Talk:Catholicity/Archive 3

message: This article is an utter mess.  Is it about "Catholic" churches in general or the followers of the Pope of Rome?  I'll come back in a week or so to see what the answer is, and if there is no answer, I'll presume that it's supposed to be the former and alter the article accordingly. Dogface 21:08, 13 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: the article about Roman Catholicism is here Roman Catholic Church. It is POV to assume that is the only legitimately catholic organization, as I pointed out early in the article there is a list of those who meet the criteria. So long as the changes you make are for the best, be bold!. Cheers, Sam Spade 22:51, 13 May 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: mess

message: The POV (hardcore pro-Roman Catholic) vandal who refuses to get a Wikipedia account is at it again.  He has turned it back into a page that presumes that Roman Catholics are the only Catholics in the entire world.  I have reversed his extreme POV reversion.Dogface 14:47, 19 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: This proves your prejudice.  You are of the dogma that "Catholic" and "Roman Catholic" are identical.  This is not the case. Dogface 14:49, 20 May 2004 (UTC)

text: 207.192.130.197 07:35, 20 May 2004 (UTC)

text: 207.192.130.197 20:49, 20 May 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Massive POV vandal at work

message: Would you guys settle down? I havn't seen any vandalism here recently. What I have seen is an anon being bold. I reccomend you create an account, its easier tointeract w. Cheers, Sam [Spade] 04:39, 21 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Looking good. I do think it is possible to say there is a bit more focus on the roman side of things, and more mention can be made of doctrinal differences other than papist or no, but overall it looks quite nice to me.  Sam [Spade] 06:24, 21 May 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vandalism? 

message: Thank you. I want to talk more about the overall organization of the relevant files here. Snowspinner didn't like what I just did; let me try to explain it.
Up to now, it has worked like this:
*Roman_Catholics -> Roman_Catholic_Church
*Criticism_of_the_Catholic_Church -> Roman_Catholic_Church
*Catholic_Church -> Catholic
*Catholicism
*Roman_Catholic_Church
The way it should work is:
*Catholicism
*Catholic_Church (which includes the RCC, not the other way around)
*Roman_Catholic_Church -> Catholic_Church (actually there is a thing called the Roman Church, which is one of the Churches in perfect communion with the Pope)
*Criticism_of_the_Catholic_Church (Snowspinner says spinoffs not preferred, okay I can see the reasoning in that.)
*Roman_Catholics -> Catholic_Church
What do you think? The key point is: The best understanding is that there is a "Catholic Church" which subsumes the churches in communion. That there are other Catholic churches is an argument for, not against, having "Catholic_Church" be the primary landing point. Trc 06:32, 21 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Hmmm.. I agree w you in theory, and snowspin is the one who doesn't prefer spinoffs, they arn't against policy. Some admins create/encourage them. I would like a more detailed/alternate description of what you intend tho, the examples above don't help me alot. Sam [Spade] 06:38, 21 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: By -> do you mean a redirect, or a link, or what? Sam [Spade] 06:39, 21 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Try Catholic Church. The "Catholic Church" subsumes the Roman Church and the others in communion. That ought to be the primary landing point. In other words, take the content from Roman Catholic Church and put it in Catholic Church. Yes, -> means redirect. Trc 06:41, 21 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Catholic Church is wrong, from what I have read. It claims that all catholic accept the pope. I think this page should be the primary landing point. Sam [Spade] 06:45, 21 May 2004 (UTC)

text: You may be right. It is fairly standard on the wiki to have articles end in "-ism" if at all possible tho, for whatever reason. I havn't seen any policy on it tho, and its not a big deal one way or the other. I'm not merging that page anytime soon, I can tell you that! ;) Sam [Spade] 07:00, 21 May 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Organization

message: The trouble is that while roman catholics prefer to be the considered the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, so do all the other catholics. And while 95%+ of the time somebody says "catholic" they mean roman catholic, that can be seen as technically incorrect or unfair by an ancient catholic, or even by a protestant, etc.... Finially, this is problematic because "Roman" is often ment as an insult by detractors, and while it seems to be at least largely accepted by Roman catholics, they rarely self identify as "Roman" catholic. I'm not 100% sure you (Trc) wern't right because of this last, but until we have a better name for them ("Roman" Catholics) which doesn't necesarilly include all the other non-roman catholics, this is the best way to leave things which I can think of. Sam [Spade] 07:52, 21 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: the section beginning "[t]he Catholic Church is a federation of 24 self-governing (sui iuris) churches...." was one I had already noticed as being troublesome. The problem I see is that there are a number of people who consider  themselves catholic but don't find communion thru the pope. I can't really say much more than that tho, and I know basically nothing about the rites (which I would ask you to expand apon in this and other respective articles if you have such ability). We need to maintain a clarification that there are more types of catholics than those who trace their hierarchy back to rome, and that we keep in mind that many of them (certainly Liberal, Ancient and Old) actively self identify as Catholic. As I've said before I'd like to hear about other doctrinal differences betwixt types of catholics other than just pope/no pope as well. Lots to do! :) Sam [Spade] 14:48, 21 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: If we were able to choose who was called what then perhaps you could present such an argument. Unfortunately various usages already exist and you are out of line with many of them. So the bottom line is if you wish to refer to "the Catholic Church" as those churches which Rome considers to be part of the Catholic Church you have to disambiguate against other definitions of the "Catholic Church", most notably those catholic churches which claim apostolic continuity to the Catholic side of the great schism. I know WP (if you look at the MetaWiki data) has a massive majority of Roman Catholics versus Anglicans partly because of the heavy US bias and perhaps we should just accept a PoV page because in the end other people don't have the energy to argue. Otherwise perhaps you might consider it that in the end the reputation of Roman Catholicism is improved by a serious attempt to represent other views and we can get a proper page like the Christianity page without a nihil obstat on it --BozMo|talk 17:40, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: "[[Catholic Church]]"

message: This article is still very POV and confused. 
I think describing the official doctrinal position of Anglican Church as "some elements of Anglicanism" is rather silly as is the confusion between "high and low" church (which is about style of worship) and Evangelical versus Anglo-Catholic which is about belief. It is also very sad that we open quoting other dictionaries whereas as they seem to be there for dispute resolution they should be in the discussion pages. 
Also the above comments on "Catholic Church" in the discussion pages perhaps qualify as official Roman doctrine but there are 60 million practicing Anglicans just as an example who belong to a church which officially declares itself to be part of the "Catholic Church", and who are used to declaring their belief in one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church" generally all in capital letter every Sunday without refering to the Pope and however unpalatable that is to some Roman Catholics who perhaps would like to own the word "Christian" aswell (wouldn't we all) it is 
widely recognised that catholic churches with apostolic succession falling on the Catholic side of the great schism are part of the "Catholic Church" rather than it being ones in communion with the Roman Church. I am just depressed that people are so partisan and don't even try to be correct to understand how anyone outside Romanism uses words. Okay, I know, there are only 60 million members of the Anglican communion against a billion RCs but that's partly counting and in any case tens of millions is enough aside other Catholics--BozMo|talk 16:04, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I am so speechless with the suggestion that the Anglican communion does not wish to be in communion with Rome that I hope I keep calm. I can only assume you did not mean it. Extraordinary effort by Canterbury has been done to try to bring that about and it might have happened had not the last Pope died tragically. Please remember that every Roman Catholic is invited to take mass in the Church of England: it is the RC leadership which means many do not accept. The other way round I acknowledge many Roman Catholic priests and bishops invite Anglicans to communion with them (especially abroad, no RC bishop in the UK does this) but only at risk of official sanction. On your other point I agree totally there should be a proper page on the organisation which accepts papal authority and I do not object to it being called "the Catholic Church" but only if as I proposed there is a disambiguation at the top explaining that tens of millions of people mean something different by the expression. God bless --BozMo|talk 16:24, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: How wonderful that we might be able to make some progress toward agreeing!! A disambiguation as per common usage is of course acceptable, even desirable, even necessary. Indeed the page "Catholic" is nothing but a large disambiguation project of sorts, and the "Catholic Church" entry could easily mention that. As for wanting to be in communion, I think that's true on both sides of the proverbial aisle. The Holy See has worked for it, as has the Anglican Communion. Where there are key disagreements, though, we must observe that communion is not yet in place. But it is so important to want to be one, to strive for it, and to love with that intention, for that is how Our Lord Himself prayed. We must never lapse into gratuitous separateness. Trc | [msg] 20:44, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)

text: Okay, so we seem to have agreement for a disambiguation. Bit technical for me any volunteers? --BozMo|talk 11:06, 28 Jun 2004 (UTC)

text: As Trc pointed out, the RC Church doesn't claim to be the only Christian denomination. Perhaps it would be good to note what the official Catholic definition of a Christian is: acording to the RC Church, a Christian is any person who has been baptised (either by sprinkling or immersion) in the name of Father, Son and the Holy Spirit. As you can see, the definition is quite inclusive and probably applies to most people who call themselves Christians (and perhaps even to some who don't). --Kpalion 16:58, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: You mean of course the official Roman Catholic definition...but I know even JPII is in the WCC so yes I agree with you on the flippant point. However Roman Catholics choose to describe themselves as "Catholic" and the "Catholic Church" and that involves not only a choice of words but a certain number of implicit claims which are not accepted by other Catholics--BozMo|talk 17:13, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Incidentally personally for what it is worth I am a middle of the road low church evangelical Anglican Catholic. I believe I would become a Roman Catholic were it not for the fact I am convinced the Roman Catholic church is on the wrong side of English history (despite finding some concepts logically difficult). --BozMo|talk 17:22, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Terrible Mess 

message: It hink a member of an orthadox church, some of whom claim to trace their ancestry back to the time of Paul, would dispute that Catholicism is the oldest branch. Catholicism and Orthodox are surely the same age, wince they were origianlly one organisation. DJ Clayworth 18:02, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Exactly right. Being the same age, both can say that there is no branch that is older, but neither can claim to be the "only oldest". They were the same Church for the first millennium of Christianity, in full communion with each other. In fact, St. Peter was bishop of Antioch before he was the bishop of Rome, if special weight is to be given to having Peter as one's bishop. But it would be severe hair splitting to call Antioch or Jerusalem older because of such first century considerations. Wesley 04:28, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: The Oldest Branch