Catharism arose in the 12th century, with Cathars advocating extreme asceticism and denying the value of the Church sacraments. Pope Innocent III encouraged secular rulers to stamp out this heresy. To secure religious and doctrinal unity within Christianity, several popes conducted Inquisitions. Historians distinguish between the Medieval Inquisition, the Spanish Inquisition, the Roman Inquisition, and the Portuguese Inquisition, some under state and others under church control. The Inquisitions were intended to identify and prosecute heretics. The accused were encouraged to recant their heresy and those who did not could be punished by fine, imprisonment, or execution by burning (fewer than 4% of the accused were sentenced to death during the Spanish Inquisiton). In 1252, the Church, following the model of some secular tribunals, authorized torture as a method of questioning and issued guidelines on when it was allowed to be applied. Some of the Inquisitions also prosecuted bigamy, usury, apostasy, witchcraft, and blasphemy, and some accusations were made for political rather than religious purposes.

Sources are listed verbatim here. Nancy commented here that she wants the paragraph to mention that the Inquisitions were also prompted by fear of a Moorish invasion. I agreed but ONLY if the information on English persecution of Catholics was altered to mention fear of Spanish invasion. (no response on that suggestion). There are more comments above which I felt were factually inaccurate based on the sources, and Nancy also thought that this paragraph was too vague. I'd like more viewpoints, please. Karanacs (talk) 15:34, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

I would like these to be factual. Facts help the reader see that people were living in a war zone most of the time and the inquisitions and persecutions were not simply some pope or English monarch deciding to slaughter people, they were a response to the threat of war. Much like the communist inquisition that took place here in our own US under MaCarthyism or something of that nature. I think that is a fact that will help the paragraph, not hurt it. I have the citation to support the driving out the Moors sentence. I have no information in my sources that suggest the English feared Spanish invasion and thus resorted to Catholic persecution. You will have to supply that ref,sorry. Also, I am fine with your new changes to the Middle Ages, putting the information about what clerical abuses there were in the Counterreformation paragraph. I think that is a reasonable compromise. Thanks. NancyHeise (talk) 17:23, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, Nancy. I should be able to find a source for the English/Spanish invasion fear (that was the whole Spanish Armada scare). If we modify the sentence to read The Inquisitions were intended to identify and prosecute heretics, and in some cases initiated from fear of Moorish invasion., would that satisfy your concern? Karanacs (talk) 17:32, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
I just looked at a new FA reviewers comments and he has a lot of problems with the history section. From his point of view it is a total waste. Just wondering if you saw his comments.NancyHeise (talk) 18:09, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
I did see his comments. Some of them are similar to mine - there is mssing information and some of what has been included is not placed in its historical context, which makes it either POV or incorrect. I think part of this might have been because the sources that were used are more broad overviews. I wouldn't object to the section but taken apart piece by piece to discuss what should be included in each era, but that will take a lot of looking through sources. Karanacs (talk) 18:31, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Just FYI, I changed the section on Elizabeth I per our conversation above. If you don't like this, please discuss here what should be changed. At the beginning of Elizabeth I's reign Catholic practices were outlawed, but the laws, were often loosely enforced.[5] Following her excommunication by Pius V, England successfully put down several rebellions and faced threats invasion by Catholic countries such as France and Spain.[6] With this atmosphere, Elizabeth I issued the Acts of Persuasion, which made conversion to Catholicism treason punishable by death. Karanacs (talk) 18:31, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

I think at the very least a wikilink to the Penal laws (Ireland) article should be in there. Or is the perception that persecution of Irish Catholics is not worthy of mention here? "Loosely enforced" seems POV to me.--Mike Searson (talk) 18:50, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
I am ok with Karanacs new content on Elizabeth I and I think it is OK to include at least a wikilink and possibly more info at least a sentence on Ireland but it has to be very careful not to be POV because we all know what a hot button issue that subject is. I would hate to introduce more conflict on this article if we can get by without it. NancyHeise (talk) 18:54, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
Should it not be mentioned that saying Mass, posessing sacramentals, and attending Mass in Ireland was outlawed? What about the bounty on priest's heads and imprisoned clergy; the ban on military service for Catholics? Shouldn't the reason for the rebellions that were put down be mentioned if we're going to include the paranoia of a monarch as an excuse for Catholic persecution?--Mike Searson (talk) 19:21, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
The reason this was added is because we are going to partially justify the Inquisition as the paranoia of a monarch. According to my source, the first rules were loosely enforced (there's even a quote from Elizabeth there). The change happened after she was excommunicated and after several Catholic rebellions sprang up. What if we add a sentence to the end that says "Similar laws were enacted in Ireland." using your reference? Karanacs (talk) 19:53, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
Works for me! Thanks! --Mike Searson (talk) 20:05, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

General sourcing issues

I noticed that a source had been added to the membership numbers and wanted to reiterate WP policies on reliable sources, verifiability (especially the sources section). Concerns about the sources on this article have been brought up by numerous people (including me) at the FA nomination. Although Nancy did a good job of removing many of the initial problematic citations, the currently used citations are still not at the caliber that the article should use. I thought that a brief overview for clarity might help. Basically, the WP guidelines and policies say that if at all possible, academic sources should be used.

  • Academic sources are considered the most reliable because they have usually been peer-reviewed and fact-checked. These are generally books with a publisher of University of....Press or books published by a respected journal (not a magazine). They have been written by a an expert such as a historian, a theologian, or other scholar. (The University of Notre Dame Press publishes a lot of books by experts in the Catholic Church. So do many other academic publishers.)
  • The next most reliable sources would be books published by a mainstream publisher. This includes book by organizations such as National Geographic. These are generally not peer-reviewed or fact checked and are usually not written by an expert.
  • Newspapers and Magazines would be considered next most reliable, but in an article like this they should not be used to document much beyond current events.
  • Websites are usually self-published and should be used with caution. In this article, most facts should not be cited to websites, even websites maintained at university domains.
  • Sources that are published by the Catholic Church should be used sparingly, and only if that information cannot be found elsewhere.

Karanacs (talk) 17:21, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

I just read the Wikipedia policies, this is copied and pasted from that page: "Material from reliable non-academic sources may also be used in these areas, particularly if they are respected mainstream publications"

National Geographic is a mainstream publication that is fact checked and peer reviewed. Karanacs can not arbitrarily decides without evidence that National Geographic is somehow not a reliable source. NancyHeise (talk) 17:34, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Also, after looking at the guidelines, it appears to me that a lot of what you made me delete was actually fine to keep. Maybe I should not have relyied on your advice on what is a reliable source. NancyHeise (talk) 17:34, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

The National Geographic was brought up someone else on the FA with good reason - it was not a scholarly work. This list is the order that sources are considered reliable; an academic work is expected to be consulted before a newspaper etc. Karanacs (talk) 19:54, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
I just finished reading the book Saints and Sinners by Eamon Duffy published by Yale University Press. It says that Peter did not found the church at Rome, that there were already Christians there before he came but that he did found the church at Antioch. It also says that it is evident from all the Gospels and early church writings that Peter was seen as the leader of the church by virtue of his consecration by Jesus. This book also says that although there is confusion as to the organization amongst the Christian communities in the early years, there is evidence of church leaders referred to in letter from a Roman. The first list of bishops comes from Irenaeus but there is an earlier account of a meeting with a church leader by Polycarp and and Anicetus in Rome in the mid 150's. Polycarp, this book says, knew the Apostle John in his old age. He therefore strongly urged direct apostolic authority for the practice of the churches in Asia Minor and their satelite ethnic congregations in Rome itself of keeping Easter at Passover. The author of this book calls the list by Irenaeus, "suspiciously tidy" but then offers no other explanation as to who founded the church or any evidence that it is not authentic. This book does not refute or deny what the National Geographic book says. In fact, if you omit the authors specualtive negative remarks, Saints and Sinners says the same thing that National Geographic says. These books are in agreement on facts. I urge any editor who is going to challenge listing Jesus as founder of the Roman Catholic Church to please read this book Saints and Sinners pages 1-13 and the National Geographic book. Both are listed as references in the article if you need ISBN numbers. This issue should not keep coming up again on this article as it detracts from actally fixing the things that really need attention like the history section. If someone keeps bringing this issue up, it is difficult not to look at it as harassment especially when I have two top sources to support the entry in the article and no one has anything better. Thanks. NancyHeise (talk) 21:09, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
It is not harrassment for multiple people to bring up similar issues. That is a personal attack and has no place in Wikipedia. Users should definitely be asked to provide sources, but quoting only two books of the plethora that have been published on the origins of the Church is also not enough to definitively stop the debate. (Note: I have no position on this particular issue at all.) Karanacs (talk) 20:55, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
I would like to list some of the historians listed as consultants in the National Geographic book so you can tell me if this is not to be considered a scholarly work: Archbishop Desmond Tutu is the author of numerous books, honorary doctor of a number of leading universities, Nobel Peace Prize winner, an Anglican bishop (not Catholic regretably); John Esposito, Ph.D, University Professor of Religion and International Affairs, Georgetown University; Arvind Sharma, Ph.D, Birks Professor of Comparative Religion, McGill University, Canada; Robert L. Wilken, Ph.D,is the William Kenan Jr. Professor of the History of Christianity, University of Virginia and president of the St. Anselm Institute for Catholic Thought and Chairman of the Board for the Center for Catholic and Evangelical Theology, and is the author of ten books; Laurie Cozad, Ph.D, Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Religion, University of Mississippi, Hibba Abugideieiri, PhD, Assistant Professor of History, Honors and International Affairs, George Washington University, Susan Tyler Hitchcock, PhD is the author of 11 books on history, culture, and nature. The Dalai Lama is listed as one of the consultants for that part of the book as well as top religion experts in the other religions listed in the book. I would just like to know if anyone of the editors on this page thinks that this book is somehow not a scholarly work that has been peer reviewed and fact checked. NancyHeise (talk) 21:08, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
Being written by scholars is not the same thing as being fact-checked or peer-reviewed. Academic publishers (university presses and scholarly journals) usually have their books peer-reviewed and fact-checked. A scholar can still write a book and have it published by a non-academic publisher, but that work won't be peer-reviewed. The National Geographic book isn't a "bad" source per se, but there are other, better sources available, and I think the reviewer was trying to say that the other sources should be used to complement or corroborate. Karanacs (talk) 21:29, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

A National Geographic book written by numerous top historical scholars is not the same as a book written by a single scholar and then published by National Geographic. A collaboration of scholars on a subject is by definition, Peer Reviewed and Fact Checked. NancyHeise (talk) 20:19, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Apologies

Karanacs, I apologized to you on my talk page. I will try to be more reasonable. I appreciate your new edits to the history section as it seems that they are not POV. I made changes to the section that you found confusing on laity. I just reworded it, I did not provide new refs as the ones there are OK. Let me know if you think it still needs improvement. NancyHeise (talk) 21:19, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Thank you Nancy. I saw your changes to the laity section and I thought they were very good! Thanks for being so fact about that. I don't know if you noticed, but I also added a few [clarification needed] tags on sentences I didn't understand. I can copy those sentences to the talk page if that would make it easier. Karanacs (talk) 21:31, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

These have been addressed. let me know if they still need clarification. Thanks for pointing that out, what may be obvious for Catholics may not be obvious for others and I am glad you mentioned these. NancyHeise (talk) 01:35, 17 February 2008 (UTC)


History To Do List copied from FAC

At a quick glance - "Beginning in the 11th century some older cathedral schools developed into universities." which is sourced to a web site and greatly simplifies the whole question. The cathedral schools did not directly become universities, but rather the cathedral schools attracted peripheral scholars who set up their own guilds, or universities, to teach in addition to the cathedral schools. Besides, the web site for that cite doesn't say anything close to what it being cited to. I'm sure the book the web site is about does, but you need to cite the book itself, not the website review of the book.


You've muddled time frames with discussing the Cistercians along with the friars. Cistercians were founded a 100 years before the friars, and avoided towns. By placing them together you imply that the Cistercians were involved in the towns, which they empatically were not.

In fact, Innocent III preached a crusade, the Albigensian Crusade against the Cathars.There were a number of other heresies that caused the foundation of the inqusitions.

Who is this English pope? You're talking about the 14th century, and then link to Nicholas Breakspear, who is from the 12th??? And Adrian IV didn't reside in Rome because of he faced a revolt lead by Arnold of Brescia, which I suppose had something to do with his health, but France wasn't a powerful country at the time of Adrian's election, it was still under Louis VII. And Adrian did NOT reside in Avignon. I believe you mean Pope Clement V here, not Adrian. Clement was a Gascon, not an Englishman, and while he was a subject of the King of England, it was only because the King of England was also Duke of Aquitaine (or Gascony).

Technically, the French did not "control" Avignon, and current historical scholarship leans towards the belief that while the first couple of Avignonese popes were intimidated by the French monarchy, the later ones were not so much under the control of the French, and that other reasons kept them away from Rome.


The way the Great Schism is described, it leads one to believe that only two men claimed to be pope during this time. There were actually several different men on each side, not just two.


Luther actually owed very little of his thought to the Renaissance, and saying that the Reformation repudiated the seven sacraments and the Eucharist isn't exactly correct. Various reformers rejected various parts of the sacraments, and rejected parts of the Catholic teaching on the Eucharist. I think the Lutherans would object to being told they reject the Eucharist and the sacraments, as well as all other denominations listed in the Eucharist article.


The heading 'Renaissance" is misleading, since most of what is being discussed is from the Reformation and Counter-Reformation. If you want to mention things from the Renaissance, mention Lorenzo Valla. The statement that Henry IV of France hoped to avoid the religious wars of his neighbors as the cause of the Edict of Nantes is just... wrong. There were already a series of religious wars in France, fought because Henry was originally a Protestant who converted to Catholicism to become king, and he issued the Edict to STOP the religious wars in his kingdom.


The sudden introduction of the Japanese revolt when there has been nothing on the Japanese being converted is rather jarring, and who is Ieyasu? No context is given for that.

The whole section of the Age of Reason is disjointed and lacking context on statements. We aren't told what Louis XIV did (hint, he revoked the Edict of Nantes) No mention of Gallicism, or the settlement between the pope and the French kings over the papal revenues from France and the appointment of bishops in France. Also there is no good indication of time scale in this section, it's just a series of data without much connection to the other data. Historians are divided on the issue of the Council of Jerusalem in about 50, many are not sure it took place, others don't believe it dealt with the things that it is often claimed to have dealt with. The Christians were probably subject to persecutions not just because they refused to worship the gods or the emperors, but because they were different and secretive. Also, many historians believe that systemic persecution led by the emperors didn't happen until the middle of the 3rd century. Previous episodes of persecution were largely localized and not led by authorities. Whether Constantine was a convert, and WHEN he converted is a subject under intense debate among historians. You mention the Oriental Orthodox Church, but not the Monophysites or any of the other branches of Christianity The Catholic Church launched missionary activity only later than 476, much closer to 700 or so. The efforts in the Balkans were done by missionaries from Constantinople. The Finss weren't missonized until after 910, as were the Scandinavians. The section on the Early Middle Ages is a muddle of chronology and topics. You mix up the Benedictines with the missionary efforts, and imply that many of the peoples listed were missionized and converted by 910. Needs a thorough rewrite to not mislead readers.


I did NOT look at any sections other than the historical with any sort of depth, but the prose could use a good copyedit, I think. Several contentious statements are not cited: Galileo Galilei was among those tried as heretics under this inquisition. French King Henry IV, hoping to avoid the religious wars of his neighbors, ..." Dioscorus, the patriarch of Alexandria, disagreed wtih this dogma..."and the rest of that paragraph. For now, I must oppose, as the historical sections have some wrong information, and use sourcing that is not of the quality demanded by FA status. Ealdgyth | Talk 16:58, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

this was the list that ended up failing the FA status of this article for good. If anyone wants to help address it, please do, Thanks. NancyHeise (talk) 00:12, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Sources issues addressed

The books National Geographic's History of Religion (a collaboration of the world's top historians, fact checked and peer reviewed) and Eamon Duffy's Saints and Sinners (Yale University Press) are the best sources that anyone has found to support the claims made in this article. They conform to Wikipedia's highest standards and both books make the same claims regarding the origins of the Church and the primacy of Peter. If anyone has a problem with these sources, they must provide a better source since these actually reflect the best historians and research in the world today. Vassayana has accused me of cherrypicking out of Saints and Sinners so I ask anyone who suspects any cherry picking ot please go get this book out of the library (Library of Congress Catalog Card number 97-60897) and read pages 1-13 which discuss the origins of the papacy. These pages talk about the actual historical evidence and also give some negative comments and speculation by the author. The author gives provides no acutual historical evidence to refute the claims of the Catholic Church's claims of papal succesion beginning with Saint Peter. Thanks. NancyHeise (talk) 21:48, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

To clarify for those who "weren't there", Nancy is referring to an exchange we had during the featured article candidacy. She cited Saints and Sinners to support her position.[3] I responded pointing out that what immediately followed in the book contradicted her position.[4] She admitted to cherry-picking, justifying the practice.[5] I responded to the assertions she made.[6] Vassyana (talk) 01:40, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
To clarify even more, Vassayana did not read far enough in the book Saints and Sinners to find the actual conclusion made by this author after pondering all the evidence. While it is true that Peter did not found the church in Rome (there were already Christians living there when it is believed that Peter arrived), this book supports the he was in Rome leading the church and considered its undeniable leader. I have used a quote from this book in the Origins section of the article to show his conclusions on church origins after he pondered all of the written historical records. This quote is: In his book "Saints and Sinners, A History of the Popes" Duffy states "There is no sure way to settle on a date by which the office of ruling bishop had emerged in Rome, and so to name the first Pope, but the process was certainly complete by the time of Anicetus in the mid-150's, when Polycarp, the aged Bishop of Smyrna, visited Rome, and he and Anicetus debated amicably the question of the date of Easter." So it seems clear that we have two top sources to support the claims made in this article. Jesus is considered the founder, Traditionally and no historical evidence exists to decisively prove otherwise. NancyHeise (talk) 02:33, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Addressing comments about including reference in Beliefs opening paragraph about the majority of Christians and statistics sourcing

Since the Catholic Church is sometimes criticized by Protestants of being somehow not Christian, they think we are some kind of obscure cult, it is important to include these comments in the Belief opening paragraph. The book Saints and Sinners acknowledge the immense size of the Catholic Church stating that in 1997 church population was 900 million, that was 10 years ago so it is hard to argue the current figures of 1.1 billion that are referenced both the church statistics (baptized and confirmed members) and the World Christian Trends and a German database. Wikipedia reliable sources policy states that you can use self published sources if the information can not be found elsewhere and these sources are supplemented with three outside sources and further enhanced by the Saints and Sinners book. NancyHeise (talk) 21:48, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Just to be clear, the sentences we are talking about are "The Eastern Orthodox Church is the second largest Christian denomination in the world. Together, these two churches represent a decisive majority of all Christian believers.", yes?
I'm afraid I don't see how this content addresses the criticism you identify. If someone were to come up to you and say, "The Catholic Church isn't Christian!" would your answer be, "But it's really big, and so is the Eastern Orthodox Church!"? The data seems to have nothing at all to do with beliefs, and little to do with the Roman Catholic Church; so I'm still not seeing what it is doing in the Beliefs section of the Roman Catholic Church article.
It's silly that we're debating this at such length, as it's a tiny issue in the context of the whole article; I just don't think that content should be there, and I'm not really understanding why you think it should.
Regarding sources, there's nothing wrong with the sources per se. Your sources do have to say exactly what you are citing them as saying, though - see the Original Research policy on syntheses. Combining sources to get a new conclusion is generally still original research. For statements like "[The Roman Catholic Church represents] over half of all Christians", you really need a source saying exactly that; rather than taking, say, a source giving an overall number of Christians and a source giving the number of Roman Catholic Church members and doing your own sums - that's a synthesis (because the figures, while they may appear to lead to your conclusion, may not be definitive or comparable enough to make that judgement from them). I don't have access to all the article's sources, but that's something to check in all such comparative figures.
The German PDF, incidentally, was simply a copy of the adherents.com data, as it explained in the introduction in German - I've replaced it with an adherents.com link. TSP (talk) 22:56, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
Another source for stats is |the CIAs World Factbook, which puts the number at "about 1 billion." Nancy, good job being patient with pedants. The.helping.people.tick (talk) 01:05, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Not being a person who speaks German, I would not have known the source came from Adherents.com. I also had to look up the word Pedant. As far as giving the reader some perspective on how many of the total number of Christians in the world believe what, I think the sentences in the Belief section opening paragraph actually do something to inform others on that important issue. It is a fact that should not be neglected to mention in this article. It is not a negative comment, it is not POV, it simply states the fact that the majority of the world's Christians hold the beleifs which are going to be explained in the following section. TSP, do you have a problem with that information being here? What is your feeling about this information. Did you know these facts before reading this article? Was it something that gave you some perspective on the Roman Catholic Church and its place in the world? If so, then the factual informaiton should stay - just my opinion. NancyHeise (talk) 02:30, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

I certainly think that all available statistics about the Roman Catholic Church should be in this article. Statistics about the Eastern Orthodox Church should be in that article. Statistics formed by adding together statistics about the two churches shouldn't be in any article unless notability of that statistic has been established; at the moment, I'm not seeing it.
The article needs to convey all relevant facts, but not to push a particular viewpoint. The beliefs section needs to be about beliefs; membership data should be in demographics. We shouldn't put unrelated information into a section to make sure that the reader reads it from a particular perspective or draws particular conclusions. TSP (talk) 02:58, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Regarding using the stats to form the conclusion that the majority of worlds Christians beleive - here is a sentence from the Original Research policy on syntheses "Summarizing source material without changing its meaning is not synthesis — it is good editing." I have not changed the meaning of the stats, I have summarized them. I combined the numbers of Roman Catholics and EAstern Orthodox and compared them to total Christians to draw a conclusion that is communicated by the stats. That is not changing the meaning, that is using stats for the purpose for which they are intended. NancyHeise (talk) 02:36, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

I think that is pushing "without changing its meaning" to breaking point. As the sentence before that says, "If the sources cited do not explicitly reach the same conclusion, or if the sources cited are not directly related to the subject of the article, then the editor is engaged in original research." That is the case here - this seems fairly analagous to the example of synthesis given in the policy. The source does not reach the conclusion that the Roman Catholic Church constitutes over half of all Christians (I don't know if it does, as that is sourced to an offline source), or that the Roman Catholic Church plus the Eastern Orthodox church constitute a "decisive majority" of Christians.
The issue is partly for the philosophical issue of no original research; it's also for the more practical issue that we don't know if the statistics are fit for the purpose we are using them for: we don't know if the statistics for all churches have been gathered using the same methodology, or if their margins of error are small enough to confidently say that the membership of the RCC is greater than the combined memberships of all other churches. Conclusions like that are for our sources to draw, not us.
I'm muddling a little two seperate issues here. My main issue with the RCC+Orthodox figure is lack of established notability - this doesn't seem to have been established to be an important statistic. My concern with the "over 50%" statistic is possible lack of sourcing - because it is close to 50% in some of our sources, we need to have a source saying it is definitely over 50%, because this is a potentially controversial assertion. TSP (talk) 02:58, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
Haha, and here one is: "The Roman Catholics in the world outnumber all other Christians combined" - Encylopedia Britannica Millennium Edition, 2000. I knew that would come in useful sometime :-) TSP (talk) 02:59, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

OK, how's this source: the United States Central Intelligence Agency says this: "Religions: Christians 33.32% (of which Roman Catholics 16.99%, Protestants 5.78%, Orthodox 3.53%, Anglicans 1.25%), Muslims 21.01%, Hindus 13.26%, Buddhists 5.84%, Sikhs 0.35%, Jews 0.23%, Baha'is 0.12%, other religions 11.78%, non-religious 11.77%, atheists 2.32% (2007 est.)" This comes directly from the new reference I just put next to the two thirds statement in the disputed sentence in Beliefs opening paragraph. YOu may take a look at it here: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/xx.html#Issues NancyHeise (talk) 03:06, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

That still doesn't draw the conclusion in question; but that's fine, because the Britannica cite I've just added does. (The 50% statistic, that is.)
Which still leaves the question of the notability of the Eastern Orthodox statistics. TSP (talk) 03:13, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
I disagree that it doesnt draw the conclusion in question. How can you say that a statistic does not draw a conclusion on how many people believe what? It says it right there - Catholics 16.99, Orthodox 3.53 out of a total Christians of 33.32% of the worlds population. What is new or original research about reading statistics? They communicate the exact message I am conveying in the article. Gosh, this is the United States Government, if Wikipedia has problem with that, what can we use? NancyHeise (talk) 03:17, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
Absolutely. It says that Christians constitute 33.32% of the world's population. It says that Catholics constitute 16.99% of the world's population. It says that Orthodox constitute 3.53% of the world's population. At no point does it comment on Catholics, or the sum of Catholics and Orthodox, as a percentage of Christians. '"A and B, therefore C" is acceptable only if a reliable source has published this argument in relation to the topic of the article.'
This is a bit irrelevant now; as I say, I've found a clear source for the assertion that Catholics make up over 50% of Christians. My concern with the Orthodox statistic is not sourcing, but notability for this article. Why do we comment on this statistic, when we have no source that suggests that it is a notable fact? And why in the Beliefs section? TSP (talk) 03:21, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

It is notable that the Eastern Orthodox beliefs are so similar that the two churches have engaged in discussions to reunite. This is one of the main goals not only of Pope John Paul II but also of Pope Benedict. They are going to persist in this effort because they think it is God's will. Also, here is what Wikipedia says about using Primary sources which include Census : "Primary sources are sources very close to the origin of a particular topic. ... To the extent that part of an article relies on a primary source, it should: only make descriptive claims about the information found in the primary source, the accuracy and applicability of which is easily verifiable by any reasonable, educated person without specialist knowledge, and make no analytic, synthetic, interpretive, explanatory, or evaluative claims about the information found in the primary source. The US government CIA World FactBook is not a census, it is a reliable source that used a primary source (census). Maybe I will change the wording in the article to avoid this discussion lets see what I can do NancyHeise (talk) 03:30, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

There may be a place for points about the Roman Catholic Church's relationship to the Eastern Orthodox Church; but I'm reasonably sure that it isn't the introduction to the Beliefs section. Perhaps there should be a section somewhere about the Church's views on other denominations, and vice versa?
The World Factbook isn't much more than a primary source - it presents data, it doesn't analyse or comment on it. But, as I've said, my concern about this section is not its sourcing, it's its notability. TSP (talk) 03:47, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure the CIA does not have the resources to go out collecting info on the number of Catholics and Hindus in the world -- they probably rely on others to collect and report the information. That make it at least secondary.

The paragraph that now opens the Belief section is really about ecumenism, and should probably go under History:Modernity:after the vatican 2 paragraph. I re-wrote it a bit for that purpose: "The Second Vatican Council provided an impetus toward the reunification of all Christians, a movement called ecumenism. Eastern Orthodox Christian belief is quite similar to Roman Catholic belief, differing mainly on matters such as papal infallibility, the filioque clause and the immaculate conception of Mary. Together, these two churches represent a decisive majority of all Christian believers. The Catholic and Orthodox churches have discussed the possibility of unification in recent times but this goal has not yet been achieved. Protestant Christians, the third largest group of Christians, vary in their beliefs but differ from Catholics especially regarding the authority of the Pope and of church tradition, the role of Mary and the saints, the role of the priesthood, and issues pertaining to grace, good works and salvation. The five solas were one attempt to express these differences. The Catholic Church maintains official ecumenical dialog with the larger Protestant denominations toward reunification."

The paragraph that should open the Belief section probably ends with "The Catholic belief on all subjects is summarized in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, a book published by the Vatican." Waddayathink? The.helping.people.tick (talk) 14:12, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

I think that the part comparing the beliefs of the RCC with those of other churches is fine for the Beliefs section - many readers will be familiar with other Christian churches, so it's worthwhile mentioning this early on (though perhaps also in more depth later, or in a different article specifically devoted to comparing the beliefs of different Christian groups) so that those already familiar with other groups don't have to read through all the "Catholics believe in a Trinitarian God" which they already knew about. It's the bit where it starts talking about statistics which doesn't seem to fit there.
I think that relationships with other churches probably fits best in the section currently entitled 'Community'. I don't think they should be presented as a purely historical issue. We seem to be rather missing a section about the church as a body, which is where this content would belong. The 'Community' section is the nearest to it, so I'd suggest renaming this (though I'm not quite sure what to) and accommodating relationships with other churches, and perhaps also demographics, under this. TSP (talk) 14:57, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

What do you think about keeping the part that lists what the different branches of Christianity believe in the Beliefs section and eliminating the part about RCC trying to reconcile with EO? That way the Beleifs paragraph is only about beliefs. The reconciliation part can go into history under Vatican II paragraph or we can create a separate section called Relationships with other churches and religions and then discuss the dialogue with Jews, Muslims, EO, and Protestant churches. Let me know your thoughts before I waste time doing this. NancyHeise (talk) 19:05, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I agree. As I say, the sentences that I think don't belong are: "The Roman Catholic Church is the largest Christian church comprising over half of all Christians. The Eastern Orthodox Church is the second largest Christian denomination in the world. Together, these two churches represent a decisive majority of all Christian believers. The two churches have discussed the possibility of becoming one in recent times but this goal has not yet been acheived." These appear to have nothing to do with beliefs; the rest of the paragraph is about beliefs. TSP (talk) 01:19, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
I've now made what I think is exactly the change Nancy proposed there. Does anyone have a problem with the version as I just edited it? TSP (talk) 23:39, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm not at all certain as to why I should accept this TSP person's definition of who is/is not a Catholic in place of Holy Maother Church's. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Catholic monarchist (talk • contribs) 08:03, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Addressing comments asking for Beleifs opening paragraph to include reference to the church councils

The councils are addressed in detail in the history section. I am not sure that it is necessary to discuss them again in this opening paragraph. What does anyone else think? NancyHeise (talk) 21:51, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Well they were an important venue for determining beleifs, so it seems odd not to at elast mention them in passing (can always refer readers to the Hisotry section). David Underdown (talk) 13:01, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
I noted in the section above that I thought the Beliefs opening para should be redone; including a mention of the councils as key in defining certain beliefs seems appropriate. A historical approach for the opening paragraph could include mentions of the preaching of the Apostles, the writing and canonization of Scripture, the Christological and Trinitarian councils (and creeds), and the development of worship on Sunday, ending with the Catechism sentence that is first now. The.helping.people.tick (talk) 14:22, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Dear The helping people tick, (long name but nice message) I like your idea, can you write this and add refs? Can you somehow include the comparison with what other denominatins believe to give the reader perspective (or not if you think it isnt necessary )? NancyHeise (talk) 20:02, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Changes were made to Beliefs based on these comments. NancyHeise (talk) 11:21, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

History

Did some changes to the History section, adding new refs and attempting to rectify some of the issues raised by Ealdgyth. As far as the sub-heading "Rennaisance" goes, I cannot think of anything better to cover the era. "Reformation and Counter-reformation" is a possibility, but a bit long, and the section is not just about this. 16th century is too narrow, as events continued into the 17th. terms like "Early-Modern Era" are confusing. In English history the Tudor period covers most of this, but it doesn't work globally. Xandar (talk) 15:39, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

I like your changes to this section and I agree with everything you have decided to do here. I think it was very well done. Thanks ! NancyHeise (talk) 19:56, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Age of the Roman Catholic Church

I'd really like to know how the RCC came to be established three years before Christianity itself. Also, dating the Catholic church with the same date as Christianity displays an obvious Catholic bias. The earliest date should be 313 AD. I changed this once before, but I see that someone has re-inserted the mistake. 

User:Emperor Azure (talk)  —Preceding comment was added at 04:12, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
I do believe Christianity did, in fact, start around c. 30 AD rather than c. 33 AD, as the approximate date of Christ's birth is actually a few years before the designated beginning of the A.D. count (thanks to an error by the monk who devised it). I would add a 'circa' or equivalent to the heading, but I'm not sure how that would look stylistically.
Strictly speaking we can't really set a definite date for the Church's origins (without going POV, that is), for the organization inherent in the Church arose gradually over a period of several decades. It's clear, however, that as early as 80-90 AD (The reign of St. Clement, regarded as the fourth pope by Catholics) the bishopric of Rome had some kind of special respect accorded to it. However, I digress; we are not here to debate the content but to discuss how well this article renders its subject.
I can see how the language would make it seem that there is a "bias." I understand, however, that the intention was to trace the beginnings (real or supposed) of ecclesiastical organization and cite this as part of the Church's belief in Apostolic Succession. I would also express my reservations about the way the entire history under the "Roman Empire" heading is worded, as I feel it would be more beneficial to discuss how the Church's distinct apparatus is said to have arisen in contradistinction with "mere" Christian history (the current paragraphs sound too much like a repeat of history from the [Christianity} article). For example, the [Council of Jerusalem] can be linked to the growth of Church organization, especially since Catholics consider the participation of Peter in that council as indicative of his special role.
This is a clunky way of saying it, I'll admit, but the main point is that there are a number of improvements that can be made in terms of making the Catholic understanding of Christianity's origins more distinct and different from the "common" view by the collective of Christians. Nautical Mongoose (talk) 06:11, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
Just to clarify my previous comment: I'm not saying that the date of the Church's founding is not discernible, but that there are different ideas about when the RCC can be said to have been fully "established".
Don't hurt the newbie :P Nautical Mongoose (talk) 06:58, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
You know, this has already been debated and it was determined that putting neutralizing language into the article was the best way to address this issue. The infobox says founder "Traditionally, Jesus". date "est to be the year 30". This passed the GA for NPOV. It was POV to say anything else especially since our main source - the National Geographic says Peter was the first Pope. We don't have anything better to give us a better date. NancyHeise (talk) 12:45, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
Oh. Well, i didn't know that :P
I was just wondering how much consensus there was concerning the date/foundation. I would assume that this issue of the language has been dealt with already, or is it still pending? Nautical Mongoose (talk) 16:12, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
The key is to provide sources. Nancy is right the main source that is used, the National Geographic Book, supports the current wording. If other reliable sources can be found that offer differing viewpoints, than we can discuss whether the text ought to be modified to reflect multiple views. Karanacs (talk) 16:17, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
Well, there are clearly different views. As has been mentioned, the Saints and Sinners book, which we also quote as a source, doubts the direct tracing of the church back to Peter and Jesus. This is where NPOV comes in; if different sources state different things, we don't have to decide which we think is best; rather, we note the controversy, if it is notable, and are clear the status of each figure we quote. The "Traditionally" is a good neutral presentation; Jesus is the traditional founder, but this isn't an undisputed historical fact. I'm less sure about "Est" - it isn't exactly an estimate that the Church was founded in AD 30; this is the figure advanced by one theory, but others differ. I'd be happier with "Traditionally" here as well. TSP (talk) 16:25, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
I am OK with the use of "Traditionally" for the estimated year of foundation. Also, the Saints and Sinners book does not doubt the direct tracing of the church back to Peter and Jesus. Please read pages 1-13 in this book that you will find in almost every decent library. What the author says is that Peter did not found the church in Rome because there were already Christians living there. He says that Peter and Paul were beleived to be murdered by emperor Nero in Rome, that the church in Rome claimed their relics and that subsequent churches deferred to Rome in matters of doctrine afterward. He states there is no reason not to beleive the story. He makes a comment calling the first documentary evidence of papal succession from St. Irenaeus "suspiciously tidy". He does not say that it is incorrect or that there is evidence to refute the list. He does mention that there is some lack of historical writings surrounding the organization of the early church and then provides the historical evidence that exists in the world today to support the church's claims including a letter from a Roman talking about church leaders, a letter from Clement, and a meeting between Polycarp (who knew St John the Apostle in his old age) and Anicetus. NancyHeise (talk) 18:10, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
Here's one excerpt from Saints and Sinners page 4 "The special status of Peter in the G ospels, his commission to bind and loose, to feed the sheep of Christ, flow from his role as primary witness and guardian of the faith. In the subsequent reflection of the Chruch that complex of ideas would decisively shape Christian understanding of the nature and roots of true authority The office of Peter, to proclaim the Church's faith, and to guard and nourish that faith, would lie at the root of the self-understanding of the Roman community and their bishop, in which it was beleived the responsibilities and privileges of the Apostle had been perpetrated." NancyHeise (talk) 18:22, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
Here's another excerpt from Saints and Sinners page 5: "The same sense that Peter's authority is perpetuated within the Christian community is in evidence in the New Testament writings attributed to Peter himself. The First Epistle of Peter claims to have been written by the Apostle, in a time of persection, from "Babylon", an early Christian code-name for Rome." ...Peter is presented in the letter not merely as an apostle and witness of the saving work of Christ, but as a source for the authority and responsibilities of the elders or governing officials of the Church. ... The other hearers of the letter are urged to submit to the elders whose role is presented as that of shepherds tending the flock of Christ...its similarity to the Johannine commission to Peter , 'feed my lambs, feed my sheep', is very striking and can hardly be a coincidence. NancyHeise (talk) 18:28, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
More Saints and Sinners page 5: "A general belief in the precedence of Rome emerged in the Christian writings of the second century, and was accepted apparently without challenge." From page 6 "The early written sources support this tradition. A letter written around AD 96 on behalf of the Roman church to the Christians at Corinth speaks of Peter and Paul as 'our Apostles', suffering witnesses of the truth who, 'having born testimony before the rulers', went to glory. Writing to the Roman Christians about the year 107, Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, declared that 'I do not command you, as Peter and Paul did', a clear indication that he believed that the Apostles had been leaders of the Roman church."NancyHeise (talk) 18:45, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

And this is the most significant statement that sums up the author of Saints and Sinners musings on all of this evidence on page 9 :"There is no sure way to settle on a date by which the office of ruling bishop had emerged in Rome, and so to name the first Pope, but the process was certainly complete by the time of Anicetus in the mid 150's, when Polycarp, the aged Bishop of Smyrna, visted Rome, and he and Anicetus debated amicably the question of the date of Easter."NancyHeise (talk) 18:45, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

So my question is this: If the National Geographic puts the founding of the Church at the consecration of Peter as first bishop of Rome "their words" and this author of Saints and Sinners says "There is no sure way to settle on a date... but it was certainly complete by the mid 150's" then no person in the world is going to come up with a deliberate date without some sort of POV introduced here. The only non-POV way to address the foundation and date of Roman Catholic Church is to do exactly what we have done "Traditionally Jesus" and "Traditionally the year 30". May we please move on to addressing the history section? NancyHeise (talk) 18:45, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

This was also a big deal at the FAC, so it might be wise to look at it some more. Several of the FA reviewers recommended that additional sources be created, and that this part of the article (not the infobox necessarily) be expanded a bit to allow for the other viewpoints. From the number of times this has arisen on this talk page and in the FA review, I'm concerned that the issue won't be completely resolved unless both viewpoints are represented- > Traditionally, this is considered the church's founding, but scholars such as .... say that "There is no sure way to settle on a date by which the office of ruling bishop had emerged in Rome, and so to name the first Pope."... Karanacs (talk) 19:26, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Where do you suggest putting such a sentence? Also, please be clear, the sentence from Saints and Sinners says this: ""There is no sure way to settle on a date... but it was certainly complete by the mid 150's". It does not say that the church was not founded until such and such a date as the other people in FAC and on this page are suggesting. Also, my suggestion for placing the comment by Saints and Sinners author would be in the history section. What do you think? NancyHeise (talk) 19:35, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I think this would probably need to go into the Origins section or possibly in the History section. The key is going to be accessing new sources and seeing what the major opinions area. I think that having these two sources is pretty good, but a wider variety would help. Karanacs (talk) 19:37, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I would like to know how many sources you suggest having? I had several before GA but they were eliminated by AndrewC who said I only needed two. NancyHeise (talk) 19:53, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I have made the suggested changes to the Origins and Beleifs section that were discussed above. What does anyone think? NancyHeise (talk) 21:46, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Another source: After establishing that Clement's Letter to Corinth can be dated to AD 95 or 96, Lebreton writes: "Batiffol has described this intervention [i.e., the letter] as "the epiphany of the Roman Primacy" and he is right." From Lebreton and Zeiller, The History of the Primitive Church, Vol. 1 (Macmillan, 1942), 413, Quoting Battifol's L'Eglise naissante. The.helping.people.tick (talk) 17:08, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Thanks THPT, the book Saints and Sinners mentions Clements letter as one of the pieces of evidence the author ponders before then coming to the conclusion that "there is no sure way to settle on a date...". He says that it is not certain that Clement was a church leader or someone writing for a church leader or just an average lay person since he does not identify his position in his letter. Since the order of priority for Wikipedia reliable sources is to use Scholarly works that are published by University presses, we still have to defer to using the Saints and Sinners book and the National Geographic books as our best sources - which means we dont include other sources unless they are at least as good. If you don't mind, I would like to keep the sentence just as it is in Origins because it really is factual and NPOV. Are you in agreement with this? Would you like to change anything in that section based on this new source? Let me know. Thanks for helping us all tick! NancyHeise (talk) 18:13, 20 February 2008 (UTC)


Latin America and content forking

From looking at this article, it's as if the history of the Roman Catholic Church in Latin America doesn't exist, which is quite surprising. I'm also curious, per WP:NPOV, specifically POV Forks and Wikipedia:Content forking, why the only mention of criticism is buried in a See also link. How does that conform with WP:NPOV? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:02, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

As regards the church in Latin America - please, if you know about this, do add the most significant facts. Obviously, the RCC is a global organisation with two millennia of history, so inevitably no topic will be covered in full detail, but events in Latin America deserve as much coverage as events of similar notability in other regions, and if they are not in that is probably because of a lack of knowledge of the subject on our part. Mexico has one paragraph at the start of the Modernity section, but that seems to be all I can spot at the moment.
I do have my concerns about the Criticisms article; partly in that it has a much smaller reader and editor population than this article and has a tendency to become POV. On the other hand, every criticism (or indeed every positive viewpoint) can't be mentioned here, and some of the more notable criticisms are mentioned. It would be better, I think, to break down by subject rather than positive/negative, so both positive and negative perspectives on Catholic social teaching should be in Catholic social teaching, rather than positive perspectives there and negative ones in the criticisms article; criticism of the Crusades should go in Crusades articles not in a criticisms article; and so on. TSP (talk) 01:19, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
A comprehensive article about the RCC simply cannot ignore Latin America. And I didn't ask about the criticism article; I asked about content forking and Wiki's NPOV policy, whereby all mention of criticism or controversy is excluded from the main article. For example, a google scholar search (http://scholar.google.com) on Roman Catholic Church Latin America returns 131,000 results. Which academic, scholarly sources have been accessed to cover the history of the Roman Catholic Church, an important part of the development of Latin America? Does the article rely mostly on church teachings and documents, or does it use the best available scholarly and academic sources about the RCC? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:33, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

- Dear SandyGeorgia, this is copied from WP:Criticism

" Criticism in a 'Criticism' section - In general, making separate sections with the title 'Criticism' is discouraged. The main argument for this is that they are often a troll magnet:" - - One of the acceptable ways to deal with criticism per Wikipedia is to put it in the history section or throughout the article. The history section of this main RCC article does address all criticism that is lodged against it in the separate page Criticisms of the Catholic Church. Since I was not here when either of these pages were started, I can't answer the question about forking but I do know that was not my intention. Whether or not it was someone else's is anyone's guess. The Origins section contains the opposing view of the church's origins and the Beliefs opening paragraph states the difference with other Christian denominaitons. The Priest section addresses no women priests and why with reference that has a quote from the pope. Homosexual priests, sexual abuse, birth control, abortion are all in modernity history section. The crusades, inquisitions are also there. I am wondering what you have in mind for addressing Criticisms that is not already there and addressed exactly the way Wikipedia policy suggests. - - Regaring Latin America, would you like more expansion on that in history? I have a very good source that goes into detail about all the good that the Chruch has done in the Latin America and there is a sentence that says "The Church fights injustice in Latin America". There is also a source that discusses the abuses of the Conquistadores and how the Spanish Catholics were the first people to develope international law when they became outraged over the abuses. I would be happy to put this information into the article if you would like. Please be specific as to what you think we should do to improve. I would like to know your thoughts in more detail so I can address them properly. Thanks. NancyHeise (talk) 01:42, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

  • Criticism is not a policy page; it's an essay which you've quoted from only selectively (although I agree with the fundamental thought expressed by Jimbo that criticism should be woven throughout the article, not separated, which is what this article has done; see the due weight section of NPOV on the need to represent all viewpoints according to due weight). WP:NPOV (which discusses content forking) is policy. Essays are not even guidelines; WP:NPOV is the applicable policy. Latin America is just one example that, to be comprehensive, this article needs to use academic, scholarly sources for a thorough article on the Catholic Church, not just it's teachings, doctrines and beliefs. The lack of any history or influence in Latin America (where the church was obviously played a large part) is one glaring omission, suggesting more thorough, scholarly sources might need to be consulted. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:03, 21 February 2008 (UTC)


In hopes of addressing SandyGeorgia's comments I have expanded on criticisms in the history section and improved coverage of Latin America. Let me know what you think. Thanks. NancyHeise (talk) 07:41, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Also, the refs used are 91-93(in Renaissance) and 101-105 (in Modernity) and 10(at the end of Age of Reason), these are the areas where Latin America info has been added. Let me know what you think of these refs, they are the best ones I can find at our public library. Some of my references I bought on Amazon also. Thanks. NancyHeise (talk) 09:14, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Sandy raises a good point. More information on Latin America, perhaps the California missions, and definitely content about the different "movements" in the RCC: Charismatic and Traditionalist for example.--Mike Searson (talk) 04:58, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for your comments. I added the information about the California missions to the end of Age of Reason in History section and the info on the different lay movements is in the section on Church community under the subheading "Laity". What do you think? NancyHeise (talk) 20:05, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Are we ready to nominate this article for FA?

Do we have a consensus here yet? I think everyone's comments have been addressed satisfactorily. If not, please list concerns or let me know if you think we are ready to nominate this for FA. Thanks! NancyHeise (talk) 16:25, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't know. I think factually we're virtually there. though I'd like a mention of the Baroque art style. My worry is that the article could use a thorough top-to-bottom copy edit to make it easier to read and more consistent in style. Also the sub-heading MODERNITY might be better changed to the MODERN ERA - as it is in the Christianity article. Xandar (talk) 13:39, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Article size

This article may be considered on the long end of appropriate size per Wikipedia guidelines which discourage articles longer than 100Kb in size. We are right now at 115Kb. After going through and making a couple of adjustments I was able to knock off some bytes but not enough to bring it down to 100Kb. I took a look at the FA Islam and it is just under 100Kb. However, considering that Roman Catholic Church has several centuries more of history to record, maybe it will be considered OK to leave it this long. Honestly, I can't think of any part of this article that could be spun off into a sub article without eliminating core material. NancyHeise (talk) 20:39, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

I am going to try to make a copy edit pass through the article (I just finished Liturgy of the Hours). I am trying to not change any facts that are cited; if uncited material is ambiguous or wrong, I will try to correct it. I will also try to pare down each section as I go through, saying the same things shorter if possible. Happy to have everyone check my edits. A question on style: is it Mass or mass? I could go either way on this, I don't know if we've discussed it here, and I will use Mass unless told otherwise. Just so we're consistent.The.helping.people.tick (talk) 23:25, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
"mass", I think. The Manual of Style doesn't address this word specifically, but has "Spiritual or religious events are likewise capitalized only when they are terms referring to specific incidents or periods (the Great Flood, the Exodus, but annual flooding or an exodus of refugees)." A reference to an individual mass, or masses in general, does not seem to be such a reference to a specific incident. Wherever possible, this article should use the terminology and capitalisation of general writing, not any idiosyncratic uses of the church; and I don't think that most would consider "mass" a proper noun. TSP (talk) 23:54, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
OK, I just checked with Chicago 15 (pg 353): "Terms denoting the eucharistic sacrament, however, are traditionally capitalized, though they may be lowercased in nonreligious contexts." This allows going either way, giving the norm first, then the exception. Chicago 15 is rather aggressively "down style" (their term, pg 347) so the fact that they merely suggest "may be lowercased" rather than imposing it suggests that the uppercase is quite safe, and since that's what I've been doing, I'm going to leave it upper. Unless there is something besides WP's MOS that trumps Chicago 15? The.helping.people.tick (talk) 00:08, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
Well, Wikipedia maintains its own style guide in the form of the Manual of Style (linked above), which says what I quoted above about capitalisation of spiritual and religious events, which seems to me to apply in this case. Perhaps also indicative is:
"Pronouns and possessives referring to figures of veneration are not capitalized in Wikipedia articles, even when they traditionally are in a religion's scriptures. They are left capitalized when directly quoting scriptures or any other texts that capitalize them."
It seems clear to me that it is deliberate Wikipedia practice not to captitalise general religious terms even when that is the practice of the religion concerned, which I think would refer to "mass" too. At least in an article hoping to be a featured article, we should probably take Wikipedia's Manual of Style as our guide rather than Chicago (unless of course the MoS doesn't cover the matter, but in this case it seems to). TSP (talk) 00:24, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
- :I have just searched two non-Catholic sources of mine - one a non-Catholic school textbook discusses the murder of Oscar Romero while saying "mass". The other, a history of the Roman Catholic Church published by University of California uses the term "Mass" throughout. I know Wikipedia uses University presses before school textbooks, Im not sure that would affect style. Some issues can be skipped like this one and addressed after we see what kind of comments we get at the FA attempt. Helping People Tick is doing a great job copyediting, I would hate to see that brilliant energy spent going back and forth on this issue instead of finishing the copyedit. Just my opinion. Sorry I can't be of more help. Thanks. NancyHeise (talk) 00:30, 25 February 2008 (UTC)


OK, this is more info from Wikipedia manual of style. "Doctrinal topics or canonical religious ideas (as distinguished from specific events) that may be traditionally capitalized within a faith are given in lower case in Wikipedia, such as virgin birth, original sin or transubstantiation. " Maybe this means "mass" too. Just trying to help. NancyHeise (talk) 00:35, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Question for TSP - What are your thoughts on the size of this article? Does its size being over 100Kb mean that it will automatically fail FA? I can't think of ways to eliminate the excess which seems to have been created out of the effort to answer the last FA reviewers comments and incorporate them into the page. Thoughts? NancyHeise (talk) 00:38, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Nothing is really an *automatic* fail; on the other hand, the Article Size guideline says that anything above 100kb "almost certainly should be divided up" and recommends keeping down to about 60kb; which is indeed what most featured articles, on a quick non-representative sample, seem to be. Islam is 95kb. Hmm, gosh - Intelligent Design is 165kb; though it was 101 when promoted and 126 when last reviewed. Shows that articles in excess of 100kb CAN get through; I'm not sure I'd rely on it, though.
We also don't have to take FA reviewers' comments as definitive - they're just editors like us. It would often be wise to take their advice, but if it turns out to add problems, we don't have to.
On the subject of removal of text, I was curious about this revert from last week Xandar removed a fair bit of text from the lead for being over-detailed, which you returned with "I think Xandar did not know that this info has to be summarized in the lead per FA rule". Which rule are you thinking of? I'm not sure that this content needs to be in the lead; it doesn't seem to be crucial to an understanding of the topic. TSP (talk) 01:47, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
Hmm... ok, maybe it's mass. Well, that will be another pass, and I think I'm done for today anyway. I don't have ideas yet on size. The.helping.people.tick (talk) 00:47, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

The Mass isn't just "one of many" similar events but a specific type of prayer or ceremony, like the Liturgy of the Hours. The upper-case form is also used in the article on the Mass. One can speak of a "Christmas Mass" or "Easter Mass", but one can also speak of just a "Mass" because it involves a specific format of worship. So, I would say that we should keep the caps. Nautical Mongoose (talk) 01:20, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

There are arguments both ways; but the Manual of Style has offered its opinion and I'm not sure I see a pressing need not to take it. The Manual of Style tends to suggest being sparing with capitals, simply as a matter of consistency between articles.
There's also a potential neutrality issue - being too liberal with capitals, particularly on religious topics, can give an impression of excessive deference. If it's to be regarded as a reliable and neutral article, the article needs to give the impression of taking a neutral view, rather than an internal view. Idiosyncratic uses of capitals specific to a particular group may give the latter impression. (Interestingly, Mass actually uses the capital for half its content - for Anglican mass it doesn't capitalise.) TSP (talk) 01:47, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Caps or Not for Mass and Chopping the lead

Can we just leave the Mass as it is in the article already and then change it if it becomes an issue at FA? I am OK either way caps or not is anyone offended by not capitalizing? I am not offended with it being lower case and I don't think its that much of a style faux pas if its upper case.NancyHeise (talk) 02:57, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Addressing TSP's comment, I replaced Xandars edit of the lead. If it becomes an FA issue we can always replace the chopped text but it is more concise now and that is also one of the FA criteria. NancyHeise (talk) 03:12, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
I think the capitalization before the most recent ce's were much better. Why would we small-case 'catholic', for example? That's like small-casing "Canadian". Nautical Mongoose (talk) 20:00, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
Aren't we supposed to cap proper nouns (like specific sacraments)? Sorry, I haven't really read the MOS through and through and maybe I'm missing something. Nautical Mongoose (talk) 20:14, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
I decided, after all, to look over what the MoS says about caps. While it does says that "doctrinal topics" are not to be capitalized (i.e. fall of man), it does say that words derived from proper nouns are to be capitalized, such as "Catholic" (which comes from, obviously, Roman Catholic Church). It is not a matter of not capitalizing "anything that we would capitalize).
In fact, my main objection to all this lower-casing is that it just looks really weird on the article, and this, to me, comes from the whole idea of "proper nouns". We cap "Pentecost" because it refers to a specific holy day, despite occurring once every year. We should also capitalize "Eucharist" and "Penance" because they refer to specific sacraments, specific things rather than just "doctrinal topics" (In fact, we don't even have to follow the Manual if the article would look better if we didn't). It's just common sense.
Now, I'd probably go and re-cap all those things but I've little time at present, but needless to say I have a much different conception of what the caps structure ought to be. Nautical Mongoose (talk) 05:03, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

potential FA Concerns

Nancy left me a note on my talk page asking for feedback on whether the article is ready to be renominated for FA. I think that it is still not quite ready. One of the major objections to the previous FA nom (brought up by several people), was the quality of the sources. There are still quite a few references to primary sources (those published by the Vatican), to websites (should not be used at all), and not nearly enough references to scholarly works. This will be brought up again as it is one of the more obvious things that people can check. There are some WP:MOS violations, including quotations without a source immediately following them (even if the source is at the next sentence, it must be after the quotation too for clarity). I haven't read the article closely in over a week, so I can't address any potential POV concerns. I would, however, recommend that you remove the direct quotation of the Nicene Creed and instead provide an analysis of what it means. I think Sandy also has a point about the article on the Criticisms of the Catholic Church being a POV fork. That article probably shouldn't exist, but it's content should be here. Don't be too impatient - an article this important will get a lot of reviewers, and it is better to be extra prepared (Sandy also usually advocates waiting at least a month). Karanacs (talk) 04:45, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

My comments on Karanacs suggestions are this:

Criticisms of the Catholic Church has been incorporated into this article. I did an extensive addition to this article in response to Sandy's comments and I think that if someone were to go see the page Criticism of the Catholic Church page you will find all criticisms addressed in this article exactly as Jimbo Wales suggests - to put in the body of the article, not in a separate Criticisms paragraph which he says becomes an attraction for trolls. Also, some criticisms, if they are not easily found in reliable sources should not be included or mentioned at all, this is per the guidelines. Suggestions like the Catholic Church is the Whore of Babylon are not found in this article for that reason.

Sources: This article cites 31 different books to top authors and publishers not including the googlebooks which are also considered OK. Regarding the use of Catechism and Code of Canon Law, it was my experience on Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Miami FA that per Wikipedia policies, you are allowed to use self published sources in some instances - creating a beliefs section is one of those instances so I disagree that the citations to code of canon law and catechism have to be eliminated to meet FA criteria. Some websites are OK to use also. Not every citation has to be to a book. This article has numerous top newspaper web citations and these are considered very reliable third parties. I think removal of the Nicene Creed would eliminate the most important part of the Belief section and should not be done either. The article would be less informative to someone wanting to know what the Catholic Church is.

While I think that Karanacs efforts have resulted in significant improvement of this article and I am very grateful for her time and efforts, I would like to finish the copyedit and submit for FA and see what other comments are generated. The FA reviewer does not have to take the advice of the people who comment, he can make it an FA even if everyone votes to oppose. I intend to address FA reviewers comments but some comments are not always in the best interest of the article and that is why I disagree with Karanacs suggestions here - no offense intended please. Thanks. NancyHeise (talk) 13:15, 25 February 2008 (UTC)


No offense taken, Nancy. If you've incorporated all of the reliably sourced info from the Criticism article into this one, then it might be wise to redirect the other article to here. That would solve the issue of it being/becoming a POV fork. Another suggestion would be to include it in the list of main articles in the history section, if that is where all of the criticism is located.

I do think that the section on the Nicene Creed would be much more understandable to people if the quote was replaced with an explanation of what it means, but you are welcome to wait for more feedback before making that change. I also think that this article will be held to a high standard for reliability of sourcing, as it is a very important and sometimes controversial topic, and I don't think that all of the existing sources meet that standard. The websites should definitely be replaced with books, and the information from the primary sources could also be cited to books analyzing Church beliefs. It is definitely your call on whether you go to FA again now or wait. I would advise waiting a little longer, but that's up to you. Karanacs (talk) 15:43, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Per Karanacs very good suggestions on forking I have added Criticisms article to the see also in History section and added RCC to the top of the Criticism page to provide a redirect and to eliminate the POV forking issue. Thanks, I was not sure what to do about that issue. Also, please note that some criticism issues were addressed in the Origins paragraph and Beliefs opening paragraph and these are not in the History section where most criticism issues were addressed. NancyHeise (talk) 16:17, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
I will keep looking for an explanation of the Nicene Creed if I can find one that isnt RCC generated. My sources talk about it and may give you the actual Nicene creed but I dont have a summary. I think the actual Nicene Creed is the most concise and comprehensive way to address it. The explanations I have are several pages long. NancyHeise (talk) 16:17, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
On beliefs, I don't think there is any better source than the published statement of the organisation concerned. Any individual stating what he assumes a church's beliefs to be is liable to add his own twist or point of view. For example: Which is the more credible fact? Professor J saying that Mr Y believes that the world is flat, or Mr Y himself saying on record that he believes that the world is round? A belief is the credo of the organisation or group, as such, their statement of their belief IS the fact. Xandar (talk) 17:22, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
The Wikipedia policies state that you can use self published sources when creating a section like this that is why I have argued to keep the references to the Catechism and Code of Canon Law. We should not eliminate these unless it is clear from higher up that this is not the case. Thanks for your vote of affirmation in this issue. NancyHeise (talk) 17:55, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
Ditto Xandar on this -- you will not do better than the Nicene Creed in terms of concision (unless you want to use the Apostles' Creed!). It seems like it might be a misapplication of WP's sourcing guidelines to exclude official statements by the Catholic Church in the beliefs section. The.helping.people.tick (talk) 17:17, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
I have had a go at re-sub-editing the history section. Xandar (talk) 16:14, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

The editing looks great, Thanks Xandar! NancyHeise (talk) 20:23, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

One last issue before FA nomination

This sentence comes just before the Nicene Creed in Beliefs "This creed is recited at Catholic Masses on Sunday as well as in the majority of all Christian churches regardless of denomination.[23] It states:" One of the previous FA reviewers had a problem with the reference I used for this sentence.. He said it is 100 years old and he is not sure if the Creed is still used by the majority of all Christian churches and suggested I get a more recent source. If anyone can provide a more recent source let me know or else we can eliminate this sentence. I think the sentence is a significant statment of Christian unity and I would like to keep it if we can. Thanks. NancyHeise (talk) 20:23, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

We could change it to : "This creed is recited at Catholic Masses every Sunday." But if you want a more recent source that keeps the Christian unity part, there's something like [7] —Preceding unsigned comment added by The.helping.people.tick (talk • contribs) 20:35, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
You are a genius - I added just added this new ref and I left the old one too. I wont be able to nominate this page until maybe Friday. NancyHeise (talk) 22:43, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
At the risk of losing my "genius" designation, where are the FA reviewers' comments?  ;) Is there a single place where they are all together? The.helping.people.tick (talk) 02:11, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
The previous FAC can be found here: Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Roman Catholic Church/archive1. Vassyana (talk) 02:16, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
I just want to say a big thank you to both Xandar and TheHelpingPeopleTick for their superb copyediting of this article. I am very impressed with the improvements both in facts and prose, very professionally done - Thank you! NancyHeise (talk) 04:09, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
Happy to help when I can, which is not as often as I'd like. I just noticed the section heading "Age of Reason" which is not a personal favorite -- I prefer Early modern period which I would mark from the end of the Council of Trent to the start of the French Revolution. But I like Age of reason better than Age of Enlightenment. Anyway, it's not a big deal, but you'll see on the disambig page for age of reason that in a Catholic context, it frequently means 7 years old. The.helping.people.tick (talk) 05:41, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Intelligent design is a Featured Article

This FA, like the FA on Islam has an extensive See Also list - 29! This FA also is over 100KB - its 165KB. Also, this FA uses both books and websites. I think that the admins on this page, while being mostly very helpful, have given some incorrect advice on this page on some issues. It appears to me that the original See Also list on this page that was eliminated by the admins here should be reconsidered for replacement in order to make the article more informative, not less. Also, I would like our admins to please consider the use of websites on other FA's before voting to oppose this article based on that issue. I would appreciate fair treatment especially after all the work and time we have spent here trying to contribute an important FA to Wikipedia. NancyHeise (talk) 14:16, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Nancy, I don't think any of those participating on this page are admins. We're all regular editors just like you, although some have more experience with FAs than others. Generally, (per WP:LAYOUT) links are not repeated in the See Also list if they are elsewhere in the article, and I believe most of the links removed from that section were listed as Main articles or Further Information for one or more sections. While Intelligent Design is a featured article, it is different from this article. There have not been a lot of scholarly books written about Intelligent Design - it has mainly been discussed in the news media, which is why it relies on news sources a great deal. On the other hand, the Roman Catholic Church is the subject of thousands of books, and it would be best to use those first, per reliable sources. Karanacs (talk) 15:56, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
OK fine. We'll leave everything as is based on these arguments. I think our sources are OK. We have over 31 books used throughout the entire article. The vast majority of this article is cited to books with web sites mainly of major newspapers being used to supplement the Modern Era in the History section of the article. The copyedits are done and I'm nominating for FA since the article appears to be very stable and there is a consensus of editors. Thanks everyone, lets hope it passes this time! :0) NancyHeise (talk) 10:09, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree. The big advantage of Wikipedia is the instant links to other articles, so best not to lose too many. Hopefully any objections to FA status will be on very specific points now. Xandar (talk) 14:48, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

  1. ^ a b c d e Cite error: The named reference one1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference two2 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference Church history was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
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