Talk:Catholicity/Archive 2

message: Alright, I've copied what I see as the three different versions to Catholicism/temp.  I then compiled the 2 above versions into what I see as an ideal version for addition to the article.  Other than simply copying them, I made some grammer fixes, and changed the wording in a few places where it seemed clumsy.  I am not sure about the title I have chosen though, so I am interested in your thoughts on that.  Also, some wikifying is needed.  MB 17:41 24 Jul 2003 (UTC)
:I thought we were putting a link to the Catholic priests' sex abuse scandal article in this section. I don't see it in any of the versions. Rmhermen 18:06 24 Jul 2003 (UTC)
::My mistake, I almost forgot.  I've fixed it now.  MB 18:21 24 Jul 2003 (UTC)
A couple of minor NPOVs and factual corrections:
* saying Catholicism is the biggest church in the Christian religion is confusing. Most people don't think of a Christian religion (singular) but Christian religions (plural). It makes more sense and is less open to confusion to say that Catholicism is the biggest church in christianity (which is linked in case someone doesn't know what christianity is). Plus '"Christian religion is POV by suggesting there is just one, a problematic assertion given that at least 1000 christian religions claim that they are the christian religion and the rest aren't really christian at all. 
* Catholicism is not the only christian church to have suffered a dramatic decline and though its decline is spectacular it is less steep than that experienced by Anglican and Protestant faiths (both the CofE and RC churches are in a serious decline in England, for example, but the C of E's is more steep, meaning that Catholicism is now England's biggest 'practicising' church. I have tweaked the wording to correct the impression that Catholicism and not mainstream christianity is in decline when they all are in the same boat. 
* Christianity and specifically RCism's decline is not worldwide as the article implied, but in the west. In Africa and in Asia christianity in general but RCism in particular is booming, a fact missing from the article. 
* The mention of the pope refusing to accept the Emperor's supremacy over ecclesiastical matters sounds POV, ie that the Emperor's claim was valid but the pope refused to accept it. A more neutral was of saying it is that he refused to accept the emperor's claim to supremacy in ecclesiastical matters in the East. That way, we appear to be avoiding judgment on the validity or otherwise of the claim for ecclesiastical supremacy and so not appearing to be endorsing either side. 
I think that is all the changes I made but they were all tweaking at language and correcting minor factual inaccuracies rather than anything major. FearÉIREANN
:Editing of this section of the article has moved to Catholicism/temp.  Since you decided to ignore other peoples work there, and continue editing what is on the page, I have moved our current text to the main article, to try and avoid wasting of time.  MB 01:10 25 Jul 2003 (UTC)
MB, I think something's gone wrong here, you seem to have wiped out a huge section of text that wasn't about the disputed abuse stuff... I mean the stuff on general decline of numbers. Why was that removed? It's not part of the dispute, right? In fact, I don't think JT edited the disputed stuff at all. Evercat 01:13 25 Jul 2003 (UTC)
Don't be so pompous, MB. I didn't know about the temp page. As to what you moved in, you put it in a bad location, you lost valuable text and what you moved in needed strengthening to clean up some language.
# I have moved the text you should no not have deleted to the bottom of the page under the heading modern catholicism. 
# I have moved the child sex abuse section there. That is where a current bit of news is put in an article, not at the top. 
# The bit you moved was good but it missed some facts (eg, vatican's veto of US Bishops plans to tackle paedophilia, the excuses the bishops used and what the critics say. You also never mentioned canon law nor did you mention why moving someone from diocese to diocese made such a difference. (I put in a footnote to explain the reason for that and why it made such a disastrous difference) I have re-written the paragraphs to include all this information and tightened up the language a bit. If I had known there was a temp I would have worked on it there. I think the rewrite strengthens the paragraphs considerably. FearÉIREANN 02:00 25 Jul 2003 (UTC)
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Before I make these comments, I'd like to clarify that I am of no faith, not an expert in religious history, and have never edited an article related to the sex abuse scandal. I'm just stating this to avert any suspicion that I'm an operative of the Catholic Church.
There should be two articles, one on the Roman Catholic Church and the other on the history of Catholicism. The contemporary sex abuse scandal would belong in the history article. This reminds me of the Communist state controversy, when one user refused to adhere to guidelines of proper placement and relevancy by continually posting content pertaining to communism in an article on a state structure. 
The sex abuse scandal should be moved to another article. I recommend creating a history of Catholicism article where it could go. It's really irrelevant in a Catholicism article, which should be about the nature and structure of the Church. No other encyclopedia or sourcebook would chronicle the recent sex abuse scandal (which it basically something centuries old just getting publicized now) in an article on the nature and structure of the Church; it would be chronicled, however, under the history of the Church, but not with such great detail relative to the level of detail throughout the article. The Catholicism article should deal with the doctrinal basis of the Church structure and the structure (the laity, the religious communities, the priesthood, the regional councils of bishops, the college of bishops, College of Cardinals, up to the papacy); Canon Law; beliefs and faith; tradition; worship (including the liturgy, the sacraments, baptism, Confirmation, the Holy Eucharist, para-liturgical devotions, such as the cult of the saints, etc.); activities (such as missions, orders and educational institutions); and perhaps end with a note on the Second Vatican Council. 
As Jtdril mentioned earlier, Catholicism is one of the most important articles in any encyclopedia or sourcebook. Right now, chronicling the recent sex abuse scandal would just lead informed readers and experts to thinking that Wikipedians lack historical context. It's a very minor topic, frankly, when dealing one of the major factors in the cultural and historical development of Western civilization. 172
:Ironically, Jtdril was the one who bloated the sex scandel part of this article again.  A couple of contributors were working on a concise version at Catholicism/temp, but Jtdril took it upon himself to toally rewrite it and add a bunch of extra stuff to it.  I agree, this part shouldn't be a huge part of the article, but I think the version on the temp page was short enough to not be repetative.  MB 03:47 26 Jul 2003 (UTC)
:Firstly I did not move stuff on child sex abuse on this page, YOU did. Secondly what was put here needed considerable rewriting because it managed to miss some crucial facts (eg the Vatican's veto of the US hierarchy's proposals for dealing with paedophile priests, etc). Efghij wrote about my rewrite  Good job with the Catholicism stuff. The section should be at the bottom, and I think the current version does a good job of highlighting the important issues. Evercat said that my edit seems reasonable. It is amazing how you (and you alone) have a problem with a professionally rewritten section, whereas you were championing Nostrum's nutty nonsense that if written down in an exam would get an NG from an examiner. So much for any objectivity or neutrality on your part. 
:As to moving the content, I agree totally. It wasn't my choice to put it here. That was MB's action. I simply turned a competent but couple of paragraphs with rather serious gaps into a more comprehensive and reader-friendly version. I do think that the Catholic priests' sex abuse scandal is quite good but needs some work. (The title does bug me slightly. It isn't exactly the most reader-friendly title being a bit of a mouthful, though I can't think right now of a better one. I'll see if I can think of any shorter or more reader-friendly title.) FearÉIREANN 04:38 26 Jul 2003 (UTC)
:::Can we establish a list of contributors in favor of moving? So far I'm on it and I can assume, from the above comments, that so it Jtril. 172 04:58 26 Jul 2003 (UTC)
:::A long, in-depth, section on the sex abuse scandal is an improvement over a more "concise" version that's failing to meet encyclopedic standards. Since the consensus at the time was that the article should include coverage of the sex abuse scandal, Jtdril's edits were a necessary improvement. I'm just saying that over time we might want to consider removing the content if a history of Catholicism article is ever written. Right now, this article is a very broad umbrella for Catholicism and Catholic history and Jtdril's additions are very much needed. 172  
:We already have an entire article just on the sexual abuse: Catholic priests' sex abuse scandal. Rmhermen 04:03 25 Jul 2003 (UTC)
::Then the content related to the sex abuse scandal in this article should be moved there, where it's not redundant. 172
:: I'm in favor of a brief mention of the sex abuse scandal in this article, with the more detailed multiple paragraph content going into the separate article. The same structural pattern is used for many articles all over wikipedia. Wesley 15:06 28 Jul 2003 (UTC)
:::I think that some discussion of the sex abuse scandal should remain here, but that what remains ought to reflect more on how Roman Catholic beliefs and practices impacted the situation.  The hubristic notion of apostolic succession, the practice of priestly celibacy, and the belief in sacraments that only anointed priests can administer, and whose power and validity is not affected by the sins of the priest, thereby making the priests an extraordinarily valuable kind of human capital --- these factors had a direct impact on the scandal itself.  -- IHCOYC 15:28 28 Jul 2003 (UTC)
:::: Indeed. Should we also discuss how the Roman Catholic Church was singled out for prosecution from among all the different organizations that work with children for prosecution, even though their abuse rate is no higher than any other profession? Or about how their critics, from atheists to Protestants, are using the issue as a jumping-off point to attack Roman Catholicism itself, and not just their administrative handling of the offending priests? All of this is reasonable to discuss, of course, and maybe this article's one paragraph should mention on the many related topics that will be covered in the separate scandal article. I'm not trying to cut any of this. It's just... well for instance, would you want to copy in the bulk of the Spanish Inquisition article in here too, or the Crusades article?? Those things ought to be mentioned too, but their significant enough to have their own articles. Wesley 16:05 28 Jul 2003 (UTC)
:::::First, what is the evidence that their abuse rate "is no higher" than that within other professions? I'm not saying that it is, but I'm also not saying that it isn't until I see specific data. Secondly, what is the evidence that the Catholic Church has been "singled out"? Don't you remember the kindergarden and school sexual abuse scandals of the 1990s (many of which turned out to be overblown or entirely the result of suggestive questioning)? It seems to me that what we have witnessed here is more the result of these cases being covered up for so long, so that eventually they inevitably exploded into a scandal. Thirdly, there is a significant difference between sexual abuse within the Church and sexual abuse within other institutions as to how children can be expected to cope with these acts.
:::::Being abused by a priest who on the other hand tells you that sex is evil, sin, and must be controlled can have far more severe effects on a child's mind than "merely" being sexually fondled and told that it is alright and that all children are doing this (the typical pedophile routine). Children abused by clergy have been frequently found to blame themselves instead of blaming the clergy, because they had been told that they had "seduced" the priests, and some even were physically punished while they were abused. That this kind of abuse can have more severe effects is supported e.g. by the research of Rind & Bauserman who showed that sexual abuse does not necessarily leave long-lasting effects on a child's psyche -- it depends a lot on the circumstances and the way the abuse is handled.
:::::As for the crusades and the Inquisition, as I pointed out earlier, this article definitely needs to go into some detail regarding the history of the church, with links to longer article. There need to be brief paragraphs about the persecution of pagans, the destruction of libraries and temples, the Dark Ages, iconoclasm, the crusades, medieval torture chambers, the forgery of documents by monks, instances of papal corruption, the Inquisition, book burnings and the persecution of scientists, the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, modern blasphemy laws, Vatican support for Hitler, their involvement in the Holocaust and their profit from forced labor, Vatican involvement in the Ustase genocide, the Opus Dei scandals, Vatican opposition to contraception in the Third World, church participation in the Rwanda genocide... All with links to the respective larger articles. There's still a long way to go until this is a serious article about Catholicism.—Eloquence 16:32 28 Jul 2003 (UTC)
:::::: Regarding the statistic, I don't have a primary source, just something I heard from someone who heard or read it somewhere... of course I won't put it in the actual article without better documentation than that. Regarding the 1990s kindergarten scandals, yes I remember something about that, but I don't recall any lawsuits against the school systems or high level school officials being targeted... perhaps I just didn't follow the stories closely enough at the time. Is that scandal described in another wikipedia article? You have to admit that the press and the lawsuits of the last couple years have been focused on the Catholic church, for the most part ignoring other institutional offenders; there have also been all kinds of "suggestions" of how the Catholic Church should reform itself, coming from the outside. Speaking of suggestive questioning, has the question even been raised with the current crop of lawsuits against the priests? Finally, I can certainly see how abuse by a trusted authority figure could be especially damaging, and don't have any special reason to doubt the research in this respect. Other professions, including teachers, childcare center workers, and social workers should still be held similarly accountable, should they not? Wesley \
:::::: As far as the litany of crimes goes, it certainly merits covering, in a neutral fashion of course. I wonder whether it shouldn't be detailed in Criticism of the Catholic Church or some such article. That's how we wound up dealing with criticism of Mormonism and the Jehovah's Witnesses, after all. That's also what was done with Christianity and anti-Semitism. Wesley 17:33 28 Jul 2003 (UTC)
:::::::The Criticism of the Catholic Church article strikes me as a good idea.  It might need to be broken down into several articles.  Much of the Great Apostasy article might be more at home in that article.  -- IHCOYC 20:54, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)
replies: text: Eloquence, you are going to have to flesh out this standard you state above because it's too vague..."standing"? huh? Roughly, I think you are saying that an article about, say, Mormons (or Baptists or Catholics) should simply state the doctrine/practices, etc of the adherents without taking a position (being sympathetic/unsympathetic) on the truth/validity of the doctrine/practices. If this is what you mean, excluding the views of non-adherents is problematic. In the meantime Jtdirl moved over material from this article to a "criticism" type article on Catholicism's relationships with democracy and dictatorships despite your opposition to do so. I expect that interested wikipedians will continue to move in that direction and I suggest "Controversies of" rather than "Criticism of Catholicism" for the title of the article listing such because it seems somewhat less POV. B 16:46, 28 Aug 2003 (UTC)

text: see discussion above.  Mkmcconn 21:57, 15 Aug 2003 (UTC)
thread_title:  Combining versions 

message: Moved to talk:Pope Pius XII
I've moved the section on Catholicism and fascism to a new article. It is absurd and unworkable to have have it here. It is a large complicated topic and this article without it is already at 31K. It cannot be dealt with adequately without a very detailed article which simply cannot be accomodated here. It is also absurd to have this article jump from the reformation to twentieth century fascism. What about the French revolution, divine right of kings, Italian unification, Leo XIII and France, Pius X and France, Pius IX's encyclical on fascism which he died before issuing? You cannot just slot in something on fascism on its own, and you sure as hell can't slot it in before things like sacraments, without appearing to POV the article by suggesting an agenda through what is mentioned and where it is mentioned. We deal with clerical sex abuse in a linked article. I have done the same now with this topic. FearÉIREANN 00:45, 28 Aug 2003 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi JT, my intention in putting it there was to suggest to fellow wikipedians that, perhaps, there was a large amount of history missing from the article.  I agree that a satisfactory treatment of the issue needs a seperate article, but it should also be mentioned and linked in the "History and Influence" section. -- Pde 01:11, 28 Aug 2003 (UTC)

text: While I agree that that set of links is far from comprehensive, I don't think making it longer and longer is a good idea.  Surely we should try to link to the key relevant articles from the text of Catholicism (or Roman Catholic Church, if someone manages to split them)? -- Pde 01:11, 28 Aug 2003 (UTC)

text: I don't think it's impossible to split the two.  The longest section of the article is about the structure of the Roman Catholic Church; it belongs at either Roman Catholicism or Roman Catholic Church.  The section on "Contemporary Catholicism" is likewise about the Roman Catholic Church.  The intro on the different flavours of Catholicism should stay here, but I don't see any real difficulty in figuring out which one goes where.  If it's about the current institution headed by the Pope, it belongs in Roman. -- IHCOYC 17:10, 28 Aug 2003 (UTC)
replies: text:  Why not an article on History of Catholicism that includes both "good" and "bad" episodes in the Church's history? Summarise the article here, just as we do for articles on countries. Martin
Completely unworkable, Martin. (a) It would take a phenomenally big article to cover the history, probably 500K+, (b) some of the world's top historians have tried and failed to produce a history of catholicism. I don't see any evidence of anyone on wiki with the knowledge, factual information and skills to do a history of an institution that exists for 2000 years. Most of the attempts on wiki to cover catholicism have been POV from one side or another. Just think of the problems we have had trying to produce an article on the six year World War II, the rows over New Imperialism, the sixty years of the PROC, etc and they are tiny and easy topics compared to doing a 2000 history of catholicism. Every encyclopædia sees catholicism as the nightmare of nightmares to cover. They invariably go to the most senior academics available and they find it a struggle that takes years to get right, if they can get it right at all. A history of catholicism would produce edit wars of the sort that wiki has never experienced. Imagine trying to cover the relationship between Catholicism and the jews with RK and EoT fighting, then add in fifty or sixty similar battles simultaneously on everything from the great Schism to the Reformation, the English reformation to papal edits about Elizabeth I, the mediæval papacy and power elites, doctinal disputes and concepts of human rights, Napoleon and the papacy, the Avignon papacy, antipopes, etc., each guaranteed to face edit wars, and you'll have some idea of the scale of the problems involved. It is easily the single biggest and most difficult topic wiki could try to grabble with. FearÉIREANN 20:25, 28 Aug 2003 (UTC)
thread_title: Catholicism and Nazis