Talk:Reformation

Sectioning

The article is dedicated to the Reformation not to Reformation in indivdual countries or territories. I doubt that the article should present the details of the Reformation movement in each country. Of course, relevant events of the history of the Reformation of individual countries could be presented but only within the wider framework. Consequently, much of the present subsections are unnecessary. Borsoka (talk) 09:42, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

As someone who has not edited this article very much but is familiar with the history of the Reformation, I agree. I think the current article layout can be improved. First thing I noticed is that we have 2 main sections "History" and "Conclusion/legacy". Since this article is about a historical movement or event, having a history section is redundant. If I were simplifying this layout I might suggest the following:

1. An origins, background, context section (whatever is most appropriate)
   1. A section describing briefly late medieval Catholicism
   2. Renaissance and how that contributed to later Protestantism
   3. Proto-Protestants
2. Early Reformation (1517-1524)
   1. Martin Luther
      1. Luther's theology
   2. Reformation at Wittenberg
      1. Karlstadt's radicalism
      2. Zwickau prophets
   3. Reformation at Zurich
      1. Zwingli

This is of course just a start and we would have to include further events, but there is no reason for including every country in Europe - especially if they have their own articles. Ltwin (talk) 18:31, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

@Borsoka Ltwin (talk) 18:36, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

Yes, I was thinking a very similar structure. The main difference that I do not like orphan sub-sections. :) Borsoka (talk) 01:13, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

@Borsoka I agree. This article should really focus on the main historical narrative of the Reformation and leave the detail to other articles like English Reformation, Swiss Reformation, and the Counter Reformation. Ltwin (talk) 02:29, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

Yes, the article is too big. Can I suggest a different structure?

As a background, may I suggest that one reason that an unwieldy article has been generated is a failure to adequately distinguish two different usages of "Reformation":

• the first concerns the religious movements which took lasting hold in Germanic (language) countries (Germany, Scandinavia, Netherlands, Britain, etc) and their colonies
• the second concerns the Geo-political period of instability and wars in Western Europe (particularly Germany) that came in the wake of the religious movement, and which ended with the Treaty of Westphalia: the enormous amount of the current article that is taken up with wars and battles (rather than e.g. theology and personalities) is a sign of this usage. (e.g. " Georg Truchsess von Waldburg (d. 1531), the commander of the troops of the Swabian League, achieved the dissolution of the Swabian peasant armies either by force or through negotiations." ... really??)

I think the article should be about primarily about the first usage, not the second. (If it seems strange to think of two uses of "Reformation", consider how it makes no sense to say that the Protestant Reformation as a religious movement stopped with the Treaty of Westphalia! Of course, some events straddle both usages: the Pilgrimage_of_Grace for example.)

So...I think that a better way to trim down the Reformation page would be

1. Make it a hub article, where each section on has a minimal paragraph; perhaps Luther can be allowed two paragraphs, but no details. Clarify that the main scope of the article is the religious history of the 1500s and 1600s.
2. to remove much of the discussion on geo-politics, war and battles to an article that accompanies European_wars_of_religion; e.g. the section Consolidation and Confessionalization. I am aware of the danger of sweeping the wars under the carpet in order to concentrate on e.g. theological or personality aspects of the Reformations: The main article just needs to say "The wars and famines that followed the Reformation killed up to 17 million Europeans" and provide a link.
3. to remove the Background section, which is just ludicrous in how off-topic it is (no matter how correct), perhaps to Christianity_in_the_16th_century;?
4. Restructure the remaining article to build NPOV into the structure of the article (and perhaps avoid unnecessary squabbles) by providing explicit top-level sections for the different movements. I suggest:

• Protestant Reformation: Lutheran, Calvinist, Zwinglian, Bohemians, Anglicans, Gallicans, Anabaptist
  • Protestant Pre-cursors: Waldheimensians, Huss/Hussites, Wycliff/Lollards
  • Protestant Aftermath and Legacy
• Catholic Counter-Reformation: Council of Trent, Jesuits,
  • Catholic Pre-cursors: Brethren of Common Lifedevotio moderna, Council of Basel/Florence, Savonarola, Catherine of Genoa/Oratory of Divine Love, Christian Humanists (Jean Gerson, Erasmus, etc)
  • Catholic Aftermath and Legacy
• Breakdown by Country
• Wars - link to other page

Rick Jelliffe (talk) 13:54, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

I agree with the above, and just came here to suggest that breakdowns by country be according to the countries that existed at the time; i.e., "United Kingdom" should not be a section, since that is a political formation that did not exist at the time of the Protestant Reformation. Instead, it might make more sense to combine all the countries listed under "United Kingdom" (England, Wales, Scotland) and Ireland under a section titled "Britain and Ireland" – making that section title geographic rather than anachronistically political. Everything currently within "New Waves" is about England and Ireland anyway, so that could all be integrated into a "Britain and Ireland" section.

skoosh (háblame) 18:26, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

Baptisms and birth

it about how other religions give birth 102.132.142.88 (talk) 15:25, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

Background: Church Life

Apologies for the length! At the risk of starting some flame war, can I take issue with the sentence "Based on Christ's parable on the Last Judgement, the Catholic Church taught that the performance of good works, such as feeding the hungry and visiting the sick, was a precondition of salvation." I think this is a misrepresentation.

A good guide for what the Church taught at that time is Aquinas, yes? His teaching on what it takes for the "ungodly" to be "justified" (i.e. an initial conversion or repentence after backsliding) has no mention of any kind of acts or works or charity: The entire justification of the ungodly consists as to its origin in the infusion of grace. For it is by grace that free-will is moved and sin is remitted.(Summa Theo, Part II.I, Question 113. The effects of grace, Art7.) (IIUC, this is what Trent called "Actual Grace" or "prevenient grace", associated with a moment or a change) God offers this "first grace", then you make a freewill move towards God, then a move away from sin, then the remission of sin, is Aquinas' logical order.

However, when it comes to justified and unbackslidden Christians (i.e. baptized and converted in whatever order, and sticking to the path), which Aquinas treats as the default case, he talks about "sanctifying grace"[1] which is a state (of living increasingly in grace) rather than a moment.

Where good works also come in relate to happiness: "happiness is the reward for works of virtue" done with charity a.k.a. "merits", as judged by God's loving nature, and caused by the Holy Spirit [2]. Merits have no part in first grace[3] but they amplify the reception of sanctifying grace subsequently by a feedback mechanism: I think the idea is that the more Christians open themselves up to God by charity, the more he fills them.

So the article could say that good works are a post-condition of justification, but for Aquinas they are not a pre-condition for justification or sanctification: grace comes first, based on the merits of Christ not us. So I don't think it is right that medieval Catholic doctrine was that works were "a pre-condition for salvation": I mean, if it were, wouldn't that rule out death-bed converts?

Can that sentence be adjusted or removed, as it seems to perpetuate a myth (or a garbled truth), please?

B.t.w., Luther's argument (against Erasmus' On Free Will) was not that Catholics required good works as a pre-condition for salvation, but that people who gave even the smallest role to free will were still slaves to the Law and not in grace.Rick Jelliffe (talk) 15:25, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for your remark. Although the sentence does not contradict the cited source (Hamilton), I rephrased it ([4]). Hamilton writes: "The medieval church took vera seriously Christ's discourse on the Last Judgement in which he explained that men's salvation or damnation would depend on the works which they had performed in this life...". Borsoka (talk) 01:52, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

Thanks. I think your re-wording is slightly better, but it still not acceptable because

1) it still goes beyond what the source says, and

2) the source says something that is controverted by other sources, and

3) readers could easily go away with an incorrect interpretation, and

4) it is not accurate.

A better wording would be "In accordance with Christ's parable on the Last Judgement, the Catholic Church taught that the faithful who (after their justification by grace and faith only) died in a state of sanctifying grace (maintained inter alia by good works out of faith and charity, such as feeding the hungry and visiting the sick) inherit their salvation and will get into heaven.[https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/bible-says-faith-and-works-needed-for-salvation-1015] In a sense, their lives being then good, they now merit getting to Heaven (but they have not earned the merit: their merit is a voluntary participation in Christ's merit); for some medieval people, gaining merit became a religious focus."

That probably is too much, though? It still is not the whole picture, as every different period and culture (and different theologians) had different emphases and ways to express it,https://regensburgforum.com/2017/02/06/scholastic-developments-on-merit-a-downward-path-into-pelagianism/ and I am not writing as a specialist in this area. (And, of course, what the Church teaches and what medieval kids learnt from their Godparents are different things...) Rick Jelliffe (talk) 14:12, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

Y OK I adjusted the text with what I think is a better compromise:

"Entry into heaven required dying in a State of Grace; apart from recent and deathbed converts, the Catholic Church taught that the faithful who performed good works in charity, such as feeding the hungry and visiting the sick, would go to Heaven, in accordance with Christ's parable on the Last Judgement." Rick Jelliffe (talk) 04:25, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

My concern is that the present short text is fully in line with the cited source, while parts of the above version are not verified. I am not sure either that we should present all elements of the Catholic theology of salvation in an article about the Reformation. Borsoka (talk) 06:19, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

Well, we certainly should not misrepresent what medieval Catholic theology was, either. I will find some RS references, or put it into a note. (I think my description it is better, if made acceptable, because for it also hints at the important medieval issue of "dying well" which pre-occupied them.) Rick 220.240.66.80 (talk) 00:17, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

I have added some more citations. Please let me know if they are not adequate, so I can find some better ones. (On the topic of dealing with Catholic theology, I think there is some use in understanding something by understanding what it differs from; I suppose that is the intent of the Background section?) Rick Jelliffe (talk) 01:49, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

I have also updated the lede's "requires good works" to "could involve good works" for the same reasons as above. "Requires good works" is a weaselly phrase that people can take (and have taken) as meaning that Catholic teaching is that grace and faith are not necessary (and logically prior to anything else), just doing nice things. Rick Jelliffe (talk) 01:58, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

I think your reading of the sentence is flawed, to put it lightly. It doesn't imply anything else was considered unnecessary, only states one thing that was considered necessary by the catholic church. XeCyranium (talk) 01:11, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

No, we cannot rely on some culture-dependent default that when someone says something categorical they are not thereby being exclusive. This is a contentious issue, where people obviously do take the idea that Catholics think good works in the absence of faith is what is necessary to save someone and would read the words on face value; a contentious issue needs to have careful language.Rick Jelliffe (talk) 23:19, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

Fair enough, nothing's really lost by changing it. XeCyranium (talk) 02:11, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

I think the phrase did not suggest that grace and faith were not necessary as it did not contain a statement about them. My concern is that we cannot present medieval Catholic theology based on medieval Catholic theologians' works as per WP:Primary. Borsoka (talk) 02:14, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

Yes. There is no shortage of research papers on what medieval theologians taught: what medieval people thought they were being taught is a much more difficult proposition, so scholars who give evidence such as the thriving charitable guilds are useful. It is good to mark what needs better citations.

Of course, what needs to be treated with extreme suspicion is partisan material from Catholics, Protestants, modern atheists, etc.: err.. pretty much everyone :-) (I think the scholarly "well" is so polluted that in many cases we need to trace quotes back to the original statements-- not as original research but as confirmation that the source cited is historically plausible and conservatively paraphrased. I appreciate many of Borsoka's re-phrasing in the last weeks especially, as so often it is possible to turn a partisan statement into an objective one by just changing a word here or there.) Rick Jelliffe (talk) 14:09, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

Latin

The text has reverted to "Latin was the language of public worship in most dioceses of Catholic Europe[note 6] although few laymen understood it." I think this is misleading and a non-sequitur: most medieval people had a smattering of Latin, as they encountered it in their daily lives (through the liturgy, prayer books, law, administration, manuals, signs, labels, accounts, schooling, doctors, etc.) and most everyone knew the Latin of the main public prayers of the mass.

Being able to speak and read a language fluently (which few could, or still can, for Latin) is different from being able to understand things you have learned in it: few people speak French but many people understand the words to the first lines of Frère_Jacques; few lawyers understand Latin sentences but they all know res ipsa loquitur and mens rea etc.; if you hear young educated Indians speak, they often pepper their native language with learnt English sentences or sayings, this being elegant or smart: they certainly "understand" those English fragments. When we watch a foreign movie with subtitles, just because we don't understand the language does not mean we do not understand the movie: we have another source of comprehension than our ears.

One of the responsibilities of the godparent was to teach the public prayers of the liturgy: when properly catechized people said the pater noster or the creed, they understood it. Everyone was supposed to understand the public prayers of the liturgy they would have to say. (Sure, the details of what the priest said was not important (or secret), but the readings were supposed to be explained in the vernacular in the homily, and many boys went to choir school to learn to sound out and hopefully understand the Psalms.)

Some other info:

• On late medieval and renaissance Latin: Tunberg, T. (2020). Spoken Latin in the Late andMiddle Ages and Renaissance Revisited. Journal of Classics Teaching, 21(42), 66-71. doi:10.1017/S2058631020000446Tunberg, T. (2020). Spoken Latin in the Late Middle Ages and Renaissance Revisited. Journal of Classics Teaching, 21(42), 66-71. doi:10.1017/S2058631020000446
• On medieval Latin as a living language: https://www.academia.edu/4109901/Medieval_Latin_Chapter_17_Dinkova_Bruun
• For quasi-literacy: "in England 'probably more than half the population could read, though not necessarily also write, by 1500" [5]

Based on your summary, I understand that few people understood Latin. I am sure that you can understand some Hungarian words (like czardas and goulash) but I doubt that you would be able to understand a whole Hungarian text. The fact that an explanation in the vernacular was needed shows that they did not understand the Latin liturgy. The article itself states that church visitations in Saxony proved that many believers could not cite the fundamental texts of Christian faith in the 1520s. Remember that the word "hocus-pocus" derrives from the Latin words of the Eucharist: "Hoc est corpus meum". Borsoka (talk) 02:23, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

Hmmm. (Please forgive if this gets off-topic: it makes its way back to an NPOV issue at the end!) In this context, "understood" may be a word that only misleads. Language competency is not binary.

• I don't know the situation in Hungary (I was there two weeks ago: so hot but wonderful!), but I do know that the legal professions in English-speaking countries are full of Latin phrases that every lawyer understands: mens rea, res ipsa loquitur, etc. Do lawyers speak or read Latin? No. Do they understand/know the Latin phrases they need to know to participate in their discussions: yes. I do not speak Latin, but I do recall "calor, dolor, tumor, rubor" that my doctor father taught me as the symptoms of inflamation (which goes back to Celcus in the first century): these phrases permeate the culture. Most countries in medieval times were multi-lingual, and not only was Latin the language of record in most places in Europe, but there was there a much greater emphasis on aural reading and memorization of passages. If I heard the same Hungarian liturgy repeated every Sunday, and had it explained by my Godfather as a child, and was taught to recite the public prayers, I would indeed understand those parts. If I had a lively faith, I would be interested in finding out what the priest was saying and doing: ultimately everyone is responsible for their own faith, yes? From the POV of Wikipedia editing, we need to avoid any bias that makes binary assumptions about e.g. literacy and ignorance.
• For medieval Roman Catholics, the Latin prayers of the mass would be universal knowledge, the Creed, the Our Father, and the psalms (especially for boys who had been through a singing school). You would expect that, as today, most churchgoers would be able to recollect chunks of the beatitudes and key phrases. They would understand many of the OT stories, if not reproduce the exact words. In English, it is likely that most vernacular bibles were owned not by Lollard radical laymen but by priests to help teach and prepare their sermons, to make sure they were using standard English phrases; most of the Wycliff and Tyndale bibles have tables to show the (gospel etc) readings for the week (as used in the Sarum rite used in most places in England and Ireland pre-split), a practice carried over from the Latin Book of Hours of the medieval literate. Preachers in homilies were supposed to translate the gospel or text they were preaching on in their vernacular sermons, and people would memorize phrases just as today. From the POV of Wikipedia editing, we need to acknowledge that the knowledge of what people knew in aural cultures often is invisible to history.
• As to most believers not being able to cite the fundamental texts, so what?: from the (lets call it) Erasmian Christian point of view, we would be more interested in whether they were indeed believers, faithful, were kind and loving, were good husbands and wives, and so on: I think Erasmus would say that Christ never called anyone (or everyone) to be a theologian? If the church visitations in Saxony found that the people there were not loving and kind, I would be more convinced. Of course, we are all supposed to be shocked at people who don't see Christianity as a contest of ideas, who don't 100% buy into Luther's idea that assertions are the core of what makes a Christian (or the emphasis of the second millenium Church councils on catechesis for that matter.) A Lutheran might say "the ability of laymen to assert exactly the theology and biblical texts of their faith is a metric of their community's faith" while a Catholic (not all though!) might say, "no, the number of people who visit hospitals and prison (and other things) out of genuine faithful charity even though they may be quite stupid and confused about all sorts of things outside the Creed." It is certainly not NPOV to have judgements of theologies or churches or groups based on the success criteria of other churches or theologies or groups. I was reading an academic article the other day that said that for Lutherans "faith" meant "assent to the propositions of the faith" while for Catholics "faith" means "obedience to the propositions of the faith" (i.e. more of an emphasis on doing rather than thinking). From the POV of Wikipedia editing, it is not NPOV to criticise Catholics for ignorance on things that are essential to e.g. Lutheranism but are adiaphora to Catholicism. (I know I am going too far, for the point of argument: I hope you see what I mean, I am not sayingclaiming that Catholics say that ignorance of essentials is good.)

...And I think there is another NPOV issue lurking here: I think this bias shows up in one of Borsoka's (excellent) recent revisions, where there is still some text to the effect that Reformers said that many church practices could not be found in the Bible; but this only gives half the picture: as a criticism by the Reformers, it requires that people should expect all church practices to be found in the Bible (it has clearly never been Catholic teaching that tradition or Tradition is limited to Scripture alone.) It would be fascinating to know any academic research on why this idea suddenly appears then, and what was used to justify it. Rick Jelliffe (talk) 15:36, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for sharing your thoughts. I think the article indicates that Luther, Calvin, Zwingli never fully implemented the principle sola scriptura, as they insisted on infant baptism in contrast with the Anabaptists who regarded it as an anti-Biblical practice. The article also indicates that the principle was not an innovation since prominent scholastic theologians had only cited the Bible. As to the Latin language, I think reliable sources are needed to state that masses of peasants and artisans could understand the Latin liturgy of the Mass in the Middle Ages. Borsoka (talk) 02:59, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

"The article also indicates that the principle was not an innovation since prominent scholastic theologians had only cited the Bible."

I don't see that the article or sources says that. First, it does not give any prominent scholastic theologian who only cited the Bible, does it (e.g. Note 11)? Second, sola scriptura is not just an assertion that everything that is necessary for salvation is given in the bible, it is that the bible is clear enough not to need an external interpreter: contrast this with what St Augustine actually said: "I would not believe in the Gospel, if first I did not believe in the Church" (which the previous Pope thought was a good summary of what Duns Scotus taught too.[6]) To retrofit sola scriptura onto the scholastics is anachronistic.Rick Jelliffe (talk) 22:16, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

Agreed with @Borsoka. The article currently reads "although few laymen understood it." We shouldn't say the contrary unless there is a reliable source for it. @Rick Jelliffe seems to be saying that most people knew the "gist" of what was said in the Latin liturgy and prayers because they were told the meaning in English and were familiar enough with the liturgy by virtue of lifelong repetition. Fair enough. But that is different from being able to understand Latin as a language. And you would still need a reliable source to make either claim. Ltwin (talk) 22:42, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

I found a good WP:RS about the "gist". I added to the note a quote from WP:RS of historian Alec Ryrie book, which has had good academic reviews. (The info is page 21 of the second edition and also in the first edition.)

Now the Anglican liturgy went vernacular in 1549 (though some parts started in 1531), so Ryrie's quote is about the status quo in England before then. User Borsoko deleted this in good faith: I have undone that deletion but addressed, in part, his/her objection about scope by adjusting the sentence to bring out that Ryrie's subject here is Pre-Edwardian (VI) England. I think that user Borsoko's objection that this is a book on a later period does not hold water because Ryrie is discussing the pre-Reformation situation in order to discuss the new situation.

As a background, however, surely it stretches credulity to think that the pre-eformation English situation was unique in time or place to Henrican England, that this lay understanding of what the prayers "signified" was only in England and only in the period immediately before the Book of Common Prayer. Indeed, if you look at say the Latin "Our Father" (https://www.wordproject.org/bibles/resources/our_father/l/Pater%20noster_latin1.html) and any earlier medieval Romance version (e.g. Anglo-Norman https://www.wordproject.org/bibles/resources/our_father/f/Li%20nostre%20Pere_french5.html ) you can see how close the versions are. For something like the Our Father, any catechized people would have been taught it in their vernacular; so even medieval people who were native Germanic-language speakers would know the vernacular, which certainly means they certainly knew what the Latin signified. To me, the onus should be on the people who say that there was no understanding to prove it with WP:RS (i.e. no old sectarian material but recent objective WP:RS: from what I see, the academic research is pointing at more comprehension and catechetical knowledge not less.)

As Ryrie points out, fluent knowledge of the language of the mass was hardly important, as priests said their thing too softly for those in the nave to hear anyway: it is an anachronistic view to think that the laity considered it their business to know exactly what the priest says. In other words, the very statement "though few understood it" is a non-sequitur (though, as a Protestant talking point, it is certainly valid to mention it with an appropriate disclaimer), akin to "people wore shoes even though few could make them." (Even today, in the Mass priests say some private preparatory prayers in a too-low voice for the congregation to hear and Catholics are, as far as I know, completely unconcerned by this, but understand that he is just doing his thing.) Rick Jelliffe (talk) 05:12, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

Brethren

The current article says "The Brethren of the Common Life opposed their members' priestly ordination" which seems utterly unlikey to me: there is a big difference between not pushing and opposing...I don't have the book cited, could someone check the reference to confirm that is actually what it claims? I thought the reverse was true, that the Brethren tried to shovel their promising students into Augustinian canonries (like Erasmus) or monastaries (like Luther.) The book The Modern Devotion[7] says that Brotherhouses that could not attract rectors or priests actually failed. Rick Jelliffe (talk) 14:50, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

MacCulloch says that the Brethren "discouraged members from becoming priests". Borsoka (talk) 02:13, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

Thanks. I will change "opposed" to "discouraged" then: they are not synonyms. (The Brethren took their stability promise seriously, but that surprises me: does MacCulloch means secular priests, not canons, perhaps?) Rick Jelliffe (talk) 05:07, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

I think Wikipedia:Close paraphrasing should also be taken into account. Borsoka (talk) 05:33, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

Sure. Possible synonyms for "discourage" --if necessary-- might be (to try to) deter, dissuade, disincline, put off, talk out of, advise against, urge against. But not "oppose". Rick Jelliffe (talk) 06:12, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

Catholic Reform

There is currently a strange sentence: "The canons of the Cologne Cathedral requested Gropper to write a critical response to it,[262] and achieved Hermann's deposition at the Roman Curia"

I don't understand the last clause: what does it mean to achieve a deposition? Is the word "archived" meant instead? Rick Jelliffe (talk) 03:47, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

• Hermann was deposed by the Holy See on their initiative. Borsoka (talk) 03:51, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

  Which sense of "deposed": to be removed from office forcefully (i.e. his "deposal"), or to give evidence under oath (i.e. his "deposition")? I am guessing the former, so I will change "deposition" to "deposal". Rick Jelliffe (talk) 08:00, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

Calamity: purgatory

I have reinstated the text that says purgatory is a transition state between this life and heaven, from the incorrect text that says it is an intermediate state between heaven and hell. I have put four academic citations as justification: if more are desired, please let me know.

The traditional Catholic sequence here is

• death (separation of body and soul)
• personal judgment (in state of grace?)
• purgatory (purification of soul) for the elect[1]
  • (are you a saint? go direct to heaven)[2]
  • (are you in mortal or original sin? go to hell and await)
• resurrection (reunion of body and soul)
• the general judgment (sorting of "sheep and goats")
• beatific vision and happiness for the sheep, hell for the goats

So purgatory is not intermediate but prior to heaven for the elect, nor does it provide a way between heaven and hell, in medieval (and modern) Catholic belief. I have added (what Denizinger provides as) the specific wording from the Second Council of Lyon 1274 at Second_Council_of_Lyon#Purgatory as additional evidence.

There is a lot of mis-informed material, including even in some older academic material, that confuses purgatory and hell, or want to make them the same kind of thing, or to say that purgatory is related to salvation/justification (e.g., some backdoor way to get into heaven by works, outside grace and obedient faith in Jesus) rather than relating to sanctification/purgation/refining. Because of this, Wikipedia articles need to be extra careful not to propagate this kind of myth.

[1] Interestingly, Hildegard of Bingen teaches that purgatory is voluntary (in the sense that the participants think it is a good and necessary thing to get done, like going to the dentist perhaps ;-) ) and that the pains (of having the dross refined from the gold) are received with joy (because they remove impediments to the beatific vision).

[2] Some medieval theologians/visionaries made further distinctions like "earthly paradise" and "limbo" but they never took off. Rick Jelliffe (talk) 12:27, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

Luther-centric

The current article is quite Luther-centric. The Reformed tradition of Zwingli and Calvin is scattered in pieces. Yet they were very independent of Luther: different theory of justification for example. Rick Jelliffe (talk) 17:39, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

I think this follows standard literature: Luther is treated as the origo of the movement. Furthermore, we do not need to present all details of each reformators' theologies in a general article, so we should use sources about the Reformation not about individual reformators. Borsoka (talk) 02:15, 4 October 2023 (UTC)

British Reformation under Henry VIII

I have removed a sentence that papal legate Wolsey "and the lawyer Thomas More (d. 1535) assumed the leadership of massive purges against Protestant."

1) There were 30 heretics killed in Wolsey's time as Lord Chancellor 1515-1529, and 6 in More's time 1529-1532. This makes 2 per year: both "massive" and "purge" are not the right words.

2) The trials and executions were not done "by" the Lord Chancellor, but, usually, by regional authorities, as More pointed out.

3) The "and" suggests that More was a henchman or lackey of Wolsey. This does not seem to be historical.

4) That it was not Protestantism per se that More was interested, but malicious and seditious heresy, is suggested by 1) his "my darling" exchange with Tyndale, and 2) he tolerated under his roof his Lutheran-leaning son in law, William Roper, on condition he kept any dangerous views private.

5) It is not cited.Rick Jelliffe (talk) 05:04, 2 October 2023 (UTC)

1. Purge does not only cover murders, it refers to several forms of persecution forcing people to abandon their faith. 2. The deleted sentence did not claim or imply that More executed anybody. 3. The "and" does not suggest that More was a henchman of Wolsey, because he is presented as one of the two leaders of the purges. 4. Could you refer to scholarly books making a distinction between Protestantism and "malicious and seditious heresy" when writing of More's preeminent role in the persecution of non-Catholics? 5. The sentence was verified by a reference to Cameron. Furthermore, we can hardly ignore prominent scholars who write of the massive persecution of Protestants in England and emphasize the role of More in it. Cameron writes: "England in the 1520s was perhaps most remarkable for its relatively single-minded and efficient persecution of early forms of Protestant thought. The most effective anti-Lutheran persecutor and polemic at the time was not so much the leading churchman Thomas Wolsey (d. 1530) but rather a leading lay lawyer and politician, Thomas More (d. 1535), who both actively pursued individual heretics and also wrote vast polemical tracts against them." (Cameron, Euan (2012) [1991]. The European Reformation (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press. p. 284. ISBN 978-0-19-954785-2.) Peter Marshall also writes: "A clutch of English heretics were burned in 1530-32 as the result of a concerted campaign of repression led by Chancellor Thomas More ..." (Marshall, Peter (2022) [2015]. "Britain's Reformations". In Marshall, Peter (ed.). The Oxford History of the Reformation. Oxford University Press. pp. 238–291 (on page 251). ISBN 978-0-19-289526-4.) Borsoka (talk) 02:42, 4 October 2023 (UTC)

Catholic versus Roman Catholic

I have had a couple of reversions now by people arguing along the lines that 1) there is no difference between "Catholic" and "Roman Catholic" (also that "Roman" is old-fashioned) 2) the article only ever uses "Catholic" therefore it should be consistent so therefore 3) the word "Roman" should be removed. I think this is another one of these areas where people assume that their idiom is universal.

On these 1) Yes, "Catholic" and "Roman Catholic" are often interchangeable, and yes, people used to say "Roman Catholic" more in the past. But they do have a different meanings. First, because Roman Catholic is used in contrast to other churches in communion with Rome: the Greek Catholics, the Maronite Catholics etc. So there are indeed places where Roman Catholic is a useful distinction. It is not "old-fashioned" to be precise. Second, because it can connote loyalty to the Roman Bishop (rather than e.g. conciliarism): so it can convey an intention of the person (e.g. rather than a phrase "Erasmus kept loyal to the Romish Antichrist" it can be said with more NPOV "Erasmus stayed a Roman Catholic"). Third because all the churches that say the Creed (one, holy, catholic and apostolic church) believe themselves to be catholic, and some (e.g. high church Anglicans) may even call themselves capital-c Catholics. Fourth there is no way to tell whether "catholic" or "Catholic" is meant if the word starts a sentence: the choices may be to rewrite the sentence or to use a distinguishing adjective (e.g., ... "Roman".)

2) So the consistency argument is fallacious, where different meanings are intended. (In any case, the consistency argument is factually wrong: there are other, proper uses of "Roman Catholic" elsewhere in the article.)

The consistency needed is e.g. to use "Roman Catholic" only when the Western/Latin/Papal church in particular is meant, or to disambiguate a sentence, but "Catholic" otherwise.

Rick Jelliffe (talk) 18:57, 2 October 2023 (UTC)

Part of the issue is that Roman Catholic is often meant as a term of precision when it does not really serve that purpose. Roman Catholic often refers to all Catholics in communion with Rome (Latin and Eastern Catholic Churches alike, see this exceptionally silly usage in Britannica). It's a common term, but there are far more precise ones. If we're referring to the whole of the church in communion with Rome, we should use Catholic Church or (when appropriate) a common metonymy like Rome. If we're referring to the Latin Church, say Latin Church or Latin Catholic.

The lowercase catholic versus the uppercase Catholic is not a reason to disambiguate, as someone referring to "the Catholic Church" in academic and reliable source media is almost always referring exclusively to what EnWikipedia calls the Catholic Church. This is distinct from the term Orthodox Church, which very commonly refers to either the Eastern or the Oriental Orthodox Churches and necessitates a commonly accepted preceding adjective. If this article had broader coverage of the Old Catholics, Liberal Catholics, or Independent Catholics, or Anglo-Catholics, then I would be inclined to believe Roman Catholic served a reasonable purpose as a disambiguator. ~ Pbritti (talk) 12:02, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

As the article covers the 16th and 17th centuries, it can hardly refer to Old Catholics, Liberal Catholics, Anglo-Catholics. However, I think the use of the term "Catholics" instead of "Roman Catholics" is acceptable in the article's context. Borsoka (talk) 02:45, 4 October 2023 (UTC)

Sorry, Borsoka, if my last point was unclear: I wholly agree that coverage of those groups is irrelevant to this article. I was presenting a hypothetical situation that would encourage the usage of Roman Catholic. Otherwise, I think we agree. ~ Pbritti (talk) 02:53, 4 October 2023 (UTC)

B.t.w. If we take the case of famous Anglican Richard Hooker, writing around 1590 in Polity we see he never uses "Catholic" to refer to the Roman Catholic church: he reserves that for the historical, patristic church (e.g., as opposed to Arians) because he wants to deny continuity. He uses "the Church of Rome". Rick Jelliffe (talk) 11:31, 4 October 2023 (UTC)

It is clear from the article on "Roman Catholic" that it is not always a simple synonym for "Catholic", though it can be. Therefore to remove "Roman" as a matter of blanket editorial policy (which is what my OP is about) is bogus: the editor needs to look at the sentence (and references) to see whether it carries meaning, not assume it serves no useful function.

The argument that there may be better ways to disambiguate is good, but irrelevant because here (and in the Erasmus case) there was no substitute of some other adjective.

For example, in the article on "Erasmus" is a sentence "For the past seventy years, the Roman Catholic Easter Vigil mass has included a Renewal of Baptismal Promises". But if we remove the Roman, we get "For the past seventy years, the Catholic Easter Vigil mass has included a Renewal of Baptismal Promises" which is wrong, because non-Roman-rite Catholics do not have it, being in charge of their own liturgies; and also because other self-styled Catholics who are not in communion with Rome (e.g. the Tudor English Church after the Act of Supremacy--i.e. in the Reformation period--, which continued to style itself Catholic.) So sometimes Roman is correct and appropriate, even if slightly fuzzy. Rick Jelliffe (talk) 10:58, 4 October 2023 (UTC)

@Borsoka suggests that the article is the appropriate scope for determining whether "Roman" should be used. I disagree: it should be phrase-by-phrase, or in the context of its current paragraph, or to bring out a nuance of a cited article. It may be an appropriate adjective, not being used as a part of a name.

Let us imagine three editors:

• the first sees "Roman" and says "I know what it means, it never means anything useful" and boldly deletes it regardless of the sentence it appears in;
• the second says "I don't know why this says 'Roman', I am going to mark it for clarification or disambiguation and start a Talk but not simply delete or replace it as the first option";
• the third says "I have read the Roman Catholic page, so I know there is a term with a variety of meanings and some controversy, and in none of them is "Roman" actually wrong here. It does no harm to give the editor the benefit of the doubt, and turn my attention to more useful things. In any case, keeping it explicit may be useful for the poor reader who has a different idiom to my own."

I do not think the first editor is correct. Rick Jelliffe (talk) 11:17, 4 October 2023 (UTC)

Your position, as described above, is to use Roman Catholic as synonymous with both Roman Rite and Latin Church, two different things. This is exactly the imprecision that Roman Catholic contains—particularly since Roman Catholic is generally considered to mean all Catholics and not just a subset. When we mean a specific thing, use the specific term. ~ Pbritti (talk) 11:51, 4 October 2023 (UTC)

I'd agree with Pbritti on this point. The word "Roman" is useless as a qualifier not necessarily because it means nothing, but because its actual meaning is ambiguous and used differently in different sources. Therefore removing it is the best course of action. Where specific context is needed, spell that out explicitly rather than relying on the use of an ambiguous qualifier.  — Amakuru (talk) 12:43, 4 October 2023 (UTC)

Note on Prône

I have added a note on the Prône. This is has two citations, and most importantly the link to Latin_liturgical_rites#Vernacular_and_laity_in_medieval_and_Reformation-era_Latin_rites which itself has citations to six sources. After an editor added a tag questioning the context, I have moved the note to a different position which I hope is more obvious.

It would also be useful to point out that sermons were (almost always) in the vernacular too (in parishes, not monastaries), and preceded by a translation of the Gospel verse that was the subject of the homily.

The current article's text that "the language of public worship was Latin" really does only captures half the reality: certainly the ritual language of priests was Latin and they used it to get on with their business of confecting the eucharist (indeed some prayers were deliberately said to softly for the laity to hear) according to their missal; the language of the people was the vernacular (certainly with code-switches to memorized Latin prayers) and they used it to play their part. Rick Jelliffe (talk) 14:28, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

Resistance and Opposition

Italians

The paragraph was very wrong in many ways, and I do not think it reflects a NPOV.

• Vermigli did not remain a Catholic.
• Contarini's "conversion" is dated at 1511 so nothing to do with the reformation. And the gloss about works seems entirely spurious.
• Contarini represented the Pope in the early Conferences with the Lutherans, and became a Cardinal even though a layman, which hardly fits the narrative of an underground Lutheran resistance movement.
• The spirituali were not crypto-Lutherans. In fact one of them was Carafa, the future Pope Paul IV. His rival Cardinal Pole as also a spirituali, and no-one would call him a secret Lutheran either.

I revised it slightly to improve it, but I think it still should be completely rewritten based and better sourced. Rick Jelliffe (talk) 02:40, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

(1) Yes, Vermigli broke with Catholicism, but later. That he was expelled from Italy, is mentioned in an other section. (2) The article does not write of Contarini's conversion. It only writes that his ideas, expressed in 1511 resembled to some notions of Luther's theology. (3) Contarini's appointment as cardinal and his diplomatic mission are mentioned in an other section. (4) The article does not claim that the spirituali were crypto-Lutherans. Borsoka (talk) 02:58, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

On 1), I have added "quickly" to clarify that this is what is meant here. Or is "immediately" better? The reader cannot be expected to understand that the absolute "did not break" actually means "did break, but not then", against the usual English idiom.

On 2), the original footnote certainly wrote in terms of a conversion to Lutheran beliefs - opposing faith and acts whereas he was opposing faith+hope+charity against a subjective expectation of comfort from penances. The current text is better.

(On 3 and 4 I can see your POV, though I don't agree, so no challenge there.) Rick Jelliffe (talk) 15:47, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

Requested move 16 August 2023

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Not moved per the discussion below. (non-admin closure) estar8806 (talk) ★ 23:22, 27 August 2023 (UTC)

---

Reformation → The Reformation – As this refers to a specific event, rather than the process of reforming something. GnocchiFan (talk) 02:25, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

• Support. Academic works cited in the article mainly use the definite article. Borsoka (talk) 03:33, 16 August 2023 (UTC)
• Move to Protestant Reformation for WP:PRECISION and per WP:THE as article titles should generally not begin with "the". Rreagan007 (talk)
• Support either In ictu oculi (talk) 07:32, 16 August 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose Per WP:NOTDICTIONARY. The current title is fine under Wikipedia policy. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 11:59, 16 August 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose. This is like Renaissance, which is mentioned at WP:THE. The previous title Protestant Reformation would be OK though (but there are probably good arguments to be found in the previous RM). —Kusma (talk) 12:23, 16 August 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose per Kusma. StAnselm (talk) 13:54, 16 August 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose per the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Glorious Revolution, etc. Srnec (talk) 21:25, 16 August 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose: Per WP:THE. --1990'sguy (talk) 02:19, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
• Alternate use Protestant Reformation -- 67.70.25.80 (talk) 03:43, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
• Move back to Protestant Reformation. Did not realize this article had been moved, but it should never have moved IMO. "The Reformation" is second choice, "Reformation" in general is not great since, when referring specifically to the religious events, it has a leading the as nominator notes. SnowFire (talk) 17:41, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

  Agreed. KT-wiki-edits (talk) 01:02, 27 August 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose: This is the Reformation, so disambiguating with "Protestant" isn't necessary. The Wikipedia naming convention drops the definite article, so "The" is non-standard, see also English Reformation for a related example. ~ Pbritti (talk) 17:53, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Rename?

Could we rename this to "The Protestant Reformation"?

It comes up more easily on Google and it's a more common term TerryJerry19 (talk) 13:43, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

@TerryJerry19: There was a discussion about this about 10 months ago (see the section above). Wikipedia generally drops definite articles like the, so the move would most likely take the article to "Protestant Reformation". However, there's not really a need to do that, as "Reformation" is the simplest and most common name for the subject. ~ Pbritti (talk) 15:59, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

@Pbritti I find that in educational formats, it's still referred to as The Protestant Reformation. So if we were going to remove the definite, we should still change it. Considering most people using this page will be AP Euro high school students or College Students studying this particular period, it would be a matter of a small quality of life change so it comes up on the top of search engines. For me the top result is a list of Protestant reformers when I search "The Protestant Reformation" on Ecosia, Google and DuckDuckGo TerryJerry19 (talk) 16:39, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

Given that the title the Encyclopedia Britannica uses is Reformation, I'd say that the current title of this article is the better one. Indyguy (talk) 16:55, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

Another issue you might not be considering is, in English "Protestant" is often juxtaposed with "Reformed", i.e. Lutheran with Calvinist. While one appeared before the other, there is a sense I get where "Protestant Reformation" is unduly weighted towards a discussion of Luther. Remsense ‥ 论 19:01, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

The Wikipedia guidelines is to avoid articles at the start, unless it is part of a proper name or title (e.g. "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"). WP:DEFINITE Also, Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(definite_or_indefinite_article_at_beginning_of_name) gives an example that is very close: "Renaissance, not The Renaissance". So no "The Reformation", even though it is strange. But it is not bad, given that for half a century many academics regard "the" as obsolete (and, perhaps, an artifact of German self-identity/importance) and prefer to talk of Reformations plural. Rick Jelliffe (talk) 23:29, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

If Wikipedia were a dictionary, then (The) "Reformation" could indeed be defined as a shorthand for (The) "Protestant Reformation" in general and the "Lutheran Reformation" in particular. Because a dictionary defines a word as it is commonly used. But I think an encyclopedia does well to be more NPOV and to follow current academic analyses (which give a broader picture than the categories of 19th Century German Protestant historians.) So I suspect the mid-term solution is still to split out most of the current article into a new "Protestant Reformation" article, similar to the "Counter Reformation" article (that should be renamed "Catholic Reformation" for NPOV) and to the "English Reformation" article. This leaves the Reformation article to be a summary of the broad sweep of reform movements of e.g. 1400 to 1700. This arrangement would perhaps favour a view where Luther represents one culmination of some reformists (Wycliffe, Huss), Erasmus represents another (anti-Joachimism, Savonorola/Colet, biblicism), and Trent another (spirituali).Rick Jelliffe (talk) 09:00, 5 October 2024 (UTC)

Well, I'm not sure about that, but rename it as "Catholic Reformation" wouldn't be "NPOV" (Neutral Point of View), because it'd leads to an Specific Christian Group, what I'm trying to say, is that renaming it as "Catholic Reformation" would perpetuate a issue, instead of resolving it.

But at the same time, naming it only as "The Reformation" would be confusing, because it may be any reformation that this person wouldn't know because the article doesn't specify what is, so we have a dilemma, because if it is specified, it can become a POV Issue, but if it is NOT specified it may be "Over-NPOV" and misleading. 177.105.90.14 (talk) 14:27, 2 November 2024 (UTC)