Talk:Alberto Rivera (activist)

message: Removed a paragraph of "Rivera's claims have never been denied or refuted by the Catholic Church", as this is demonstrably untrue. See the Catholic Answers page in the links section; in particular, note that the R.C.C. has denied Rivera's claims of having been a Catholic priest - on which many of his other claims depend. 
The same site also lists numerous other objections to Rivera's claims. Whether these count as 'refutation' is a matter of POV, but they can certainly be seen as such; thus, claiming that Rivera's claims 'have never been refuted' is POV. As such, I've removed it. --Calair 02:26, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Untitled

message: Per the NPOV policy, I've removed the tag categorising Rivera as an "impostor"; there may be a lot of evidence for it, but this is hotly contested. We don't judge neo-Nazis; we present the facts and let the reader judge. The same should be done here. Johnleemk | Talk 17:35, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Seconded. --Calair 22:51, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

text: That admission would be an interesting addition to this article - what's the source? --Calair 02:58, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: From the Cornerstone Magazine article:  Alberto commands great respect from many with his alleged numerous degrees including an N.D., a D.D., a Th.D., a Ph.D., and a master's in psychology. However, he is ambiguous when asked where he received these degrees. Alberto attended a seminary in Costa Rica (the Seminario Biblio Latinamericano) with a friend from Las Palmas, but he did not graduate. That friend, Rev. Plutarco Bonilla (a respected Christian leader in Central America), said that Alberto never finished high school in Las Palmas and that he was in the seminary's program for non‑high school graduates. The school in a letter said they were forced to expel Alberto for his "continual lying and defiance of seminary authority," The known chronology of his life does not allow time for him to have achieved the academic status he claims. When Rev. Wishart pressed Alberto concerning his degrees, Alberto admitted receiving them from a diploma mill in Colorado. Kmerian 17:28, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks, I read the Cornerstone article a while back but didn't remember that part. I've added it here. --Calair 01:41, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Categorisation

message: Alberto's homepage has become a link farm (after the initial enter page). I have thus removed it. Since he is dead it seems unlikely it will be back, but if it is preserved somewhere or Chick has kept it around on his website or something, feel free to add it back. Kit 19:00, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Alberto's homepage

message: It looks like one of Alberto's fans has valdalized one of the sections, adding this drivel after the book title (starting with 'However...')- 
Author Gary Dale Cearley has written a book refuting these claims about the Roman Catholic Church and Islam. The book is titled Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness: The Truth About the Vatican and the Birth of Islam. However, its common knowledge that Roman Catholicism is indeed a mixture of Roman pagan practices and gods with Christian labels; these contradictions led to the world-wide Protestant Reformation that re-discovered the essence of the Christian early church is salvation through faith in a pardon by Jesus Christ---not by good behavior in any church. A large human organization commanding the unquestioning obedience of millions of people would have plenty of funds to hire agents to disrupt those who oppose them so the Rivera story is plausible.
I don't know what was originally intended for this paragraph, but it seems trashed beyond repair, my apologies to whoever got their work messed up.
I can't imagine this stuff fits in on Wikipedia, so I cut it. Perhaps Mr. Chick is a registered member here...      Thedegu 00:10, 30 September 2006  --   Thedegu 00:13, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Alberto's Fans 

message: I'm removing references to the Cornerstone refutation of Rivera because the links seem to be coming up dead. I'll see if the address as changed or whatever but this is creating a hole in the article sources and references. Can anyone fill this in? --PigmanTalk to me 19:47, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Fortunately, there's an archive copy on the Wayback Machine. But note that references don't have to be weblinks; "Cornerstone Magazine issue 53" would be a perfectly adequate reference for this stuff, even if the online version vanished. --Calair 00:19, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No, of course it doesn't have to be a weblink. I just like it when citations are available online so I can look at them myself. It certainly doesn't make the sources more valid by any means. But I'm also not thrilled to re-insert a reference that isn't current. I can validate the contents of the article at the Wayback Machine but it bothers me to use that as a link for the article. Just personal thing about sources; I like them to be current and semi-permanent (well, as much as can be expected on the internet.) PigmanTalk to me 02:22, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Me too, but unless it reappears on the Cornerstone site an archive version is probably the least bad option. --Calair 02:39, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cornerstone Story dead link 

message: Sorry, that last revert/comment was by me. 71.199.70.215 07:12, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Signature 

message: I am not sure how well visited this page is, but having the exact grave site mentioned seems a little invasive to me.  I have looked at several pages about deceased individuals and the article may say, "was buried in such-and-such cemetery" but never the exact location of the grave.  Paranoid or not, it seems like the guy had some concern about the desecration of his corpse.  Do we really need to promote the exact location of his final resting place so that any kook can vandalize it? 66.192.126.3 09:09, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Risk of vandalism aside (and the 'information that can be misused' issue is a very knotty one), I think there's a simpler reason for removing that information: it just isn't terribly noteworthy. Will tweak the article accordingly. --Calair 01:46, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

text: It needs to be reported in a reliable external source - unfortunately we occasionally have problems with malicious editors falsifying material or purporting to be somebody they're not, so policy is that an editor vouching for something isn't enough... which is a considerable nuisance to the rest of us, but probably necessary :-( --Calair 03:43, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Burial Information

message: This article has no references section, and its External links section consists of three links, two of which are to Jack Chick's site and the third is catholic.com... the article needs more secondary sources and less primary ones. Also, the article is written largely from the Jack Chick POV: if the Rivera's claim to fame is his criticism of what he discovered while he was a priest, and the Catholic church claims he never was a priest, this is obviously something that should be mentioned more prominently and not buried under a section titled "biography". wikipediatrix 21:56, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: First off, solifugae, if you'll look at the date on the above post, you're responding to something posted over a year and a half ago.  They're not going to see it.  Second, as I have already explained, chick.com is an unacceptable source for anything but it's own beliefs. Farsight001 (talk) 02:13, 23 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  needs sources 

message: Where's the information about how the man died?  On this page you see two videos, the title to the second is: "Very Rare video of Jim Arrabito interviewing Dr. Alberto Rivera 
(both Died under very suspicious circumstances)"
Jim Arrabito currently has no article in Wikipedia, but should.  He was a history professor specializing in the history of Christianity.  Here's a page with his videos, wherein you'll find a series called “Jesuits in History”, and as most documentaries on the Jesuits it’s not in their favor.
Am I the only one here that thinks this looks a bit suspicious?  Why do these people mysteriously die after revealing to the world the methods the Papacy has used in the past to “stamp out heresy” and to promote her cause, and the danger of giving her state power?
These issues are not addressed and barely covered in the history classes, and look how many things which pertain to them are mysteriously missing from Wikipedia.  I can’t find the Jesuit Oath, Jim Arrabito, or Francisco Ribera.
I guess it’s the consensus of the majority that there’s nothing to fear.  So maybe the Catholic Church uses assassins and spies as her modern day “inquisitors”, but she means well and her end will be for the good of all mankind.  I guess life would be better if the whole world bowed down to this institution which kills anyone that speaks against it.
Or maybe everyone really is scared they will be assassinated?  I can understand that.  One would have to have a real experience with God to be willing to put his life and the ones he loves in danger for what he believes. “and they loved not their lives unto the death”, (Rev 12:11). On the other hand to sympathize with the secret societies, you only need a fraternal instinct, a desire to be on the popular side, apathy, or a smirky, witty, make-fun-of-the-conspiracy-theorist attitude.
What would people rather assume?  That the Jesuits and Knights of Columbus have only their missionary work and no secret society which people don’t see outwardly?  That the Jesuits are not known to conceal their identity as Jesuits, like under-cover agents?
Why, for one example, are Protestants are no longer protesting the abuses of Rome, no longer teaching the historical interpretation of the prophecies, taught by the founders of all the original Protestant denominations, that the Anti-Christ is the Roman church-state power, the “man of sin” which “sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.”, (2 Thes 2:4), the great harlot who rides atop a seven headed beast, “drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus”, (Rev 17:6)?  Why do they now teach the “Secret Rapture” theory, which is based on Futurism, which was concocted by Jesuit priest and doctor of theology, [Francisco Ribera], during the Council of Trent in the mid 1500s?(see  these  articles.)  This is the very kind of thing the Jesuits aim to secure.  The result is that Protestants no longer see the Papacy as the Anti-Christ power of Revelation and Daniel and which all the apostles warned us about.
*”My son, heretofore you have been taught to act the dissembler: among Roman Catholics to be a Roman Catholic, and to spy even among your own brethren; to believe no man, to trust no man. Among the Reformers, to be a Reformer; among the Huguenots, to be a Huguenot; among the Calvinists, to be a Calvinist; among the Protestants, generally to be a Protestant; and obtaining their confidence to seek even to preach from their pulpits and to denounce with all the vehemence in your nature our Holy Religion and the Pope; and to descend so low as to become a Jew among the Jews, that you might be enabled to gather together all information for your Order as a faithful soldier of the Pope.”, (beginning of the Jesuit Oath)
“and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration”, (Rev 17:6).  
So either the Catholic power really cares about the good of mankind, or just seeks world domination.  I think if she wanted the good of mankind, she would teach the bible and seek to imitate the character of Christ.  Is it ludicrous to believe she doesn’t thirst for power?  If the Devil offered her complete control of the bodies and souls of all mankind, would she refuse?
“And the devil .. showed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time.  And the devil said unto him, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it.  If thou therefore wilt worship me, all shall be thine.” (Luke 4:5-7)
What would have happened if our Lord would have taken that offer?
This view does not reflect hatred toward Catholics, but a love for freedom, religious freedom, freedom to worship how you want, freedom which was never allowed by the Catholic Church during her bloody reign of power, which will not be allowed if she gains such power again.
I really want to persuade people to join my church, but where would be the satisfaction if I knew that person had no other choice?
Cherish your freedoms while they last, because you won’t have them for very long.  But then I guess that won’t be a problem for the majority.  “and all the world wondered after the beast. And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?” 
”the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world”, (Rev 12:9).
Rush4hire 15:03, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Assasinated? 

message: I don't see the connection here? Is this just a way to slip in something? I think that sentence should be struck out unless a citation is provided.136.242.228.218 20:29, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cadaver synod? 

message: It looks to me like the drawing of Rivera that is attributed to Jack Chick is more likely by Fred Carter, another artist who worked or works with him on his tracts.  Chick isn't really capable of that quality of work, to be frank.Jason Fruit (talk) 22:30, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: That's a good point and the caption deserves rewording.  But being that that rendition is found in Chick's tracts, it's still "his" rendition, even if it wasn't he who drew it. Farsight001 (talk) 23:26, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Jack Chick Drawing

message: Quote: "Chick promised to promote Alberto's claims even after he died." Can anyone veryify this strange comment in the opening paragraphs of the article? If not it should be removed. Thank you. Obviously Chick and others use Alberto as a source, if not for hearsay value. Has nothing to do with Alberto's anti-catholic crusade in which Chick "promised to continue". Rather Alberto is one of many sources. Discredits the rest of the article. Amish21:01 24, August 2010 (UTC)
:Well, the Lede of the article is supposed to, ideally, be a summary of the rest of the article and also to not be sourced (because the sources are down in the article body, of which the lede is a summary)  I'll take a closer look at the claim and look for support for it in the coming days. (I'm at work, where chick.com is blocked, so I can't do it here)  I just wanted to give you an FYI that there's not really supposed to be a citation right there. :) Farsight001 (talk) 02:18, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Chick after Alberto's death?

message: One howler in Rivera's account of the emergence of Islam (if I understand Jack Chick correctly) is that on the eve of the Muslim conquests Jerusalem was not controlled by the Jews, it was controlled by the Christian Byzantine Empire, and at that time the bulk of Christians were united in a single church, the Roman Catholic - Greek Orthodox split only came a lot later.  Indeed, at that time the see of Rome was dominated by the Byzantine emperors (see Byzantine Papacy). PatGallacher (talk) 15:19, 5 April 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Islam 

message: This page has been repeatedly vandalized by the removal of a section giving the findings of a Journalistic Investigation into Alberto Rivera's claims.  Mrbusta (talk) 15:47, 1 July 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: We know.  Its been happening off and on for years, usually by the same people who claim the Vatican is trying to silence Rivera, which I find so ironic.  Nothing to do but to revert and keep an eye out.Farsight001 (talk) 16:11, 1 July 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Repeated Vandalism

message: Does this guy suffer from a mental illness or disease of any sort?--79.69.104.119 (talk) 19:40, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Not really.  He's kind of dead.Farsight001 (talk) 00:25, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
replies: text:  Then why did he believe in such stupid things?--79.69.104.119 (talk) 17:34, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

text:  And the ultimate in 'Jesuit conspiracy' is that they were the mastermind behind the Medieval Inquisition of the 13th century (see the article), that is: a good 200 years before the Society of Jesus was founded (in 1540, not 1534) by Ignatius of Loyola! To make it acceptable and encyclopedic the assertion is even duly sourced. The claim is so ridiculous that I care not correct the text, as there is a watchdog behind this article... This is the kind of stuff that discredit Wikipedia. --49.244.11.180 (talk) 11:58, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mental illnes 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified 2 external links on Alberto Rivera (activist). Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110726182214/http://www.catholic.com/library/sr_chick_tracts_p4.asp to http://www.catholic.com/library/sr_chick_tracts_p4.asp
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20120318165220/http://www.interment.net/data/us/ok/tulsa/rosehill/r/rose_r03.htm to http://www.interment.net/data/us/ok/tulsa/rosehill/r/rose_r03.htm
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 04:53, 30 June 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: The article says that 'Rivera claims that he became "disillusioned" upon finding that the Vatican was "behind" Freemasonry.'  In reality, the Catholic Church completely prohibits the practice of Freemasonry and considers it grounds for excommunication (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papal_ban_of_Freemasonry).   Should that be mentioned in the article, or would it be considered original research? Carlo (talk) 14:14, 7 October 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Freemasonry 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified one external link on Alberto Rivera (activist). Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20040803110703/http://www.catholic.com/library/sr_chick_tracts_p3.asp to http://www.catholic.com/library/sr_chick_tracts_p3.asp
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 00:20, 1 December 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: (1) The source is secondary source, and a claim by Alberto should be verified with a primary source. 
(2) The source make no such claims. Look for Your self, here it is:
https://archive.org/stream/IsAlbertoForReal/IAFR_djvu.txt
Razzham (talk) 16:44, 11 February 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Jesuits were the masterminds behind the Medieval Inquisition in the 13th century 

message: This article is oddly laid out in terms of POV; about half of it seems neutral, and the other half comes at it with obvious distaste for Rivera. I have tried to fix this. Namely, I have removed a number of what appear to be "scare quotations" in Rivera's narrative. Since it is his own narrative, these seem inappropriate to me where they are not explicit quotes - I have left those ones that seem to be so, but they should have citations where appropriate, or otherwise removed if not. If the other ones were quotes as well, they should be either rephrased to make this clearer, and in the case of the one word quotes (e.g. "torture") more should be included if they are to be considered quotes. I also removed a sentence about being unable to offer proof for one of his claims: this is meant to summarize his narrative, not analyze its veracity. Whether or not he proved it is irrelevant to whether or not he claimed it.
I have also changed the section on his allegations about the creation of Islam to being "allegations about catholicism and islam" since 2/4 claims did not involve its creation, but all 4 involved catholicism and islamic interactions. It does not seem well organized to me to have a header that only describes half of the paragraph. Both of the allegation sections should probably be merged about "beliefs" or his "claims" or something along those lines. This paragraph also repeatedly mentioned a lack of proof for his claims; I do not think this is appropriate since this is, to me, implied by the words "allege" and "claim" themselves, but I have replaced them all by a single qualifier at the beginning about not offering proof, instead, should there be some sort of reason for it to be there. The only sourced part of that section was basically copy paste; and, on the topic, am I missing something, or does the fourth reference simply have an small overview (not including the actual information) of the tract which seems to be the actual intended source? If so, then it should be changed to refer to the actual Chick tract. Two other tracts are already used as sources for his beliefs - and since it is for his claims, not proof, I don't imagine it would matter.
Lastly, I'm not sure how one would do such a thing, but I think this article would be a decent one to nominate for deletion. He seems to have no notability beyond that which Chick has done in his name; it would make sense to merge some of this into Chick's article as a source of inspiration or something like that. There is a definite deficit of sources about him that make him seem notable; it seems like almost all of the sources about him are basically just from his own friends or those who believe in his claims, and a few that call him a fraud. As this article stands now, without doing any more research on my part, admittedly, he does not seem notable. However, this comes from my impression of him based on this article, so if it were to improve greatly in quality, I would rescind my opinion.
This is my first time editing an article beyond spelling fixes, so I would appreciate another eye to make sure I have done it correctly and according to policies.
50.71.37.108 (talk) 02:52, 10 March 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Uneven quality, NPOV, and sources