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Origins section discussion continued

This section is a continuation of this discussion further up on the page [1]. NancyHeise talk 13:54, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

I have been reading our sources again and our proposed wording and we have a problem we need to address. We are using Duffy as an example of a scholar who "disagrees" with the Church's POV of its own origins. That is actually not true. Duffy does not disagree on anything except the developement of the papal office and of this he does not make a decisive statement but rather is in the "I don't know for sure" category. Duffy does say this about the early church in Rome (paperback edition of Saints and Sinners page 11) "The Christians of the city were thought of by themselves and others as a single church, as Paul's letter to the Romans make clear." This is in agreement with all of our other sources - none of which dispute this fact. Neither do our sources say that the Roman Church was a separate entity from the other apostolic churches. If we have a source that says something to the effect that these churches thought of themselves as anything other than the one church founded by Jesus, we need to bring this out but I have not seen a statement like this in any of our sources. I do know of scholars who contend that Jesus did not found the church - the point we want to make in "Origins" and these are discussed in Duncan Derrett's essay (even though Derrett himself does not agree with them, he tells us that there are scholars who say Jesus did not found the church) and the Catholic priest whose license to teach in the name of the Church has been revoked by the Vatican - Hans Kung. I think if we are going to use a source for the "disagree" statement, we need to use Kung - see p. 4 of his book here [2]. As for the scholarly disagreement on the developement of the papal office, I think our two best sources are Vidmar and Duffy (both Catholics BTW) because Duffy is a more visible author and Vidmar expressly discusses his opposition to Duffy on this point.[3] All of these other sources submitted by Harmakheru and myself can be used as backup so we have the sentences sourced to maybe three different authors allowing Reader the ability to see the range of scholarship supporting each sentence.NancyHeise talk 13:40, 7 November 2009 (UTC)


  • What does Nancy suppose to be the "Church's POV on its own origins"?
    • None of these sources say.
    • The most Roman of them are clearest that we have insufficient evidence to make any certain statements on what happens between the New Testament and the martyrdom of Peter - whenever that was.
    • An article that reflected that would be honest, concise, and on topic.
  • I suppose it is progress that Nancy has finally noticed that there is a difference between "X did not happen" and "We do not know". When she notices that the second is consensus among historians, and is consistent with the Catechism, we may finally get somewhere. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:16, 7 November 2009 (UTC)
Kung might indeed be a better opposing exemplar than Duffy.
PMAnderson seems to believe that the Church does not have a clear POV on its own origins. The Church is actually very clear that it was founded by Jesus on Peter the Apostle, and the Apostolic authority has descended through that same Church and subsequent Popes to the Catholic Church of today. The Catechism is not the only thing that documents the catholic Faith. You can deduce nothing from omissions in it. Xandar 23:07, 7 November 2009 (UTC)
I agree with you Xandar. Bokenkotter, Franzen, Vidmar and others agree that the Gospels may be used as historical evidence even if they are not written in a way modern historians would have preferred. I already quoted Bokenkotter on this above. Since we have historians who are using the Gospels, sermons, letters and other pieces of ancient evidence to come to their conclusions on Church origins and I have quoted them - I don't understand Septentrionalis' persistent denial of the sources. I also don't see anyone else in agreement with him/her but let's see what pops up here. NancyHeise talk 01:20, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
This is the Agreed text so far (copied from discussion section above [4]) with my proposed additions italicized and eliminations struck:
The Church believes itself to be the continuation of the Christian community originally founded by Jesus upon the apostles,[20] among whom Simon Peter held the position of leader.[21] The Church also believes that its bishops, through apostolic succession, are consecrated successors of these apostles,[22][23] and that the Bishop of Rome, as the successor of Peter, possesses a universal primacy of jurisdiction and pastoral care.[24] Elements of this traditional narrative agree with the fragmentary surviving historical evidence, "....[26] however modern scholars differ widely in their views. Some scholars accept assert that the historical evidence indicates affirms that the Catholic Church is the direct continuance of directly continuous with the original 1st century church founded by Jesus in his consecration of the Apostles Peter and Paul. who were martyred in Rome. Others disagree, arguing that Jesus did not found a church in his lifetime but rather it came into being as a result of Jesus' follower's profession of faith in him as the Messiah and their continuing practice of baptism and celebration of the Eucharist.(cite to Kung[5]). Other historians do not make a judgment as to whether or not Jesus founded the church but disagree with the traditional narrative in regard to the origin of the ecclesial office of the pope. They assert the papal office system and structures may have developed significantly later at an unspecified date before the year 150 and could possibly be are imposed by the traditional narrative upon the primitive church." NancyHeise talk 02:46, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
I like the above text better than anything that has been proposed up to now. One minor point: I don't like "imposed by the traditional narative upon the primitive church". First of all, I understand that "retrojected" is an uncommon word but it captures the meaning better than "imposed"; let us look for a word or phrase that is closer in meaning to "retrojected". I also don't like "imposed by the traditional narrative" because "imposed by" requires an actor (like "the Church"). So I'm thinking something closer to "could be a retroactive reinterpretation of early Church history to explain and justify later developments in ecclesial organization". A bit verbose perhaps but I think it more accurately expreses what the historians and theologians in question mean. --Richard S (talk) 05:26, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
I think I would prefer a more concise sentence that used the word "retrojected" but as a second choice, your "retroactive reinterpretation" is OK (except I think it should say rather "retroactive interpretation" instead). NancyHeise talk 19:29, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
"Retrojected" is not so good because it is an uncommon word. I actually didn't like "retroactive reinterpretation" much because of the alliteration which is a bit distracting in this context. I've been thinking that "superimposed" is preferable to "imposed". "Imposed" has two meanings, the one you had in mind and the connotation of something being forced. "Superimposed" means to "lay something on top of something else" which is closer to what we mean. In summary, I think "retroactive interpretation" or "superimposed" are OK. --Richard S (talk) 21:53, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
I can live with that. "Superimposed" is the better word - great job! I'll wait to see what others think before adding this to the article with appropriate refs and quotes. NancyHeise talk 02:06, 9 November 2009 (UTC)
Also, just to clarify, I would like to keep paragraph 1 and most of paragraph 2 in the present Origin and Mission section and replace paragraph 3 with the agreed text above. Actually, I have the time to do this right now. If there are any changes we can put them into the article as we agree to them in this section. I'm going to put this text in now. NancyHeise talk 02:26, 9 November 2009 (UTC)
OK, I have made these changes, ref'd them and added the new sources to the bibliography. This version [6] contains these changes, please have a look and let me know what you think. Thanks. NancyHeise talk 04:37, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

I have made a minor change from 'historians' to 'historians of Christianity'. I think the former gives the impression that historians as a body are divided between those who believe Christ founded the Catholic Church, Peter was the first Pope etc. and those that dispute this when of course most historians aren't interested in such things. I don't think it's a problem, is it?Haldraper (talk) 10:28, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

It's OK with me, its an accurate depiction since all of the refs are to "historians of Christianity". NancyHeise talk 14:37, 9 November 2009 (UTC)
Very good so far. HOWEVER there is some confusion. If we are still talking about the LEAD, rather than text for the Origins section, then what we have now is too lengthy and detailed. In my opinion the section starting "Other historians do not make a judgment..." goes into too much detail for the lead, and would be better in the main article. Xandar 00:38, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
Agree, its way too much detail for the lead, I was talking about the text for Origins. I think the lead can just summarize that some scholars agree and some disagree with the Church's POV that is already summarized neatly in the lead. I removed the refs to the lead scholar sentence since we dont have to ref the lead anyway and this is already refd in the Origins and Mission section. NancyHeise talk 04:15, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm kind of uneasy about using Kung. The man is a heretic with a very poor reputation and does not have the authority to teach Catholic theology for a reason (WP:Reliability concerns). With an entity which is 2000 years old, Kung is, in the grand picture of things, a minor irritant, but othewise insignificant. Should his views really have such a prominent place as to be in the main CC article? I'm not sure we need to give so much focus onto "opposition" in general, when it hasn't any uniformity in itself. IMO all we need to do to create a NPOV, is to simply present the subject of the Article. What the Church claims to be, using words like "the Church holds that", or "Catholics claim that", due to the fact that we can't state the full truth, "The Church is the", "Catholics realise the truth that". - Yorkshirian (talk) 06:35, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

I disagree strongly with Yorkie. I can understand not wanting to reference Kung but de-emphasizing the "opposition" (which is a POV framing of the issue in the first place) does not yield an NPOV treatment. Going down the path that Yorkie advocates would reopen the whole discussion that we are on the verge of closing. Warning, Will Robinson, warning! --Richard S (talk) 07:59, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
Surely the article "Criticism of the Catholic Church" is a catch-all place for opposition/alternative views? The problem is, there are so many sects which broke away, none of them with any uniformity, that if we start listing the views of each opposed to the Church, then we will compromise presenting cleary what the Church itself is. We can't say "x is true" or "x is fact", due to WP:NPOV policy, but simply presenting "the Church holds that..." such and such, is both neutral and sticks to the topic at hand. - Yorkshirian (talk) 18:07, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
A clearly valid argument when it comes to theological doctrine. Less valid when it comes to assertions of historical fact. In the case of such assertions of fact rather than of belief, NPOV requires that the "opposition" be presented especially if such opposition is asserted to be the "mainstream" of academic thinking on the question. (Yes, even if that "mainstream" is dominated by Protestant and secular historians). --Richard S (talk) 18:27, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
I used Kung because he is the most visible scholar who holds the opposition position. We are trying to tell reader about the historical origins of the Church and that story has three facets of historians holding differing views - we are trying to offer Reader a sampling of those views sourced to the scholars who most famously hold them in accordance with WP:NPOV. I don't personally like Kung either, I think his logic is clearly faulty but that's just my opinion - the opinion of a lowly Wikipedia editor : ) NancyHeise talk 15:11, 11 November 2009 (UTC)
  • Which of these historians of Christianity affirm that it was founded at a specific moment? The Catechism suggests at least three: the gathering of the Apostles, the blessing of Peter, and Pentecost; Orlandis names all three.
  • Which of these historians calls the blessing of Peter a consecration? That's Richard's word and he has retracted it.
  • Framing this issue (or, indeed, any of the issues here) as a contrast between angelic supporters and diabolic opponents is an oversimplication; the wording of a Manichee, not of a disinterested scholar; it is unacceptable. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:34, 11 November 2009 (UTC)
Good question. It is Eamon Duffy who uses the word "consecrated" and he is only one of our sources that affirms the foundation of the Church at the moment of the "consecration" of Peter. See Saints and Sinners, the first page of Chapter One. You can also find it in Edward Norman's The Roman Catholic Church, An Illustrated History on the first page of his Chapter One, and in Henry Chadwick's section of Oxford Illustrated History of Christianity pages 35-36 and Professor Thomas Noble's Western Civilization page 213. NancyHeise talk 19:23, 11 November 2009 (UTC)
In other words, this is a random synthesis; you are accepting the wording of position A according to an author who holds position B, and whom you yourself decry. No. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:33, 11 November 2009 (UTC)
No, the sentences in the article text are cited to the authors whose works support the sentences. Several editors in this section have reviewed the work and agree so far. You disagree by asking me a question, I answer it by pointing you to several authors whose works tell us the same thing our article tells us and you dismiss it without even checking the sources. That does not help the page at all. If you disagree, please provide some specifics to support your view. Thanks. NancyHeise talk 19:44, 11 November 2009 (UTC)
To make it easier for you, please see page one of Saints and Sinners here [7]. Duffy himself provides us with the Catholic POV of the Church's own origins and uses the word "consecrated". He goes on to dispute this position which is why we used him as our "opposing" scholarly view. John Vidmar is one of our "supporting" views because he specifically opposed Duffy's interpretations including even naming Duffy himself and his book Saints and Sinners. NancyHeise talk 19:47, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Is the Pope article anti-Catholic?

Please consider this [comment] left at Talk:Pope. I suspect the anonymous editor's complaint is off-the-mark but I figured it wouldn't hurt to solicit the opinions of some of the other editors of this page given that the anon's complaint is about text that is directly related to the text we have been arguing about here. --Richard S (talk) 04:54, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

OK, I improved the history section of that article a bit and left a link to a Googlebook on talk if anyone wants to improve the section on Protestantism. That's all I have time for today. Thanks. NancyHeise talk 17:16, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
Didn't there use to be a box at the top of that article also, mentioning the present Pope? Where did it go. - Yorkshirian (talk) 20:14, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
Not sure but I think the article needs it - there is no lead picture and I think the present pope could fill that space. NancyHeise talk 02:49, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
I added a good picture of Pope Clement I, who figures largely in the early development of the institution. The current Pope is elsewhere in the article and has his own article, which we don't want to confuse with the general one. Xandar 01:05, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Nature of the Church

The section entitled Mary and the saints goes into the nature of the church somewhat by discussing Church belief on the subject but I think that we could expand that. I just removed these unreferenced words from the lead [8] after Afterwriting tagged them. I thought it was too much detail for the lead on an issue that was not sufficiently important enough to make it lead material. However, I think that we could improve the article by discussing this somewhere in beliefs section. The relevent Catechism links are :

Encyclopedia Britannica Online

"Roman Catholicism" on EBO. For a sensitive topic such as this one, it's nice to find a good, reliable, neutral source on the topic. Here's one. Leadwind (talk) 04:51, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

historical view

Isn't the mainstream historical view that the Catholic Church is that historical entity formed out of Western Christianity when it split between Protestant and Roman Catholic in the 1500s? Or is it more like, the portion of Christianity that has been especially loyal to the bishop of Rome? Currently the section on the historical view of the CC's origins is pretty vague. Leadwind (talk) 05:24, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

After a big paragraph about how there's all this evidence that Peter founded the See of Rome, here's what our readers get to learn about the mainstream historical view: "Others disagree, arguing that Jesus did not found a church in his lifetime but rather it came into being as a result of Jesus' followers' profession of faith in him as the Messiah and their continuing practice of baptism and celebration of the Eucharist."

Is that really the most informative thing we can say about historical views that disagree with the traditional views?

How about this as the mainstream historical view: "Scholars of the historical Jesus disagree, describing Jesus as founding not the Catholic Church but rather a restoration movement within Judaism, a movement that evolved into the Christian church under the influences especially of the apostles Peter and Paul"?

Or "Historians agree with the traditional narrative that Paul was martyred in Rome and that it was an important power center in the Christian community, especially after Jerusalem fell (AD 70). They generally assert, however, that the papacy evolved out of the episcopate, which itself didn't take hold until the 100s."

It should be easy to put together three or for informative sentences about the history of the Catholic Church from outside the CC perspective. Leadwind (talk) 05:41, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

On the first point, clearly no. The idea that the Catholic Church only comes into existence at the Reformation is, if held by anyone, very eccentric, to put it mildly. On the second, see almost all the rest of the page above. Johnbod (talk) 11:54, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
John, maybe you know this topic better than I do. What, would you say, is the mainstream historical account of the origins of the church that this article describes? Leadwind (talk) 22:17, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
If you think "It should be easy to put together three or for informative sentences about the history of the Catholic Church from outside the CC perspective" you should read the rest of this page, and most of archives 36-38! Johnbod (talk) 22:37, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
Most historians would accept that Peter was in Rome, and that there is continuity of the present day Catholic Church with the Church of the 1st Century. Some historians cavill about whether Peter was formally entitled Bishop of Rome or whether there is enough proof that some of his 1st century successors were "monarchical" bishops or part of a collective. The idea that the Catholic Church began at some other point than the 1st century is one that no-one can factually back-up, although a few try (unconvincingly) to make a cut-off point with Constantine. Xandar 23:24, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

As with so much else on this talk page, the problem with Xandar and other editors like him here is that 'The Catholic Church was founded in 33 AD' is a faith position around which historical facts have then to be twisted/edited out if necessary. I would argue that the Catholic Church dates from the late Roman Empire of the fourth century whose structures it has clearly inherited but it's a waste of time doing so with those whose minds are so firmly closed.Haldraper (talk) 10:43, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Xander, see, you must be reading different books from mine, because mine say that there's no real evidence that Peter ever went to Rome, or that there was an episcopacy before the 2nd century. They say that Jesus founded a restoration movement within Judaism and that the early church had only two levels of leaders: elders/overseers and their assistants, the deacons. As for the origin of Catholicism, the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church refers defines the Catholic Church as the unified church that prevailed until the East-West Schism, and the Roman Catholic Church as that portion of Christianity that continued to be under the Pope after the Reformation. Leadwind (talk) 16:48, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
Leadwind, we have researched every kind of scholar to find out what they think of the origins of the Church. Please see the authors quoted on this talk page and in the latest archive. None of these scholars say the church originated after the split with Protestants. That is a fringe view Wikipedia does not allow see WP:fringe. NancyHeise talk 03:19, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
Nancy, you're right. I consulted my source, and I'd gotten it wrong. "Roman Catholic" is often used to mean the Christian body that remained loyal to the Pope after the Reformation. Now then, would you be able to hazard a summary of the mainstream historical viewpoint on the origins of the Catholic Church? Leadwind (talk) 03:35, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
Yes, we have been "hazarding" this for the past several weeks : ) If you read the article, you will find a summary of the mainstream historical viewpoint(s) - there are three of these. NancyHeise talk 04:12, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
Excellent news, Nancy! There's already a summary of the mainstream historical views? Would you please be a dear and quote them for me here? I looked and can't find them in the Origins section. Leadwind (talk) 15:04, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

POV tag

I added a POV tag to the origin and mission section. That section is mostly about the traditional view with hardly any information about the mainstream, current historical view. Readers coming to this page mostly want to know the current mainstream view, not the traditional view. Let's set this section in balance. Leadwind (talk) 21:54, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

I've removed this and the "too long intro" tag. The origins section has been continuously under discussion for weeks now (see above), & I don't think a tag apparently added by an editor who thinks that the mainstream view is that the CC began in the Reformation is much help. The lead may also, at 7 paras, be too long per some readings of the guideline, but increasing the length by adding a big tag helps no one. In any case some para breaks could be removed. Johnbod (talk) 22:36, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
John, please read the POV tag. It says: "Please do not remove this message until the dispute is resolved." I understand that you don't like what I have to say, but let's humbly follow the policies and procedures that others have put in place for us, shall we? Rather than making exceptions for ourselves? We're just editors, and the rules are meant to apply to us. If I'm all wrong about the historical view, just write the mainstream historical view into the article. It's really not too hard to settle the issue. Let's just give the historical view a good, solid treatment. Meanwhile, the dispute over the origin and mission section hasn't been resolved, so it's bad form to remove the tag. Also, the "too-long-lead" tag is for articles who leads are too long. This article's lead is too long. Leadwind (talk) 16:36, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
John, you deleted the tags again. Please take a moment to read the POV tag, and then don't delete it until the dispute is resolved. Please humbly follow the rules that apply to all of us. That's how we're supposed to get along even if we disagree. Try the golden rule a little, and treat other editors the way you want to be treated. Leadwind (talk) 17:29, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
Since you have added material to your satisfaction showing the "the historical view", you presumably regard the "origins" matter settled. You have given no indications of further concerns. That the lead is too long is a personal opinion, with some but not conclusive support from WP:LEAD. The matter (like almost everything else here) has been extensively discussed above, with several different views expressed, and will no doubt continue to be. Tags are at the same time a way of drawing other editors attention to an issue, an expression of a personal view, and a distraction to the reader. The first effect had already been achieved, the second is noted, and the third should now be given priority. There are a large number of editors, with a wide range of views, watching this article and talk page and aware of the issues, and no single editor has the right to impose by tagging his particular viewpoint on it (which is not to say you are the only editor holding these views). This is a very high-traffic article and tags should be especially deprecated here. However I will not remove them again myself - no doubt someone else soon will. Johnbod (talk) 17:44, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
John. Thanks for not removing the tags again! You say:"Since you have added material to your satisfaction showing the "the historical view", you presumably regard the "origins" matter settled." I see, it was just a misunderstanding, and you thought you were being helpful and timely by removing the tags. In fact, the matter isn't settled. There's far more material on the traditional view, and the historical view is never stated in any clear way. I'm working on that, though. So, thanks for the help, but someone will remove the tag when the dispute is resolved. If anyone wants to help, the project is to state the historical view in a positive, coherent way, the same way the traditional view now gets treated. Leadwind (talk) 19:15, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
I do not agree to the tag because all points of view of historians are discussed in the article. No view has been omitted. All of our sentences have used the most prominent scholar voicing such opinion. We have gone over so many sources and had much input from many editors on the subject to arrive at present wording. How can neutrality be disputed when every possible Point of View is included? NancyHeise talk 03:10, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
Yes. We have had a discussion on this over several weeks, and finally come to agreement on the basis of a form of wording. One person coming in and deciding to start the argument again, and arbitrarily re-word the text is not a basis for starting over. Xandar 03:16, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
Came to agreement? Where? You and Nancy repeated yourselves until everybody else gave up; that's not an agreement - and is contrary to policy. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 06:45, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
If you read the past two pages, you will see that we worked at GREAT LENGTH agreeing and referencing a form of words on this almost word by word. If you chose not to participate, that is your choice. And PMA is a fine one to talk about going on and on till everyone else gives up! Xandar 23:55, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
Misrepresentation, unless you can provide a link to anybody agreeing to this form of words who did not agree to it coming in. Those discussions are indeed a mix of unanswered and unresolved objections to the present phrasings and the vain repetitions by Nancy which have provoked the present RFC about her. It is in any case an appeal to past consensus, which is contrary to policy. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 08:21, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Nancy, please read the POV tag, and do not remove it until the dispute is settled. As you can see, it's not. Leadwind (talk) 04:47, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Nancy, please read the POV tag. It says, "Please do not remove this message until the dispute is resolved." You and I come to this topic from different perspectives, so it's important that we humbly follow the rules rather than putting ourselves above them. The rule here is, don't remove the tag until the dispute is resolved. Leadwind (talk) 14:36, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Nancy, please respect WP enough to follow the rules. Is there anything we can do to get you comfortable with WP policies and procedures? It's hard to work constructively when editors break the rules. Leadwind (talk) 14:49, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Nor are you entitled, Leadwind, to hold the article to ransom by reinserting dispute tags immediately after a lengthy agreement on an issue has been worked out. It was also clear from your posts that you had not engaged with the lengthy previous discussion before you jumped in. Xandar 23:57, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
Nonsense. Even were there an actual agreement, an agreement in which he did not take part cannot bind him. A link to real consensus might well persuade him, as it persuaded the participants (although there isn't one outside Xandar's imagination), but that would be an act of reason; however, civilized states, including the republic of letters, do not recognize involuntary servitude. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 08:16, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

summary of mainstream historical view

"Catholicism developed in the first centuries of the Christian church. Some elements, such as the priesthood, sacraments, Paul's martyrdom in Rome, the primacy of Peter, Peter's association with Rome, and the Roman church's preeminence, go back to the first century AD. Other fundamental elements, such as the episcopacy based on apostolic succession, developed in the second century." How's that? Leadwind (talk) 19:40, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Leadwind, we have posted quotes from many scholars further up on this page and in the last archive. Each of the scholars we used are the most visible and best sources we could possibly find for each point of view held. What you are proposing is only one point of view held by some scholars. Other scholars hold an opposing view and I have posted many of these on the page above. Our article text does not delve into details held by each scholar because that rightly belongs on an article unto itself. We are trying to meet the requirements of WP:summary style and give Reader the facts that some scholars agree with the Church's point of view of its origins, some scholars disagree with that point of view and other scholars disagree with only some parts of that point of view. There are no other positions to cover. Your suggestion above is a detailed exposition of what disagreeing scholars hold and we have already given place to their position. NancyHeise talk 03:15, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
I also cannot see how episcopacy based on apostolic succession developed in the 2nd century, when its basis is laid out in the NT. Xandar 03:18, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
Xandar, well maybe you know the New Testament better than I. Where in the NT is the three-level episcopal structure established? In NT times, there were only elders (AKA presbyter, priest, episkopos, supervisors) and assistants (deacon). Also, where was apostolic succession established in the NT? In any event, if the experts say it, then we're dutybound to put it in the article, even if we don't agree with it. If my take is wrong, what do you think the expert historical view is? Leadwind (talk) 04:05, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
Leadwind, we already put this in the article - there are three different expert historical views. We don't care what Wikipedia editors believe or disbelieve - we just want article text to reflect all expert points of view regarding Church origins as well as telling Reader what the Church thinks of its own origins. Our article text, the one that we just came to agreement on after a few weeks of involved discussion with several editors, the one that we scoured multiple sources that are posted on this talk page and in the latest archive - this agreed text reflects all of these viewpoints in accordance with WP:NPOV. NancyHeise talk 04:10, 16 November 2009 (UTC)


Nancy, you say, "Your suggestion above is a detailed exposition of what disagreeing scholars hold." That's not what I want at all. I don't want to define what "disagreeing scholars" scholars say. I just want to say what scholars in general say. I don't really care whether they agree with the church's position because I'm not out to take down the Catholic Church or to defend it. I just want to describe it the way other neutral encyclopedias do. You seem to see the situation relative to the church's own position. You want to state the church's position as if it were the central topic, and you want to define scholarship as agreeing or disagreeing with the church's position. But it's POV to put Catholicism's viewpoint at the center. Instead, the article should relate what historians all agree on from a neutral POV, as well as what Catholics believe about their own origins. Before my edits, the article described the Catholic viewpoint but never described the mainstream viewpoint. How can that be NPOV? Leadwind (talk) 04:15, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
Nancy, "this agreed text reflects all of these viewpoints." Maybe, but it doesn't reflect them fairly. It elaborates on one viewpoint and relegates the others to reactions to that viewpoint. But secular history isn't a reaction to church history. Secular history has its own story about the emergence of Catholicism. This story is never told. How can that be fair? Leadwind (talk) 04:18, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
Leadwind, here are some links to the sources we pondered in our search for all possible mainstream points of view of Church origins.
  • Thomas Noble and 7 other history professors [10]
  • John Vidmar [11]
  • Henry Chadwick [12]
  • August Franzen, John Dolan, Newman Eberhardt, G Maxwell-Stuart [13]
  • Roland Bainton [14]
  • Oxford History of Christianity [15]
  • Jaroslav Pelikan [16]
  • and several more [17]
  • here's some more scholars, there 's just too many to list and name separately [18]
As you can see, we have many scholars voicing varying points of view regarding Church origins. These viewpoints fall into one of three categories
  • 1)They agree with the Church's point of view regarding its own origins
  • 2)They disagree
  • 3)They disagree with part of the Church's point of view. We have covered all three of these categories in the article in accordance with WP:NPOV. NancyHeise talk 04:32, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
Oh and I forgot to add what Encyclopedia Americana has to say about Church origins here [19]. We don't use encyclopedias as references on Wikipedia, especially for history but they can help us determine what is the possible "mainstream" viewpoint. NancyHeise talk 04:38, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
Little of what the Americana says is in dispute; it is entirely consistent with the text Leadwind proposes; what are you arguing about? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 06:39, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Nancy, that's impressive. Now just use that information to construct a mainstream historical narrative about the origins of the Catholic Church. The article is biased until the historical viewpoint is described. Leadwind (talk) 04:51, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Leadwind, the article text was the result of several editors discussing this issue over the course of several weeks. You don't seem to have any editors in agreement with your statement that the agreed article text is biased but several have either reverted your tag that you keep readding and/or they have voiced their disapproval of the tag on this talk page. One editor does not make a consensus and we strive to reflect consensus on this page. Perhaps if you could give us a new source to ponder, one that tells us exactly what the "mainstream" view holds, we can add a sentence that says that. The closest I have come to a source telling us what the mainstream holds is Thomas Bokenkotter's A Concise History of the Catholic Church but even his statement tells us that there is significant scholarly disagreement on the subject. NancyHeise talk 04:57, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
What are you talking about, Nancy?
The present text was indeed discussed, quite recently, for some weeks - and the discussion consists largely of objections based on reliable sources that this same text was biased, by several editors, on much the same grounds, answered by you with citations from coffee-table books, alleged citations (by you and a handful of others) of books which do not support the claims for which you would cite them, and revert-warring. If this continues, other steps in dispute resolution will have to be considered. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 06:35, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Leadwind, you're banging your head against a - very ancient - brick wall here. For Nancy and Xandar, the proposition that the Catholic Church was founded in 33 AD is a tenet of their faith. They are therefore compelled to make the historical facts fit that picture, the same is true of most of their sources (Bokenkotter, Duffy, Vidmar) who as well as being academics are ordained in or hold official positions in the Catholic Church. Dig up as much as you want on presbyters, priests, supervisors and deacons, it won't change their minds.Haldraper (talk) 08:45, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Septentrionalis,
  • can you please identify which books used as references in the present article text are "coffee table" books? The one book accused of being such was the National Geographic book which we kindly replaced with Franzen. Although Wikipedia does not have a policy that identifies a "coffee table" book we eliminated it just to make you happy but it seems you are still accusing us of using it.
  • We reached agreement on the article text [20] which was changed per the discussion of the past several weeks and diligent review of variety of scholars, see them listed above. NancyHeise talk 14:54, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
Haldraper,
  • please point out for me where the article text says that the church was founded in 33AD?
  • please point out for me which scholarly point of view is not presented in our origins section? Have we omitted one? Would you like for us to omit the Catholic Church's point of view of its own origins? What Xandar and I personally think of the Church's origins is not presented in the article, the references are to the scholars who hold those views, not to Xandar or NancyHeise. : ) NancyHeise talk 14:54, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Nancy, "please point out for me which scholarly point of view is not presented in our origins section?" That's a fair question. How about the view that the Catholic Church emerged from early Christianity over the first few centuries? Is that view represented in the Origins section? If not, why not? For that matter, why is the Catholic view given centrality while other views are defined only in how they agree or disagree with this central view? WP is a secular encyclopedia. Why not give the secular view equal time (at least)? Leadwind (talk) 15:07, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Can you provide a reference to support that point of view? NancyHeise talk 15:10, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
Also, it is helpful for Reader to know what the Catholic Church holds to be its origins and then tell Reader what historians think. This is the format used by Eamon Duffy in his work used by the BBC Saints and Sinners see page one here [21]. Eamon Duffy's work is mentioned in John Vidmar's The Catholic Church Throughout the Ages who directly opposes Duffy's points. All we want to do is let Reader know
a)What does the Church think of its origins?
b)What do scholars think? There are three points of view held by scholars, we have included all three of these. All of these points of view are given to us as a reaction to what the Church thinks so we have presented them in this manner. It would be very original research and unscholarly to present the Church's origins in a manner that is not used by scholars, that which you are proposing. NancyHeise talk 15:20, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
Encyclopedia Britannica Online gives us a nice example of how to handle this topic. It presents the historical view in its own right, not as a thumbs-up or thumbs-down relative to the church's own account. It also depicts the Catholic Church as emerging out of the Christian community over the first few hundred years, especially in reaction to heresies and schisms. Again, if this isn't actually the historical view, what is? Let's describe the historical view the same way and with as much detail as we describe the Catholic view. 207.188.8.252 (talk) 20:47, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
Please abandon the notion that there is such a single thing as "the historical view" that can be simply expressed in a few sentences. Also, any generalized talk of "the Catholic Church ... emerging out of the Christian community" depends on entirely arbitary distinctions and definitions, which historians generally have the sense to avoid. Johnbod (talk) 20:55, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
Leadwind, as has been shown by his actions on the Pope article, holds to the view that one point of view only should appear in articles on the subject of Church origins. This is not a position that can stand on Wikipedia. Where there are several significant and supported views on a matter Wikipedia does not choose between them, but explains them both and gives the evidence for each. That is what we have been doing, and what Leadwind seems to dispute. He wants to present his view that there is no basis to the early foundation of the episcopal leadership of Rome, and only that view. We can't do that. Xandar 00:06, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
several significant and supported views on a matter Wikipedia does not choose between them, but explains them both and gives the evidence for each. The inconsistency here is exactly the problem; this article has not been explaining the historical scholarship on the first century - it has been imposing a dualist POV on it: It draws a fraudulent picture of "support for the Catholic point of view" by misrepresenting some of them, and sweeps all the others (the vast majority of the scholarship) into oppose; although the majority is itself fairly diverse.
Since this is fundamentally off topic here (it is enough for this article to state what the Church holds, which the Catechism, correctly and completely summarized, will do nicely), we could indeed simplify; just as Intelligent Design need not be drawn into every article on biology, we need not discuss the Christianity of the late first century here; there are forty other half-centuries this article can discuss - and it doesn't do any of them very well. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 11:31, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Vandalism

After several weeks of identifying all the major scholarly works pertaining to the origins of the Catholic Church, after working with editors to acheive an article text that reflects all possible scholarly points of view,[22] our work is being randomly vandalized by Leadwind who arbitrarily decides to tag it as POV even though it included all points of view. I have rolled back his edits which omit the view held by scholars that support the Catholic Church point of view. However, he keeps removing this referenced text. It is a fact we must present that some scholars agree with church teaching regarding the origins of the church. We used Franzen but there are several more we posted to the page also. Franzen's is a respected German historian whose work was tranlsated in to English because it is so respected. His book diligently discusses each original document pertaining to the origins of the Church and it is relevent to the discussion of Church origins. Our sources, including quotes are listed midway through this section here: [23]NancyHeise talk 15:10, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
First of all, whatever Leadwind's edit may have been, it was not vandalism.
  1. What is "the Catholic Church point of view" precisely?
  2. What are the sources that it is what the Church teaches (as opposed to what some Roman Catholics - and some Protestants - have held and taught?
"Vandalism"? Now that's not very nice, calling me a vandal and my work arbitrary. Can't we agree to be nice to each other? Can I get a little bit of golden rule action here? Do you think maybe you could treat me more like the way you want to be treated? 207.188.8.252 (talk) 20:49, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
I've blocked this IP and extended the block on user:Leadwind due to block evasion, as this is clearly the same editor. Karanacs (talk) 21:07, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

(moved from yet another new section by Johnbod) Here's a suggestion! I know that some people like the origins section the way it is now and don't want it to describe the historical viewpoint, but there must be other editors besides me who see the value in including the historical viewpoint. Let's assemble a paragraph describing the historical viewpoint and then maybe we can include it in the section. Anyone with me? 207.188.8.252 (talk) 21:01, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Is this Leadwind again? We have had 4 new sections opened by him on this point in the last 2 days, despite the fact that the rest of the page already mostly consists of disacussions on this very point. I will add this to the most appropriate. You will get nowhere here by claiming that other editors "don't want it to describe the historical viewpoint"; the discussions centrre on what that is, which is not a simple matter. I strongly suggest you read as much as you can bear of the recent archives, which will make you more aware of the issues. Johnbod (talk) 21:09, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Page Protection

I have protected the article due to the edit warring that has been taking place. Experienced editors, who should know better, have been involved and several should consider themselves lucky not to be blocked. This is the place to discuss your disagreements. That means discussing, real discussion. Please get to it. --Slp1 (talk) 16:07, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

???See the last couple of million words, here and in archives 36-38. Johnbod (talk) 20:48, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
Thanks Slpl. I don't know what it is, but there's something about this topic that generates a lot of rule-breaking, name-calling, and obstructionism. I wish people would just be nice instead of mean. 207.188.8.252 (talk) 20:55, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
User:Moreschi/The Plague explains the problem very well. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 11:34, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
Septentrionalis/PMAnderson, you are accusing editors who disagree with you of bad faith when we have sincerely tried to provide the article with the most WP:NPOV satisfactory article text. I don't think that we are able to work towards that common goal when you keep making personal attacks like this. I am surprised that I am the first person to say something to you about your behaviour on this page. I have had an Rfc opened against me by Karanacs [24] for far less infractions. I do not understand why the battleground mentality espoused by users like you is not seen as contradictory to the progress of the page but if I lose my temper for a moment and apologize,[25] it is. NancyHeise talk 17:55, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
Yes, I do observe NancyHeise's bad faith and perpetual combative self-pity. I am not the first to do so; I did not open or compile Wikipedia:Requests for comment/NancyHeise. The projection involved in her post is one of the tactics Moreschi notes in his essay, as linked above. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:36, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

historical view suggestions

For a start, let's write out what we'd each like to see as far as the historical viewpoint in the Origins section. I'll go first. Anyone who wants to join in can add another line to the table and we'll see how close we already are to agreement. Leadwind (talk) 04:51, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

User Historical View
Leadwind The Catholic Church emerged in the first centuries of Christianity, based on elements that go back to apostolic times, such as the preeminence of Peter, the establishment of the priesthood, and the early versions of the sacraments. The episcopacy, with monarchical bishops, became universal in the 2nd century. Also in the 2nd century, church fathers formalized spiritual authority with an appeal to apostolic succession, as a means to combat heresies and schisms. After Jerusalem fell, Rome became preeminent among Christian congregations, and many scholars credit the early tradition that Peter was martyred there. The Roman congregation repeatedly served as an arbiter over matters in other territories.
row 2, cell 1 row 2, cell 2

Leadwind, this discussion is being resolved in a section above this one. See [26] NancyHeise talk 17:53, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

No it isn't; even if it were, this would still be a useful resource, and when I have a proposed text, I shall put it here. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:55, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
Again, the aim is not to make long sets of doctrinal statements on tangential matters, but to agree a reasonably brief text for the origin section of this article. Xandar 01:27, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
I agree with you Xandar. And I'd add the adjective "balanced" to the phrase "reasonably brief text." Leadwind (talk) 02:28, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
A reasonably brief text is simple enough. There is, after all, fairly little doctrine on this matter, since the origin of the Church here - as opposed to the origin of the Church Triumphant, which was before Abraham - is not vital. The descent from the College of Apostles is (as doctrine) trivially sourceable. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:15, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
I'm not sure whether you mean Church Triumphant. As I understand it, it had only a handful of members before 30 AD (Enoch & Elijah are the only ones I know of). Peter jackson (talk) 14:47, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

More origins analysis

I haven't been following as closely in the past few weeks so I sat down today to look at the Origins section in more depth to see what all the recent hullabaloo is about. I see lots of problems with the section still. Here is an initial analysis:

  1. The Catholic Church traces its foundation to the gathering of the twelve Apostles by Jesus and the selection of Peter as their head - poor prose; non-Christians likely won't have any idea what this means.
  2. I don't think that we should include the Gospel quote; to me, this seems more proselytizing
  3. I've been following this discussion, and even I'm not sure what this is supposed to mean -- According to Catholic belief this promised church is the Catholic Church which was brought fully into the world when the Holy Spirit came upon the apostles in the event known as Pentecost - can we please lose the phrase "brought fully into the world" and use terminology that will be more clear?
  4. The first sentence of the second paragraph (Other parts of the New Testament...) also assume that the reader is quite familiar with the Bible; this may not be the case.
  5. Archaeological evidence along with the writings of early Church Fathers ...do we then need a list of so many Church Fathers? It should be enough to wikilink to say "some Church Fathers". This article is not supposed to be proving a case, but providing an overview.
  6. The archaeological evidence sentence is much, much too long.
  7. This view represents the traditional narrative which is related in histories of the Catholic Church - this sentence is misplaced. Rather than be a summary sentence, this needs to be moved up to earlier in the paragraph. Also, this is the traditional narrative in which histories of the Catholic Church? Those written by or endorsed by the Church? Those by all historians in a certain time period? This is not clear enough.
  8. The third paragraph begins with Elements of this traditional narrative agree with the surviving historical evidence. Why is this in two places? It is mentioned in the preceeding paragraph (Archaeological evidence along with....) and then here. In my opinion, we should remove much of this from the second paragraph and use this very nice summary instead.
  9. The second sentence of the third paragrpah (Some historians of Christianity assert) is also a duplicate of part of the Archaeological evidence... section).
  10. There is POV in the fourth paragraph - the article presents a statement as fact (Early in the history of the Church, the See of Rome began to be asked to arbitrate theological disputes that arose between other bishops.), provides a historian to support this fact, then dismisses all the rest (other scholars disagre...). I would remove this entire paragraph, as it essentially serves to rebut statements in the paragraph above.

Karanacs (talk) 16:27, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

    • The "archaeological evidence" is - as far as I can tell - a third late second-century monument to Peter. As such it is evidence on what the tradition was 200 years after his death, on which there are copious other sources - and it primarily confirms the least disputable element in the later tradition, that Peter died in Rome. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:49, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
Would this be the one Chadwick (H of C, I, 18, note, 7 162) says was "built about AD 160-170"? I think it would. This date puts it about 100yrs after his death. Chadwick feels it is "highly probable" that Peter died in Rome (same page). Johnbod (talk) 17:41, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
Thank you; emending. Yes, the claim that Peter was martyred in Rome stands on a different footing than the rest of the tradition; if the proposal were to say that historians agree that Saint Peter died in Rome, and nothing else on the historical view, that would be following the consensus of sources; I also think that under that proposal we would be much closer to agreement than we are. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:01, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
Karanacs, while I agree with your analysis, there's a much more general point to be made: nowhere does this section describe what historians say about the origin of the Catholic Church. The section would be more balanced if we told readers what the secular, mainstream viewpoint is. Right now, the only viewpoint that gets described the Catholic viewpoint. 207.188.8.252 (talk) 20:52, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
Is there a "secular, mainstream viewpoint" that is not defined in terms of denying or calling into question the Catholic Church's "traditional narrative"? AFAIK, there isn't any evidence that directly contradicts the Church's traditional narrative. Sure, there are chains of inference and speculation but that's not the same as hard evidence.
My point here is not to defend the Church's narrative but to suggest that the "secular, mainstream viewpoint" is more one of saying "we don't know if the Church's narrative is true and we suspect some parts of it are not" than of saying "we are confident that the Church's narrative is not true". Also, we need to be clear that there are more than just two viewpoints; it is not the case that the field is limited to the "Catholic" viewpoint and the "secular, mainstream" viewpoint. The Orthodox and the Protestants also have their viewpoints and these are not Catholic but also not secular. On what basis do we assert that there is a "secular" viewpoint which represents the "mainstream"? --Richard S (talk) 22:49, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
I agree with Richard here. There is no such thing as one secular academic viewpoint on this. Xandar 00:55, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
Richard, did you say this? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 11:50, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
No, not really. Xandar added his POV subsequent to his agreement with what I wrote. Mostly I meant to say that this should not be seen as a dispute in which the Catholic Church is opposed to the secular community. The dispute is more complex than that.
I meant to highlight that there is more than one religious view (something we all know but sometimes gloss over in our discussions). I also meant to say what you wrote below... that there is a scarcity of evidence but that this is more a reason for skepticism than to assert falsity (which is what I think you are also saying below). Thus, we should present both the "antique tradition" and the modern skepticism in order to maintain an NPOV stance.
The phrase "devoid of evidence" is a strong phrase. Does the "strong consensus in the academic literature" dismiss the writings of the Church fathers (Irenaeus, Ignatius of Antioch et al)?
--Richard S (talk) 16:34, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
No, they are very careful to read Clement and Irenaeus for no more than they say. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:41, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
Yes... I imagined that was the case. Somewhere, perhaps in History of early Christianity, the argument should be presented that a careful reading of Clement, Irenaeus et al yields a more economical history (i.e. a sparse narrative with few details) than the "antique tradition" which blends information from multiple sources and "connects the dots" with assumptions which were often projections of the more fully developed church hierarchy onto the primitive church.. --Richard S (talk) 01:09, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
BTW, the details of this dispute (e.g. the "presbyter-bishop" theory) don't belong in this article but should definitely be presented in other articles such as History of early Christianity.
--Richard S (talk) 16:34, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
Richard, the article text already gives Reader the traditional narrative and scholarly skepticism. We have also provided a sentence to let Reader's know there are scholars who express falsity and others who express skepticism. If you think we should be saying more can you please provide us with some suggested article text that will include whatever it is you think we have omitted in our analysis, I am all for trying to find the perfect NPOV statement but it seems that my efforts are seen only in a POV light by Sept [27][28] who thinks that there is only one scholarly point of view out there even though we have thrown all of our sources at him that say otherwise. I am tired of putting this evidence in his face only to have him reject it. I can't ignore the facts just to make him happy. He has now tagged the article to say that the factual accuracy is being disputed in addition to the neutrality. We could use your help here if you have time. Thanks. NancyHeise talk 17:24, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Secular is the wrong word here.

  • There is a strong consensus in the academic literature, including scholars of all denominations and none, that the antique tradition about the first few popes is devoid of evidence; this is not uncommon in the traditional stories of antiquity, especially about founders, like Romulus or Lycurgus. This is not an assertion of falsity; but it is not a neutral condition.
  • There is also a reasonably widely held (if largely conjectural) explanation for this silence; the "presbyter-bishop" theory.
  • Beyond that, there are theological claims, Roman, Orthodox, and at least three different varieties of Protestant, as to what authority in Christianity is and how it is transmitted; this consists of assertions about divine grace, and is not historically testable. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 11:50, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
Almost entirely devoid of near-contemporary historical evidence, yes, and in the case of Peter's immediate successors per the tradition entirely so. But that opens the complex question of how much absence of evidence can be taken as evidence of absence here. --Johnbod (talk) 17:22, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
All we need to say is that there is an absense of evidence - which is what the sources say. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:50, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
The "presbyter-bishop" theory is subject to the same pulls of bias from more recent church traditions to many scholars as the traditional narrative is to Catholics. Nor is it necessarily a contradiction of some form of Roman primacy. --Johnbod (talk) 17:22, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
No, there is no contradiction there; which is one reason Roman Catholics can hold it. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:50, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
Agreed, but all recent texts and drafts have accepted the principle that history and theology should be kept apart here, even if there is disagreement as to wordings. The drafts and latest texts have also accepted the first point, if not explicitly mentioning the second.

Johnbod (talk) 17:22, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Sept, we have listed all of the sources - both secular and Catholic - including the quotes. There is strong consensus that there are three points of view held by the various scholars. You are claiming that one of those points of view represents "a strong consensus". Do you have a reference that makes that claim? We would need one in order to put that in the article. Right now, we have two refs that help us know what "most" scholars think - Thomas Bokenkotter and Thomas Noble. Bokenkotter's statement clarifies that there is scholarly disagreement on the issue and Noble's statement makes the claim that the traditional narrative is considered by scholars to be "reliable". NancyHeise talk 17:10, 17 November 2009 (UTC)\
No, I do not have such a reference; this is not article text, but discussion, where editors are expected to use their judgment. Of course, they are also expected to read sources for what they say; not attribute to them claims they do not hold. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:41, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) Responding to Karanacs points:

1. The convoluted wording, as with much else on this article is the result of dealing with many sets of tender sensibilities. However suggestions for improvement are welcome.
2. That gospel quote is very central to the Catholic Church's claims re: the papacy, so I think it is justified.
3. "brought fully into the world" has been used because the foundation of the Church is not considered a single point in time. Jesus's appointment of the Apostles is considered the start of the process, and Pentecost the end of the establishment. So again, this has been an attempt (I'm not sure how successful) to shoehorn a more complex theology into a few words. I'm not wholly satisfied with this formulation, but if we oversimplify, someone will object to that.
4. I'm not too happy with this sentence myself.
5. I think we need to mention some of the Fathers referred to - maybe not so many, I don't know.
6. Yep.
7. The Traditional narrative is not confined just to histories "written by or endorsed by the Church". As Richard has said above, the situation is more complex than this. Some non-Catholic historians endorse major elements of the traditional narrative. Others object to major or minor elements for the reasons stated. In the past, Catholic and Orthodox would generally support the traditional narrative, Protestants would often (largely for political reasons) oppose it.
8. The duplication is due to recent edits. We probably need to combine these paras better.
9. Same again.
10. The sentence adds important information not introduced earlier, namely the the evidence of papal authority quoted by Chadwick and others. I don't think there is any opposition to the existence of the facts stated. Xandar 00:56, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
  • Of course there is opposition to the sentence in #10. It is a misrepresentation, either illiterate or fraudulent, of Chadwick's position; even the cropped quotation in the notes shows that much of the passage quoted deals with the late second and third century, an entirely different period. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 11:55, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
I am in agreement with Xandar's responses to Karanac's suggestions for improvement. On point number 10, I think the information in that sentence should be kept but could be reworded in a more NPOV way. NancyHeise talk 17:05, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
  • I can't remember if Chadwick's fuller The Early church, Vol I/VI of the Pelican History of the Church, has been quoted before here. Chapter 16 on "The Papacy" (starts p. 237 my edn) says (I can't type it all):...The role of the Roman community as a natural leader goes back to an early stage in the history of the church. It can clearly be seen in their brotherly intervention in the dispute in Corinth [c.95AD]... Perhaps the first seeds of the future development can be discerned already in the remarkably independent attitude of St Paul towards the authority of the Church of Jerusalem and in his creation of a gentile Christendom focused upon the capital of the Gentile world. ... But before the third century there was no demand for a sustained, theoretical,justification of this leadership [after talking of Pope victor re Easter date]. All were bretheren, but the church in Rome was accepted as the first among equals. The "Petrine text" (matt, 16, 18) cannot be seen to have played any part in the story of Roman leadership and authority before [c.250]...." Maybe some of this language can be used to modify point 10. I don't see it bears out PMA's comments above. Harkameru seems to have not reflected this bit in his earlier comments quoting the book [29]Johnbod (talk) 18:04, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
Chadwick is a good source and we should keep him in that paragraph. I like the fuller explanation he gives, thanks Johnbod. Vidmar also provides some good details by listing all of the historical original documents and evidence that supports the notion that the Roman bishops held "some sort of preeminence" over other bishops even after Peter's death. See The Catholic Church Throughout the Ages pages 40-42 [30]. NancyHeise talk 18:15, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
Giving "readers the choice of a" narrative which eminent Roman Catholic scholars, writing under the imprimatur, call "uncertain" and "unacceptable", as though it were unexceptionable, is undue weight on a fringe view. If we are going to describe unhistoric claims for the Papacy, we should make clear what we are doing; or do you want the "historic support" for the Donation of Constantine - which is also tradition - too? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:12, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

suggested wording

I've tmade an attempt to write a more concise version of this text that takes into account some of the discussion above. Note that although I did not include the citations here, this is intended to be a paraphrase of what is already in the article. It is possible that I misinterpreted some of the information (I do not have access to all of these sources and thought that some of the text was very unclear).

According to Catholic tradition, the Church was founded by Jesus. In the Gospel according to Matthew, Jesus gathered his twelve Apostles together and selected Simon Peter as their leader, proclaiming "I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven". In the Catholic view, modern bishops are the successors to the apostles. The traditional narrative places Peter in Rome, where he founded a church and served as the first bishop of the See of Rome. Peter later consecrated Linus as his first successor, beginning the line of Popes.

Elements of this traditional narrative agree with the surviving historical evidence, which includes the writings of several early church Fathers (among them Pope Clement I) and some archaeological evidence. While some historians of Christianity assert that the Catholic Church can be traced to Jesus's consecration of Peter, others argue that Jesus did not found a church in his lifetime but provided a framework of beliefs. Other historians disagree with the traditional view that the papacy originated with Peter, instead asserting that the papal office developed at an unspecified date before the mid 150s and could possibly have been superimposed by the traditional narrative upon the primitive church.

I truly believe that the details belong either in notes or, more appropriately, in a separate article. We are not trying to prove any points here, just to give an overview of what the general beliefs are. This devotes one paragraph to Catholic belief, and one to perspectives offered by historians. What does everyone think? Karanacs (talk) 22:15, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Without doing a detailed review of all the previous discussion, the above looks reasonable to me. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 22:24, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
I like it. Thanks for being helpful, Karanacs. I would only change it by adding the full quote from the Gospel because Reader needs to see the entire thing to understand the Church's position. The entire quote is included in all of the histories of the Church we have consulted and for good reason. The actual Gospel words of Jesus invoked by the Church are especially important: "upon this rock I will build my church". NancyHeise talk 22:55, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
My biggest problem with including the entire quotation is that it relies on a pun that is not translated in English. ("Peter" is derived from the Aramaic word for rock, so "upon this rock" = Peter). I don't know that all - or most - readers will understand this point, and I don't think it is significant enough that we should include that in a footnote in this article (although I do think that this needs to be in some type of daughter article). What meaning do you think is lost by not including the rest of the quotation? Karanacs (talk) 23:18, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
Karanacs, I think the entire meaning of the Church's position is lost by not including the entire quote. Eamon Duffy's work Saints and Sinners provides an example of how the scholars use the quote to help Reader understand the Church's position [31]. It is a format used by all of the sources I have investigated whether they be supporting or opposing the Church's position. I think, because it is so common in academia, that we are obliged to do the same if we are going to try to help Reader understand the Catholic position. NancyHeise talk 17:35, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
This is a good start; the principal flaw is that it does not distinguish between what the Church holds as dogma, on the one hand, and the tradition long held by many Catholics (and by many Protestants also), which the Church does not hold or defend, although some Catholics do.
As a matter of dogma, the (Roman Catholic) Catechism connects the founding of the Church with several events - one (Pentecost) not an action of Jesus but of the Holy Spirit. Again, the sources say plainly that whether the the Catholic Church can be traced to Jesus's consecration of Peter, or that Jesus did not found a church in his lifetime but provided a framework of beliefs is not an argument between historians, but between theologians (it is essentially an argument about what Christianity was, in the eyes of God, immediately after the Crucifixion; historians cannot answer that). Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:45, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
I do not see any major problems with the suggestion of Karanacs above. However I do still think we need to add a sentence from the final paragraph of the current text about the church of Rome arbitrating disputes elsewhere. Xandar 23:58, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
I agree with Xandar. Clement's letter in particular is a solid historical milestone. Karanacs, how about you go ahead and make those changes? Leadwind (talk) 04:37, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
It's way better and you should go ahead and swap the text in, I think. That said, here's what I object to: "others argue that Jesus did not found a church in his lifetime but provided a framework of beliefs. Other historians disagree with the traditional view that the papacy originated with Peter, instead asserting that the papal office developed at an unspecified date before the mid 150s and could possibly have been superimposed by the traditional narrative upon the primitive church." Instead of defining historical analysis negatively, let's state it positively: "Mainstream historians agree that Peter was first among the apostles, that Rome soon rose to preeminence among Christian congregations, and that power was centralized on the bishop of Rome early on. Historians find no evidence, however, that Peter founded the church in Rome, that the episcopacy predates the second century, or that apostolic succession can be traced to the apostles." Leadwind (talk) 04:49, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
The last clause of Leadwind's amendment goes too far; there is indeed no evidence what the particular links between, say, Damasus and the Apostles are; this is not surprising or uncharacteristic for offices in the ancient world. But the presumption that there were some links is not uncommonly held. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 06:15, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
PMA, apostles may have held positions of authority, but without monarchical bishops, there's no apostolic succession. But I wouldn't quibble. For me, the big deal is that the historical viewpoint be stated positively, rather than relatively to the RC position. Leadwind (talk) 15:03, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
without monarchical bishops, there's no apostolic succession. News to me; the presbyter-bishop hypothesis merely claims that there were (for a time) half-a-dozen congregations of Christians in a city the size of Rome, each with its own bishop. All of them may well have been consecrated by bishops consecrated by Paul or Peter (or Timothy, for that matter); one of the reasons presbyter-bishops are plausible is that it makes apostolic succession possible without bishops from out of town. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:53, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
PMA, we're way on a tangent here, but weren't the first congregations led not by individual bishops but by a council of elders/bishops? Leadwind (talk) 02:42, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
That's another perfectly possible position. The difference between a council of six presbyters leading a common congregation and six presbyters each of whom led a distinct congregation but who met in council and shared communion has more present-day theological significance than practical difference at the time. Do remember the condition of the Primitive Church; they didn't raise buildings - presumably they met in private homes, often those of the presbyters. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:50, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

This is perhaps a comment on style rather than on content but I dislike the phrasing of "the papal office developed at an unspecified date before the mid 150s". In particular, I really dislike the phrase "at an unspecified date". That phrase suggests that there is an alternate viewpoint that asserts that "the papal office developed at a specified date" which is not what the alternate viewpoint asserts. The traditional narrative has Jesus making Peter the leader of the church on earth and in this view, his role as lead apostle evolves and develops into that of Pope perhaps in the same way that elders/presbyters evolved into bishops. I think what we're really trying to say some historians believe that the papal office developed much later than the apostolic age (i.e. in the early to mid 2nd century). If that is what is intended then we should say that rather than using this lame locution "at an unspecified date before the mid 150s". That locution could mean anything from 34CE to 153CE. It's way too large a time period. Let's be more specific about what we are trying to say. --Richard S (talk) 05:50, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Richard. Furthermore, historians say that the episcopacy reached Rome by c 150, but that doesn't mean the papal office developed then. All that developed was the office of bishop of Rome, and only later would these bishops claim the titles pontifex maximus, vicar of Christ, patriarch of the west, and pope.Leadwind (talk) 15:03, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Here's another comment that goes to a central source of POV on this page. K's proposed text starts: "According to Catholic tradition, the Church was founded by Jesus." I'd write this as, "According to Christian tradition, the Christian church was founded by Jesus." Catholics have the special belief that this church was none other than the Catholic Church. The same issue arises in the history section later, where the history of early Christianity is depicted as the history of the Catholic Church. Or maybe: "According to Catholic tradition, the church that Jesus reportedly founded is the Catholic Church." Would it pay to mention who "Jesus" was? Like: "According to Christian tradition, the Christian Church was founded by God in the person of Jesus Christ." Leadwind (talk) 15:03, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

We're not interested as much in what "Christian tradition" is. For the purpose of this article, we need to present the beliefs of the Catholic community. An article on the origins of Christianity would be better suited to a discussion of the Catholic tradition versus the overall Christian tradition. Karanacs (talk) 15:24, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
I agree with Karanac's response to Leadwind here. Also, responding to Richard's concerns: the scholars do not make a judgement on which pope was the first pope because they don't know when the papal office evolved. They know that it was clearly in place by the mid 150's because that was when Polycarp visited Anicetus and they debated the date of Easter. This conversation is part of the historical record mentioned in all of our sources. None of our sources make a claim saying they definitely know when the papacy began except for those scholars who agree that it began with Peter. NancyHeise talk 17:35, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
In principle, I agree with Karanacs' assertion that we are not interested in "Christian tradition" per se but in the beliefs of the "Catholic community". However, in practice, what we're quibbling over is the phrase "Christian tradition" over "Catholic tradition". The point here is that most Christians believe that the "Church of Christ on earth" was founded by Jesus. The only dispute is whether that church was headed by the Church of Rome and later became called the (Roman) Catholic Church. IMO, this distinction is worth presenting if only in a Note. The claim of the Catholic Church to be precisely the church founded by Jesus to the exclusion of claims by others (especially the Protestants) is very central to the definition of the church and should be made crystal clear without necessarily endorsing that claim.
Moreover, I agree with Leadwind that most Christians (including the Catholic Church) would agree that the Church was founded by God through Jesus Christ and not founded by any man. Leadwind's proposed text establishes that, in the view of the Catholic Church, Jesus was God and this also is central to the definition of the Catholic Church's view of itself as opposed to secular historians who might argue that Jesus was the man (without divinity) who founded (inspired) the church. Karanacs and NancyHeise seem to have missed or dismissed this point at the end of Leadwind's comment.
--Richard S (talk) 18:31, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Given the comments above, I've replaced the Origins section with the proposed text. Per Richard, I've also changed the wordy phrase on the origins of the papacy to say " the papal office developed long after the apostolic age ". Depending on the source, we could make this even more precise. Because there appears to be some agreement here that the text is okay, albeit not perfect, I've also removed the factual accuracy tag. This does not mean that the discussion needs to end. I also encourage someone with access to the sources to please check to make sure that I did not accidentally attribute a thought inappropriately.Karanacs (talk) 17:31, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Xandar had noted above that he would like to keep some of the information from the now-removed third paragraph (full text of previous revision [32]) that dealt with the See of Rome attaining its preeminent spot. I don't think this fits well with the other paragraphs. Would it be appropriate to weave into the "traditional narrative" a mention that the See of Rome soon gained prominence? Karanacs (talk) 17:36, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
Why don't you just do this and let us see what it looks like. Also, I am going to remove the weasel word "long" as in "long after the apostolic age" because the scholars are in agreement that the papal office was fully developed by the mid 150's and this is not very long after the apostolic age. NancyHeise talk 17:39, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
No, that is a lie. Many scholars are agreed that by 150 (or perhaps 180) there was a single Bishop of Rome, and that, not long after that, he had influence outside Rome. That is not the fully developed papal office . I would prefer to believe that this is profound ignorance and carelessness about important distinctions than that this is deliberate misrepresentation. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:11, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
PManderson, I understand that there is a history of bad interactions between you and Nancy. Nonetheless, I would urge you strongly to stay civil and avoid use of inflammatory language such as "that is a lie". "You're wrong" or "That is incorrect" would be more appropriate. --Richard S (talk) 18:17, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
I have used less inflammatory language, repeatedly, to no effect (my history with Nancy, btw, dates back a month or so; this is the effect she has on neutrals). This is a false claim about the content of printed sources, one of many; if Nancy is capable of reading literate English (and it is always possible that that is the problem), she has either disregarded the words before her, or has knowingly misrepresented them. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:57, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
PMAnderson's incivility aside, I do think Nancy's comment "the papal office was fully developed by the mid 150's" is very wrong although the question revolves around "fully developed". I'm fairly confident that the term "Pope" was not in use then and it certainly did not refer exclusively to the Bishop of Rome at that time. Moreover, one instance of the Bishop of Rome being consulted regarding theological disputes in other jurisdictions does not prove the existence of a monarchical hierarchy of episcopates. The opposing viewpoint is that the Bishop of Rome was consulted as a neutral, third party who mediated or arbitrated the dispute because the disputants agreed to submit the dispute to Rome rather than because Rome had the authority to bind the disputants. (This view is held by the Orthodox Church, among others) A key issue is whether the Bishop of Rome had monarchical authority prior to the Edict of Milan or whether papal authority became "fully developed" after Christianity became the state religion of the Roman Empire. The Orthodox Church would maintain that even after Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire, the Pope did not have the monarchical authority that the Catholic Church claims he had. I can't speak to all these issues but it seems clear to me that scholars are not agreed that "the papal office was fully developed by the mid 150's". --Richard S (talk) 18:39, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
Papa was first used of a fourth-century Pope; Damasus, if I recall correctly. Like many organizations (including Wikipedia), the early Christians do not appear to have defined such matters precisely; the power of the Bishop of Rome, or of Corinth, or of Alexandria, was determined by what he could order and other people would comply with. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:57, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
I agree "the papal office was fully developed by the mid 150's" is not the best phrasing - it is too vague for one thing. Nor could this be said to be accepted by all historians. Johnbod (talk) 19:47, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
Just placing Duffy's actual quote here to help the conversation along: Duffy, paperback edition p. 13, quote "There is no sure way to settle on a date by which the office of ruling bishop had emerged in Rome, and so to name the first Pope, but the process was certainly complete by the time of Anicetus in the mid-150s, when Polycarp, the aged Bishop of Smyrna, visited Rome, and he and Anicetus debated amicably the question of the date of Easter." NancyHeise talk 03:38, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

traditional narrative

I see from PMAnderson's latest edits that we still have an issue with "traditional narrative". I questioned this above too - we haven't defined what the traditional narrative actually is. Is this what Catholics believe, what the Church has taught in the past, or what the Church teaches now? If we can further define this, we may be able to resolve part of this. Karanacs (talk) 19:16, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

As I see it, the important part is that it was what the Church has taught in the past. The exyent to which it is still what Catholics believe, or what the Church teaches now (both hard to pin down) is irrelevant. Johnbod (talk) 19:37, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
When was the pontificate of Linus (to name a characteristic part of the tradition) ever the doctrine of the Church? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:15, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
Indeed, but it was taught. The doctrine should be dealt with separately, as it has been. This is the extra-doctrinal historical narrative or tradition, which certainly has been taught, if not as doctrine (for those aware of, or made aware of, the difference). If we are not talking about that, what are we talking about? Johnbod (talk) 02:33, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

PMA can you please contribute constructively here, rather than wait until we have a text and then go onto the article page and completely alter it to something not discussed? The goal is to come to agreement on the talk page, not to keep making difficulties. I reverted your edits to the Karanacs version with nancy's slight changes. Again, the precise doctrinal status of the pontificate of Linus is not being discussed in the article. Why are you raising this? Xandar 01:23, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm still concerned that we are operating from multiple definitions of "traditional narrative". From my understanding, PMAnderson thinks this should mean the current teachings of the Catechism. Other editors feel it should be more beliefs of Catholics, even if those are not official teachings. I don't have an opinion as long as the text is adequately sourced and properly clarifies which perspective it is discussing, is relatively short yet provides sufficient context for non-Christians, and reads well. What do the sources generally discuss - official teaching or unofficial beliefs? Karanacs (talk) 19:29, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

PMA's comment just above suggests otherwise; as he says, many of the issues covered by the tradition are not treated as doctrine, and never have been. He also says above "The Traditional narrative is not confined just to histories "written by or endorsed by the Church"." But perhaps he could clarify. Johnbod (talk) 19:52, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
There are three categories of claims here:
  • What the Church holds as doctrine. This is a limited category, which the Catechism intends to summarize; there are fewer than a dozen General Councils, and very few papal pronouncements ex cathedra.
  • What is historically supported. On this subject, this is also a very limited category, involving a limited number of chapters of the New Testament, and a few sentences from such sources as Clement and Irenaeus. "Presbyter-bishops" is a conjecture, but it is widely supported by reliable secondary sources. Peter's martyrdom in Rome does fall into this category also; it is widely affirmed by reliable secondary sources, although they do not affirm the date or the circumstances (because our sources do not).
  • The traditional narrative, which is largely (although not entirely) disjoint from both of the above. Most of it has the historical value of the equally tradiitional narrative of the Kings of Rome; that is, there is no credible evidence for that part of it whatsoever. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:50, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
I'd sort of agree with that, although I wouldn't have put it like that myself. Parts of the traditional narrative, while having no surviving evidence & first recorded much later, may have been supported by credible evidence now lost. We don't have much or most of the writings of figures such as Clement and Irenaeus which we know existed, and are just represented by quotes used by later writers. How much weight to give to this sort of factor is one of the things that divides historians. Not all historians are ready to adopt Kelly's breezy tone in the current note 46: Kelly, p. 6. quote: "Ignatius assumed that Peter and Paul wielded special authority over the Roman church, while Irenaeus claimed that they jointly founded it and inaugurated its succession of bishops. Nothing, however, is known of their constitutional roles, least of all Peter's as presumed leader of the community." Other parts of the tradition seem clearly anachronistic. Johnbod (talk) 21:10, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
Here is a view on the matter from Pope Benedict. See also Catechism Para 862.
On the issue of detail, we are not going to get vast detailed records from a persecuted organisation of 2,000 years ago, which probably had a world population of less than 100,000, and whose leadership was constantly on the run. I fear some people are assuming that today's Vatican existed in the 1st century. Xandar 22:56, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
Yes, there is no need to go into detail. As far as I am concerned, a statement of doctrine would suffice. But whatever delving into detail we do should follow the sources. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:08, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
Since we have Pmanderson/Septentrionalis still suggesting that there is no official Church doctrine regarding Church origins, I have posted the official Church doctrine below in this section [33] with additional support from two scholars who hold opposing views on that doctrine - both of these scholars give us the Church's POV in addition to their own. NancyHeise talk 03:34, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

level of detail in traditional narrative explanation

On a secondary note, a lot more details about the "traditional narrative" have now been added. I was trying very hard to streamline this section and boil it down to its most important aspects and to be as vague as we can get away with. The additional information does not appear to significantly add to the reader's understanding, and it impedes the flow of the paragraph. Nancy (sorry to call you out, but you made the edit), can you please explain why you think it is important that we include the "on this rock" part of the quotation? I don't see that it provides any real information that was not already included in the paragraph. Another edit by PMAnderson also introduced information about the Pentecost but did not put it in appropriate context. Can you please explain why that information is necessary, and if it is, how we can put it in context? Karanacs (talk) 19:16, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

I think it is important & should be retained somehow. Johnbod (talk) 19:37, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
I confusingly asked the same question on two different issues. Are you meaning the "on this rock" quote or the information about Pentecost or both? Thanks for the clarification. Karanacs (talk) 19:41, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
The "rock" quote. Johnbod (talk) 19:48, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
K, don't let them slow you down. Defenders of POV often try to win by sheer volume, and more edits keep us from settling this issue. How about we agree to stick to the text you put in, take down the tag, and go to the article's next problem spot. (My vote: Roman Empire in History.) Leadwind (talk) 03:04, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
I don't think we've quite ironed this out yet - there is still some confusion/disagreement on what this section needs to cover. We've been discussing it for over 6 weeks now; a few more days/weeks wouldn't be unexpected. Karanacs (talk) 15:25, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
Just saw this now. My opinion is that criticisms ought to stay off the page, while the caveat, "according to the Tradition of the Catholic church, x is believed to have occurred." If we wanted to get into it with sources and all, I'd support a separate page, on the historicity of the Catholic claims. I think the Catholic claim that the church was founded by Christ is well documented, but I think the more neutral statement is more accurate. As has been said other Christians disagree and I am really not wanting to get into that dispute here. As always we have to be careful to present the information about the Catholic church, and not the allegations of her critics.Benkenobi18 (talk) 22:04, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

What next?

This whole article reveals a decided slant to the RC position, with citations repeatedly used to back up statements that they don't really support, and with the RC view given more than its share of ink. What section should we work on next? There's the Roman Empire section in the history section. Given all the work we've done on the origin of the CC, we could jump right to there. There's also the sex abuse scandal section, which naturally is prone to apology. The depiction of Vatican I, which caused s schism when the pope was granted the authority to define doctrine solo, could also use a more balanced treatment. I mean, I don't think that the Origin section is perfect, but there's a lot of work to do on this page. Leadwind (talk) 15:13, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Go for it, Leadwind. Let's take one section at a time and critique it. Remember that we have Criticism of the Catholic Church to provide a detailed exposition of POVs critical of the church. However, that doesn't give this article license to be a POV apology for the church. We need to work to make every section NPOV. --Richard S (talk) 17:15, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
I agree with Karanacs (above) that we should finish one section before starting another. The history of the page shows that leaving half-finished changes without what passes here for consensus just stores up future disputes. Johnbod (talk) 17:27, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
OK... in that case, I would urge Leadwind and others to add any concerns they have to this page so that we can keep a comprehensive list of backburnered issues. --Richard S (talk) 19:56, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
Leadwind's OPINION that the article is "slanted to the RC position" is probably more a result of the slant of his own opinion than that of the article. As someone who posted a few days ago that the Catholic Church started in the 1500s, I think his judgement on the issues may well be questioned. The Catholic view of the Catholic Church is of course always going to be rather prominent, as is the Islamic view of Islam, the Anglican view of Anglicanism and the American view of the USA. Our article is in fact already rather more anti-Catholic in content, and carries more criticism of its subject than similar articles in other encyclopedias, or articles on other religions on Wikipedia. So those who want the article to be an anti-Catholic polemic or a directory of every anti-Catholic legend or of everyone who has ever had a grudge of some sort against the Church are taking the wrong approach. Xandar 22:37, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
Leadwind is indeed incorrect; the sourceless dogmatism with which this article is plagued is a tendency within Roman Catholicism, from which RC scholars are mostly free. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:56, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
I am so very much laughing to the point of crying at Leadwind's and Richard's posts - like the article has never had anyone go through it to correct POV? We have had four peer reviews and as many FAC's : ) You guys are too funny. We are about to take the article to peer review again but I am waiting until all the hubub dies down here - I've been waiting almost a year : ). Another experienced and successful FAC editor has agreed to help me with this project. He is not Catholic, by the way, and I specifically asked for his help knowing this in an effort to bypass all the POV accusations flying at me by editors who repeatedly refuse to acknowledge the existence of various scholarly points of view, even those favorable to the Catholic Church. NancyHeise talk 03:27, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
Articles which fail FAC usually provide a link to the failed FAC page on the Talk Page. I didn't find one at the top of this page. It would also be useful to have links to the Peer Reviews. Nancy, could you provide such links for our reference? Thanx. --Richard S (talk) 17:21, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
Richard, all the links to previous FACs and previous Peer Reviews are located under "Article milestones" above (in the box that starts Catholic Church has been listed as one of the Philosophy and religion good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further. If you click show, it should give you the list of all of the official reviews the article has had. Karanacs (talk) 20:35, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

You're right Leadwind, the page is still POV. The history section in particular veers in many places towards an exercise in Catholic apologetics, despite the efforts of some of us to provide more balance. The problem is that Catholic editors only using Catholic academics as refs is always going to produce POV text. I'm not sure if Wikipedia has adequate policy to deal with this conflict of interest. The only answer (not popular with some I know) is for people not to write on organisations of which they are members.Haldraper (talk) 09:51, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

And how are you going to tell whether people are members? Peter jackson (talk) 14:45, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
If that was the policy almost all of WP would die. How many articles are written by members that have an interest in the topic or in article about organizations are in the organization? A member of an organization can be NPOV just like a member not in the organization can be POV. Marauder40 (talk) 15:30, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Absolutely no way of doing so, it would have to be completely self-policing.Haldraper (talk) 15:23, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Give it up... you're going to insist that over 1 billion Catholics refrain from editing the Wikipedia article on the Catholic Church? Puh-leez. The issue isn't being Catholic; it's an inability to grasp WP:NPOV. The policy should read: "Anybody who is unable to grasp the concepts of neutrality and civility is invited to refrain from editing Wikipedia articles." --Richard S (talk) 17:18, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

I honestly think that the religion forums in general need to come up with some guidelines on how ALL the major religions should be treated and place those guidelines in a clear marked area. The problem is for every religion you can get into arguments/disagreements about almost every line/statement in the article. Are we supposed to treat the article on the religion as more of a statement of how that religion views itself both now and throughout history with summaries and redirects to appropriate subarticles containing both more information and contraversy or are we supposed to put ALL the contraversy within the context of the article? When reading the FA on Islam it is extrememly clear that the Islam article was created as an example of the first method, where it is a statement of how Islam sees itself with only minor treatment of contraversies within the article. The Catholic Church article has not been afforded that same luxury. I also think that method is easier to read and serves the purpose of WP better then the other method. It is not censorship, POV or anything else to write it in that matter because all the information is still available via the links and summaries. What is the goal? Is it to create an article that summarizes the Catholic church in a manner that is NPOV and readable and fits within size guidelines for a 2000 year old institution or is it to air every issue that anyone has had with a 2000 year old institution within one article? Marauder40 (talk) 16:22, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Marauder40 inappropriately cants the debate by framing it as an all or nothing approach. I think the Catholic Church article is actually close to NPOV although there are areas where the history sections are overweighted towards apologetics. We need not "air every issue" that anyone has had but we need to cover every major issue without getting into the details of the issue. It is the desire of some editors to have the article's last word on every issue be a pro-Church apologetic that destroys the NPOV nature of the history section. --Richard S (talk) 17:18, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
I think you are misinterpreting what I am trying to say. I am not saying it is an all or nothing approach just that the religion forums should come up with what the guidelines are. The problem we have been having is that every few days another reader/editor approaches the article and says, "why is subject X not mentioned in the lead because IMHO it is POV without subject X being mentioned." I agree that the article is currently pretty close to being NPOV the problem is that unless you have been watching the article talk page for a long time and following everything, you may not agree. If the religion forum had guidelines that addressed this type of stuff it would make it easier to come to a consensus on what form the Catholic page should take as opposed to lots of people having different views on what a religion FA should look like. Should it look like the Islam article which is currently a FA? Should it look like something totally different (i.e. the Catholic church page)? I am not answering the question, just bringing it up. Marauder40 (talk) 17:27, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
I see that I misunderstood what you were saying. Chalk it up to my being in a hurry to deal with a real-word responsibility and the battleground nature of this talk page. I stand by the substance of what I said about this article being close to NPOV but I retract any aspersions that I cast about you canting the debate by the way you framed the question. --Richard S (talk) 19:29, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
No problem. I understand. Marauder40 (talk) 21:01, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

We have improved the balance of the section. Let's be proud of good work done and move on. We can always come back and tweak this section once we've surveyed the rest of the page for problem spots. I suggest Roman Empire history or Vatican I. (I retract my suggestion of the sex abuse scandal out of deference to other editors' possible feelings.) Leadwind (talk) 01:56, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Alternatively, if there's a place on the page that is anti-Catholic, we could take a look at that next and fix it. I'd like a chance to work side-by-side with some of the knowledgeable editors on this page. Leadwind (talk) 01:58, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Leadwind, why don't you read through the article and make a list of areas you think we need to improve and why. Please use bullet points and give suggestions for improvement - sources would be greatly appreciated if you can supply them. We were required by WP:NPOV to include the various points of view of scholars in the controversial areas. In the past, editors who thought we were being POV by including the Catholic point of view did not realize that we are required to do this. Not including it makes the page violate WP:NPOV, a core Wikipedia policy. Sometimes, a little rewording does the trick and makes everyone happy while still maintaining NPOV. Your help is appreciated. Thanks. NancyHeise talk 02:14, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
The Roman Empire section looks like a good place to start. See below. Leadwind (talk) 15:10, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Karanacs wording using the Church Constitution as a source + Duffy insights

Here's my attempt to construct an origins section reflective of the sources. [34]. I would still like to see an extra paragraph on the issue of historians's points of view regarding the Roman bishops exercising authority over other churches but we can go over that after we come to agreement on this issue. NancyHeise talk 04:33, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

I think the last sentence Some of these disgreeing historians acknowledge that the papal office had indeed emerged at some point before the mid 150's is unnecessary. This could perhaps be a note. As noted above, I'm also uncomfortable citing primary sources. Karanacs (talk) 16:53, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
The primary sources are used throughout the article and they are doubled with secondary sources that discuss the primary sources. We did this in response to one of your review comments. I thought it was a good comment. NancyHeise talk 23:30, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
Agree with K on both counts. I like having the "150" figure in there as a historical landmark, but the sentence is extra. Leadwind (talk) 01:46, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
I have added more sources (Kreeft and Barry, both nihil obstat, imprimatur sources ) to supplement the primary source of Lumen Gentium in the first para framing Catholic belief. To the second para, I also added Eberhardt and his quote which lists the several historical documents to prove his point. Someone else already took care of the 150 problem by merging it into the previous sentence so now there is just one sentence there. Here's what it looks like after my added sources and some copyediting to address some of Karanacs and Septentrionalis' points in section above. [35] NancyHeise talk 01:51, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

First, let me say that this text is a great improvement over what Nancy and Xandar used to revert to; although it still misrepresents Lumen Gentium, which in fact says that The Lord Jesus set it on its course by preaching the Good News; this is at best neutral between the school that would say founded and the school that would say inspired.

This revert, however, is further evidence of bad faith. Its edit summary (Karanacs eliminated these tags and Septentrionalis/PM Anderson put them back. I don't think there is consensus for these tags and Sept has not provided any sources) contains one direct lie (Karanacs removed tags from a quite different text, which I would not have disputed); one mischaracterization (I added tags because the sources provided say something different); and a fraudulent account of policy (tags do not require consensus; they are not text; they require the existence of a dispute).

Does Nancy deny that there is a dispute? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:45, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

PMA. You just littered the wording, composed by a wide cross-section of editors, with a ridiculous number of tags, which you have not chosen to explain on the talk page. Tags are only acceptable in an ongoing debate like this if each one is explained immediately afterwards on the talk page, and there is a genuine attempt to explain what each one refers to, and what precise point has given rise to each tag - so that it can be discussed. In the absence of that, such tagging can be viewed as disruptive. Since your points have got more and more arcane and nebulous with time, we are not able to guess what the tags refer to. Similatrly you have been warned several times about uncivil and insulting language, especially repeatedly calling editors liars. This should eventually reach a stage where it needs sanction. Xandar 22:47, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
No, I marked two; since, after the recent edits, they both concern a single sentence, I would have considered reducing them, if I had not been greeted with this nonsense. I have already explained them, in the comment to which you replied, the most favorable conclusion I can reach is that you did not bother to read it.Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:55, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
I see the number of tags has been reduced. I did read your post. However you said nothing in the paragraph except that you believed some of the article statements did not agree with the citations. You have not specified here IN WHAT WAY you believed each statement and citation do not agree, and your reasoning behind this. We shouldn't have to guess what objections are. Xandar 22:19, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
That does it. You have not specified here IN WHAT WAY you believed each statement and citation do not agree, and your reasoning behind this. is a lie; I have done very little else for a week. This is more of the impudent tell me again at which Nancy is so adept. I shall treat any more comments in this vein as the vacuities they are. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:59, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

But for third parties, the issue is simple:

  • Lumen Gentium does not state that Jesus founded the Roman Catholic Church.
  • Kreeft says it does, but gives no citation (because there isn't one); Kreeft also uses this to argue that Catholicism is the only real Christianity.
  • If it is reasonable to cite him for his premise, it would be reasonable to assert his conclusion as Catholic doctrine too. I would settle for that, were not it genuinely anti-Catholic - perhaps the only such proposal that has been made.
  • Citing him as a lone voice (Kreeft holds...) would be undue weight; every faith has its extremists. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:14, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
  • The claim that Xandar would make is also incompatible with the multiply-sourced The Catholic Church considers Pentecost to be the beginning of its own history below; is there even a heresy which considers Jesus present at Pentecost? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:28, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Our Top Template up for Deletion

Someone has put the infobox/template, (with the Saint Peter's Rome image) used at the head of this article for the past two years up for deletion. They prefer a recently altered version which is thinner with a much smaller typeface, which would considerably modify the appearance of the article. The discussion/vote is at Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2009_November_20#Template:Roman_Catholicism2 Xandar 22:27, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

In fact, there are two competing, visually almost identical, versions of the template, being edit-warred over for reasons even more obscure than the nonsense on this page; merge them and throw the Urim to see whose mechanics are used. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:44, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
They are not identical, and there is no edit war. There is no reason not to have different templates for different purposes and situations. Xandar 23:58, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
So explain: what's the difference? I'd call this a POV fork if I could see any difference in content. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:33, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
  • There seem to be a lot of people not involved in positive work on the article who seem to want to cause trouble by voting to delete the template. If this silliness isn't stopped, we're going to have another long useless row here about the redesign of the one article template. Xandar 20:59, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
It might have been tactically unwise to raise it here then! As above, I hope any long uselss row will be held there not here. Johnbod (talk) 22:24, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
My point is, that if the page is disrupted by the destruction of a key template, then we would have an unnecessary and probably lengthy/acrimonious debate here on how that template/infobox is to be replaced. Therefore it is best to nip such a meddlesome distrtaction in the bud by acting to retain our very useful template, for which I can see no good reason for removal. Xandar 22:54, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
  • For the record, I am the person who nominated the template in question for deletion, and Xandar attributed false positions to me. I am not trying to destroy the appearance of this article, and I have never, ever stated my preference on which revision of the original template I prefer. Even if the template I nominated is deleted, you can easily restore the "normal" revision in the original template. Furthermore, it appears someone has added code which allows a "switch", so that the layout of the 2 templates have been combined into one. It seems to be a win/win. I don't see why anyone could vote "keep" now. I just wanted to add my position, as I feel Xandar was misrepresenting me here. -Andrew c [talk] 03:47, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Roman Empire POV tag

The Roman Empire history section leaves out important elements of history that don't square with the Catholic viewpoint: the writing of the NT books (c 50 to c 150), the shift from Christianity as a movement within Judaism to an independent religion, the development of the episcopacy (c 100 to c150), the establishment of apostolic succession (Irenaeus), the acceptance of four early gospels as canon (Irenaeus), the centralization of authority in response to heresies and schisms, the transition of Christianity from an apocalyptic movement for the righteous few to an establishment religion for everyone, the incorporation of pagan elements into church liturgy, and the conflict between the Greek east and the Latin west. Christianity went through fundamental changes in those first few hundred years, and this section doesn't hardly address these changes. Even the establishment of the Holy Trinity is given nearly no treatment. This section talks about external events (e.g persecutions) but not about internal changes. That treatment is in line with the Catholic POVs . It's out of step with the historical view, by which Christianity changed fundamentally in these first centuries. Leadwind (talk) 15:22, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

If anyone has a proposal for a better spot to work on next, I'd be happy to swap the POV tag to some other place. Leadwind (talk) 15:23, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Is there a reason to put a POV tag there in the first place? I personally see the POV tags as aiming shotguns when a pen will do. Can you just say, lets work on incorporating more detail into this section and come to an agreement instead of saying "THIS SECTION IS POV"? There are many reasons for sections to be the way they are and usually it isn't due to some great conspiracy, it is usually due to agreements of things like size vs. scope vs. importance vs. FAC suggestions, etc. Everyone yelling POV this and POV that from both "sides" is one of the main causes of the arguements on this page. Marauder40 (talk) 15:53, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
Although I agree that it would be wise to include some statements about early Christianity in general, we need to be very cautious about how much information to include. There is already an article on early Christianity. Karanacs (talk) 16:53, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Assuming there is nothing on these topics, which I don't entirely agree, it is hard to see how the omission of many "is in line with the Catholic POVs", about which Leadwind is obsessed, but which he seems to understand very little. The section has been rather brutally compressed in the past to save space, like the rest of the article, and could certainly be looked at, but these incessant POV tags don't help, and just help to create a battleground athmosphere. Johnbod (talk) 17:59, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Johnbod and Marauder. The tag isn't needed at the moment. And as Karanacs mentions, this is a summary section; the main article, an article on early Christianity, contains details. Majoreditor (talk) 21:21, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
Yes. The purpose of a tag is to draw editor's attention to a problem, generally where a page isn't being watched, and so there isn't the preferred solution of simply starting a discussion here on the talk page. The POV tag seems inappropriate here anyway, since the issues raised seem to have nothing very much to do with POV. Xandar 22:41, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
It also has the beneficial implication of telling the reader when a statement is in dispute; that, indeed, is why it is in article space. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:02, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

I removed the POV tag at the request of civil editors. There's no dispute yet, so let's see if we can make good progress and never have to resort to the tag. Also, K has a point that we should keep the general Christian history content to a minimum. So I've reduced the amount of general history in this section. Leadwind (talk) 03:48, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree that POV tags are not necessary if collegial discussion can fix the problem.
Sorry but I disagree about "general history" vs. "Catholic history". If we credit, for the time being, that there is no distinction between "early Christianity" and the "early Catholic Church", then the history of early Christianity is exactly the history of the early Catholic Church. We might summarize History of early Christianity here but there should be no significant topic discussed in that article that is not represented here at least in summary form.
We should make clear that not everybody agrees that the "early Christianity" and the "early Catholic Church" are one and the same and then go on to summarize the Catholic view of early Christianity and the external view as well.
We have several articles which cover the history of the early church (pre 380CE and post 380CE). These are History of early Christianity, History of Christianity, History of the Catholic Church and History of the Orthodox Church. These articles cover essentially the same history of the same entity (entities) over the same period of time. A reader should not read these articles and feel that different stories are being told with the possible exception that the History of the Catholic Church should make clear what the Catholic perspective is and present any opposing/alternate perspectives and the History of the Orthodox Church should make clear what the Orthodox perspective is and present any opposing/alternate perspectives.
A quick review of the History section in this article reveals that there is no discussion of the Judaizing/Hellenizing (Jew/Gentile) controversy, Gnosticism or the Seven Ecumenical councils. I have difficulty understanding why these topics are not mentioned in the History section of this article.
--Richard S (talk) 05:40, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Leadwind that this section is POV because it spends too much time establishing that the preeminence of the Roman Church at the expense of other important topics. This winds up making the section a history of the See of Rome rather than the history of the Catholic Church which, if I am not mistaken, was essentially identical to the Christian Church. IMHO, it is a bad idea to relegate treatment of important turning points in the history of the Christian Church to other articles simply because discussion of those events don't support a Catholic apologetic. The reader should not have to read History of Christianity, History of early Christianity or History of the Orthodox Church to get a full perspective of the first few centuries of Christian history. Those other articles might provide additional detail but no important topic should be omitted from the History section of this article. --Richard S (talk) 06:01, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

This article is on the institution, so it is natural that there is a greater emphasis on institutional matters than in History of Christian theology or other articles around the subject. Plus the most important matters surrounded with strong popular preconceptions, as so richly demonstrated by many contributors to this page, should be given precedence. People don't I think come here if they want to find out about the doctrine of the trinity etc. Johnbod (talk) 10:00, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
In principle, I agree with the assertion that there should be greater emphasis on the institution than on theology. However, topics such as Gnosticism and the Seven Ecumenical Councils had huge implications for the institution. I still assert that for the first millenium the History of the Catholic Church is identical to the History of Christianity and someone reading both articles should wind up reading almost the same material. Someone reading the History section of this article should wind up getting a summary of the History of Christianity for the first millenium. The Catholic Church is more than the See of Rome. Besides, to the extent that we want to focus on the See of Rome, we have History of the Papacy where we can do that. --Richard S (talk) 15:10, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
History of Christianity ought to cover the major heresies as part of its actual subject (whether it does I doubt), which this need not. The split between West & East widened steadily after the Early Christian period; although long technically part of the same church this article should not be giving the same prominence to each, especially after about 500 (nor does it). There is certainly more to the institutional side of Christianity than just the See of Rome - monastic orders for one thing. Johnbod (talk) 15:40, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
Is it not the Roman position that there have been more than seven General Councils (Florence, Basle, both Vaticans)? So including them (which we should do)requires some careful phrasing. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:20, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
Agreed but don't you think we should at least mention the first seven councils and explain their central importance to concept of catholicity? The History part of the article doesn't even mention these councils, let alone provide any intimation of their importance. Neither does the beliefs section which mentions only the Nicene Creed, the Council of Jerusalem and the Council of Trent (which was held much, much later). --Richard S (talk) 07:49, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
Yes. Please do include them. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 08:24, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

History section - Roman Empire

The article text has this sentence "In Romans (c 58), Paul addressed a large Christian community in Rome." Excuse my bluntness but "Yick!" First of all, why are we referencing "Romans" at all? This is a primary source and the book of Romans doesn't (AFAIK) provide a date so I believe there is a level of analysis and interpretation required to arrive at the date of 58CE. Even if we continue to reference Romans (which I hope we don't), it is inappropriate for us to assume that the reader knows that Romans is a book in the New Testament and so the article text should be clearer about that. Finally, it's not at all clear why we need this sentence at all. It seems to be a non-sequitur which relates neither to the sentence before it ("The Catholic Church considers Pentecost to be the beginning of its own history.") nor the one after it ("The first documented case of imperially-sponsoerd persecution of Christians occurred in Rome under Nero in the first century."). I can only surmise that the sentence is somehow being inserted here to provide support for a later assertion about Peter and Paul having been in Rome. If so, this is horrible and the sentence should go. It's just confusing and distracting to the reader and needs to be taken out ASAP. --Richard S (talk) 05:53, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

It is also confusing; a reader could easily take this as a speech, not a letter. Take it out.
If it can be recast, however, my recollection is that the date of Romans is fairly certain. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 06:26, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
Oh, oops, I misunderstood what the meaning and purpose of the sentence were. I thought the sentence meant Paul was in Rome c. 58CE. I now understand that the intent of the sentence was to establish that there was a large Christian community in Rome c 58CE. This sentence was apparently part of an effort to establish the importance of the Roman congregation early in the history of the Church. If we are intending to build a case for the Primacy of the Roman Pontiff, we should do so more explicitly by stating the thesis up front and then providing sourced facts to support the thesis. We could even devote a section to this topic.
However, as written, the sentence is out of place and I will remove it for now. The problem as I see it, is that there are a bunch of things that happen after Pentecost that need to be discussed. These include the spread of Christianity throughout Asia Minor and the Mediterranean, the Jew/Gentile controversy, the destruction of the Temple (and the resulting shift of power away from Jerusalem), even the Bar Kokhba revolt. We don't explain to the reader how the center of Christianity moves from Jerusalem to Rome except to wave our hands and say there was a large Christian community in Rome c. 58CE and then Rome becomes a doctrinal authority because Peter and Paul were (martyred) there. This is too huge a leap to ask the reader to take. We need to connect the dots for him. We cannot assume that he will read the History of early Christianity to pick up the chain of events that causes power to shift from Jerusalem in the post-apostolic age to Rome in the 2nd and 3rd centuries. That article can provide the details but we need to provide a summary of the key points here.
--Richard S (talk) 15:29, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
Please do take it out. If you misunderstood it, any reader can - possibly the intent.
The real problem is that we have no history at all between Pentecost and Constantine except the Neronian persecution. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:36, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
I'm not sure what you mean by "history". There is plenty that is written about early Christianity. It may not be "history" in the terms of specific persons in specific locations at specific times but do you not consider the travels of Paul, the Council of Jerusalem, the destruction of the Temple (and its effects on Judaism and Christianity) to be "history"? There is perhaps some dispute about the historicity of the persecution of Christians by Jews but it is part of the Christian view of that period in history. There are historians who believe that the New Testament and the writings of the Church Fathers do have value as historical documents. IMO, all these things should be mentioned. If there are reliable sources who challenge the historicity of some or all of these, then we should present them also. --Richard S (talk) 19:08, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
I'm sorry; that's not what I meant by we; this article has no history between Pentecost and Constantine. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:41, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
Whew! Thanks for the clarification. I was wondering where you were coming with that statement. Yes, this is part of the "overemphasis on apologetics" problem. I have started to fill in some of the early history but right now it's just a summary of parts of History of early Christianity. I would appreciate if other editors take a look at the beginning of the History section and see if the current text adequately describes the first few centuries of church history. --Richard S (talk) 21:24, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

One of my pet peeves about this article is the occasional inclusion of what I call "excessive detail". For example, the section on the Roman Empire includes this sentence "Emperor Constantine I commissioned the first Basilica of St. Peter and several other sites of lasting importance to Christianity." Yes, I know the Basilica of St. Peter is important to the Catholic Church but is this sentence really important to have in an article of this scope? At the end of the day, it's just an old church. The history of the Catholic Church is not a history of basilicas and cathedrals. --Richard S (talk) 09:33, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Humpf! Removed to make space for the excessive & confused detail of your bit on councils? Johnbod (talk) 09:38, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Early Christianity and Roman Empire

Let's change these overlapping sections to "Persecuted Church" and "Imperial Church." Let's put pre-Constantine materal in "Persecuted Church" and put Constantine-plus material in "Imperial Church." Imperial Church ends with the fall of the West, which brings us to the early medieval church (Augustine, Gregory, etc.). Or change the names, but anyway have the section break coincide with Constantine. That's biggest the pivot point between AD 100 and 500. Leadwind (talk) 04:20, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

That is indeed what these sections now are; but that's a bug, not a feature - this reflects a POV that what matters are the "poor persecuted Church" and the glorious triumphant Church of Theodosius I. Due weight on bishoprics and monks and the Fathers will correct this; likewise, the Christian Empire should discuss the political status of late antique bishops - and the resulting corruption, and the persecutions of Priscillian and Hypatia. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 06:49, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Question on Kreeft citation

Can someone verify that the Kreeft citation which asserts that Christ founded the Church is accurate? The citation currently reads:

Kreeft, p. 98, quote "The fundamental reason for being a Catholic is the historical fact that the Catholic Church was founded by Christ, was God's invention, not man's ... As the Father gave authority to Christ (Jn 5:22; Mt 28:18-20), Christ passed it on to his apostles (Lk 10:16), and they passed it on to the successors they appointed as bishops."

Thanks, Majoreditor (talk) 02:56, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Correct, but - as indicated - incomplete. The ellipsis begins: "— unless Christ, her founder, is not God, in which case not just Catholicism but Christianity itself is false." (those who want more of this sort of thing can follow the link). This is only a reliable source for those who are willing to hold, in this century, that there is no Christianity outside the Church of Rome - and that the Roman Church now holds this.
This may indeed explain why our Ultramontane co-editors insist on perpetrating this phrase; but the rest of us may find it more in accord with WP:UNDUE to represent this extreme view as the work of one man. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 05:31, 23 November 2009 (UTC)


Kreeft is a professor of Philosphy at Boston College. The book I used is a nihil obstat, imprimatur source that is giving us the Catholic doctrine we are stating in the first sentence. I do not appreciate these further personal attacks by Septentrionalis calling us "Ultramontane". It is difficult to work with editors who are into persistent name calling. Please stop. NancyHeise talk 01:52, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
Nancy, you're right. PMA should stop name-calling, and editors on both sides should be civil. Leadwind (talk) 03:24, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
If "Ultramontane" was as uncivil as PManderson ever got, I think we could live with it. Besides, there's a saying about a duck which might be applicable here. --Richard S (talk) 07:37, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for providing the link, PM. After looking at it, however, I come to a somewhat different conclusion. The citation is fine as the statement it supports only concerns Church belief; and it is certainly reliable. However, it's not worth debating; besides, PM later removed the sentence, and the article is better without it. Majoreditor (talk) 06:57, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
Richard S, your comment is name calling, I do not have the slightest idea if anyone on this page is ultramontane, neither do you or anyone else unless someone here has identified themselves as such. We have really had enough of the name calling and it does not help our editing efforts so can we please stop it now? It is really childish. NancyHeise talk 23:03, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Proposed significant text changes on THIS page please

People have again started making significant textual changes to the article, including wholesale removal of stable and referenced material without attaining agreement on this page for those changes. This is not helpful. Or the way to reach constructive agreement. PMAnderson in particular seems to operate across Wikipedia by this method of making large changes to article wording and then trying to force back his version when reverted. We cannmot make progress on important issues in this manner. Good well-attributed text is getting replaced by an unagreed badly written mish-mash. The intention often seems to be to lose what the original wording said in a wave of changes to the text some small others significant. We need to stick with the established wording on controversial issues until we have agreed new wording on this page. Otherwisw we are going to get back to edit-warring. Xandar 16:18, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

The assertion about myself is a misunderstanding; I attempt to abide by 1RR, although tit for tat applies. However, there are many ways to rephrase an unacceptable text, and one never knows which of them will prove to be acceptable to others. Elasticity is all, as in The Misfortunes of Elphin.
We need to stick with the established wording on controversial issues until we have agreed new wording on this page. Otherwisw we are going to get back to edit-warring. Shorter Xandar: "Your edits on this page are subject to my veto, and I will revert war to maintain that." Septentrionalis PMAnderson 06:47, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Size

The crude size indicator now shows 221 kbytes; I never know where the more accurate ones live. But the page is just much too long. I am finding it takes an inordinate time to load, even on a fairly good connection. Is there precedent for shifting the lengthy guotations in footnotes off to a sub-page? The number of these in the notes - see 399-415 for example - means this might make a noticable difference. There is no point arguing about passages that on current form are likely to have to be trimmed again for size reasons. Johnbod (talk) 18:50, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

What counts for article size as applicable to Wikipedia guidelines is the VISIBLE text, not including footnotes. Even so, the article has expanded over the past year. I would suggest, however that we worry about article size once we have confirmed content. I agree that many of the notes are lengthy and repetitive ATM, but they are useful in this discussion stage as a handy reference for the article statements that they source. Therefore I think it would be best to leave trimming of the notes until the main text has reached consensus. Xandar 22:54, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
I agree with Xandar especially since the Notes don't really count as part of the "readable text". Let's get the main article text in shape first and we can trim the Notes later. --Richard S (talk) 23:05, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

From WP:SIZE...
Readers may tire of reading a page much longer than about 30 to 50 KB, which roughly corresponds to 6,000 to 10,000 words of readable prose. If an article is significantly longer than that, it may benefit the reader to move some sections to other articles and replace them with summaries (see Wikipedia:Summary style). One rule of thumb is to begin to split an article into smaller articles after the readable prose reaches 10 pages when printed. Articles that cover particularly technical subjects should, in general, be shorter than articles on less technical subjects.
There may be more accurate tools available somewhere but there are a couple of good approximations suggested by WP:SIZE. These include printing into PDF format and using cut-and-paste to put the article text into MS/Word which has a word-counter.
If you go to the article view and cut and paste everything above the Notes section, you will find that the "readable text" amounts to 39 pages in Word format (15,653 words or 102,000 characters). Printing the article to PDF format yields 29 pages of readable text above the Notes section.
This suggests that the article could be cut by 1/3 in order to be at the high end of the range suggested by WP:SIZE. That is probably an unrealistic goal but the point is that we should be working to shrink the article, not expand it. 29 pages is not an encyclopedia article, it's getting to be a medium-size pamphlet.
The problem is the one posed by Mozart in the movie Amadeus when instructed to take some notes out of a composition, he asked, "Well, OK, which ones then?"
Everybody is going to have their opinions about which sections must be detailed and which should be summarized. I think the problem is that many sections were too heavily weighted in favor of the Catholic POV which caused other editors to insist on inserting counter-balancing material which then caused the pro-Catholic editors to counter-balance the counter-balancing material with yet more Catholic apologetics.
That is the story of the Reichskonkordat/Mit Brennender Sorge/Pius XII section. It is also perhaps the developing story of the Cathars/Albigensian Crusade section.
What we need to do is to find succinct, NPOV summaries which present both sides of a controversy without attempting to resolve the controversy in favor of either side. The details which allow the reader to resolve the controversy must be relegated to Notes or, even better, in links to separate articles.
I also agree that we are getting swamped by the extensive quotes placed in the footnotes to support assertions. It's OK when there are only a handful of such quotes and they are only a sentence or two. However, when we include quotes which are a few paragraphs long in each of several footnotes, the impact on the total byte count tends to increase out of control.
--Richard S (talk) 23:03, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
Here's a relevant discussion from the last peer review regarding page size [36]. According to Dr Pda's neat little tool that Ling Nut was kind enough to help me obtain, our page size is "89 kB (14416 words) 'readable prose size'". The ten longest articles according to Dr Pda's list range from 76-91kB [37]. That list is probably old, not sure what the new one says. However, I agree that it is very important for the article to be concise and I want to bring this issue up again at the next peer review. Every time we go to FAC, we trim the article as much as we can through the peer review because, inevitably, we get FAC reviewers who alway - always - always ask for more elaboration and more information. We eliminated several pictures and quotes before the last FAC in order to get page size down but with an article such as this, we found that quotes were necessary because FAC reviewers needed to see exactly what the sources were saying especially in sensitive areas such as Albigensian Crusade. Oxford Illustrated History of Christianity is not a Catholic POV source, it is not Catholic apologetics but as you can see, my efforts to use this source to ref the Albigensian Crusade section is not good enough to ward off accusations of POV (see above). (Bokenkotter is not Catholic apologetics either per book reviews) This is something we are constantly accused of in this article and I think it is because people simply can not believe what the scholars are saying about certain subjects. We need to provide quotes in order to deal with this phenomena. NancyHeise talk 02:01, 27 November 2009 (UTC)
Thanks. I think it is clear at FAC that these, especially the "top 5" are accepted as aberrations which should not be repeated - I think some have have been significantly expanded post-FA. Whether they count or not, the quotes in the notes add to loading time, & I think could be accessed by links to a sub-page. Johnbod (talk) 09:39, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

The article is full of excess detail and would be better if it were shorter. We could readily trim a significant amount of text just by being more concise. Let the Albigensian crusade page be the place where POV opponents duke it out with lots of details, not here. Leadwind (talk) 15:45, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

That page is pretty fine as I recall, but the general expansion of the history section here, with rather more detail, should be History of the Catholic Church. Johnbod (talk) 19:41, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
I agree, there is opportunity to trim some of the detail. Page load time is long. Johnbod's suggestion to move quotes in notes to sub-page may be worth exploring. Majoreditor (talk) 01:48, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
I agree with trimming the excessive detail. I don't understand the suggestion to move quotes to subpages. There are no subpages in article mainspace (see WP:SUBPAGE). Links are not allowed from article mainspace to any other namespace (e.g. TALK, USER or USER TALK) See WP:LINK. So, what exactly is being proposed? --Richard S (talk) 06:15, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
Well, so much for that idea. It sounded good, but it appears that subpages are disabled for mainspace. Majoreditor (talk) 06:45, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
Yes, pity! Johnbod (talk) 19:42, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
I suspect that in controversial articles like this the problem is that everyone insists on inclusion of their POV or pet topic & they're all included in the interests of "consensus". That's Wikipedia for you. Peter jackson (talk) 11:32, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
That's what's broken about the FAC process. We need a consensus of editors who will use editorial discretion to keep out POVs and pet topics. (Consider for instance the current effort to include text about the recent report on sexual abuse in the archdiocese of Dublin). The problem with leaving this control in the hands of Xandar and Nancy is that they keep in their POVs and pet topics while barring the inclusion of other editors' POVs and pet topics. We need to be get all the POV-pushing and pet topics out while still providing NPOV coverage of the important POVs. --Richard S (talk) 17:01, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
I strongly agree that if we can get the article to be NPOV and tightly focused then there won't be nearly as much of a problem at the review processes. When reviewers see that minor topic A is given a lot of coverage, it's natural that they ask that minor topic B be included.... and when only perspective C is included, reviewers ask for perspectives D, E, and F. This article must make better use of summary style, and must be made more neutral. Karanacs (talk) 17:16, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Controversies?

The Catholic Church has had more than their fair share of them. Why is there no section on them? Throwaway85 (talk) 21:10, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Controversies are mentioned in context (mostly in the history section) here rather than in a separate section. Gimmetrow 21:12, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
I don't see anything on present-day controversies, such as the child abuse scandals, preaching against condom use in aids-torn countries, etc. The two of those alone are big enough to warrant a dedicated section (and its own page, in the first example). i also don't see anything about Nazi collusion in the relevant history section. I'm not trying to smear the church, but these are relevant and important issues that should be included. Throwaway85 (talk) 21:24, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
Please read the article, particularly the History section, its subsections and subarticles. Present-day controversies are included. as for the whole concept of "Controversies" section -- well, Wikipedia's best articles tend not to use them. See, for example, the FA-class article on Barack Obama. The Talk Page FAQs for that article include the following note:
Q6: Why isn't there a criticisms/controversies section?
A6: Because a section dedicated to criticisms and controversies is no more appropriate than a section dedicated solely to praises and is an indication of a poorly written article. Criticisms/controversies/praises should be worked into the existing prose of the article, per WP:CRIT.
That pretty much sums up the consensus view of how to best handle controversies. Majoreditor (talk) 21:47, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
Seems reasonable. Throwaway85 (talk) 23:02, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
Although in many articles controversies (however small) are always included (many in their own section), i have been told from many editors that other articles have no bearing on the one in question, would that be true or is that something that those certain editors make up to substantiate their pov?(Monkeymanman (talk) 16:10, 29 November 2009 (UTC))
I'm sorry, I'm not sure what you're asking. Care to clarify? Throwaway85 (talk) 10:31, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
There is also an entire article dedicated to the topic; see Criticism of the Catholic Church —Eustress talk 19:07, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

After reading the history section, I can't see how anyone could describe the portrayal of the Church's actions in regards to the Nazis as "criticism". If anything, it is a complete whitewash of what really happened. Themes of martyrdom abound, which I find disturbing in an encyclopedic article. I'll do a journal search and see if I can find some more info. Throwaway85 (talk) 10:39, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Throwaway, please do so. Some of us have been battling over that section for months to reduce the pro-Catholic POV but it's a long haul and as you say we're nowhere near NPOV yet. Anything you can contribute will be appreciated.Haldraper (talk) 22:13, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
This is another area where I think less would definitely be more. Three paragraphs on roughly 12 years of history is waaaaay too detailed for this article. Karanacs (talk) 22:20, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Present

Someone keeps editing the paragraph in "Present day" section regarding the new rules pertaining to the reception of converting Anglicans. These edits do not reflect the reference and directly contradict it. If you are going to make changes to this part of the para, please read the article that references it. The new rules pertain to all Anglicans not just the Traditionalists as someone has inserted with a wikilink to that group. NancyHeise talk 22:57, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

While we're on the topic of this section, I have long felt that the following text should be deleted because of recentism and a U.S. centric focus. The question of the Pope's stance against the war in Iraq is really not a noteworthy issue in the grand scope of two millennia of church history. I don't think this text should ever have been in the article and it grows less relevant now that Obama is President.

On his 2008 visit to the United States he was received with special dignity by the president and his Masses were televised live on the major national news networks. Even though the Vatican condemned the Iraq War as a "defeat for reason and for the Gospel",[464] when asked why the Pope received such special attention, U.S. President George W. Bush said, "One, he speaks for millions. Two, he doesn't come as a politician; he comes as a man of faith ...".

Similarly, I have a problem with this text...

The Church also sponsors the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, which provides the Pope with information on scientific matters[231] and whose international membership includes British physicist Stephen Hawking and Nobel laureates such as U.S. physicist Charles Hard Townes.

How is this "History"? Why is it important to mention in an article of this scope? Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. I can imagine putting it in an article titled Catholic Church and science but not in this article and certainly not under "History".

Again with this text...

In politics, the Church actively encourages support for candidates who would "protect human life, promote family life, pursue social justice, and practice solidarity" which translate into support for traditional views of marriage, welcoming and support for the poor and immigrants, and those who would work against abortion.

I can see putting the above text in an article titled Catholic Church and governments or Catholic Church and politics but not in this article and certainly not under "History".

I fear these pieces of text were inserted as part of a general pro-Catholic apologetic without sufficient regard to maintaining the logical coherence and flow of the article.

I propose deleting all three of them.

--Richard S (talk) 23:21, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

I think this end section functions to collect info about "recent news" that people would try to add anyway. The PAS could perhaps be mentioned with the structure of the Roman Curia. The sentence on politics could also fit elsewhere, for example in the paragraph referring to abortion in the "Second Vatican Council and beyond" section. Not really sure what could be done with your third item. Gimmetrow 23:33, 29 November 2009 (UTC)
I agree with Gimmetrow that there are other places that the text in question could be moved. I'm not saying they don't belong in Wikipedia somewhere. I just don't think they belong in the "History" section because they are either not "history" or not clearly historically significant history. --Richard S (talk) 04:59, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
The information is notable in all cases, particularly the Catholic political position. I don't see how it is "pro-Catholic apologetic" to state these facts. Those who are anti-marriage, anti-immigrant or pro-abortion would certainly not find the information on politics made them pro-catholic apologetic. Xandar 23:47, 29 November 2009 (UTC)
Xandar, I'm not saying the points made aren't notable; they are notable according to some definition of notable. However, notability is not a sufficient reason for inclusion in this article. There are many notable things about the Church (positive and negative) that are just not important enough to include in an article of this scope which is already overly long as we have just established in the section "Size" above. Because of recentism, it is naturally very difficult to determine which things are worth reporting as ultimately having historical significance but I really can't see the bit about the Church's position on the Iraq war as being one of them. Now, if the Pope had gone on an aggressive personal crusade against the coalition's launching and continuation of the war, I could imagine mentioning that but I don't think that was the case. What is so notable about the Pope "being received with special dignity by the President"? Do you really think the President of the U.S. would snub the Pope over his opposition to the war? What would have been notable would have been if Bush had snubbed the Pope. Is it notable that the Pope's visit was "televised live on major national news networks"? Are we intimating that the U.S. is the kind of country that might not have televised the Pope's visit in retaliation for his opposition to the war? Puh-leeez. BTW, did the Pope visit any of the other members of the coalition? Did they also treat his visit with "special attention" or did they snub him and censor media coverage of his visit? Why were the visits to other countries not mentioned in this article? The quote from G.W. Bush seems particularly useless, IMHO.
What is the point of the text about the Pontifical Academy of Sciences? The text seems to be apropos of nothing except to push the idea that the Church is a support of the sciences and has enlisted the support of some big names. How is this "History"?
Same comment about the church's involvement in politics. How is this "History", especially "Present History"? Has the Church never been involved in politics before now? We could create a section titled "Involvement in secular politics" or we could just slide this text into "Cultural influence". It just doesn't have anything to do with "History" yet. It's way too recent and we don't know if there will be any historical significance to this proactive stance towards pushing its views in political arenas.
Writing any article, for an encyclopedia or otherwise, requires editorial judgment in determining which things to include and which not to. The article should tell a "story", i.e. it needs a logical flow of ideas. These ideas don't fit in the current flow of ideas and leave the impression that they were just thrown in because somebody wanted to make sure they were mentioned.
I feel silly having to make these arguments but it seems not to be obvious how trite these passages are is so it seems necessary to spell it out.
--Richard S (talk) 04:59, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
The only government I can recall being rude to the Pope on an official visit is the Sandinistas. Most governments observe protocol. Peter jackson (talk) 11:26, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't have a major problem with the sentences on politics or science (the latter is much more NPOV than it used to be) but maybe Richard is right that this isn't the section for them. However the section on the Pope's 2008 US visit is clearly non-notable and should be deleted. If it's going to appear anywhere it should be on Benedict XVI's page.Haldraper (talk) 20:06, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

The sentence on the new structure to receive converting Anglicans is still wikilinked to Forward in Faith and uses the text "traditionalist Anglicans". The reference does not mention Forward in Faith and uses the term "disaffected Anglicans" not traditionalists. The sentence therefore is saying something the reference does not and still needs correcting. NancyHeise talk 17:51, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
You're right the ref doesn't accurately reflect the text but I think the problem is that it's not a very good source: why are we using an Irish newspaper for an issue relating to the Church of England which has been heavily covered in the British media, both broadsheet press and TV? I don't think phrases like 'groups of Anglicans' or 'disaffected Anglicans' accurately convey to those without prior knowledge of the context what the article is talking about here. The British media coverage has clearly shown that it is the traditionalist Anglican Forward in Faith group who are holding national meetings to consider the Vatican's offer and whose representatives have been negotiating with the Holy See's behind the scenes. I also still think we should have waited to see what happened before inserting anything: the creation of Anglican women bishops that would trigger a split may be a couple of years off.Haldraper (talk) 22:09, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Page locked for one week

I have protected this page for one week due to persistent edit warring. When you begin the bold, revert, discuss cycle by reverting a good faith sourced addition, you also must make some effort to seek consensus here. If editorial differences can be worked out before next week, please make a request at WP:RFPP. - 2/0 (cont.) 00:39, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Even under the bold, revert, discuss essay, the onus is on the person adding the controversial new material to initiate a talk page conversation to make a case for its inclusion. Its hard to answer an argument before it has been given. General Policy is that the person introducing material needs to justify it, not keep trying to put it back without gaining consensus. As can be seen above, I have constantly asked people to discuss substantive changes here first. Hopefully the page lock will encourage discussion rather than ninja-editing. Xandar 01:32, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
PS I oppose Haldraper's changes because they are POV, recentism, slanted, misleading, imbalanced and undue weight. Xandar 01:41, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
Xandar, you can't even aim a personal attack correctly! They were not my changes at all: the section on the child abuse scandal in the Catholic Church in Ireland was added by another editor, I merely reverted back to their version after you had removed it on the baseless grounds of POV and undue weight (you have now added the charge of recentism which did not feature in your edit summaries).
On the substantive issues:
POV: the Catholic Church in Ireland has admitted its guilt, expressed remorse, asked for forgiveness etc. There is no dispute as to the facts. Most of what you deleted was a direct quote from or paraphrasing of the official report. It is not just child abusing priests who have been exposed by this report, it is the bishops who covered up their crimes as well: they are not only legally responsible for aiding offenders but surely morally as well. To quote the Roman Missal on "Ways of Being Accessory to Another's Sin": "By concealment- By silence - By defence of the ill done". You seem to think that saying any of this shows an anti-Catholic POV but refuse to explain how.
Undue weight: the report has uncovered not only the biggest example of child abuse by the Church outside North America but also the only one where the State colluded in the cover up. One paragraph does not seem like undue weight to me and also counteracts the otherwise US-centricity of the section.
Recentism: the abuse went on for decades, the legal and political repercussions will continue for many years to come. The -belatedly added - charge of recentism is clearly spurious.
As soon as I saw that someone had added a section on child abuse by the Catholic Church in Ireland I wondered which "defender of the faith" would step forward to suppress it and what dishonest claims they would make to defend their actions. Can you imagine reading this page as a victim of such abuse Xandar? Your attempts to erase it from history echo those of the Irish Church over the decades.Haldraper (talk) 09:13, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
Haldraper, your last paragraph, and particularly the last sentence in that paragraph, goes too far. Please refactor. Karanacs (talk) 12:54, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
Karanacs, I have no problem with people editing text for inaccuracy, POV or balance. However, when an editor swiftly deletes a short, factually-based and referenced section in its entirety on spurious grounds it smacks not only of WP:OWN but of pushing their own POV. Again, please note that the text was added not by myself but by Epzcaw.Haldraper (talk) 14:11, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
Haldraper, I agree with Karanacs that your last paragraph is a bit over the top. I agree with the sentiments but "dishonest claims" is uncivil. That said, I support Xandar's removal of the text but for different reasons. I fully support inclusion of the text in an article such as Catholic sexual abuse scandal in Ireland or Sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic archdiocese of Dublin. However, this news event is much too local to include in an article of this scope. This article has no hope of being readable if we dump in every news event on every topic in every locality just because it is related to an important issue or topic related to the Catholic Church. We absolutely should treat the important issue or topic in this article but the detailed treatment of that issue or topic belongs in a separate article such as Catholic sex abuse cases. As for your argument that the treatment of the topic in this article is too "U.S.-centric", I would suggest that we can fix that without adding quite so much text to the article body. Let's take a look at the article with an eye towards mentioning Ireland in the main article text and possibly adding a note to provide a summary of the fuller details. --Richard S (talk) 16:49, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
I got it wrong on authorship, but whether he wrote it or not, Haldraper made the text his own by replacing it, and the picture, once deleted. Haldraper's error is to read the most rabid, erroneous and unreliable media reporting of sex abuse issues (and other things negative of Catholicism), to swallow that lock stock and barrel, and then to accuse anyone who takes a more balanced and informed view, of being evil catholic propagandists. Note the rant above. Bishops did not "aid offenders", nor are they legally guilty of anything. The report he quotes (via dodgy paraphrase) does not say this. The report actually says very little new. The "cover-up" spoken of was in not reporting allegations to the police prior to 1996, which is not even a legal requirement now. He, like many, has been carried away by sensationalist media reporting that "confirms" his own prejudices. Additionally a thing being "factually-based", does not just mean that anyone can insert a large one-sided tranche of material into an article from any document. As well as being undue weight and recentism, this unbalanced the carefully-agreed existing discussion of the issue. As far as the picture of a copy of an Irish report went, this was the same, but with highly perjorative and factually incorrect text added. Xandar 00:11, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Xandar, to get back to the substantive issue rather than your media conspiracy theories, here's the text that Epzcaw added:

In May 2009, an independent report commissioned by the Irish government investigated the way in which the church dealt with allegations of sexual abuse of children by priests over the period 1975 to 2004. It concluded that "the Dublin Archdiocese‟s pre-occupations in dealing with cases of child sexual abuse, at least until the mid 1990s, were the maintenance of secrecy, the avoidance of scandal, the protection of the reputation of the Church, and the preservation of its assets. All other considerations, including the welfare of children and justice for victims, were subordinated to these priorities. The Archdiocese did not implement its own canon law rules and did its best to avoid any application of the law of the State".[464] The Dublin Archdiocese Commission of Investigation's 720-page report said that it has "no doubt that clerical child sexual abuse was covered up" from January 1975 to May 2004.[465]

Can you point us to which bits you think are inaccurate, POV or recentist?Haldraper (talk) 09:48, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

The Archdiocese of Dublin is only one archdiocese in all of Ireland. This report clearly states that this one archdiocese did not follow its own canon law rules in attempting to protect its own reputation to the demise of the children in its care. The vast majority of worldwide sex abuse cases exist in the US, Ireland comes second and may warrant a couple of sentences added on to the sex abuse para but I do not think a whole para on one archdiocese is OK. How about, "The Irish church's numerous sex abuse cases followed the notoriety of those in the US. There, the Church was in charge of almost all of that country's social services and a 2009 Irish government report found significant negligence particularly on the part of one diocese, the Archdiocese of Dublin, which violated its own rules in order to avoid scandal at the expense of innocent victims of perpetrators of sexual abuse in its ranks." NancyHeise talk 18:41, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
This isn't I think the original passage added by Epzcaw. It seems rather long for here, & repetitions could be trimmed. I've copied a version to our rather chaotic Murphy Report anyway that should be linked, as perhaps should Sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic archdiocese of Dublin, or Catholic sexual abuse scandal in Ireland. If we keep the long version (see below), I think we should have something, at least a link, on the Irish cases anyway - none of these have ever been linked to from here as far as I can see. If we go to the short version, it would be undue weight. Johnbod (talk) 21:59, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
My main issue is that the Irish report is mentioned. The edit warring and page locking was sparked by Xandar's deletion of the passage in its entirety which could have been avoided by the kind of discussion we're having now.Haldraper (talk) 22:20, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
Sorry Hal but I think mentioning the Irish report is too much detail. It should be sufficient to mention that the problem exists in other countries such as Ireland, Canada and Australia. If you include the Irish report, you would have to also considering including reports from Canada and Australia. Let's just mention that those other countries have the same issue and leave it at that. --Richard S (talk) 22:33, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
Richard, if you look at my comments on Karanacs' proposed text in the section below on 'coverage of sex abuse cases', you'll see that I actually proposed one word, 'Ireland', with a piped link to the page detailing the child abuse scandal in the Church there. I'm sure you'll agree that's not too much detail.Haldraper (talk) 22:44, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Issues to work on

All editors are invited to list potential issues with the article, or areas in the article that could use more discussion, at Talk:Catholic Church/Unresolved issues. We will systematically work through those. Karanacs (talk)

An issue to note, is that "Roman Catholic Church" is not the proper title. It is also not an equivalent title. The Roman Rite is one element of the Catholic Church.

Catechism and origins

The Lord Jesus endowed his community with a structure that will remain until the Kingdom is fully achieved. Before all else there is the choice of the Twelve with Peter as their head. Representing the twelve tribes of Israel, they are the foundation stones of the new Jerusalem. The Twelve and the other disciples share in Christ's mission and his power, but also in his lot.170 By all his actions, Christ prepares and builds his Church.

This is what the Catechism actually says. Using that as a source for the debatable claim that Jesus founded the Church involves not only a failure of English, but a failure to recognize quotations from the Revelation of Saint John. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:56, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Septentrionalis, you personal attacks on Xandar do not help us work together. I have provided the most appropriate sources to support the traditional view here, the first is the Church Constitution Lumen Gentium and the second is the German scholar August Franzen. I also threw in a link to Eamon Duffy's book at the bottom to give us the opposing scholar's view of the traditional narrative - which is the same one:
  • This is from the Church's Constitution Lumen Gentium Chapter 3 [38] "This Sacred Council, following closely in the footsteps of the First Vatican Council, with that coucil teaches and declares that Jesus Christ, the eternal shepherd, established His holy Church, having sent forth the apostles as He Himself had been sent forth by the Father;(136) and He willed that their successors, namely the bishops, should be shepherds in His Church even to the consummation of the world. The Lord Jesus, after praying to the Father, calling to Himself those whom He desired, appointed twelve to be with Him, and whom He would send to preach the Kingdom of God;(137) and these apostles(138) He formed after the manner of a college or a stable group, over which He placed Peter chosen from among them.(139) He sent them first to the children of Israel and then to all nations,(140) so that as sharers in His power they might make all peoples His disciples, and sanctify and govern them,(141) and thus spread His Church, and by ministering to it under the guidance of the Lord, direct it all days even to the consummation of the world.(142) And in this mission they were fully confirmed on the day of Pentecost(143) in accordance with the Lord's promise: "You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you shall be witnesses for me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and in Samaria, and even to the very ends of the earth".(144) And the apostles, by preaching the Gospel everywhere,(145) and it being accepted by their hearers under the influence of the Holy Spirit, gather together the universal Church, which the Lord established on the apostles and built upon blessed Peter, their chief, Christ Jesus Himself being the supreme cornerstone.(146)(3*)

"

  • 'From August Franzen's A History of the Church page 17-18 "The oldest tradition of the Roman community has always traced its origins to Peter. ...it is clearly established that Peter was in Rome. The First Epistle of Peter, which was written by him in the year 63/64 in Rome (1Pet 5, 13), as well as his martyr's death in Rome during Nero's persecution of Christians, probably in July 64, testify to it. ...Consequently, the fact of his Roman martyrdom, which unanimous tradition traces to the earliest time, has to be regarded as historically assured. This tradition points to Peter as the founder of the Roman Church in an unbroken line of witnesses from the first letter of Clement (ca 96), to the martyr-bishop Ignatius of Antioch (Letter to the Roman's), to Irenaeus of Lyon, who was the first to record a complete Roman line of succession (Adv. haereses, III, 1, 1; 3, 2), to Dionysius of Corinth (Eusebius, Church History, II, 25, 8), to the Roman presbyter Caius (Eusebius, Ch. H., II 25, 7), to Tertullian (De praescritione haereticorum, 32; Adv. Marcionem IV, 5), and many others. Together with Paul, who also died a martyr's death in Rome during Nero's persecution, Peter is mentioned as the founding apostle at the head of all lists of Roman bishops. To this direct apostolic origin, the Roman bishops knew very well, they owed their special position and meaning within the whole church; a fact, which the other churches always acknowledged as well."
  • So here we have both the original document, the official Church Constitution Lumen Gentium from Vatican II giving us the Church's point of view of its origins and a scholar as well (Franzen) who is in agreement with this point of view and defends the historicity of the Church point of view at length in his book whose excerpts I have copied here [39] yet Septentrionalis aka PMAnderson keeps asserting that the Church's POV does not exist when clearly not only does it exist in the Church's own constitution but scholars from both sides of the fence acknowledge and talk about it in their books. Here's Duffy providing us with the same on page one here [40] . NancyHeise talk 03:14, 20 November 2009 (UTC)


I think we should avoid using primary sources in this article (the Catechism and the Lumen G...) especially for matters of history. We are not theologians and our interpretations of those documents are original research. We should focus instead on what scholars say. The Frantzen quote above speaks of the "Roman community" rather than official Church teaching. I don't think it is wrong to include that instead of the "official" church teaching, as long as the article is very clear that it is talking about beliefs of the community rather than "official" teachings. Karanacs (talk) 16:51, 20 November 2009 (UTC) P.S. I also changed the section heading to be less combative. Karanacs (talk) 16:51, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
Couple things here. First, Lumen Gentium et al are not primary sources. They are secondary sources. Secondly, Lumen Gentium et al are primary sources for what the Catholic church teaches, not for what actually occurred in the first century. We have to be very careful to distinguish the two from each other. They are superior to the other sources which are another step removed. It is reasonable to assume that the Vatican has access to the most reliable sources. Benkenobi18 (talk) 22:26, 3 December 2009 (UTC)


Let's be careful in characterizing the Catechism, Lumen Gentium et al as "primary sources". Yes, they are that. However, if we are careful in using direct quotes without any added interpretation, it's OK to use such documents as support for statements about what the Catholic Church teaches. This must be done with care and there must be no "reading between the lines".
With respect to history, the sources in question are not really "primary" in the sense that they are not documents from the historical period in question but documents with passages which comment on historical events and are thus secondary sources with respect to that historical period. Once again, we must be careful not to "read between the lines" and synthesize something which is not there.
All of the above having been said, it seems to me that these documents are excellent sources to document what the Catholic Church teaches about its origins
--Richard S (talk) 20:02, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
What Franzen says is that Peter was martyred in Rome (so much is history), and that there is a much more expansive tradition. I disagree with neither claim; both are consensus. Claiming that Franzen asserts the historicity of the tradition is a falsehood. I do not know whether Nancy has failed to read what she cut and pasted, has failed to understand it, or is deliberately lying; it really does not matter very much. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:14, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
I'm beginning to suspect that part of the problem we're having is a difficulty in interpreting the works of historians comes when they switch gears halfway through a paragraph or section. I read the Franzen quote the way you did - that Franzen says there is historial evidence of Peter's martyrdom in Rome, and that he then discusses the rest of the tradition without making a judgement on its historicity. Just because Franzen agrees that some of the tradition has a historical basis and then describes more tradition does not mean he is saying all of the tradition has evidence to back it up (unless there is more that wasn't quoted on this page?). Franzen would be a good source for describing the tradition, but this quote at least doesn't support that all of the tradition has historical evidence to back it up. Karanacs (talk) 19:26, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
Your first sentence may well be right, as a diagnosis. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:56, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Nancy also wrote

According to the Church Constitution, Lumen Gentium, the Church was founded by Jesus when, as recorded by the Gospel of Matthew, he assembled his twelve Apostles appointing Simon Peter as their head and proclaiming "upon this rock I will build my church ... I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven ... ".[

There are three problems with this:

  • Assembling is ambiguous; normal literate readers would take it to be the Gathering of the Apostles, which is at the other end of Matthew (4:18, not 16:18)
  • Matthew does not use assembled of the Holy Pun; it was spoken before the whole concourse of disciples - not the apostles alone - and they had been assembled about Jesus long before.
  • The extract from Lumen Gentium does not say anything of the kind; it does not use the word rock at all; indeed, the only New Testament quotation given is about Pentecost, which Nancy keeps editing out of the text. (Why?)

If she were to give wherever she actually found this peculiar sentence, we would be able to see what her source was; it does not look promising, but I will not judge it unseen. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:42, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

  • PMA, I think it would be useful at this stage if you could suggest a dfart yourself, ldeally one covering historians as well as the doctrinal position, although I appreciate you don't see the need to cover the latter. Johnbod (talk) 17:09, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
  • Regarding the extract from Lumen Gentium: Lumen cites both the Gospel of Matthew cited in our article text as well as Pastor aeternus [41] which repeats the Gospel text word for word. Chapter one and Chapter 2 of Pastor aeternus,[42] the document that Lumen cites, completely agrees with our article text. I am adding a ref to this document as well to the article with link provided to avoid these accusations in the future.
  • Regarding Karanacs comment about Franzen above, Franzen spends a large number of pages defending the historicity of the Catholic Church claims against Protestant reinterpretation of historicity. He considers the Gospels historical documents as does Bokenkotter. Thus, the recorded act of Jesus consecrating Peter and the letters of Paul and others in the New Testament period are considered by Franzen to be historical confirmation of the Tradition - Vidmar also makes this argument citing both positive and negative evidence - negative evidence includes the absence of any competing claim. NancyHeise talk 23:28, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
  • I also provide you with this quote from Newman Eberhardt's A Summary of Catholic History, Volume I, Ancient and Medieval History
  • From page 60 "Christ instituted a hierarchy to rule, teach, and sanctify His Church. Since these functions were essential to Christianity, this hierarchical office was de jure perpetual. De facto, the apostles designated their immediate successors by selecting, training, and ordaining vicars, to whom at death they committed their churches. These apostolic vicars, at first themselves styled apostles, carried on the missionary labors of the original Twelve. 'Formerly they called the same persons priests and bishops; those who are now called bishops they called apostles. In course of time they left the naem of apostle to those who were the apostles in the strict sense, and applied the name of bishop to those formerly called apostles' (Theodoret, On I Timothy, iii, 1). The beginning of this transmission of office can be seen in St. Paul's pastoral charges to Sts. Titus and Timothy, and we are assured that St. John 'used to journey by request to neighboring districts of the Gentiles, in some places to appoint bishops, in others to regulate whole churches' (Clement, Quis Dives, 42). We are assured by St. Clement of Rome that such a transfer actually took place: 'Our apostles also knew through our Lord Jesus Christ that there would be strife about the episcopal office. For this reason, then, inasmuch as they had perfect foreknowledge, they named those previously mentioned (episkopoi and diaconoi) that when these should fall asleep (in the Lord), other approved men would succeed them ...'(Corinthians 44). Thus was perpetuated a legitimate divine delegation: 'The apostles preached the Gospel to us from the Lord, Jesus Christ; Christ from God. Christ, then, was sent by God, and the apostles by Christ' (ibid., 42). Now it is the bishops who are sent by the apostles so that susequently St. Irenaeus could challenge heretics: 'We are able to name those appointed bishops by the apostles in the churches, and their successors down to our own times' (A. H., III, 3). Tertullian made a similar claim (Prescriptions, 32, 36)."
I have added Peter Kreeft to supplement the Lumnen Gentium cite in the first para and I also added Eberhardt plus quote to the second para. NancyHeise talk 01:42, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Re Franzen, the source is 40 years old. Has no progress been made in historical understanding of the early church or the historical Jesus since then? Let's discount Franzen as a reliable source on history. If he agrees with current scholarship, he's redundant, and we don't need the information. If he disagrees, then he's out of date, unless we find a prominent scholar agreeing with him. In that case, you don't need Franzen. Cite the current scholar. Leadwind (talk) 01:50, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Quite the opposite. Whether Franzen is 40 or 400 years old has no bearing on the accuracy of his historical understanding of the early church. This is an irrelevant complaint. Benkenobi18 (talk) 22:26, 3 December 2009 (UTC)
I would like to keep Franzen for a couple of reasons 1)His book is an internationally respected and recognized work of scholarship, translated into other languages from its original German that is still currently used in seminaries as a reference and 2)our article text wording is more exactly cited to his comments. NancyHeise talk 02:09, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
Nancy, certainly part of the reason you want to keep Franzen might be because you can find support for you position there? Let's just stick to current scholarship. If your position is strong, you can find lots of current, prominent scholars who support it, and you don't need to go back 40 years to find sources. Leadwind (talk) 14:58, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Nancy, I deleted Eberhardt and Franzen. Neither represents current scholarship. It's particularly unfair to claim that Paul and Clement support elements of the Catholic view when in fact both provide evidence against it. Paul's letter to the Jewish Christian congregations of Rome (Epistle to the Romans) seems to imply that Peter wasn't there.

It does no such thing. Deleting Eberhardt and Franzen because they are 40 years old is ridiculous! Benkenobi18 (talk) 22:26, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Clement's letter portrays Christian leadership as consisting of priest/bishops, not priests and bishops. It's true that some elements of the Catholic view have solid historical evidence (e.g., Peter's preeminence among apostles), but let's use current, historical sources. Leadwind (talk) 16:05, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Leadwind, you are giving me your personal view of Eberhardt's and Franzen's analyses with which you disagree. Please remember, Wikipedia does not care what you or I think, we are just presenting scholarly views on the page. Franzen was originally published in 1969 but it has been translated into other languages fairly recently - in English in the 80's I believe. I returned the book to the library so I'd have to go get it again. The professor who edited it for the English translation wrote an introduction explaining why this book was so important to translate. It seems that German historians are very well respected in the academic community and this book is used by many seminaries worldwide. We strive to use the best sources in the article and if modern scholars consider this book of current importance and current seminaries are still using it as an important reference, we can use it in the article whether or not we agree with its contents. We are just using it to provide us with a particular pov. Vidmar is the most current scholarship, I don't see why these others can not supplement him. They do a good job of analyzing the original historical documents for us. Maybe that's why the seminaries are using them. NancyHeise talk 02:26, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
As far as "new scholarship" goes, may I say this about that: A local priest sold off his collection of theology books which were quite old. Listeners did not see the value of this. He explained - theology books do not go out of date (like other texts). They sold for well over their original purchase price new.
An old book is not automatically an "outdated" book. Equating one to the other automatically is WP:BIAS IMO. St. Augustine is still widely quoted as is St. Thomas Aquinas.
On any scholarship, the question is not whether there is a newer book that seems to contradict the old - in our culture that is often the case, but sometimes just for show (see History channel). It is whether the former arguments are addressed and specifically refuted. For example, Schliemann's work is often criticized for good reason. Yet he often did the right thing as well as wrong things. But not everything he did or wrote was wrong. It is bad thinking to suggest that everything new is better than everything old. Don't I wish! Student7 (talk) 16:25, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Edit war

I've had to restore a lot of referenced text which various people removed or replaced without agreement. Can we agree any significant changes here, without messing up the article with widespread unagreed changes and the removal of referenced material? Some individuals may consider certain facts are not to their taste, however that doesn't give a right to unilaterally remove what have been considered important parts of the article. Xandar 02:09, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

I did not remove the text in question. Xandar and NancyHeise restored much of the deleted text but PManderson removed it again. This is a time for us all to stop editing (since this is a nascent edit war which should be nipped in the bud) and discuss the issues with the text. Edit-warring will lead to protection of the page as it has in the past. Users engaging in edit warring may also find themselves blocked from editing.
Me personally, I don't see a specific problem with the text in question. However, I sense that PManderson's feeling is that the text he removed was too slanted towards the Catholic POV. I invite him to be more specific about his objections.
--Richard S (talk) 08:07, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
My objection to what I removed is that it is insufficiently substantiated and is inaccurate. (Catholic point of view is a bugbear started by Nancy to mean her own theological beliefs, as far as I can tell.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 08:27, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
Pmanderson, can you be more specific? Please take the text you object to apart sentence by sentence and explain the issue you have with each one. I know this is a pain but it is the only way I can think of to resolve this dispute. Also, let's please leave personalities out of it. Criticize the text, not the editor. --Richard S (talk) 08:52, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
Thank you for peeling out the sentences in question. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 12:20, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Founded by Jesus

This sentence was deleted by Pmanderson :

"According to Catholic doctrine, the Church was founded by Jesus."
See above. The alleged source of this is a passage of Lumen Gentium which does not say so. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 12:01, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Patristic writings

The following text was deleted by Pmanderson:

"In the second century, writings by teachers such as Ignatius of Antioch and Irenaeus defined Catholic teaching in stark opposition to Gnosticism.[1] Other writers such as Pope Clement I, Justin Martyr, Augustine of Hippo influenced the development of Church teachings and traditions. These writers are collectively known as Church Fathers."
Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. And the descriptions of this random selection are caricatures. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 12:03, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
I agree that the first sentence suggests that Ignatius and Irenaeus wrote primarily to "define Catholic teaching in stark opposition to Gnosticism" when, in fact, their writings cover a much wider spectrum of Church teaching. This is what I think you mean by "caricatures". However, I do think it important to mention the Church Fathers as "pivotal to the development of Church teachings and traditions" (my words). Would you agree to this? --Richard S (talk) 20:29, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
I agree that the article must mention them; I would phrase quite differently. For one thing, this reifies "Church traditions" above the actual writings which constituted the tradition in antiquity. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 06:39, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
It's not very clear, is it? "Church Fathers", in the Catholic tradition, is itself a rather vague term for major early writers. Neither "major" nor "early" is defined, & there's no official list (unlike Doctors of the Church). In the Orthodox tradition, it is considered that there are still Church Fathers in modern times. Peter jackson (talk) 18:00, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Rome's prominence over other dioceses

The following text was deleted by Pmanderson:

"In 325, the First Council of Nicaea convened in response to the threat of Arianism, formulated the Nicene Creed as a basic statement of Christian belief, and divided the church into geographical and administrative areas called dioceses.[2] Although this council sanctioned the primacy of three dioceses—Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch—Rome had certain qualities which many scholars view as giving it particular prominence over the other dioceses; it was considered the see of Peter and Paul, it was located in the capital of the empire, church scholars were desirous of obtaining the Roman bishop's support in doctrinal disputes, and it was wealthy and known for supporting other churches around the world."
Is this a reasonable summary of the Nicene Creed and the proceedings of Nicaea? No. Seven words on Arianism, a paragraph on the supremacy of Rome, and a dubious claim that Cyprian did not have a diocese. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 12:04, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
It was the Council of Constantinople that formulated the so-called Nicene Creed. Peter jackson (talk) 17:56, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
Sort of. The Council of Constantinople expanded the creed promulgated by the First Council of Nicaea and finalized it by putting an anathema on anybody who attempted any further emendations. Neat trick, eh? Wish we could do that to Wikipedia articles. ;^) --Richard S (talk) 23:18, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
See below. Peter jackson (talk) 11:36, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
Do we really need to get into a discussion of the Pentarchy here? Recall that Byzantium itself wasn't even a diocese until well into the third century AD. The divisions were present well before this, but they were not joined with the civil authority until after Constantine. They were in a sense, informal divisions between each of the bishops. After constantine they took on the civil as well as religious authority, which they would continue to possess in some way shape or form until the French Revolution. Benkenobi18 (talk) 23:07, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

First Council of Ephesus

The following text was deleted by Pmanderson:

"The Council of Ephesus in 431[3] and the Council of Chalcedon in 451 defined the relationship of Christ's divine and human natures, leading to splits with the Nestorians and Monophysites."
This sentence is, I admit, merely bad writing, not in itself tendentious - unlike the rest of this. But the Monophysites and Nestorians (and the split) existed before the Councils. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 12:09, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
I think it's much more complex than that. The Church of the East declared its independence in 428. That may not necessarily have been a split, but no doubt it was a major contributory factor. The monophysite schism really only happened in the 6th century, when the Patriarch of Alexandria was deposed for heresy. The overwhelming majority of the Egyptian church remained loyal to him & his successors, the Coptic Popes. Peter jackson (talk) 17:55, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
Ephesus and Chalcedon were called to resolve the breach with the East. In both cases, the Eastern interpretations were rejected, and the Monothelites and Nestorians broke away from Rome. While the councils in and of themselves did not initiate the breach, they consolidated the breach, in the sense that the Nestorians and Monothelites lost. They could have chosen to return to Rome, and many did, but the ones we remember are the ones who chose to leave. Benkenobi18 (talk) 22:33, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Catharism and the Albigensian Crusade

Encouraged by Leadwind's example, I've gone through the history section again checking for POV. The most obvious example I've found so far is the para on the Albigensian crusade. It presents the official Catholic view of Catharism, via a quote from Father Bokenkotter, and the Crusade being justified by the killing of the papal legate before referring almost in passing to 'abuses' which were committed and ends with the Pope setting up the inquisition which we are reassured only 'put to death an average of three people per year for heresy at its height'.

The 'abuses' in the Albigensian crusade involved the slaughter of between 200,000-1 million people. To cover up such a major episode is clearly POV and I will post a tag while I work on a rewrite.Haldraper (talk) 08:56, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

You will have to find much better sources for that figure - neither used at Albigensian crusade is an RS. I notice Jonathan Sumption's figure on the website is far more cautious & limited; the only one from an actual book on the actual topic I think. I know from the far better documented, and more straightforward, St. Bartholomew's Day massacre that figures quoted can vary wildly, and only the best and most recent specialist academic sources should be used - though in the case of St Barts there has been a cleavage between these and popular figures that has narrowed little in the last 150 years. You can guess which is the larger. The text is not very clear that the "average of three people per year for heresy at its height" covers a far longer period. Even so your characterization of the current text is hardly accurate. Johnbod (talk) 09:41, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
Bethencourt, The Inquisition, original French 1995, revised & updated in English, Cambridge Univerity Press, 2009, page 444, gives a total of nearly 16,000 executions following excommunication by the Spanish, Portuguese & Roman Inquisitions in the period 1473-1834. Peter jackson (talk) 11:45, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
And that's only capital punishment - and only some of it; England had a death penalty for heresy too. It does not include, for example, the massacre of Béziers. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:39, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Johnbod, on what do you base your assertion that my 'characterization of the current text is hardly accurate'? I agree that the refs used on Albigensian crusade are inadequate, that's why I haven't used them, and there is a debate about whether the lower or higher number is more accurate. What there isn't a dispute about is that the Catholic Church carried out a mass slaughter of those it saw as heretics. It is also POV to present Catharism with a quote from Father Bokenkotter which along with the murder of the papal legate and the omission of the numbers killed leaves the reader with the impression that nothing very serious happened, at least nothing for which the Church should be held responsible.Haldraper (talk) 13:08, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

I'll let people judge the accuracy for themselves (this diff). I see your new source "Helen Ellerbe is a researcher, writer, and public speaker living in the San Francisco bay area" and this is her only book. This is not an RS. Here's a good kicking on her use of sources, certainly from a partisan source. Maybe someone will give it you for Xmas, Hal, sounds like your cup of tea. The French article doesn't seem to attempt giving overall figures for deaths in the Albigensian crusade, which may be significant. Unless you can come up with a proper source we should just go for "many thousands" or something. Population of France gives a figure for 1226 of c. 16M (modern borders of metropolitan France) which might very well mean there weren't 1M people to kill in that corner of the country anyway. Johnbod (talk) 16:08, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
What's the point of mentioning the murder of the papal legate? Are we presenting the excuse that murdering a papal legate justifies the mass slaughter of heretics since assuredly some of them committed the crime and untold others may have supported and condoned it? If so, this is an example of collective punishment. I personally think that mentioning the legate is an unnecessary detail. However, if we are to mention the killing of the legate at all, we need to explain what the point is. What do the sources say? Do they say that the murder of the legate was the reason cited by the Pope for launching the Albigensian crusade? If not, then what source is highlighting the murder of the legate as anything more than just an unfortunate event in a larger tragedy/atrocity? --Richard S (talk) 18:55, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
I disagree that Haldraper's edits and sources to the albigensian section are making it less POV by using very POV and criticized sources. We do not use sources that have bad reviews or are condemned by other scholars for their inaccuracies. We used Bokenkotter and the others because they do not have bad reviews but are used by universities as textbooks - Bokenkotter has been so used for many decades with three reprintings. I think, in order to avoid the POV accusation from either side, we need to stick to these types of sources and stay away from those scholars who are condemned by others for scholarly malpractice as in the case of Bart Ehrman who was so accused according to this article in the Chronicle of Higher Education [44]. This article reported that a meeting of historians occured and that the "Gospel of Judas" scholars, Elaine Pagels and Bart Ehrman were criticized severely for their misleading work on this National Geographic project. Their work was called "scholarly malpractice". Here's some of what the article said of the scholarly criticism "Some of the sharpest digs have been reserved for Ehrman, who was the first member of the National Geographic team to publish a book on Judas. Publicly Ehrman has been the most vocal in embracing Judas as hero, and he has been pilloried for it. Scholar after scholar at the Rice conference took shots at him. Turner said he didn't read Ehrman's book because he "wouldn't expect to learn anything from it." These types of "pop history" scholars, particularly condemned by their peers, (Richard McBrien falls into that category for his theological work "Catholicism") - these scholars will not help the page advance to FA because there are always going to be editors opposing their use. Because we have so many sources from which to choose, why don't we just stick to those that have good reviews and those who express the various points of views on sensitive issues who are not condemned for their opinions in scholarly journals as practicing "scholarly malpractice". NancyHeise talk 00:41, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
Also, why did someone tag the origins sectin again? Is there consensus for this tag? - No. I thought there was consensus for its removal when Karanacs removed it. Changes to the text afterward were per comments by Karanacs and Sept. Also, someone eliminated the Catholic doctrine sentence cited to Kreeft, a nihil obstat imprimatur source and Lumen Gentium. We do have to tell Reader what Catholic doctrine states regarding Church origins in order to meet the requirements of WP:NPOV. I have readded that sentence and added a citation to the Dogmatic Constitution Pastor Aeternus on the Church of Christ - the document Lumen Gentium cites and affirms in its section on the Church. NancyHeise talk 01:01, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
I also went through the Albigensian Crusade section and removed Haldraper's disputed text referreing to 1million massacred since there is not scholarly agreement on exact numbers and this invites more arguing. I improved the section with the Oxford University Press' The Oxford Illustrated History of Christianity which refers to the massacre as an "appalling massacre" I used those exact words in quotes and added a final sentence to that section also from this book that deals with the resulting inquisition. NancyHeise talk 02:00, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
Haldraper's urban legends about the Albigensian Crusade were from an unresearched polemic rant by an anti-Christian ex sales-assistant, and needed to be removed. We don't need this sort of nonsense putting in the article. I think this once again shows up the claims of "POV" from some sources here. Xandar 02:16, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Nobody has addressed my question above about the rationale for including the phrase "after the murder of a papal legate". When I first raised the issue a few months ago, NancyHeise argued that it was important to include and that it had the "consensus support of FAC reviewers". I maintain that there is no such thing as "consensus" supporting any particular sentence or paragraph in a FA. Passing FAC simply asserts a consensus that an article is FA and does not bless each and every sentence as sacrosanct and cast in forever more in concrete. Moreover, an article which has failed FAC has even less claim on "consensus". --Richard S (talk) 07:57, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

I have restored the text before this mutual admiration society got busy on it. This edit summary is particularly appalling; it claims to "restore the Catholic point of view" while deploring the presence of a POV tag. More seriously, the POV it enforces is not that of Roman Catholicism, but of one author within it, misquoting a primary source. If this vandalism continues, I will tag the entire article; three sections are disputed here, and most of the rest are just as bad. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 08:08, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
It also amuses me the way "mutual admiration society" use double standards for reliable sources/POV. Someone who claims an "estimated 1 million" Cathars were slaughtered by the Catholic Church in the Albigensian Crusade gets a kicking (no attempt to provide alternative figures I note) with stuff such as "urban legends about the Albigensian Crusade[]from an unresearched polemic rant by an anti-Christian ex sales-assistant" (nice mix of ungrammatical constructions and snobbery there Xandar). Father Bokenkotter however, who I could just as easily sum up as "a parish priest from Cincinnati who doubles up a professor of Church history at a Jesuit university" is hailed as an unimpeacheably neutral academic source when he sums up Catharism, a mass religious movement in southwest France in the 12th and 13th centuries, as one that "prohibited marriage, encouraged suicide, and ... combined asceticism with immorality." Don't let the blinkers slip folks!Haldraper (talk) 09:55, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Continued at A below. This next lot moved from above by Haldraper (Johnbod note): The following text was deleted by Pmanderson:

"Twelfth century France witnessed the emergence of Catharism, a belief system which which stated that matter was evil, encouraged suicide, and and considered sexual intercourse an evil to be avoided in all forms including its products of milk, meat and eggs. Pope Innocent III tried to convert the Cathars by "a series of preaching attempts" which ultimately failed. After a papal legate was murdered by the Cathars in 1208, he subsequently declared the Albigensian Crusade. When this turned into an "appalling massacre", he informally instituted the first papal inquisition to prevent further massacre and to root out the remaining Cathars."
After various edits, we now have:"Twelfth century France witnessed the emergence of Catharism against which Pope Innocent III declared the Albigensian Crusade in 1208. Thousands were killed as heretics, prompting Innocent III to institute informally the first papal inquisition to prevent future abuses and to root out the remaining Cathars.[295][296] Formalized under Gregory IX..." which I am ok with. The following bit about the Inquisition does need improvement - the number may be too low, the period is unclear, and that the Spanish & Portuguese Inquisitions were manifestly controlled by the kings not the Church needs saying. Johnbod (talk) 09:56, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
This implies that the inquisition was founded to prevent the killing of heretics. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 12:06, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
It was. At least in the uncontrolled way of the Albigensian Crusade. Haldraper's text I think, so easy with your customary aspersions. Johnbod (talk) 16:16, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
Assuming there is agreement that the Inquisition was founded to formalize the treatment of heretics and prevent uncontrolled, wanton slaughter of heretics, the issue is that this is an important point which is glossed over in less than a full sentence. This needs to be expanded upon a bit although we should spend not more than a sentence or two in the main article text; a fuller explanation could be provided in a Note. --Richard S (talk) 20:33, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
That would inevitably lead to more complaints of an apologetics POV, & certainly the Inquisition's development led it some way from these aims, such that the original intention becomes less relevant. I think we are getting too many long notes (see below). WP is supposed to work through links, not lengthy footnotes at every turn. Johnbod (talk) 23:26, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
I agree that links are preferable but the point here is that the idea that the Inquisition provides "due process" for heretics is sufficiently outside the popular conception that it deserves to be presented more fully than just a passing comment without adequate explanation and support. This is a beginning of an apologetic for the Inquisition (1) it provided "due process" and (2) not that many were killed. Whether you agree with the apologetic or not, it deserves to be presented with supporting sources. It is the Catholic POV (or at least the POV of some Catholics) and should be presented. If there are opposing POVs, we can present those also. --Richard S (talk) 02:18, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

A continues from above (note Johnbod (talk) 10:38, 26 November 2009 (UTC))

What you need to do is to find proper current academic sources that give an estimated figure for deaths, or contradict eg Catharism's opposition to marriage per the admittedly one-sided contemporary records. We don't need these details though, & they are now removed. (since re-added in fact)(Johnbod (talk) 10:03, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
Correction to the citation I gave above: 1473 should read 1478.
As the discussion seems to be ranging fairly widely, I may as well repeat my now archived citation of the World Christian Encyclopedia (2nd ed) as giving a total of nearly 5,000,000 Christians martyred by Catholics. That of course would cover a lot. Various Inquisitions, other church courts, secular courts, lynch mobs, assassins &c. It would presumably include a lot from the Albigensian Crusade & Bartholomew massacre. It might include people like Oscar Romero, who's recognized as a martyr by the Church of England if not the Catholic Church, & whose assassin I imagine was a Catholic. It might include Christians martyred by Hitler, who was a Catholic. Lots of different categories to be thinking about. Peter jackson (talk) 10:50, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
It looks as if it includes everyone killed by the "Catholic" side in the Thirty Years War (& may be everyone killed by the French who were on the "Protestant" side), French Wars of religion, Peasant's War (oops, that was Protestants), possibly the Wars of Austrian & Spanish Successions, all 19th century Latin American wars & no doubt by the IRA too. It clearly doesn't share your view that Hitler was a Catholic, or the figure would be much higher. Ditto for Napoleon. Do we need any such figure here? No we don't. Johnbod (talk) 10:59, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

It certainly sounds way over the top if it's counting everyone killed by individual Catholics for whatever reason rather than those killed as heretics by the Church itself.Haldraper (talk) 12:48, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Again this is where we get when we start introducing "figures" invented by POV polemic sources. We have to be extremely careful in these matters since there is probably no organisation against which so many well-recorded falsehoods and inventions have been established as the subject of this article. The only figures we can use on controversial issues of this sort are those with the highest level of academic backing and research behind them, since much of the other stuff gleaned from the net or fringe publications are a joke.
Going back to the issue of the Cathars. Yes. We do need to establish what the Cathars believed, since this is important to understanding of the issue. Cathars have been presented as "dissident Christians", which they are conclusively not. There is no point introducing a conflict without detailing what it is about. Opposition to this from some quarters seems suspicious. Similarly, if we are discussing the Albigensian Crusade, we need to record what was the initiating event, and this was the killing of the papal legate. Some people might want (as with the main Crusades) to give the impression that this was just something dreamt up by the Pope when he got up one morning. No. Initiating events are important. Just as we always report that World War I was initiated by the killing of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. That was the pivotal event, even though many other underlying causes then came into play. This is why we cannot have stretches of the standing, several years old text just removed without agreement or consensus. Xandar 16:04, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
I don't agree. The Albigensian Crusade clearly was out of control, as many observers said at the time, and the Church recognised. Whether the Cathars were Christian heretics, as the church maintained, or of a wholly different religion, hardly matters, and the murder under the aegis of Raymond of Tolouse, who was not a Cathar, of a single figure is equally not an adequate excuse. It probably had little to do with Catharism, and was used as a handy excuse. The description of the Cathar's beliefs is unbalanced - only the small number of "perfecti" were celibate, something the Church could hardly be very strongly outraged by, and suicide was only "encouraged" for the hopelessly beseiged who would have been executed anyway. Given the constraints on space all this can be followed up at the links. Has anyone checked the size of the article. The footnotes seem to be proliferating uncontrollably, and another drastic reduction may be in order. Johnbod (talk) 16:28, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
You've given me some of your personal opinions on the Albigensian Crusade, but I'm not sure of their relevance. There seems to me to be a strange issue here of people wanting to remove key explanatory material from the article. One has to ask why they want to discuss the Cathars, but leave out important elements which help to explain what happened and set the issues in context. What some seem to want is to have a text that implies that Cathars were peaceful dissident Christians who the (evil) Catholic Church suddenly attacked and massacred for no reason. No. That is not a balanced or tenable position. It IS important that the Cathars were in origin a very different religion, with different origins and a different agenda to Christianity, and not just freethinking dissidents of some sort. What the Cathars taught is not really in dispute amongst serious scholars. They were dualists of Manichean origin who believed matter was evil, the God who created the world was evil, and yes, (assisted) suicide was an important ritual for all levels of believer. This article is a matter of balance. There are many facts about the Cathars which we have not mentioned in the text for reasons of space, but which play a part in what happened. Cathars were a subversive threat, for example, spreading underground and setting up a rival system deeply antipathetic to the Church. Their forebears the Bogomils and Paulicians, had allied militarily with Muslims and other enemies of Christianity in the East, causing enormous damage to the Eastern Empire. They habitually practiced the assassination of anyone who threatened them, maintaining their secrecy and occupation of important positions through a Mafia-like web of fear. Now we couldn't put all this contextual information in. But certain key pieces of information that would flag up these deeper contexts, and encourage the interested to investigate further, were left in - a brief description of their distinctive beliefs, and the trigger event for the Crusade - the assassination of the Papal Legate. This is an important bare minimum - which suddenly, some people want to exclude. Why? I feel that some people want to "save space" by including only negative material about the Church, in order to support an agenda. The important thing about an encyclopedia article is that it needs to give the full picture, not the caricature.
Further to the footnotes. They do need cutting down. But lets leave that until we have the article text settled. Something that needs to be done with issues dealt with in strict sequential order, and here on this page, so we don't have several different disputes and edit wars going on at the same time.Xandar 22:24, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
Xandar, what you wrote above gives the "full picture". What the current article provides is a caricature, both of the Cathars and of the reason for the massacre. I object to mentioning only the murder of the papal legate without the fuller context because, even if it was the casus belli, it was only the "straw that broke the camel's back". Mentioning just the murder of the legate makes the Catholic Church look vindictive in its retaliation and suggests a "trumped up" reason for the massacre. I disagree that we can't put all the contextual information in and argue that we must put the contextual information in if only in summary form. Let us look for a way to provide the full picture through a one sentence brief summary of what you wrote above and possibly a fuller explanation in a Note. --Richard S (talk) 02:12, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

This section now has an even more pro-Catholic POV than when we started trying to improve it: a) Catharism is described solely via a cariacture written by one of its Catholic opponents (talk about the winners writing history). b) the murder of the papal legate is presented as justification for the Albigensian Crusade whereas on its own page that event is shown to be more tied up with baronial rivalries in southwest France at the time. c) the Medieval inquisition is blithely dismismissed as only killing three heretics a year 'at its height', whatever period that vague phrase is meant to refer to. I'll restore the POV tag until we can return some balance to the section, in my opinion by cutting out apologetics and sticking to facts.Haldraper (talk) 08:49, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

It also reflects more strongly Xandar's personal OR view that the Cathars were not Christian, when they were always treated by the church as heretics, ie Christians, & are so regarded by modern scholars also. Johnbod (talk) 10:48, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
Hitler was nominally a Catholic. He was brought up as such, never renounced it & was never excommunicated. He even continued paying his tithes to the Church to the end of his life (Richard Steigmann-Gall, The Holy Reich, Cambridge University Press, 2003, page xv). Peter jackson (talk) 11:29, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
What's the relevance of that to the Albigensian Crusade Peter?Haldraper (talk) 15:38, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
There's been a lot of water under the bridge since then. The section quickly broadened out from its official topic. I mentioned Hitler, someone responded & that was my reply. Feel free to ignore it. Peter jackson (talk) 17:52, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
Hitler was Catholic like Luther, Calvin and Robespierre were Catholics, ie born in a Catholic country. He never darkened the doors of a church.
Further to the Albigensians, Christians today would not recognise them as such. Their heresy takes them far beyond the bounds, saying that God the Creator was evil. As I have said, there are numerous references for Cathar beliefs. If Haldraper has some reliably referenced source that provides a guide to their belief that conflicts with what has been stated, let him produce it. As for the Inquisition, the view in the article is the majority mainstream. I was just watching the BBCs History of Christianity, which emphasised exactly the same point, that the Inquisition was milder than European secular courts.
For another mainstream view, here is the passage on the medieval inquisition from leading Historian Christopher Tyerman's book "God's War, a History of the Crusades." p602
"..the inquisition did not become the sinister bureaucratic institution of repression of legend. ... The object of each Inquisition was, as its name suggested, to discover who were heretics and to eradicate disbelief by persuasion and reconciliation. Although the accused were prevented from knowing the identities of witnesses, they were permitted to mount a defence. Torture was rare and unsophisticated. Reason, not terror, was the inquisitors weapon. A university was founded at Toulouse in 1229 to underpin the ideological basis of the Catholic mission. The combination of new pastoral methods; effective, professional preaching; the dissemination of systematic moral theology of the schools; and the simplicity and directness of the friars who largely conducted the Inquisition combated Catharism at every level, intelectual, parochial and personal. The punishments reflected the purpose of evangelism. The vast majority of those found guilty of heresy received non-custodial penances. Contumacious or obstinate offenders could expect prison. Only a tiny minority of convicted heretics were handed to the secular authorities to be burned at the stake. One calculation from hundreds of penalties imposed in mid-thirteenth century Languedoc estimated that death sentences made up 1%, imprisonment 10 - 11%; the rest lesser penalties, including the compulsory wearing of a cross to denote a former heretic." Xandar 23:17, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Roman Empire

I can't tell whether my contributions are getting reverted because other editors don't like them or because of collateral damage from other people's edits getting reverted. This is the problem with edit-warring... mass reversions to someone's preferred version reverts everybody's edits indiscriminately.

So... per Xandar's request/demand, I am submitting the following text for everybody's consideration...

Christianity first spread in the predominantly Greek-speaking eastern half of the Roman Empire. The Apostles traveled extensively throughout the Empire, establishing communities in major cities and regions, with the first communities appearing in Antioch, Alexandria, Jerusalem, and then Rome and several Greek cities. By 58CE, a large Christian community existed in Rome.

To start this section with "By 58CE, a large Christian community existed in Rome." jumps directly to discussion of the Roman church without providing any of the context of the Eastern Church which seems unsurprisingly to have predated the Roman church.

Predated is a bad word to use. We can be sure that by 58 AD the community at Rome existed, but recall that the journeys of Peter and Paul and the rest of the Apostles began immediately after Pentecost. All the evidence we have from the tradition of the Catholic church states that three parishes attained early prominence, Rome as the seat of Bishop Peter, Alexandria, of St. Mark, and Antioch by St. Barnabas. Jerusalem was also prominent but only until 70 AD, when the Romans razed the city after the Bar Kochba revolts and founded Aelia Capolitania, some distance away.Benkenobi18 (talk) 22:44, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Are there any objections to the text proposed above?

--Richard S (talk) 23:34, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

I can't see anything wrong with this. But does that mean everyone is happy with the "Early Christianity" section? Because of all the changes there is some duplication between the two. Or do you want to deal with Roman Empire first, and then cut duplications from EC?Xandar 00:48, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
Oh yuck... you're right. The two sections "Early Christianity" and "Roman Empire" are a mess and I admit that I contributed to this. I have taken a stab at resolving this issue by reworking these two sections here. I have not changed any of the text but simply rearranged it and deleted some of the duplicated text. If we can agree that this is an improvement over the existing text, I propose we put my version in over what's there now and then edit forward from there. I am open to losing the subsection headings. I just put them there as an outline to help me develop the flow of ideas. --Richard S (talk) 02:07, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
The text is fine. It puts all the evangelizing on the Apostles. The Apostles evangelized to Jews. Then a new guy (Paul) came along and evangelized to the Gentiles and told those Gentiles to evangelize, etc. But it's a good start and should go in. Also, defenders of minority opinions always want editing to go slower so that their POV lasts longer. You don't always have to go at their speed. Leadwind (talk) 04:15, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
Paul is regularly counted as an extra apostle.
The church in India claims to have been founded by the apostle Thomas. While there's no real evidence for this, you can't rule out the possibility that some of the apostles evangelized outside the Empire. Peter jackson (talk) 11:24, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
I would say it was a strong probablity.
On Richard's version, I see no significant problems with it. Two minor points: The section on persecutions has information repeated. And the subheading "State religion of the Roman Empire" could be united with "Prominence of the Roman Church", on the grounds that we are getting too many subheadings. Xandar 22:46, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Ecumenical councils

Another contribution of mine that got reverted read as follows:

After the legalization of Christianity, a number of doctrinal disputes led to the calling of ecumenical councils. The doctrinal formulations resulting from these ecumenical councils were pivotal in the history of Christianity. The first seven Ecumenical Councils, from the First Council of Nicaea (325) to the Second Council of Nicaea (787), sought to reach an orthodox consensus and to establish a unified Christendom. All the seven councils were held in the East, specifically in Anatolia.
The First Council of Nicaea enunciated the Nicene Creed which was seen as the touchstone of orthodoxy on the doctrine of the Trinity. The Assyrian Church of the East rejected the Council of Ephesus (431). The Oriental Orthodox churches recognise the first three and consider the Second Council of Ephesus (449) to be the Fourth Ecumenical Council.[citation needed] The Roman Catholic Church rejects the Quinisext Council which attempted to establish the Pentarchy.
Johnbod made a snide comment about the quality of the writing. I accept this criticism as valid. Most of this text was extracted from Seven ecumenical councils and History of the Orthodox Church. The original text has an Orthodox slant to it which I tried to remove with partial success. I also made some attempt to improve the prose style but there's only so much you can do without rewriting the text altogether and I didn't have time or energy for that.
Obviously, the text needs more work; however, as I indicated in an earlier comment, I think our current text is deficient because it glosses over the seven ecumenical councils and only mentions the Council of Nicaea as if it was the only one that really mattered. IMO, the Council of Nicaea needs to be understood in the context of the seven councils and so we should present that background to the reader if only in summary form.
--Richard S (talk) 01:20, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
Richard, honestly I'd summarize this even shorter, but most of the article has too much information per section, so it's by no means out of place. These councils clearly pertain to the CC's nature. Why would someone revert your text? Leadwind (talk) 04:02, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
I would disagree about the importance of the Ecumenical councils. It's essential to the growth and development of the Catholic church after Constantine. Where I would take out is the section on "restored orthodoxy", which implies division existing prior to the council. This is not so. They were all one church, which is why the council was 'ecumenical' or universal. They had to reach an agreement based upon the present dispute, and the decision made determined where the split would be drawn. Each of the splits came to define what the Catholic church would be, and even though they don't have much press in the western world, they have huge significance to the Church as a whole. Benkenobi18 (talk) 23:13, 3 December 2009 (UTC)
I replaced most of the text. The details of the local schisms aren't necessary, I think. The Trinity, for example, warrants a lot more ink than these schisms. Leadwind (talk) 04:07, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
As a comment, I would use Nestorian here. It is a matter of POV whether the "Nestorian heresy" and the "Assyrian Church of the East" are the same thing; but if they are distinct, what we mean here is the Nestorians.
But this may indeed be excessive detail for this article; the Roman Church is not now struggling against the Assyrians and the Copts. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 06:45, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
The Council of Nicaea didn't enunciate what is usually but mistakenly called the Nicene Creed. That was the Council of Constantinople. Peter jackson (talk) 11:22, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
I've reworded the text to indicate that the core text of the Nicene Creed was promulgated by the First Council of Nicaea but that the text evolved afterwards. The fact that the "final" version (modulo the Filioque) was promulgated by the Council of Constantinople is a relatively minor detail that need not be presented in this article. --Richard S (talk) 23:12, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
I think if you look into it you'll find that scholars aren't agreed on whether the C creed is a revision of the N one, or an independent branch of the same family. Peter jackson (talk) 11:34, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Macmillan Encyclopedia of Religion, 1987, vol 4, p 143: "Until modern times, it was traditionally assumed that the so-called Nicene Creed was the creed promulgated by the Council of Nicaea ... as revised by the Council of Constantinople ... Especially since the researches of Eduard Schwartz ... the tradition has been generally abandoned, but much scholarly disagreement remains. Perhaps tradition does right in linking the Nicene Creed with the Council of Constantinople; hence modern scholarship designates it "the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed" ... But it does not seem to have been a mere revision of the creed promulgated at Nicaea ... rather, the two creeds must be said to belong to a common Eastern type ..."

Oxford Companion to Christian Thought, 2000, p 145: "Our Nicene Creed, though not the actual creed adopted at the Council of Nicaea, belongs to the same family of creeds ... Its precise origin is obscure. The Council of Chalcedon ... refers to it as the creed of the second Ecumenical Council of Constantinople ... though its exact relation to that council is not clear. Like the creed of the Council of Nicaea therefore, it is a development of a typical baptismal creed of the eastern church ..."

Oxford Encyclopedia of Christianity, 2005, p 301: "... creed passed by the ... Council of Nicaea ... Some of its contents were later incorporated into another creed asociated with the second ecumenical council ..."

Peter jackson (talk) 11:51, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Consensus and FACs

Given that NancyHeise and I disagree on whether an archived FAC can determine any consensus for the inclusion of specific text or sources, I've opened a discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Featured_article_candidates#Consensus_and_.28archived.29_FACs. Although the question is framed for reviewers, I encourage any interested parties here to share their perspective there as well. If there is a large disconnect between the opinions of reviewers and that of nominators, FAC may need a better education campaign. Karanacs (talk) 20:14, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

I think this is an abuse of your position as FAC assistant. Someone other than yourself should have been recruited to ask the question and it should not have specified the Catholic Church article. NancyHeise talk 21:16, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
I will note that delegates frequently ask questions at WT:FAC to get a range of opinions from reviewers. However, I very specifically noted in the question that I was speaking as a reviewer (I still frequently review articles, and am, of course, recused from closing those I have reviewed). If you feel that any particular wording I used was inappropriate, please bring it to my attention and I will attempt to fix it. Karanacs (talk) 21:35, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
Speaking as someone uninvolved except for an interest in promoting a collegial editing environment and a vague surprise that a top-importance article has never passed FA, questions raised as generalities tend to get shot down quickly as either evasive or a waste of time. Participation at this talkpage is about what I would expect based on other similarly prominent articles (I expect that there are a number of people following or half-following these threads as well), but a thread neutrally requesting further participation should be appropriate to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Catholicism if the consensus-building process in the above section is insufficient. - 2/0 (cont.) 21:42, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

The consensus at the FAC talk page is that the notion that any text is set in stone because it may or may not have been reviewed at FAC is incorrect, both for FACs that pass and even more so for those that are archived.[45] This argument should not be used to stifle discussion on this talk page. If anyone wants to dispute the interpretation of the reviewers, please do so now. Otherwise, this meme that FAC has produced a consensus on text needs to disappear quietly; further invocations of this should be considered stonewalling. Karanacs (talk) 03:10, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Karanacs, no one has alleged that "text is set in stone" because of past FAC and peer reviews. What FAC and peer reviews tell us is what Readers want to see in the article. WP:Consensus also states that silence on an issue can be construed as consent so if a FAC reviewer puts their stamp of approval on the article as so many did in the last FAC, I think we can be fairly certain that they were happy with the article text. Your proposal above does not just trim a very important section, it eliminates important facts necessary to cover the situation appropriately enough to meet the requirements of FAC regarding criticisms. My effort to point you to previous FACs and peer reviews was to show you that this issue has been substantially reviewed before and arrived at current text. I want to respect that past effort but I see that you feel otherwise. As I said before, I am open to rewording, I am not open to eliminating basic facts necessary to meet FAC requirements regarding criticisms and WP:NPOV. It seems that your definition of NPOV is to eliminate the Catholic POV altogether in this instance. That is just another example of why I said you are a very pov editor to this page, you have done this before but are consistently overruled in your efforts and you seem to get upset with me when that happens as if I am the only editor on the page disagreeing with you. I wonder if this page has a chance at FAC if you are in a position to vet it, I am going to ask Raul to consider your extreme involvement with this page if we are going to put it up for FAC again. I don't see how you can be considered an independent person with regard to this page and you should not be in a position of authority over its FAC process. NancyHeise talk 03:40, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
"silence on an issue can be construed as consent so if a FAC reviewer puts their stamp of approval on the article as so many did in the last FAC, I think we can be fairly certain that they were happy with the article text." That premise has now been explicitly rejected by the good people at WT:FAC. Surely you're not going to persist with it even now? Hesperian 03:48, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Silence and consensus. I did not write this, I am just reiterating some agreed policies here. NancyHeise talk 04:06, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
And I'm telling you that your interpretation of those "agreed policies" with respect to FAC review has been explicitly rejected by the good people at WT:FAC. Surely you're not going to persist with it even now? Hesperian 04:17, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
And, for the record, it would be helpful if you would bother to read the policies you like to misquote. Maybe start with the first sentence:
"Consensus can be presumed to exist until voiced disagreement becomes evident." (my emphasis)
or this one:
"... sometimes it is best to assume that silence implies consensus. You can continue to hold that assumption (hopefully safely) until someone comes along and changes the page by editing or reverting." (my emphasis)
or this one:
"Where a decision is based mostly on silence, it is especially important to remember that consensus can change."
All in all, there is nothing on this page that can be reasonably interpreted as saying that a previous discussion's silence can trump a present voiced objection. Hesperian 04:23, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
There was substantial discussion on the paragraph in question. The silence we are talking about is all the FAC reviewers who supported the page for FA or opposed it for specific reasons that did not mention the para in question. We are not saying that everyone who ever came to the article remained silent regarding this para. The wording was arrived through great discussion. NancyHeise talk 04:37, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
Make up your mind; Jeez. Hesperian 04:54, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
The talk page discussion at FAC has categorically rejected your argument, Nancy. Those are the reviewers we are talking about, and if they didn't intend to imply consensus for something, then it is disingenuous of you to suggest that they did. Please also note that WP:Silence and consensus is an essay, not a guideline or policy and is supplemented with Wikipedia:Silence means nothing. Karanacs (talk) 14:24, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Please provide a link to this alleged "substantial discussion", so all of us can see what it says. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 06:38, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

I had FAC on my watchlist for a few weeks (I think) & looked in on a number of discussions. Not infrequently I came across someone repeating the motto of the Wikipedia system: "We don't do content. SEP." It looks to me as if people involved in FAC tend not to consider it their job to decide whether an article is biased. Karanacs may correct this. Peter jackson (talk) 11:46, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
If you look at any of the FACs for this article you should find them a refreshing change then, or try a current one like Castle. It is true, and much commented on at the talk page, that FAC is increasingly dominated by technical reviews (once too lax) and short of content reviews, but you are very wrong to think that "people involved in FAC tend not to consider it their job to decide whether an article is biased". Johnbod (talk) 13:53, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
Part of the FA criteria is that the article should be neutral. That does not necessarily mean, however, that every reviewer checks for that - not all reviewers check for each criteria (there are a lot of criteria). It is also standard for a reviewer who opposes to list a subset of issues that (s)he found - it is often impossible to make a fully comprehensive list. Thus, if an opposer does not mention a particular section of the article, it does not mean that the opposer would not find issues with that section, just that they have already identified enough issues to justify their oppose. In all of the previous FACs for this article, reviewers have opposed on the basis of POV text, and quite a few cited the paragraph oon sex abuse (among others). Karanacs (talk) 14:24, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
Some reviewers do content - some don't; Karanacs (and myself) fall in the first category. Content reviewing is rare, however, because even reviewers who are interested in doing it must also know the specific subject of the article. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:03, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

I see that all discussion of sexual abuse by priests in Ireland has been removed. There appears to be a strong effort here to remove or minimise any thing which might seem to be critical of the Catholic Chruch. The sexual abuse scandal in Ireland has had a major effect in reducing the power and authority of the church in Ireland and recent evidence of its attempt to cover up the scandal, while doing nothing to prtect the children will re-inforce this. Ireland will have changed from being one of the church's strongest outposts in Europe to being a largely agonistic county. From this point of view alone, the issue merits coverage, but those of us who are indifferent (at best) to the fate of the church have less time and energy to keep restoring information which the guardians of the church continue to remove. So be it!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Epzcaw (talk • contribs) 14:22, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Before complaining, how about reading the section "coverage of sex abuse cases" on the talk page and seeing why it isn't being mentioned. You will see that the wording is being worked out in a way that doesn't include recentism, undue weight, etc. as it pertains to an article on a 2000 year old institution. If you are looking for articles on that there are several related to it.Marauder40 (talk) 14:34, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
Just came by to post an FYI - Wikipedia was discussed at the Vatican with a Wikimedia employee - story here [46] NancyHeise talk 19:22, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
I note the phrase to present the Gospel in this context is probably a challenge for the Church. It should not be; we are not a medium for anybody's evangelism. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:01, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Infobox

Per WP:IBX, an infobox in this article is essential. If some fields are controversial or hard to determine, let's omit those fields until a consensus can be established here; but the infobox itself is much needed. —Eustress talk 16:50, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Golly, where to begin. First, the article already has a template at top which has been the topic of much discussion. Second, if we were to add additional templates we should consider existing ones, such as the Christianity template. Third, it would have been a good idea for you to have discussed adding it before plopping it onto the top of the article. And some of the labels you've applied are awfully odd, such as the designation Counter-Reformationist. And ... there is no absolute requirement that the article has to have this infobox. So I'd suggest removing it for the moment. It will be best to discuss whether or not additional templates, banners, infoboxes, etc. should be added and gain consensus first. Cheers, Majoreditor (talk) 17:20, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
Infoboxes are standard inclusions on Wikipedia and a guideline from WP Christianity. The other templates (like {{Roman Catholicism}}) are superfluous. Discussion on inclusion is not needed, only discussion about the individual fields. However, edit wars are no fun, so a tag on the article will have to suffice for now. (Interested editors can see proposed infobox here.) —Eustress talk 18:13, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
Thanks, I agree that edit wars aren't fun. And I think that most editors are supportive of the general concept of using an infobox. Given the ... er ... dynamics of this article it will be best to propose one first and gain consensus before adding it to the article. Eustress, would it be helpful to create a sub-page which displays proposed infoboxes for this article? Cheers, Majoreditor (talk) 18:32, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
Sounds like a plan. Let's work it out at Talk:Catholic Church/Infobox. —Eustress talk 18:41, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
This new proposed infobox is no use at all - Majoreditor's comments on the oddness of the information are "awfully" understated! Johnbod (talk) 19:38, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
It's not a bad thing if editors try to develop an infobox, provided that consensus supports it and that it's done in a transparent manner. While not all articles on Christian denominations have one (ie, the Orthodox Church article doesn't), many others have them. Some denominations use custom boxes, such as that for the Church of England. I have absolutely no preference at the moment whether we use one or not, but we shouldn't discourage constructive discussion or new ideas from outside editors like Eustress. Majoreditor (talk) 19:51, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
There is no mandatory need for a separate infobox. The MOS is guidance, not policy, and doesn't state this as a must anyway. What we have is a navigation template that also functions as an infobox, outlining the relevant fields of knowledge, providing the necessary links. The reason this was done was to avoid the duplication involved in having a separate infobox and navigation template, and also to avoid the page clutter and unprofessional look of having the navigation template lower down in the article. Articles on similar topics like Anglican Communion, Islam, and Buddhism operate under the same system. Xandar 23:38, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
Eustress has indicated that s/he's placing efforts to add an infobox on hold for the time. We can resume discussion whenever someone wishes. Cheers, Majoreditor (talk) 17:37, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Admins only

This seems a rather silly edit to me, and a sillier edit summary. The Protestant Reformation is is only indirectly part of the subject of this article, unlike the Counter-Reformation, so any question of "balance" (ie weight) is inappropriate in this context. And calling the latter "substantial" is hardly controversial. personally I think it rather bad form for admins to add their personal little undiscussed changes while the page is protected. Must remember to revert. Johnbod (talk) 02:24, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't see any issues with the edit; I agree that we shouldn't be editing the page at all right now. Does Bishonen realize it's protected? Karanacs (talk) 02:30, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
WRT to the Catholic perspective, I cannot see why the Council of Trent and surrounding issues, (ie all the protestant churches) is any more significant than any of the other ecumenical councils, or the split with the Orthodox. While the issue is more significant to the west, the Catholic church is simply not just a western institution. Benkenobi18 (talk) 22:52, 3 December 2009 (UTC)
Most people don't come to the talk page to see what's going on first. I imagine he didn't know the issue was in a fiery dispute. Lets give the benefit of the doubt here. :P Farsight001 (talk) 02:58, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
There was no dispute in that part of the forest. Johnbod (talk) 04:11, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
There ought to have been. Substantial here is a WP:PEACOCK word; it adds no claim of fact to the sentence Bishonen left. Bishonen read it as an implication that the Protestant Reformation was insubstantial; that is not an implausible reading, and there is every likelihood that some other readers would make it.
  • Does anyone claim that there is even a wisp of contention, in the real world, that Luther and Calvin did not make substantial changes to their respective Churches?
  • What benefit is there to leaving in the suggestion that Wikipedia is stupid enough to think so? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 06:31, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
I would assume good faith on Bishonen's part and assume that she did not know that the page was protected and/or did not think her edit was controversial. I think it's clear now that there is controversy over the word "substantial". I tend to read the sentence as intending to assert that the Counter-Reformation was not insubstantial. However, I can see how some people would read it to assert that the Counter-Reformation was substantial and the Reformation was not. Let's focus on discussing the content question and let go of the process question of whether Bishonen should have made the edit in the first place. --Richard S (talk) 06:47, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
The edit was based on a misreading as the text said "its own substantial". This indicates that *both* the Protestant Reformation *and* the Counter-Reformation" were "substantial" - not that only the CR was so. Afterwriting (talk) 11:34, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
Indeed, and as at said at the top, the CR is part of the subject of this article and the PR is not, in itself, so looking for "balance" in coverage of them here is just wrong. Even if this were a general history article, it is surely common knowledge that to call the PR "substantial reform" would be a massive understatement, whereas the CR is far less well-known, justifying a "substantial" for emphasis. Johnbod (talk) 13:58, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
One would think, from this, that the difference here was whole sentences on the Reformation (let us, among ourselves, speak English and distinguish between the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation); it is not: Bishonen's edit removed one vague word, which was an evaluation, not a claim of fact.
Bishonen may well have read the text contrary to the author's intent; but a text which a literate editor can misread will be misread, in the same way, by some of our intended audience. Text which can be misread as a view not actually held by our sources is undesirable - for that reason alone. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:59, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
  • (e/c) I saw that the article was protected, certainly. I didn't indeed think my change was controversial; I thought it an uncontroversial improvement. A copyedit, you know? And explained in the edit summary. No, I didn't bother to check the talkpage, I'm afraid; it just didn't strike me as likely that "substantial" would be a hot topic, and, in any case, how hard would it be to revert it? (As was promptly done.) The reason I came to this article, and started reading it, was the discussion on WT:FAC. It gave me the impression editors here were interested in making the article an FA, which of course would involve making it neutral. Somebody like me—uninterested not only in Catholicism, but in religion altogether—has, modestly speaking, a small but specialized usefulness for such matters; a different kind of eye for religious POV than either Catholics or anti-Catholics. Since the posts above have made it clear my assistance was unwelcome, I'll go somewhere else—I don't copyedit for the intoxicating pleasure of annoying people.
  • I'm a little amused by the notion that my edit was "based on a misreading", because the "substantial process" supposedly refers to the Protestant reformation, too. "Its own substantial process", note. I'm sorry, but you've got to be kidding me. That's just grammatically and semantically absurd. I'll buy that my edit was based on a miswriting, if you like. :-) Bishonen | talk 17:02, 2 December 2009 (UTC).
No harm was done. Perhaps you could have chosen a better time to come by and clean up POV when the article was not locked with a heated dispute taking place on the talk page : p FYI, editors here are interested in making the page FA and some of us think the article is already neutral but others do not and their efforts to make it neutral do not appear neutral to other editors - so around we go again! Good thing its just a fun hobby or else we could really get frustrated here : ) NancyHeise talk 19:25, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
Fortunately, one of the merits of FA is that it is difficult to get a blatantly biased article on a well-known subject promoted; but I suppose some editors will keep on trying. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:58, 3 December 2009 (UTC)
One of the failings of FA is that it is virtually impossible to get an article on any major subject that attracts controversy promoted. This is a structural problem with the process. I think like Admin promotion, something like 70% approval should be enough, rather than the current near-unanimity. Xandar 22:58, 3 December 2009 (UTC)
Evolution and Intelligent design have been featured. If they can make it, there is hope for any article. I will note that it took a lot fewer FA attempts than this article has undergone, which may have something to do with a willingness to actually listen to feedback from reviewers. Karanacs (talk) 15:05, 4 December 2009 (UTC)
Karanacs, I think it took this page so many attempts because I was still a green editor during the first attempts. I have to say that I learned a lot from those. The latest FAC had 25 supports and nine opposes. Several of the supports had previously been opposers. Some of the opposers opposed the article even after we substantially added the info they were asking for (Taam, Ioannes Pragensis). Other opposers asked for a complete rewrite to adhere to their own personal vision of what they thought the article should look like. One of those, Marskell had some very good points that we were going to implement and still want to implement but the article got bogged down in a 9 month-long dispute about the name. This was resolved after a successful mediation that resulted in changing the name of the article to Catholic Church from Roman Catholic Church. If there were no hope for this article to become featured, we would not be here working on it. Unfortunately some very unkind and heated exchanges occured on this page between editors that created a battleground mentality. I do not forsee much progress happening on the page until all editors can learn to treat each other with civility. Listening goes both ways. NancyHeise talk 04:03, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
Marskell's suggestions were to trim and remove the arguments, on all sides; thus reducing this article to just the consensus facts, not the apologetics now present - nor anti-clerical polemics either. This is what is proposed immediately above about the sex abuse scandal, and what our ultramontane editors have resisted and refused; it is fundamentally the issue on all the conflicts on this page.
Those who want this article to proclaim their point of view and to be worthy of FA want what is contrary to policy and to the dictates of common intellectual honesty. This article could easily be FA if Nancy, and a handful of others, would either listen to advice or let somebody else have a turn at it.


I offer this as a modest proposal, which would indeed work; failing that, let me know when this comes ArbCom, which is demonstrably prepared to ban single purpose accounts disruptively imposing a point of view; they have not looked kindly on wikilawyering, use of Wikipedia as a political medium, nor on misrepresentation of sources. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:58, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
  • Sept, calling other editors "ultramontane" and single purpose accounts violates WP:assume good faith. Please refrain from name calling and threats. We are trying to improve the working atmosphere on this page which can only happen if all sides follow the rules of WP:civil. I would like to be able to work with you in this manner.
  • I would like to participate in a trim of the article that is representative of the Wikipedia cooperative process. Wikipedia's featured articles must meet Featured Article Criteria [47]. Complete elimination of different POV's of major controversies and scholarly disputes would violate that criteria. Certainly a trim is doable but we also have to be able to meet basic FAC criteria which also requires context.
  • Marskell's ideas were doable but there are some differences between the Islam page and this one. Islam is a whole religion, not an institution. Its history is much shorter than that of the Catholic Church. Because Islam is not an institution, it does not promulgate papal letters or involve itself in politics. If we were doing the article on Christianity, we might be able to compare with Islam.
  • The article has become bloated since the last peer review. In that peer review, the size was agreed to be reasonable at that time. Attention to the 34 FAC reviewer's comments resulted in bloating the article and some of those comments may need to be revisited and perhaps ignored because they were asking for too much detail and I would like to do that. Richard has also added several paragraphs to the article as well. There is a very large note on slavery, lots of info on Soviet Union during WWII and some bloating in the Early Church period as well. We can keep all this information if editors want this but we could easily trim it and say the same things in a more concise way. We could also mention it and wikilink to the Church and slavery, persecution of the Church in Soviet Union etc.
  • Certain controversies in the Church are very notable, one of those is the sexual abuse controversy. I think it would help if all editors read the FAC criteria and the policy on WP:NPOV before becoming involved in future discussion on trimming. We have to avoid the appearance of creating POV forks [48] when trying to meet WP:summary style. I also think it would help if editors read Marskell's suggestions [49] at the last FAC to understand what he was asking. He was not asking for a drastic elimination of article text but rewording to help improve neutral tone. NancyHeise talk 19:30, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
    • At this point, I don't think it necessary for me to read the FAC criteria again ;) I wholeheartedly agree that the history section should be ruthlessly rewritten until it is much shorter and focuses on broader trends rather than a series of incidents. As PMAnderson states, the history section should be restricted to bare facts without the polemics on either side (Haldraper's suggestion above is an excellent example of how to portray a controversial issue such as the sex scandals in this manner). Karanacs (talk) 21:48, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
      • I don't do many reviews, so I probably would have to review them. Having said that, this article, like a lot of others, has so many child articles that virtually any section could be reasonably shortened and covered it greater detail in the relevant child article. I also tend to agree the history section is probably a bit long. Individual incidents can be covered extensively in the History of the Catholic Church article. Slavery and World War II are also probably overrepresented, as neither is especially relevant to the subject itself.
      • God help us, but I think this might be a case where the WP:WPOOK might be useful for article development as well jokes about the Librarian (Discworld). For something this huge and convoluted, it might work best to get some consensus on an outline of what should be covered specifically in this article first, and then proceeding from there. That is, of course, provided that hasn't already been tried. I acknowledge I don't frequent this page as much as I could, so I don't remember right off there. John Carter (talk) 22:26, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
Good suggestion - "get some consensus on an outline of what should be covered specifically in this article first, and then proceeding from there." I agree to shortening the history section. I don't think any of the other sections are too long. NancyHeise talk 23:03, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
My thoughts, FWIW, given the undoubted need to lose a lot of length, & based on a quickish survey:
  • "God the Father, creation, and original sin" section - trim on Fall of Man
    "Eucharist" - trim a few lines
    "Tertiaries and Oblates" - just a couple of sentences needed, collapse into section above
    "Membership" - tighten by 30% or more
    "Cultural influence" - tighten say by 20%
    "History" - Generally I don't think there is enormous scope for reducing length before the 19th century if we are to have a meaningful section on history, except in places (too much on English Reformation) but a lot in the 20th century. The "present" section has far too much on Papal activity, & should be rewritten & much shorter.
    Those notes should go somewhere - to other pages if they are not there already. Johnbod (talk) 16:56, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Spelling

Organisation or Organization? Melara... (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 01:04, 8 December 2009 (UTC).

See WP:ENGVAR. This article now consistently uses the American organization; are there traces of British English? We should not switch; this Church exists in all English-speaking countries, and well enough should be left alone.
Least of all on this, where British English is divided; the OED retains the etymological zed. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 06:59, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
Really? I thought 'z' (pron: 'zee' rather than 'zed') was the preserve of our American cousins :-) Haldraper (talk) 09:16, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
Look up any of the words concerned in the OED; while -s- has become more common in British English since James Murray, it cannot be called universal. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:13, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
See Oxford spelling. Johnbod (talk) 18:34, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Divorce

In the "Cultural influence" section, it is stated "Over the course of its history, Christianity has improved the status of women by condemning infanticide (female infanticide was more common), divorce, incest, polygamy and counting the marital infidelity of men as equally sinful to that of women." Surely the statement that condemning divorce has improved the status of women is POV? One of the most often voiced criticisms of the church is that its prohibition of divorce and remarriage is unreasonable and inhumane. Krakatoa (talk) 17:59, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Well spotted. Some of the other things are equally POV: banning polygamy did not for instance automatically 'improve the status of women', they can obviously still be oppressed whether or not their husband has other wives. Not sure how we can fix it, I'll post a pov tag in the meantime.Haldraper (talk) 18:13, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
By making neither case? Any statement on the influence of Roman Catholicism on the West is an expression of emotion; to become even a claim of fact, we would have to have some notion of what the West would be if the Church had never existed. This is one side of the coin; the case against the Church is equally old, equally rhetorical, and equally vacuous.
We serve the reader by providing materials for such a debate; talking points (unless they are consensus, and none of these are) are not our business. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:21, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
(ec) That was brought up in a previous FAC nomination, and "improved" was changed to "affected". This was later changed back (I believe text was copied from another article into here), and when I re-edited it to say "affected" Xandar reverted me. I was unwilling to edit-war over it, as I believe the entire section needs more work. I tried to address this a while ago but discussion was so focused on the origins and now sex scandals paragraphs that this got lost. See Talk:Catholic_Church/Archive_36#Cultural_influence_section_concerns and Talk:Catholic_Church/Archive_36#Cultural_influence_section (which had proposed text). I'd be happy to pull both of these out of the archive (or repost a proposal). Karanacs (talk) 18:23, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
I realize that this article has a very long and contentious history, the vast majority of which I am unfamiliar with. The two sentences about the Church's "Cultural Influence" regarding women are: "Over the course of its history, Christianity has improved the status of women by condemning infanticide (female infanticide was more common), divorce, incest, polygamy and counting the marital infidelity of men as equally sinful to that of women.[222][223][227] The official Church teaching[228] considers women and men to be equal, different, and complementary." This whole discussion seems POV, ignoring the fact that many feminists consider the Catholic Church antithetical to women's interests because it forbids divorce, contraception and abortion, and allows only men to serve in positions of authority. Krakatoa (talk) 19:19, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
This whole discussion seems POV. So it does, as indeed it is. Furthermore the point of view being fostered by this one-sided discussion is one the Church expressly denies: that the Church should be judged by modern standards (and is successful at meeting them). As Yorkshirian points out far above, that is contrary to papal declarations. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:26, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Krakatoa - the Catholic Church has existed for 2000 years and will be here until the end of time. "Feminism" and its Marxist derived worldview is in the grand scheme of things, an inconsequental fad from the 1960s Culture Wars. What such insurgents "consider" is ultimately of little consequence to the larger existence of the Catholic Church and its overall presentation for an encyclopedia IMO. They do not constitute the major body of females on earth for a start, merely a non-permanent fringe of decadent liberal "democratic" societies.

If we started to list in detail what every flavour-of-the-month trend, in a limited geographical frame claimed in passing about the Church, then this article would be never ending, unclear and impossible to read. While I agree that this section should simply present the Church doctrine of women's role; some basic comparison to the standard of women vis-à-vis pagan societies may be valid. Ultimately I think the best thing to do is present "what the Church is" and then just let the reader decide for themselves, whether its positions are positive or negative. As for "positions of authority", saints Catherine of Siena, Teresa of Ávila and Thérèse of Lisieux are recognised as Doctors of the Church. - Yorkshirian (talk) 01:28, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

So the Catholic Church "will be here until the end of time," while feminism is "an inconsequental fad" and a "flavour-of-the-month." Nothing POV there. Krakatoa (talk) 02:53, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
I think we look at all history through the lens of the present. That is one reason why we expect more modern sources, and don't rely on 15th-century writings. I would also strongly dispute that the "feminist" perspective is "fringe". However, for NPOV purposes it is important that this article not make a judgement as to whether the Church positions are good or bad. Instead, we should present enough facts to allow readers to decide whether they want more information in one of the more detailed articles. I don't actually see a need for this article to even tie this information to the "status of women". It should be enough to state some of the Church positions that were departures from societal norms and let the reader infer who those positions would have helped/harmed. Karanacs (talk) 03:23, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
Don't rise to it Krakatoa, Yorkshirian couldn't write NPOV if his life depended on it.Haldraper (talk) 08:40, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
Thanks, Haldraper. I was amused to see that Yorkshirian wrote on his user page of the present article, "I am happy to have collaborated on getting this article to reach GA status." I suppose if it's a Featured Article in his head, that's what's important. Krakatoa (talk) 11:08, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
I would like to remind editors here that we are trying to maintain an atmosphere of civility in accordance with WP:civil. This supposes that we treat all editors with respect and omit curt comments about others that are meant to mock and offend. NancyHeise talk 17:09, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
The agreement at the last FAC was to change the word "improved" to "affected" and thus leave judgement to the reader as to whether or not these societal changes were improvements or not. I am in favor of that agreement to use the word "affected" because it is NPOV. NancyHeise talk 17:05, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
I just saw that the article text uses the work "influenced" instead of "improved" or "affected". I think that is an OK word too. NancyHeise talk 17:06, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
Nancy, yes I inserted 'influenced' as a NPOV alternative. Maybe I should have taken my own advice to Krakatoa and not 'risen to' Yorkshirian's rant. Then again, maybe you should be consistent and remind him to be civil when he describes women who believe in equal rights as "a non-permanent fringe of decadent liberal "democratic" societies." Haldraper (talk) 18:19, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
Point taken, Nancy. I agree that "influenced" is a good word. Krakatoa (talk) 18:28, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Can anyone comment on the proposal to strip out any reference to who was affected and just explain some of the positions the Church took that were in the face of existing practices? Karanacs (talk) 17:28, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

The scholarly sources point to the cultural impact of Christianity on the life of women, a major event in the history of the world that up until that time never heard of monogamy or considered women equal to men. "Strip" this out and we lose the core of the message offered by scholars on the subject at hand. This would violate FAC criteria. NancyHeise talk 18:13, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
This is a summary article. The key point should be that the Church has had a tremendous impact on all sorts of aspects of life, not that the Church had an impact on this particular group of people. And why single out one single group? I'm sure I can find lots of scholarly sources that talk about the Church's impact on children, or men, or people of X race or of Y caste. It also leads us into needing to explain how the church impacted a group, which is a surefire way to ensure we spend the next several months debating how to construct an NPOV way to describe that. It would be much more powerful - and much more NPOV - to state what the Church did rather than spend too much time on why this was important/who was impacted. Focusing on the historian's opinion rather than the facts is not the way to go. Karanacs (talk) 18:23, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
The Cultural Impact sentences you want to "strip" are referenced to three university textbooks, Thomas Bokenkotter's A Concise History of the Catholic Church, Peter Stark's The Rise of Christianity, and Thomas Noble's Western Civilization. All three of these univeristy textbooks describe the Church's cultural impact the way we have presented in the article. Your suggestion is WP:OR and is asking us to ignore modern scholarship that is the most widely accepted mainstream view of the subject matter in that section. NancyHeise talk 18:40, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
  • This is especially silly because there is a genuine consensus that the Roman system of divorce, which the Christians reformed away, was a gain for women; it effectively nullified patria potestas.
  • But now I look at this text afresh, it is off topic. The subject of the contested sentence is Christianity, which has an article of its own. Any favorable statement which is true of Christianity as a whole should be there, rather than being repeated under each Christian denomination; this would apply even to assertion which were consensus and even-handed, and this is neither. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:53, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
That's not according to the sources which point to the Catholic Church and are discussing its cultural impact. We are following the sources which happen to be the best possible sources we could hope to obtain for a Wikipedia article. The Roman system of divorce was such that a man could divorce his wife at any time for any reason and leave her out on the street and no one else would marry her. Women could not do the same. This is brought out in our sources particularly Peter Stark. NancyHeise talk 19:00, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
I don't believe you; you have misquoted, miscited, and misrepresented sources too often to be taken at your discredited word. Were Nancy accurate for once (it must happen some time, if only by chance), the sentence should represent what the sources do say, and is wrong anyway. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:05, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
The sentences were peer reviewed by user:Ealdgyth among many others in the last peer review. The last FAC examined the section as well and did not conclude that the sentences misrepresented the sources. If you have a specific accusation to make, let's see it, don't just post an accusation without backing it up with evidence. NancyHeise talk 19:10, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
Again, the same old tired claim; a FA reviewer didn't object to a particular passage, so it must be consensus. Please stop this now. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:13, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
I don't intend to get back into the thick of this again, but a couple of Nancy's statements are too erroneous to ignore. First, she claims that before the arrival of Christianity, the world had "never heard of monogamy". This is absolutely not true. The ancient Romans practiced monogamous marriage for centuries before the birth of Christ, and polygamy was considered by them to be scandalous and barbaric; in fact, this was one of the complaints they had against Judaism, which did allow polygamy even into the first century AD. Furthermore, monogamy has always been the predominant form of marriage throughout human history, as even the Catholic Encyclopedia admits. [50] Second, according to Nancy, "The Roman system of divorce was such that a man could divorce his wife at any time for any reason and leave her out on the street and no one else would marry her. Women could not do the same. This is brought out in our sources particularly Peter Stark." This is not at all what Stark says; as Nancy's own citation of Stark shows, he is referring to Athens, not Rome, and she has over-interpreted the case even with respect to Athens. Her claim is also contradicted, again, by the Catholic Encyclopedia, which states that in the early imperial era, "Women could obtain divorce without any fault of their husbands." [51] Furthermore, according to the same source, while the emergence of Christianity as the state religion did put some restrictions on the epidemic of Roman divorce, subsequent Christian emperors liberalized it again, and by the sixth century "divorce by mutual consent" was legalized, and remained legal for the next three and a half centuries. Harmakheru ✍ 21:16, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

I did a lot of reading on marriage and the status of women as it relates to the Catholic Church teachings pre-17th century, and found really good information that is not represented here. I also found some information that may contradict a bit of what NancyHeise has presented above. One book on the history of marriage described how the Church changed the idea of marriage during the Gregorian Reforms. I suggest that the first paragraph of the Cultural influence section should be something like what I've put below Karanacs (talk) 20:32, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Early Church Fathers advocated against polygamy, abortion, infanticide, child abuse, homosexuality, transvestism, and incest.[4] By the late 11th century, beginning with the efforts of Pope Gregory VII, the Church successfully established itself as "an autonomous legal and political ... [entity] within Western Christendom".[5] For the next several hundred years, the Church held great influence over Western society;[5] church laws were the single "universal law ... common to jurisdictions and peoples throughout Europe", giving the Church "preeminent authority".[6] With its own court system, the Church retained jurisdiction over many aspects of ordinary life, including education, inheritance, oral promises, oaths, moral crimes, and marriage.[7] As one of the more powerful institutions of the Middle Ages, Church attitudes were reflected in many secular laws of the time.[8]

Sources used
  • Power, Eileen (1995), Postand, Michael Moissey (ed.), Medieval women, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0521595568
  • Witte, John (1997), From Sacrament to Contract: Marriage, Religion, and Law in the Western Tradition, Louisvill, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, ISBN 9780664255435

That is substantially about Roman Catholicism, and is not an effort to judge the twelfth century by our standards. As such I cannot object to it. (As a tweak, there must be a better verb than advocated against, although no replacement occurs to me right now.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:39, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Karanacs I appreciate the effort to put forth some wording instead of the edit warring approach offered by PMAnderson/Septentrionalis. I think this calls for a content RFC. This is a very sensitive subject that has had a lot of input from many editors, most of whom are not present at this discussion. I think the John Knox Press source is not the best suggestion - I think my sources were more neutral and more widely accepted in the academic world as mainstream. I think your paragraph is very POV and will not pass muster with many editors as it omits the facts brought forth in the more widely accepted sources used by universties. Please see these sources and quotes in the next section. [52]. NancyHeise talk 23:16, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
Witte isn't a bad source; he's well respected. Whether or not it's the best or only source to use is another question. Majoreditor (talk) 00:39, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
  1. ^ Davidson, p. 169, p. 181.
  2. ^ Wilkin, p. 283
  3. ^ Duffy, p. 35.
  4. ^ Witte (1997), p. 20.
  5. ^ a b Witte (1997), p. 23.
  6. ^ Witte (1997), p. 30.
  7. ^ Witte (1997), p. 31.
  8. ^ Power, p 1.
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