Talk:Catholic Church/Archive 20

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Archive 15

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Archive 18

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Peer Review

I have submitted a request for a peer review of the article (comments should be posted here: [1]) to give us some feedback from fresh eyes. I have specifically asked three editors from the peer review volunteer page to come give comments. NancyHeise ^talk 21:20, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

NPOV and Aztecs?

The article contains an image and it says that the spread of Christianity ended the practice of sacrifice in the Aztecs, giving reference to a 2005 book. Do you consider this WP:NPOV? Could someone check the book to see exactly what it writes? NerdyNSK (talk) 07:50, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Hi NerdyNSK, thanks for your comment. Good point. I added the quotes from the book to the reference to support the wording in the picture. The book that supports the sentence is "Western Civilization, The Continuing Experiment" by professors Thomas Noble of University of Notre Dame, Barry Strauss of Cornell Univ., Duave Osheim of Univ of Virginia, William Cohen of Indiana University, David Roberts of Univ of Georgia, and Rachel Fuchs of Arizona State University. The book is a college textbook, considered to be a very good source as per WP:Reliable source examples. Please click on the reference at the end of the sentence to see the quotes from the book that support the sentence. Thanks for your comment. NancyHeise ^talk 17:17, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Its not a violation of NPOV if we were to list a beneficial aspect of Catholicism taking root in South America, its the truth. Gabr-el 17:28, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

FYI...The ref is missing it's ISBN...I had a tough time trying to cross check it.--Mike - Μολὼν λαβέ 18:33, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing that out, I just fixed it. NancyHeise ^talk 13:00, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

No prob! Normally not that big a deal, but that guy wrote/coauthored 12 books with a similar title!--Mike - Μολὼν λαβέ 13:03, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

From reading the article would I be correct that from a Catholic perspective the Aztecs where on to something when they believed that human sacrifice was pleasing to God in that the sacrifice of the mass is not a symbolic thing from your point of view but rather the real body and blood of Jesus that is offered and then eaten ? The whole section reads like one long boast with no sense of balance or alternate views. It makes claims about the ban on divorces but fails to mention annulments which from an outsiders perspective looks basically the same in its consequences. Is there any significant difference in the rates of annulments with respect to secular society and divorce? I hope you do not mind the small changes I have made meantime. Taam (talk) 10:15, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Annulments have always been famously/notoriously difficult to obtain - ask Henry VIII! I think most of your changes have been reverted: the barbarians were not initially Christian, but later converted after they had settled within the old Roman Empire. Dark Ages is not a respectable term these days, & it was in fact at this period that the influence of the church on art was at its greatest. Johnbod (talk) 14:08, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Renaissance: The main source for what I wrote is a work of 19th Catholic scholarship that I don't have to hand at the moment - the emphasis is wrt to a pagan movement, however the following excerpt from the Catholic Encyclopedia on the Renaissance gives sufficient indication that we are not dealing with an entirely Christian movement but significant elements of the old pagan spirit and art. (n.b I don't use pagan as a put down term). I think the main point, which doesn't come over in the article, is that much of what seems to be called Western Art is built upon the art of the pre-christian ancients, as the name Renaissance implies, the rediscovering of the old ways rather than Christianity creating and developing an entirely new movement as the article seemed to suggest.

"But the Renaissance had indulged its "pride of state, of knowledge, and of system" with disastrous consequences to our Christian inheritance. It trampled on the Middle Ages and failed to understand that in them which was truly original. The Latin of Cicero which urban VIII cultivated, the metres of Horace, did grievous wrong to the prose and verse of our church offices, so far as they were altered. The showy architecture now designed, though sometimes magnificent, was not inspired by religion; before long it sank to the rococo and the grotesque; and it filled the churches with pagan monuments to disedifying celebrities. In painting we descend from the heaven of Fra Angelico to the "corregiosity" of Corregio, may, lower still, for Venus too often masquerades as the Madonna. Christian art became a thing of the past when the Gothic cathedral was looked upon as barbarous even by such champions of the Faith as Bossuet and Fénelon. Never did a poet inspired by Renaissance models—not even Vida nor Sannazzaro—rise to the sublimity of the "Dies Irae" never did that style produce a work equal to the "Imitation"."

Your comments about the barbarian invasions I can't reconcile with what is written in the Catholic Encyclopedia, a source that I usually respect for the intellectual honesty of its scholars. Please see the article on the Visigoths by way of example.[2]

Regarding your points about annulments - do you have figures to support your assertion that it is notoriously hard to obtain such a thing? The easiest way to demonstrate is the way I suggested. I seem to remember a few years ago seeing such figures for North America and comparing them with the rates of divorce in the rest of the community and that is why I don't think the boast which appears in the article stands up.

I feel my edits were was accurate for these reasons and the whole tone of the section at odds with the humble admission of faults made by Pope John Paul in recent years. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Taam (talk • contribs) 15:11, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

With annulments, what you probably read is that the rate of DIVORCE is almost equal between Catholics and non-Catholics. Of course, this would be done outside the Church. Annulments are more difficult to verify, and specific factors must exist to convince those granting them that the marriage had issues from the start. I bet we have a Wikipedia article on it. :-) -BaronGrackle (talk) 19:16, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

This is an egregious violation of WP:Undue Weight. It's rather disgusting for genocide to be justified with "well, they weren't very nice people to begin with"Heqwm2 (talk) 18:00, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

On the contrary, giving all the facts is not a violation of either "undue weight" or "NPOV" but their goal.

Noting the positive effects of the spread of Christianity - which is not the same as killing indios - is not justifying a genocide.

And is it actually a genocide when large numbers of the natives that died did so due to new illnesses brought in by the Spaniards? Is it a genocide when these countries do still have vast numbers of people descended from these natives? If you want something genocidal, take a look at North America! Str1977 ^(talk) 14:26, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Tagging the article

I disagree that this article needs to be tagged as under construction. That tag is for articles that are going to be deleted if nothing happens to them. Every article on Wikipedia is under construction, not sure why we have to have the tag on this article. I ask for consensus of editors before deleting the tag. Please place comments below and remove tag if we have agreement. Thanks. NancyHeise ^talk 01:13, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

The tag has no place on this article and should be removed. I would have done so except for Nancy's request for concensus. Me thinks someone is not quite familiar with proper use of this tag. --^StormRider 01:27, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

No need for the tag, I think. Xandar 04:11, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Allow me to throw in my agreement with your comments. Gabr-el 05:10, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Where did the impression come that the under construction tag is for deletion? I have seen this tag removed in the past 24 hours because it was no longer 'under construction.' Lihaas (talk) 07:19, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Lihaas, we appreciate your efforts to improve Wikipedia; thank you. However, all editors have to be clear about what tags are appropriate for each article. The language of the tag itself invites the concept of deletion; did you read it? For example, in this instance the language that goes with an under construction tag reads as follows:

"Placing the{{construction}} or {{Underconstruction}} tag on a page will display the following:

"This article or section is in the middle of an expansion or major revamping, and is not yet ready for use. You are welcome to assist in its construction by editing it as well. Please view the edit history should you wish to contact the person who placed this template. If this article has not been edited in several days, please remove this template. Consider not tagging with a deletion tag unless the page hasn't been edited in several days."

As mentioned in the above text, a page bearing this template will say "consider not tagging with a deletion tag unless the page hasn't been edited in several days." However, there are various criteria for which such a page may be deleted:"

This tag is typically used for new articles that have limited information. If information is not added to the article in short order, the article can come up for an AfD vote. This article is not even close to being considered "under construction". Not only its length, but the shear amount of references, organization, and breadth deny the applicability of the proposed tag. In reality, this article is in the process of becoming a featured article. As such, a group of editors are attempting to improve it to the point of being recognized as such and considerable effort has already gone into making it so. Does this help you understand why the tag was removed? --^StormRider 07:44, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Huge section on Terminology section was added without discussion

I disagree that the huge section on Terminology inserted above Origin and Mission makes the article better. I think this is a huge violation of WP:Summary Style and is unnecessary. In the opening sentence, the term Catholic Church is refd to a University Press book that has a direct link to a long discussion about this terminology - a method in keeping with summary style concerns. I vote to remove the new terminology section (it had been removed by consensus previously when I first came to the page). NancyHeise ^talk 00:07, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

The reference that discusses the term Catholic is ref. number 2, a Harvard Univ. press and has a quote to support article content. It says the same thing that the new huge terminology section says. I am going to remove this section based on past consensus, please voice your objections here if you disagree, I think consensus should have been reached before insertion of such an enormous and new section that is already covered in a more appropriate summary style way. I have suggested to the editor who inserted it that they might wish to create a separate page for Roman Catholic Terminology if they feel the issue is important enough. Other Roman Catholic terms could then be added to the page. NancyHeise ^talk 01:13, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Th terminolgy issue is one whose detail is of very little interest to 95% of people. That's why that lengthy section was deleted in the first place. It was decided that the since the separate Catholicism article already has a detailed discussion of that particular topic, that is the better place for it. Xandar 00:35, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

consequence of Protestant Reformation

There are many effects but above all stands out a few. Social an dpolitical —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.229.156.190 (talk) 16:48, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Does anyone feel that we need to add some more content on the effects of the Protestant Reformation? I think that what we have is sufficient detail for this article which is supposed to offer a summary and provide the important wikilinks so reader can learn more details elsewhere. That's just my opinion. What do others think? NancyHeise ^talk 01:54, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

From my very limited experience in editing here, perhaps a few more details, but nothing on a grand scale; the social and political consequences of the Protestant Reformation (presumably on Europe, since the Church is not really a socio-political entity) are of little relevance to the Roman Catholic Church. Gabr-el 02:37, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

There's enough here, but Protestant Reformation could do with more. Johnbod (talk) 12:13, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Criticism of the Roman Catholic Church.

Is there an article where critcism of the Roman Catholic Church is talked about?

Ожиданиесчастья (talk) 05:16, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Indeed: Criticism of the Roman Catholic Church. Gabr-el 05:31, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

This RCC article summarizes criticisms throughout the body of the article with appropriate wikilinks to individual controversies. The article Criticism of the Roman Catholic Church is also listed here as a see also. NancyHeise ^talk 12:20, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Recent changes to God the Father, original sin, baptism section

While Genesis literally uses the term "serpent" as the tempter, it is not Official Roman Catholic Doctrine that the first humans were tempted by an actual serpent but by Satan. Here is the actual Roman Catholic Doctrine from Professor Alan Schreck's "The Essential Catholic Catechism" which has the nihil obstat and imprimatur designation from the Catholic Church that declares it to be free of doctrinal or moral error: Re: Adam and Eve Schreck states "God created man, male and female, in his own image and likeness. Man is a creature composed of both spirit and matter, called by God to an eternal destiny of life with him. The Catholic Church does not officially teach either that the human race evolved from lower species or that it was created directly by God. To Catholics, the evolution versus creation debate concerning the origin of mankind involves an issue open to scientific investigation rather than a matter of faith necessary to salvation. The Catholic Church does insist, however, that the soul or spiritual nature of man was directly infused by God into man and woman; it did not evolve. By this act of God, the infusion of the human soul, a distinctive race of human beings with moral responsibility and an eternal destiny was established by God.

Re: Serpent, a term not used by Schreck in this book "The first human beings, deceived by Satan, rebelled against God through pride and disobedience and were thereby separated from his friendship. This original sin also introduced suffering, death, and loss of certain gifts and abilities into the human condition." Both of these quotes are on page 68. I will amend the article with some quotes in the refs so we don't have any more confusion and I would like to ask all editors to please use only books designated with nihil obstat or imprimatur designations to create the beliefs sectin otherwise we run the risk of creating a section that is incorrect RCC interpretation of the Bible. NancyHeise ^talk 01:29, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

English Reformation

I also approve Xandar's changes, but it is misleading to talk of "confiscation of Catholic churches" by H8 without qualification or explanation, as the vast majority of "secular" churches not attached to monasteries, friaries etc were unaffected, and just continued under new (top) management. Often monastic churches were handed over to the parish where they were needed (after stripping of valuables of course). Johnbod (talk) 02:34, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Johnbod, this is a contentious point. I will search for a better wording that will make all happy (let's hope!) NancyHeise ^talk 03:14, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I just took out that phrase, which I think should be ok. Is it contentious? Obviously the whole church apparatus was "confiscated" in one sense, but parish churches continued in operation without interruption, though already fittings etc were removed & personnel changed. Johnbod (talk) 03:24, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Secular Churches? Talk about revisionist history. Was Saint Patrick's Cathederal in Dublin the same when Cromwell turned it into a stable for his horses?--Mike - Μολὼν λαβέ 03:18, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I said by Henry 8! Johnbod (talk) 03:24, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

"dissolution of 825 monasteries ADD[and confiscation of their property] throughout England, Wales and Ireland played an important role in the spread of ref.... " would be fine. Does that help? Johnbod (talk) 03:33, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, it might suffice as a compromise but I still think that "confiscated" is a more accurate word. Henry confiscated all Roman Catholic Church properties, not just monastic. NancyHeise ^talk 03:37, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I disagree. Everything monastic certainly, but little or nothing in terms of land or buildings belonging to the dioceses, which the previous text suggested. The bishops & parishes kept all their considerable property & buildings, & often still do. England was certainly not short of churches in 1545, it was just a question of what was going on inside them. Duffy must cover this, as it is his special subject. Johnbod (talk) 03:45, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Johnbod, that is incorrect, this is a very scholarly source with pages of footnotes and bibliography, published by a univeristy press and it tells the stark story of what happened to those monasteries, their goods, their lands, etc - were all sold off or broken or melted down. Only one, where Catharine of Aragon was buried was spared. Under Edward VI, it says the "confiscation" of whatever was left of RCC property continued. See pages 198, 205 and 206 of this reference [3] NancyHeise ^talk 04:01, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Monasteries yes, bishops and parishes no. Check the source again. There are I think 15,000-odd medieval Church of England parish church buildings still operational in England, not to mention the cathedrals and several bishop's palaces like Bishop's Palace, Wells. Johnbod (talk) 04:05, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

How do we know that these did not arise ever since the Oxford Movement?Gabr-el 04:22, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

In the case of Wells, by reading the article. Generally by reading about them & visiting them! Johnbod (talk) 12:20, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Johnbod, The source says on page 206 "The confiscation of Roman Catholic Church property as had been spared was now renewed. The result of this confiscation and the abandonment of Catholicism...." This is a direct reference to the confiscation of all RCC property including churches that were turned into Church of England, no more RCC "abandonment of Catholicism..." I think we are omitting a notable fact by not letting reader know that Catholic Churches were confiscated under the English Reformation. NancyHeise ^talk 04:28, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm with Johnbod on this, the parish churches continued to belong to the dioceses, the whole structure of church government was no longer subject to Rome (certainly at this period this was still in many important senses a Catholic, and not a Protestant church - and many Anglicans would argue that this is still the case today). The church uildings themselves continued just as they had done before. In the case of monastic buildings if the local communities wished to continue to use them for worship they had to "buy" them from the Crown, but otherwise the only real change was that advowsons pasesd from monasteries to the Crown. David Underdown (talk) 11:22, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I find it difficult to support this position as anything other than a severe POV since it became illegal for a person to be a Catholic priest in 1585 and they were vigorously prosecuted as per the Thomas Noble book "Western Civilization, the Continuing Experiment" which is a university history textbook. The only church using the formerly Catholic churches were the Church of England, a completely different entity than the RCC. NancyHeise ^talk 20:36, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I concur with Nancy on this one.--Mike - Μολὼν λαβέ 20:41, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Mike, I'd like to add some references to this conversation and we all really need to come up with some compromise wording that summarizes for Reader how the English Reformation affected the Roman Catholic Church. The confiscation of Church property is a huge notable fact. Please read this page of this Cambridge Univ. Press book Please read this page of a Cambridge University press book [4] and this page that discusses the removal of Catholic priests from Irish churches and installment of Protestant priests [5]. The actual church buildings that survived destruction were under the authority of no Catholic Church official but the English crown and their appointed priests and bishops. This is a confiscation of Catholic Church property no less a confiscation than the destruction of and confiscation of the monastic houses. It is a notable fact. NancyHeise ^talk 20:54, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

The situation is a little more complicated. The English Crown confiscated a huge amount of church property, but from whom. It is as wrong to suggest that the Pope owned all church property in England at the Reformation as it is to suggest that the Crown owns it all now. Henry VIII was proclaimed 'Supreme Head' of the English Church by law, a position replacing that of Pope, with the Archbishop of Canterbury having episcopal primacy. The Crown also took tithes due to Rome to itself. Parochial and diocesan property remained almost entirely with those bodies. The dissolution of the monasteries was partly economic — many were incredibly rich, and corruption was rife — and partly political — they owed allegiance to a foreign power at a time of growing English nationalism. Much property was confiscated from various church bodies, but much of it continued in use by diocese and parishes under a different feudal supremacy. To see the Reformation in simplistic terms — that there was a Catholic Church in England and then it was gone — is missing the point: the vast majority of church property remained in use with clergy in post, but it no longer held allegiance to the Pope. This is more like changing mortgage provider than being evicted from one's house. — Gareth Hughes (talk) 21:39, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

- - - Is that to say the Catholic Mass was not outlawed or the bounty put on the head of a priest in England and Ireland was not the same as a wolf?--Mike - Μολὼν λαβέ 21:55, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

You're dancing around the answer without commiting yourself too it; if its no longer under "Papal allegiance" its no longer under Catholic control. Your argument is that the Church buildings and such were never under Papal control but underthe English branch of the Catholic Church. By your fallacious points, then the Catholic Church has no properties whatsoever throughout all of Medieval Europe, since everywhere the Church was governed by the people of the land.

Changing mortgage provider? What nonsense do you speak of? Yes, one moment there was a Catholic Church and the next moment there was not. Now then, it is well understood that the English remained Catholics under King Henry VIII. However, the English became Protestants under Elizabeth I. That means that, when the English reformation was finally complete, properties that de jure belonged to the Catholic Church was now in the hands of the Crown, and the Crown is the head of the Anglican Church that had completed its evolution by Elizabeth I.

Your argument that the property was not taken from the Catholic Church is flawed because everyone before the Reformation would not have dared question that the Church buildings and Monasteries were the property of the Church in Rome. By Elizabeth I, they were not. You cannot deny that they were Catholic property before Henry VIII and you cannot deny that they were Anglican government property under Elizabeth I. Gabr-el 21:56, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

The fact that they continued to be used is an irrelevant argument. A better analogy would be that a servant of Rome who lived in a house is forced to become a servant of London to live in the house, or be kicked out. That is, if you wish to use your foreclosure examples. Gabr-el 21:58, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes. The fact that the use looked nearly the same, most priests stayed in place, and that religious services continued, does not negate the fact that the ownership of the Churches was stripped from the universal (Roman) Catholic Church. If you prayed for the Pope in church after 1533, you would be punished. In order to stay in post priests had to acknowledge Henry was head of the Church of England and repudiate the Pope. If the priest denied that the King was head of the Church in a sermon, he would be executed. Other changes took place even under Henry, as described by Duffy and others, festivals were suppressed, devotions to saints were repressed, the use of votive candles was stopped, "excess" church plate was seized by the crown, and shrines were stripped from churches. (A reported five waggon-loads of silver and gold were taken from Canterbury Cathedral alone.) All this was as early as the 1530s. Greater changes took place after the death of Henry. So there was obviously confiscation. Catholics would certainly see it like that. Maybe a better term can be suggested. Protestants have used the term "nationalisation", but that term is innacurate in that nationalisation generally requires payment to the previous owners. Xandar 22:01, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Furthermore, nationalization tends to imply that it was nationalistic motives involved - they seize it "for the nation". Of course, the Englishman who saw Henry as supreme head had more in common with a Dutch rebel in the Spanish Netherlands than with a Catholic Englishman. I don't like it when PC gets in the way of the truth. It was taken from the Catholic Church, simple as that - if people don't want confiscation, then choose another poison pill, for the meaning remains the same. Gabr-el 22:14, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

This is the view of history from the view of crowned and mitred heads, but in reality things were very different. A congregation would still go to the same church building with the same priest. Eventually, use and practice diverged from that sanctioned by Rome. If in any way it can be said that the Pope owned that church building, it would be in an entirely feudal manner, through a number of levels of intermediaries (provincial, diocesan, parochial). Now all of these intermediate level remained intact and in possession of their property. What changed was overall feudal supremacy. This is why I say things are more complicated than Henry VIII just taking all church property. What he actually did is take ultimate supremacy over it, and there's a significant difference. — Gareth Hughes (talk) 22:18, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

The (vast majority) of churches belonged to the dioceses before the Reformation, and continued to do so afterwards (and in law that was the same body corporate both before and after the Reformation). They were never the property of "Rome" per se in the first place - just as today in both Anglican and RC Churches the church buildings are the property of the lcoal dioceses not the Church as a whole viz Dicoeses (in both churches) going bankrupt or similar when sued over child abuse allegations, and the wranglings over churches in The Episcopal Church where individual parishes (and in one case, more complicatedly, an entire dicoese) wish to disassociate themsleves for the Church. Certainly there was confiscation of church property viz the plate, but this cannot really be said to apply to the vst majority of the churches themselves. Nancy your first reference talks about church goods, again this is plate, vestments and so on, not the buildings themselves. As for your second one, surely you can do better than a 1905 publication "for the general reader", particularly on a subject as delicate as Ireland. David Underdown (talk) 22:25, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

The congregation still goes there, but they go as Protestants, not Catholics. The same priest has now converted from Catholicism to Anglicanism. The Pope is no longer the supreme head - you are using different words. The Roman Catholic Church is no longer the de jure and the de facto holder of the property, because the people using the buildings are not Catholics, the Priests are not Catholics and the Head of the Church who, through feudal intermediaries or whatever holds the properties, is not the Pope. U fail to answer these points.

Your arguments are flawed for two reasons 1) You are dancing around trying to use different terms and the way in which the properties were held to cast red herrings and distract from the main point; they were under Catholic control and now they are not, regardless of what type of control or how it was controlled. 2) You are attacking Nancy's references, when they seem to be fine and you have none of your own. Gabr-el 22:55, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

But in the view of the church concerned, they remain entirely Catholic (part of the universal church); they have simply ceased to recognise the Pope as the head of said church. As usually occurs in schisms, one branch may see that a new church has suddenly come into existence which previously did not exist; the branch concerned considers that it is the continuation of that which existed before. The opinion of the Roman Catholic Church is as you have said; the opinion of the Church of England is that, before the reformation, there was a church in England, and after the reformation the same church continued in England, merely no longer under the authority of the Pope (see, for example, [6]). A description that the churches in question were 'confiscated' allows for only one of these two interpretations, and is therefore an expression of a particular point of view. TSP (talk) 23:13, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

And this is history predicated on labels and personalities rather than the reality of the situation. To say that the congregation are now Protestants is simply untrue: convictions were not changed, and the vast majority just kept going to church. Henry VIII's reformation has been described as the creation of 'State Catholicism'. Words actually took a long time to change and were the result of further changes. The 'Catholic Church' did not and does not own diocesan property. The Reformation in England was about transfer of authority not property. This authority allowed for the dissolution of the monasteries, but these didn't belong to the 'Catholic Church' either. The argument that property was taken from the Catholic Church is confusing the transfer of authority from the Catholic Church. Property was forcibly taken from the monasteries, but it is an oversimplification to say that property was taken from the 'Catholic Church'. — Gareth Hughes (talk) 23:32, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes - I think confiscation is fine to use of the monastic properties, but not of the secular side. If you take the Wells example above, John Clerk was Bishop from 1523 to 1541, began by helping Henry write his anti-Luther tract, and Wolsey, and ended by helping Cranmer. In that was more typical of his peers than Fisher or Gardiner. When and how was his palace, and the bishop's considerable other property, "confiscated"? Johnbod (talk) 00:19, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Forget the Branch theory, on which there is no consensus and stick to the fact that properties that were, in one shape or form, under Roman Catholic rule were no longer under Roman Catholic rule. You continue to delve into the details, saying that the Bishops did not lose anything because they became Anglican. Whatever - the details are of no relevance in that they do not alter the situation; it is out of Roman Catholic control, and has been lost - by being taken away!

For you to label The Anglican Church at that time "Catholic" or part of the Universal Church is foolishly anachronistic since the Anglicans did not want to do with the term "Catholic" until the Oxford movement.

Churches do own diocesan property. It does not matter if they own it directly or not. Why do you think that the Catholic Church forbid priests from marrying? From a non-Theological point of view, one of the reasons was to prevent Church property from falling into the hands of individuals. Thus, Priests did not own the buildings of the diocese, but rather, were stewards and tenants of which the Roman Catholic Church was the owner. By transferring authority, the Roman Catholic Church (the previous owner) loses and the new Head of the Church (The crown) owns the property, with the same or most of the same priests (tenants) remaining to look after the property. Gabr-el 05:56, 17 September 2008 (UTC) Gabr-el 05:56, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

But there was no change of ownership in that way. The parish churches were the property of the dioceses before the Reformation and remained so afterwards (though of course some new Dioceses had been created) - they did not become the property of the Crown - the corporate mechanisms of the Church in England were largely the same before and after, unlike in some other parts of Europe. There was no change of legal ownership so there cannot have been any confiscation. Henry VIII still regarded himself as Catholic - the issue at that point was the authority of the Pope, the main Protestant changes came under Edward, and Elizabeth steered a very fine line - upsetting on the one hand the Puritans and on the other those who were still loyal to Rome - the idea of the Catholic but Reformed nature of the church, and the Via Media, starts becoming evident in the writings of Hooker and Laud, long before the Oxford Movement. David Underdown (talk) 09:33, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

I think that the Ten Articles might inform some contributors about the doctrinal basis of the early reformed Church of England. It is actually 'foolishly anachronistic' to call this church Protestant. Church property was owned by dioceses and monasteries, not by some 'Catholic Church'. Does anyone believe that the Catholic Church personally owns every single Catholic church building in the world; that is not, nor ever was the case. Almost the entirety of diocesan property remained with the dioceses. Contributors are confusing dissolution of the monasteries and the Act of Supremacy and missing the detail believe that Henry VIII confiscated all church property. He certainly did not do that. He seized some property. He took over personal authority/supremacy over the church, but did not seize all the property of the church. I can see an English mediaeval church from my window. I know to whom it legally belongs. It belongs to the diocese, and has always belonged to the diocese. Higher authorities can make rules for what is done in the building (e.g. forms of liturgy, whether priests should marry or not etc.), but that does not mean that these authorities own the building. Perhaps and understanding of feudalism might help. — Gareth Hughes (talk) 13:09, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

I will add the phrase I suggested above about confiscation of monastic property, since everyone is agreed on this. I think this discussion shows any further comment about secular church property would need a good deal of explanation if it were not to be misleading. English Reformation is the place for this - there is certainly no room here, unless in a note. English Reformation could certainly do we improvement, btw; at the moment it does not even mention the executions of More and Fisher (now this at least added). Johnbod (talk) 14:51, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

The confiscation isn't actually particularly relevant to point being made in that sentence - Henry's confiscation of their property did not "play[...] an important role in the spread of reformation ideas which occured in spite of his attempts to maintain the substance of traditional Catholicism" - but there's no particular reason for it not to be mentioned if people think it's important. TSP (talk) 15:01, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

While I completely disagree with the logic that says Catholic Churches were not confiscated by the Church of England, I do not think there needs to be any more changes to the English Reformation section of this RCC article and I am fine with Johnbod's and TSP's tweaking as a result of these conversations here. I think the place to reveal these different points of view on confiscation of churches is at the English Reformation article, not here. Our article currently reveals to reader how priests were outlawed and zealously prosecuted, how English laws discriminated against Catholics and even states Ireland's resistance to Englands persistent efforts to eliminate the Catholic Church there. Reader will have a basic understanding of how the English Reformation affected the RCC which is basically what we are trying to acheive in a single paragraph here. I agree with Johnbod that Reader can be further helped by improving the English Reformation article. NancyHeise ^talk 15:37, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

The argument about who owned the Churches seems to be made on the assumption that the people agreed with the "transfer" and the subsequent changes. I think historians generally agree now that most did not. The people who saw the chalices, statues and shrines they had paid for, taken away to be melted down, and the tombs of their forebears defaced, would have considered this a confiscation of something deeply theirs. However I have amended the wording to "Church property" was confiscated, which is undoubtedly true, and leaves the details to those who want to investigate further. Xandar 00:15, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

This won't do, I'm afraid. Firstly, the other executions came during, and were part of, the Dissolution of the Monasteries, whereas the next sentence still says "This was followed by the dissolution of 825 monasteries throughout England ....". On the property point, this wording is too vague - property naturally implies "real estate". If we want to go into "chalices, statues and shrines" here, then we should spell it out. The monastic property was all confiscated and kept or sold by the crown; the secular real estate remained with the dioceses. The latest wording completely obscures this important distinction, not to mention the timing of the destruction of the "chalices, statues and shrines" of secular churches. Johnbod (talk) 00:40, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

No. Many executions were before More and Fisher, including Richard Reynolds, John Haile, many of the 19 Carthusian martyrs, , as well as Elizabeth Barton and six of her allies. On the property point, the vagueness serves a necessary purpose in short-circuiting the argument over whether the Churches were officially confiscated or not. The chalices statues and shrines were plundered under the first wave of the Henrician Reformation in the 1530s. Xandar 23:18, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

"Property naturally implies Real Estate". The point stands, unchallenged, that church buildings under Roman Catholic rule was taken by the Crown. Gabr-el 22:21, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Only monastic property. We've been challenging that point the whole time, parish churches were and are the property of the diocese. The English Church as a whole ceased to owe allegiance to Rome, but all corporate structures remained essentially the same (with the exception of the erection of new dioceses, and the refounding of the cathedrals which were formerly monastic - and these became the property of the new Dean and Chapter rather becoming diretly Crown property). David Underdown (talk) 09:16, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

This discussion will not result in any positive article production unless we can provide references to back up our positions, references that we can then use in the article to support any change in content. I am not sure that we need to spell out every detail of the Reformation, I think the paragraph relates well to the reader that Catholics and their property were severely persecuted under the English beginning with Henry VIII. The sentence about the Irish clearly states that they resisted persistent English efforts to "eliminate" the Catholic Church there. I don't see why we have to go into this argument at all as long as we have our present wording. I do feel that this is an important point to form more clearly in the English Reformation article. Can we all agree to that? NancyHeise ^talk 12:25, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, there's a sumamry of the current legal situation here. In fact it appears that where the incumbent has freehold (vicar or rector), legal ownership is invested in them, not the diocese (but as church, rather than personal property). It's not particularly clear what the situation is when parish has a priest who holds their position by licence only, e.g. a priest in charge, or whilst there is an interregnum. It is certainly not owned by the Crown however. David Underdown (talk) 12:58, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

I think we need an historical scholarly source to support any wording in the article on confiscation of churches other than the monasteries, friaries, convents and shrines. Right now, all of my best scholarly sources say nothing about the confiscation of the Catholic Churches - they do talk about the elimination of the others which is why I have included those in the article's wording. If my major sources all say nothing about a situation, I think that is clear support for not mentioning it in this summary article. However, I do think that it should be mentioned in the more detailed English Reformation article using the sources I liked to above because it is a notable controversy that Wikipedia rules would require editors to mention.NancyHeise ^talk 13:52, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Celtic Church

Some material has been added to tthe Early Middle Agges section that I consider very dubious. I have left it for the moment, but don't think it should stay. The claim that so-called "celtic christianity" "came directly from Egypt without first going through the Roman Church", is one I have not seen in any credible source. Apart from the fact that Egypt was part of the Catholic Church at the time, the established history is that Celtic christianity developed as a result of British and Gaulish Catholic missions. Palladius was sent by Pope Celestine to ireland and Scotland in 429. Patrick is considered to have been in ireland at some period between 430 and 490. Abbot Mochta, a contemporary of Patrick is believed to have been consecrated in Rome. The Celtic Church was isolated by the Dark Ages, and developed a few different traditions, but the idea of it being a separate foundation is not evidenced. Xandar 00:15, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

I thought this would cause trouble, Vidmar or not. The Coptic split was in 451 in fact. That there was direct Coptic-Irish contact and influence is something pretty generally accepted in the subject I know most about, art history, from which some of the circumstantial evidence comes, but I have not seen it stated in the way it is here, and there is I think a complete lack of historical narrative evidence on the connection - ie named individuals or anything similar. All the known names of missionaries etc are from the West, but there are similarities between aspects of Coptic and Celtic monasticism that seem to indicate direct adoption of Coptic practices. I don't know what "Celtic christianity developed as a result of British and Gaulish Catholic missions" means at all - unless "Celtic" is being confused with "Irish", which it should not be. Patrick (in so far as he was not Palladius) was a British-born Christian, as apparently was Saint Ninian. The British/Celtic post-Roman population that still inhabited most of Britain in this period evidently contained a significant but unknown proportion of Christians, very possibly a majority, as is clear from the archaeology. That Celtic Christianity in toto "came directly from Egypt without first going through the Roman Church" seems wrong, but that Celtic monastic practises did might (I don't know) be a reasonable statement on the available evidence, but I agree more specialized referencing is needed. I've never seen any suggestion that the Celtic church had differences with Rome on the major theological issues, and of course Latin was used. A short article here gives some information. Johnbod (talk) 01:05, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

There is evidence (archaeological and documentary) of Egyptian/Syrian influence on the practice of the Irish church (with some Egyptian monks in Ireland), which influenced practice in Britain and northern Gaul also. In this matter, Chalcedon isn't really that important, although the majority of Copts and many Syrians rejected it. As the Western Roman Empire collapsed, it is difficult to say how 'Roman' the church remained. Certainly, the Pope had little actual influence over churches beyond the legions. The Synod of Whitby shows that substantial differences in practice had arisen by the seventh century, and that there was substatial resistance to the re-Romanising of the church. — Gareth Hughes (talk) 13:49, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Here is the actual quote from John Vidmar's "The Catholic Church Throughout the Ages" pages 82-83

"Once the idea of monasticism was introduced to the west by Athanasius, it spread quickly. We see it in Africa and France in the late 300's, and even as far away as Ireland at about the same time. How it came to Ireland is a matter of some debate. The liturgical and literary evidence is strong that it came directly from Egypt without the moderating influence of the Roman Church. Both Celtic monks (Ireland and Scotland) and Coptic monks (Egypt) held Antony in great esteem. In a seventh-century antiponary from the Irish monastery of Bangor, we read 'This house is full of delight, Is built on the rock, and indeed the true vine, Transplanted out of Egypt.' Liturgical similarities between Copts and Celts are striking. Among other instances, the Irish litany of saints remembers the 'seven monks of Egypt (who lived) in Disert Uilaig' on the west coast of Ireland. Celtic monks always held for the eastern dating of Easter (14th Nissan). In addition, the austerities of Celtic monks were extreme-a feature of eastern monasticism rather than western. Finally, Celtic artwork, as seen in the Book of Kells or the Lindisfarne Gospels, is decidedly eastern."

Our sentence in the text reads "These were matched by the Irish missions[236] of the Celtic monasticism of the British Isles although scholars are not in agreement on their origins because of evidence that suggests they came directly from Egypt without first going through the Roman Church.[237] - I think this reflects the essence of what Vidmar is saying here. Does anyone still have problems with this wording? NancyHeise ^talk 14:08, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't really think it is necessary to introduce this complicated subject here - in fact it isn't mentioned in Celtic Christianity, which it should be. The grammar is not very clear either - "their" followed by "they" suggests it was the missions themselves, rather than the form of monasticism, which "came directly from Egypt without first going through the Roman Church", which is not what Vidmar is saying. Again, as with the English Reformation, I don't think we have room here to deal with this aspect of the subject, & it would be better to improve the main article on it. I would just cut, or maybe leave in a note, the text above from "although". But it's good that the main article now has a link. Johnbod (talk) 14:22, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree that this article does not need that level of detail. I put Vidmar's discussion about the scholarly debate in a quote in the ref as you suggest. NancyHeise ^talk 16:46, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Sorry to sound pedantic, but I still do not like the sentence "These were matched by the Irish missions[236] of the Celtic monasticism of the British Isles". The word "matched" implies equality, competition and separateness, rather than co-operation, and it is not made clear that the Celtic church (leaving the monastic question aside) was founded through Catholic mission. "I have changed the sentence to "These were augmented by Irish missions, inspired by the Celtic monasticism of the British Isles." Xandar 01:18, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't really see any of these points. Slightly amended to: "These were complemented by the Hiberno-Scottish missions^[1] of the Celtic monasticism of the British Isles." (Plus all the links Xandar left off restored). Just "Irish" is wrong, and what does "inspired by" mean? Johnbod (talk) 23:31, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

"Inspired by" is just an attempt to correct the ugly grammar of "Irish missions of the Celtic Monasticism of the British Isles." The missions weren't really of Celtic monasticism, they were based in it, inspired by it, founded in it, whichever is preferable. Xandar 00:17, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

No, they were of it - Monks from monasteries founded more monasteries on the Continent. "Inspired by" sounds like the cover-note on a music CD. The 2nd "of" could be a "from" to reduce "of" congestion admittedly. Johnbod (talk) 03:16, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

English Reformation

I have some issues with this paragraph, which I tend to feel is slightly too long in comparison with other aspects of the Reformation..

I do not like the newly-added sentence on the Marian persecutions: "These persecutions "succeeded, however, in moving the English people closer to a genuine acceptance of Protestantism". I think this presents one point of view, which is perhaps the official "Whig" Protestant historical narrative that the Marian persecutions were uniquely horrible and helped entrench protestant thought. Many, if not most, modern historians of the period would take a different view. The Marian persecutions were not different in order from those of Henry, Edward or Elizabeth. There is little evidence that the persecutions aided protestantism, and it is generally held that the English population was no more than 50% protestant in leaning when Elizabeth was Queen. Nor was there a movement of "the English people" as a unified group. People in the Midlands, North and West, largely remained Catholic, while those in the South and East were more strongly protestant. The persecutions were used LATER by Foxe and others to drum up an anti-Catholic legend. But there is little evidence that they changed opinions at the time.
I disagree with the insistence on stating that the dissolution of the monasteries "aided the spread of reformation ideas." The beginning of the spread ocurred at the same time, perhaps, but I cannot see evidence that one caused the other. Xandar 01:36, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

The dissolution of the monasteries started a rebellion - if anything, it created a hostile reaction, which may have been even more unwelcome to further changes to the Western Rite. Gabr-el 23:24, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Xandar on both, although I don't know the recent scholarship on either point - I would imagine that both points could be referenced for and against to different historians. I think, given the space issue, neither is vital here. Johnbod (talk) 23:27, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

I see your points here, it is not advisable to insert scholarly opinions when there are so many different POV's if we include one, we will invariably have to include others to be NPOV. I will amend the paragraph to make it just state the facts leaving out scholarly opinion. Thanks for your insights here. NancyHeise ^talk 23:37, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I think the revised paragraph is clearer and better. Xandar 00:25, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Abortion

The Catholic Church declared abortion a sin as long ago as the Didache. Our article may need some reword because right now it appears that abortion was declared murder with Humanae Vitae. I welcome anyone's help with a minor reword to avoid this misperception. NancyHeise ^talk 01:08, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Now:"The sexual revolution of the 1960s precipitated Pope Paul VI's 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae which affirmed the sanctity of life from conception to natural death, rejected the use of contraception, and declared both abortion and euthanasia to be murder ...." One could just change "declared ... to be" to "confirmed ... as", perhaps modifying "murder" to "homicide". I have always understood "murder" as a term of criminal law, defined as an illegal homicide. Was the word "murder" as such used in earlier pronouncements, or in HV? Perhaps also adding "the long-held position" or similar. I doubt if these were ever official positions, but the historical situation is perhaps slightly complicated by various medieval theories as to when the soul came in to being - I believe Isidore of Seville held it was 47 days after conception. Johnbod (talk) 03:35, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Destroying the fetus if it has a soul has been considered by the Church from the earliest history as a sin. The only difference between now and then is that better Science knowledge has convinced the Roman Catholic Church that the soul is not introduced at certain time periods, but at the moment of conception. Thus, the Church's stance on abortion is more consistent than one makes out; the only difference being a difference in understanding when the soul enters. Gabr-el 05:41, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

I think Johnbod's suggestion fits this situation. I am changing "declared" to "confirmed". NancyHeise ^talk 19:49, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

I expanded a bit on Humanae Vitae and added reference to Evangelium Vitae because the previous content seemed to lump these two together and was not informative enough I thought. Bokenkotter provided a very nice reference on the issue. Are you guys OK with the addition? NancyHeise ^talk 21:24, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Much better! Nice work. Johnbod (talk) 00:24, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Catholicism Today

I am not happy with the prose and flow of this paragraph. I think we need to consider a reword and am wondering about possibly including mention of World Youth Day (I inserted the picture which may be enough). I invite your help in the matter. Thanks. NancyHeise ^talk 21:30, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

OK, I helped myself here - I trimmed this paragraph and reworded some sentences here for better flow. It was a little choppy before with poor flow of ideas. I think it is FA quality now. :) NancyHeise ^talk 03:03, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Lead trim

I was wondering if we need this sentence in the lead: "It is made up of one Western church (the Latin Rite) and 22 Eastern Catholic churches, divided into 2,782 jurisdictional areas around the world." I think the lead would not suffer if we eliminated this mention. It is already explained further down in the lead that Eastern Catholic Churches reunited with Rome. Does anyone else agree that we can do without this sentence? NancyHeise ^talk 16:40, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

The word "reunited" is a problem for Eastern Catholics, especially by members of Syriac Christianity, such as the Maronites and Chaldeans, who claim always to have been in Full Communion with Rome, the former physically so and the latter spiritually so. Gabr-el 23:41, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

I think we need it in the LEAD. The LEAD is a stand-alone summary of the article that should encapsulate all the major points. When this article makes it to the Main Page, that is what the world will see. Just my $0.019999995. --Mike - Μολὼν λαβέ 23:53, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree; especially as the point is often not understood, even by most Catholics. Johnbod (talk) 00:28, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

OK, so we are all agreeing to keep this sentence "It is made up of one Western church (the Latin Rite) and 22 Eastern Catholic churches, divided into 2,782 jurisdictional areas around the world." Do we need to make any changes to "reunited" ? NancyHeise ^talk 03:00, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

That's what I meant - although I am not so attached to the jurisdictional areas being in the lead. Johnbod (talk) 03:03, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, I think it is misleading to not include the jurisdictional areas around the world because if you eliminate that, you are left with 1 Western Church and 22 Eastern .... - it just sounds weird, like there is 23 churches (individual structures) or something. Knowing that a lot of teenagers get their info from Wikipedia I would rather either eliminate the sentence entirely or leave it entirely. As for the "reunited" thing - we don't have to change anything because the sentence in the lead states " Eastern churches that maintained (or later re-established) communion with Rome form the Eastern Catholic Churches." That sentence does not say "reunited" and I think it perfectly establishes that some of them did not break away as Gabr-el mentioned above. So I guess we just leave everything as is. NancyHeise ^talk 03:14, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, thank you Nancy. Gabr-el 03:44, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Just to be difficult, I don't like the term "jurisdictional areas". Virtually nobody will know what this piece of jargon means. I presume it means "Bishoprics", so I think that this is what it would say. Yes. I know that Eastern Churches call them something else. But this is the lead in the English language Wikipedia, and I think we should go for the most widely-understood term. The words "around the world" would then be unnecessary and could be eliminated. Another option would be to say "...with 2,782 bishops." Xandar 22:24, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

I thought it included orders & maybe other things besides. Maybe we should at least have explanation & a summary breakdown (if there are more than dioceses & equivalents there) in a note. Johnbod (talk) 22:44, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

The actual reference, the Annuario Pontificio (a $150 book no less - ouch!) uses the actual term "sees". There are 2782 sees. We could use that term but it is the definition of jargon which we have been asked by non-Catholic editors of the page to reduce so we used "jurisdictional areas" instead. I think "Bishoprics" is worse jargon than "sees" because it is not as correct a term to use as sees but we could use the actual term and wikilink it as I just did here if you like. NancyHeise ^talk 17:54, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Redirect

I have placed this message on the talk page of user:Gimmetrow "Gimmetrow, user:Carlaude reverted your edit here on June 9 [7] which causes Catholic Church to go to a disambiguation page. It has long been agreed at Roman Catholic Church that the redirect should go to the Roman Catholic Church page because of the fuss over calling the page Roman instead of just Catholic Church, which is the official name of the church - a name that no other church calls itself and that no other church is popularly known as. Per Wikipedia policy, we are supposed to name articles by the name by which they are popularly known. It was only through compromise with the redirect for Catholic Church going to the Roman Catholic Church page that we were able to make both Catholics and non-Catholics happy with the page name. I do not know how to correct the redirect to make it go to Roman Catholic Church instead of the disambiguation page for Catholic Church. Can you help?" NancyHeise ^talk 17:10, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

This is copied and pasted from Gimmetrows talk page: ": It was an IP edit [8]. If you want to undo it, you can use the undo link on that diff. Gimmetrow 18:10, 22 September 2008 (UTC)"

OK, I fixed the redirect. Thanks NancyHeise ^talk 18:33, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Picture Orientation

I have tried to get the thumbnails in the article all close to a similar size for consistency, however some seem to be positioned in an untidy-looking way on both sides of the text in some passages. This looks ugly where the pictures are close together. I'm in two minds as to whether the article would look better with all the pictures pushed to the right - or would that be too rigid and inflexible? What do people think? Xandar 22:51, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

No, Ithink similar size is good, but all on one side isn't. A balance is achieved if pictures are alternated between left and right sides. Having said that, some images seem even better when made to be larger than others. For instance, it would be unorthodox to have a picture resembling a large Church and a picture of a Pope the same size; if they were both the same size, then either one will be either too big or too small to be representing what it is suppose to represent. Therefore, I think we should be less strict with how we place the images and their sizes. Gabr-el 23:16, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

(ec)I can only see one opposing pair, but you are not supposed to do this, nor to have them all on the right. Portraits & many other "oriented" images should face into the page, which means several have to be on the left. At the moment many have too small forced sizes; if used at all these should not go below 300px. The solution generally is not to be too fetishistic about having the picture right next to the relevant text. Parts of the article are still under-illustrated. The MoS etc pages on images are not very user-friendly, but you should find these points somewhere in Wikipedia:Images or [[9]]. Johnbod (talk) 23:22, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

I personally prefer to see images on both sides of an article. Also, I am not too concerned about image size unless it becomes exaggerated. I agree that most images in an article should be small thumbnails, but this should not be an absolute rule. Summarizing Gab, some pictures should be larger than others. Xandar, you may be trying too hard; some diversity is not such a bad thing. --^StormRider 00:05, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

It's generally recommended that you shouldn't force image size (except perhaps for the lead picture), and that pictures should alternate right and left (though there shouldn't be left-aligned pictures immediately below a section header. WP:IMAGES. David Underdown (talk) 08:20, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

That's a sub-header - 3 or more =s. Main headers are ok with left-aligned below. That's not a style point, but a technical one, as some browsers can't handle it. Johnbod (talk) 10:16, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Lack of neutrality

Just a quick question guys, but the end section of this article goes "The Academy's membership is comprised of "many of the greatest minds" of modern science and provides the pope with valuable insights in such regard.[397] The Catholic Church has continually faced new challenges throughout its long history, however as one scholar has noted; even through eras of internal corruption, the Church has not failed in its mission to bring the Gospel to the world.[398]".

Sourced this may be, but it sounds pretty far removed from neutral. Thoughts? Rcsains (talk) 11:44, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I'm inclined to agree. The section cites opinions; but then presents them as facts (in the first case by including the quote in the encyclopedic voice without qualification, even though quote marks are used; in the second place by using "noted", which as Wikipedia:Words to avoid says, implies the truth of the statement).

There does seem to be a tendency sometimes to assume that anything in a reliable source can be treated as fact. That goes for the facts presented in such sources; but not for the opinions, which both of the above can reasonably be described as (there being no neutral test for either assertion). Bokenkotter, for example, is a scholar and his book is published by a mainstream publisher, so his facts can reasonably be expected to be accurate; however, he is also a Roman Catholic priest, so it isn't really reasonable to expect his opinions to be neutral (it's not really reasonable to expect anyone's opinions to be neutral). We need to be careful to present fact as fact, and opinion as opinion.

The challenge is to properly attribute opinion while retaining brevity and clarity. I don't know if you have a suggested rephrasing, Rcsains? TSP (talk) 12:51, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

The second sentence in question is not the opinion of Bokenkotter, it is the opinion of Francis Oakley which Bokenkotter quoted on page 157 of his book "A Concise History of the Catholic Church" which has been a University textbook for decades with three reprintings, has a bibliography that is over 40 pages long and, according to Google Scholar, is cited 43 times. That makes it one of the most oft cited references and most respected scholarly works according to the criteria established by WP:Reliable source examples. The concluding section of this Wikipedia article was created at the request of FAC reviewers in the last FAC attempt. It is intended to give reader a general view of the Church today and I think that this kind of section calls for inclusion of scholarly opinion. I have improved the wording and added the url to the Discover Magazine reference regarding Pontifical Academy so Reader can see the entire article for themselves. I have also changed the last sentence to reflect Bokenkotter's agreement with Oakley and added the reference to Oakley's book. I hope that helps. Thanks

NancyHeise ^talk 16:00, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

I actually prefer it as the "one scholar has said", or even as "Francis Oakley has said," than the current vague "some scholars agree" which begs the question what scholars - and what do the others think? The opinion is presented openly as opinion not fact, and is hardly controversial encompassing positive and negative aspects. I think it is quite justified as a single quote to round off the article. Xandar 10:20, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

I've attributed the quote (this should always be done in preference to "some scholars", "a scholar" - see Wikipedia:Avoid weasel words - it would be even better if the direct quote was given.

I still don't really like the usage of this quote, though; it seems to be an attempt to round up a narrative and give a positive spin on the whole history, which I don't think is good encyclopedic style. The quote doesn't particularly apply to the section it's in, and I don't think that we should be trying to draw conclusions, particularly not in the form of one person's opinion.

If we think that it is right to end the history section with an opinion, surely we could equally end it with, for example 'While the Catholic Church has succeeded in spreading Christianity, professor Richard Dawkins has said that "The Roman Catholic Church is one of the forces for evil in the world".' I'm not remotely suggesting that he is right, or that it would be in any way justified to conclude like this; but if it's OK to try to sum up the church's history with a single opinion, what makes one person's better than another's?

I can't really agree that it encompasses both positive and negative aspects. It mentions the negative aspects that would be clear to anyone, but declares them unimportant. That's fine and I tend to agree, but I'm sure we could equally find a historian who believed that actually the periods of corruption and oppression have overshadowed the church's purpose.

On thinking about it, I'm going to remove this quote; I think that it is clearly giving a spin to the entire section in violation WP:NPOV, is trying to draw conclusions which is bad encyclopedic style, and is not balanced by a contrary opinion. Sorry. TSP (talk) 11:58, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

I rather liked the article ending with that sentence but I can see how it could be turned around in the opposite direction. Bokenkotter and Oakley are more highly regarded historians than Dawkins and I think we could get by having their opinions in the final paragraph. However, I think this paragraph is fine without the opinion sentence and I am OK with TSP's removal. TSP, do you feel there are any other NPOV problems with the article? I would like to know if you have any other comments here and thank you for coming back to view and comment on the page. NancyHeise ^talk 13:24, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

The conclusion with a quote was good narrative writing, and would be perfect for, say, a thesis, or a newspaper article, or even an encyclopedia article in the old 1911 Britannica style, where articles were very much written in the voice of an individual contributor; but for Wikipedia, a good narrative is unfortunately often a sign of poor neutrality, because it means that the facts are put in the context of that particular narrative, rather than being presented neutrally.

I'll need to have another complete read through from the top. The first thing that struck me as a bit dubious is the current presentation of the Galileo issue, which feels rather defensive - I think that pretty much everyone now agrees that Galileo was treated badly, including the Church which has apologised for it; this article only admits that the Church has been criticised for it. This is a very well-known fact, and critical people are likely to search for it to see how Wikipedia handles it, and get the impression from a defensive portr. Likewise, Ramsay MacMullen's critical views in the following sentence should not be mentioned only parenthetically to the positive views. I'll take a look at this and see if I can suggest a more neutral presentation. TSP (talk) 16:08, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, I appreciate your help here. Please consider though that MacMullen's is a minority view with regard to that subject matter. However, I welcome any rewording that will make the article more NPOV while still giving Reader the plain facts. NancyHeise ^talk 16:46, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

FA

I would like to nominate this article for FA soon. Does anyone have any more suggestions for improvement? The article seems very stable and bullet-proof. I have improved the references with additions of Bokenkotter and some new top references. We have asked some non-Catholics to review the article and it has undergone a peer review for the past month. I think it is ready for submission. Thoughts from others? NancyHeise ^talk 17:06, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

nancy, having only recently started to look at this article in more than a cursory way, I would suggest that there is some work to do in removing references to generally-held Christian beliefs as specifically 'Catholic' beliefs. Since there are very few major differences between beliefs held by the RCC and other mainstream Christian beliefs e.g. the Anglican/Episcopalean confessions, only those which differ should be highlighted as 'Catholic' beliefs. A reader might otherwise get the impression e.g. that Anglicans do not believe that the 'Fall of Man' isolates mankind from God; I am unaware of any difference between 'Catholic' and Anglican beliefs on this point. There may be other examples of such false dichotomies, which ought to be removed before nomination. Perhaps this has already been discussed. --TraceyR (talk) 19:21, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't think we need to worry about that; we can't remove these generally accepted Christian beliefs, as they are core to the Catechism. Having said that it would be equally burdensome to list who else believes in this. This article is about the Roman Catholic Church; the fact that it shares beliefs with other Christians are not of concern to this article, in my opinion, other than perhaps having a slight mention about ecumenical relations. Gabr-el 19:42, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree - differences, and lack of them, between churches are dealt with in the individual subject articles, but it is reasonable to state the Catholic ones here. I don't think this objection has been made before (except that I did above with reference to the rather complicated description of the canonical Bible). Generally, if you you are ready for it Nancy, let's go! Johnbod (talk) 20:05, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Hopefully it will go better than the Charge of the Light Brigade!!!Gabr-el 21:28, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Responding to TraceyR - I appreciate your time and attention to visit this article and give us your honest opinions. I was wondering if you knew that we do address the differences between Catholic beliefs and other Christian denominations in the opening paragraph of the Beliefs section. Here is the excerpt that addresses your concern: "Catholic beliefs are summarized in the Nicene Creed^[2] and detailed in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.^[3]^[4] The Nicene Creed is recited at all Catholic Sunday Masses, and also forms the central statement of belief of other Christian denominations.^[2]^[5] Chief among these are Eastern Orthodox Christians, whose beliefs are quite similar to those of Catholics, differing from them mainly with regard to papal infallibility, the filioque clause and the immaculate conception of Mary.^[6]^[7] Protestant churches vary in their beliefs, but generally differ from Catholics regarding the pope, church tradition, the Eucharist and issues pertaining to grace, good works and salvation.^[8] The five solas, composed by Martin Luther in the 16th century, were one attempt to express these differences.^[9]" The detailed discussion on Catholic beliefs then follows this introduction so Reader can gain a summarized overview of various Christian beliefs before reading about Catholic belief in detail. I agree that we need to get this to FAC. I want to go through the article with a fine tooth comb before submission first and that will take me a day at least. NancyHeise ^talk 23:21, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Gabr--el, I'm suggesting neither that such common beliefs be removed from the article, nor that it should list who else shares them (a mammoth task, no doubt, but potentially very interesting!). I don't follow Johnbod's point, since this is an individual subject article, where differences, and lack of them, should be dealt with. Nancy mentions that the detailed discussion on Catholic beliefs is given "so Reader can gain a summarized overview of various Christian beliefs before reading about Catholic belief in detail" - but it is in the detailed discussion that the following example is given.

The point is based upon the premise, simply stated, that while all Catholics are Christians, not all Christians are Catholic. Compare

"This event is known as the 'Fall of Man' and according to Catholic belief, left humanity isolated from its original state of intimacy with God"

and

"This event is known as the 'Fall of Man' and according to Christian belief, left humanity isolated from its original state of intimacy with God."

The first is inaccurate by implication and potentially offensive to some, since it could be interpreted as stating that it is an exclusively 'Catholic' belief rather than a commonly-held Christian one. The second version is more accurate, since the term 'Christian' includes 'Catholic' by definition and should cause offence to nobody. I simply point out that such an issue, if not addressed, could be a stumbling-block on the way to FA status. --TraceyR (talk) 23:55, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Tracey, first let me say that I am very grateful for your time and attention to visit the article. I am not sure I can concur with your suggestion since the article is trying to let Reader know about Catholic beliefs and there are many different Christian denominations to consider if we do it your way. The article text in the Beliefs section is referenced to books containing the Nihil obstat and imprimatur designations by the Catholic Church. We did this to make sure we were creating a beliefs section that is correct according to official Catholic doctrine. I think it would be out of scope of this project to create a page that is going to incorporate the beliefs of other denominations beyond our opening paragraph summary. NancyHeise ^talk 00:04, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't actually see a problem with replacing "Catholic" with "Christian" in that particular sentence, since either way the meaning is clear. I don't however agree with the logic that we can only talk about differences with other churches in the beliefs section. The idea is to present a clear account of Catholic belief as a unified whole, not divert people to patch things together from other articles. Xandar 10:29, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

On FA, have past FA commentators been given the opportunity to state any objections they still have first? We want remaining objections specified and hopefully decided upon BEFORE FA, since we don't want 800k of rambling and obfuscation again. Xandar 10:29, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Typically, the peer review is where that happens. We have had a peer review open now for almost a month. In spite of the lack of previous objectors coming back to comment, I have addressed their concerns from the last FAC anyway. Particularly, I increased use of our most scholarly works and eliminated less scholarly works or reduced their use if they were an important double ref. I added two new scholarly references - one by Owen Chadwick and the other by a group of professors but noted in the article under the name of professor Thomas Noble. NancyHeise ^talk 13:30, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

This is not a typical situation though. We know what happened the last three times. It went to Peer review. Very few comments. And then loads of vague, unresolvable, but persistent objections at FAC. Raul did ask that unresolved objectors make their specific remaining objections known PRIOR to the next FA. We should in my opinion give them the chance to do this now, so that if people don't engage, and then come back at FA with "This is POV, but we can't specifically say why," or "The English prose is poor, and it all needs doing again," such objections can be seen as invalid. Xandar 22:19, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

official name

I would like to know if we have consensus of editors that the first sentence of the lead is correct. I believe the references clearly support the article text. However, two editors that I asked to come look at the page said they thought we should mention that in some official and legal documents in English speaking countries, the Catholic Church uses the term Roman Catholic Church and bring up the ecumenical documents between the Church and Jews and the Anglican Union. Does anyone think our lead sentence should be changed to incorporate this? Both of our references discuss instances when the Church uses the term Roman Catholic instead of just Catholic so I think it meets WP:summary style rules by leaving that minor detail to the references but I want to know what others think here. NancyHeise ^talk 23:43, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I'd say, add it to one of the notes, or leave it as it is. The sentence as it stands is correct globally, and internally. Johnbod (talk) 23:47, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

This has been a HUGE and incredibly lengthy debate in the past, on which lots of people have VERY strong views. Editors finally agreed to stabilise on the present compromise which accepts Roman Catholic Church as the article title, but states that Catholic Church is the official name, and uses that in the body text. "Catholic Church" redirects to RCC as part of this compromise. The use of the term "Roman Catholic Church" in many English speaking countries is primarily historical in that it was originally imposed on the Church by government usage and sometimes law, in order to deny the Church's claim to be the one Catholic (ie universal) Church. Such detail is not wanted in the lead, and the article Catholicism has considerable detail on the varied usages of the term catholic. Xandar 10:40, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

FWIW, I don't think that is correct to claim that "Editors finally agree to stabilise on the present compromise ..."; a couple of days ago User:soidi wrote at User talk:NancyHeise#"Roman Catholic Church": "I do not deny that the Church uses "Catholic Church" as its official name. I do deny that it is the only official name it uses. Lack of mutual comprehension confirms that it is best to let the matter rest for a couple of weeks. By then there may be a change of mind on the part of one or other or both of us. Soidi (talk) 09:07, 25 September 2008 (UTC)" (my emphasis). Perhaps the recommended couple of weeks should be allowed to pass before agreement is claimed? --TraceyR (talk) 08:31, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Nancy was referring to the earlier very full debate, which I think Soidi was not involved in. Concensus does not mean unaminous agreement, which is unlikely ever to be forthcoming on this or many other issues around this article. As User:Xandar points out, there is more on this at Catholicism. I do think note 2 needs clarifying by adding which name is "this" at the start of the quote ("RCC"), and a link referring to the detailed discussion at Catholicism could usefully be added. Johnbod (talk) 15:42, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Soidi did not understand that it would be a violation of WP:summary style to elaborate in the lead on when Roman Catholic Church has been used as opposed to Catholic Church (which is only in the English language and never by the Church herself in her official documents about herself) which is explained in both references, one with a quote and the other with a link to a nice long explanation. Both references meet WP:RS standards one is a university press the other is a highly respected Catholic newspaper for decades. Both references support the article text as is and offer Reader what else there is to know on the issue without having to delve further. How much better can we get than this? NancyHeise ^talk 18:35, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Nancy, you are probably correct that the intro is not the place for a discussion on which name(s) is/are used by whom and when. For this reason it is also not the place for an unqualified (in the sense of 'not elaborated upon') statement on what is obviously a controversial matter. I would recommend removing the "official name ..." wording from the intro and dealing with it in the appropriate section of the article.

As far as the word "official" is concerned, it is not the case that term Roman Catholic (Church) is never used by the Church in official documents about herself. There are numerous examples to be found on the Vatican's own website: A search there reveals many instances, including a speech given in Poland by Benedict XVI himself using this term (given below in Polish, Italian and English, all of which use the adjectives Roman and Catholic, mutatis mutandi, in the respective languages, see entries 18-20 below, my italics). If a Pope has used the term "Roman Catholic" (ref. 18-20), who are we to disagree?! Whereas one single example of the Church using this term about herself would be sufficient to disprove the "Catholic Church is the offical name" thesis, there are many more than that out there.

I've had a look at the McClintock reference, which also does not support the view that "Catholic Church" is the 'official' name. He states that "It [Roman Catholic Church) is, however, not the official name used by the authorities of the Church, who rather dislike it, and substitute for it the name 'Catholic' or 'Holy Catholic' Church"; so this source cannot be cited to support the view that "Catholic Church" is the sole official name: Which is the official name, "Catholic" or "Holy Catholic"?. IMO Whitehead is not a suitably authoritative source - it's not academic, more a partican piece in a partisan newspaper, e.g. "Catholics should nevertheless beware of using the term, not only because of its dubious origins in Anglican circles intending to suggest that there just might be some other Catholic Church around somewhere besides the Roman one ...". Just my opinion though.

Here are some instances from the Vatican's website/news service:

There are also several bodies, mentioned in the above list, the names of which include the term Roman Catholic:

ERCDOM - Evangelical - Roman Catholic Dialogue on Mission
ARCIC - Anglican Roman Catholic International Commission
IARCCUM - International Anglican-Roman Catholic Commission for Unity and Mission
RCEA - Roman Catholic Education Authority

It can, of course, be argued that many of the above examples are in the ecumenical context, in which the use of the term was 'conceded' out of respect for the respective partner, but if this were the case, then the same argument should apply in the Wikipedia context - it is an English-speaking context and has a catholic (small 'c'), not an exclusively Roman Catholic readership. --TraceyR (talk) 15:41, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

I remain unconvinced by your argument for these reasons:

The documents cited above are peripheral, not core official documents about the Catholic Church regarding its entire self - such as Vatican I or II councils (or any council over the past two millenia) where the pope signed them I (pope) of the Catholic Church.
It is a phenomena of etiquette within the Catholic Church, out of respect for the Anglican Communion, to refer to itself as Roman Catholic in ecumenical documents such as those listed directly above. It is not the official name the Church calls herself as my two references plainly explain.
The Our Sunday Visitor is not a blog, or a partisan newspaper but a very respected and very old Catholic newspaper in the mid-western United States with healthy circulation. McClintock is a WP:RS satisfactory reference, a University press, and to add an extra layer of arms length, he is not a Catholic.
I believe that if you want us to eliminate the present wording, you need to come up with a reference that states "Catholic is not the official name of the Roman Catholic Church" and we will remove it if your reference is a more scholarly work than our present refs. Right now, you do not have anything to refute our references. Both of which discuss instances of when the Church uses Roman Catholic (like in your linked peripheral documents) and specifically state that it is not the offical name but Catholic Church is. We can not eliminate this important referenced fact, please understand it would just be against all our evidence to the contrary. NancyHeise ^talk 18:02, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Note - Here is some background on the term "Roman Catholic". However, most dictionaries seem to not care about the name. I'm surprised no one wanted to call this the Papacy. As far as I know, the only "official" name for the Church is Catholicae Ecclesiae, as Latin is the official language of the Church, so the official name would have to be Latin. Ottava Rima (talk) 20:27, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, that reference backs up our use of Catholic Church as noted in the last paragraph, it also explains the controversial usage of Roman Catholic and how the Church rejects that term (last paragraph). I think I was using that reference but eliminated it when Raul and Sandy thought I had too many refs in the lead. I felt the two were enough. We had at one time listed the actual official latin name Catholicae Ecclesiae in the lead. It was later decided by editors that since this is English Wikipedia and the term translates into Catholic Church that is what we should use - particularly because all of the Church's official documents translated into English contain Catholic Church (like Catechism of the Catholic Church). We have noted in the Organization section that Latin is the official language and Italian is the working language of the Church organization. NancyHeise ^talk 22:02, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

That is inescapable logic. If the lead paragraph needs to mention the official name at all, this should be it. The other names given by the McClintock reference ("Catholic Church" and "Holy Catholic Church") could be mentioned inter alia as "also known as" names, but this would be too high a level of detail for the introduction. --TraceyR (talk) 22:13, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

It would be inescapable logic in the Latin Wikipedia. We should stick to the old formula, with a reference to the Catholicism article for further detail, where I hope you and all the others who have expended so many words on this single point will ensure that your various arguments are represented. Johnbod (talk) 22:38, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

The official name in Latin: Catholicae Ecclesiae needs to be mentioned in the Lede without question. The fact that this is an English Language encyclopedia is irrelevant. I can point to hundreds if not thousands of articles listing Latin and Greek in their Lede sections.--Mike - Μολὼν λαβέ 22:36, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Proposal for the beginning: "The Catholicae Ecclesiae (Catholic Church), also known as the Roman Catholic Church,". You have the official title, the translation of the official title as proper, and an aka, as proper per standard naming pages with popularly known names. There is no need for references, no controversy, nor any dispute. Who is in favor of this wording? Ottava Rima (talk) 02:05, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm definitely in favor. It's about the best thing I've seen suggested on this talk page in over a year.--Mike - Μολὼν λαβέ 04:44, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Absolutely not me, it is contary to all guidelines. You are supposed to start the article with the title - would you call the article that? Words fail me. See Italy for how it is done:

Italy [ˈɪtəli]^ⓘ (Italian: Italia), officially the Italian Republic, (Italian: Repubblica Italiana), is located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe, .... - that is as far as I would be prepared to go, and I still think it can be in a note. Johnbod (talk) 02:09, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

You do know that the Vatican is its own nation and officially recognized as such by the UN, right? Its not Italy. Ottava Rima (talk) 02:14, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

It's what we call in Latin an exemplum, Ottava. Johnbod (talk) 02:17, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Its a poor choice. "You are supposed to start the article with the title", not per MoS. "If possible, an article title is the subject of the first sentence of the article; for example". It doesn't say it has to be prioritized. Being in the "also known as" conforms to the fact that article titles have to be in English per "Article titles should conform to Wikipedia's naming conventions, including "Use English".". Please don't try to use the MoS against me, because I have read it many, many times. I confirmed this with others who work on the MoS before putting the wording above. Ottava Rima (talk) 02:52, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Image layout

A large number of the images are facing off the text and will need to be juggled right or left; I didn't do it myself because some of them will also need to be moved down to avoid placing left-aligned images under third-level headings, so it's a bit of work to sort it all out. See WP:MOS#Images. There are several where Jesus is facing away from the text or the main focus of the image is looking off the page. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:19, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing that out, will have a look. NancyHeise ^talk 00:29, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Done. NancyHeise ^talk 01:40, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

The points made above about forced image sizes have not been followed up. Many pictures breach Wikipedia:Image_use_policy#Displayed_image_size "Images should generally not be set to a fixed size". This week the guideline no longer says, as it used to, that forced images, if used, should generally be set to around 300px. Forcing to 250 etc makes images smaller for some people & larger for others, compared to leaving them unforced. Johnbod (talk) 02:00, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

FYI

I posted the following message on the page of anyone who commented or voted in the last FAC, including before the restart (in the archives it is listed as two separate FACs but it was really one very long one)

"Roman Catholic Church

Hello, you are receiving this message because you voted in the last FAC for this article. Currently, it is undergoing a peer review and I invite you to come view the page and offer any suggestions for improvement here [10]. Over the past three months, the page has been improved with additional scholarly works, trims, two new sections suggested in and attention to concerns raised during the last FAC. Thanks in advance for your time, attention and help to bring this important article to FA. NancyHeise ^talk 00:29, 28 September 2008 (UTC)"

Size

The message above says the article has been trimmed; in fact, it has grown over its three FARs (as I pointed out in the GA review). The current size is 77KB, 12,500 words. If it passes FAC at that size, there would be only one FA larger than this article: Ketuanan Melayu. I plan to submit Ketuanan Melayu to WP:FAR if I ever find the time, so this would then be the largest FA if it passes. Average FA size a year ago (when it was last checked) was 25KB: I suspect the number is lower today as we're seeing essay-size FACs lately. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:37, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Oh dear! But is it too big? I don't think any other FACs cover 2000 years, latterly over the whole world. Johnbod (talk) 03:15, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Note - Sections "Enlightenment", "Industrial age", and "Second Vatican Council" could be put into a page of "Post Reformation" Catholic History and cut in half to meet summary style. Ottava Rima (talk) 19:27, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

I have made no statements as to whether it is too big or not; I have presented the data and pointed out that the article has not been trimmed as stated. Whether it could make better use of summary style is for reviewers to decide. I'm only presenting the data. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:37, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Sandy you mentioned that you were submitting the one larger article to WP:FAR, I think that tells us your feelings in the matter. If that is not the message you wanted to convey, I am sorry for the misunderstanding but it appeared to me to be a very clear message. Responding to Ottava, clearly we could put the entire history section into another page as well as all the other sections. We have not done so because we fashioned the page in the manner suggested by Jimbo Wales for controversial subjects in that all criticisms are addressed throughout the article (mostly in history sections) and not in one place. If you take a look at the daughter pages and all of the wikilinks in our (2000 years of) history section, you will find that we have clearly submitted a version of Catholic history that meets WP:summary style. NancyHeise ^talk 19:51, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

I believe you misread me. I said that you could summarize the sections of the new page to reduce their size by half. You can still mention the important controversies, but these sections really deserve a page of their own with more detail. Ottava Rima (talk) 20:42, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

(ec) Following up here because of several messages on my talk page. Before going into another FAC, it would be good to consider reading what people actually wrote and not reading what you might imagine between the lines. I mention that because it reminds me of the time I made a list of "unstruck opposes" on talk, and that list was exactly that ... "unstruck" opposes, a straightforward, impossible to misinterpret statement of fact with no comment whatsoever about the opposes ... and as I recall, you and another editor made some ado of that list. Your next FAC may go smoother if you more carefully parse what people actually write. On the other hand, I am curious about your message saying the article had been trimmed, since the article size data indicates otherwise. I'm also mystified that you are still referring to FAC as a "vote". My personal concerns about the Ketuanan Melayu article (which as far as I know is entirely unrelated to RCC) have no bearing whatsoever on FAC consensus wrt RCC; your message indicates that you may not understand our role as interpretors of consensus at FAC. As an example, even if I personally think that Ketuanan Melayu makes terrible use of summary style, size is not a policy issue, so if consensus says the size is fine, it passes. I will submit it to FAR because 1) consensus can change, and 2) I think it has other issues. I offer these tips in the hopes of smoother sailing on your next FAC. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:51, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Sandy, I personally trimmed the article twice, others assisted in this effort and two people did a trim right after the FAC while I was on vacation. The creep in information is the result of efforts to address issues raised at the last FAC and requests of editors since the last FAC. In addition, there were a total of 54 different editors who commented or voted on the last FAC (including before the restart and not counting anyone twice), 12 of those opposed the article and only one of those listed article size as a concern [11]. I am aware of your concerns over article size because of your persistent comments on the issue. I think you are wrong to be so concerned or to keep bringing that subject up when there is such clear evidence that it is not a major concern for the vast majority of editors and viewers of the page. NancyHeise ^talk 21:11, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Size considerations

-*WP:article size allows a page to exceed the recommended size if common sense and the subject matter warrant - Roman Catholic Church is the world's oldest and largest institution, represents almost 2000 years of history, and almost one fifth of the world's population in almost every country worldwide. This is the top article for the entire Wikiproject Catholicism and the hub of Catholicism links to daughter pages and others throughout Wikipedia.

WP:Featured article criteria requires an article to be comprehensive adding "it neglects no major facts or details" - Roman Catholic Church has a lot of major facts and details to cover
WP:NPOV, which is also one of the Featured article criteria states " All Wikipedia articles and other encyclopedic content must be written from a neutral point of view (NPOV), representing fairly, and as far as possible without bias, all significant views that have been published by reliable sources." This criteria prevents us from eliminating much of the history section as we have, to the best of our ability, come to compromises on article content with the help of both Catholic and non-Catholic editors.
WP:consensus states "Consensus is Wikipedia's fundamental model for editorial decision-making. " It has been the clear tendency of editors of this article, over the past 9 months, to ask for additions of information, not deletions of. If one were to review the comments of all the peer reviews, FAC's, GA's and talk page comments, it is clear that more content, not less, is the wish of the vast majority of editors to this page. NancyHeise ^talk 20:56, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't think Common Sense warrants it when I listed three sections without sub pages and that should be placed into subpages, as their information gives undue weight to those time periods which is not given to other, larger and more significant, time periods. I would suggest you do the above instead of criticizing me like you have done before. Ottava Rima (talk) 21:38, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

The last FAC (including the restart and not counting anyone twice) had 54 different commentators, 12 of those opposed the page and only one of those opposed because of article size considerations.list of "unstruck opposes" on talk That is clear consensus for a greater article size.NancyHeise ^talk 21:39, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

I'll tell you right now - if this goes to FAC, you will have my Oppose based on Size and Weight concerns, and I will not strike it until those sections are turned into a page and summarized appropriately. Now, you can go on and on, but your unwillingness to fix those sections right now shows that you are not ready for FAC. Ottava Rima (talk) 22:15, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Actually, as you have been writing this, I have been adding seealso's to those sections you say have no daughter pages. I did not realize it until you mentioned it so please consider that your comment was well taken. Your insistence that I follow your command "or else" is not helpful to the collaboration process. I am not sure that you represent the consensus of editors on this issue and it would be helpful for you to humbly respect that important Wikipedia policy. Thanks. NancyHeise ^talk 22:49, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

It is unreasonable, per Nancy's points regarding the enormousness of the subject, to flatly and uncompromisingly oppose this article based on the grounds of size. It is far too unfair for the tireless contributors to be be shot down at this late stage for size; size is something that is considered before an article gets underway, not when it is done. Gabr-el 22:56, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

I've opposed for lesser grounds. This is a Weight issue. If a section is too large, it isn't fair or proper to give it as much weight. The sections on Catholic rituals also have too much weight to them. This article is improperly balanced and can easily be summarized more effectively. Ottava Rima (talk) 23:26, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Raul is the only person who actually makes the decision to advance an article to FA or not. That is why I posted this question on his talk page to find out if we should even bring it to FAC or not. Let's see what he has to say. It has happened in the past that articles get passed even though some people have opposed them. I think it is clear that on controversial subjects and large subjects like RCC, there are going to be some people who will not be happy, the point is to find out what the majority, or consensus wants which is what we have done here. If I ever felt that I needed 100% approval of Wikipedia editors to get this article to FA, I would never have wasted my time improving the article because there are some people who just hate the Catholic Church and would rather roll in mud than see an FA on RCC and we just have to deal with that. BTW I added several see also's to the sections of history that Ottava Rima said needed sub articles. There is also the History of the Roman Catholic Church article that is listed as a see also at the top of history section. We clearly have a summary of history in this article complete with daughter pages to support this contention. NancyHeise ^talk 23:41, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Nancy, that is not true. SandyGeorgia is Raul's delegate, and she is usually the person who promotes or archives an article. She does this based on consensus, not her personal feelings about the article. If there are actionable objections to an article that are based on sound policy, it does not get promoted. I have not read the article in several months, but if the article is actually longer now than it had been, there are likely issues with the way summary style was applied. That is an actionable issue to oppose on (it is written into the FA criteria as criteria 4). One of the arguments above is that there are 2000 years of history to cover - that may very well be an appropriate argument for History of the Roman Catholic Church, but not for this one, we should be, at best, summarizing the most important points of the history section. Karanacs (talk) 14:32, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

You are incorrect about Raul and Sandy's arrangement per Sandy's gift to my talk page (its the first post on it right now): [12]. Regarding article size, I would like to ask those who think it is too large to offer suggestions on what they want us to eliminate, then allow us to find consensus on it - make a list and let us hash it out on the talk page. Finding consensus is what we are really after here. At present, we have already gone through the article to make sure it omits no major facts and provides all info needed to satisfy WP:NPOV as well as the requests of editors who have specifically asked for information the article was previously lacking. We have done our best and we welcome your helpful suggestions. NancyHeise ^talk 16:19, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

The article seems to me to have very little if any fat on it. The history section, like the rest of the article, is already extremely summarized, & I can't see at all what Ottava means on "sections on Catholic rituals" being too long. The sections above are enough to disprove that the article can "easily be summarized more effectively". Compared to most FAs all elements of the subject are dealt with at breakneck speed. Having just reread the article right through I can see the odd point that could be put in a note or removed, but nothing that will substantially reduce the overall size without compromising the "comprehensive" criterion. Johnbod (talk) 16:38, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree. I have also read the article several times to reduce it knowing that Sandy was concerned about its length but could do no more without eliminating major facts and details which make the article interesting enough to meet the "brilliant" FA criteria. NancyHeise ^talk 17:07, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Ealdgyth and Karanacs gave us some nice comments and suggestions for improvement on the peer review page, some of them are decent ideas for trimming certain sections and I agree with most of them (others I may post on this page to find out what others want to see). Thank you to Ealdgyth and Karanacs for taking the time and effort to offer ideas for improvement, I am very appreciative of your efforts. NancyHeise ^talk 01:08, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Consensus sought on these peer review comments

Because some of the peer review comments deal with issues that have already been extensively worked, I am posting them here to find out what other editors of this page want to do. Please issue your comments directly below each bullet point so we can find the consensus position for these items. Thanks. NancyHeise ^talk 18:59, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Response - someone asked where to cut. Here we go:
1. "Sacred Scripture and Catholic Tradition" has a block quote that can be removed and summarized with only 10 words, if needed (which it is not).

This was added just yesterday by a new editor. We did not want to revert right away for that reason - no biting. I was considering, out of respect for the new editor, to placing the quote in the ref. NancyHeise ^talk 19:06, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

The blockquote should go I'm afraid. It is too long and dense. Xandar 19:59, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Gone already! However, as said waay above, I've never liked:" Sacred scripture or the Catholic Bible consists of the Greek version of the Old Testament—known as the Septuagint[44]—and the 27 New Testament writings found in the Codex Vaticanus and listed in Athanasius' Thirty-Ninth Festal Letter.[45] These scriptures are essentially the same for most Christians with minor variations between Catholics and Protestants" - which I notice is also now incorrect as there are also small extras in the Orthodox Bible. Can't we just say:"The Catholic Bible consists of essentially the same books as for most Christians, with minor variations." ? Johnbod (talk) 22:44, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

I think the seven book difference between the Catholic bible and most protestant bibles IS important enough to be specified, but the passage could be less wordy. Xandar 09:21, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

2. "The Sacraments" the statement from the catechism is not needed. This is also redundant to "Teaching authority, seven sacraments, different rites". Pick one or the other and condense. A link would be needed to a page on the seven Catholic sacraments.

I'll have a look at this, some of your comments mirror Ealdgyth's and I am addressing these right now and later tonight as I have to teach a class later this afternoon. NancyHeise ^talk 19:06, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Same principle. We need to limit wordy quotes where possible. Xandar 19:59, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Gone - seems ok now. Johnbod (talk) 22:44, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

3. "God the Father, original sin and Baptism" Picture from Michael not needed, this section can be cut in half. The second sentence stating Nicene creed is redundant to the first. I would also question the validity of many of the sources on Catholic view of angels, as many of the statements are iffy and unnecessary to be on the Catholic page. Instead, this should have Augustine's short view of original sin, as that is held as the Catholic view.

Pictures and references do not figure into the total size of the article for FA considerations. Readable prose is what is considered and this page is 77kb readable prose right now. We are in the process of cutting. Regarding references in the Beliefs section, all of them are Nihil obstat and Imprimatur, which means they have a special seal of approval from the Catholic Church as being declared free of doctrinal and moral error. It was decided that these were the highest level of book to use in creating this section. NancyHeise ^talk 19:06, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Agree with nancy here. This is a crucial area to understanding of catholic belief. Xandar 19:59, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Being declared so does not mean that they have the proper weight and acceptance within the Church as a whole. It only means that they are not "wrong". Yes, demons have a place, as with Angels. Is it a legitimate place that has always had the same position? Not really. They don't have that important of a place worth discussion in depth as, say, Augustine's view on original sin. Ottava Rima (talk) 19:16, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

This is your opinion. However since Original Sin and the fall of man have their origins in this episode, it is critical to have it here, more so than an unexplained declaration about original sin - since most people will not understand the concept without considerable further expalnation. Xandar 19:59, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

I think maybe this bit could be trimmed slightly, but these points do need to be included. Johnbod (talk) 22:44, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

4. "Jesus, sin and Penance" Extremely wordy, many of the sentences repeat details in previous sentence. Sentence 1, 2, and 3 can be reduced to one shorter sentence: "Catholics believe that Jesus is the Messiah prophesied in the Old Testament"

Agree this passage can be trimmed and simplified. Xandar 19:59, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Some trimming possible. Johnbod (talk) 22:44, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

5. "Holy Spirit and Confirmation" Another section that recites the Nicene creed instead of simply stating "Catholics believe in the Trinity". One sentence, thats all thats needed. No more repeating about the state of Jesus, God, and the Holy Spirit over and over.

We could lose the second sentence here, quoting Luke. i don't think much else can be cut though. Xandar 19:59, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

I'd think this could be cut by say 50% Johnbod (talk) 22:44, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

6. "Eucharist" This section has a lot of unnecessary detail. Things like "The words of institution for this sacrament" are unnecessary. The first half of the first paragraph can be summarized as: the Catholic Liturgy of the Eucharist has its origins in the Gospels".

Good points for rewording, lets see what others have to say and then we can reword. NancyHeise ^talk 19:06, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes. I think this section has been too wordy. Xandar 19:59, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Some trimming possible. I think myself the Tridentine Mass could be covered in a sentence. Johnbod (talk) 22:44, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

7. "Ordained members and Holy Orders" is way too long. Sentences give unnecessary detail. Get right to the point. There shouldn't be more than 15 sentences on such a simple topic. They are ordained. There is a structure. Here is where it comes from. Thats it.

There probably is some unnecessary detail here. A lot of research went into this section, so we are fond of it, however, perhaps 30% could go to the subsidiary article. Xandar 19:59, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

I can't see much to go here except the 2 sentences beginning: "All programs ...". The topic is far from "simple", of great interest, and not too well understood by many. Johnbod (talk) 22:44, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

8. The history sections can all be reduced and made into a general overview relying on Wikilinks to the respective topics, as the information is already covered.

Cutting the History section is extremely problematic. Roman Empire cannot be cut any further. Nor can Early Middle Ages without losing crucial information. The other sections could only be further cut at a cost of raising controversy over matters of high interest such as the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Reformation, the Colonial Era and Modern Controversies. Industrial Age and Second Vatican Council could be firther trimmed imo, but not greatly. It is very difficult to shorten significantly without oversimplifying, ot giving undue weight to certain issues. Xandar 19:59, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

It already is a "general overview relying on Wikilinks to the respective topics", and one in continual danger of breaching the "comprehensiveness" FA requirement. Most of Ealgthyth ?'s specific trim suggestions at PR are good, but I really don't see how we can go beyond those. Especially as there are often not good articles on general periods of church history, just ones on specific topics. Johnbod (talk) 22:44, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Note - the above, as I checked through, would reduce this page by around 40k in size. If given permission, I will do the cuts. Ottava Rima (talk) 18:25, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

I think it would be better if Nancy does the cuts, once discussed, if she is willing (and we know she always is ...) Johnbod (talk) 22:44, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for taking the time to come give us comments. I would wait for editors to comment before making such a drastic cut, especially to the history section.

The Catholicism today section is primarily about the papacy or Benedict. This level of detail does not belong here.

I disagree with this suggestion. Benedict's papacy is directly relevent to the Catholicism today and this section is not only informative, it is interesting - that is what FA's are supposed to be - not boring. NancyHeise ^talk 18:59, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

I think this section is needed. Maybe some small trimming. Johnbod (talk) 22:44, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

I would switch the Final judgment and Nature of the Church sections - the Final judgement section explains concepts that are mentioned in Nature of the Church, and it would make more sense to have the explanation first.

I can go either way on this. NancyHeise ^talk 18:59, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

A good idea I think, although it changes the current clean break between theological doctrine & life of the church. Johnbod (talk) 22:44, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

The church councils are mentioned in beliefs...do we need to again mention them in the history section?

I can go either way on this. NancyHeise ^talk 18:59, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes - only a handful are namechecked, for decisive turning-points. Johnbod (talk) 22:44, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't believe that the Nicene Creed needs to be quoted throughout this article - that is in the article on the Nicene Creed, and should likely be included in the Theology article, but this is a summary.

I want to know what others think, this was quite an argument before and the quotes throughout was a compromise that ended that argument between those who wanted zero quotes and those who wanted the entire creed quoted in one place. NancyHeise ^talk 18:59, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

We could reduce the amount of quotation, I think. It was a compromise, but not a highly-charged one. Xandar 19:59, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Well I think we know we could no longer contemplate quoting the whole Creed. I think some are still needed, other can be referred to in notes. Johnbod (talk) 22:44, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

I think there is too much information about the liturgical year in this article. The explanation likely belongs in a different article that is linked from here, but I don't think that this information is that useful to someone wanting a broad overview of what the RCC is.

I agree with this suggestion. NancyHeise ^talk 18:59, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Gone, ok. But link should be to Liturgical_year#Roman_Catholic_Church_liturgical_year, and it's a pity there's no specific article. Johnbod (talk) 22:44, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Beliefs sectionNot sure you need the bit on the Five Solas, it is a level of detail not really needed in the article (A good thing to cut!)

I want to know what other think, another editor on this talk page wanted us to specifically discuss the beliefs of other Christians and I pointed her to this bit containing the Five Solas. I think this is an important sentence to include but will follow consensus if people want to cut this. NancyHeise ^talk 18:59, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Could lose this. it is not specifically catholic. However some may complain. Xandar 19:59, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, the User:Carlaude Memorial sentence. It's not long. Johnbod (talk) 22:44, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Teaching Authority section I'd reword the first sentence to leave out the direct quotations (which would be better placed in the more detailed Roman Catholic theology article. Something like "Based on promises made by Jesus and recorded in the Bible, the Church believes it is continually guided by the Holy Spirit and so protected from falling into doctrinal error."

I think this quote is important here. NancyHeise ^talk 18:59, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

I could be happy with it, or biblerefs, in a note. Johnbod (talk) 22:44, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Ordained members section I got lost in the first sentence of the next paragraph.... "All programs for the formation of men to the Catholic priesthood are governed by Canon Law." First, is it Canon Law or canon law (how it is capitalized in the preceding paragraph). Secondly, I *think* you are referring to ordination? Perhaps "All programs that aim to prepare men for the priesthood are governed by canon law, and are usually designed by national bishops' conferences, which makes them vary from country to country." I'd cut the "The conferences consult..." paragraph as unneeded detail.

I am fine with a rewording but would like some help and comments from others on this suggestion. NancyHeise ^talk 18:59, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

As above, I agree this section is a bit long, and someytimes confusing. Xandar 19:59, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

I thought above this particular sentence could just go. Johnbod (talk) 22:44, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Okay, if you give a church membership figure in the first senetence, you then say in the third that "Although the number of practicing Catholics worldwide is not reliably known, membership is growing..." these two statements would seem to contradict each other.

Not sure what others want to do here. Practicing Catholics are those who follow every rule, like people who dont use birth control and fast on Fridays during Lent. Members are those who go to Church however infrequent and call themselves Catholic on government census's like the ones used by our references for Church membership, the CIA World Factbook. I would appreciate help from others in answering this comment.NancyHeise ^talk 18:59, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Drop the clause beginning "Although...", add uncertainty to note on lead. Johnbod (talk) 22:44, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Cultural influence section Saying that the artists were "sponsored" by the Church makes it seem like the Church organization itself sponsored the artists, when in reality they were supported by individual churchmen. Yes, it's a small thing, but still an important distinction.

I know that the Church sponsored artists, Michelangelo was working for the pope when he painted the Sistine Chapel. Johnbod, you are an expert on this subject, can you comment here? NancyHeise ^talk 18:59, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

The church hierarchy commissioned art at all levels, chapters, bishops, priests etc. If a parish priest signed the contract for a new altarpiece, that is not the act of an individual churchman, unless perhaps he was using his personal money, as did quite often happen. Johnbod (talk) 22:44, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Note Here is a trimmed down version. There are two reference problems during the trimming. However, a few more details could be trimmed down or cut. As you see, I got rid of most of the quotes, as they were unnecessary and just added more bulk to the page. There is about 10k more that can easily be trimmed down. This is just a sample. Ottava Rima (talk) 03:16, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

I just made a few more cuts and fixed some problems. Still some more things that could be trimmed on that page. Ottava Rima (talk) 03:41, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Interesting. I haven't time to go through it in detail atm, but will hopefully provide comments on your version later. Xandar 09:21, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

I just made a few more trims, there are more that can be made. As you can see from the statistics: Previous version has about 16,500 words, and this version has 13,200 words, a 3,300 word difference. I believe that it can be further trimmed to believe 13,000 words. That should, at least, put it close to FA standards that it wont matter. So much. Ottava Rima (talk) 14:06, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

I have read your entire RCC version and I like it very much. I disagree with a few of your changes most notably the elimination of "official" in the first sentence which we have references to support and which is an important fact. Your page is very useful to me in my efforts to combine the most recent peer review comments and talk page comments regarding the trim. I am currently looking at everyones comments before I make any changes to a section to make sure I am reflecting everyone's wishes. Your page will allow me to see what you think each section should include and I appreciate that very much, it is a huge help. Some of what you left in some sections I had already planned to remove or place into the new notes section so I am sure we will all eventually be happier with the page when I am done incorporating all comments, including mine. As I am writing this, the page size is 12155 readable prose and I have much more to trim per peer review comments. Thank you for helping all of us come to an agreement on article size and content, I welcome your continued help and involvement in this process. NancyHeise ^talk 17:21, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Most of the cuts are supportable and add to the ease of reading. I wouldn't support the replacement in Origin and Mission of important information by: "There is debate over the role that Rome played or about apostolic succession"; far too vague. I also oppose the removal of the Eastern Catholic view of the Eucharist, and the absence of the specifics of Kenya and Uganda re AIDS. However a lot of the quotations removed can be managed without. In a longer treatment they would add depth, but we do have to keep this clear and concise. I also like the spacing changes. Creating more paragraphs helps make it easier to read and doesn't add kb. Xandar 23:34, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Million dollar piece of advice

I want to shine the light on this note by Ealdgyth which I think will answer all our problems relating to article size vs comprehensiveness. Here it is:

Make use of the new "ref group" feature to put some of the detail in the article into footnotes that are separate from the reference notes.

What is this new "ref group" feature? I have not heard of it before. NancyHeise talk 04:46, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Look at Stigand again, and see how there is a "Notes" section and a "Footnotes" section? You do that by using {{#tag:ref|(information)<ref>(source)</ref>|group=notes}} which sets aside a set of numbered explanatory footnotes complete with their own sourcing footnote. Very useful for parenthetical information that would help the readers understanding without bogging down the article with long explanations. Ealdgyth - Talk 12:31, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

I think this is what we need to do to make the page the proper size for FA but still retain the useful information currently there that many editors have asked for the page to contain. When you put information into this new "ref group" feature, it is not counted in the page size calculation. I am going to be cutting the article in accordance to this suggestion and would like to ask others not to cut information before I have a chance to properly introduce this new feature into the article page. Thanks for your patience. NancyHeise ^talk 19:12, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Nancy, I think that using this feature is a very good idea. However, just moving text from the article to the footnotes won't completely solve the size issue. The page will still be nearly impossible for people on a dial-up connection to load. There will still need to be significant trimming done. Karanacs (talk) 19:41, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Karanacs, please trust that I will not overuse the notes section. It allows us to come to compromise between those who want more info and those who want less. Let's give it a try please. Thanks. NancyHeise ^talk 19:48, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Significant reduction of page size

How Roman Catholic Church page size presently compares to other FA's
Featured Article	number of words readable prose	kB
Society of the Song Dynasty	13,614	85
Ketuanan Melayu	13,844	89
Tang Dynasty	13,930	83
Ming Dynasty	13,565	84
Campaign history of the Roman military	12,620	74
Byzantine Empire	12,296	76
Punk Rock	11,811	71
Harry S. Truman	10,877	72
Augustus	11,194	70
ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH	11,105	68
Watchmen	10,943	66
Ronald Reagan	10,140	63
Ancient Egypt	10,058	62
Bob Dylan	9,400	56
Hurricane Katrina	9,094	56
New York City	7971	48

. I just finished all of the peer review comments which included incorporating Ottava Rima's article trim linked above, Ealdgyth's suggested trims and rewordings, and Karanacs suggestions as well as the suggestions on the talk page discussions seeking consensus on certain peer review comments that were copied and pasted on the talk page. Here's how this article's size now compares to some randomly selected Featured articles's NancyHeise ^talk 09:45, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Well done everyone! There may be the odd little bambino left on the bathroom floor, but on those stats I think we have removed one of the perennial objections. Are these the biggest FAs from Sandy's stats, (I know no 1 is) or a manual selection? Johnbod (talk) 11:32, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't know what Sandy's stats are, I did take the two she listed at the GAR but then I supplemented them by going to the WP:FA page, clicked on a bunch of FA's and found these. She probably has a better list but at least we have something on this talk page to help us get beyond size concerns. NancyHeise ^talk 12:04, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

See User:Dr pda/Featured article statistics. Tang Dynasty currently has 13931 words, not including the blockquotes which the script doesn't count. Gimmetrow 12:19, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

On that list we would replace Augustus at no 9, below Punk rock and not much larger than Pope Pius XII! Johnbod (talk) 12:28, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

OK, I just corrected the table so we can see where RCC would figure on Dr Pda's list. I think the current size is reasonable when compared with these others and I like the page better with the trim, I think it looks really great now. NancyHeise ^talk 13:09, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Excellent work! And the table puts to bed the criticisms that the article is far too long.Xan dar 16:20, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

NPOV

I recovered a Critical Section for the External Links portion. Kindly read Wikipedia:NPOV#Balance, I think no one would like to see wikipedia become an official RC sites. We already have New Advent. 210.0.212.58 (talk) 10:12, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

The previous removal of that link was discussed at some length. As you may know, the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod, the particular Lutheran body whose site is linked to have caused some controvery both within Lutheranism and on WP over their own article (which I rather doubt has any external links to a RCC site btw). The site is pretty polemical in tone, & the coverage short and far from comprehensive. Since this particular site keeps coming up, and we know has strong supporters on WP, the question of linkspam also arises, especially from an IP with supposedly only 4 edits. There would be a case for a link to a reasoned outside critique of the church if anyone knows one, but I don't think this is it. Johnbod (talk) 11:52, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't think the External links section is supposed to include items like that link - we would have to include every Christian denomination if we include that one and that is unreasonable. It is inappropriate to include that link. This page already has a link to the page Criticism of the Catholic Church, perhaps the link should go on that page.NancyHeise ^talk 12:12, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Picture

What happened to the Jesus Sermon on the Mount picture? It seems to have been replaced by a rather ugly resurrection picture that is far less relevant to Teaching Authority etc. I vote we get the former picture back. Xandar 16:18, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

I am fine with replacing Sermon on the Mount. We did a little picture rearranging after discussing pictures on the peer review. Lets get a concensus on the pictures because I disagree with the removal of the Aztec picture by Karanacs who replaced it with a picture of Michelangelo's Creation of Adam. I think the Aztec picture did a better job of grabbing the Reader and bringing them into the article and I would like to replace it. NancyHeise ^talk 16:35, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

I din't like the Sermon pic, but I don't like the Resurrection one either. The Sistine Chapel is the sort of cliche we should definitely do without, plus we already have enough pics of or from Rome. The Aztec was a weakish image at thumbnail but worth putting back. The article now has issues of under-illustration & the sizes are all over the place. There are unfortunately few older Sermons on the Mount, but plenty of Pentecosts, Last Suppers etc. Let me know if you want me to dig out some suggestions. Johnbod (talk) 16:58, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Sorry if you guys don't agree with the picture of the Sistine Chapel. I think that the section on cultural impact really needs a picture of some of the artwork that was created because of the RCC. It could be an image of a painting, a sculpture, or a cathedral. I added in the Sistine Chapel pic because it is probably the most well-known example. Karanacs (talk) 18:23, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Exactly the reason not to add it imo, but there are plenty of alternatives. Johnbod (talk) 18:30, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

The reason why I inserted the Aztec picture was because it highlights one of the greatest cultural impacts the Church has had upon society - the spread of Christianity which significantly impacted and changed the evangelized cultures. Sponsoring art is a minor contribution to mankind compared with the other issues listed at the beginning of the paragraph. It was also a unique picture that grabbed your attention and the caption helped add to the "interesting-ness" of the page. Does anyone have a problem if I re-add it, especially since Malleus is working his way down the page? I would also like to see Johnbod's suggestions and would like to explain that we eliminated some pictures to make uploading the page easier, Ealdgyth thought it had too many pictures and that it negatively impacted the page. I think we should make the page user friendly and I agreed that we had too many pictures for that reason. NancyHeise ^talk 19:12, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

File:Teaching authority/sacraments section
Calling of Peter
same - Duccio
Last Supper - Assisi
Stained glass 1240
Peter Preaching at Pentecost
Pentecost

File:General
Nave of the upper basilica at Assisi with Giotto frescoes
Trinity on top of the Holy Trinity Column in Olomouc
Burgos Cathedral
Sano di Pietro, 15th century; the Virgin of Mercy shelters a group of nuns
Gothic Cathedral, Notre-Dame de Reims

Adding suggestions Johnbod (talk) 19:38, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

I like the first picture of the Calling of Peter or Peter Preaching at Pentecost, I think the image clarity is better on these two than the others. NancyHeise ^talk 19:52, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

I added the picture of the Gothic Cathedral of Notre Dame Reims which was originally in the Cultural Influences section. Am I the only one who liked the Sermon on the Mount? I too think Sistine chapel is over-used. We need striking and less-familar images as illustrations. The Assisi last supper would be good for the Eucharist section. Xandar 23:16, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Xandar, I still like the Peter pictures better and I dont want to put any more pics on the Eucharist section other than Pope Benedict. Apparently, pictures take up a lot of kB and the more you have, the longer it takes to load the page. I think we should just add a picture to the teaching authority section to replace Sermon on the Mount - I liked that picture, you can add it back if you prefer - it is just used so often on Wikipedia, if you look at all the other Christianity sites, you will run into that same picture over and over. However, it does illustrate the text well so I'll leave final pick up to you and Johnbod - (just don't take away my Aztec picture GRRRR!)

NancyHeise ^talk 00:18, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Prayer and Mary

In the section "Devotional life, prayer, Mary and the saints" it says that "Prayers and devotions to the Virgin Mary and the saints are a common part of Catholic life but are distinct from the worship of God."

Catholics do not pray to Mary, they ask Mary to pray to God on their behalf. Essentially it is praying to God through or with the saints. The wording as it is could confuse a reader who is unfamiliar with the topic as to who Catholics are praying to (God). Could somebody please make this flow better with more clarity in the article? - True as Blue (talk) 18:19, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

They pray to Mary for her to pray to God on their behalf. It's not misleading to use that word; it's just a complicated issue because of word meanings. -BaronGrackle (talk) 18:56, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

The wording is correct, the sentence is sourced to Dr. Alan Schreck's The Essential Catholic Catechism, a nihil obstat and imprimatur source. The words used by Dr. Schreck as a heading for the section referenced is "Prayer and Devotion to Mary and the Saints" , he then goes into detail in the chapter about how these practices go back to the earliest Christians and then states "Often Catholics are led seek the prayers of a particular saint before God's throne......Just as in a family there are special bond between certain members, in God's family there often develop special bonds of spiritual unity and friendship among members of the church." NancyHeise ^talk 19:28, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Reference quotes

The below section is copied from SandyGeorgia's talk page per her final statement. Now, my concern is that, on dialup, the page freezes when it is too large. One of the easy ways to cut down on total page size is to remove quotes in the references. We have two options: 1. keeping the quotes (which seems to be Nancy's preference) or 2. deleting them. To cut down on the page size but keep the quotes, I recommended the following (which is from SandyGeorgia's talk page): ( Ottava Rima (talk) 20:10, 3 October 2008 (UTC) )

(begin talk page copy)

Sandy, I would like your opinion on an idea we have for reducing overall kB on this page to help with page load time. Ottava Riva asked me if I would be open to creating a separate page specifically set up to handle all the quotes in the references on this RCC page. We could then provide a link in the reference that would take Reader to the actual quote on a separate page. We could eliminate 20kB by doing this bringing the overall kB below 145,000. It is currently 160,000. What is your opinion of this idea? Has this ever been done before on a FAC and if so, can you point us to that page so we can maybe follow the example? If it has not been done before, are you in favor of making these changes to the refs? NancyHeise ^talk 18:40, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm happy to see Ottava is helping move the article forward! But I'm almost certain (although I can't put my hands on a guideline right now) that that idea would be unwise and should be/would be rejected at FAC. Remember that Wiki is mirrored on many other sites, and that would disconnect the quotes in the sources from the actual article on mirrored sites, as well as messing with printable versions. Disconnecting the sourcing from the article isn't a good idea from an editing standpoint, either; remember, the article is dynamic and editors need to have everything in one place for future changes. When I looked this morning, I saw that progress has been made on the size. I seem to recall a lot of images; have you considered looking at how much the load time is affected by images with a program like this one? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:25, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, Sandy, to have to put this here, but I wanted it so everyone could see my suggestion. Current: ^ Noble, p. 446, quote "The most chilling tribute, however, was in humans for sacrifice. When the wars of expansion that had provided prisoners came to an end, the Aztecs and their neighbors fought 'flower wars' –highly ritualized battles to provide prisoners to be sacrificed. Five thousand victims were sacrificed at the coronation of Moctezuma II (r. 1502–1520) in 1502. Even more, reportedly twenty thousand were sacrificed at the dedication of the great temple of Huitzilopochtli in Tenochtitlan." p. 456, quote "The peoples living in the Valley of Mexico believed that their conquest was fated by the gods and that their new masters would bring in new gods. The Spaniards' beliefs were strikingly similar, based on the revelation of divine will and the omnipotence of the Christian God. Cortes, by whitewashing former Aztec temples and converting native priests into white–clad Christian priests, was in a way fulfilling the Aztecs' expectations about their conquerer."

My proposal ^ Noble, pp. [[Roman Catholic Church/Sources#Noble 446|446]], [[Roman Catholic Church/Sources#Noble 456|456]]

With subpage reading: ===Noble 446=== "The most chilling tribute, however, was in humans for sacrifice. When the wars of expansion that had provided prisoners came to an end, the Aztecs and their neighbors fought 'flower wars' –highly ritualized battles to provide prisoners to be sacrificed. Five thousand victims were sacrificed at the coronation of Moctezuma II (r. 1502–1520) in 1502. Even more, reportedly twenty thousand were sacrificed at the dedication of the great temple of Huitzilopochtli in Tenochtitlan."

===Noble 456=== "The peoples living in the Valley of Mexico believed that their conquest was fated by the gods and that their new masters would bring in new gods. The Spaniards' beliefs were strikingly similar, based on the revelation of divine will and the omnipotence of the Christian God. Cortes, by whitewashing former Aztec temples and converting native priests into white–clad Christian priests, was in a way fulfilling the Aztecs' expectations about their conquerer."

The reason why I suggested this is that I have a similar formatting for online holdings here. The encyclopedia page doesn't need the actual quotes, there are there only for convenience of verification for the most part. This would allow an online edition of the excerpts (assuming the amount is allowable by fair use, which is a concern if they are part of the page or on a subpage regardless) that someone could easily check. If its on another Wiki system, it wont matter, because the references are still there to manually check. Ottava Rima (talk) 19:44, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

No, I don't think that's wise for the same reasons I give above; you can't disconnect information in citations from the article page. And if it's true that the current article doesn't required the quotes in the citations, then why are they there? They're either needed or not. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:49, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Sandy, what would the difference be between the above and not having the quotes anywhere online? These are convenience only quotes. Nancy wants them available for people to check. No quotes in references are ever truly needed. Its all for convenience of someone wanting to check the source material. Would you have a problem with what I did with the Prometheus Unbound page? I don't see a difference between this and linking any primary source so someone could easily click on the fuller version. Ottava Rima (talk) 19:58, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

I've given you the best answer I can; if you disagree, consult others. But if you're telling me the article has 20KB of unnecessary quotes in footnotes, then I'm really confused. Copy this whole thing over to RCC talk, because this isn't my decision. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:03, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Here's what ArbCom said; you're welcome to dig back through the evidence and see what that case was about, but I'm not in a "troll through ArbCom" kind of mood these days. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:06, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

(end talk page copy)

Any opinions on the above? Ottava Rima (talk) 20:10, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Ottava, Those quotes were included because people just could not believe what I had placed on this page in the way of facts - some thought I was taking something out of context. The reason why we need those quotes is to prevent the page from being dismissed as a POV. NancyHeise ^talk 00:48, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Right, so if we do it this way, we can prove the naysayers wrong by giving them access to the quotes, but not need to tie up the page with the size problems. They only need to really be there during FAC because that is when people will have a problem with the wording. Any further challenges on the talk page can be dealt with directly (plus the quotes will be preserved for history as to prevent it). The quotes wont be needed on other systems, as there is no "challenging" that is possible. Fair? Ottava Rima (talk) 01:43, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Ottava, Sandy's comments against your idea were pretty solid, I can not support this based on her comments. I don't think it is a good idea and if RCC goes to the main page, we are really going to need those quotes standing by us. Ever after, on Wikipedia, if we don't have them, we will forever be confronted with accusations of POV that we will then have to spend unlimited time defending on the talk page - I am not willing to lose my best weapon against unnecessary talk page discussions - those quotes. NancyHeise ^talk 01:59, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

I think Sandy's comments were mostly about other systems that would carry this page. However, it will be your FAC and your defense. Ottava Rima (talk) 02:27, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Ottava, I have been having a conversation about this on my talk page with Gimmetrow and Malleus. Per that discussion, I have removed two pictures from the RCC page that eliminates 30kB from the image count. Please try loading the page now and let me know if it is better - so far we have elimintated 40kB total (30 from the pictures and 10 from the ref format trim), you said we only needed to eliminate 30 so I think we have probably done enough now (I hope!) NancyHeise ^talk 03:11, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

It saddens me to have images cut on my behalf. I'll load it tomorrow and compare it in a more scientific way and see what happens. Ottava Rima (talk) 03:20, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for all your help both with the trim and in bringing the load time issue to our attention. I would never have known it was a problem if you hadn't said something. I would like the page to be as user friendly as possible without cutting important facts. I think we have hopefully found that middle ground. NancyHeise ^talk 03:27, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Reference formatting

One other way to reduce the page load time is to remove as many templates as possible. As a test, I manually formatted the first two books in the bibliography. They display exactly the same now (which is very important), but that took almost 100 characters off the page size, and that means two fewer templates for the page to load when someone clicks on it. I think that the others should also be formatted manually, to save in page size and load time, but I'm about to run out of wiki-time for the day. Any objections to doing this? Karanacs (talk) 20:29, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Nancy's reference reformatting so far has saved an amazing amount of kb. So anything else that can be done in this line without removing useful material is good. I don't think we need to get into a second reference page though. Xandar 21:02, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Before someone spends a lot of effort on this - are we sure templated refs load significantly slower than manual refs? Browsers get an html page, not the wiki code. Templates may add a few extra tags to identify text as a title rather than simply italics text, but this is probably not much. Gimmetrow 21:11, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

That's what I've been told before at FAC (that templates take longer to render). The templates will at least probably require more server processing to get to the HTML code. I'm not sure how to run a good test without taking all the templates off and having someone with a dial-up connection try it out Karanacs (talk) 21:23, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

I can be the guinea pig. With my impressive 28.8 connection I should be able to see any major difference. Ottava Rima (talk) 21:33, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Please hold off switching templates to hard-coded for at least a few days. Gimmetrow 22:15, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

We have this version that people can play around with. Ottava Rima (talk) 22:38, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

I am going to try it, we can always replace the section by going into the edit history and copy and pasting.NancyHeise ^talk 00:51, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Per Gimmetrows comment on my talk page, I restored the bibliography to ref template format. Gimme says it can be done automatically if needed. NancyHeise ^talk 01:55, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Misplaced Subsection

The Liturgical rites subsection seems to be in the wrong area. Surely it should be under Prayer and Worship and not Beliefs .. ? Xandar 21:54, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Indeed. Johnbod (talk) 21:56, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

[13] Gimmetrow 22:15, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

OK, I see what happened, thanks Gimmetrow. I think you're right Xandar and Johnbod please see page again. NancyHeise ^talk 15:44, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

^ Cite error: The named reference McManners94 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^ ^a ^b Schaff, Creeds of Christendom, With a History and Critical Notes (1910), pp. 24, 56
^ Marthaler, Introducing the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Traditional Themes and Contemporary Issues (1994), preface
^ John Paul II, Pope (1997). "Laetamur Magnopere". Vatican. Retrieved 2008-03-09.
^ Richardson, The Westminster Dictionary of Christian Theology (1983), p. 132
^ Langan, The Catholic Tradition (1998), p. 118
^ Parry, The Blackwell Dictionary of Eastern Christianity (1999), p. 292
^ McManners, Oxford Illustrated History of Christianity (1990), pp. 254–60
^ Nichols, The Reformation: How a Monk and a Mallet Changed the World (2007), p. 30

[McManners94-1] Cite error: The named reference McManners94 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

[Schaff-2] Schaff, Creeds of Christendom, With a History and Critical Notes (1910), pp. 24, 56

[cat-3] Marthaler, Introducing the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Traditional Themes and Contemporary Issues (1994), preface

[4] John Paul II, Pope (1997). "Laetamur Magnopere". Vatican. Retrieved 2008-03-09.

[Richardson-5] Richardson, The Westminster Dictionary of Christian Theology (1983), p. 132

[6] Langan, The Catholic Tradition (1998), p. 118

[7] Parry, The Blackwell Dictionary of Eastern Christianity (1999), p. 292

[McManners254-8] McManners, Oxford Illustrated History of Christianity (1990), pp. 254–60

[Nichols30-9] Nichols, The Reformation: How a Monk and a Mallet Changed the World (2007), p. 30

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