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Criticism

Oh, right, the Catholic church has never been criticized. Yeah, right. Criticism needs to be included here. J.C. (talk) 04:50, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

J.C., I don't deny that this article tends to present the positive side of the Church while tending to gloss over or excuse some of the negatives. (Although some editors will protest that this article criticizes the Church more than many other articles on religions).
Per WP:CRITICISM, there are three approaches to presenting criticism... inline with the article text, in a separate section or in a separate article. It turns out that there is no easy way to do any of these. In this article, the general strategy for presenting criticism is to present it inline with the article text. If you feel this is not being executed adequately, feel free to point out specific instances where the text does not present the criticism adequately. We have elected not to have a separate criticism section mostly because it would be too long, disjointed and become a magnet for criticisms both significant and petty. While separate criticims articles are generally discouraged by WP:CRITICISM, there is an article on Criticism of the Catholic Church. It is, unfortunately, poorly organized and poorly written. It was one of my earlier projects here at Wikipedia and, in retrospect, I kind of regret having participated in enabling that mess. It's not that I don't want to have criticism presented. It's just that, after 4 years of experience with Wikipedia articles, I now realize that it can be really difficult to do a good job of presenting criticism. --Richard S (talk) 05:42, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

FYI - Wikipedia's article length guidelines

http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Wikipedia:Article_size

According to Wikipedia's article length guidelines ( link above ), only in exceptional circumstances should articles be over 32kb in length. This article is currently at 88kb - nearly three times this length. There is no obviously valid reason why this article should be considered as meeting the conditions for exceptional circumstances. Like many other readers and editors I consider the article's excessive length to be totally unecessary and frustratingly ridiculous. Please read the guidelines and begin the much needed process of bringing this article within the normal maximum length and moving various secondary importance sections to other articles. Thanks. Afterwriting (talk) 14:29, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes, we know. Getting it down to this length was a major accomplishment; you are encouraged to continue. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:22, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
The article prose currently sits at about 6900 words (42kb), which is within the guidelines. The references take up a huge chunk of space; hopefully as the rewrite continues we'll be able to further remove redundant references and get rid of a lot of the web references in the bargain. We may also need to look at reducing the number of images. Karanacs (talk) 20:44, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Organization, personal and institution

There is a paragraph that reads:

"The Church has defined rules on who may be ordained into the clergy. In the Latin Rite, the priesthood is generally restricted to celibate men[232][233] who lack deeply rooted homosexual tendencies.[234]. Despite this, many gay men continue to serve as priests. It has been estimated that as many as 33% of priests in the U.S. are gay.[235] Men who are already married may be ordained in the Eastern Catholic Churches,[236] and may become deacons in any rite.[232][233] According to the Vatican, as of 2007 there were 408,024 priests, an increase of 0.18% over 2005. The number of priests had decreased in Europe (6.8%) and Oceania (5.5%), remained roughly the same in the Americas, and increased in Africa (27.6%) and Asia (21.1%).[237]"

I believe that the bolded text is out of context with the rest of the paragraphs and should be removed. (Not to say it could not appear in another section, I stop being a content police a long time ago, I am talking about context in the paragraph.)

  • First, as a mainline Christian Church, the homosexuality exclusion from the Catholic clergy is a given. No need to mention it here, as it is also given that the men should be of legal age, of rooted spiritualy etc... Besides, no other requirement is listed.
  • Also, the article is talking about the priests, comparing the two rites as to celibacy, and giving statistics as to numbers. The homosexuality statistics should not be included here, as there are no other personal descriptions or statistics (race, age, et...).
  • Finally, the article is about the Universal Church, no the Church in the US. The % of US gay priest should not be included as it is out of the general context.--Coquidragon (talk) 00:20, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

According to the Wikipedia article on the subject, American usage is that "mainline" Protestant churches are more or less liberal, so presumably most of them do admit homosexual clergy. Peter jackson (talk) 10:35, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

I agree that we should remove the part that asserts that there are a significant number of gay clergymen; this is not really relevant for this article. Karanacs (talk) 14:02, 14 June 2010 (UTC)
Yes the sentence is not sufficiently soundly based on evidence, and too US-centric anyway. As far as "mainline" Protestant denominations are concerned, this seems to depend on who defines "mainline". I'd have thought the Southern Baptists were pretty mainline, and I don't think they admit openly homosexual clergy. Xandar 19:57, 14 June 2010 (UTC)
I was simply reporting the WP article's claim about normal US usage of the term. Being British myself, I can't comment on its accuracy. In a more objective sense, you could say the term should refer to numerical preponderance, which, if you take it over the world as a whole rather than America, would be as you say. Peter jackson (talk) 10:39, 15 June 2010 (UTC)
The sentence about % in the US was already taken out by someone else, so that is that. As to the who lack deeply rooted homosexual tendencies part. I still think it is still out of context. Does the sentence implies that the Latin rite prohibits the tendency, but the eastern does not? I think it should be taken out. A comparison West-East comes down only to celibacy, not to views on homosexuality. Besides, why is there mention only of the homosexuality restriction. It seems there is no NPOV as there are other restrictions and there is no mention of them. I ask, finding it hard to assume good faith (my bad), was someone trying to make a point? Ordination is not restricted only to celibate men who lack deeply rooted homosexual tendencies, but also for those who lack other impediments. Here is what I found on restrictions.
Can. 1040 Those aVected by any impediment, whether perpetual, which is called an irregularity, or simple, are prevented from receiving orders. The only impediments incurred, however, are those contained in the following canons.
Can. 1041 The following are irregular for receiving orders 1/ a person who labors under some form of amentia or other psychic illness due to which, after experts have been consulted, he is judged unqualified to fulfill the ministry properly;2/ a person who has committed the delict of apostasy, heresy, or schism; 3/ a person who has attempted marriage, even only civilly, while either impeded personally from entering marriage by a matrimonial bond, sacred orders, or a public perpetual vow of chastity, or with a woman bound by a valid marriage or restricted by the same type of vow; 4/ a person who has committed voluntary homicide or procured a completed abortion and all those who positively cooperated in either;5/ a person who has mutilated himself or another gravely and maliciously or who has attempted suicide;6/ a person who has placed an act of orders reserved to those in the order of episcopate or presbyterate while either lacking that order or prohibited from its exercise by some declared or imposed canonical penalty.
Can. 1042 The following are simply impeded from receiving orders:1/ a man who has a wife, unless he is legitimately destined to the permanent diaconate; 2/ a person who exercises an office or administration forbidden to clerics according to the norm of cann. ⇒ 285 and ⇒ 286 for which he must render an account, until he becomes free by having relinquished the office or administration and rendered the account;3/ a neophyte unless he has been proven sufficiently in the judgment of the ordinary.
Can. 1044 §1. The following are irregular for the exercise of orders received: 1/ a person who has received orders illegitimately while aVected by an irregularity to receive them;2/ a person who has committed a delict mentioned in ⇒ can. 1041, n. 2, if the delict is public; 3/ a person who has committed a delict mentioned in ⇒ can. 1041, nn. 3, 4, 5, 6.
By the way, I just figured out what the "No true Scotsman" comment meant. Today, I don´t know anymore what is mainline or not.--Coquidragon (talk) 02:29, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

redirecting Roman Catholic Church

I understand that, what, for some years now, in official Church documents, the terms 'Catholic Church' and 'Roman Catholic Church' are synonymous. However, I favour having Roman Catholic Church redirect to Latin Rite# Relationship with the term "Roman Catholic", citing WP:Common name. It seems to me that in common usage, 'Roman Catholic' (still) refers exclusively to the Latin Rite - certainly this discussion suggests so [1], which occurred when I nominated merging Category:Roman Catholic Church into Category:Catholic Church. This article page and the category pages should not be at such basic odds on the usage of 'Roman Catholic'. Mayumashu (talk) 02:46, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

I think it's misleading to say "in common usage, 'Roman Catholic' (still) refers exclusively to the Latin Rite". Surely the point is that the vast majority of people are simply unaware of the very existence of the Eastern rites. Therefore they have no idea there's a difference between (Roman) Catholic & Latin rite, so they can't really be said to use terms with 1 meaning rather than the other. Peter jackson (talk) 10:26, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
I ve realized from digging deeper that you are right - cheers Mayumashu (talk) 11:57, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

Meaning of 'Catholic Church'

Isn't the Orthodox Catholic Church part of the Catholic Church? Or is it just Catholic? Or is it just catholic? (Or is which it is debated/debatable?) Mayumashu (talk) 03:07, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Looking at the long list of archived messages, I am sure this has being discussed in the past. Still, the article´s name is still wrong. Looking at the content, the article should be called Roman Catholic Church or if not, it should include content on the Orthodox Catholic Church. Here is my reasoning: Catholic Church is not the same as Roman Catholic Church which is not the same as Latin Catholic Church. Catholic Church applies to Roman Catholic Church and Orthodox Catholic Church [not to say that the Anglican Church, the Oriental Church and the Assyrian Church also claim to be catholic (universal)]. Roman Catholic Church applies to the Latin Rite Church and the 22 Eastern Rite Churches. The Roman in Roman Catholic does not mean rite, but primacy. All 23 Roman Catholic Churches, 1 Latin and 22 Eastern, are Roman because they are under the Roman Pope. Roman IS NOT Latin Rite. Roman means under Rome, in contrast to the 14(15) Orthodox Catholic Churches, each under a Patriarch or Primate, other than Rome. All 22 Eastern Catholic Churches are Roman, the Eastern means Eastern Rites, not primacy, even thouth they each has a primate, those 22 primates are under Rome, in communion with Rome. If this is supposed to follow WP:COMMONNAME, in a controversial subject like this, who determines what the common name is?--Coquidragon (talk) 04:17, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

I doubt if many of those who have had experience of even part of "the long list of archived messages" will want to revive this question. The title became fixed in its present form by a strong majority of those who were then very actively involved, including two who came in as mediators and supported this view. One argument brought forward was that of "common name", as the name in common, rather than academic, usage. Since Wikipedia has pretensions of being an encyclopedia of academic value, the present title is a defect, but only one of its defects. Some accepted the present title as a lesser evil than inclusion of the claim, pushed by the then majority of very active editors of the article, that "Catholic Church" was the one and only official name, in spite of what Conquidragon rightly says. Esoglou (talk) 09:09, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
"came in as mediators and supported this view"? Mediators aren't supposed to support a view, are they? Peter jackson (talk) 10:29, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
Should I have said: "supported the majority"? If I remember right, at least one of the two did argue for the "official name" thesis. I also have the (mistaken?) idea that the other may at some stage have explicitly dropped her mediator status. Esoglou (talk) 14:05, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
Are they even supposed to support the majority? Peter jackson (talk) 15:11, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
I do not have the understanding that there were ever two mediators. There was one (Shell Kinney) who withdrew shortly after the mediation started due to personal issues in real life. There was another (Sunray) who carried the mediation through to completion. My sense is that Sunray shut down the discussion about the title prematurely, concluding that there was a consensus to change the title when the real consensus was among the mediation parties and not necessarily among the wider community of editors. IMO, there will never be a consensus on the article title. If the title is "Catholic Church" (as it is now), there will be no consensus (i.e. over 80% support) to change it to "Roman Catholic Church". However, if the title were "Roman Catholic Church" (as it used to be), there would be no consensus (i.e. over 80% support) to change it to "Catholic Church". Me personally, I prefer the article title to be "Catholic Church" but I accept that there are valid arguments in favor of "Roman Catholic Church" and so I am one of those that is just tired of discussing the issue and wish that editors would spend their energies elsewhere. --Richard S (talk) 16:51, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
Ok. I see where you are coming and where this is going. I just find it frustrating that majority opinion be the deciding factor, where it should be the truth. Truth is not wat everybody agrees on, but what is. We need to escape the reign of the opinions, and go back to the reign of knowdedge, of truth. You can ignore my comment. I am just expressing my frustration.--Coquidragon (talk) 17:17, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
But who decides what's "true"? If it's not majority opinion, as in practice it is on WP, what then? On Citizendium it's expert opinion, but that would be contrary to WP principles, & in any case there's no point duplicating. In theory, on WP it's supposed to be what "reliable sources" say, but that's not effectively enforced, so in practice can be manipulated to mean whatever people want it to mean. Peter jackson (talk) 09:56, 19 June 2010 (UTC)
I agree that this page cannot use WP:Commonname because of ambiguity and disagreement over what that is. Naming the page Roman Catholic Church would still be to use a commonname, but one that is far less ambiguous. An alternative to this would be to use a disambiguate and name the page Catholic Church (DISAMBIGUATE), but I have no idea what the disambiguate could be, as explaining the difference between the two meanings of 'Catholic Church' needs a sentence or two anyway. Mayumashu (talk) 12:09, 20 June 2010 (UTC)
We actually spent over A YEAR going through every conceivable argument and reference on this issue. Mediator Sunray did not take any sides. He simply led us away from the heated invective and towards addressing the arguments on the basis of rational evidence. The argument was originally over the need for the article to clearly state that "Roman Catholic Church" was not the official or proper name of the Church. It was finally agreed by a considerable consensus of all the participants that the actual issue of the "properness" of the names be left more or less open, but that Catholic Church be the name of the article - as the overwhelmingly more often used name of the worldwide church. The issue of other uses of the term "catholic church", (or orthodox church, or baptist church), does not really affect the naming. The primary use of the term is to describe the subject of this article, just as the primary use of United States refers to the country whose capital is Washington DC. On other issues; "Roman Catholic Church", apart from being inaccurate, is also ambiguous, since it has two meanings and does not cover the Eastern Catholic Churches. Using RCC would also reanimate the cause of the original dispute - since it would have to be stated that Catholic Church is the proper name.
As far as disambiguation goes, a hatline is sufficient where there is a clear primary usage of a term for one article. There is only one other usage for the unmodified term "catholic church" in any event - which is the abstract theological concept, covered more fully in the Catholicism article. Xandar 21:53, 20 June 2010 (UTC)
I can see why, having now become familiar with the complexity of this matter. I agree (now) that 'Roman Catholic Church' is not the best name for this page or disambiguate form, even if it is the most recognised name, because of what you say, that the term Roman Catholic can be taken, and is apparently taken by many, to exclude the Eastern Catholic Churches. The issue was re-raised, by me initially, because of the issue of having reconciling having the two categories, Category:Catholic Church and Category:Roman Catholic Church. Any ideas on how the names of either or both should be so as to better show that Catholic Church and Category:Catholic Church are not meant to correspond and Catholic Church and Category:Roman Catholic Church are?

A few largely procedural comments:

  • I came to this talkpage as the result of the turbulence caused by the mediation; Richard's account of it seems in accord with what I have seen. It was neither immaculate nor conclusive, and is (I think) best forgotten.
  • We are not here to write the Truth - there is no agreement on the Truth; we are here to describe what we can verify in reliable sources, and to do in mere English. This includes the article title.
    • This is an argument that WP:COMMONNAME must be the standard, if it were - as I believe it to be - overwhelmingly on one side of the question; I do not propose to argue here that it is one side.
  • I do not agree that many, in any sense, argue that RCC excludes the Eastern Churches in communion with Rome; the primary sense of the phrase is the church as a whole - a handful of specialists aside. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:35, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

Late antiquity section proposal

I've been working on potential replacement text for the Late antiquity section of the history. I hope this addresses some of the issues that were brought up previously. I'm much less happy with the prose in this version, and I know it will need a good copyedit. Karanacs (talk) 19:37, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Christianity was legalized within the Roman Empire in 312.[1] Emperor Constantine lavished gifts on the Church and offered tax exemptions and special legal status to Church property and personnel.[2] These gifts, supplemented by later donations, made the Church the largest landowner in the West by the 6th century.[3] Many of these gifts were funded through severe taxation of pagan cults, leading to some being disbanded.[2] In a reflection of their increased standing in the Empire, clergy began to adopt the dress of the royal household, including the cope.[4]

During Constantine's reign, approximately half of those who identified themselves as Christian did not subscribe to the mainstream version of the faith.[5] Fearing that disunity would displease God and lead to trouble for the Empire, Constantine took military and judicial measures to eliminate some sects.[6] To resolve other disputes, Constantine began the practice of calling ecumenical councils to determine binding interpretations of Church doctrine.[7] In 380 the orthodox version of Christianity, as agreed by the councils, became the official religion of the Roman Empire.[8] Lingering Christological disputes resulted in the Arianist and Nestorianist schims. Arianism flourished outside the empire.[9]

In the 4th and 5th centuries, various popes contributed to the doctrine of papal primacy, that the bishop of Rome exerted authority over other bishops.[10] The doctrine was not universally accepted. Many Eastern churches believed Rome should have a place of honor, but practically should exert equal authority to other patriarchs. Opinion in the West was divided as to whether the bishop of Rome had supreme authority or was a place of appeals with little authority over general organizational matters.[11]

The decline of the Roman Empire led to a breakdown in civil and political institutions in the Western Roman Empire. The Church stepped forward to fill these roles. Several popes negotiated treaties with barbarian tribes to spare parts of central Italy.[12] During the reign of Pope Gregory I, the Church often paid the salaries of imperial soldiers, provided food to the poor, and gradually consolidated other formerly civic administrative duties.[13]

Notes
  1. ^ Chadwick, Henry, p. 56.
  2. ^ a b McMullen, pp. 49–50, 54.
  3. ^ Duffy, p. 64.
  4. ^ MacCulloch, Christianity, p. 199.
  5. ^ McMullen, p. 93.
  6. ^ Duffy, p. 27. Chadwick, Henry, p. 56.
  7. ^ Duffy, p. 29. MacCulloch Christianity, p. 212.
  8. ^ Duffy, p. 34.
  9. ^ MacCulloch, Christianity, pp. 221, 225.
  10. ^ Bokenkotter, pp. 84–85.
  11. ^ Duffy, pp. 41–43.
  12. ^ Bokenkotter, p. 86. Duffy, p. 63.
  13. ^ Duffy, pp. 63–64.

Comments

Good work, Karanacs. Some comments:
  • Could we have a word on the legal proscription of the old cults in the later Roman Empire, and perhaps a brief mention of uncoordinated local religious violence against them? At present the text seems to imply that they persisted, and were only subjected to additional tax.
  • Could we write that Christianity was legalized "throughout" the empire in 312? Constantine and Maxentius had already given recognition and permissions to Christianity in the West in the preceding years; the Edict of Milan in 312 only made it total.
  • The Arian crisis should not be described under the heading of "lingering" Christological dispute; it was the original, primary, and most substantial Christological dispute, as far as I am aware. Perhaps "Ongoing Christological disputes"?
  • The adjectival form is "Arian" and "Nestorian".
  • Could we put end the sentence on Arianism's flourishing with "Arianism flourished outside the empire [and was adopted by the leaders of the new Western kingdoms of the Goths, Vandals and Lombards.]"?
  • The text is a bit too strong in the last paragraph, implying that the Church stepped in to replace the whole of the "civil and political institutions" of the Western Roman Empire. Most of these institutions either collapsed and remained so, or were assumed by secular authorities in the new states. We should perhaps emphasize that the examples listed in the paragraph demonstrate the Popes acting in the patrimonial lands of the Roman Church in Central Italy, but not far beyond. G.W. (Talk) 21:21, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
  1. It wasn't total in 312. Persecution continued into 313 in those areas ruled by Maximinus.
  2. "approximately half of those who identified themselves as Christian did not subscribe to the mainstream version of the faith"? That's just nonsensical. If roughly 1/2 disagreed then it wasn't the mainstream, was it?
Peter jackson (talk) 10:00, 19 June 2010 (UTC)
Okay. Several problems with this I'm afraid.
  • We've lost specific reference to the Council of Nicea (and Chalcedon). Very important. We've also lost specific mention of the crucial Nicean Creed.
  • Similarly we have lost the important canonisation of the Bible.
  • Three sentences is too much on gifts "lavished on" the Church by Constantine, and the alleged effect on pagan shrines. It's heading for Undue Weight, and doesn't mention that some "gifts" were restorations of property alienated or destroyed in the persecution.
  • The sentence "In a reflection of their increased standing in the Empire, clergy began to adopt the dress of the royal household, including the cope." is not I feel an accurate reflection of the point being made in the quoted source. MacCulloch actually explains that the rich clerical dress and church ornamentation were primarily a reference to the kingdom of heaven, and secondarily royal influence. The way it is written above, makes it look as if the primary motive was vanity.
  • "Constantine took military and judicial measures to eliminate some sects." - Very vague and weasel-wordy. Also by positioning as well as wording, this tends to falsely imply some sort of initial mass-pogrom against dissidents. From MacCulloch I see that Constantine unsuccessfully tried to force Donatists back into the official church - but this was AFTER attempting a Council solution. The first and most important strategem to attain unity was Councils.
  • "In the 4th and 5th centuries, various popes contributed to the doctrine of papal primacy," - tends wrongly to imply that the concept did not exist prior to the 4th century. Better wording is needed.
  • I agree with GW on the last paragraph i.e. the Church only filled some of the roles vacated by the state.
  • MacCulloch devotes significant space in his account to the origin of monasticism in this period as an important force. This should really be mentioned in this section too. Xandar 22:31, 20 June 2010 (UTC)


Thanks, Karanacs for your hard work.

  • Agree with Xandar that the Council of Nicaea and the Nicene creed should be mentioned.
  • Re: Papal primacy, it would be good to find a way to link to Primacy of the Roman Pontiff and Primacy of Simon Peter. Also, we should mention that the Eastern view is Primus inter pares (first among equals)
  • I would like to get clarification on this sentence: "Opinion in the West was divided as to whether the bishop of Rome had supreme authority or was a place of appeals with little authority over general organizational matters." How divided was the opinion in the West? Was there active discussion attested to by the writings of the "late antiquity" period?
  • Also, how sharp was the conflict between East and West in the 4th and 5th centuries here. Are there a lot of primary sources that attest to these issues being present in that time period? I fear that there is an anachronistic collapsing of the next six centuries of gradual separation into the "late antiquity" period. Perhaps Duffy says something that is counter to my understanding. If so, please enlighten me.
  • I would prefer a mention of the Pentarchy (meaning one sentence or part of one sentence) including mention of the addition of Constantinople as "second to Rome". I'm not convinced that the issues of Papal Primacy were fully formed in the 4th and 5th centuries. Rather, my understanding is that the seeds of the Great Schism are sown here in the 4th and 5th centuries and they gradually develop over the next few centuries with the date of the Great Schism being set at 1054 but that date is a bit arbitrary. The schism was not irrevocable even then. If you disagree, please enlighten me.
  • IMHO, the above points are more important than the history of the origin of clerical garb. I don't feel it is that important to mention this at all in the History section. I can see it being mentioned in one of the "History of Christianity" articles but not in this article. I just don't think this detail is that important in the top-level article. What gets mentioned in a book is not necessarily important enough to mention in a top-level encyclopedia article.

--Richard S (talk) 16:44, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

  • We should indeed say that the Emperor called Nicaea (and perhaps refer to the Councils of Rome and Arles before that); general councils were innovations. Aurelian and the deposition of Paul of Samosata would belong in the previous secontion.
  • As long as we're mentioning schisms, the schism of the pope over Serdica is probably worth mentioning.
  • Monasticism should be added.
  • The effects of Imperial repression on heretics and pagans can probably be consolidated; although in both cases, it was a very slow process, and could be redirected by the Emperor = Constantius and Valens, the Arians, as much as Julian. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:48, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
  • If we are going to discuss the papal primacy, we need to distinguish between
    • His status as Metropolitan of the West, which was undisputed.
    • Any claims to be primus inter pares at such unprecedented occasions as Nicaea.
    • Claims to command provinces outside the West, which were indeed disputed even in the West - Irenaeus was bishop of Lyons. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:52, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm really sorry it took me so long to get back here (real life made wikipedia time hard to get), but I do appreciate all the comments. I'll need to review my notes (which I don't have with me at the moment) to be able to address some of the points mentioned. One larger issue, though, is how detailed this section needs to be. I accept that I probably haven't chosen the right mix of details for this, but I think the answer may be to take out some of what's here rather than add more. I see several requests for details on the Councils of Chalcedon and Nicea and the Nicene Creed. I don't think we need to go into the specifics of these councils. To me, the biggest impact of these is that they further defined the Church's views on Christology and this caused schisms. I think the details are important but that it is likely impossible to give them adequate coverage in the brief overview that should go in this article. The details should instead go in other articles. Karanacs (talk) 14:17, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

I don't think it's necessary to go into detail, but probably not a bad idea to mention at least the Council of Nicaea. I'll have a look at my notes which overlap a bit with this period, but won't have an opportunity to do so and post until later. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 16:30, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
I agree with Karanacs that we don't need to go into the specifics of each council but they should be listed and linked to. It is critical to mention the role of the councils in establishing dogma regarding Christology and the resulting schisms. It's important to note that the Orthodox recognize only Seven ecumenical councils and that there are non-Chalcedonian Christians. I am ambivalent about mentioning the Council of Sardica. It is not one of the seven ecumenical councils but it is arguably an early sign of the schism that will unfold over the next several centuries. I would defer to others to weigh in on whether the Council of Sardica is mentioned by the scholarly sources in overviews of the history of the Church. Frankly, I had never heard of it before reading Pmanderson's post above but that just shows what an ignoramus I am.
Also agree with Pmanderson that discussion of Papal Primacy needs to be introduced early and discussed in some detail (not a lot but enough to establish that some assertions of primacy were made early and disputed early both in the East and, to a lesser extent, in the West). We can then state that the West eventually submitted to papal authority while the East maintained its independence which gradually grew into a schism over the subsequent centuries.

--Richard S (talk) 17:17, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

As others have said, you can't leave out the Council of Nicaea (325) or the Nicaean Creed. This is how the word "Catholic" came to be applied to the church, i.e. to distinguish the non-Arians bishops from the Arians. Kauffner (talk) 07:23, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Rampant POV

This article seems to suffer from an extreme degree of POV - how any account of the Roman Catholic Church can fail to acknowledge the way it murdered thousands of people during the middle ages is mind boggling. [2] [3] [4] The religion of the authors of this article seems fairly clear and has tainted the accuracy and honesty of the article. The RCC probably has more blood on its hands than any other current organization and, as it currenlty reads, the history presented of it is extremely airbrushed/gilded. It completely fails to show it for what it was - a pseudo empire which ruthlessly oppressed those who dared to oppose it.

Glossing over the bloody history of this church is like omitting the Holocaust from an article on Nazism - it's a travesty to the integrity of an encyclopedia and an insult to the memory of these people

(Hopefully I've raised this issue in the right place) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 118.139.32.234 (talk) 01:55, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

It can probably fail to account for it because it didn't happen to the extent you seem to think. Foxe's book of martyrs is largely considered a fabrication by scholars, meaning that the vast majority of the people listed within never actually existed. Once upon a time, the wiki article on it made this quite apparent. (I don't know what it says now) The spanish inquisition is also often extremely exaggerated by many people because in reality, it's execution rate was actually lower than that of the state of Texas is currently. In addition, the Church has a nearly 2000 year history. Even if what you think is true were actually true, they would not necessarily be important enough to include. Lastly, there is a History of the Catholic Church article where this information would be more appropriate anyway. (but again, most of this "bloodly history" stuff isn't actually true, so it really doesn't belong much of anywhere.Farsight001 (talk) 02:10, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
One thing that had been airbrushed and certainly did happen is the massacres in the Albigensian Crusade. I've fixed that. Haldraper (talk) 08:40, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
The article does not exist to repeat the myths and slanders generated by various anti-catholics down the centuries. The anonymous starter of this section appears to have swallowed a rampant POV of his own. With regard to the Albigensian crusade, I added back some context, since the (very dubious) million dead figure would apply to what developed in the next twenty years into a largely secular civil war over land and royal control. Xandar 00:05, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

As I said in my edit summary, I think you need to provide academic refs Xandar to support your, shall we say slightly unorthodox, view that the Albigensian Crusade was essentially a secular affair rather than a religious one in which the Catholic Church sought to eliminate those it saw as heretics.

The figure of a million far from being "very dubious" is actually in the middle of most academic estimates which range from around 200,000 up to 2 million. One indicator of the scale of the massacres carried out by the Church in south-west France in the thirteenth century is that the population level there has never recovered and is still lower than in comparable areas of the country to this day.Haldraper (talk) 09:05, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

I know next to nothing about this particular topic but I will comment that it is risky to present a single number of 1 million if the range of "academic estimates" ranges from 200,000 up to 2 million. Unless it is demonstrably certain that the mainstream of academic opinion has settled on an estimate of 1 million then it is incumbent on us to communicate the nature of the dispute between 200,000 and 2 million. Is it the case that the mainstream opinion is 1 million with some on one extreme suggesting 200,000 and some on the other extreme suggesting 2 million? Or, are there really two camps: the 200,000 +/- 10% and the 2 million +/- 10%? If the latter situation describes the academic debate, then you can see that 1 million is a useless number. I see that the "up to a million number" has been cited to Robertson. Is that what the other scholars say? Who are the scholars who say 200,000 and who are the ones who say 2 million? Is the discrepancy attributable to partisanry (e.g. Protestant vs. Catholic)? Or is it attributable to better estimating methodology over time? (e.g. earlier estimates were as high as 2 million, more modern estimates are closer to 1 million and the 200,000 are extremely low estimates put forth by Catholic apologists).

It's natural for there to be academic dispute on questions like this. It is our job to describe the dispute, not to attempt to resolve it.

I don't have a dog in this fight but, based on the discussion above, I sense that the article text is not communicating the appropriate amount of uncertainty regarding the estimated death toll.
--Richard S (talk) 21:14, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
In addition to the question of the number of dead itself and its attribution. The manner in which this material was added and written up is partisan and full of misleading inferences.
  • The figure was presented in a way that strongly implied that a million (or whatever number of) Cathars were killed in some manner by the Catholic Church. Any figure even approaching a million deaths for this period will be based on the total number of deaths on all sides in these twenty years of civil war, ie from battles, other conflict, economic failure, famine and disease. The breakdown of any figure given needs to be made clear. Presenting this as "people killed by the Catholic Church" as strongly implied by Haldraper's wording, is completely misleading. We need to be presenting fact not myth. In addition, the majority of any deaths will have been of Catholics.
  • Haldraper added the word the "survivors" to the sentence on the inquisition, again falsely implying that the earlier figure represented a policy by the Church to massacre the Cathars. Haldrapers statement above, stating how the "massacres carried out by the church" reducing the population, shows what a polemic and utterly mistaken position he is coming from. Perhaps he will list these massacres of hundreds of thousands that allegedly took place, and the evidence that the Church ordered such (non-existent) massacres.
  • Any extension of the Cathar section of the article needs to be properly balanced. The mention of the killing of the papal legate was removed in the earlier article reworking. That needs to be retained in any such expansion of the topic, along with the largely secular nature of the continuing war over the longer period - which is not unorthodox, and well attested. Also well-attested is the fact that the Inquisition combatted Catharism largely by education and catechesis. And if the issue is discussed in more detail, this too needs to be included. Xandar 21:48, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
I looked at the blurb on Amazon for Marvin's book - " the suppression of heresy became a pretext for a vicious war..Marvin here examines the Albigensian Crusade as military and political history rather than religious history" - " he also discusses the supposed brutality of the war, why the inhabitants were for so long unsuccessful at defending themselves.." ..Maybe a Cathar horror of force which saw the domain of force as originating in evil hampered them ... - Bits from Malcolm Barbers book " Catharism ..succumbed to the power of an establishment determined to put an end to [it]..p.xiii.." Catharism represented total opposition to the Catholic Church.. the sacraments [viewed by Cathars as] valueless.. For Catholics therefore, there could be no compromise with the Cathars " p.2 ...."Innocent III inspired two powerful northern armies to descend upon Languedoc in 1209..attacking Beziers from the east..following the capture of the city .. the massacre of a large proportion of its population.." p.3..." Pope Gregory IX designate[d] specialist inquisitors, whose sole purpose was to investigate heresy on a systematic basis.." p.4 (and from chapter seven of barbers book.).'This tree' said Simone Weil 'bore much fruit'.. The Chanson de la croisade albigeoise..was concerned with the delivery of a death-blow to an entire civilization in its prime. The Albigensian Crusade was a religious war in which there was 'no question of religion'; it was rather another demonstration of the triumph of 'the empire of force.'p.205... the Romanesque civilisation, the langue d'oc was the centre - was able to flourish in the tenth and eleventh centuries - the Gothic middle Ages, which began after the destruction of languedoc, were an essay in totalitarian spirituality...p.206Sayerslle (talk) 10:30, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
Once again a very selective and one-sided view of sources. The principal point, that the war quickly turned from a religious focus to a political conflict between largely Catholic powers is not challenged and is backed up by multiple sound sources. This has great bearing on any wording calculating some estimated cumulative 20-year death-toll, and then by inference, alleging that these were Cathars, or other people killed by command of the Church. The main focus of conflict was the largely Catholic County of Toulouse. Combattants, apart from the "crusaders", were the North and South French Nobility, the Kings of France, and (on the supposedly Cathar side), the staunchly Catholic King of Aragon. The main result of the wars was not the crushing of Catharism - which survived the conflict - but the expansion of the power of the French King into Provence, which indeed ended the langue d'oc independence. Xandar 21:52, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for pointing out a one sided view of sources.

I shall the effect of this good lesson keep, As watchman to my heart.. But,... Do not, as some ungracious pastors do, Show me the steep and thorny way to perfection, Whiles....Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads, And recks not his own rede. Hamlet, Act One, scene three. Old Shax. Sayerslle (talk) 07:30, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Infallibility

The Church does claim infallibility; guidance by the Holy Spirit. Its a claim. Just a claim. Does user:Anglicanus doubt that infallibility is claimed? Please explain. ClemMcGann (talk) 17:28, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

ClemMcGann, my understanding is that the Pope claims infallibility on moral issues only when he speaks 'ex cathedra' - that is, from the chair of St. Peter, which is a position that is rarely invoked. (1tephania (talk) 19:02, 2 August 2010 (UTC))

Adding to the discussion, HBCALI doubts the tenets of Papal Infallibility. Honestly, the Pope is a man, selected by men to govern the world-based affairs of the Catholic Church. When Catholics elevate any part of his speech to the point of "infallibility", the Pope becomes a living Prophet (which no Catholic concedes as true). As a Christian, can the Pope be inspired by the Holy Spirit? Of course, yes. But only when his direction is in harmony with the prior revelation and clear teachings of Scripture. In turn, symbolically "speaking from the office Peter" (in itself) doesn’t miraculously make his words more divinely perfect.

Article's general orientation?

I've found the article to be a very hard read generally because it seems to focus too much on its theology. A paragraph about the Church's relationship with science (which is an interesting story that completely goes against the populist perception of the Church as an anti-science organization) would have made it more relevant to the general non-theologian public. Just my two cents. (1tephania (talk) 19:05, 2 August 2010 (UTC))

We do need to explain theology sufficiently. It is a chief interest of many users. But yes, I think the relation of the Church and Science is something that does need to be discussed properly in the article somewhere. We had a section on the Church and its effect on Society, but that got removed and has not yet been replaced with any agreed text. Xandar 01:36, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Long version

It appears that the cut-down version of this article finalized in late March and developed until today (around 90-100 kbytes lately) was approved by consensus. However, some individuals, who may have been acting in concert and three of which have definitely been in the same 013 Netvision Network 93.172.0.0/15 in Israel, have been trying to restore the long version (around 200-225 kbytes) by fiat. They include (in chronological order):

Richardshusr (talk · contribs) has his own long version User:Richardshusr/Catholic Church Test, but has not been attempting to restore it to this article.

I have not formed an opinion on the content matter, but would much prefer reasoned discourse to edit warring. Regarding length alone, 100kb is probably still too long - please consider more sub-articles. Please discuss the merits of the various versions below, using "#" marks for numbering.   — Jeff G.  ツ 21:14, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Have you considered whether the supposed four are only one individual who links up with interruptions of the connection and who does not always log in? Esoglou (talk) 06:07, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
I have considered it, but I am trying to assume good faith and work through the process.   — Jeff G.  ツ 20:48, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Reasons for the short version

  1. I would keep the current set up for a couple of reasons. It seems very comprehensive, and yet splits away into sub-articles in all the sections where I believe it prudent. In the long version I believe the sections on belief, and the very early history sections, and those on organisation, are difficult to process. I would ask the discussion to keep in mind that there is a substantial notes and references section in both versions which makes the article seem longer. S.G.(GH) ping! 21:37, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
    Thank you for mentioning the notes and references. Current statistics per the prosesize tool follow.   — Jeff G.  ツ 21:44, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
    • File size: 303 kB
    • Prose size (including all HTML code): 89 kB
    • References (including all HTML code): 76 kB
    • Wiki text: 90 kB
    • Prose size (text only): 44 kB (7120 words) "readable prose size"
    • References (text only): 14 kB

Reasons against the short version

  1. Until the late March, Catholic Church article was one of the Philosophy and religion good articles and one of the best on the English Wikipedia, but someone, who is not a catholic, did not like it (i wonder why) so he removed many text from it. there was one user who asked him to stop but he was banned from Wikipedia. since then, the article was removed from the philosophy and religion good articles list and became B-Class article.(93.173.26.212 (talk) 17:22, 10 August 2010 (UTC))
    The religion of the editors and readers of this article is not relevant. The long version would have also had its GA status stripped (read through the old archives of this talk page) for being POV. There was significant participation in an RfC that decided the short version was preferable to the previous version. Much work has been done since then; it would be ridiculous to revert to a version that had so little support and so many blatant errors. Karanacs (talk) 23:56, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
    Now its relevant, many editors on Wikipedia have no neutral view on The Church. (93.173.171.182 (talk) 21:18, 12 August 2010 (UTC))
    May I please have a pointer to that RfC? Thanks!   — Jeff G.  ツ 20:44, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
    Here's the RfC [5]. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 20:51, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
    Thanks!   — Jeff G.  ツ 21:34, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
    There weren't "blatant errors" in the old version. I believe the current version fails by not being sufficiently comprehensive with regard to faith, structure and Church activity in the world. Xandar 21:48, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
    There were significant sourcing errors in the "long version" - many passages did not reflect the information that was in the cited source. Some of this was documented - should be in the talk page archives. Karanacs (talk) 02:57, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Reasons for the long version

  1. I have not much to say. but the long version is much better to read and it including more about the Catholic faith and its theology, The Church long history, and cultural. there is many long articles on Wikipedia so what is the problem with long article for our Church?. sorry if there is something wrong with my English, its not my best side ;) (93.173.26.212 (talk) 17:22, 10 August 2010 (UTC))
    What do you mean by "our Church"? Are you the same person who has been putting back the long version? Thanks!   — Jeff G.  ツ 20:46, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
    Yes, its me, the same one from Israel ;). (93.173.171.182 (talk) 21:18, 12 August 2010 (UTC))
  2. The "Long version" grew up over a number of years, largely by consensus. The replacement with the current version was controversial to say the least, and has led to the departure from the article of a number of former contributors. I would not say there was a good consensus for its removal, more an eventual plurality, with a large component of people not normally involved in the article among those voting for the radical shortening. I am on record as saying that too much information on the beliefs, structure, cultural influence and present-day work of the Church was eliminated, and needs restoring in some form. I would certainly not say that the current article was too long for the size and complexity of its subject, especially when compared with similar articles on the major foreign language Wikipedias. At the time of the contretemps, I proposed a version that more radically shortened the history section to leave more room for much of the lost material, viewable here. We could not get agreement on that at the time. Xandar 21:42, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
    Is the current history section a fair summary of History of the Catholic Church? Is your "radically shortened" history section a fair summary of that article?   — Jeff G.  ツ 23:21, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
Having read Xandar's draft, I have to say it includes a lot of the clunky, weaselly text that made the Industrial Age and Membership sections veer into an advocacy piece and which Ubercyrixc's shorter version successfully eliminated. Haldraper (talk) 08:46, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
I agree the problem was more POV than length - I read in the signpost Umberto Eco saying he thought wikipedia was good for the educated who could filter what they read, but it was bad for the education-poor - the long version was 'unfiltered', so a 'filtered' version of some kind is infinitely preferable - maybe the filtration will take years, but thats better than unfiltered propaganda. Sayerslle (talk) 13:09, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
Facts are not "propaganda". The trouble is that some people have radically different views and tend to think that their own slant is NPOV, while other views are not. Most of what was cut was factual material on organisation, church beliefs, and contribution to society, a lot of it necessary to fulfilling the WP comprehensiveness criterion. I certainly don't think that having a below-par article for "years" is an acceptable option. Xandar 21:20, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
Xandar's section on Church institutions is very clearly propaganda raher than fact: vague statements about how the influence of the Church 'remains strong' in secular Europe and the number of priests is 'steadily rising' together with a list of the 'challenges' it faces in converting those in Africa and Asia who adhere to other religions combine to make it read like a cross between a promotional flyer and mission statement - pardon the pun -:). Haldraper (talk) 11:29, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
A) it wasn't "my section", it was information that had been assembled by many editors. B) Haldrapers characterisation of the removed information is not representative, to say the least. The material was 90% factual, and others had been challenged to provide sources for any alternate wording. We cannot just represent the opinions of detractors. Xandar 20:16, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
I remember way back you said something like 'the Church supported franco - well what do you expect if totally unprovoked they are killed etc by the Left..' something like that. Ive been doing a bit of reading , hope to start an article on the Church during the Spanish second republic and it's quite complicated. even Marian apparitions seem to escalate as the Church prepares to go onto the attack. like in bosnia, Mejugorge ? today, where Croat flags and the Church gets mixed up in very worldly concerns - . But then as you also said, 'whats wrong with being worldly?' i dunno, ..and now again, 'we cannot just represent the opinion of detractors'..all very closed mind set, embattled, why not AGF.. am i a detractor? whatevr happened to patience, complexity, nuance.sayerslle, didn't sign in 92.6.204.153 (talk) 14:00, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Reasons against the long version

  1. Having read Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Catholic Church, I agree with the community in favoring the short version (as improved since late March) and disfavoring the long and medium versions.   — Jeff G.  ツ 21:38, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
    I wonder if you and the "community" have the same opinion on articles such as Ronald Reagan or those articles on Slavery and many other long articles. (93.173.171.182 (talk) 21:18, 12 August 2010 (UTC))

Sub-article ideas

None of the above

  1. How about, a single edit warrior doesn't overrule consensus, so we don't need to talk this out yet again? The individual changes have been discussed at great length, and I think it's insulting to the editors who have actually worked on developing consensus to start this discussion when The Catholic Knight can't be bothered to do anything except revert to his preferred version or insult other editors. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 03:10, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
  2. I agree with Sarek. There was a significant consensus that the "long version" of the article was not appropriate. A lot of work has been done to the article since then - cleaning up sourcing problems, POV issues, rewriting parts of the history section - and there is much more work to do. A single revert-warrior (or perhaps a revert-warrior and his friends) who has yet to discuss the changes at all should not be enough to overturn consensus. Karanacs (talk) 16:07, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
  3. Agree with Sarek and Karanacs. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:18, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
  4. Agree with Sarek, Karanacs and SandyGeorgia. There was much in the long version that I liked and some of it should be restored. However, the long version was fatally flawed by POV in a number of places and all attempts to shorten it were resisted by a small group of editors. One editor decided to ignore all rules and shorten it unilaterally. Afterwards, it was decided to keep the short version and improve it. Those improvement efforts seem to have ended around June. I would like to see the improvement effort restarted as there remains much to be done. --Richard S (talk) 04:37, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
    Me too - if I can get my family healthy again (dratted summer colds) and have other real-life stuff calm down a bit I'll be back online and ready to help. Karanacs (talk) 13:15, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
  5. Agree that none of the above applies. Also agree that improvement efforts should be re-started whenever possible. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 13:17, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
  6. Agree with all of these fine folks. It's sad that this argument is still ongoing, but it is to be expected.--Mike - Μολὼν λαβέ 23:05, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
  7. I agree with Sarek. The heading summarizes his chief point; while it is now ambiguous (is keeping the short version the consensus or the goal of the warrior? We all know the answer, but it should be better put), that can easily be fixed. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:01, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Someone seems to have altered the headings here. The section above was originally titled "None of the Above" - as can be vouchafed by some of he comments. Someone has then added a completely different heading AFTER people have signed. Xandar 20:19, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Removal of the adjective "Roman" from Wikipedia articles

An editor who prefers to carry out his campaign anonymously from ISP 71.145.145.196 (see User talk:71.145.145.196) is removing the adjective "Roman" from as many Wikipedia articles as he can that mention the Roman Catholic Church or the Roman Church. Doubtless there is a more appropriate place for discussing this problem, but I am provisionally directing him here, certain that someone here will know where to redirect him, so that he can perhaps get prior consensus for his campaign.

Among the problems caused are red links and going against the tradition whereby cardinals are referred to as So-and-So, Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church (Sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae Cardinalis), not of the Catholic Church or simply of the Church. Esoglou (talk) 18:10, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

I see that his account has now been blocked for a month. This section is therefore no longer needed and may, I think, be deleted. It was intended only to provide the anonymous editor with a place where, instead of carrying on his one-man campaign, he could discuss its merits. It was not intended to stir up a general discussion. Esoglou (talk) 05:43, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
This is almost certainly a repeat offender as there was "another" editor a few months ago with the same personal campaign who left the same edit summary comments and links. It should also be remembered that when the "Roman Catholic Church" article was renamed "Catholic Church" that part of the consenus regarding this was that references to "Roman Catholic" in other articles should not be changed without consensus for those particular articles. This has not, however, been respected by a number of editors who were involved in that dispute - including the very inadequate administrator who moderated the "Roman Catholic Church" name dispute. Afterwriting (talk) 06:02, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
In fact the agreement was that the decision here would not be taken as a precedent for changes to other articles - not that other articles would retain their existing titles. It was considered that in some situations the "Roman" was useful as a disambiguator, (such as in theological articles), while in others it was not. Xandar 22:35, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
I'm not sure if you are agreeing with me or disagreeing about some detail. My point was simply that some editors invoked the change of this article's name as a justification for either changing the name of other articles or removing "Roman" within articles without seeking any discussion first. Therefore this article's name change was often "taken as a precedent for changes to other article" - which we agreed it should not. Is there some point in my original comments that you are disagreeing with or are you just adding some clarification? Cheers, Afterwriting (talk) 06:01, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Why no reference to church scandals?

For the last 40 years, at least, the Catholic Church has been plagued by scandals involving its priests having sex with children. Priests have gone to prison; some have escaped to avoid prosecution. Many dioceses have paid millions of dollars to victims. Why is this not part of this article? Thanks. Skywriter (talk) 18:38, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Because this article has been plagued by -er- tendentious editors, who insist that any mention of this well-known problem is POV editing, which only followers of Ian Paisley would want to include.
As far as I'm concerned, it would be only reasonable to say something, but we should actually be proportionate. No longer, say, than the coverage of the Investiture Controversy - and less would be better.Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:51, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
Whatever the reason the modern history of the Catholic Church is not present in this article is a statement about the willingness of some influential Wikipedia editors to censor unflattering facts and to prevail when they do so. There is certainly plenty of valid documentation --in books, magazines, and daily news articles -- that thousands of children were raped by Catholic priests over the last 50 or more years. To allow not one word about it in an encyclopedia such as this in an article on Catholic Church history speaks volumes about the integrity of those who are preventing these facts from being incorporated into the church history. These are not mere allegations. The church has paid out hundreds of millions of dollars to the victims of its priests and it has closed --and sold-- churches all over the world to underwrite its payments to victims. Priests have been jailed. Certainly anyone coming to this article will know about this vile history of scandal and wonder about the reliability of Wikipedia. The cover-up is as shameful as the molesting of children. Skywriter (talk) 19:03, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
Lol conspiracy theorist. Or it could be that the history of the Catholic Church has it's own article and that 50 years is a rather tiny blip in the 2000 year history of the church. You should be more worried about why the 10%(yes, 10%) of protestant clergy that is abusing children are not in the news at all, despite very accurate and precise legal records.Farsight001 (talk) 19:51, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
Farsight has a point here. This one article has to cover a lot of material as it is. And the specific behavior of a comparatively small number of individuals who work for an organization is not necessarily of the primary importance to that article. I also seem to remember that the Anglican Communion has had several notable abuse claims, yet there seems to be no article specifically about that subject at all yet. And any number of other non-Christian bodies have had notable sexual misconduct problems but not yet any articles about the subject at all. The subject is mentioned in some more specific regional articles, with which it is more directly relevant. John Carter (talk) 20:03, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
Lol Farsight. The rapes are not limited to the last 50 years, you certainly know better. Yes, I am also worried about abuse by protestants, mormons, jehovas, moslems, jews, hindus, budhist .. and sorry for those I did forget to mention. All abuse is evil but in the in the context of religion it a pretty special evil. So its nothing against the most established Church - simply start articles on abuse in the context of other religions if you don't like the Catholic Church to take all blame. There is lots to do and honestly I would be interested to see a good summary of all the issues in other religions.Richiez (talk) 20:35, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
There doesn't yet seem to be any sort of Sexual abuse by religious clergy article, if that is what you are speaking of, and I certainly could and do see some validity to such an article. If I remember right, there was an Anglican diocese in Canada which was closed because of loss of money from lawsuits, so it isn't just a Catholic problem. And I remember there were historical allegations of pre-celibacy Buddhist monks coming down from the mountain to rape the village girls which directly led to the monks becoming celibate later, so there is basis for such an article. If someone wanted to start such an article, I would certainly support it. John Carter (talk) 20:54, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
And do not forget the recent scandal in Texas, no idea what sect that was but it was really ugly. Pretty much have the impression the sect had no other purpose than abusing children. Remembering.. weren't there thousands of child abuse scandals in New Age sects? Lots of that is probably already covered in WP, in obscure places and would be nice to add a category to it. But to get back to the point, this article does not appear credible without a prominent link to all scandals. Richiez (talk) 22:04, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
I think that was a Mormon polygamous fundamentalist group, who has had a strange reputation for a fairly long time. And I agree that to some not mentioning the recent sexual story doesn't seem credible. However, WP:RECENT might be invoked, considering that what we are talking about is adding material regarding what is a comparatively recent subject affecting a small percentage of the total membership of the organization and a small but significant number of its "employees". Understand, I am not trying to "duck" the issue, because I'm not. However, I don't myself see exactly why it should be necessarily added. We are not a "news" source, but an encyclopedic/historical one, and, for all the recent coverage of the subject, I am not myself sure that it is so universal, has such large long-term significance, and such historical importance that, in a comparatively short article, which this is, it must be included. Nor, for that matter, am I sure exactly where someone would want to include it or what exactly they would want included. John Carter (talk) 22:54, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
The minimum we need, which is not likely to overburden the article, is a link to Catholic sex abuse cases; if we genuinely cannot figure out where to put it (I would use a clause in the section on the present condition of the Church, of which the scandal is certainly part, at least as large as World Youth Day, for which we do have room), it could go under See also - but that is, by intention, temporary. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:06, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

(continuing thread but not indent) Farsight001 and Richiez's and John Carter's "everybody does it defense" begs the question. This is not a request to begin an article about sexual abuse of children by religious clergy in general. It is a request to introduce the verifiable and truthful history of the Catholic Church reflecting the very troubling last half century for which there is not one word in this article but a large body of documentation. Now I'm not going to go back into the weeds of the archives to find out whether there have been fights about this but I do think it should be brought to the attention of the greater Wikipedia community for counsel on whether this article should be truthful and complete as best we can make it. Oh, and Farsight001, the personal attack, "conspiracy theorist," is noted and, further, it is requested that you control your propensity toward name-calling, please. If you have evidence that media has declined to report that "You should be more worried about why the 10%(yes, 10%) of protestant clergy that is abusing children are not in the news at all" , then by all means bring it forward with evidence and trustworthy sourcing and I will help you write and edit it. In the meantime, the role of Catholic clergy and hierarchy in the sexual abuse of children is well-known and documented all over the world. It sounds as though all three of you oppose the introduction of this material into this article under any circumstance. Is that the case? Would you state your precise objections within Wikipedia guidelines. Thank you. Skywriter (talk) 23:19, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

I do not accept that this is a short article that has no room to include the history of the last 50 years. That line of argument is not persuasive. Skywriter (talk) 23:19, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

And, I regret to say, your repetition of your argument is no more persuasive, however often you repeat it. One individual's opinion is not now, and never will be, sufficient grounds for determining whether something is or is not in accord with WP:UNDUE, which seems to be the concern here. I have said that WP:RECENT is involved, as are WP:UNDUE and, I believe according to previous discussion that has occurred on this subject, WP:CONSENSUS. John Carter (talk) 23:40, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
Reading through the article I was also surprised about how short and euphemistic the sentence about the sex abuse scandal was. The sentence about the murder of Father Romero, an incidence involving 1 person on 1 day, is longer than the sentence on this, which occurred (and still occurs) for at least fifty years and involved thousands of people. Whether we, as editors, think it is justifiable or not, it is a major issue in the population at large with lots of notable, reliable sources. It needs to be mentioned, with a neutral point of view of course.
And the WP:RECENT argument is weak. If WP:RECENT is so important, why is one nun (Mother Theresa) receiving an award included? I think we all know the answer. Ashmoo (talk) 11:14, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Arbitrary section break

I agree that this article should mention the sexual abuse scandal. The challenge, IMO, is to come up with a formulation that does not become a magnet for POV wars. The previous (significantly longer) version of the article had a paragraph on the scandal but some editors kept wanting to include text to "put the scandal in context" or otherwise defend the Church. I'm not arguing that the assertions made in defense of the Church were completely false. It's just that the section wound up getting too long and thereby giving the scandal more space than it deserved in an overview of 2000 years of history. If we could limit the coverage of the scandal to one or two sentences with a link to the main article, that would be (IMHO) ideal. We should focus on just the facts without a lot of explanatory or exculpatory text. --Richard S (talk) 03:19, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Like I said before, I have no objections to seeing it mentioned. Having said that, as someone who is, admittedly, a Catholic, but primarily (I think) interested in the history of the church, I would also assert that the decentralization/dre-"Roman"ization of the church under JPII should be mentioned, even though it isn't. I think that, in the light of the Second Vatican Council, it may well have greater long-term impact. It isn't mentioned yet in this article either. A lot of things a lot of people find significant aren't mentioned yet. The burden of proof, as per WP:BURDEN, will tend to lie on those who seek to include the material in all such cases. I haven't yet seen here an argument based on sourcing which puts forward a case for the inclusion of either. For the material on the sex abuse scandals to be included, I would think the following should be done:
1) Find a source which also deals with the Catholic Church in a general capacity, like this article does, which is both non-biased (Tim LaHaye and the like don't count) and gives it the degree of coverage such that would indicate it would, proportionately, be mentioned here.
2) This may be harder. Because of the US news sources and the BBC being in countries where this issue has gotten a lot of play, there is no doubt to me that the story has gotten a lot of worldwide press. Press and impact however are not necessarily the same. There would, I think, be a reason to ask that the individuals who seek to add such material demonstrate that the issue has also had a pronounced effect on the Catholic Church in the rest of the world, including perhaps most importantly the Asian, African, and South American branches of the Catholic Church. If the issue/story/whatever has had little impact there, then it could be argued that the subject hasn't had the global impact that would be required for mention in an article of this type. There have been a lot of stories related to the Catholic Church which have had huge impact in certain countries/areas/time periods which aren't mentioned here - without clear evidence of a significant global impact this story might be of similar impact.
3) Lastly, this is probably the hardest of all. To many people, given the Catholic Church's side, its article is treated as being almost on a par with the main Religion article in terms of centrality. I can understand and sympathize with that, but disagree with it to a degree. As I indicated above, I think that a lot of the issues regarding conduct, good and bad, of a lot of religious groups display similar conduct in some matters over time, and it is, at least to me, more important to discuss those issues in a more perhaps neutral and objective, maybe less "sensationalist", setting than to emphasize it in only a few groups. So far as I know, a lot of the "sociology of religion" type articles don't even exist yet, and to me, perhaps in a biased manner, those are probably more important. My opinion, anyway.
I'd love to see the evidence required to demonstrate that this story has had the significant global impact which would be required to add it here. To date, I don't know that I have. John Carter (talk) 15:57, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
John Carter, your arguments make some sense but they are open to debate. Specifically, argument #2 suggests that the scandal has affected mostly the Anglophone world. This is sort of true although the scandal shows signs of spreading to Europe in recent years. The question is: do we have to limit the history of the Catholic Church to events/phenomena that are global in scope? That would suggest that we leave out topics like Catholicism in China, Japan, Africa and Latin America since no one of them is "global in scope". I think we have to look at significant events that might be local in scope but salient enough to be considered part of the Church's history. Regarding argument #3, I understand the sentiment that media bias has focused on the Catholic Church while largely ignoring scandals in other religions/social institutions. It's not our job to fix the media bias. If this is what is being reported on and this is what the average person is reading, then it is our job to cover it. There are issues of possible recentism but, given that the scandal has been unfolding for decades, I think it deserves some attention. IMO, the recentism argument is better applied to issues that are hot for only a few weeks or months. Maybe even a few years. To suggest that a controversy that has lasted over a quarter of century is "recentism" stretches the concept too far. --Richard S (talk) 16:26, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
For what it's worth, I don't think that I was saying it has only affected the Anglophone world, but rather that I would want to see evidence, which I don't think I have, that it has had a significant impact on the non-Anglophone world. It would be nice to see the direct evidence that it has had a serious impact on the non-Anglophone world, and I'm just saying I think the argument would be stronger if evidence to indicate that were presented.
And, at least regarding the history of the Catholic Church for the terms of this one article, yeah, I think that the history section or content of this one article probably should be limited to issues of more or less global impact, considering that this article is about the main body itself, given the amount of material of a global nature that is relevant to this subject. Other bodies, whose history may be shorter in terms of time and amount of broader impact, might be different. Personally, I would think that if we were talking about even a body like the United States, with a chronologically shorter history, it might qualify. But the history of this body is even greater than that of the US, and, given the length of this body's history, it more or less is a "recent" development.
Now, there is another question, regarding whether this one article should or should not have discussion of the various regional bodies, for lack of a better term, of the main body. That is a slightly different matter, and I think it does make sense to discuss, in general, how the body has spread and is organized globally. That is a fairly central topic to the entity as a whole. Now, if there were a serious scandal regarding the history of the Catholic Church in, say, Oceania, such that it were undoubtedly by far one of the most important topics regarding the history in that area, that might be different. I'm not sure that threshold is met here though. John Carter (talk) 17:27, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
Sexual misconduct by clergy has been a serious and recurring problem in the Catholic Church throughout much of its history. It goes back at least as far as the early fourth century (when it was condemned in the harshest terms by the Council of Elvira), and crops up again and again over the centuries. A good historical overview of the problem and the attempts to deal with it can be found at:
http://www.richardsipe.com/Docs_and_Controversy/2004-12-01-magisterium.htm
and a good analysis of the depth and seriousness of the current crisis here:
http://www.richardsipe.com/Doyle/2010/2010-04-01-perspective.htm
Some other sources you might want to consult:
The Book of Gomorrah, by St. Peter Damian (11th century)
History of Sacerdotal Celibacy, by Henry Charles Lea (19th century)
Sex, Priests, and Secret Codes: The Catholic Church's 2000-Year Paper Trail of Sexual Abuse, by Thomas P. Doyle, A. W. R. Sipe, and Patrick J. Wall (2006)
Sacrilege: Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church, by Leon J. Podles (2008)
Lea is sometimes dismissed (unjustly, in my view) as an anti-Catholic bigot, but he was a well-regarded historian in his day and does a good job of portraying the broad sweep of the story. Doyle is a Catholic priest and canon lawyer and a major player in the current abuse scandals; Sipe has spent most of his career treating errant priests; Wall is also heavily credentialed in the field. Podles certainly cannot be accused of being anti-Catholic; but he is a professional investigator, eloquent in his description of the problem and its origins, and a believer in heavy sourcing and lots of footnotes. And of course Peter Damian is a recognized saint and doctor of the Church, so it would be hard to accuse him of being biased against Catholics--and yet the story he tells about clerical misconduct and sexual abuse of children in the eleventh century is almost identical to the story now coming out about the same behavior in the twentieth century.
As for the geographical spread of the current crisis, the countries that I can name off the top of my head as having significant upheavals over this issue in recent years include the U.S., Canada, Australia, Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Ireland, Poland, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Italy, Spain, India, and several countries in Africa. A couple of hours of internet searches should easily pull up a large amount of information on these, and probably others as well. Some places to start:
http://www.bishop-accountability.org/
http://www.bishop-accountability.org/AbuseTracker/
http://www.snapnetwork.org/
http://www.podles.org/dialogue/category/clergy-sex-abuse
http://www.richardsipe.com/
http://www.richardsipe.com/Doyle/index.html
That ought to provide a good start to anyone who is seriously interested in pursuing this. Harmakheru ✍ 04:04, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
Great. Now do you have any RELIABLE sources we can actually use?Farsight001 (talk) 11:14, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
He's cited several - as well the web sites, which tend, for clear legal reasons, to cite reliable sources themselves. In addition, the condition of the Church in the dioceses of Munich and Regensburg has been repeatedly covered in the New York Times. I await the argument that Archbishop Ratzinger of Munich is not a notable person - after all, he hasn't been mentioned much for the last few years. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:41, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

NB: All of this is, of course, much too much detail for this article. Any detailed article text based on the sources provided by Harmakheru belongs in the article on Catholic sex abuse cases, not here. The discussion on this page should only consider these sources in the context of determining how important the topic is for this article. I still maintain that we should not spend more than a few sentences on this topic. (2-3 is probably ideal.)

That said, here is my take on Harmakheru's sources.

Based on previous interactions with him on this article, I have a lot of respect for Harmakheru. However, I am not completely comfortable with the sources that he provides and would suggest that some of them can only be presented as characteristic of a POV (an anti-Cathoic one).

According to Harmakheru, Lea is at least controversial and considered by some an "anti-Catholic bigot". I haven't read "History of Sacerdotal Celibacy". Is there a copy of his work online? (Here's a summary that I found online The title and the summary suggest that Lea is not talking specifically of sexual abuse of children but perhaps of heterosexual relations which is not the same thing at all. Does he mention "sexual abuse of children" at all?

As a saint and Peter Damian might be considered authoritative but, based on what I've found on the Internet, it seems he describes the problem in a specific region at a specific point in time (11th century). Is there a copy of the "Book of Gomorrah" online?

We cannot string together a series of instances of sexual abuse over the centuries and (as Wikipedia editors) infer that this has been a significant problem over the centuries, no matter how many such instances we compile. That would be synthesis. Now, what we would need to prove the point is a reliable source that makes this argument.

Doyle and Sipe do make this argument. The question is: how reliable are they as sources? Sipe and Doyle have strong credentials in canon law but are currently advisors to sexual abuse victims and thus can hardly be considered unbiased.

NB: I am NOT saying that Doyle and Sipe are wrong. I suspect that there is a lot of truth to their argument. However, much of it is wrapped in rhetoric that has a distinct anti-Catholic tone. What I am saying is that their objectivity is suspect because of their advocacy for sexual abuse victims. They have built a career around attacking the Church on this issue. Reading their work, the anti-Church agenda is just oozing out of every sentence. I would prefer to see more objective treatments of the topic.


If this has been a problem for centuries, yea even millenia, then we should be able to find other (relatively) unbiased treatments of the topic that predate the sexual abuse scandal.


Podles does seem to fit the bill. However, the introduction to his book (here) suggests that the abuse is a phenomenon of the late 20th century. "Rings of abusers go back at least to the 1940s in America. ... Abuse increased in the 1970s and 1980s, but some of the worst abuse (verging on diabolism) occurred before Vatican II and the change in sexual attitudes in the 1960s."


Does Podles actually document or assert that abuse spans millenia or does he focus primarily on the second half of the 20th century, primarily in the United States.


Also note that there is a difference between saying in the article "Sexual abuse has been a significant challenge throughout the Church's history." and "According to Doyle and Sipe, sexual abuse has been a significant challenge throughout the Church's history."

The first formulation suggests that the assertion is true and unchallengeable. The second formulation puts forth the point of view as one advocated by Doyle and Sipe without indicating that the assertion is unchallengeably true.

--Richard S (talk) 16:17, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Richard, anyone who takes the issue seriously is going to be seen as having an "anti-Catholic POV" because the normal human reaction to appalling evil is to be revulsed by it; anyone who can be "objective" about it and emotionally detached from it has already become its accomplice. The experts estimate that five million children were sexually abused by Catholic clergy and religious over the past fifty years, which puts the numbers in the same bracket as the Holocaust. Read any book on the Holocaust that is not written by a Holocaust-denier or a Nazi sympathizer, and you will inevitably find an "anti-Nazi POV", or at least an excuse for being accused of such, because "they say such terrible things about the Nazis." But that's not because some Nazi-hater just sat down one day and made up a bunch of rubbish about them; it's because the Nazis did terrible things. And the same thing is true of the crimes which the Catholic Church has--by its own admission--committed against countless children.
To answer your question about Podles, he does indeed--in his first chapter--assert and document that the problem spans millennia. He backs this up by citing passages from the Church Fathers and early Egyptian monks, St. Peter Damian, the documented clerical abuse of women and children in Spain after the Counter-reformation, and the Piarist scandal in the 17th century (which involved an entire religious order, with a trail of complicity that went all the way to the Vatican). He specifically states that "such abuse has gone on for centuries" (p. 17) and that "Church authorities have been remiss for centuries in their protection of children" (p. 20). He also has an entire chapter (ch. 16) explaining the current crisis in terms of theological errors and "spiritual distortions" from which Catholics have suffered "for centuries, distortions whose historical roots can be traced." (p. 465)
Of course anyone who speaks of "crimes" and "errors" and "distortions" in the Church will inevitably be accused by the apologists of being an "anti-Catholic bigot"--it's one of their favorite rhetorical moves--and Doyle, Sipe, Wall, and Podles have all been tarred with that brush. But people like these do not come to such positions a priori, or easily, or gladly; they are driven to it by the force of the facts they have uncovered in years of painful labor. Doyle, in particular, had a promising career in the Church until he made the "mistake" of taking a stand for truth and justice against the wishes of the hierarchy; after that he found his services were no longer wanted, and his ecclesiastical career was in ruins. He did not set out to "build a career out of attacking the Church"; he found himself, very much against his will, forced into a career of confronting the Church because the Church betrayed its own deepest principles by victimizing countless innocents, and then threw him to the wolves when he refused to cooperate with that betrayal. Harmakheru ✍ 18:23, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
I can see things haven't changed on this page. Can you please point out the "experts" that put the number at 5 million over 50 years? As usual another person comparing something that isn't remotedly the same to the Holocaust. Typical Godwin's law scenario. You can easily come up with some number of something bad, make it approach the number of people killed in the Holocaust and say it "puts the same numbers as the Holocaust." You are using the same rhetorical moves you are claiming the other side uses. Your diatribe also makes it seem that anyone that doesn't immediately agree with what you are saying becomes an apologist. Things haven't changed on this page. More of the same.Marauder40 (talk) 19:01, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
Yes, some things never change--like the penchant of true believers to refuse to see what's going on right under their noses.
The experts? Read Podles, Sipe, Wall, Doyle, Greeley--if you dare. Sipe has spent most of his career counseling errant priests and knows very well what he is talking about; his research established "a baseline that 6 percent of Catholic priests involve themselves sexually with minors". Greeley, who is a statistician by profession as well as a Catholic priest (and no friend of the victims' groups, by the way, so you can't tar him with that), estimated between five and seven percent. "The John Jay Report commissioned by the American Bishops concluded that 4 percent of priests from 1950 to 2002 had abused minors." Given all that, it's fair to peg a documentable number at around five percent overall--probably too low, given the reluctance of victims to come forward and the attempts by the hierarchy to obstruct investigations and obscure the true picture, but close enough for starters.
There are 400,000 Catholic priests worldwide, so five percent means a likely total of at least 20,000 priests worldwide who are *current* abusers of children. But the number of victims per abuser can be quite high; Sipe says that between ten and fifty is typical, but in some cases the numbers go into the thousands. If we take a conservative average of twenty (again, probably too low, but close enough), we are already at 400,000 victims. But that fails to take into account the fact that there is considerable turnover in the population of priests during that period, which at least doubles or triples the number; the fact that abuse is almost certainly more common in countries with traditions of greater deference to authority than the U.S. and less respect for individual rights and the welfare of children; and that almost all the numbers are almost certainly too low, because most victims never report, most abusers are never caught, and many of those who do get caught are never reported to prosecutors or the public.
Given all that, a number of five million over fifty years is not the least bit fantastic. Greeley estimated in 1992 that there were, at that time, at least 100,000 living victims in the U.S. alone; that was long before the true extent of the problem had become evident, and accounts for only one-sixteenth of the world's Catholic population. Extrapolate from those numbers, and once again a worldwide total of five million over fifty years is not only credible, but most likely an underestimate. Harmakheru ✍ 20:50, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
Sounds like a lot of synthesis to me. I have read a couple of those authors. You still haven't provided a quote from a reliable source that supports your numbers, let alone "experts". Just taking statistics, and doing projections based on the numbers doesn't work. You are making this out as if the Catholic church is the only organization guilty of this and is equivalent to the Nazi regime. Yes people in the Church have made mistakes, and I am not excusing those that have. Yes priests and bishops should be held to higher standards. But how do the same numbers compare to the school system where estimates in the New York schools systems say that at least 10% of active teachers have abused kids. As has been said before by Richard and others, if this is mentioned at all it should only be a couple sentences or at most a paragraph considering the scope and history of the Church. Anything else smacks of Recentism, POV pushing, etc. Details of the sex scandel belong in the other articles. Marauder40 (talk) 21:03, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
And your objections sound like a bunch of wikilawyering to me. Of course it's synthesis; it could not be otherwise, since the only people who have, or could get, the data from which one could draw non-synthetic conclusions are the college of bishops dispersed throughout the world, or else Rome itself--but both have been notoriously uncooperative about providing that information. And it is precisely the absence of that information, which they themselves refuse to provide, that makes it easier for them to dismiss the whole affair as "media exaggeration", "petty gossip", "Catholic bashing", and/or a satanic conspiracy of Jews, Communists, Freemasons, and the other usual suspects, instead of owning up to the fact that the smoke of Satan has indeed entered the sanctuary (as one pope famously said) and found a home there.
The rest of your complaints are similarly specious. I never said that the Catholic Church is the only perpetrator of this kind of crime (although it is without doubt one of the most important ones, just by numbers and impact alone). I never even said that it was the worst. I certainly never said, or even implied, that it was the equivalent of the Nazis (although on occasion it has done some pretty Nazi-like things). My point, which you missed entirely, was not about the Church at all, but about its defenders: that the same logic that allows one to dismiss people as "anti-Catholic bigots" just because they criticize the Church would also allow one to dismiss critics of the Nazis as "anti-Nazi bigots" just because they criticize the Nazis. In neither case is such a dismissal intellectually honest; its intent is not to illuminate the facts but to avoid dealing with them entirely.
As for your comments about the public schools and their record on child abuse, that information would be perfectly appropriate in an article whose primary focus was on child abuse in a variety of social institutions. But this is supposed to be an article about the Catholic Church--and by dragging the schools into this you are just repeating True Believer talking points designed to divert attention from the Church's problems by redirecting the audience's attention to someone else's. Frankly, I think it is ridiculous to compare the Catholic Church to the public schools in any case; after all, we aren't talking here about just any institution, religious or otherwise. We are talking about the largest and most powerful religious organization on the planet, which claims to be not just a church but THE Church--the one true Church, founded by Jesus Christ himself, apart from which no one at all can be saved--and yet has a history of criminality that still occasionally shocks even our jaded modern historians; and by all the evidence at least some elements of that criminality have continued right into the present day. Don't you think that's something that is at least arguably worth mentioning?
In any case, I am not suggesting that any "synthesis", or any particular numbers, or any particular approach or stance be introduced into the article; I am simply providing some context in response to the concerns Richard stated about the sources I did provide, and supporting the notion that a scandal of such magnitude, which has indeed persisted for centuries (at least), ought to find at least some small mention in an article of this size. But even that slender hope is probably in vain, because (as many have noted) the culture and the rules of Wikipedia are simply not up to the task, and probably never will be. That is why I generally don't come around here anymore, and probably won't again for quite some time. Harmakheru ✍ 01:02, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
You sound like someone talking out of both sides of your mouth. In one place you say "The experts estimate that five million children were sexually abused by Catholic clergy and religious over the past fifty years, which puts the numbers in the same bracket as the Holocaust." Which is a clear parallel you are drawing between the Catholic Church and the Nazi regime then in another place you say "I certainly never said, or even implied, that it was the equivalent of the Nazis". I only brought the public school statistics in due to the parallel you were drawing. I am no way trying to justify what has been done by the guilty priests and/or bishops. I have not said it is appropriate to put the school information in the article, just showing how bad the statement you made is. There is a reason that synthesis is not allowed on WP because taking figures as you have done and trying to synthesis them isn't appropriate. You are trying to draw statistics from basically out of your butt. Taking numbers based on the US and saying those same precentages apply to the whole world doesn't work. Just because the percent of priests in the US that molested kids is X, doesn't mean that same percentage applies to the entire world. The percentage is probably going to change throughout the various countries depending on things like cultural influences, differing views on sexuality, degrees of fidelity, percentage of temptation, etc. Without knowing the actual numbers, you cannot extrapolate. Did you ever think the problem isn't Wikipedia's policies it may be your method for determining your numbers? There is a big reason synthasis isn't allowed on here. Most people realize you can arbitrarliy take statistics and say whatever you want with them. That is why reliable sources are required. Marauder40 (talk) 13:14, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
I was thinking that, like if Otto Frank spoke about the Nazis, they'd say 'Ah well, he has an axe to grind you see, that's a point we serious minds have to consider,,' The way the Church responds seems constant - they 'move' the priest , they deal with it 'in house', the sense that as Gods chosen means of teaching humanity they operate under different rules - if you think your duties are divinely ordained defending the organisation seems to blind ..'the best lack all conviction, the worst are filled with passionate intensity', what did the First Crusaders shout 'God wills it..God wills it..' it seems to be the way the religious fanatic speaks, from teheran to rome. The sexual abuse, and the way it was dealt with is clearly important. Sayerslle (talk) 05:30, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
You are trying to simplify a complex problem. Did some Bishops move pedophile/ebophile priests around to hide the problem? Probably and I am in no way defending those priests and Bishops. Did all Bishops do that for the same reason? No. Everyone is looking at this scandal through today's rose colored glasses where the medical community believes there is no way to reliably cure pedophilia. That has not always been the case. It has only been recently that they declared that. Back in the 50's they felt that all that was needed was a little treatment, whether it be from a phsyciatrist, shock therepy, etc. they could cure people of anything. So some Bishops took the advice of the medical community, temporarily reassigned them to a place where they could get that treatment then allowed them to go back to work after they were pronounced cured. Other situations may have occured similar to the cases that people tried to link to the Pope where one Bishop reassigns a person to a place for counseling and/or non-youth jobs then the next Bishop unknowingly reassigns him back to youth related positions. Remember this is before records could be pulled up in an instant via computer. Cases like this were handled with extreme secrecy both in respect to the priest and the victim so the next Bishop may haven't heard anything about what happened. Why does/did the Vatican not have a broad policy of reporting all cases to the authorities? You have to remember that Vatican policies have to take into account the entire world. In some places a person reported for this could immediatly be put to death with no trial. In other areas of the world what we call sexual abuse is called "normal". Its easy to say a Bishop in the US should report it to the police immediatly where the priest should expect a fair trial, but can the same be said throughout the world. Did the Church act inappropriately in some cases? Yes. Was it slow to come up with new policies for dealing with this? Yes. Is it taking a much harder beating then other organizations that should be instead looking at their own ranks? Yes. Many people try to simplify this down to simple issues. It isn't it is very complex. This should be left for the abuse article, not this one.Marauder40 (talk) 13:34, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
More true believer talking points, but little reality. The founder of the most popular "treatment center" for clerical predators spent two decades writing letters to bishops and popes telling them that these guys were irredeemable and should never be returned to ministry:
http://ncronline.org/news/accountability/bishops-were-warned-abusive-priests
It did no good; the policy of protecting predatory priests continued regardless--and not just in the Fifties, or the Sixties, but through the rest of the 20th century and on into the 21st. And it was indeed policy, established and coordinated from the very top; this has been confirmed by people at the highest levels of the Vatican. Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos, Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy from 1996 to 2006, wrote a letter in September 2001 to a French bishop commending him for protecting a child-raping priest from the authorities. "I congratulate you for not denouncing a priest to the civil administration," he wrote. "You have acted well and I am pleased to have a colleague in the episcopate who, in the eyes of history and of all other bishops in the world, preferred prison to denouncing his son and priest." (There was no question of the priest's guilt; he had already been sentenced to 18 years in prison for abusing 11 children.) According to Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos, the letter was approved by JP2 at a meeting at which Ratzinger was also present, and a copy of the letter was sent to every diocese on the planet. If that's not policy, what is?
Nor is it only past officials who were complicit. When Ratzinger was head of the CDF, his second in command was Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone. Bertone said in a 2002 interview, "In my opinion, the demand that a bishop be obligated to contact the police in order to denounce a priest who has admitted the offense of pedophilia is unfounded. Naturally civil society has the obligation to defend its citizens. But it must also respect the professional secrecy of priests." When he became Pope, Ratzinger appointed Bertone as his new Secretary of State--the second most powerful man in the entire Catholic Church. Similarly, Cardinal Angelo Sodano was notoriously close to and protective of sexual sociopath Marcial Maciel, founder of the "Legion of Christ", and yet Ratzinger as pope made Sodano the new Dean of the College of Cardinals.
There were also quite a few cases in which a priest's kinky sexual predilections led not just to molestation or rape, but murder--and yet the Church continued to protect the perpetrator from the authorities and moved him somewhere else for a "fresh start". You can read about one such case here:
http://podles.org/case-studies/Irene-Garza-Case-Study-page1.htm
And it isn't just sexually motivated predators and murderers who were protected; here is a case of a priest who was credibly accused of participating in a terrorist bombing in which a bunch of people were killed:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-11061296
And yet the method of operation, in which a Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church was involved, was exactly the same: cover it up, protect the priest from retribution, and move him to another parish. Does any of this sound familiar? Harmakheru ✍ 17:04, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
I can see you are the type of person that labels someone (as in "true believer") and any points made by them are immediatly discounted. More of the same as you accuse the "true believer" side of doing. I think this is going way on a tangent and the discussion is no longer aimed at improving the article, but to address the last issue, there is more to the story then was stated in the BBC article you listed. As usual only part of the story is put up. http://www.ewtn.com/vnews/getstory.asp?number=104590 Marauder40 (talk) 17:31, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
I label the points as what they are: "talking points" distributed by self-interested parties (like EWTN--is that your idea of a "reliable source"?) in order to lull the true believers into a sense that things aren't really so bad, that all is well, that the system is fundamentally sound and is taking care of things, blah, blah, blah. I discount the talking points because I've heard them all before, and because they're nothing but disinformation designed to obscure the issues instead of illuminating them. And I discount those who offer them because in all the times I've heard the same lame arguments being repeated, I've never seen the slightest indication that their proponents have done any critical thinking of their own or actually investigated the matter with an open mind to see what's really going on. I am willing to be surprised, but so far you have been following the true believer paradigm right down the line.
Go back and read the EWTN story a bit more critically. It is nothing but self-justifying spin and blather. It ignores the larger questions: Why did the authorities go to the Church in the first place, instead of simply arresting the priest and questioning him themselves? (That's what they would have done with anyone else suspected of terrorism; why should a priest get a pass just because he's a priest?) Why did the authorities allow the Church to inform a criminal suspect that he was accused of a horrific crime? (Many criminal priests have fled jurisdiction under such circumstances and successfully evaded any accountability whatever. A number of them now work at the Vatican.) Why did they allow the Church to conduct the investigation instead of performing their own--and why did they accept the Church's bland assurances that the suspect denied all culpability, and then drop the matter? Because that is how the cover-up of clerical misconduct had been maintained for decades, probably centuries--whether the crime was child molestation, theft, murder, or terrorism. If you read the documents which have been so painstakingly pried out of diocesan chanceries by victims' lawsuits (now topping a million pages or thereabouts on the Bishop Accountability web site), you will find numerous references to "our man in the police department" or "our arrangements with the prosecutor's office", by means of which dioceses routinely kept their priests out of trouble. The Northern Ireland case was far from unique; it is simply a more extreme manifestation of what was being done everywhere by everyone--precisely because the Church as a whole willed it to be so. Harmakheru ✍ 18:08, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
As I said before this tangent is going on way to far. The EWTN link I gave you is just a newsfeed. Just because it appears there doesn't make it biased. I have read all the different accounts and sometimes it is good to read both "sides" of the story. Usually the truth is somewhere in the middle. It seems you immediatly discount any news source that doesn't immediatly declare the church evil-incarnete. I am not spouting the party line, I have investigated much of what you have listed. Just like you THINK I am spouting the "true believer" line you are spouting the "sue the Vatican", SNAP, etc. line without any filtering. Since I think this entire discussion is not helping the article in anyway and is just becoming a Soapbox I will bow out of this thread. Marauder40 (talk) 18:18, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
Yes, it's a "newsfeed" all right--from Zenit, which is a joint operation of Maciel's "Legion of Christ" and the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Social Communications. So we have EWTN, which never tires of trumpeting its unfaltering loyalty to the hierarchy of the Church, parroting a "news" story put out by another organization that gets its marching orders from the hierarchy, and the "news" story itself is little more than a pastiche of quotations from a self-serving press release issued by the Irish hierarchy whose predecessors the press release is trying to exonerate. The circle is complete! Thank you for demonstrating my point so elegantly. Harmakheru ✍ 18:34, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

WP:BURDEN

I guess this is all I ultimately have to say about this subject. I have seen any number of comments above saying "this should be included because (person x) said (this)." The page cited above indicates however that the burden of proof for indicating that anything should be added to any article lies on the person seeking to add the information. For the purposes of being included in this single article, which has god knows how many hundreds or thousands of directly derivative articles, the logical way to apply that rule is for the individuals to say not only that a given source is notable but that it is so notable that it has to be included in a comparatively short article, such as this one. Logically, that would seem to be best served by someone finding some other similar overview article, covering a similar scope as this article, and showing that it is so important that it does in fact verifiably belong here.

I have said above that I personally believe that it might merit inclusion, but that other events, which have happened over the same time period, are more notable and not yet covered in this article. The number of changes resulting from the Second Vatican Council is enormous. Bishops and bishops conferences were effectively given more autonomy. The language of services was changed from the Latin to the local language. The laity were encouraged and basically directly told to take a greater role in the affairs of the local church, thus reducing the role of the priests and other religious. Taken as a whole, these changes both served to demythologize the priest and his office and, in conjunction with outside matters, increase the internal resistance to the Catholic power structure. The number of serious changes which arose from all this include not only the Society of Saint Pius X and the broader Traditionalist Catholics, but also the Liberal Catholic Movement, as well as groups disagreeing with the church power structure about abortion, divorce, homosexuality, ordination of women, and god knows what all else. Not coincidentally, it also contributed significantly to and made possible the acknowledgement of the church officers of sexual misconduct. This whole subject, which I think is honestly of even greater importance than the more limited sexual abuse issue, is not treated extensively in the article.

If the sex abuse issue, which is much smaller, should be covered more, than this broader, more important topic should probably be expanded first. I would, if I were moving to change that, produce the sources I have to meet the BURDEN requirements in the way I outlined above. I have yet to see those arguing to expand the sex abuse do so. I look forward to seeing them do what is, basically, required by policy in such matters. And, if they succeed, I might produce the I think more obvious sources which clearly substantiate my own argument above. John Carter (talk) 17:51, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

(ec) So add a sentence, with sources - that's the burden; I will agree that these are probably collectively as important as the Old Catholics, whom we do mention. The sentence on the sex abuse cases does not in any way prevent you. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:44, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Throughout the course of this discussion, John Carter argues for censoring all and minimizing any references to the well-documented and widespread instances of Catholic priests raping children. Mr. Carter appears unconcerned with the effect of these multiple rapes upon upon the children themselves, including in English, Spanish-, French-, Dutch-, and German- speaking countries. Mr. Carter's central concern is placing the church history of sexual predation in the context of several centuries of history where he alleges-- without providing a scintilla of convincing proof-- that this element of sexual predation was not present prior to 50 years ago. There is no other place that I know of, at least, on Wikipedia, that extensive criminal activity is being covered up in a Wikipedia article. Mr. Carter appears more concerned with protecting the reputation of the church than in providing a factual and honest article that addresses facutal history. It is as if Mr. Carter is the church's very own public relations machine. Mr. Carter appears to be single-handedly preventing even a solitary reference to these crimes in this article. I believe this to be a violation of Wikipedia policies. Mr. Carter appears to be so invested in this issue that he lacks all sense of fairness or objectivity. The church itself has not mounted such a complete public relations effort as Mr. Carter offers here, preventing any public mention of the crimes of the clergy and the longtime cover-up by the hierarchy. Skywriter (talk) 23:41, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

let us see if the proposal to remove his excuse is accepted in good faith. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:45, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
(edit conflict) And, throughout the discussion, those who have sought to add the material have failed to provide the required information which policy and guidelines demand that this material is of sufficient importance to be given additional space. That failure to abide by policy and guidelines on the part of others is not something which can be attributed to me. And, I believe, this discussion has already been discussed on 28 pages of the archives as per here. I would have to assume that, until better evidence is given to substantiate that this material meets due weight for this article, however many times others wish to raise it without better evidence than has been given to date, there is no reason to think the results would be any different. Why those who seek to add the material ignore than is a mystery. However, they are certainly free to file an RfC, if they think it will do any good. John Carter (talk) 23:50, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
Thank you; that settles the question of what is going on here. John Carter cites no policy, no guideline; what WP:BURDEN requires is a source, which demand is abundantly supplied in the section above and in the linked article. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:08, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
Yes, the very first sentence of that section says, and I quote, "The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material." Therefore, it is incumbent on the persons seeking to add information that they provide the evidence to indicate that the material meets all required guidelines and policies. I have said what I believe are the reasonable bases according to WP:DUE as to what the specific terms in tnis case are, and have indicated that there is some question as to whether they have ever been met. Would it not make more sense to actually try to be as persuasive as the policies and guidelines indicate is required rather than trying to duck those requirements? I have seen nothing produced by anyone which meets those standards, and have to wonder whether all that is being accomplished is beating a dead horse as per WP:DEADHORSE. Where is the evidence that would indicate to any outsider that the story is so important that it must be included? I wouldn't mind seeing it, because, like I said above, if it is included, then material which I think is even more important would be included as well. But I have seen no clear and equivocal statement which clearly says that this story is of such great importance to the history of the church that there is no question that it must be included. And, based on the number of times requests to expand the material have already failed, I would have to think that stronger material would be required for it to succeed this time. John Carter (talk) 00:21, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
And the next sentence specifies what this burden is: All quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be attributed to a reliable, published source using an inline citation. That has been done, using a source widely cited in this very article.
Similarly, WP:DUE says that all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint, giving them "due weight". It is important to clarify that articles should not give minority views as much or as detailed a description as more widely held views; there are other guidelines which expect independent sources. But all we claim here is that "Since the late twentieth century, sex abuse by Catholic clergy has been the subject of media coverage, legal action and public debate"; is there a source which disputes that? Would such a source be credible? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:37, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
And, believe it or not, I already addressed that too. I have explicitly stated several times that the phrase that, in effect, "in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint" is the stickler here. The prominence would be determined by producing a reliable source which clearly and explicitly states either in direct words to that effect or in the amount of space that source gives the subject in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint, which includes other viewpoints about other material equally imporant. Why individuals insist that that opinion, and only that opinion, rather than, say, the opinion I expressed about how tbe church has "opened up" since Vatican II, has to be given additional weight at the cost, thus giving it more importance by more words, has to be given additional weight without their having established through independent verifiable information that the viewpoint regarding that particular subject needs more weight is something I frankly marvel at. Has the sourcing which, according to WP:BURDEN, clearly and explicitly indicates the proportional prominence of the viewpoint on that subject been produced? If it has, I didn't see it. And, like I indicated, based on previous discussion, the majority of people who have commented didn't either. If you are asking me personally to OK additional information, I might be willing to do it if others agreed that the subject which I consider even more important and pivotal than this one is also expanded proportionately. I ain't seen any evidence of that, though. And, honestly, even if I did, it would probably require the consensus of more people than me on all the proposed changes for it to be successful. Repeating myself yet again, if those who wish to expand the content wish to file an RfC on the matter, they are free to do so. I don't know how many have already been filed on this matter, but I would think that the kind of clear unambiguous evidence I suggested above would be what would be required for the proposal to gain approval from others. I really question what there is to gain by possibly simply repeating things which don't directly substantiate the claims that the subject is disproportionately underrepresented in the article in an effort to change the amount of content. But, again, feel free to file an RfC, but I wouldn't expect much to change based on what I have seen here. John Carter (talk) 00:55, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
In proportion to what other viewpoint? Who denies it? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:58, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

In short, we have a sourced statement, which no source contests, and which is of sufficient importance to be discussed both in a history of the whole church and in the daily papers. The rest of John Carter's post is sound and fury. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:05, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm not following what you have written. To which sourced statement do you refer? Also, when you say daily papers, are you referring to newspapers? Thanks. Skywriter (talk) 02:05, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
"Since the late twentieth century, sex abuse by Catholic clergy has been the subject of media coverage, legal action and public debate." See the note to Bodenkotter in the article. Yes, "daily papers" are newspapers; what else? Septentrionalis PMAnderson
I think what John Carter is looking for is not so much a source that establishes the facts of the sexual abuse scandal but one that puts into perspective vis-a-vis the rest of the history of the Church over the last 25-50 years. Let me extrapolate his comments to this query: Has anybody read the Encyclopedia Britannica Online's article on the Roman Catholic Church? What topics are covered wrt the history of the Church over the last 25-50 years? I would expect to see Vatican II, liberation theology, SSPX/traditionalist movement/Opus Dei AND the sexual abuse scandal. I think what we need in order to satisfy John Carter is a set of sources that cover the Church in broad overview (e.g. encyclopedia articles and general histories of the Church). If we can find 2-3 such sources that do mention the sexual abuse scandal, I think we will have addressed the concern that the sexual abuse scandal is really a "tempest in a teapot" that can be relegated to the dustbin of history.
Of course, since the scandal is ongoing, it is too early yet to determine how history will assess the importance of this vis-a-vis other things that are happenning contemporaneously. For now, what we must relay on are other major encyclopedias such as the Britannica to provide evidence as to how other scholars assess the importance of the scandal to the Church.
--Richard S (talk) 01:08, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
The difficulty would be finding sources which do not; I exclude, of course, sources which will not cover any of the above because they were published in 1960. But let's try the experiment. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:46, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
Here is the papacy of Benedict XVI as described by the Britannica Online High School Edition in its article "Roman Catholicism": "John Paul's successor, Benedict XVI, adopted his predecessor's conservative orthodoxy on matters of sexuality, priestly celibacy, and church organization and continued John Paul's dialogue with Judaism and Islam. He also faced the challenges of a decline in vocations and church attendance and the lasting effects of the scandal of the late 1990s and early 2000s concerning sexual abuse by priests." Two sentences covering four topics, and one of the four is the sex abuse scandal. Harmakheru ✍ 02:36, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
And that's the entire coverage (and one of two mentions) of this papacy. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:39, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
For this to be a fair comparison, please give us a sense of proportionality. What is the number of words given to "Roman Catholicism" in Britannica Online High School Edition? This Wikipedia article is more than 7500 words. Thanks. Skywriter (talk) 15:45, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
The online Columbia Encyclopedia, published by Columbia University Press (2008), in its article "Roman Catholic Church", gives Vatican II only one sentence with a mere 33 words, but devotes a whole paragraph of 180 words to the sex abuse crisis. Harmakheru ✍ 03:01, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
For this to be a fair comparison, please state the total number of words in the article "Roman Catholic church" in Columbia Encyclopedia. This article in Wikipedia is more than 7500 words. Then we will have a sense of proportion. Skywriter (talk) 15:39, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
The Encyclopedia of Religion (Macmillan Reference, 2005) devotes 567 words to Vatican II, disposes of the pontificates of Paul VI, JP1, and JP2 in only 78 words, and then devotes 141 words to the abuse crisis--including this:
"This priest-pedophilia tragedy has been compounded immeasurably by the delinquency of church authority. Schooled in habits of hierarchical, authoritarian arrogance, few bishops initially felt compelled to respond compassionately to the victims of past abuse or to safeguard potential future victims. Instead, their first instincts were to protect predator priests, by reassigning them to other parishes without notice or simply by denying that the abuse ever took place."
Doesn't that sound a lot like what I've been saying? Harmakheru ✍ 03:30, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
What is the name of the article to which you refer in Encyclopedia of Religion? How many words is it in its totality? Knowing this will give a sense of proportionality now lacking based on what you have said, Harmakheru. Thanks. Skywriter (talk) 15:49, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

The Encyclopedia Britannica and World Book Encyclopedia give ZERO coverage of the Child abuse scandal in their Catholicism articles. Every so often we get people come to this article having read sensationalist articles in sections of the press and decide they want this article to be all about the issue. Strangely these people do not go to articles on Education, Anglicanism, Baptist Church, Judaism and Islam demanding the same thing. The simple fact is that the actions of a number of catholics in recent years and certain countries (and in no greater percentage than occurs anywhere else) are not a matter for more than a (balanced) sentence or two in an article covering the worldwide church, its beliefs and its influence on the world over 2000 years. Anything else is UNDUE WEIGHT and RECENTISM. This is not a popular US newspaper, or a site for one-sided denunciations of the Catholicism. Xandar 22:54, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

"ZERO coverage" in the Britannica? How odd. Here is Britannica Online's coverage of the abuse scandal in the article "Roman Catholicism > Roman Catholicism Outside Europe > Roman Catholicism in the United States and Canada > United States":
"In the early 21st century the American church was shaken by accusations of child molestation on the part of many clergy. A study commissioned by the National Review Board of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops showed that some 4 percent of American priests (more than 4,000) had committed such crimes, in some cases repeatedly and over a period of several decades. More than 10,000 cases of molestation were authenticated, though victims’ groups asserted that additional cases went unreported because the victims were ashamed to come forward. It also became evident that some bishops had made a bad situation worse by shielding priests who had sexually abused minors or by transferring them to other pastoral assignments. When faced with the immensity of the problem, the church, after some halting steps, dealt with it publicly and worked to prevent abuse from happening again. By 2004 the Catholic church worldwide had paid out more than $1 billion (U.S.) in jury awards, settlements, and legal fees, leading some dioceses to consider protection under bankruptcy law."
From the Britannica Online article "John Paul II > Assessment":
"Some critics charged that John Paul’s autocratic style of governing greatly discouraged American and European bishops from seeking the Vatican’s help in responding to accusations, which began in the late 20th century, of sexual abuse of minors by clergy. Even as revelations of the abuse grew into a worldwide scandal, the church did little to confront the problem, allowing it to fester without intervention or punishment. In April 2002 the U.S. cardinals received an unprecedented papal summons to Rome, during which time John Paul declared that there was “no place in the priesthood” for anyone who would abuse children. In June 2002 all American bishops met in Dallas, Texas, to adopt strict new policies for investigating any charges of clergy abuse of minors and removing proven offenders. Ultimately, however, the church’s reputation in the United States and Europe was gravely damaged. By 2005 the church in the United States had spent more than $1 billion in litigation and legal settlements."
From the Britannica Online article "Tarcisio Cardinal Bertone":
"In 2007 he ... denounced media coverage of the church sexual abuse scandal as being disproportionately negative and biased. In 2010 the tradition of celibacy among Catholic priests attracted scrutiny after reports emerged of decades of sexual abuse of parishioners, particularly of children, by priests in Ireland, Austria, and Germany. In response Bertone issued a widely criticized statement that not only defended celibacy among priests but was interpreted as generally linking pedophilia to male homosexuality."
From the Britannica Online article "Papacy > The Modern Papacy":
"The scandal of the 1990s and early 2000s surrounding the church’s handling of numerous cases of sexual abuse by priests prompted some critics of the pope to question further the wisdom of his stance on sexual issues. This controversy became part of a long-standing debate, joined by Catholics and non-Catholics alike, about whether the church had accommodated too much or too little to the secular, modern age."
From the Britannica Online article "Benedict XVI":
"In 2010 allegations of sexual and physical abuse by parish priests and in parochial schools—particularly in Germany, Ireland, and the United States—brought Benedict, and his role in the cases in Germany in particular, under close media scrutiny. In a pastoral letter, Benedict rebuked the bishops of the Irish church for a failure of leadership. The Vatican also denounced as 'false and calumnious' the charge that as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith Benedict had been responsible for a policy of covering up cases of sexual abuse, declaring that his handling of the cases showed 'wisdom and firmness.'"
That's an awful lot of words for "ZERO" coverage. Harmakheru ✍ 00:16, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
I was talking about the real print Encyclopedia Britannica and World Book. Not "online" articles about individual figures or the Church in the United States. Those are not comparable to THIS article. Xandar 23:50, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
I should also add that the Britannica's 2002 "Year in Review" has an article entitled "Roman Catholic Church Scandal" which runs to 980 words. By contrast, the main Encyclopedia's entire article on the Second Vatican Council is only about 600. Harmakheru ✍ 01:02, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
Skywriter: With respect to the word counts on which you asked for more information, I was mainly providing a response to Richard and John Carter on the subject of relative weight given to Vatican II and the abuse crisis. But here are the overall stats as best I can compute them (with some minor variation from the previous numbers due to slop in the copy-and-paste process):
Columbia Encyclopedia
Article: "Roman Catholic Church"
Total word count: 2575
Vatican II: 33 (1.3%)
Abuse crisis: 180 (7%)
Encyclopedia of Religion
Article: "Roman Catholicism"
Total word count: 17,200
Vatican II: 547 (3.2%)
Abuse crisis: 146 (0.85%)
Wikipedia
Article: "Catholic Church"
Total word count: 7600
Vatican II: 55 (0.72%), or 177 (2.3%) if you also include the "aftermath"
Abuse crisis: 22 (0.29%)
Overall numbers for the Britannica Online article would be difficult to come up with. The article runs to 121 pages even in the "High School" edition, and both V2 and the abuse crisis are mentioned in multiple places. My guess is that the total word count for the article is around 84,000 words; but how much of that refers to either V2 or the abuse crisis in one way or another would be impossible to determine without reading the whole article, and life is too short for that. Harmakheru ✍ 01:30, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
Thank you, Harmakheru. I believe you have established that credible encyclopedias have given significant space to the issue and that Wikipedia has not in this article. I propose that the vague one-sentence reference be expanded and linked to the longer Wikipedia article on this subject. Within the next day, I will provide scholarly resources to provide the summary. I am deeply troubled by Mr. Carter's substitution of his own personal opinion for credible secondary sources. Mr. Carter has offered absolutely no references to support his claim that this topic is of marginal and tangential interest to this article. I am also troubled by Mr. Carter's substitution of his own personal opinion for the Pope's judgment. In 2002, Pope Benedict XVI said the reality of the church child abuse scandal is "terrifying." Unless Mr. Carter makes a convincing case for censoring the pope, I believe the pope should be quoted directly. Skywriter (talk) 02:47, 27 August 2010 (UTC)


Yes, thank you, Harmakheru. Those are exactly the kind of quotes and statistics that I was looking for. FWIW, I did go to the EB Online before asking but you need to sign up for a trial subscription to view full articles and I *HATE* trial subscriptions.


First of all, it seems clear to me that we should form a task force within the Catholic Church Wikiproject to focus on the coverage of the sexual abuse scandal across multiple Wikipedia articles. I would wager that few of them cover the sexual abuse scandal at the same depth as the EB articles that you cited above.
I do like the treatment in EB Online's article on Catholicism in the United States:


"In the early 21st century the American church was shaken by accusations of child molestation on the part of many clergy. A study commissioned by the National Review Board of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops showed that some 4 percent of American priests (more than 4,000) had committed such crimes, in some cases repeatedly and over a period of several decades. More than 10,000 cases of molestation were authenticated, though victims’ groups asserted that additional cases went unreported because the victims were ashamed to come forward. It also became evident that some bishops had made a bad situation worse by shielding priests who had sexually abused minors or by transferring them to other pastoral assignments. When faced with the immensity of the problem, the church, after some halting steps, dealt with it publicly and worked to prevent abuse from happening again. By 2004 the Catholic church worldwide had paid out more than $1 billion (U.S.) in jury awards, settlements, and legal fees, leading some dioceses to consider protection under bankruptcy law."


I will comment, however, that this is from the article on Catholicism in the United States and not on the Roman Catholic Church as a whole. Thus, we have not quite addressed the argument that the scandal was limited to a few countries (notably U.S., Canada, Australia Ireland and the U.K.). Outside those countries, the scandal has been much smaller in scope. In fact, it is not uncommon for Wikipedia editors to remark on the fact that the scandal has been most prominent in Anglophone countries.


To demonstrate that, despite the limited geographic scope, the scandal affects the Church as a whole, we have to look at the EB Online articles on "The Modern Papacy", "John Paul II" and "Benedict XVI". Those suggest that the scandal has been important enough to warrant mention in each of those articles and thus perhaps also in this Wikipedia article.


Like Skywriter, I would like to see a somewhat expanded treatment of the topic in this article. However, I like the EB Online's tone much better than some of the other articles that you quoted earlier (some of which, IMO, are too strident in their criticism of the Church. Of course, everyone has a right to their POV but we have to be careful to present POVs as opinion rather than as fact.) There are facts (e.g. how many priests, how many cases, what actions the bishops took or failed to take, etc.) and there are opinions (e.g. motivations and culpability of the bishops, causes of the scandal, timeliness of the Vatican's involvement, effectiveness of the response, etc.) I would like to have this article limit its treatment of the topic to the facts and leave the discussion of opinions, analysis and judgment to the detailed articles. The minute we open the door to criticisms and defenses of the Church's action or inaction, we wind up with a big long paragraph that becomes disproportionately long compared to other important topics.


--Richard S (talk) 05:33, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
Yes I would think it would be interesting to compare the percentage of coverage over the entire Wikipedia project of the sexual abuse scandel, vs. those in other mainline encyclopedias. As you mentioned, the main article of Catholicism in most barely, if at all mention it. It is only in those articles that are closer in timeline and scope that mention it at all and usually just a paragraph or two. WP has entire pages devoted to the scandal. Marauder40 (talk) 13:11, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
Agreed. Please note that as I thought I was clearly saying, if I wasn't I apologize, I have no objection to the matter being discussed in wikipedia. The matter is how much weight to give this one matter in the main article on the topic, which also has to cover the other 2000 years or so that the Church is, by various sources, believe to have had. WP:NOTNEWS could be invoked as being a policy guideline we have which other encyclopedias do not. It could also be said that we aim at a global market, which some others do not, and, possibly, that our content in the English version, particularly our high-quality, extensive content, is what will likely serve as the basis for the content of all the other languages' pages as well. We also have a policy WP:NOTPAPER which allows for any number of child articles which other sources do not. The question is really not to my eyes about whether the subject should be covered at all - I believe it should be discussed as extensively as the subject deserves given wikipedia's policies, in as many articles as logic would indicate. Given that this topic has been rather significant in the history of some national Catholic churches, notably the church in the US, to an extent in Canada (although I think part of that might be due to similar problems in the Anglican Church there), Australia, and other nations, then by all means it should be discussed there.
There is also one other matter which I believe directly relevant. That is, whether we like it or not, this subject has been discussed to some degree or another on at least 28 pages of the archived discussions on this single article, and is also a rather controversial issue. If, after discussion of that length and depth, it has been determined that more or less one sentence is the proportional representation due it, then I think that any attempts to change that amount would be very likely to be unsuccessful unless they make it very clear in a rather unarguable manner that additional content is, in effect, required by the policies and guidelines relevant to the material. John Carter (talk) 14:52, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
Your first post in this section objected to a single sentence, on grounds that were partly waffle and partly provably false. My own position is that a single sentence with link is minimal, and that much over a paragraph is excessive; but there is patently no consensus to stop with a sentence. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:53, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
Fine. But the consensus as per WP:CONSENSUS has to be agree to it. There has been no demonstration that there is consensus to add material, and, given the likelihood that a number of editors have decided to ignore this very likely repetitive discussion (I myself haven't historically checked the page that often), it would be unreasonable to assert that, based on the few comments of any kind which have been added to date on this topic, that there is anything like the required consensus to add the material. And the burden is also on those who seek to add the material. In this case, there would have to be a demonstrated consensus to add the material, and I don't see it. And, given the importance of this article, I think any attempt to add material on such a controversial topic without broad based consensus would almost certainly lead to an RfC and, likely, a reversion of the added content until the consensus is definitely established. John Carter (talk) 20:02, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
I see this is the same old falsehood about what WP:BURDEN says: the burden is to provide sources; which is not at all difficult. I will support any accurate and verifiable text within my length limits. If there is an RfC, I will support a topic ban. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:11, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
And I see that you continue to refuse to address the equally important points regarding consensus. It is hard to not get the impression that you are, somehow, afraid of the matter getting broad based consensus, which would be logical to receive before making any changes to such an important article on such a controversial point. Why is that? I do note that it is the beginning of the school year, and a lot of editors are on that basis busy with other matters. I would really hate to think that conducting this discussion at a time many people are busy elsewhere is some sort of back door attempt to sneak changes in when many people are otherwise engaged. John Carter (talk) 20:19, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
In The Independent today 27/08/10 " The recruitment crisis in ireland is a clear indication of how low the Church has sunk in a country that once used to export catholic missionaries and provided Britain with many of its priests..just 16 men are due to start training for the priesthood this autumn. The Irish Churchs reputation has been battered in the past five years by sexual abuse scandals and repeated revelations that senior church officials deliberately covered up the crimes of paedophile priests. Fr Patrick Rushe , the national coordinator for diocesan vocations directors said the claims of sexual abuse hampered recruiting.Similar shortages of priests have occurred in the United States, where the church has also found itself mired in numerous paedophile scandals. 40 years ago there was one priest for every 772 US Catholics; now there is one for every 1,603. Even staunchly Catholic countries like Poland which underwent a religious revival after the collapse of Communism, are struggling with recruitment..NOTNEWS...but what about KEEPSBEINGNEWS. Sayerslle (talk) 18:31, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
For what it's worth, I think that the crisis in Europe, including Ireland, and the US, Canada, and the English-speaking world is pretty much a given, and has been admitted to be such. The last sentence about Poland you quoted above also doesn't directly link the lack of recruitment to the sex abuse crisis, and there are any number of reasons, possibly including the collapse of communism and the recent growth of a capitalist/consumerist market, and the Western materialistic attitude in general, which could be involved there as well, at least based on the material presented. Personally, I have seen the loss of vocations in the entire world drop dramatically in the past several years, but it would be WP:SYNTH to say that that larger pattern is linked to the sex abuse matter without a reliable source explicitly saying as much. John Carter (talk) 18:39, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

This last post is desperate hokum, waving non-existent points about consensus, combined with charges about the timing of a discussion which Carter chose to start. This should be my last post in this section; I should know better than to discuss with accounts which have never evidenced good faith. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:34, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

And you should also know better to than engage in deliberately ad hominem attacks which pointedly refuse to discuss any of the points raised. I am not necessarily surprised by it, unfortunately. A request for additional input has been filed at the [WP:CNB|content noticeboard]]. John Carter (talk) 20:46, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
I agree with PManderson that the post in question shows a failure to assume good faith. I have respect for John Carter as an editor and I'm a bit surprised that he has been less than collegial in this discussion. --Richard S (talk) 21:07, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
My apologies, but it is hard to assume good faith about someone whose block record indicates that the party in question has had numerous serious disagreements regarding behavior and policy. I still say that the point regarding consensus to add information is a valid one, and raising the argument that there is no consensus not to add it is a bit of a distraction. John Carter (talk) 21:25, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
Well, Mr. Carter, I see you bloviating off-topic and making personal attacks against those whose arguments with which you disagree. Your grasp of the subject as it relates to the extent of the problem of sex abuse and the clergy in the Catholic Church makes it appear as though you have done very little study and have very little knowledge but an overflow of opinion on this topic. And based on that small amount of knowledge, you are loudly exclaiming that your opinion, not backed up by any factual secondary sources, is the only one that counts. Your central argument, that many editors apparently have come to this page before and argued for an expansion of this section and have been worn down before any changes could be made, does not persuade me that your opinion is based on facts or sources that can be checked. So I ask you again. Where are the credible secondary sources that support your personal opinion? As to your not believable claim that sex abuse of children by Catholic clergy is mostly limited to the English-speaking world and there only some parts of Europe and the US, well that's just another case where you are trading in opinion and not verifiable factRoman Catholic sex abuse cases by country. N'est-ce pas? Skywriter (talk) 23:16, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
I think personal attacks are being made by far more than John Carter here. What i see is a failure to answer pertinent points and some rather creative synthesis of selected and often irrelevant articles from certain online sources. There is no need whatsoever to prove that the "crisis" is not worldwide. It is up to those making that assertion to provide such proof. What I see here is certain individuals trying to push a line on this article that follows ill-informed and highly-criticised tabloid coverage of the issue. We had a longer, balanced paragraph on the abuse issue, but it was decided, against my and some others argument to reduce that, and include just a mention and links. As I and others said when the article was cut radically, there are MANY issues regarding the Catholic Church that are principal and central which are not discussed and were removed, such as the Church's works and mission throughout the world, its societal influence and monastic and other structures. There is no way we can exclude a proper comprehensive overview of Catholicism while including Unduly Weighted sections on localised scandals. Xandar 23:50, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
Factually, a vague mention and one link in this article to an important topic is what now exists. Was this the result of excessive edit warring? I see no one proffering "tabloid coverage" and that claim undercuts your argument. Why not restore that longer, balanced paragraph? There appears to be support for expansion now. By necessity, based on the nature of the subject matter, there are and could be many "child" articles that are touched on in the main parent article and the topic expanded in the child articles. That's how other articles work on Wikipedia. Why not here? I do believe there should be links from this parent article and that does seem to be lacking, along with the summary of the topics that would make the parent article too long. There could be, for example, a link to the missions in California. There's much good that the church has done and some bad. It is not Wikipedia policy to be a publicity machine for one point of view or the other. A vague mention and one link in this article to the history of priests raping children leans heavily toward the one viewpoint that ignores the victims that are a real part of Catholic Church history. It also ignores the significant body of scholarship that has been written on this subject. Skywriter (talk) 00:08, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Moving forward

From Nancy Heise's long version of this article:

Major lawsuits emerged in 2001 claiming that priests had sexually abused minors.[415] In the US, the country with the vast majority of sex abuse cases,[416] the United States Conference of Catholic Bishopscommissioned a comprehensive study that found that four percent of all priests who served in the US from 1950 to 2002 faced some sort of sexual accusation.[417][418] The Church was widely criticized when it emerged that some bishops had known about abuse allegations, and reassigned accused priests after first sending them to psychiatric counseling.[415][418][419][420] Some bishops and psychiatrists contended that the prevailing psychology of the times suggested that people could be cured of such behavior through counseling.[419][421] Pope John Paul II responded by declaring that "there is no place in the priesthood and religious life for those who would harm the young".[422] The US Church instituted reforms to prevent future abuse including requiring background checks for Church employees and volunteers;[423][424] and, because the vast majority of victims were teenage boys,[note 8] the worldwide Church also prohibited the ordination of men with "deep-seated homosexual tendencies".[161][421] Some commentators, such as journalist Jon Dougherty, have argued that media coverage of the issue has been excessive, given that the same problems plague other institutions, such as the US public school system, with much greater frequency.[425][426][427]

Actually, I thought the above text was not that bad with the following reservations: I think the sentence about Pope John Paul II's response was overly focused on that one declaration rather than commenting about the Vatican's involvement over a much longer period of time. Similarly, while it's true that the "US Church instituted reforms...", other national bishops conferences undoubtedly did likewise and the sentence should not focus exclusively on the "U.S. church" (and there's no such thing anyway). The bit about "excessive media coverage" isn't absolutely necessary here and could be dropped. It's an example of apologetics that doesn't belong in this article (the issue of media coverage is dealt with in the main article on this topic).

Here's a proposed summary based on the EB Online text (needs further cleanup to avoid plagiarism)

"Starting in the 1980s, the issue of sexual abuse of minors by Catholic clergy became the focus of media attention and public debate in countries such as Canada, the United States, Ireland and Australia. In the United States alone, more than 10,000 cases of molestation were authenticated, though victims’ groups asserted that additional cases went unreported because the victims were ashamed to come forward. Many of the charges alleged abuse dating as far back as the 1950s. It was further alleged that bishops had deliberately and systematically mishandled reports of abuse by shielding priests and transferring them to other pastoral assignments. A number of bishops resigned as a result of the controversy over their handling of the sexual abuse incidents. By 2004 the Catholic church worldwide had paid out more than $1 billion (U.S.) in jury awards, settlements, and legal fees, leading some dioceses to seek protection under bankruptcy law. In response to the scandal, the Church established formal procedures to prevent abuse, to encourage reporting of any abuse that did occur and to handle such reports promptly and effectively."

There are a bunch of other good points made in the EB Online text provided by Harmakheru. However, those points should be presented in the detail articles.


--Richard S (talk) 21:07, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

One important point: Both NancyHeise's version and the EB Online erroneously date the origin of this scandal to the early 21st century. This oversimplification is probably made because the turning point was a series of articles published by The Boston Globe in 2002. However, the first lawsuits that came to national attention in the U.S. were filed in the mid-1980s. Canada and Ireland began to come to grips with their scandals in the 1990s. Canada more or less resolved the scandal with reforms instituted in the 1990s. The scandal in Ireland continued and was still being dealt with as recently as last year. Scandals in Austria and Germany have been the subject of recent media attention although it seems that the scope of the scandal in those countries is not at all on the same scale as it was in the U.S. --Richard S (talk) 21:15, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

One question? Why on earth was the material deleted in the first place? As someone who is, like I have said, not that regular with this article, I had assumed the FA candidate article was still largely in place. John Carter (talk) 21:27, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
Hi John, I had assumed that the FA candidate article was going to be given a chance to incorporate FA comments and try again. I would be in favor of doing that if there is sufficient support for it. The candidate article is on my userpage. I came by today to post this [6] link to the Harvard Valedictorian's address regarding the Catholic Church and how it has influenced civilization - points which the FA candidate article had incorporated but which the new version has tossed. NancyHeise talk 22:40, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
Nancy, what is FA? Skywriter (talk) 00:18, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
WP:Featured articles, which has repeatedly declined to accept Nancy's nominations of her biased and ill-written forms of this article; you can find links in the box labelled Milestones on the top of the page. She has been arguing interminably that anything the reviewers didn't get around to objecting to is "endorsed by FA" and therefore must be retained.
This is a fair sample, unfortunately, of the discussion on this talk page. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:27, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Balance

Apart from the fact that Richard's version is too long by at least 50% for the PRESENT size of the article, and hence becomes Undue Weight, it also manages to excise virtually all the balance from the original agreed wording, and include a lot of additional slanted allegations and sensationalising. 10,000 cases of "molestation" were not "authenticated", they were alleged over a considerable time scale. And what was being alleged is not declared, since this stuff runs from inappropriate touching being looked at in the shower to more serious acts, and a range of ages up to 17. Allegations of "shielding" priests are not balanced with explanation nor are comparable figures and behaviours elsewhere in society referred to - a major factor in understanding what happened. Alleged unreported cases are hearsay and could be balanced by false claims, and allegations that many "suddenly remembered" claims had a lot to do with the money available. There is also weasel wording, such as "in the United States alone..." implying that the large headline figure quoted is typical worldwide. And comments that bishops systematically mishandled the situation are not balanced with any rebuttal. We also seem to have lost criticisms of media coverage, the homosexual aspect, and the psychological factors. An encyclopedic article must contain a balanced presentation, not a list of charges. Xandar 00:07, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Re "10,000 cases were not authenticated", Xandar is right. Our article on the John Jay Report says "Of the 11,000 allegations reported by bishops in the John Jay study, 3,300 were not investigated because the allegations were made after the accused priest had died. 6,700 allegations were substantiated, leaving 1,000 that could not be substantiated." My bad. I was being sloppy in just paraphrasing the EB Online article. 6700 allegations is a more accurate number than "10,000 cases" but, as far as I am concerned, it's a distinction without a difference. The order of magnitude is basically the same.
As for balance, I suspect that we will never agree on this point. What Xandar sees as "necessary balance", I see as "unnecessary detail leaning towards apologetics". I'm all for covering these issues in the detailed articles but I don't think they are appropriate in a summary article such as this one.
I want to simply state the facts without calumny, judgment or defense. Xandar wants to balance those facts with "explanations". This leads to the unwieldy bit of apologetics that was in NancyHeise's original "long version" article text.
--Richard S (talk) 07:09, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
NancyHeise's version begins in the 21st century. The National Catholic Reporter was the first to report criminal cases in Louisiana in 1983 and the wire services picked it up. There was one case in particular where the priest was convicted or raping more than a hundred children and was sent to prison for many years. Jason Berry was the reporter and he has since written several books on the topic. The first, most detailed, and most famous of his books was Lead Us Not into Temptation. Xandar, do you classify the National Catholic Reporter as a "tabloid"? Skywriter (talk) 00:16, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
Factually I think it is a tabloid. However I am talking about a tabloid style of slanted, and innuendo-filled reporting adopted by certain media sources on this issue - that does not give the full story, removes the context and tries to imply things that are not the case, such as that this is only a Catholic problem or that the Church acted differently to any other institution at the time. For example you talk of a priest "raping" more than a hundred children. Rape is a specific crime, and most of the accusations do not involve this. Rape is also an emotive word which is used to describe a forceful physical attack. This word tends to be used by tabloids to create additional outrage, when official sources speak of ((what is known as statutory rape, ie) any sexual relations with an under age person. I am not sure what age range this unnamed priest is convicted of abusing, but that is also pertinent to accurate description. An encyclopedia article needs to remove inaccurate or emotive language, and reporting that misleads as to what happened, to who, and what the church did differently to anyone else at the time. Xandar 00:34, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
Rape of young children is what Rev. Gilbert Gauthe was convicted [7] and his reign of criminal activity was the first that came to trial and conviction in the modern era. He was accused by the families of more than 100 children and convicted on 35 counts.[8] 60 Minutes also establishes that Gauthe was the priest of the first Catholic Church in the US brought to trial on criminal counts for raping children.
I'm afraid that's wrong. The site you linked to says that Gauthe was convicted of abusing "as many as" (ie up to) 39 children. Some of the crimes include "licking on the cheeks". Official sources state that he was admitted to charges of child abuse and sexual acts with children. And that was what he was convicted - of, not rape. Information should be accurate, not exaggerated, second hand or imbued with emotional wording. [9] and [10] Xandar 13:32, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

[11] Skywriter (talk) 01:53, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

I've been marginally following this conversation but not participating. My feeling is that until the article gets the overhaul it so desperately needs, at this point mention of the child abuse scandal has to stay within the perspective of the 2000 year history. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 02:12, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Truthkeeper. Responding to questions above, FA refers to Featured Article which the long version trying to be. That version was not only classified as a Good Article for quite some time, it was peer reviewed and GA reviewed as well. Its lastest candidacy as a Featured Article Candidate had 25 editors supporting and 8 opposing in the last attempt. Regarding the National Catholic Reporter news outlet, it is definitely a questionable source and certainly not neutral -it has an ax to grind against the Church. I consider it very anti-Catholic. See [12][13] [14] NancyHeise talk 02:15, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
But just to be clear; we're now working on this version. It's been stable for months which is a good thing. There hasn't been any edit warring at all - all of which is good for the article. I'm fine to see some addition about the abuse scandal, but essentially agree with (I think with PMA) that it needn't take more space than many other scandals. The article needs a major rewrite - we've gotten to the 4th century I think - only 17 more to go. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 02:25, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
I agree in principle that this article should not go into great detail about the sexual abuse scandal. However, I'd like to understand what Truthkeeper88 means when he says "it needn't take more space than many other scandals". Could you please name another scandal that is mentioned in this article that the sexual abuse scandal shouldn't take more space than? --Richard S (talk) 04:40, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
Well, my example was the Investiture Conflict. which has a paragraph (and which omits most of the charges on both sides). The Albigensian Crusade, which is a scandal nowadays, not just at the time, has about the same length. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:38, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

National Catholic Reporter

Nancy, is there anything except your personal viewpoint to support your opinion that The National Catholic Reporter is biased? And what of 60 Minutes? Is that biased too? What about the court that convicted Gilbert Gauthe? Biased also? Or are you just attacking the messengers at The National Catholic Reporter, all of whom are Catholics. Or are you arguing that this article should represent only certain Catholics? Skywriter (talk) 02:22, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Nancy, on what basis do you consider the NCR to be "very anti-Catholic"? Why would you condemn it as being "a questionable source and certainly not neutral" and yet defend other sources which others consider questionable and not neutral? Does being very pro-Catholic equate to neutrality? Please elucidate on why you believe that conservative media commentators can be considered neutral whilst more progressive ones apparently can't be. Afterwriting (talk) 10:09, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Nancy, although your particular bias may prevent you from seeing this, it is clear that you have disqualified yourself from contributing to this article unless and until your personal viewpoint changes. Your labeling as "anti-Catholic" the respected National Catholic Reporter, which identifies itself as a Catholic publication, is a serious violation of NPOV, one of Wikipedia's three core principles. You cite three sources to support your POV. Of those, Time does not support your view and the other two are blogs with axes to grind. Skywriter (talk) 15:21, 28 August 2010 (UTC)


It seems that, in Nancy Heise's book, "anti-Catholic" may be synonymous with "liberal" and "progressive". Here are some interesting points from the Wikipedia article on the National Catholic Reporter...
Objecting to the paper’s strong stands on birth control, priestly celibacy and criticism of the hierarchy, (Bishop Charles Herman) Helmsing cited an imbalance in news coverage and condemned NCR. Sixty-six Catholic journalists signed a statement disagreeing with the condemnation based on its "underlying definition of the legitimate boundaries of religious journalism in service to the church."[2] The Catholic Press Association reported that the dispute arose from a difference of opinion regarding the function of the press."
Unlike diocesan publications or those of religious institutes, NCR is independent of ecclesiastical oversight. On the page with its mission statement, NCR states that "Approximately 23% of the U.S. population identifies itself as Catholic, the largest religious body in this country, and NCR is the only significant alternative Catholic voice that provides avenues for expression of diverse perspectives, promoting tolerance and respect for differing ideas. Though a large amount of its reporting deals with issues of the Catholic Church, an equal amount of its coverage is a marriage of the religious, political and social forces shaping public policies and institutions." NCR is "committed to shaping a world that recognizes the dignity of every human being, regardless of religious belief, gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation or other characteristic. Throughout our history, we have been a voice for the disadvantaged and the marginalized, and we have told the stories of injustice that others simply will not print."[3]
NCR has won the General Excellence award from the Catholic Press Association in the category of national news publications each year from 2000 through 2010. NCR was the first U.S. publication to write about the clergy sex abuse scandal. Its coverage began in 1983 and for at least five years was virtually alone in the Catholic press drawing attention to the widespread abuses.

I really think that we need to differentiate between those that dissent from the Church's official actions and teaching and those that are motivated by an anti-Catholic animus. Nancy's casting of the NCR as "anti-Catholic" smacks of McCarthyite labeling of progressives as "unAmerican". That said, one should always be careful about relying too heavily on assertions in any newspaper since the articles may have a POV slant to them. No source (even the Encyclopedia Britannica) can be considered to be 100% authoritative in everything it asserts except perhaps in the instance that an official document of an institution can be relied upon to state the official position of that institution. --Richard S (talk) 21:01, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

What's particularly funny about this is that Nancy actually used an article in First Things to attack the National Catholic Reporter, despite the fact that the editors and high-profile writers in First Things (Neuhaus, Weigel, Glendon) spent years defending the child-raping drug addict and all-around sociopath Marcial Maciel, founder of the "Legion of Christ"--trashing his accusers, praising his alleged achievements, and declaring it "morally certain" that he was innocent of any wrongdoing. First Things stuck by Maciel even after the Vatican had ordered him to retire to a "reserved life of penitence and prayer, relinquishing any form of public ministry" (which, we were assured by First Things, "does not connote punishment for wrongdoing"), and only grudgingly abandoned him when the Vatican and the Legion finally admitted what everyone else already knew--that Maciel was a perverted monster. NCR, on the other hand, got the story exactly right from the beginning, and was one of the major factors in exposing Maciel's crimes and his network of collaborators and protectors in the Vatican. If anything is clear on this one, it's that NCR was on the side of the angels, and First Things was ... well, on the other side. Nice going, Nancy. Harmakheru ✍ 21:19, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
The NCR has a clear history of anti-official-Catholic agitation on doctrine, celibacy, women-priests and other issues, and has been criticised by other Catholics for this. I'm not sure what point is being made here, but we have to note the line from which quoted publications are coming from. Unfortunately Harmakheru is again using emotive, slanted and highly POV language. Talking about "perverted monsters", a "child-raping drug-addict" and "collaborators in the Vatican", seems to present a highly emotional POV unsuited to dealing with these issues in an encyclopedic and unprejudiced manner. This is not the National Enquirer. A review of Maciel's life from the Guardian appears here. Xandar 22:46, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
At the top of this and every talk page, Xandar, is the statement, This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. Please refrain from going off-topic. This is not a forum for discussing your --or any other editor's-- opinions of the National Catholic Reporter or the National Catholic Register both initialed NCR. I have no problem citing the Guardian with regard to the Maciel matter, which obviously involved the papacy. Shall we now add material from it to this article? Skywriter (talk) 03:31, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
I want to emphasize that it is our job to add material from both NCRs fairly and not to exclude either POV. Absent at the moment from this article is any inkling that there is a difference of opinion. Our job is to be neutral and not to push any particular viewpoint. The attacks on the National Catholic Reporter and subsequent exclusion of excellent reporting from that publication is not neutral and can be construed as a violation of one of Wikipedia's three core policies. Your position, Xandar, that the National Catholic Reporter "has a clear history of anti-official-Catholic agitation on doctrine" is not a neutral position. It is not the purpose of this or any encyclopedia, unless it is published by the Vatican, to solely present Catholic doctrine. Wikipedia encourages the representation of all viewpoints and the suppression of none. Your position and that of some who apparently share your viewpoint is to suppress viewpoints. This violates core, non-negotiable Wikipedia policy and I ask that you reconsider what you are doing. Skywriter (talk) 03:42, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
Xandar, I'm not proposing language for the article; I'm responding to your and Nancy's obvious biases and tendentious pleading. Nancy claims that the National Catholic Reporter is "very anti-Catholic", which is laughable in itself, and then tries to back it up by quoting an "authority" which has a long history of defending the indefensible with the most specious arguments and character assassination. And if you think I'm being too hard on Maciel, then how about this from the Vatican's official communique on the subject: "The extremely grave and objectively immoral behavior of Fr. Maciel, which has been confirmed by irrefutable testimony, takes the form of true crimes and demonstrates a private life without scruples or authentic religious sentiment." Is that also "emotive, slanted and highly POV language" which has no business in an encyclopedic article about the Catholic Church? Or is it just a plain statement of facts? Harmakheru ✍ 04:03, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
Muddying the water doesn't help here. You didn't talk about "grave immoral behaviour" in terms of Fr Maciel, but of a "perverted monster", and "child-raping drug-addict"! This is just the sort of hysterical language I am complaining about. As far as I can see, the main allegations against him were not against children, but Seminary students in the 1950s. And it was Cardinal Ratzinger who insisted they were investigated. Once again, we shouldn't be dealing on a level with individuals in this article, but I am pointing out the enormous exaggerations and hysteria raised by this issue, and which an encyclopedia must avoid. Xandar 23:36, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
Maciel's "extremely grave and objectively immoral behavior" included using the authority of his priestly office to coerce minors ("seminarians", yes--but some as young as fifteen) into masturbating him to orgasm. Do you seriously contend that such behavior is not "perverted"? It is also a matter of record that he was addicted to drugs for most of his adult life, and his own son has testified: "When I was 7 years old, I was lying down with him like any boy, any son with his father. He pulled down my pants and tried to rape me." In that light, "child-raping drug addict" would seem to be an accurate description--and given that along with all the other things he is known to have done, "monster" is not an exaggeration either. Apparently your notion of "encyclopedic" language is language eviscerated of all human feeling and moral sense, no matter how horrific the crime. It would be like summarizing the Holocaust as "the deaths of an unknown number of persons of Jewish descent during their confinement during the war; whether such deaths were intentional or incidental is disputed, and Mr. Hitler's personal involvement has never been demonstrated." Harmakheru ✍ 00:42, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
One correction: According to the New York Times [15], some of Maciel's "seminarian" victims were as young as ten when he abused them, not the "fifteen" I wrote above. Of course that only makes things worse for Xandar, whose claim was that Maciel's crimes were "not against children" at all. So tell us, Xandar: Do ten-year-olds qualify as "children", or not? Harmakheru ✍ 15:19, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Harmakheru. You are still continuing in this pattern of hysterical language use as well as citing information to dubious sources. The details of Mr Maciel's individual abuses are not in themselves relevant to this article. What IS relevant is your determination to exaggerate and quote a whole range of the most dubious and lurid material uncritically so long as it supports your outlook and your determination to express this tone of highly-selective outrage. As even the anti-Maciel NYT article you quote admits, the main accusation against maciel was fifty years old when it was examined by the Vatican. Some of the seminarians involved had been examined at the time of the original 1950s investigation. The article also says that some of the accusations were considered dubious, because the people involved had not made them at the time - this may cover the accusation that one of the victims was ten years old (I've not heard of a ten year-old seminarian). The other description from Maciel's "son" you quote with lurid relish, is also something that was never proved and never been to court. You do not mention that this alleged "son", who suddenly appeared once the case had been publicised, had attempted to blackmail the Legion of Christ for 26 Million dollars, to not tell his "story". The blackmail was refused and then the individual sold this story which you quote uncritically to support your "drug-taking monster" and Nazi comparisons! Xandar 10:55, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Xandar, the accusation was "fifty years old" because the Vatican sat on it for decades. Ratzinger himself told those who pushed the issue that it was "not prudent" to pursue the accusations because Maciel was "beloved of the Holy Father" and had done "much good for the Church". Both the Legion and the Vatican stonewalled these cases for as long as they could, and only finally began to pursue them when Maciel was conveniently "too old" to be put on trial and many of the accusers and witnesses were either dead or enfeebled. That's pretty clever, but hardly a ringing vindication of the hierarchy's integrity in dealing with such matters. And once again you might take the Vatican's official statements on the subject a bit more seriously: The official communique regarding Maciel admits the existence of a "system of relationships constructed by Fr. Maciel, who was adept at creating alibis for himself and winning the trust, confidence and silence of those around him"; that the Legion "created a mechanism of defense around [Maciel] that made him immune to attack"; that the Legion was guilty of "discrediting and pushing away those who doubted the correctness of his behavior"; that the Church owes a debt of gratitude to "all those who, despite great difficulties, had the courage and the steadfastness to insist upon the truth"; and that this requires "a sincere encounter with all those, inside and outside of the Legion, who have been victims of sexual abuse and of the system of power put in place by the founder."
If you lack acquaintance with the idea of a "ten year-old seminarian", I suggest you google on "minor seminary". Here [16] is an article from a Catholic web site bragging about enrollment in such seminaries in Spain, where they take them as young as twelve; but in other times and places they could be even younger--I have seen one reference to entry into minor seminary at the age of six.
As for the alleged "blackmail" attempt by Maciel's sons, you are--to use your own words--making a criminal charge "that was never proved and never been to court". The Legion itself, so far as I can find, has declined to describe the situation as "blackmail"; on the contrary, they have publicly and officially declared that they "share the suffering and pain of the members of the González Lara family, understanding the difficult circumstances they have lived and are living". That would seem to be an admission that the "alleged" son has a good claim to be such; and by the son's account, which there is no reason to doubt, Maciel had presented himself to his "family" as a rich man who was going to leave them a huge inheritance when he died. Put yourself in the place of someone who was raised with such expectations, had them completely dashed by reality, and then discovered that the money actually did exist but was in the hands of the very people who had enabled and protected the scoundrel who had done you so much harm. It is easy to understand how someone in that situation might decide to put the screws to the people who had "his" money and try to get it back. It may not be the most admirable thing in the world, but it hardly constitutes "blackmail" in the usual sense of the term. Some might call it "seeking justice". Harmakheru ✍ 15:08, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Name of Church

I see PMAnderson is back to his old practtice of reverting any change I make. Esgolou added a lot of wrong, irrelevant and extraneous information, previuously rejected, implying that Bishops conferences used the name Roman Catholic Church, citing an outdated Baltimore Catechism in a rather dodgy online version. Apart from this being over-long, not true, improperly attributed, and a bit of original research, it unbalances the carefully agreed section established in basis at mediation. PMA however immediately reverted this stuff back. It is unbalanced, unsourced and misleading. It needs to go. Xandar 00:22, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree with your changes Xandar and reverted PM asking him/her to come to the talk page. Thanks for fixing the erroneous and unnecessarily lengthy stuff on the name. I think the entire name paragraph should be in a note, not the first item on the page. I doubt that Readers are coming to the page to get an eyeful of boring stuff about the name. NancyHeise talk 02:18, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
"Dodgy version"? And do you deny that bishops conferences have called the Church Roman Catholic? What is dodgy is the suggestion that, because one book out of very many uses the term "Catholic Church" and because 16 documents out of very many were signed with a phrase that included "catholic Church", that is the only correct name. Esoglou (talk) 14:58, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
"The Bishops' Conference of Scotland is the permanently constituted assembly of the Roman Catholic Bishops of Scotland" says the site of that bishops conference. I presume much the same could be found in documents of other bishops conferences. They certainly do not agree that "Roman" may not appear in the name of the church. Esoglou (talk) 15:30, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
Just do a google search. This will show that virtually every national conference is entitled the Catholic Bishops Conference of X, even the scottish site you quote is NAMED the Bishops Conference of Scotland. The point, however, is that your additional information was rejected for inclusion at the mediation, and a balanced wording was agreed, which your insertions unbalance. They would then have to be rebalanced with other documents etc. etc. The Bishops conferences do not generally NAME themselves "Roman Catholic Bishops Conferences" as implied. I did leave in wording that said " a few" may do this. The use of the Baltimore catechism to back up this point is indeed dodgy for two reasons. 1. It is an outdated regional catechism which is not current. 2. Several different versions of this catechism exist on the web, some of which are not the standard catechism at all and have variant readings. Xandar 22:30, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
Look up the Annuario Pontificio. This will show that most national conferences do not have the word "Catholic" in their title and just call themselves bishops conferences, like the Scottish conference. That does not mean that they refuse to use the word "Catholic" - or "Roman Catholic". They do, as the Scottish example shows. Is there anything "dodgy" about the particular version of the Baltimore Catechism cited in the article? Do you know that this national catechism was issued in - if I remember right - four different versions (certainly more than one): for students of different ages and (more detailed) for teachers? Esoglou (talk) 07:28, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
Indeed. there are several versions and you selected bits from minority texts. But basically the whole thing is irrelevant because the Baltimore Catechism is a half-century out-of-date, a regional catechism, and is not involved in the naming of the Church. It was decided at mediation to be irrelevant. And you are mischievously re-inserting material without agreement that is both misleading and inaccurate. That is not productive editing. It is also QUITE clear that Catholic Bishops conferences call themselves just that. So if you have re-added this erroneous material, after it being twice deleted, please remove it again. Xandar 23:29, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
I'm sorry, I still don't understand what the name of a bishops conference has to do with the question whether, like the Holy See, it sometimes in its documents and publications uses the phrase "Roman Catholic" or not. Esoglou (talk) 06:11, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
You are using alleged names of Bishops conferences to add material to the article, unagreed, which unbalances the agreed treatment and implies both through length and wording that the Church regularly clls itself the Roman Catholic Church. The added material is OR, it is often irrelevant and outdated, and is being cited disproportionately to give the appearance that RCC is much more wiidely used than it actually is. If it remained it would have to be balanced by a proportionate number of cites to use of the term Catholic Church - which would make things very unwieldy. Xandar 10:29, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
Please tell me where you see the article using alleged names of bishops conferences for any purpose. All I see is "The name 'Roman Catholic Church' is occasionally used in Church documents to refer to itself (both by the Holy See and) by certain conferences of Catholic bishops." This says something about a name of the Church, but nothing about the names, real or alleged, of conferences. Did you think it read "The name 'Roman Catholic conference' is occasionally used in Church documents to refer to themselves .. by certain conferences of Catholic bishops"? In view of whatever you manage to see in that phrase, I suppose it is wise to make it easier to understand by putting it in the active voice. Esoglou (talk) 11:19, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Here we go again

I see Xandar and Nancy are up to their usual tricks again. Nancy is once again going on about "FA" and accusing other Catholics of being "anti-Catholic" for disagreeing with her fantasies about the one true Church; Xandar is once again playing word games and minimizing the Church's crimes under the pretense of seeking accuracy and balance. Like all true believers, their standard for discerning accuracy and balance is simple: "If it says something I don't like, it's biased and inaccurate and anti-Catholic." How convenient for them.

Just so we're all clear about the crimes that are under discussion in the Gauthe case: It's not just a matter of some overly affectionate priest licking some kid on the cheek. According to the National Law Journal (cited on the same page where Xandar found the "licking" reference), "Shock and disbelief greeted the allegations. Then the popular priest's confessions that he raped or sodomized at least 37 children proved the accusations were not children's tales."

I think we can trust a law journal to use the proper terminology in describing the admitted behavior of the defendant in a high-profile legal case. But just in case Xandar and others are inclined to continue quibbling, here is a first-hand description by one of Gauthe's victims about what was done to him:

"Gauthe was a seminarian who came to the orphanage for the summer. ... Without doing any kind of background check, they let him go out and play with us kids. ... I would have been about 13. ... Then one day the nuns said, you're going to go home with him, and he took me and another kid to a big house in Napoleonville. ... When we left the orphanage it was six o'clock, so by the time we got to the house, it was already dark. ... He pulled a 45 pistol out and stuffed it in my mouth and told me anything he wanted to do he was going to do. We got to the house in Napoleonville and he separated us, put the other boy who was with us and I in different rooms. Then while I was asleep he put the pillow over my head, pulled the shirt over head to hold my arms back. ... I woke up and he was f---ing me in the ass, I couldn't breathe, because he had pulled on my shirt pinning my arms with the pillow over my head, then he told me he’d kill me if I told. When I got back to the school, I did try to tell what happened, but it didn't do any good. Gauthe had ripped my asshole apart, I was bleeding, and the nun didn't do anything. I told her what happened and without warning, I had no indication, she just slugged me in the face. That was her thing. She loved beating up on kids, this five foot one 190 pound female. I told her Father Gauthe had a gun and had threatened me and that's as far as I got."

Archbishop Gregory Aymond of New Orleans, who approved a $5 million settlement with this victim and others similarly situated, publicly admitted that a review of records and testimony showed that the allegations were credible. According to Aymond, the settlements covered actions by eight people, including three priests and several nuns, who "took advantage of their ministry and hurt people". Previous to this, the archdiocese had revealed that it had already paid out $1 million in sex abuse cases going all the way back to 1950. Nevertheless, according to one of the victims, "We've had to fight the church tooth and nail for more than four years to get it to acknowledge wrongdoing."

Keep all this in mind when people like Xandar start complaining about "slanted, and innuendo-filled reporting ... that does not give the full story, removes the context and tries to imply things that are not the case." Harmakheru ✍ 16:59, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

You seem to have hold of the wrong idea Harmakheru. We are not here to dredge up the most graphic and emotive descriptions of abuse we can find in order to raise the emotional temperature. We are all against abuse. My concern is that inaccurate, exaggerated and misleading information is not given out. As far as I can see, the graphic gun allegation you reproduce was never pursued in court, which seems strange, and so amounts to an accusation. It was claimed in the discussion above that Gauthe was "convicted of the rape of 100 children" We find that this is not true. Gauthe was convicted of abuse of 37 children, following his confession. The "Law journal" you quote is actually a reprint article on the Bishop Accountability site, giving the writer's slant on what happened. If we are to state that a priest was convicted of rape, or confessed to rape, then we must have documentation of that conviction for rape, or wording that he confessed to rape. He was not convicted of rape, but abuse. And the published accounts of his confession do not use the term "rape". The victim reports I have seen do not match up to the claims in your quote above.
Your allegation that Church committed "crimes" again seems to show a strong POV here. The Church has been convicted of no "crimes". This is because it broke no laws. We see, even in the Gauthe case, that the criminal was given psychiatric treatment after the earlier allegations. He was then returned to work in another parish. Now this may have been lax, it may even, with hindsight have been irresponsible, but it followed the practice of most bodies at the time. This is why we talk about setting the behaviour of Bishops in context with what was standard practice at the time, and what was believed about the effectiveness of psychiatry to deal with these deviancies. The last thing we need is a lot of emotional purple prose which fails totally to treat the matter in a balanced encyclopedic way. Xandar 22:01, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
I suppose the way the Church dealt with Father Brendan Smyth was 'lax', - you seem to be like that prime minister that talked about 'a little local difficulty', complacent. Sayerslle (talk) 23:02, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
I don't know what victim reports to which you refer, Xandar, but it sounds as though you know next to nothing about the cases involving the Rev. Gilbert Gaughe, who was convicted of rape and sodomy of young children before being booted from the priesthood. Here's a summary of the crimes to which Gauthe pleaded guilty --from a book edited by a departmental chairman at a Catholic university. Gauthe pleaded guilty to rape, sodomy (described euphemistically as aggravated crimes against nature) at the time he was a priest and pedophile. He still is a pedophile. But this information was described fully and fairly in Jason Berry's book, Lead Us Not Into Temptation: Catholic Priests and the Sexual Abuse of Children published in 1992. If you have not read the books by Berry, who has won awards for these efforts from the Catholic Press Association, then you speak with much too much certitude for someone who knows as little as you do. The facts were also published in The National Catholic Reporter back in 1984 and a long series of articles on the crimes of Gauthe and cover-up by the church followed in the Houston Chronicle. Gauthe began sodomizing kids in Savannah, Georgia and, when this was discovered, he was transferred to parishes in Louisiana. If the church hierarchy had done the right thing back in Georgia in 1971, the cops would have been called and there would be no discussion of this here and now, nearly 40 years later.

Editor: Carl L. Bankston III, Tulane University

ISBN: 978-1-58765-320-9 List Price: $295 January 2007 · 3 volumes · 1,244 pages · 8"x10" Combines Print & Online Access Great Lives from History: Notorious Lives Gilbert Gauthe Identity: American priest and pedophile Born: 1945; Napoleonville, Louisiana Major Offenses: Eleven counts of aggravated crimes against nature; eleven counts of committing sexually immoral acts; eleven counts of taking pornographic photographs of juveniles; and a single count of aggravated rape, sodomizing a child under the age of twelve Active: 1971-1983 Locale: Broussard, New Iberia, Abbeville, and Henry, Louisiana Sentence: Twenty years in prison; served ten years

Skywriter (talk) 02:47, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
Xandar wrote, "You seem to have hold of the wrong idea Harmakheru." I don't think so. None of this would be dredged, dear Xandar, if this were an honest article that reported squarely, as other encyclopedias have, what has transpired over the last half century. Instead there is one vague sentence, easly overlooked that alludes to scandal and skips the detail. That sentence is" Since the late twentieth century, sex abuse by Catholic clergy has been the subject of media coverage, legal action and public debate.[168]
Now the question to you, Xandar, John Carter, and NancyHeise is this. Do you stand in opposition to expanding that section to include a fair accounting of what every other media has reported?
If your answer is yes, that is an answer. If the answer is no, that too is an answer and we can get down to the business of determining what goes in to the article. We need an answer. What will it be? Thanks. Skywriter (talk) 03:05, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

The sexual abuse stuff seems to be a situation where we have one group of editors who doesn't want to mention it at all (or only include the barest mention, as in the article at present), and another group who wants to include lurid details about individual cases. Aren't both of these approaches wrong? A short paragraph that gives more context and details than the current brief sentence, but which also leaves the real specifics to the article about the sexual abuse cases, would seem appropriate. I'd also think that the most important thing left out of the current article is not the details of abuse, but the seemingly systemic role of the hierarchy in covering it up and shifting abusive priests around to different parishes for decades. john k (talk) 14:18, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't think anyone is suggesting that the articles themselves should include "lurid details about individual cases". Those of us who are putting the lurid details here on the talk page are doing so to counter the other side's attempt to minimize the seriousness of the situation. There is a tendency on the part of both the Church and the media to use euphemistic language in these cases--"inappropriate contact", "sexual improprieties", "molestation", or just the generic "sexual abuse"--which can then be spun as nothing more than "a lick on the cheek" or "a pat on the bottom". It's important for people to understand that in a significant number of cases what we're really talking about is forcible rape and sodomy, or other serious sexual acts perpetrated by powerful adults upon children who were in no position to resist. And as you say, the really important issue is the "systemic role of the hierarchy" in all this, which has been amply documented and goes all the way to the top; and the hierarchy's failure to act quickly and decisively for the protection of children was pretty much the same whether the issue was a pat on the bottom or forcible rape and even murder. Harmakheru ✍ 15:53, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
I concur with what John K has said in both aspects, one that a summary paragraph is needed, and two, that the well-documented systemic role of the hierarchy over many decades in either ignoring or moving criminal priests from parish to parish-- is also needed. The most recent role of the hierarchy, including the popes, has been to pay more attention to the victims; the summary paragraphs should reflect these facts too. Harmakheru is correct in saying that the denial here by several editors who also have tried to minimize the crimes of certain priests resulted in the summoning of proofs that the crimes are indeed heinous and that there were criminal prosecutions and convictions and that there are real victims who will continue to suffer throughout their lives, just as every victim of sexual assault suffers. To argue that this is only a tiny part of a 2000-year-old history ignores that this is a major part of contemporary history and that nearly none of it is reflected in this article in that section though it has dominated world news about the Catholic Church for many years. That individuals did wrong is a human failing. It is the, by now, well-documented cover-up over long periods that makes up such a large part of contemporary history and that should be the focus of the couple of paragraphs that are added to this article.
Yesterday, I asked a question that has not been answered and so, I will ask again. Now the question to you, Xandar, John Carter, and NancyHeise is this. Do you stand in opposition to expanding that section to include a fair accounting of what every other media has reported? Skywriter (talk) 18:24, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
It should also be noted--and probably included in the article--that sexual misconduct by Catholic clergy is not a new issue, but a very old one that has been at or near the heart of scandals and schisms throughout Catholic history. This is why I mentioned Lea's book on clerical celibacy; while it has little if any mention of homosexuality or child abuse (which were largely taboo subjects in his day) it abundantly documents the long history of other kinds of sexual misconduct by clergy, and the role this has played over the centuries in alienating the laity, discrediting the hierarchy, giving secular rulers leverage against Church officials, and adding fuel to the fires of heresy and schism. While many people today find the subject either distasteful or irrelevant, in prior centuries this was a huge deal to lots of people, including the popes and councils who promulgated decree after decree on the subject and wrestled mightily to get things under control--almost always to no avail.
As for the specific issue of the sexual abuse of children, this is also not a recent problem for the Church. As Sipe says in the preface to "Sex, Priests, and Secret Codes":
"Unfortunately this crime--and that is its proper name--has been an open wound on the Body of Christ for as far back as records are kept. History shows that in practically every century since the church began, the problem of clerical abuse of minors was not just lurking in the shadows but so open at times that extraordinary means had to be taken to quell it. If there is anything new about the sexual abuse of minors by members of the clergy, it is that over the past fifty years a conspiracy of silence has covered it. Rather than stifle the practice, this pall of secrecy has provided an atmosphere where abuse could fester as a systemic infection."
Given that--and Sipe is one of the recognized experts on this subject--I think the whole issue deserves a lot more coverage in this article than it has received so far. Harmakheru ✍ 19:56, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
Harmakheru, there's an article called History of the Catholic Church where this history more properly fits. Skywriter (talk) 00:14, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
Once again Harmakheru and Sktwriter seem to be pushing an agenda of moral condemnation and self-righteousness inappropriate to an encyclopedia. Harmakheru's language has been extreme, over-emotional and full of exageration, and selective moral judgementalism. Some of these exaggerations have been exposed above. He seems to believe, contrary to all the facts, abuse is only a Catholic problem, and is a fault of the Church rather than of individuals. This may be the line that certain anti-Catholic media are pushing, but it is neither factual nor encyclopedic. The rubbish about abuse of minors in the church since the beginning of time, is just laughable. Abuse of minors has been part of the HUMAN condition since history began, I have little doubt, but Harmakheru's continued attempts to paint this as something to do with the Catholic religion are absurd and seem more to do with a hate campaign against Catholics than anything else. His own sources discount the earlier claim that Gauthe was convicted of 100 rapes, and this has now changed to Eleven counts of aggravated crimes against nature; eleven counts of committing sexually immoral acts; eleven counts of taking pornographic photographs of juveniles; and a single count of aggravated rape, sodomizing a child under the age of twelve. Why is this important? Because exaggeration and misleading information need to be called out. Including wild claims that the Church has "committed crimes", and other such nonsense.
On the topic of whether mention in this article should be expanded, there was a general agreement less than six months ago, actually opposed by Nancy heise, to reduce coverage to the present sentence and a link. The former agreed paragraph is above. Due to the reduced size of the article, a long paragraph is clearly undue weight in an article that still leaves many more important elements of the topic uncovered. I would agree to two to four sentences on this, BUT they would have to be balanced with context and the reasoning behind bishops actions, and, if it is claimed or inferred that abuse and "cover-up" are purely Catholic things, comparison with other institutions at the same time. This cannot be some hatchet-job pretending that Catholics acted in a different way to other faith groups and institutions such as scouts or the Secular Schools systems. Xandar 23:20, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
The Catholic Church has been embroiled in a world-wide scandal over covering up sexual abuse by priests of minors. Are the abuse and cover-up "purely Catholic things"? Probably not; certainly the abuse is not. But, as far as I am aware, no institution of the importance and prominence of the Catholic Church has been caught up in such a scandal. I don't think the article should make any statements that imply that sexual abuse of children is something that is purely a problem for the Catholic Church. Neither do I think that the article should make any outright statements that sexual abuse of children is something that is not purely a problem of the Catholic Church. The scandal, as reported on by reliable sources, should be described in the article in a neutral way. There is absolutely no reason to distract attention away from it by talking about sexual abuse from other sources. I also think that it's just as unhelpful to talk about abuse of children as a scandal in the church from time immemorial. Insofar as the scandal is one that is significantly important to mention in this article, it is the one that has erupted in the last few years over abuse over the decades since World War II or thereabouts. That is what should be mentioned in this article. john k (talk) 00:03, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
Xandar, please do not conflate my arguments with anyone else's. You paint with an overly broad brush and, in doing so, misrepresent what I have written. Skywriter (talk) 00:17, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
I concur with John K's comments. Skywriter (talk) 00:17, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
Xandar, I have never said, nor do I believe, that the sexual abuse of children is "only a Catholic problem"; in fact, earlier on this very page I wrote: "I never said that the Catholic Church is the only perpetrator of this kind of crime (although it is without doubt one of the most important ones, just by numbers and impact alone). I never even said that it was the worst." Please don't accuse me of saying or meaning or believing things which I have explicitly disclaimed; if you can't do better than that, then maybe you need to find another sandbox to play in. The "claim that Gauthe was convicted of 100 rapes" was not mine, either, so blathering on about how it has been discredited by my "own sources" is both dishonest and irrelevant.
As for whether it is "rubbish" to suggest that this has been going on almost from the founding of the Church, or "absurd" to think that it has "something to do with the Catholic religion" ... well, if you haven't read Podles, Doyle, Sipe, and Wall, then you simply don't know what you are talking about. Podles, in particular, devotes an entire chapter of his book to tracing the roots of the present crisis to philosophical, theological, and ecclesiastical factors that are indeed specifically Catholic. To dismiss his astute and heavily documented analysis a priori is precisely the kind of true-believerism that I have been criticizing in this discussion from the beginning.
But I think we really get to the root of the matter when we encounter your hysterical dismissal of "wild claims that the Church has 'committed crimes', and other such nonsense." The claims are not wild at all, but documented out of the Church's own sources. For example, we have the public statements by Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos, Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy from 1996 to 2006, that he sent a letter to every diocese on the planet--with the active approval of JP2 and a whole room full of Cardinals, and at least the tacit approval of Cardinal Ratzinger as head of the CDF--encouraging bishops to protect criminal priests from prosecution by the secular authorities. Given that this letter was sent to American dioceses by officials of the Holy See--to which every Catholic bishop, American or otherwise, owes "hierarchical obedience"--and given that American bishops demonstrably did protect such priests on numerous occasions, we have a prima facie case of criminal conspiracy which involves both past and present popes as well as a good chunk of the Vatican bureaucracy. Of course such a conspiracy cannot be prosecuted in American courts because the Vatican claims sovereign immunity under international law, and the American government for political reasons is willing to go along with that charade. But lack of prosecution does not make crimes any less criminal, and this instance alone is sufficient to demonstrate that it is not at all "nonsense" to say that Holy Mother Church and her hierarchy have indeed "committed crimes" in this matter. Harmakheru ✍ 01:28, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Ha4makheru. The very fact that you are pushing the highly-fringe notion that there has been some historic link with Catholicism and abuse, supports my statement that you are making such a link yourself - which is of course disproven by the facts that abuse certainly occurs no more among Catholics than anyone else. Having noted that fact, all these "factors" that certain people want to imagine are associated with abuse are irrelevant, and merely amount to attempts to smear Catholicism. On the issue of the Church commiting "Crimes". Yes. Such claims are insupportable, and tend to verge on the hysterical. This uncited "letter" that you quote, which apparently is the smoking gun, is very prominent by its absence. Your "prima facie case" therefore rests on nothing. If the CHURCH had committed "crimes", there are hundreds if not thousands of viscerally hostile journalists, publicity-seeking politicians, and would-be millionnaire lawyers who would have brought a case that would stand up, long before now. Local Bishops are not protected by sovereign immunity, and if any of their actions had been criminal, they would have appeared in a courtroom long ago. It is not up to Wikipedia to make "prima facie" cases or to copy the most uninformed and lurid purple prose of journalists.

Skywriter, if I have wrongly conflated your opinions with anyone else's., I apologise. I was just faced with a huge ream of material to respond to when I got to the page the other day, that I may well have wrongly attributed and mixed-up some individual's statements.

JohnK, You say that "There is absolutely no reason to distract attention away from (the scandal) by talking about sexual abuse from other sources." I would say this depends entirely upon what is in any proposed article text. For example if statements are made implying that the Church is either uniquely involved in abuse, or uniquely did not report to authorities, then sources that supply the opposing argument need to be present. A lot of the allegations and accusations focussed on the Church tend to either state or imply that the Church was uniquely wrong in what it did, as if everyone else at the time, removed accused from post and reported them to the authorities, and only the Church did not. That is non-factual, and therefore to imply it is misinformation. In such circumstances it is relevant to state that what the Church did was (although bad) pretty standard practice. Xandar 11:22, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Xandar, you are chasing the wrong issue again. It's not a question of whether there is more abuse among Catholics or not (although the USCCB's John Jay study and the official Irish investigation strongly suggest that there was, at least in some countries); it is how the hierarchy responded to the abuse. That response was, and is, uniquely Catholic because it is shaped by the particular history and theology of the Catholic Church and Catholic culture. When the public schools or the Boy Scouts get caught with their pants down, do they start yelling about how it's all a massive conspiracy of Jews and Freemasons to discredit them? Do they tell the victims and their families that they must not denounce their "holy teachers" or "holy scoutmasters" to the authorities, and that if they do they risk eternal damnation? No, they don't--but the Catholic Church did, and to some extent still does. Therein lies a huge and highly significant difference.
As for Castrillon Hoyos' letter which you say is "prominent by its absence" and amounts to "nothing", you should try using Wikipedia sometime. The article on Darío_Castrillón_Hoyos discusses the case at some length and gives a translation of the letter. There is no question of the letter's authenticity--this has been officially confirmed by the Vatican--nor has the Vatican disputed the Cardinal's account of its origin, which implicates JP2 and a whole room full of other cardinals in an official cover-up of the abuse.
You might also try reading Pope Benedict's letter on the Irish abuse scandal [17] in which he himself attributes the scandal to specifically Catholic sources: "inadequate procedures for determining the suitability of candidates for the priesthood and the religious life; insufficient human, moral, intellectual and spiritual formation in seminaries and novitiates; a tendency in society to favour the clergy and other authority figures; and a misplaced concern for the reputation of the Church and the avoidance of scandal, resulting in failure to apply existing canonical penalties". He also stated that the bishops "failed, at times grievously, to apply the long-established norms of canon law to the crime of child abuse. Serious mistakes were made in responding to allegations. I recognize how difficult it was to grasp the extent and complexity of the problem, to obtain reliable information and to make the right decisions in the light of conflicting expert advice. Nevertheless, it must be admitted that grave errors of judgement were made and failures of leadership occurred." In short, even the pope doesn't accept the excuses that "we only did what everyone else was doing" and "we were just following standard practice". If he doesn't buy it, why should we? Harmakheru ✍ 14:10, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
One other point: Xandar claims that "local Bishops are not protected by sovereign immunity, and if any of their actions had been criminal, they would have appeared in a courtroom long ago." This is ridiculously naive. In the U.S., grand juries are controlled by prosecutors, and prosecutors are controlled by the local district attorney, who is generally an elected official; in many jurisdictions, trial judges are also elected, or subject to electoral recall. Catholics represent approximately a quarter of the electorate (easily enough to swing an election in most places); Catholic bishops are often extremely powerful members of the local political elite with their own newspapers and cheering sections; and many Catholic dioceses have deep pockets to fund clever defense lawyers who know how to these drag cases out for years. Consequently, few prosecutors relish the idea of going up against a bishop, and many judges are reluctant to get embroiled in a case which is so politically charged and so easily turned into accusations of "persecuting the Church". In some cases where prosecution of a bishop was in fact contemplated, the charge was bargained away in return for other considerations; in others the offending bishop was whisked out of the country to the safety of Vatican City, which has no extradition treaty with the U.S. That makes any attempt at prosecution utterly futile, and prosecutors are notoriously unenthusiastic about being made to look like fools in public.
There is also the matter of statutes of limitations. In fact this was one of the major motivations for covering up these sorts of crimes; if you can buy off or intimidate the victims into silence until the statute expires, then prosecution is forever barred and no amount of evidence, eyewitness testimony, or even confession in open court is going to change that. Oddly enough, Catholic bishops in the U.S. have been in the forefront of lobbying against proposals to extend or remove the time limits on such prosecutions--and it's not hard to figure out why. Harmakheru ✍ 16:57, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
This is all beginning to sound like conspiracy theories. The fact remains that such charges have not been seriously made, let alone proven. Therefore the notion that the Church has commited "crimes", remains in the realm of name-calling rather than fact. And lets have a look at your latest claim:
Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos, Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy from 1996 to 2006, that he sent a letter to every diocese on the planet--with the active approval of JP2 and a whole room full of Cardinals, and at least the tacit approval of Cardinal Ratzinger as head of the CDF--encouraging bishops to protect criminal priests from prosecution by the secular authorities. Given that this letter was sent to American dioceses by officials of the Holy See--to which every Catholic bishop, American or otherwise, owes "hierarchical obedience"--and given that American bishops demonstrably did protect such priests on numerous occasions, we have a prima facie case of criminal conspiracy which involves both past and present popes as well as a good chunk of the Vatican bureaucracy.
I'm afraid this is another catalogue of half-truth, exaggeration and misinformation. The approval of JPII is only claimed posthumously, there was no "active approval of a room full of cardinals", and Hoyos did not "encourage bishops to protect criminal priests from prosecution by the secular authorities", he wrote a letter of congratulation to a bishop, and circulated it. Why? Again you leave out the most important point. The Bishop concerned had learned of the assaults THROUGH THE CONFESSIONAL. It is one of the most unbreakable rules of the Church that what is said in the confessional is never revealed to anyone else - even if it is a confession of murder. This is well-known, and applies to all churches that have the sacrament of confession. Similarly if, as you allege, the letter was acommand to secrecy, it didn't work, since only months later in 2002, the USCCB introduced its child protection charter mandating report of all allegations of abuse to the secular authorities. Xandar 20:02, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
"Conspiracy theories"? Holy Mother Church has been propagating conspiracy theories for centuries, and most recently some of her spokesmen have publicly stated that the current abuse crisis itself is a conspiracy by the usual suspects (Jews, Freemasons, Satanists, atheists, homosexuals, blah, blah, blah) to undermine the authority and dignity of the Church. Do you really not believe in conspiracies, Xandar? Do you think those planes just slammed into the Twin Towers by accident? Or do you only believe in the "right" conspiracies, and dismiss all the others because they don't fit your preconceived notions?
Was JP2 involved? Castrillon says he was: "After consulting the pope ... I wrote a letter to the bishop congratulating him as a model of a father who does not hand over his sons. The Holy Father authorised me to send this letter to all bishops in the world and publish it on the internet."--which he subsequently did. Does the Vatican deny any of this? No. Do you think they would remain silent on such an accusation if it were false? Unlikely in the extreme. So either Castrillon Hoyos, a Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church and one of the most important Prefects in the Curia under JP2, is a bald-faced liar and/or stark raving insane, and the Vatican has chosen to be complicit in his delusions and/or deceptions rather than clear the historical record--or else it happened pretty much as he says. Take your pick.
Were any other cardinals involved? Castrillon says they were--including Ratzinger: "It was a meeting of cardinals. Therefore the current pope (Benedict XVI), who at that time was a cardinal, was present. The pope (John Paul II) was never at those meetings. However the Holy Father was indeed present when we spoke about this matter in the council, and the cardinals ruled."
Was the bishop in question being praised by Castrillon Hoyos for defending the sanctity of the confessional? Castrillon Hoyos came up with that excuse long after the fact when it became a public scandal, and the Wikipedia article uncritically repeats the claim, but that's not what actually happened according to the bishop himself: "At his trial, Pican said Bissey admitted his abuse in a private conversation, which would not enjoy legal protection." [18] And this is confirmed by the text of the letter itself, which does not praise the bishop for protecting the confessional, but for protecting "the relationship between priests and their bishop" which "is not professional but a sacramental relationship which forges very special bonds of spiritual paternity." Not the same thing at all. According to Castrillon Hoyos--and he is not alone in holding this position within the Curia--there is simply no situation, no matter how dire, in which a bishop should ever denounce one of his priests to the authorities. And this position, according to the letter itself, was to be communicated "to all the conferences of bishops" in order to "encourage brothers in the episcopate in this delicate matter". Stripped of the curial bafflegab, the Vatican's intention is clear: No matter what one of your priests has done, no matter how you came to know of it, no matter who the victim or how horrific the crime, a bishop must never denounce one of his priests to the secular authorities. In that light, it is hardly surprising that this is in fact the policy which bishops throughout the world were following all along, and with precious few exceptions continue to follow today. Harmakheru ✍ 22:32, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

No Original Research

This is to reference Xandar's statement doubting that more than 100 children were raped by the then Rev. Gauthe. Prosecutors are selective in presenting child witnesses and not every child is strong enough to withstand testifying in open court and in some cases, their parents choose for their children not to do so. Perhaps you understand this. Perhaps you do not. While the convictions and prison sentence did not reflect the large number of children Gauthe offended, the legal papers supporting the case and Jason Berry's book Lead Us Not Into Temptation: Catholic Priests and the Sexual Abuse of Children is a documentary record of the proceedings against Gauthe and other priests. Berry's book has not been challenged in any of its details. It is evident that you have not read this book or its reviews. No one but you is challenging the extent of Gauthe's crimes and, in this case, your opinion does not count because 1. you seem to have no knowledge of the facts that you would have had you done the bare minimum-- reading this book or any of the hundreds of articles on this topic; and 2. Wikipedia does not allow for original research by its editors. Jason Berry's book is the most complete and unchallenged resource available on this topic. If you wish to challenge its content, state your WP:RS. If there are none, you can build trust and credibility here by saying you know of no reliable sources that challenge the facts in Berry's book. Skywriter (talk) 06:50, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

With regard to selective decisions on prosecution, here is Berry's own description of the process in the Gauthe case [19]:
"District Attorney Nathan Stansbury drove to Abbeville, and in a room at the Hebert Sonnier law offices, he sat with a video cameraman, asking questions of 11 young victims. There was no one else present. Stansbury used videotape so that the boys would not have to be questioned directly by the grand jury: He wanted straight answers to painful questions and was dead set against exposing the victims to the ordeal of revealing their terrible injuries to a group of strangers. After seeing the videotaped testimony, the grand jury returned a 34-count indictment on Oct. 18. Although Gauthe would subsequently admit under oath to numerous acts of sodomy, the grand jury indicted him on only one count of this crime (aggravated rape, sodomy of a child under 12). Successful criminal prosecutions often rest on the corroborating testimony of a witness. Grand jury testimony produced only one boy able to say he saw Gauthe sodomize another, and this may be the reason the grand jury indicted him on only one count of the most serious of his alleged crimes."
Xandar attempts to minimize the seriousness of Gauthe's crimes by focusing on the "single count of aggravated rape" while ignoring the larger legal context in which prosecutors and grand juries in such cases often choose to prosecute only those charges that are easiest to prove while allowing the defendant to "walk" on others. But as Berry points out, Gauthe "would subsequently admit under oath to numerous acts of sodomy"; his defense was not that he was innocent of the crimes of which he was accused, but that he had been "insane" at the time he committed them. Harmakheru ✍ 15:54, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
No. What I am saying is twofold, and quite well proven. 1. There were NOT 100 convictions for rape, as quoted. There was one. That's the fact, whatever some people think MIGHT have happened or not. Courts are quite capable of convicting for 37 or 100 rapes if they actually occurred. Gauthe was not convicted for them. Therefore anything else is supposition and exaggeration. 2. The term "rape" is a term with a clear meaning of a forceful violent sexual attack. This term HAS been used wrongly by some journalists and others to mislead, raise emotional temperatures, and to whip up hatred. The fact is that most of Gauthes victims (and most abuse victims in general) described a process of being befriended, given presents and led or pressured into sex acts by that means. This may be considered "statutory rape" in parts of the the US, if done to a minor, but it is not actual rape, which is a different crime. None of this is to minimize Gauthe's sexual abuse, it is to insist on being accurate and not to exaggerate or mislead about cases in general or individual cases. Xandar 11:40, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
In the U.S., courts can only convict on the charges that a prosecutor or grand jury bring before them, which is often a lot less than the suspect is actually guilty off--and in many cases even that gets plea-bargained down to a lesser charge. The fact remains that Gauthe admitted that he was guilty of numerous sex crimes against children, that Church officials knew he was a threat to children long before he was ever charged with anything, and that they failed even to impose the penalties which were available to them under canon law, much less report him to the authorities for prosecution as they ought to have done. And for all your insistence that you are only trying to keep things accurate ... would you be arguing this hard to make the language a model of technical precision if someone had understated Gauthe's guilt and the Church's complicity? Harmakheru ✍ 15:28, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Sexual abuse scandal: mainstream opinion vs. minority dissent

There are clearly a lot of strong opinions here. I gained a lot of respect for Harmakheru during previous discussions regarding this article's POV slant. However, it's clear that he has a strong POV with respect to this topic and I'm afraid that this perspective colors his ability to strike an NPOV stance. This is not to say that Xandar and John Carter are right, simply that (IMO) Harmakheru is too far over on the other side. We must remember that it is not our job to determine and report the WP:TRUTH, no matter how passionately we believe in it (or perhaps especially when we believe in our understanding of the truth too passionately).

It is our job to determine and report what reliable sources believe the truth to be without giving undue weight to minority positions.

Now, I haven't read all of Doyle, Sipe, Wall and Podles have written but I've read enough to get the gist of what their argument is. I suspect that there is an element of truth in their charges but I also suspect that they have done their share of synthesis which is, AFAICT, not clearly shared by the mainstream community. That is, I am not convinced that their position is mainstream as opposed to a minority opinion. I base this assessment on the tone of articles in the mainstream media reporting on the topic. Yes, there is a media "feeding frenzy" whenever there is any sign of "blood in the water" regarding this scandal. However, just about everything I've read in the mainstream media treats the scandal as if it were a phenomenon of the late 20th century and not one that has spanned the last two millenia.

The discussion above has turned from discussion about improving this article to debate about the topic itself which belongs in a discussion forum, not on a Wikipedia talk page (see WP:NOT and WP:TALK).

I think we should go back to focusing on what encyclopedia articles and overview summaries of the history of the Church say about the scandal. Of course, we must look for works written after about 2005 because, before that time, the scandal was too recent in the U.S. and Ireland. Encyclopedia Britannica Online is a good bellwether but it is useful to consider what other encyclopedias have to say.

I continue to oppose the inclusion of the text that Xandar believes is needed for "balance". Those arguments should be reserved for the detailed articles. It's not necessarily an attack on the Church to state that it had to deal with a scandal involving some of its priests and bishops. The time to mention the criticisms of the Church's handling of the crisis and the associated defenses is in the detailed articles, not in the overview of the Church's history.

--Richard S (talk) 15:43, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Of course Doyle, Sipe, Podles, et al., do "synthesis"--that's what experts do. The Wikipedia rules prohibit synthesis by Wikipedians, not by the authorities on whom they rely; if the latter were the case, then there could be no "reliable authorities" because it is their "synthesis" that makes them authorities in the first place. As for declaring experts like Doyle and Sipe to be outside the scholarly mainstream because they do not share "the tone of articles in the mainstream media" ... would you prefer to get your physics from a physicist or from the "science" pages of your local newspaper? The one thing almost everyone agrees on in issues like this is that the "mainstream media" do an extremely poor job of understanding or conveying the larger context of the issues they report. If the mainstream media are going to be the standard by which we judge the reliability of reliable authorities and the expertness of expert opinion, then we may as well just forget the whole thing and find some other way to waste our time. Harmakheru ✍ 16:11, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
Doyle, Sipes and co, are clearly fringe, as I've said in another section. Their whole postulation is based on an unproved hypothesis, that there is more abuse in Catholicism than elsewhere. If there IS more abuse in Catholicism, we can seek to explain why. If there isn't, then no such explanation is tenable. As far as balance is concerned, ALL topics need balance, WHAT balance is required depends on proposed wordings. Xandar 11:58, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
Xandar, I can assert from now until the rest of my life that the skies are filled with snakes and that this article ought to be based on that claim because I said it. In the same way, you have repeatedly expressed this personal opinion of yours without providing a shred of proof on any level at any time. Please provide reliable secondary sources to support your viewpoint. If this is your original research, please state that. Please demonstrate that the breadth and scope of the sex abuse scandals within the Catholic Church is well within the tolerances of other churches, mosques, synagogues and monasteries, and that it has affected their finances and credibility of their hierarchies. Demonstrate with citations where scholarly and media coverage of what you allege to be true has been covered by WP:RS. Please show us further why the information you provide ought to be included in this article. Thank you. Skywriter (talk) 15:31, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
One more thing, Xandar. Please show, using reliable sources to back up your personal opinion, that Canon lawyer Thomas Doyle is "clearly fringe". You have made these claims many times without showing proofs on any level. We now ask you to prove it. You can not cite yourself, as you do in your last comment, " "as I've said in another section." Citing yourself violates WP:OR. It doesn't fly here or anywhere else on Wikipedia. Skywriter (talk) 15:31, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
I see a lot of people putting up claims for sources and claims for this and that. I also see a lot of discussion debating the sexual abuse crisis in the Church but I don't really see a lot of people making suggestions for what should actually be in the article. Until actual proposals WITH SOURCES are proposed, not much real discussion can take place. The only two real suggestions I have seen have been the original version that was in the article pre-article cutup and Richard's suggestion. Let's get this talk page back to what it should be, a discussion on what should be in THIS article, not the abuse article, not the Marciel article, not the National Enquirer, NY Times or anything else. Marauder40 (talk) 15:53, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
An editor has disqualified the introduction of sources, such as the scholar Thomas Doyle, by affixing the term "fringe" to his views. That editor, Xandar, must now either prove his claim or withdraw it.
Marauder, would you please link to what you refer to as "the original version that was in the article pre-article cutup" so that we all know what you are talking about. Thanks.Skywriter (talk) 17:03, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
I haven't seen anything that technically Xander has to prove. Nobody has made an actual proposal for adding anything to the article with the actual text in context. I am sure Xander will qualify his statement, but it is up to the editor adding something to prove what they are adding meets RS and other Wiki policies. As for the original version, it is included on this talk page. Look for the section labeled, "Moving forward". Both the original version and Richard's preliminary suggestion of an actual edit are in that section. Very little discussion actually happened in the one section that was actually trying to improve the article. Basically what is going on is that this Talk page has turned into a huge soapbox instead of addressing what actually should go into the article. Marauder40 (talk) 17:21, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
Questions were raised by Richard and others about what should be said on the subject and whether giving it any significant coverage would be "recentism" and "undue weight". I tried to be helpful by offering some sources that might answer those questions. Those sources were immediately trashed by the "other side" as being unreliable, biased, anti-Catholic bigots, fringers, and all the usual tripe. And then we were off and running. We haven't gotten to writing text because text must be sourced, and it's already abundantly clear that several people here will vehemently object to the best sources available for supporting the text that needs to be written. Until we get that sorted out, attempting to write article text would be (as someone once put it so elegantly), "like writing on water".
Xandar, in particular, claims that Doyle, Sipe, etc., are "fringe" because "their whole postulation is based on an unproved hypothesis, that there is more abuse in Catholicism than elsewhere." Unfortunately, it is not at all clear what "postulation" of theirs he is objecting to (much less that it is actually theirs and not the product of his own imagination or misunderstanding); nor has he shown that they actually claim there is more abuse in Catholicism than elsewhere; nor has he shown that this is actually the basis for their "postulation" (whatever it is); nor does he have any evident grounds for believing that such a claim would be untrue, other than his own certainty that it must be. So far he has given no indication that he has actually read any of their books in which they lay out what they actually do believe, or why they believe it, or what the evidence is for it, or what documents and argumentation support it. But he doesn't need to do any of that, because he already knows they are "fringe" because they disagree with him. He did the same thing in the argument a while back about St. Peter as the first pope and founder of the Roman church. The actual authorities who inhabit the scholarly mainstream on this issue were dismissed by him as "fringe" and "revisionist", while he and Nancy were offering up snippets from such inadmissible "sources" as Catholic apologists, a 19th-century devotional tract, a middle-school catechetical text, and a National Geographic coffee-table book. If we are going to go back to that sort of nonsense, then--again--this whole thing is just a waste of our time, and we should find something else to amuse ourselves with. Harmakheru ✍ 17:37, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
It's not like writing on water. We have things to start with, whether it be the original version or a modified version of such, it is a starting place. Put up what your suggestion change in with the sources. Let people talk about it and discuss why it is good and why it isn't good whether it be the text itself or the sources can be discussed. Right now we are dealing with nebulous arguements where someone would have to read the ENTIRE works of authors to judge whether they should or shouldn't be included. You need to have a starting point and just debating the sexual abuse scandal itself doesn't help. It is possible based on the wording, using author A would work, but the same author can't be used if the wording is different. This thread has gone way off on a tangent. Should self-policing work or are we going to have to "officially" bring in admins/moderators/etc. to bring it back on course. Marauder40 (talk) 17:52, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Can we get back to Richard's primary question/suggestion - what do recent scholarly histories of the Catholic Church say about the scandal? My reading has been concentrated in pre-1500s history, and later info I've read has been in books written in the early 1990s. There is no point in us debating what we think is most important - it's time to look to the scholars to determine how much weight to give. Karanacs (talk) 17:41, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree. Marauder40 (talk) 17:52, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
Yes, thank you. I think we need some decision criteria which will help us choose between the kind of coverage that we see in the EB Online articles and the kind that we see in the Encyclopedia of Religion article. I personally prefer the tone of the EB Online articles, finding the Encyclopedia of Religion coverage a bit harsh and strident. I only suggest that Doyle, Sipe et al are outside of the mainstream because what I've generally read does not seem to suggest that they are the mainstream perception. (Once again, they might be right but it is not our job to assert whether they are right or wrong. It is our job to simply indicate which is the mainstream perception and which is the minority perception. With adequate citations, the reader can consult the original sources and determine for him/herself which he/she believes is the truth. --Richard S (talk) 23:06, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
But which mainstream? You have previously dinged Doyle and Sipe for being out of step with the "mainstream media", which is not a criterion that most scholars would take seriously. Scholars don't align themselves with media perceptions; they align themselves with the consensus of other scholars. If Doyle, Sipe, et al., are indeed out of step with the scholarly consensus on this issue, then you have a point; but if they are just out of step with the blatherings of the mass media, that is probably to their credit and would more likely enhance their credibility among scholars than detract from it. Harmakheru ✍ 23:23, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Excluding the Rev. Thomas Doyle is an extremist viewpoint and I would like to see what backs up that opinion. He is a Catholic priest who is widely quoted in the mainstream media. Skywriter (talk) 23:31, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Sexual abuse scandal: mainstream opinion vs. minority dissent

There are clearly a lot of strong opinions here. I gained a lot of respect for Harmakheru during previous discussions regarding this article's POV slant. However, it's clear that he has a strong POV with respect to this topic and I'm afraid that this perspective colors his ability to strike an NPOV stance. This is not to say that Xandar and John Carter are right, simply that (IMO) Harmakheru is too far over on the other side. We must remember that it is not our job to determine and report the WP:TRUTH, no matter how passionately we believe in it (or perhaps especially when we believe in our understanding of the truth too passionately).

It is our job to determine and report what reliable sources believe the truth to be without giving undue weight to minority positions.

Now, I haven't read all of Doyle, Sipe, Wall and Podles have written but I've read enough to get the gist of what their argument is. I suspect that there is an element of truth in their charges but I also suspect that they have done their share of synthesis which is, AFAICT, not clearly shared by the mainstream community. That is, I am not convinced that their position is mainstream as opposed to a minority opinion. I base this assessment on the tone of articles in the mainstream media reporting on the topic. Yes, there is a media "feeding frenzy" whenever there is any sign of "blood in the water" regarding this scandal. However, just about everything I've read in the mainstream media treats the scandal as if it were a phenomenon of the late 20th century and not one that has spanned the last two millenia.

The discussion above has turned from discussion about improving this article to debate about the topic itself which belongs in a discussion forum, not on a Wikipedia talk page (see WP:NOT and WP:TALK).

I think we should go back to focusing on what encyclopedia articles and overview summaries of the history of the Church say about the scandal. Of course, we must look for works written after about 2005 because, before that time, the scandal was too recent in the U.S. and Ireland. Encyclopedia Britannica Online is a good bellwether but it is useful to consider what other encyclopedias have to say.

I continue to oppose the inclusion of the text that Xandar believes is needed for "balance". Those arguments should be reserved for the detailed articles. It's not necessarily an attack on the Church to state that it had to deal with a scandal involving some of its priests and bishops. The time to mention the criticisms of the Church's handling of the crisis and the associated defenses is in the detailed articles, not in the overview of the Church's history.

--Richard S (talk) 15:43, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Of course Doyle, Sipe, Podles, et al., do "synthesis"--that's what experts do. The Wikipedia rules prohibit synthesis by Wikipedians, not by the authorities on whom they rely; if the latter were the case, then there could be no "reliable authorities" because it is their "synthesis" that makes them authorities in the first place. As for declaring experts like Doyle and Sipe to be outside the scholarly mainstream because they do not share "the tone of articles in the mainstream media" ... would you prefer to get your physics from a physicist or from the "science" pages of your local newspaper? The one thing almost everyone agrees on in issues like this is that the "mainstream media" do an extremely poor job of understanding or conveying the larger context of the issues they report. If the mainstream media are going to be the standard by which we judge the reliability of reliable authorities and the expertness of expert opinion, then we may as well just forget the whole thing and find some other way to waste our time. Harmakheru ✍ 16:11, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
Harmakheru, I understand that it is the job of scholars to synthesize. If they don't, they are adding nothing new to the collective knowledge. What I'm challenging is whether their synthesis has, in fact, become the scholarly consensus and accepted as mainstream. --Richard S (talk) 05:03, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
Doyle, Sipes and co, are clearly fringe, as I've said in another section. Their whole postulation is based on an unproved hypothesis, that there is more abuse in Catholicism than elsewhere. If there IS more abuse in Catholicism, we can seek to explain why. If there isn't, then no such explanation is tenable. As far as balance is concerned, ALL topics need balance, WHAT balance is required depends on proposed wordings. Xandar 11:58, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
Xandar, I can assert from now until the rest of my life that the skies are filled with snakes and that this article ought to be based on that claim because I said it. In the same way, you have repeatedly expressed this personal opinion of yours without providing a shred of proof on any level at any time. Please provide reliable secondary sources to support your viewpoint. If this is your original research, please state that. Please demonstrate that the breadth and scope of the sex abuse scandals within the Catholic Church is well within the tolerances of other churches, mosques, synagogues and monasteries, and that it has affected their finances and credibility of their hierarchies. Demonstrate with citations where scholarly and media coverage of what you allege to be true has been covered by WP:RS. Please show us further why the information you provide ought to be included in this article. Thank you. Skywriter (talk) 15:31, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
One more thing, Xandar. Please show, using reliable sources to back up your personal opinion, that Canon lawyer Thomas Doyle is "clearly fringe". You have made these claims many times without showing proofs on any level. We now ask you to prove it. You can not cite yourself, as you do in your last comment, " "as I've said in another section." Citing yourself violates WP:OR. It doesn't fly here or anywhere else on Wikipedia. Skywriter (talk) 15:31, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
I see a lot of people putting up claims for sources and claims for this and that. I also see a lot of discussion debating the sexual abuse crisis in the Church but I don't really see a lot of people making suggestions for what should actually be in the article. Until actual proposals WITH SOURCES are proposed, not much real discussion can take place. The only two real suggestions I have seen have been the original version that was in the article pre-article cutup and Richard's suggestion. Let's get this talk page back to what it should be, a discussion on what should be in THIS article, not the abuse article, not the Marciel article, not the National Enquirer, NY Times or anything else. Marauder40 (talk) 15:53, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
An editor has disqualified the introduction of sources, such as the scholar Thomas Doyle, by affixing the term "fringe" to his views. That editor, Xandar, must now either prove his claim or withdraw it.
Marauder, would you please link to what you refer to as "the original version that was in the article pre-article cutup" so that we all know what you are talking about. Thanks.Skywriter (talk) 17:03, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
I haven't seen anything that technically Xander has to prove. Nobody has made an actual proposal for adding anything to the article with the actual text in context. I am sure Xander will qualify his statement, but it is up to the editor adding something to prove what they are adding meets RS and other Wiki policies. As for the original version, it is included on this talk page. Look for the section labeled, "Moving forward". Both the original version and Richard's preliminary suggestion of an actual edit are in that section. Very little discussion actually happened in the one section that was actually trying to improve the article. Basically what is going on is that this Talk page has turned into a huge soapbox instead of addressing what actually should go into the article. Marauder40 (talk) 17:21, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
Questions were raised by Richard and others about what should be said on the subject and whether giving it any significant coverage would be "recentism" and "undue weight". I tried to be helpful by offering some sources that might answer those questions. Those sources were immediately trashed by the "other side" as being unreliable, biased, anti-Catholic bigots, fringers, and all the usual tripe. And then we were off and running. We haven't gotten to writing text because text must be sourced, and it's already abundantly clear that several people here will vehemently object to the best sources available for supporting the text that needs to be written. Until we get that sorted out, attempting to write article text would be (as someone once put it so elegantly), "like writing on water".
Xandar, in particular, claims that Doyle, Sipe, etc., are "fringe" because "their whole postulation is based on an unproved hypothesis, that there is more abuse in Catholicism than elsewhere." Unfortunately, it is not at all clear what "postulation" of theirs he is objecting to (much less that it is actually theirs and not the product of his own imagination or misunderstanding); nor has he shown that they actually claim there is more abuse in Catholicism than elsewhere; nor has he shown that this is actually the basis for their "postulation" (whatever it is); nor does he have any evident grounds for believing that such a claim would be untrue, other than his own certainty that it must be. So far he has given no indication that he has actually read any of their books in which they lay out what they actually do believe, or why they believe it, or what the evidence is for it, or what documents and argumentation support it. But he doesn't need to do any of that, because he already knows they are "fringe" because they disagree with him. He did the same thing in the argument a while back about St. Peter as the first pope and founder of the Roman church. The actual authorities who inhabit the scholarly mainstream on this issue were dismissed by him as "fringe" and "revisionist", while he and Nancy were offering up snippets from such inadmissible "sources" as Catholic apologists, a 19th-century devotional tract, a middle-school catechetical text, and a National Geographic coffee-table book. If we are going to go back to that sort of nonsense, then--again--this whole thing is just a waste of our time, and we should find something else to amuse ourselves with. Harmakheru ✍ 17:37, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
It's not like writing on water. We have things to start with, whether it be the original version or a modified version of such, it is a starting place. Put up what your suggestion change in with the sources. Let people talk about it and discuss why it is good and why it isn't good whether it be the text itself or the sources can be discussed. Right now we are dealing with nebulous arguements where someone would have to read the ENTIRE works of authors to judge whether they should or shouldn't be included. You need to have a starting point and just debating the sexual abuse scandal itself doesn't help. It is possible based on the wording, using author A would work, but the same author can't be used if the wording is different. This thread has gone way off on a tangent. Should self-policing work or are we going to have to "officially" bring in admins/moderators/etc. to bring it back on course. Marauder40 (talk) 17:52, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Can we get back to Richard's primary question/suggestion - what do recent scholarly histories of the Catholic Church say about the scandal? My reading has been concentrated in pre-1500s history, and later info I've read has been in books written in the early 1990s. There is no point in us debating what we think is most important - it's time to look to the scholars to determine how much weight to give. Karanacs (talk) 17:41, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree. Marauder40 (talk) 17:52, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
Yes, thank you. I think we need some decision criteria which will help us choose between the kind of coverage that we see in the EB Online articles and the kind that we see in the Encyclopedia of Religion article. I personally prefer the tone of the EB Online articles, finding the Encyclopedia of Religion coverage a bit harsh and strident. I only suggest that Doyle, Sipe et al are outside of the mainstream because what I've generally read does not seem to suggest that they are the mainstream perception. (Once again, they might be right but it is not our job to assert whether they are right or wrong. It is our job to simply indicate which is the mainstream perception and which is the minority perception. With adequate citations, the reader can consult the original sources and determine for him/herself which he/she believes is the truth. --Richard S (talk) 23:06, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
But which mainstream? You have previously dinged Doyle and Sipe for being out of step with the "mainstream media", which is not a criterion that most scholars would take seriously. Scholars don't align themselves with media perceptions; they align themselves with the consensus of other scholars. If Doyle, Sipe, et al., are indeed out of step with the scholarly consensus on this issue, then you have a point; but if they are just out of step with the blatherings of the mass media, that is probably to their credit and would more likely enhance their credibility among scholars than detract from it. Harmakheru ✍ 23:23, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Excluding the Rev. Thomas Doyle is an extremist viewpoint and I would like to see what backs up that opinion. He is a Catholic priest who is widely quoted in the mainstream media. Skywriter (talk) 23:31, 31 August 2010 (UTC)


I think my earlier comment requires clarification: what I am referring to as "outside the mainstream" is the assertion that sexual abuse of children in the Catholic Church is a longstanding problem that spans two millennia. My argument here is that: if this were true, why is it only now being revealed? There should be a long history of mainstream treatments of the problem over the last few centuries.
I do think it's important to make a distinction here. It's clear that there is a long history of sexual misconduct by some clergy. In some periods (e.g. during the medieval era), the sexual misconduct may have been more prevalent than during others. However, the impression that I have of this sexual misconduct is that it has been primarily heterosexual (i.e. clergy having mistresses and families). Literature is full of stories of clergy having mistresses and families. However, this is a different kind of sexual misconduct than the sexual abuse of children (mostly male) under 14 and there are relatively few references to this kind of sexual misconduct.
NB: If you look at the John Jay report, the victims are 81% male. In other countries, however,
Now, it seems to me that there are two basic perspectives: one is that the Catholic clergy and religious constitute a hotbed sexual misconduct and has been for centuries and the other is that there has always been sexual misconduct by a small minority and that the scandals have been overblown and exaggerated to vilify the Church. I don't deny that there have been a number of sexual scandals over the centuries. However, I am not convinced that abuse of children is part of the mainstream scholarly understanding of the problem. I say this with little evidence and just my own personal speculation. That is, the literary treatment of clerical sexual misconduct usually refers to mistresses and families and rarely discusses sexual abuse of children.
I would want to see more evidence that this problem is as longstanding as Doyle, Sipe et al. claim.
Harmakheru, I think you know that I am open to looking at sources and weighing them against each other. My primary concern here is that I am a bit leery of relying too heavily on Doyle, Sipe and Wall because of their roles as advisers to victims' groups. I would prefer to see the opinions of those who have no potential conflict of interest. I don't categorically dismiss everything they have to say. I suspect that what they have to say about the last half a century of the sexual abuse scandal is at least worth considering. (I'm only equivocating here because I haven't read and weighed everything they've written so I want to leave some wiggle room in case they have exaggerated or overstated some points.)
I note that Skywriter has listed a number of sources below. It's a very good step in the right direction.
--Richard S (talk) 05:00, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
Richard, I do not think we have to resolve the issue of the past just now. The glaring problem with this article is the unsatisfactory nature of a single obscure mention in passing in one vague sentence. That needs to be fixed. I'm fine with summarizing the last 50 years. The longer history can be deal with later when more resources are available. Or it can be addressed in History of the Catholic Church where it likely and more properly belongs. Skywriter (talk) 18:32, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Moving forward with precise citations

Richard has provided no citations and therefore his paragraph can not be properly evaluated. He says he has summarized Encyclopedia Britannica and can not state with confidence that what he has written is not plagiarism. This suggests the item should be rewritten with precise citations.

Here's a credible list of books that have been written on the subject, all reviewed by reliable sources.

  • Berry, Jason and Renner, Gerald. Vows of Silence: The Abuse of Power in the Papacy of John Paul II (Free Press, 2004) (Berry and Renner have written extensively about religion in other arenas.)
  • Berry, Jason. El Legionario de Cristo/Vows of Silence: Abuso De Poder Y Escandalos Sexuales Bajo De Juan Pablo II
  • Berry, Jason. Lead Us Not into Temptation: Catholic Priests and the Sexual Abuse of Children (Doubleday, 1992) ISBN 9780385424363. Re-isued by University of Illinois Press ISBN 9780252068126
  • Doyle, Thomas P., A.W. Richard Sipe, Patrick J. Wall. Sex, Priests, and Secret Codes: The Catholic Church's 2,000 Year Paper Trail of Sexual Abuse ISBN 978-1566252652
  • Hamilton, Marci. Justice Denied: What America Must Do to Protect its Children (Hamilton is a constitutional scholar.)
  • Lawler, Philip F. The Faithful Departed: The Collapse of Boston's Catholic Culture ISBN 978-1594033742 Lawler is the editor of [1]
  • Nelson, Jay. Sons of Perdition: New Mexico in the Secret History of the Catholic Sex Scandals This one is about the center where many priests who abused children were sent before becoming recidivism.
  • Rigert, Joe. An Irish Tragedy: How Sex Abuse By Irish Priests Helped Cripple The Catholic Church (An investigative reporter, Joe Rigert is retired from theStar Tribune in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He served as president of Investigative Reporters & Editors, and is the author of two books.
  • Shupe, Anson D. Spoils of the Kingdom: Clergy Misconduct and Religious Community (University of Illinois Press) (May 22, 2007) ISBN 978-0252031595

Here are some of hundreds of credible mainstream resources among periodicals on cases that are different than those documented in the books listed above.

In opposition to the widely praised recommendations of Marci Hamilton, the constitutional law scholar, is a New York bishop. June 5, 2009 Bishop Avidly Opposes Bill Extending Time to File Child-Abuse SuitsBy Paul Vitello

"Catholic abuse scandal edges closer to pope: The problem is no longer an American aberration, and Catholics want to know what Pope Benedict knew when he was archbishop of Munich." March 27, 2010 By Mitchell Landsberg and Henry Chu [20] [21] [22]

Vatican officials defend pope in German abuse scandal They deny that Benedict, as archbishop of Munich, had a role in an accused child abuser's reinstatement to priestly duties. March 14, 2010|By Maria De Cristofaro and Henry Chu [23] [24]

latimes editorial [25] A penitent church Recent statements and actions indicate that the Roman Catholic Church is changing its tune on the sexual abuse scandal. May 18, 2010 The pope comes up short Unless the condemnation of sexual abuse by priests is accompanied by punishment, the Roman Catholic Church's reputation will continue to suffer. Editorial [26] March 24, 2010

May 20, 2006 Vatican Disciplines Founder of Order Over Abuse Charges [27] By Ian Fisher and Laurie Goodstein

Catholic Priest Who Aids Church Sexual Abuse Victims Loses Job as Military Chaplain By Daniel J. Wakin April 29, 2004 [28]

I strongly disagree with Richard's recommendation to exclude the Rev. Thomas Doyle from this article. Doyle is famously the leading friend inside the church of people who were sexually abused by priests anjd excluding him excludes the victims' viewpoint. Stopping the sexual abuse of children is a mainstream value, Catholic and not. Skywriter (talk) 23:34, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Here is an excellent overview of the crisis by Doyle and Rubino in the Fordham Urban Law Journal: [29].
Here is a discussion of the role played in the crisis by clericalism (one of the main factors identified by Podles): [30]
Here is a good article on the role of mass media in the crisis: [31]
Harmakheru ✍ 23:57, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
Haermakheru, at nearly 30,000 words, the piece in the Fordham Urban Law Journal is a small book. Without the need for subscription, it is on the co-author's website in its entirety. "Catholic Clergy Sexual Abuse Meets the Civil Law"
I just finished reading it and can observe that it is pertinent in that it traces the issue in history going back to the first century, comparing how the church addressed the issue at different times. It sheds light by examining the issue of how clericalism has historically contributed to the scandals. Skywriter (talk) 02:47, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
Thank you for the link! That will make things a lot easier for those who want to read it (and I would encourage everyone to do so). Harmakheru ✍ 03:25, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
I've scanned the first 40 pages which is more or less what I understood Doyle and Sipe to say. I think I may have read a shortened version some time ago. I think I would retract some of what I wrote above. Doyle makes a strong case that clerical abuse of adolescent males is a problem that runs back for more than a millenium. My question remains: is this a mainstream view? --Richard S (talk) 05:22, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
If no fact could be stated in Wikipedia until it was conclusively demonstrated to be the "mainstream view" then nothing could be written at all; such an approach invites paralysis by infinite recursion. I say "X". You ask, "But is X the mainstream view?" I find a source that says, "X is the mainstream view." Someone else replies, "But is it the mainstream view that this is the mainstream view? All we have is one source's assertion that it is, and I don't believe it." And so on, until everyone gives up and goes home.
Doyle has the proper academic and professional credentials combined with vast personal experience; he is published in reputable journals, "makes a strong case", and backs that case with lots of citations to other authorities and original sources. That should be enough for a first iteration; and if someone wants to object that Doyle is a "fringe" crank with an ax to grind, then let the objector find his own reliable source that says so. Harmakheru ✍ 16:09, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
The rule in Wikipedia is that assertions need to be sourced if challenged and even sourced assertions should not give undue weight to minority opinions. Thus, we can say "X is true", "According to source A, X is true" or "Some sources such as source A assert that X is true". We can even say "Some sources assert that X is true although this is a minority opinion." I am inclined not to use a simple "X is true" formulation with respect to certain assertions made by Doyle, Sipe, etc. because they represent broad generalizations based on a synthesis of history which is not evident (at least to me) in histories of the Church. Doyle, Sipe, et al. base their case on the fact that Canon Law has had penalties for sexual abuse of minors for centuries. What is unclear to me is whether the problem has therefore been under control because there have been adequate penalties as a deterrent or whether it has always been out of control and simply covered up (or maybe even sometimes in control and sometimes not). Doyle, Sipe, etc. don't really provide evidence to make this linkage between the sexual abuse problem of centuries ago and the one of the past half a century. This leads, IMHO, to them suggesting to the reader that he make an unwarranted leap to synthesize the two. A kind of "guilt by juxtaposition" if you will.


We all know that journals represent the cutting edge of new thought. What's not clear when we read a journal article is whether that new thought has been accepted as mainstream unless you get a bunch of follow-on journal articles who refer to the original novel ideas in a tone of acceptance. (To be clear, I reiterate that I am talking specifically about the assertion that the Church has always had this problem with sexual abuse of minors and the implication that it has dealt with these problems by covering them up. I'm more willing to accept the assertions about the conduct of the Church in the last half a century.)
That said, I am happy to put more of what Doyle, Sipe et al have written into the detailed articles where there is room to give them adequate treatment (including rebuttals if anyone wishes to include them). The problem with putting controversial assertions which are still subject to debate into this article is that there is always someone who wants to put a rebuttal in as well and that just makes for a disproportionately long piece of text (like the text that was in the original pre-IAR version of the article.
P.S. Forgive my laziness: what are the "reputable journals" in which Doyle et al are published?
--Richard S (talk) 16:45, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

(UNINDENT) Richard S, your focus on hypothetical "what ifs" is not helpful. You ask whether a journal is reputable. Are you asking, in the Wikipedia sense of the word, whether the journal at Fordham University is a WP:RS reliable source? Fordham has been around for many years and, like any university, its board of trustees publish their scholarly journals. If you are asking whether Fordham is reputable, yes, it is. Why would you think it is not?Skywriter (talk) 17:03, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Ehh... (remove foot from mouth) yeh, that is laziness. Of course, Fordham is a respectable university and I expect that journals published by them are reputable. I guess I should have taken the effort to check myself. That notwithstanding, my skepticism remains about the assertion/implication that Doyle et al make about the relevance of past history to the current scandal. IMHO, the case is made that this has been a problem in the past. What remains unclear is the linkage between the past and the present. --Richard S (talk) 17:12, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
While I appreciate skepticism, our personal opinions mean nothing in this forum. The article, in the Fordham journal is quite fair in that it incorporates the traditional opponents of the viewpoint it presents and contains 421 footnotes. Have you read it? Skywriter (talk) 17:53, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
Doyle has also published several articles on this topic in Pastoral Psychology, a peer-reviewed journal from Springer-Verlag. From their web site: "Pastoral Psychology is one of the oldest and most well established academic journals in the field of psychology and religion/spirituality. Since 1950, the journal offers an international interdisciplinary forum for the publication of original papers that discuss the work of caring for, understanding, and exploring human beings as persons, in families, in small groups, and in community. This peer-reviewed journal brings the best of psychological, behavioral, social, and human sciences research into critical engagement with pastoral concerns (local, institutional, societal, political, international, and other)." He has also published in Studia Canonica, "a scholarly journal on canon law published twice a year by the Faculty of Canon Law of Saint Paul University in Ottawa, Canada", and various lesser publications such as the Annual Proceedings of the National Catholic Council on Alcohol and Drug Related Problems, the Association of Humanistic Psychology Journal, and The Priest, a publication of "Our Sunday Visitor". Not all of the latter qualify as scholarly journals, but Pastoral Psychology and Studia Canonica certainly do. Harmakheru ✍ 17:45, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Harmakheru's contribution

Harmakheru provided the link to the full text of an article[32] by law prof Timothy Lytton. The article, published in a law journal, looks like an excerpt from Lytton's book, Holding Bishops Accountable: How Lawsuits Helped the Catholic Church Confront Clergy Sexual Abuse published in May 2008 by Harvard University Press ISBN 978-0674028104. Most notable about Lytton's book is that it was favorably reviewed by Michael R. Merz, Chair, National Review Board of the Catholic Bishops Conference. Merz wrote: "Timothy Lytton makes a persuasive, even compelling, argument that tort litigation set the agenda for policymakers dealing with sexual abuse of minors in the American Catholic Church. His learned interdisciplinary approach blends institutional analysis with acute observation of how the victims' counsel used the media to make the issue salient to the public and the discovery process to keep the issue interesting to the media. His book should be read, indeed studied carefully, by anyone who wants to understand the crisis as a whole."

The article provides a very useful chronology of the three most important legal cases in the U.S. I think we should use this book as a resource. I reject Richard's contention that 4% is a relevant or understandable number because it ignores the key fact that any one child molester is usually a walking crime wave. In the case of priests, boy scout leaders, and the like, the perpetrators usually abuse more than a hundred kids until they are stopped. Therefore saying "only 4%" of Catholic clergy have committed sexual crimes against kids is misleading. The Lytton article states that "thousands" of lawsuits have been filed in the US. In fairness, I believe we have to go with that.

I don't think a lot more general discussion is necessary or useful. Richard, do you want to take a stab at re-introducing a paragraph or two based on the strong reliable sources that have been offered. I can add some comments by popes, at least one of which is somewhere up thread. I spent most of yesterday gathering my list and will lose my job if I spend any more time on it this week. Skywriter (talk) 18:22, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

My biggest problem with using this as a direct source is that we have a great deal of difficulty determing proper weight if we are looking at very focused books. I think we would do better to look at recently published histories of the Catholic Church to see how much weight they give. Karanacs (talk) 18:30, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
Then make a specific suggestion and be sure to link to it.Skywriter (talk) 18:34, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
Truthkeeper and I have been buried in books to work on the earlier pieces of the History section. I'll leave it to those of you with more of an interest in this time period to find and read the literature to write the later part of the history. Karanacs (talk) 19:57, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

The Cover-up Continues

Just in case anyone is tempted to trot out the line that this is all "old news" and that the recent "reforms" have put an end to the abuse crisis, here is the latest from the New York Times about the ongoing scandal in the Belgian church: [33] It's the same old story, except this time it involves Cardinal Godfried Danneels, head of the Catholic Church in Belgium until this past January and once considered a contender for the papacy, and Belgian Bishop Robert Vangheluwe, who by his own admission was guilty of sexually abusing his own nephew. Danneels and Vangheluwe met with the victim in April of this year and strongly pressured him to remain silent about the crimes that had been committed against him. Fortunately for the victim, he recorded the meetings so there can be no doubt about what transpired--and what the tapes reveal is the same old cover-up routine that's been going on for decades. Business as usual. Harmakheru ✍ 16:41, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

There is "sin" and there is "crime". "Sin" can be forgiven by God and by man (we can forgive others for the wrong they have done to us". "Crime" must be dealt with by the legal authorities. The story of Bishop Vangheluwe strikes me as one in which one side argues for private "forgiveness of sin" and the other demands public confession although that public confession may involve the legal authorities as a consequence. I'm not sure how to interpret the phrase "press the victim either to accept a private apology or to wait until the bishop retired". What was the advantage to "waiting until the bishop retired"?
There is also the question of scale. In the U.S., we have a number to hang our hat on (4% of priests). Are there any similar statistics for other countries? Are the statistics for the U.S. typical for other countries as well? I've seen no data on which to basis such comparisons and yet it seems critical to understanding whether this is a series of related scandals in specific countries or one that is truly global in scope.
It does seem that the scandal has been moving geographically. I was surprised to learn in my research for the article on Catholic sex abuse cases that the reason Canada has not been much in the news vis-a-vis this scandal is that they confronted the scandal in the 1990s and moved to institute measures to address the issue. (That is, it's not that Canada has been unscathed by the scandal. It's simply that they had their scandal and dealt with it and the rest of the world seems to have ignored the whole thing.) Similar issues surfaced in Ireland in the 1990s but it took until this decade for them to come to grips with the problem (fed in part by the scandal in the U.S.) I'm not sure if the scandal is completely resolved there even now (i.e. there are still news articles on the topic as late as last year and the beginning of this one.) In the U.S., the scandal seems to have been more or less resolved. Europe, however, is another matter with new allegations of cover-ups surfacing in Germany, Austria and Belgium. The Philippines are another locus of the scandal. It's not clear to me what the status of that scandal is. It is a global scandal but it has only recently become so. Until a few years ago, it was possible to consider that it occurred in a few countries and even now it is not clear that it reaches across the entire globe with the same scale.
The point here is that reforms have been instituted at the level of the national conference of bishops and at the level of the Vatican. It may be that individual countries must go through the catharsis of scandal and reform before the issue is resolved in that country.
--Richard S (talk) 17:08, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
Don't overthink this, Richard. We're needing only a paragraph or two on this subject. We do not have to resolve all the issues that are flooding your mind and clouding your focus on our purpose, and that is to add a paragraph or two to this article. Skywriter (talk) 17:59, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
Why push the problem off until the bishop retired? Because then it can be spun in the media as no longer the Church's problem; it can be relegated to the dustbin of history as a "personal issue" involving an "individual" who no longer holds any position of authority or influence. "We've identified the problem and he is no longer with us. This is old news. Move on!" As Pope Benedict said in his letter to the Irish Church, one of the motivations for the grievous failures of leadership in this scandal has been "a misplaced concern for the reputation of the Church and the avoidance of scandal". In some cases it also has to do with crass calculations about legal jurisdiction; once a bishop has retired, he is no longer tied to his diocese and can escape civil or criminal liability for his actions by simply moving somewhere beyond the reach of the local authorities. Cardinal Law, who might well have ended up in prison for his role in the horrific abuses in Boston, got "kicked upstairs" to Rome, where he now advises the Pope on the selection of bishops throughout the world; Cardinal Levada, who was also facing possible legal problems in the U.S., took over Ratzinger's old job in Rome as head of the CDF. In the present case, as the NYT article says, "Bishop Vangheluwe has retreated to a Trappist monastery where he has kept his silence." At the moment the bishop is reputedly in a monastery in Belgium, but that could change easily enough if the police came knocking--and in any case it serves as a grand excuse for having "no comment".
There is some good discussion of this case here: [34] Harmakheru ✍ 18:18, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
As far as the scope of the problem, the Fordham article by Doyle and Rubino says: "The problem of clergy sexual abuse has been most visible in the United States, but it is by no means confined to this country. Exposure of widespread sexual abuse and consequent hierarchical mishandling has occurred in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Great Britain, Mexico, Spain, Poland, Austria, Germany, France, Argentina, and Hong Kong." To this we can now add India, Belgium, the Netherlands, Chile, and Brazil, which have erupted in the past year or two, as well as widespread clerical abuse of female religious in Africa. I don't think there is any serious doubt that this is a global problem, and we have every indication that the number of victims is quite large. In Germany they opened a telephone hotline for people to register abuse complaints against the Church, and they were inundated with hundreds of such complaints in just a few days. It doesn't take much ferreting around in the international press to see that this is global, and it is huge. Harmakheru ✍ 18:32, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
Harmakheru seems to think that making ever more wild and scattergun accusations when his earlier stuff is refuted is a useful course. Outside the main few countries abuse allegations are isolated incidents in general. The belgian "revelation" he pushes is based on a set-up, with a guy going into a meeting with a recorder, primed and coached to try to get a certain response. It is more rubbish. None of this ranting is helping the article. Xandar 23:06, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
Xandar seems to think it's enough to claim victory without actually achieving it. What "earlier stuff" of mine have you "refuted", Xandar? You've attempted to refute a bunch of stuff I've said, but you always came up short--like your defense of Castrillon Hoyos' letter congratulating a bishop for protecting a child-raping priest, which you CLAIMED (in capital letters, no less) was about defending the sanctity of the confessional. Except it wasn't. But never mind, you just ignore the fact that you were flat out wrong, and move on as if nothing had happened. It's one of your trademark methods of operation. And how, pray tell, do you know that the Belgian situation was a "set-up" in which the victim was "coached" to "get a certain response"? Were you there? Have you read the transcripts? Have you read anything about the case except what you found on some true-believer web site? If so, why don't you share your sources with us so we too can be enlightened, instead of just making your own "ever more wild and scattergun accusations"--and against an undisputed victim of clerical abuse at that--without offering a shred of evidence? Harmakheru ✍ 04:04, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
Since it was brought up I figured I should post the other side of the story. I know some will complain about the source. But as I said before sometimes you have to read both "sides" of the story to get an idea of what the true story is. It will be interesting to see based on this response whether AP will post the entire transcripts. http://www.ewtn.com/vnews/getstory.asp?number=105192 Marauder40 (talk) 19:31, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
Gosh, what a surprise: The Cardinal's lawyer says his client is being ill-used; and EWTN--the faithful lapdog of the hierarchy--dutifully reports the lawyer's spin. As for the transcripts, they have already been published in Europe and extensively analyzed by the media there, and an English-language translation of at least one of them is available online. I've read it. It supports the victim's story across the board. And the rest of the story, which you will probably not find on EWTN, can be found here: [35]. Harmakheru ✍ 04:16, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
  1. ^ [Catholic World News
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