Talk:Augustinians

Major Reorganisation of Augustinians articles

It's difficult to grasp all the diverse members of the Augustinian family from this article. Perhaps someone who understands the great diversity can give a clear rundown of all the different branches and a link to articles which would discuss each major branch separately. A simple history telling when each different group arose would also be helpful. Jzsj (talk) 20:47, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

I am replying to this issue with some years of delay. I absolutely agree with you Jzsj; the article is confusing, redundant and does not follow what in the Church the term Augustinian refers to. I have abstained myself to make any major changes to Augustinians articles since 2009 for a possible conflict of interest with hopes that someone else can address this long dated problem. However, I think after 11 years of waiting, I will propose the changes and offer to execute them if no one else is willing to do it.

The problem is, in my opinion, the first paragraph of the article: "Augustinians are members of Christian religious orders that follow the Rule of Saint Augustine". This definition results open for an ambiguous interpretation because the Augustinian rule is the base for dozens and dozens of religious communities.

This mistake is also true for the mess that is the Augustinian categories and that I was trying to solve until Liz stopped me and reverted hours of work. Here there is an attempt to include as Augustinians all communities following the Augustinian Rule AND all communities that have Augustine/Augustinian in their name, which leads to much confusion.

It is my opinion that, to solve these issues, the article should be restructured as follows:

1. Augustinians: This article should be about what the Church often calls Augustinians. The term has traditionally applied first and foremost to the Order of St. Augustine (friars and nuns; OSA) as can be read frequently in the Vatican News (example) and the Catholic hierarchy.
2. Augustinian family: The Church also includes in the Augustinian family the two reformed communities of the original Order: The Augustinian Recollects and the Discalced Augustinians. We can see examples of this when the Pope invites the Augustinians superiors to an Audience and includes only these three Orders (article).
3. Augustinian canons (CRSA): This Order should be linked to a separate article in the About this article intro.
4. Augustinian names: The religious communities that share the Augustinian name, but are not related to the Order, such as the Augustinians of the Assumption, should be linked to a separate article in the About this article intro.
5. Augustinian Rule: All religious communities and institutes that are inspired and use the Augustinian Rule or part of it, should have its own separated article and be linked int the About this article intro. There is already an attempt to do this in Independent Augustinian communities started by Njamesdebien. A link to this article should be provided in About this article intro.
6. Augustinian categories: The same logical structure and organisation should apply to the Augustinian categories that currently have no logic or order.

Most of the information on this article is similar, already exists, or can be included in the Order's article. It could be beneficial to reduce the extent of this and enhance the main one, or, if the majority thinks it is logical, move all the information from the Order of St. Augustine here and leave Augustinians as the main article of the Order.

I think, in this way, we could reflect the real meaning and tradition of the Augustinian communities in the Church because at this moment we have fragmented, overlapping and confusing articles about the topic. Kaklen (talk) 09:59, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

I would encourage you to make such changes as these, in the interest of clarifying the situation as no one else seems ready, or as capable, of doing. Then if someone objects let them suggest here or edit out what they believe to be biased. Enough waiting for someone else to do it! This article has a very different purpose from that on the History of the OSAs, which seems quite narrow in its scope and is approaching the limit for desired length of articles; it is currently at 98.976 bytes. Jzsj (talk) 12:54, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

@Kaklen:​ Per Jzsj, I suggest you go ahead with this and fix it (since the changes you suggest are a lot more than can be handled by a simple edit request). If you could cite reliable sources for those statements that would be ideal. @Liz: Would you mind detailing your objections to the changes? It's a bit unhelpful reverting obvious good-faith changes without an explanative edit summary. Cheers, RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 16:24, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

I disagree with the change at this point to a degree. Part of the problem is the complexity of the topic. I have just noticed that the introduction to the Augustinians entry doesn't even list the monastic orders which follow the Rule of St. Augustine. This complexity can be expected from a range of lifestyles which are all based on a short 5th century document. To restrict the meaning of Augustinian to the main mendicant orders would be disrespecting the common source of this variety of orders and congregations, as it is a shared spirituality. Editing for further clarity is welcome, but I think the various orders have enough information to stand separately from a general introduction to the whole Augustinian family and the other expressions of this spirituality are as much authentic participants as they.Daniel the Monk (talk)

@Daniel the Monk: What communities or orders in particular are you thinking about? Of course, it is not my intention to disrespect or exclude anyone. Kaklen (talk) 17:11, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

@Kaklen:Apart from the canons regular, founded several centuries before the friars, there are the Bridgettines, the ancient and illustrious Hieronymites and the Paulines, all monastic orders, neither canons nor friars. Also to be remembered are the Brothers of St. John of God, who provide medical service worldwide, including the Vatican. That's only the men's groups. While I certainly don't object to subgrouping, it seems to me that to break them into completely separate categories doesn't respect their common bond, neither does giving the title purely to the OSA. While they have the numbers, neither history nor tradition gives them possesion of the name, as saying that they do not "belong" to the Order implies.

I would suggest that Augustinian Order be merged together with Augustinian, which might be a simpler way to get a handle on the different groups, as subcategories already exist.Daniel the Monk (talk)

You could also develop a new article for Augustinian (and Augustinians) that would function more in the manner of a disambiguation page, like Republican or Indian. This would require a greater openness to the manifold uses of the name, a more small d democratic approach, rather than the privileging how the Church uses the term first and foremost as is said above.

To put it more simply, this article should be about how the term Augustinian(s) is used in the world, not "about what the Church often calls Augustinians". Bmclaughlin9 (talk) 13:25, 9 December 2020 (UTC)