Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Catholicism/Archive 1

message: Right now, all 200 some-odd US Catholic dioceses are in this category.  I'd like to create the 14 Regions as subcategories, then created subcategories under those for the states within the regions, and categorize the diocese in the state categories.  
Is there a reason not to do this? Or is there a better idea? --Elliskev 21:22, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Update. I decided to do it by Archdiocese. The Acrchdioceses are now sub cats of :Category:Roman Catholic dioceses of the United States. Suffragan (sp?) dioceses are categorized in the respective Archdiocese category. --Elliskev 13:55, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Category:Roman Catholic dioceses of the United States 

message: Added a RC stub link. Lets boogie! Dominick (TALK) 02:52, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Stubs

message: I strongly dispute this WikiProject's exclusionary membership guidelines- It's completely ridiculous that members have to be "Roman Catholics, or anyone deeply associated with Roman Catholic theology". A WikiProject shouild open to all members of the Wikipedia community who want to join.--Sean|Black 04:06, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree and I'm gonna be bold and remove that statement now. It's totally anti-wikipedia. --Elliskev 15:59, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Great, I am very happy to see this change.  I think you now need to write more about what your project intends to do as part of a "Mission Statement" type section.  I also wanted to let you know that I brought your project up at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/WikiProject Islam:SIIEG (2nd nomination), and people from here might want to look there for some suggestions on what to do and what not to do if you want a religious project to be widely wupported by the WP community (not that doing what is supported is right or wrong). Smmurphy(Talk) 17:40, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. But, I'm not actually a member of the project, per se. Dominick, caa you respond? I have some ideas but I don't want to step on any toes without advance warning. --Elliskev 01:07, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I concur with Sean and Ellis, and i'm going to put this on my watch list and revert to Ellis'es version if it's put back. Exclusion from editing is absolutely not acceptable on any good wiki unless a person is threatening other people's right to edit freely. karmafist 18:11, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

text: I completely understand your concerns. There are those that would hijack this project to further an agenda. However, I don't think that a statement regarding a requirement for participation is appropriate or helpful. A clear and well-defined mission statement would be advisable.--Elliskev 23:58, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Likewise. There seems to be a misunderstanding. The main issue isn't those who'd push a POV, but rather not allowing those who would contribute in. karmafist 01:39, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: There I made more of it. We have been having trouble with splinter groups from Catholicism, that have been pushing a PoV but not here. If you are wanting to be members, please join. If you are interested, great. Dominick (TALK) 16:24, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why be exclusionary? 

message: I'd like to try to clean up and improve the pages about the story of the fiery furnace. The story of the fiery furnance has a lot of importance in the Jewish and Christian traditions, and had has a lot of cultural impact; Wikipedia ought to have better information about it. I've started by poking at the pages and suggesting some merges; I'd appreciate any help from project members on whatever relating to this subject, but specifically to help avoid sectarian bias in the articles and include a lot of solid information about many perspectives. Please leave any comments on the talk page of fiery furnace. Thanks! -- Tetraminoe 14:04, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fiery Furnace 

message: Please come help out @ mysticism / Talk:Mysticism. Another editor and I have been butting heads over some minor issues, and the article could really use some outside input. Please come lend a hand! Sam Spade 19:08, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Calling all mystics! 

message: I like the userbox, thanks! Dominick (TALK) 18:36, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Nice userbox 

message: On another page, somebody had the idea of a weekly or fortnightly  Collaboration on a Catholic-themed article. I think it's a good idea. Is there any interest in this? --Hyphen5 11:01, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Weekly/Fortnightly Collaboration 

message: I've just noticed that User:Quackquack has been creating a whole lot of articles in the form of Roman Catholicism in Svalbard, Roman Catholicism in The Gambia, and so forth. (See his contribs list). This looks like information that should be in a list or tabular format, but instead is spread over a lot of articles. Don't get me wrong - for any country where Roman Catholicism has been a significant cultural force, I think an article is great. Roman Catholicism in Poland, for instance. But if Roman Catholicism is present but not particularly influential in a country, the information should probably be noted in the country's article and/or some general Catholicism article. FreplySpang (talk) 16:23, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I tend to agree with you, but I think that Quackquack is on the right side of history on this issue. Scouting in Vatican City must really make your blood boil. savidan(talk) (e@) 15:06, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Roman Catholicism in * 

message: A while ago, the  WikiProject Saints set up an infobox template. The last part of that template included a space for a sample prayer.
Recently, there has been some commentary on the talk page about the inclusion of prayers on the articles about the Saints. Two editors in particular,  Attilios and   Ian Spackman, have been editing the articles pretty heavily. I think they both have an agenda and are pursuing it despite the consensus of the Wikiproject.
It is my belief that prayers in a literary or historic context are NPOV. I can understand that some may consider the inclusion of a prayer to be hagiographic, but freedom of religion is not freedom from religion.
There is a 3RR about to happen on a number of these articles. I am trying to be philosophical about this, but don’t want to yield the point when what is happening goes against the consensus and borders on vandalism. One editor is an Italian atheist who uses very poor English, didn't understand what are NPOV was and left nasty notes in the edit summaries and in the articles themselves.
*"WIKIPEDIA IS NOT THE PLACE FOR PRAYERS. GO IN THE CHURCHES TO LOSE YOUR TIME IF YOU HAVE” 
*There was an edit was on Philip Neri that accused the U.S. miltary of torture. 
*One editor said he was editing drunk.
This on the heals of the edit war on John Bosco and homosexuality. How do we reign this in before it gets out control?
Thanks!
--evrik 14:58, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It might be wise to add links to devotional websites as external references, perhaps including saint's writings as part of the Wikitexts project; but I agree: an encyclopedia is not the place to publish prayers---not even a Catholic Encyclopedia.--- Louie 16:30, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

text: Some Saints have very significantly famous prayers, like St. Francis.  However, to be consistent, it may be prudent to talk about the prayer in the article, and just include an external link to the text. MamaGeek Joy 11:57, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Preventing an edit war over the [[Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Saints|Saints]]

message: I just looked quickly at a couple of Catholic Encyclopedia articles about saints ("Saint Joseph" and "Blessed Virgin Mary") and found to my surprise that they actually didn't contain any sample prayers.   It seems reasonable to me to follow the same practice here.  
This relates to Wikipedia's purpose as an encyclopedia: it aims to present verifiable factual material.   A prayer of course isn't a verifiable factual part of a saint's biography.  It doesn't make any historical statement.   Rather it's part of devotion to a saint, which happens after the saint's death, so it might be reasonable to quote a prayer as an example in a historical article about that devotion, or if it's one of the few prayers notable enough to deserve its own article.   But in general, prayer texts aren't the sort of content one expects to find in an encyclopedia.   
If I understand aright, Wikipedia has some sort of policy that WP isn't a place for original source texts: including texts from the Bible or from literature.   It's fine to cite those texts, but Wikipedia isn't the place to quote them extensively.  Wikisource, on the other hand, has several Scripture versions and many works of literature, so it might be an OK place for collections of prayer texts.  It would probably be OK to cross-link from a Wikipedia article to a related Wikisource text.  Or of course one of the budding Catholic-wiki projects (there are 2-3 of them) might be an even more suitable home for devotional/spirituality texts. 
This is the first time I've looked into the Catholicism wikiproject, so I'll browse around some more to catch up on "the story so far".  Regards--  Chonak 17:02, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It might be wise to add links to devotional websites as external references, perhaps including saint's writings as part of the Wikitexts project; but I agree: an encyclopedia is not the place to publish prayers---not even a Catholic Encyclopedia.--- Louie 16:30, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

text: Some Saints have very significantly famous prayers, like St. Francis.  However, to be consistent, it may be prudent to talk about the prayer in the article, and just include an external link to the text. MamaGeek Joy 11:57, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Distinction: history and spirituality

message: I've started categorising the blank Catholic Encyclopedia articles at Wikipedia:Catholic Encyclopedia by category.  You are all invited to come and help.
I would really like it if this could become the source for a few collaborations.
JASpencer 20:30, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Categorising the Catholic Encyclopedia 

message: The article is plague with a long discussion on the title. We changed it to meet the problems of traditional Catholic including non-Tridentine Mass attending Catholic, and the comprimise was traditionalist, as was used in CDF documents. Please read the discussion there on the talk page and comment. More heads are better than fewer. Dominick (TALK) 18:03, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Help on article [[traditionalist Catholic]] 

message: I just thought that as a new member I might share with you all a Pro-life pseudo user-template I made for my user page.  It uses as its image the drawing of a fetus by Leonardo Da Vinci.  Enjoy! MamaGeek Joy 14:55, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pseudo-template for Pro-Lifers 

message: Just to clarify - does this project intend to be devoted to Roman Catholicism (that is, the church in communion with the Pope), or Catholicism in the broader sense (include Anglo-Catholicism etc - see Catholicism)?  I'm assuming the first, but it doesn't currently actually say anywhere; it merely points to Catholicism, which is a page explaining the various meanings of the term.... TSP 12:07, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Scope of the project 

message: This proposal was first posted on Talk:Roman Catholic Church under the heading "Alternate proposal" in response to a suggestion that the RCC article be merged with Criticism of the Catholic Church and Anti-Catholicism.
First, thanks to Dominick for giving us the opportunity to think through a reorganization of this and other Catholic Church related pages. I have been thinking about this for some time now.  The alternate solution that occurs to me is in a rather different direction. (from merging articles) So, I beg your patience and consideration.
At first glance the idea of merging the three articles (Roman Catholic Church, Criticism of Catholicism, and Anti-Catholicism) looks like a great idea.  Theoretically, it makes perfect sense. Practically, it is problematic, as I see it. 
First, this is a very popular topic (RCC) for criticism.  There is a lot of negativity out there about the Catholic Church, so there is a constant stream of edits along this line.  Then Catholics come along and need to respond to every criticism line for line, which makes for very awkward reading.  (I tried to simplify the "Assessing Catholic doctrine" section into a "Controversial Teachings" section starting with a brief outline of the teaching, a coherent paragraph to summarize the criticisms and a brief paragraph with some Catholic responses. The steamlining  which made for smoother reading lasted about 2 days before someone came along and inserted a Catholic defense line-for-line again in the criticisms paragraph.  I am not protective of my writing, but the defensive impulse seems to demand two arguments for every sentence--which is a bit maddening for the reader.)  All of this works against this (RCC) article being very useful to the beginner, the way it is currently presented.   
This RCC article is trying to say far too much about far too few topics.  A single article attempting to address everything from the episcopate, to the reforms of Vatican II, to liturgy, to priestly celibacy, to ecumenism, to the nature of God, to the Inquisition, to the contributions of the CC to society, etc. etc., will never be very workable.  Image what this article will look like once the Pro-Choice and Gay Movement folks, God bless them, and the conservative Catholics (I am one) decided this article is the best place for their war turf!!
So, I would like to propose we make MORE articles, perhaps all linked together with an organizational box (whatever those are called on WP).  For example, moving the "Sacraments" off this page was a big improvement. They are no longer lost on this page and now have room to develop (perhaps into 7 separate articles eventually) without being out of proportion to this general page.  So, perhaps we could have a series of articles tied together.  This RCC page could then offer a brief summary of each topic with a link to each separate main article.  We might do well to employ the opening (identification) paragraph of each linked article as the summary on the RCC page.  This would make the RCC page a general introduction to the various topics and a kind of "index" to the array of articles, afterall there are not many churches you can write an entire 28-volume encyclopedia about.  
Perhaps the array of articles could look somethng like this:
*Roman Catholic Church--with a brief paragraph on each of many topics referring readers to Main Articles for each, including:
*Catholic Sacraments
*CC and Scripture
*Tradition in the CC
*Eastern Rite Churches in the CC
*CC and pro-life issues
*CC and Church-State relations
*CC and Reformation theology
*CC and diplomatic relations
*CC and the UN
*Vatican City
*CC government (ecclesiology)
*CC and the theology of priesthood
*CC and education
*CC and higher education
*CC and the medical profession (industry)
*CC and biomedical ethics
*CC the legal profession
*The Catholic parish
*The priestless Catholic parish
*CC and the arts
*Faith and Reason in the CC
*CC and Catholic politicians
*CC and Evolution
*CC and the Sciences
*CC and the "Anglican Use"
*Catholic teachings on sexual morality
*Spiritualities and prayer forms of the CC
*CC and Vocational discernment
*CC and business ethics
*Government of the CC
*The Papacy in scripture, tradition, and history
*Early Church History
*Medieval Church History
*CC perspectives on the Reformation 
*CC and Modern History
*Pacifism and the Just War theory in the CC
*CC and the wars of religion
*Historically Catholic nations
*Saints in the CC
*Marian doctrines of the CC
*CC and the Evanglical Christian movements
*Catholic apologetics
*Liturgy in the CC
*Catholicism and Ecumenism (way too much energy on this page has to do with what the CC says about other religions etc.)
*History of Religious Life in the CC
*RCIA in the CC
*The Reforms of Vatican II
*The Vatican II era in the CC(1961-1978)
*The John Paul II era in the CC(1978-2005)
*Mysticism and the CC
*Canon Law in the CC
*... and whatever else I am missing...
Seriously, these are just the topics I came up with off the top of my head!  All of these a significant topics.  None is minor, and most have made the headlines of major media outlets at some point in recent years.  All of these deserve mention and linkage from this RCC main article.
Many of these topics already exist as independent articles, in which case there is no need for a long discourse on them on this page. For example, there are already two very long articles on the Inquisition, both of which are hotly debated.  Unfortunately, there is now 
a growing section on this page regarding the Inquisition with the same debates beginning to take place citing the same references etc.  This is a tremendous waste of energy when we have an encyclopedia to write!  
This brings me to another related matter.  Some of these topics are confusing to read because they overlap with other Churches.  For example.  I reorganized the "Canon law" article to separate out Catholic, Anglican and Orthodox sections.  But these really should be separate articles, because there is so much more to say (for example, about the canon law of marriage, including the annulment process, not to mention reserved absolution, impediments, the canon law of priesthood and religious life, etc., in the CC ) that doesn't fit with this presently joint article.  Besides, I am sure there is much more to say about canon law in the Anglican and Orthodox Churches. My point is simply that when articles get conceptually  or materially unwieldly, dividing them makes more sense than merging them.  
Lastly, and this may be more controversial, I would suggest that criticism sections be attatched to their related articles rather than grouped in one article called "Criticisms of the RCC."  When grouped like this they are always out of context from what they are specifically criticising.  For instance, "women's ordination"  or "a married priesthood" criticisms really go with an article like "theology of the priesthood in the CC."  Or the criticisms article could be organized in the same way as the RCC page with brief summaries and a link to the proper Catholic article with criticism section. (So the criticisms related to the gay movement would link to "Catholic teachings on sexual morality.")
In short, this RCC main article is trying to say far too much on far too few topics.  We would do well to:
# Summarize topics with links to the relevant articles.
# Perhaps employ the first (identification) paragraph of the article as this summary with a "For more see X link."
# Join criticisms to the articles they apply to. 
# Separate out Catholic topics from other articles where needed.
# Create an RCC articles reference box for easier navigation.
Thanks again for your patience and for the opportunity to talk about these organizational matters.
Salud!     --User:Vaquero100 11:44, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thats my intention as well. Three or four clicks to most topics on Catholicism. I know there are some potholes, like how do we handle dissenters like SSPX or CFFC? Dominick (TALK) 16:49, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

text: I also join the motion. The template box may be available across articles and topics. Also, we could merge those "anti-"whatever pages.--- Personally, I think those "criticism of ..." articles make no sense: they are unencyclopedic, as they often degenerate into flames, POV, etc. Louie 18:49, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:   Proposal for organizing CC articles across WP 

message: Please read the discussion and comment. We are trying to sift down the fragmented base of articles on Catholicism, and find a common root. A long time comprimise was to separate Catholic from Roman Catholic. It had the effect of separating the Chruch from the term Catholic and to state the Pope was no longer the head of Catholicism, but merely Roman Catholcism. Please help forge a good compromise. Dominick (TALK) 17:00, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've been browsing through some articles, and I'm also surprised by the redirect from [Catholic Church] to [Roman Catholic Church].  I've been reading some of the debate, and most of it seems to focus on challenging/defending the claim that Benedict XVI, or his predecessors, are the true head of the Only Catholic Church; i.e. Peter's Primacy.--- The redirect is a waste of a useful name. Perhaps the simplest solution would be using [Catholic Church] as a disambiguation page, pointing to the several topics under this umbrella. [Early Catholic Church] (when it was assumed it was Catholic by definition), [Roman Catholic Church] (under Benedict XVI), [English Catholic Church] (under Elizabeth II), [Eastern Catholic Churches] (under Benedict too), etc.--- Louie 16:24, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Serious discussion on [[Talk:Roman_Catholic_Church]] 

message: See also Talk:List of Roman Catholic dioceses - there is quite some chaos with the diocese articles. Some are at Diocese of ... (or Archdiocese of ..., Apostolic Vicariate of ...' etc.) while others are at Bishopric of ...'. And then there are articles which are mainly the bishop lists at Bishop of ...'. There should be only one naming scheme, and IMHO for those diocese with a rather long bishop list that one can be split off into a separate List of bishops of ...'. Also, the List of Roman Catholic dioceses is currently very incomplete. BTW: On my Sandbox I tried to built a infobox template for dioceses - any comments on that one? andy 11:13, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Diocese articles naming scheme 

message: Hi! Is there any way of improving the article about the
Necedah Shrine? Please? I started the article before I registered with Wikipedia. There is a NPOV label on it.
Also I started 2 articles about 2 Marian Shrines in Wisconsin: Holy Hill National Shrine of Mary, Help of Christians in Erin, Wisconsin and the Shrine of Our Lady of Good Help in Brown County, Wisconsin.
Any help with the Necedah Shrine article would be appreciated. Thank you-RFD 18:03, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The Necedah Shrine article has been taken care of. The NPOV label has been removed. Please let us know what you think of the Necedah Shrine article.
I started the Holy Hill article because of vandalism was done to the shrine. I decided to started the article, after I read about it in the newspaper. Thank you-RFD 16:45, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Necedah Shrine 

message: This article has had two peer reviews with extremely low turnout. If anyone involved in this Wikiproject would like to give the article a once-over before I nominate it to be featured, that would be much appreciated. One of the best Pope articles on Wikipedia I think, excluding John Paul II and Benedict XVI, who I think are two recent to be considered for FA status. savidan(talk) (e@) 19:17, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Pope Pius XII]] 

message: This move makes sense because Counter-Reformation implies that that the movement was against reform.  Rather as a reform movement within the Catholic Church, it is most precisely known as the Catholic Reformation.  This is now the more favored term in academic theological circles. 
Please stop by talk:Counter-Reformation for the vote.  Thanks, --Vaquero100 14:55, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vote in progress to move [[Counter-Reformation]] to [[Catholic Reformation]] 

message: There is a section in the article Nazirite entitled Nazirites and the New Testament which is unsourced, appears to be original research and I strongly suspect that it is just plain work.  I do not have any expertise in this area. It would be nice if someone knowledgeable would look over the section, or better yet rewrite it from scratch.   Jon513 17:15, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Nazirite]] 

message: I have created a new page: May crowning because I couldn't find an article on it in Wikipedia. I hope some of the editors here can help expand and change the article while adding appropriate links to it. --ScienceApologist 17:25, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: New page

message: Figured this was the best place for such a centralized discussion. Problem: about half of the Pope's are Saints. How should they be referred to in the article? From my understanding of the placement of the "style boxes", they should only be referred to as "Pope XXXXXXX"  at the start of the article, and the posthumous reference style should be "Saint." However, this is not the case in some of the articles, particularly the shorter ones about early Popes who are either referred to as "Saint XXXXXXX," "Saint Pope XXXXXXX," or "Pope Saint XXXXXXX." Peter is a special case, because for reasons of disambiguation that page is called Saint Peter (even though several christian denominations do not view him as a Saint). For the others, would there by any objection to my standardizing them with "Pope XXXXXXX" as the first words appearing in the article, making sure that their Sainthood is noted in the introduction and in the sytle box? Thanks, savidan(talk) (e@) 18:59, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: As a corrolary, the succession boxes should state only the papal name and number of the predecessor and successor. A few use the term "Pope" (which is repetitive) and/or "Saint" (which is incorrect because they weren't a saint at the time) but this is so non-standard, that I'll just go ahead and fix this. savidan(talk) (e@) 19:04, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Style for people who are both Popes and Saints 

message: There is a dispute over reliable sourcing for the article on Maria Valtorta, part of which can be found on the talk page. A discussion has recently been opened at WP:RSN which can be found here. Interested editors are encouraged to join the discussion. -Ad Orientem (talk) 22:51, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dispute Over Sourcing @ [[Maria Valtorta]]