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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted by User:Raul654 16:52, 13 June 2008 [1].

Roman Catholic Church

[edit]

previous FAC (00:01, 18 March 2008)

Nominator NancyHeise (talk) 00:19, 7 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Nom restarted, old nom SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:23, 1 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Andrea may be an intermediate speaker of English and an expert on the article subject. I do not think that we should be placing notes like this under people's votes. NancyHeise (talk) 04:00, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
"under people's votes" - this isn't a vote. D.M.N. (talk) 12:35, 13 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment

Gary King (talk) 22:15, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Looks good, no major issues, although

  • "In the Catholic Church, a distinction is made between the formal," (entire paragraph) is unreferenced.
Thanks for pointing that out, I went back and added references. NancyHeise (talk) 23:14, 1 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • "helped".[117][82] Catholics " ascending order
Good eye - I corrected that one and rechecked the entire page for more (there were a couple of others that needed correcting). NancyHeise (talk) 23:14, 1 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • "he basic administrative unit of the Catholic Church is the diocese." unreferenced
Thanks again - referenced. NancyHeise (talk) 23:14, 1 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
These were random samples. I really admire your determination in bringing this through FAC and sticking with it. Great job! I hope to support this FAC soon.

Gary King (talk) 20:15, 1 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your comments. NancyHeise (talk) 23:14, 1 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support To reiterate: In my estimation, this article is well-written, comprehensive, factually accurate, and neutral. While I am not a fan of 'officially known as' in the lead, I have few stylistic concerns; the article is appropriately structured, and I like the distribution of the Nicene creed throughout -- that is a good solution to what had been an ongoing discussion. The length seems appropriate. An intelligent reader coming with no knowledge of the RCC would gain a good brodd overview from reading this entry, and would be guided to appropriate places for more research. Of course there is much that is left out, but this seems to be a feature of summary style, and not something that should stand in the way of FA status. The.helping.people.tick (talk) 20:29, 1 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - excellent prose; just one thing: "Because of this diversity, some variations exist in the liturgical practices of administering the sacraments within the different rites yet all hold the same beliefs". Nousernamesleftcopper, not wood 21:03, 1 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I eliminated "some" - good comment. NancyHeise (talk) 01:57, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong support This article has gone through a lot, and come out of it every time better and stronger. It is now the best it has ever been, and I think that it is even more deserving of my support vote than in past noms. From my point of view, it meets all of the criteria, which is amazing since it covers such a large subject. Props to Nancy and all of the other devoted editors who have brought this so far. Benjamin Scrīptum est - Fecī 00:37, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment/question for Sandy' (It would be better if Sandy handles this): hey sandy can we move the bottom section of the prior version to here? Just everything after the part where you asked people to summarize their opposes, and then some folks replied. Just a thought. Ling.Nut (talk) 01:12, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • A restart was necessary because the FAC was 330KB and opposes were becoming obscured and were being argued rather than being addressed. I'm hoping this will provide a new chance for nominators to address Opposes if they are restated. Opposers can copy forward their own relevant comments. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:10, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support per my previous comments. There's room for improvement, particularly concerning the article's sources. However, it currently meets FA criteria. Majoreditor (talk) 02:28, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support on a fresh read-through today. I did not find any prose problems worth complaining about. I'm still not of the opinion that the prose is "brilliant" but it is certainly professional and representative of the best work we will achieve on this subject. --Laser brain (talk) 02:58, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments. Just to be positive about good referencing, I'd like a cite at the end of the following paragraphs; first and last paragraphs in "Beliefs", last paragraph in "Ordained members and Holy Orders", last paragraph in "Lay members, Marriage" (but before "Members of religious orders"), and end of "Roman Empire". Also, in regards to the last paragraph of "Ordained members and Holy Orders", it says "Throughout history women have held prominent roles within the Church as abbesses, missionaries, and Doctors of the Church." The sentence feels a bit out of place, as much of the entire section is about men, and the last paragraph deals briefly about women in the church. I didn't read the whole article, so I'm wondering if that statement needs expanding, or if there is a place elsewhere that deals with women in the church. I'm not sure if the layout has been discussed, but is there a reason the history section is not first? I notice that many articles have the history section first. All in all, looks good. ♬♩ Hurricanehink (talk) 04:59, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your comment, I am working on it today but I have to go out for a while at present. I responded to your comment about organization below Squash Racket's comment that follows here. NancyHeise (talk) 12:33, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
OK Hurricane, I have addressed your comments regarding references and had to make some changes in text to match some refs. Women in the church, yes, I included text in the Holy Orders to finish the para explaining that only men can be ordained and I have a para in History section under Vatican II and beyond explaining the existence of controversy over the subject and the Church's response. NancyHeise (talk) 19:41, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Responding to Hurricanehink and Squash Racket, a FAC reviewer responded to this same comment on the previous nomination page and I agree with it. [2] Also, this article was organized following the example of the FA Islam. "Ample precedent" exists on Wikipedia to support current organization. Thanks for your comments. NancyHeise (talk) 11:24, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I pointed to the structure of the Britannica article because it repeatedly proved to be insufficient to cite another Wikipedia FA in reaching concensus. I also mentioned the references of Britannica because I don't think anybody will question the reliability and neutrality of a reference if Britannica accepts it. Squash Racket (talk) 12:52, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You might note, to give a full account of that exchange, that that was in response to my comment, and that I further commented here, as follows:
Interesting. I'm not surprised. This is, of course, how Wikipedia is different from other encyclopedias, in that its contributors are self-selecting, and so its content is generally written by fans and/or adherents. (Sometimes by detractors, but that's no better.) NB this does not necessarily mean that fans or adherents (or even detractors) cannot write good articles; but they face certain rather particular obstacles. Again, I'm not necessarily suggesting that history should be put before doctrine; but it is symptomatic that in fact the order is the other way around, in this article as in other similar ones on Wikipedia.
So this is certainly still an open issue, as far as I'm concerned, though personally I'm not sure I would insist on the revision at this point, as it would obviously require major reorganization. On the other hand, there is a degree of oddity, as the "Origins" section is separated from "History." If putting doctrine before history (like other WP articles, but unlike Britannica) is symptomatic, that stranded bit of history is symptom of the symptom. Something needs to be done about it. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 11:37, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Regarding Jbmurray's comment here suggesting the possibility of moving Origins section: This was brought up by Karanacs in the last peer review and I responded here [3] by placing a note on the main article talk page to find out if there was consensus for such a change. The resulting responses supported elimination of the full quote of the Creed but there was no consensus for reorganizing Origins. I would be in violation of Wikipedia policy if I were to make such a change after having sought consensus and not getting it. NancyHeise (talk) 12:40, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I have not suggested moving the Origins section. Please stop misrepresenting my comments. I have merely pointed to a problem. There are no doubt various possible solutions. Moving the entire section might be one; it's not necessarily the one that I would recommend, which is why I did not make that suggestion. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 12:47, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong oppose. It seems to me that, if this protracted FAC process leads to the nomination passing, it will be in significant part due to the article editors' policy of wearing down critical reviewers and choosing to disdain their comments and upbraid their efforts in what is a shocking failure of good faith. See not only previous FACs, but also the series of comments first on my talk page, then on NancyHeise's, and also Karanacs's, and now again here. I do have other comments on this article, but am hardly encouraged to present them here. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 07:24, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I disagree with this reviewers assessment of his comments. I felt he was provocative in his comments and went off topic as well as asking us to eliminate a top source that is representative of a significant point of view. I do not feel that this oppose is actionable and am not completely convinced that it is made in good faith. NancyHeise (talk) 11:15, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Jb, a lot of people think you misunderstood the use being made of Norman in the passage you objected to. He was being used to demonstrate ONE strand of opinion, not to present a consensus. Further remarks you made about Professor Norman were irrelevant and I believe unfounded. The main thrust of your other objections was vague and non-specific, and despite requests for clarifications and usable suggestions for improvement to deal with your concerns, we got only one solid suggestion for change, which was acted upon. Xandar (talk) 16:38, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
There's an (over-)long discussion of that particular comment on my talk page. (This article's defenders seem to like bringing up issues on reviewers' talk pages.) I do there offer a solid suggestion, which was flatly rejected with the words "I see no problem with the article text as it stands." There is another series of comments on structure, and particularly on this article's weakest section, in my view, further down the talk page. --16:48, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
Oh, and my further comments on Norman are absolutely relevant when this member of the Peterhouse group is used as a source on liberation theology! Extraordinary stuff. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 16:50, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You had apparently never heard of Norman until he came up here. As a historian whose early specialisation was the religious history of Ireland in the 19th century, also heavily intermixed with politics, and later the author of "Christianity in the Southern Hemisphere (1981)", he is very well placed to comment on Liberation theology, though he clearly has a more sceptical view of it than some enthusiastic writers. Johnbod (talk) 17:04, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed, I hadn't heard of Norman. However, I'm learning a little about him. And I note that in this paragraph he's the source for the following statement: "the Church considers [liberation theology] 'a return to the pre-modern notion of establishing a Christian society through the coercive machinery of political management.'" That goes beyond being "more sceptical"; it is extremely tendentious, and yet it is being presented as fact. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 17:08, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Incidentally, those interested may note that rather than use this clearly tendentious quotation, I preferred to quote what the Latin American bishops thought they were about. This is just in case anyone still thinks that I'm against quoting Catholics, for goodness sake. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 17:17, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Ach, and it's been added back in, with the rather surprising summary that this was "adding the Church's point of view. Thus tendentiousness is added to tendentiousness, and NPOV flies out of the window. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 17:34, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • For what it's worth, the section on the Latin American church was very poor. (NB also the article is riddled with typos and grammatical errors.) No doubt the poverty of its courage is owing in part to its continued reliance on our friend Norman. I've added more information, better sources--simply what I have to hand, however--a "citation needed" tag for a rather dubious assertion, as well as removing Norman's tendentious editorializing. More work still required, however. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 15:32, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Nominator comment FAC reviewer Jbmurray, the only oppose vote on this page, has rewritten the paragraph on Liberation Theology, eliminating our referenced and consensus(ed) work that is being voted upon right now - he has replaced it with a version that none of us has discussed or peer reviewed or agreed upon. I think that this change at this point in the FAC process is unhelpful to the FAC process and I ask for guidance on how to deal with this at this point. Should I withdraw the nomination? NancyHeise (talk) 16:15, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • The previous version of the paragraph was inaccurate, NPOV, poorly sourced, and flawed by typos. I encourage reviewers to judge for themselves if they think the relevant section has been improved or not. Frankly, the entire article requires such revision. I only have the sources to hand to work on this paragraph. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 16:24, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • (ec) I don't know of any article that has made it through FAC without any changes. It is not uncommon for reviewers to fix issues themselves, especially early in the nomination process (and, since this nom was restarted, this is early in the process). The alternative is for the reviewer to leave a comment on this page and ask the nominator to fix the issue (either way, ideally, the issue is fixed). If there are particular issues with the changes he has made, you might take those up on the article talk page. Karanacs (talk) 16:26, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agreed with Karanacs here. Good faith discussion is the best way to proceed here - everyone involved is clearly here to improve the article and ensure the FA process proceeds correctly and reaches the right outcome - i.e. the promotion of the article in its best possible state. Sometimes consensus can unfortunately lead to inferior decisions being made, not through any fault of the contributors, but just because of whoever (or whichever viewpoints) were represented at the time it was formed. Especially on controversial topics, consensus is useful in establishing scope but not always on content - I know of articles which jump from glorifying to bashing the subject quite randomly in an attempt to satisfy NPOV which everybody is equally unhappy with. Sometimes it's necessary to go back to core principles (NPOV/UNDUE, V, RS, OR/SYN, etc) to get it right - especially important when we want to say an article is one of the best Wikipedia has to offer. Orderinchaos 17:27, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I am restoring the paragraph to its consensus'd version that has been peer reviewed and gone through two FACs. If FAC reviewer Jb murray would like to place comments on this page under his Oppose vote, I would be happy to address them. NancyHeise (talk) 16:29, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think that's a bad idea. Jbmurray is making good faith edits that appear to be improving the prose and sourcing. You don't have the right to revert his changes based only on the fact that you want the article to be the same as when the nomination started. --Laser brain (talk) 16:36, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • (edit conflict)Unless there is something wrong with jbmurray's edits, then you should not revert his content. His comments are fully referenced, and he has as much right as any editor to fix issues he sees in the page. Saying that you will not accept his edits but will make any changes yourself is a little close to violating WP:OWN. Again, I recommend that if you see any issues with his edits, bring them up on the RCC talk page and decide from there what to keep and what (if any) to remove. Karanacs (talk) 16:36, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think he was wrong to eliminate our fully referenced material that had consensus to be brought to FAC. His edits were not mere copyediting but a whole rewrite that is inappropriate at this stage of voting. NancyHeise (talk) 16:40, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ha. OK. Well, more reasons to oppose. (I had figured I might as well do something to improve the article while I was at it. I take it you'll also want to remove three reliable sources I added to the bibliography?) Anyhow, as I say, the paragraph in the state that NancyHeise seems to want it is grossly inaccurate, NPOV, poorly sourced, and flawed by typos. Rather than go through all the errors, it's probably easiest just to compare the two versions:

A. In the 1960's, a growing sympathy for working-class movements in Latin American cities gave birth to liberation theology. Chiefly promoted by Gustavo Gutiérrez, this new movement used a radical interpretation of the Gospel to redefine the mission of the Church. It's purpose was meant to achieve revolutionary political change to improve the lot of the poor.[308] Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI susequently denounced the movement as "dangerous" and the Church considers it "a return to the pre-modern notion of establishing a Christian society through the coercive machinery of political management".[308] The movement is still alive in Latin America today although somewhat diminished in popularity.[309]
B. In the 1960s, growing social awareness and politicization in the Latin American Church gave birth to liberation theology, and Peruvian priest, Gustavo Gutiérrez, became one of the movement's better-known scholars. Following a meeting of Latin American bishops in Medellín, Colombia, in 1968, to adopt the principles of Vatican II, the new movement was increasingly influential in re-interpreting the Gospel in radical ways that redefined the Church's mission. In 1979 the bishops' conference, in Puebla, Mexico, officially declared the Latin American Church's "preferential option for the poor".[308] The following year, the Salvadoran Archbishop Óscar Romero became the most famous contemporary martyr to state violence, when he was murdered while saying mass in San Salvador.[309] Despite opposition from Pope John Paul II and the Vatican, and the silencing of theologians such as the Brazilian Leonardo Boff in 1985,[310] the movement is still alive in Latin America today. although the Church now faces the challenge of Pentecostal revival in many parts of the continent.[311]

I was still working on this when NancyHeise reverted. NB my suspicion is that similar flaws litter the rest of the article. I could only really do anything with the one paragraph where I had reliable sources here to hand. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 16:40, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • I don't think the new edits are fatal, but they should really have been discussed. I have gone through them to trim, and correct some grammar and copyedit errors. But I will be rechecking the facts a bit later, and may amend, if necessary.Xandar (talk) 16:42, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I would like to respectfully ask FAC reviewer Jbmurray to not rewrite whole sections of the article as he did with the Liberation Theology section just now. I am trying to answer other reviewers comments who have followed a peaceful procedure of posting any comments in bullet point format on this FAC page so I can address them as nominator. If Jbmurray has a problem with the Liberation Theology paragraph, it might help if he could point out these problems in bullet point - as other FAC reviewers are doing and have done throughout the FAC processes in the past. I am one nominator dealing with many FAC reviewers and I politely ask for your kind consideration in this matter. I would also like to not be accused of WP:OWN as Karanacs has just done. Thank you. NancyHeise (talk) 16:58, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Here you have it in bullet points:
  • inaccurate
  • NPOV
  • poorly sourced
  • flawed by typos
I really had no desire to make a fuss about this paragraph on the FAC. I thought my improvements were entirely obvious and uncontroversial. But if you want to make a fuss, go ahead. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 17:01, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • This is why reviewers often help address their own concerns, so that the burden of making changes does not fall solely on the nominator. jbmurray has the right to make edits to the article, period. (and I did not say that you violated WP:OWN, just that your comments were close to the line) Karanacs (talk) 17:03, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • My position has been vastly overruled. The page has been restored to JBmurray's version. OK, but I ask that the ref's that he has just installed be put in proper format, they are inconsistent with the rest of the article and have statements in front of them. NancyHeise (talk) 17:05, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Jbmurray is using the footnotes in a slightly different way (as a bit of a see also as well as a citation), and I believe it is acceptable to have this mixed in with the other references. Karanacs (talk) 17:09, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Ah, thanks Karanacs. I think I now understand what NH sees as the problem. Obviously, I didn't want to put undue weight on this paragraph, and tried to be concise as possible. One way to be concise as well as informative, and to increase the number of reliable sources to which the reader can refer, is to use the footnotes more discursively. If NH wants to strip the notes of the two (very) reliable sources I added, she's welcome to do so. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 17:14, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
(ec) *Egads. The paragraph has been restored to a version that I wrote with Xander's help in copy-editing, following pretty closely the structure that already existed. meanwhile, I'm not sure what's meant by the fact that the references "have statements in front of them." Is that what we call quotations? Seriously I'm puzzled. Anyhow, you're welcome to go in, of course, and fix any problems you see. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 17:12, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thanks, I appreciate your edits and the other reviewers help in resolving the matter. I am OK with the refs format if all the FAC reviewers are OK and it seems they are. I added the church's point of view that had been deleted which I think is necessary to make the article NPOV. NancyHeise (talk) 17:46, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • The church's point of view was already represented in that paragraph. I've left a note on the article talk page for clarification on exactly who is being quoted in the restored text; let's have the rest of the discussion on this paragraph there, please, so this FAC doesn't follow the last one in readability terms. Karanacs (talk) 17:51, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
(ec) As far as I can see, you added Edward Norman's point of view, which I find remarkably tendentious, and not NPOV at all. That paragraph already, in fact, has the Church's point of view, in so far as it has the famous phrase that came out of the Puebla conference of Latin American bishops. Of course, this is complex. If you want to add the Vatican's point of view (which seems fair enough), can I suggest you seek out a direct quotation? Many thanks. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 17:53, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Liberation theology was always controversial within the Church, and the words from Norman, which may well be a quote or paraphrase from a Vatican statement, seem an unexceptional statement of the hostile view, however much you may dislike it. Here, as elsewhere, you seem to have made up your mind as to what Catholics ought to think or believe and react with rhetorical violence to any statement contradicting these views. In this connection, it might be worth mentioning the ban on clergy holding political office, introduced as a response to the Liberation theology movement, and the Berrigans etc. Johnbod (talk) 18:04, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm fully aware that Liberation theology is and was controversial within the Church. This indeed is the point I am making when saying that Norman's quotation does not represent the Church. It represents, as you say, at the very least "the hostile view." I have no opinions on what Catholics ought to believe or think. I have not the foggiest idea where you are getting that from. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 18:10, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Jbmurray, I dont hope to win your support for the article since you have claimed that it is in need of a rewrite but both of us have made changes to the liberation theology paragraph and I think we may be in agreement now. All comments are fully referenced and include your changes as well as mine. I believe all points of view are covered here. NancyHeise (talk) 19:44, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I made a couple of tweaks for accuracy, in line with some discussion on the talk page, but I can live with that paragraph now (even with Norman!) --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 20:04, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
What I did was a brief copy-edit to smooth the prose a little. I didn't say I approved of what was in the new addition. I said that I was going to check references and see whether what was added was balanced and relevant. We can't just chuck out relevant referenced material, but we have to see whether it is appropriately balanced and weighted. As a general rule though, please don't add major new strands of material to the article at this time without some consultation on the Talk Page. Xandar (talk) 22:20, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. I've noted one more Latin America-related concern on the talk page. There are another couple of sentences that are really wrong, and I note that it's our friend Norman who's the source again. I don't know whether this is a misinterpretation of Norman, or whether the error (or perhaps, very bizarre bias in seeming to claim that there were Marxist regimes in Latin America from 1860 on) is Norman's own. Anyhow, this is something else that really has to be fixed. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 20:54, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Dealt with on the talk page. Johnbod (talk) 22:23, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Actually no; please don't misrepresent me, Johnbod. As per the long discussion here, I find it hard to believe that Johnbod has much interest in improving this article, or indeed reading it with much attention. And given the hoo-ha that arose when I tried to fix another paragraph, I hardly feel encouraged to go out of the way to help myself any more, I'm afraid. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 07:07, 5 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This talk page comment has been resolved by adding a word to the text, please see talk page. NancyHeise (talk) 10:25, 5 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It has been dealt with, and was not "really wrong" in the first place. It is clear from jbmurray's comments on the talk page that he was wholly unaware of the secularising legislation of 1859 on under La Reforma, so fortunately this is not an area where vastly complicated historical developments need to be summarized in a phrase able to keep everyone happy. Johnbod (talk) 18:00, 5 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comments from Wackymacs (talk ~ edits) 09:39, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment
    • Current refs 30, 40, 86, 89, 94-99, 112 are missing access dates.
    • Current ref 125 is broken.

— Wackymacs (talk ~ edits) 08:11, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wackymacs, I've taken a look at all of those citations without access dates. These are all references to actual Bible quotes, the link leads the reader to a page that offers them their choice of Bibles from which to read the actual quote, both Protestant and Catholic versions and leads them to the actual quote if they click on a certain Bible. These references are treated differently than the others and are cited using the formula used by the FA Islam when quoting the Quaran. I have asked for advice from another editor to find out if I am supposed to change these into a cite web format but that would require me to make the choice of Bible used for the reader which would eliminate the option for reader to choose which Bible. Please let me know if you have more knowledge of treatment of this special reference, I wanted it to be the best it could be and I felt the present format was the most NPOV way of offering the information. NancyHeise (talk) 11:51, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
NancyHeise, my understanding about accessdates is that the point is that webpages can go down or offline, or be changed at any point. You put in an accessdate to signify that at that point, at least, you can verify that the information was there, and that it said what you are claiming it did. Thus any reference to a website of any sort (regardless of its content) should include an accessdate. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 11:57, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
These refs use the {{bibleverse}} template. If the website goes offline, the template will be changed to something else; anything using the template will stay up to date. If the refs were based on a specific translation, it might be different. Although {{bibleverse}} is a template, I would consider it much the same as the built-in support for PMID 12345678 or RFC 123, which don't need access dates. Gimmetrow 20:51, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for clarifying that Gimmetrow. I'll just leave them as is then. NancyHeise (talk) 00:10, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I've fixed the broken link. Today's date is acceptable for accessdates? Squash Racket (talk) 09:16, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
If you accessed it today, then that's the date!;) --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 09:23, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - Sigh, this is getting boring indeed. Tony just said about resistance towards critical reviewers, and here it is again (see Malleus' comment above). Tony's concern about prose quality are definitely valid. My concern about missing access dates has still not been addressed as well - all online refs need access dates, no matter what they might be. Personally I recommend a full copyedit by an editor new to the text. Please see both Peer review/volunteers and LOCE/Members for lists of people who can help. Do not hesitate to contact a few people on their Talk pages! — Wackymacs (talk ~ edits) 07:57, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Which comment of mine have you decided to take offence to? --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 01:02, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • You're talking about bible references. In John 1:1 the reference is John 1:1, not the website. The website functions as a convenience link. Prose is definitely an issue, but opposing over accessdates on this point is improper. Gimmetrow 08:10, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • Right...but it's a still a web page. And if that page went down or the site died, then there's no access date to confirm if it was ever accessible? WP:CITE states: "All citation techniques require detailed full citations to be provided for each source used. Full citations must contain enough information for other editors to identify the specific published work you used." - I am nitpicking, and it is not stated in the FA criteria, but it's still important that we stay in accordance to policy and style guidelines. SandyGeorgia (talk · contribs) is usually the one who points out citation errors, so you might want to ask for their opinion. — Wackymacs (talk ~ edits) 08:19, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
        • I'm inclined to agree with Gimmetrow on this: the source is John 1:1, which anyone can find any number of ways; the website is only a convenience link, and not at all essential to locating the source. John 1:1 is enough for other editors to identify the information; this is similar to a PMID, which is only a convenience link. If others disagree, I suggest continuing the discussion at WT:FAC. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 08:24, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
          • Although from reading above, I see there is a wrinkle in comparing it to a PMID: which translation is being used in direct quotes does present an issue, so this may not be as cut and dried as a PMID link. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 08:28, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
            • I am willing to change the format of the Biblerefs if all of you FAC reviewers will come to a decision on which Bible I should be using and which format. Right now, I can do nothing. I think it would create a POV problem to change what presently exists just so you can have and accessdate which seems to be such a minor and disposable thing for this issue which has precedent on the FA Islam to support the current presentation. NancyHeise (talk) 13:02, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
What am I supposed to do to act on this oppose if Gimmetrow and precedent of FA Islam support current format and you have not made a decision either way? NancyHeise (talk) 19:53, 5 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose (You allready voted to oppose on June 3 above--please don't vote twice. I will leave your further objections intact. Lwnf360 (talk) 06:46, 12 June 2008 (UTC)) - Yes, the prose has improved. But this clearly isn't ready by any measure. Things are being rushed, and mistakes are naturally being made because we're all human. A topic as sensitive as "Roman Catholic Church" needs months of work spending on it. The number of comments on this page shows us this is not ready. A FAC which is ready, or near-ready, always has very few comments on it. This one is quite the opposite, as the longest FAC I've ever been involved in. The wikidrama caused by Xandar and NancyHeise is not productive, and neither are personal threats to Tony who is just trying to help. I recommend a withdraw, and then consulting the help of those who have expressed opposes based on POV/clarity issues - It is better to take your time than to rush. — Wackymacs (talk ~ edits) 07:52, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Your oppose seems to have been largely concerned with wikilinking bible verses. If you have any other remaining specific matters to raise, please do so.
Regarding your more general comments, the article has been worked on by a team of editors for over six months. It is at least the equal of most FA articles for prose, and on POV is comparable with other encyclopedia treatments including Britannica. In fact compared with such treatments it goes further in presenting critical views of the church. Of course for some people the article will never be ready for FA. The number of comments on the page is not a good guide for the state of the article if many of those comments are vague or pushing a certain POV. Simply because there are a number of persistent people who either post vague unadressable comments and refuse to supply specifics, or demand that certain POVs dominate the article without providing proof to back them up, does not mean the article is at fault. I think we have dealt with all of those who have brouht up specific POV and clarity issues, there is no need for withdrawal for that. (And as far as "wikidrama" is concerned, anyone reading this page and the talk page for this page will see that nancy and I are not the souce of that, but false and misplaced attacks from one of the objectors.)Xandar (talk) 20:24, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Perfectly actionable—I am referring to what other editors have already stated in regards to prose, clarity and POV (There is little point in me repeating what others have already said, correct?) Actually, the citation issues I raised earlier are no longer the issue. As already stated, if this was really ready, there would not be the amount of opposes and comments that there are. Furthermore, yes, a lot of work has been put into the article. What I am referring to is how much time has been taken to address the issues raised during this restarted FAC nomination. Indeed, the proper procedure to undertake would be to withdraw this nomination to ensure accurate edits are made to address all issues without rush and haste, which have mostly been caused by the amount of wikidrama. — Wackymacs (talk ~ edits) 21:57, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Again, we cannot make accurate edits to points that are not raised precisely and specifically. An oppose that refers to other unspecified comments bu other editors that may or may not be specific, or may or may not have been settled is just too vague to be actionable. This is YOUR objection. Please specify what exactly your objection consists of, preferably quoting the specific sentences and paras and the problem you allude to with each. If you have such objections, this is your opportunity to present them. If not, the objection is too vague to be actionable in its own right. Xandar (talk) 22:49, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I do not consider Wackymacs oppose actionable and the prose has been extensively improved by Ceoil, myself, and others. Prose is a point of personal taste. Some people are going to disagree (a minority on this FAC) but that should not prevent FA. NancyHeise (talk) 03:10, 9 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I have every right to oppose per other comments made on the page. In addition, "brilliant" prose is a requirement according to the FA criteria, and as such is a reason for opposing. According to [4], approx. 3,000 people read the Roman Catholic Church article every day - why give them a half-baked cake instead of the real deal? If you withdraw this nomination and come back in a month or two, it'll be greatly improved and truly ready. I notice neither of you have denied the fact that the number of comments and opposes show that this is not yet ready for FA status. I am also tired that, no matter what I say, both of you (Nancy and Xandar) come back to fight again - you do the same to everyone who opposes at this FAC. — Wackymacs (talk ~ edits) 06:24, 9 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This is the 4th FAC this article has been through. I'm afraid "come back in a few months and it'll pass", does not seem to signify. The point is that you appear to have no specific objection to raise about the article at this time. You refer to "other" unspecified objections. However the fact that some other people have objected (for whatever reason) in no way affects YOUR objection - unless you are saying that all the remaining objections amount to a single objection from a group. In fact many of these remaining other objections are vague, unspecified and so cannot be acted upon. Therefore, returning to your objection - not anyone else's - if you think that there are aspects of prose that are so seriously amiss that they need to be corrected to reach FA status, please follow FAc procedure and list them here so that they can be addressed. The editors are not mind-readers. If you cannot or will not provide this necessary information, we are forced to consider that your oppose non-actionable. Xandar (talk) 22:14, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
There's no limit to how many times an article can go through this process. Here's some examples from the lead paragraphs of how you could polish the prose to meet criteria 1a for "brilliant" prose:
  • "It is made up consists of one Western church (the Latin Rite) and 22 Eastern Catholic churches, divided into 2,782 jurisdictional areas around the world." - Please avoid unnecessary wordiness.
saving two letters/spaces, but using a Latinate word instead of simpler Anglo-Saxon. Personally I don't see this as an improvement. Johnbod (talk) 16:04, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Why use three words instead of one, exactly? One word is better than three, my friend. — Wackymacs (talk ~ edits) 17:00, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Not always; this articles is of necessity heavily loaded with Latinate vocabulary, and where simpler Anglo-Saxon terms can be used, they should be, which is in any case a basic principle of English style, unless you are Alexander Haig. Johnbod (talk) 17:20, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I still see no reason of using "is made up" instead of "consists", sorry. — Wackymacs (talk ~ edits) 17:30, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I prefer is made up of for the reasons Johnbod states, Saxon-based words are easier to understand at a basic level. Unless the space saving is large, most writers would advise sticking with simpler language. Xandar (talk) 22:23, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Most of the lead seems to say "the Church", but then suddenly it changes to "Catholic Church" in this sentence: "From at least the 4th century the Catholic Church has played a prominent role in the history of Western civilization." - Is there a reason for this that I am missing? This is nitpicking, but there should technically be a comma after "4th century".
We can change this if it helps Xandar (talk) 22:23, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • "In the 11th century, the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Western, Catholic Church split," - The current wording is confusing, I assume you mean: "In the 11th century, the Eastern and Western Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church split," unless I am wrong?
Well, yes, you are. There is no Western Orthodox Church in this sense (Dang, that was supposed to be a redlink - however the subject of the article is a group of churches dating back only to 1864). Johnbod (talk) 16:04, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Then I do not understand what the sentence is saying. Why is there a comma between Western and Catholic Church? Western what, exactly? — Wackymacs (talk ~ edits) 17:00, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Western Catholic Church. Catholics in the Western Roman Empire, Orthodox in the Eastern Roman Empire. Maybe this should be spelled out, or helped with these links. Johnbod (talk) 17:20, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Some sort of further explanation/clarification would help the reader understand it, yes. — Wackymacs (talk ~ edits) 17:30, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The wording here was set in response to a recent objection. It's a tricky problem since the Western and Eastern Churches wouldn't have distinguished each other as Orthodox and Catholic at this time. Today we refer to them as Catholic and Orthodox. The Eastern Orthodox Church now refers to itself as such. The Catholic church does not refer to itself as the Western Catholic Church, hence the use of western as descriptive of the split, and its separation with a comma. In view of space considerations in the lead, the best clarification might be to place a comma before the word Eastern, too. Xandar (talk) 22:23, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • This is nitpicking, but unnecessary words should be avoided, so: "...largely over disagreements regarding papal primacy" - why not "...largely over papal primacy disagreements" instead?
Ouch, no, terrible! And much less clear. Johnbod (talk) 16:04, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Why, exactly? Read it out loud - it is fine. — Wackymacs (talk ~ edits) 17:00, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Analysis of grammar is not my forte, but this is certainly ungrammatical; essentially you are trying to use a noun (primacy) as an adjective. Johnbod (talk) 17:20, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You are right on this point actually, now that I look at it again. — Wackymacs (talk ~ edits) 17:30, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • ..."but acknowledges that the Holy Spirit can make use of Christian communities separated from itself to bring people to salvation."
best left, imho. Johnbod (talk) 16:04, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The use of that in the sentence adds nothing, and if you read it out loud, removing it makes sense. — Wackymacs (talk ~edits) 17:00, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Removing the word "that" would make the sentence very confusing. It would read, "..but acknowledges the Holy Spirit..." which would convey the false meaning, "..but recognizes the presence of the Holy Spirit..." a completely different meaning to that intended. Most readers would have to re-read the sentence to arrive at the correct meaning. Using the word "that" simply and easily avoids any confusion by transferring the force of "acknowledges" forward onto the verb-cluster. Xandar (talk) 22:23, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Modern challenges facing the Church include the rise of secularism and opposition to its pro-life stance on abortion, contraception and euthanasia.[28]" - You might want to clarify 'modern', just to be on the safe side...I assume you're talking about 21st century when you say 'modern'.
No, certainly the 20th for all those, and "the rise of secularism" goes back much further. Johnbod (talk) 16:04, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Then the article should clarify by stating the century, or perhaps a mention of decades (as that's what the rest of the lead does). — Wackymacs (talk ~ edits) 17:00, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
No. I think people understand what "modern" means. It is a very useful word. It would be too unwieldy to say "in the 20th and 21st centuries," or "from the 1960s to the 2000s" Xandar (talk) 22:23, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've only gone through the lead, but the rest of the article contains similar things. I recommend a full copyedit by an editor new to the text. Please see both Peer review/volunteers and LOCE/Members for lists of people who can help. Do not hesitate to contact a few people on their Talk pages!
— Wackymacs (talk ~ edits) 15:41, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
We obviously have rather different ideas as to what constitutes "brilliant prose". Johnbod (talk) 16:04, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Responding to Wackymacs list here - I am in agreement with Johnbod on all points. Johnbod is another FAC reviewer for this article who voted to support its advancement to FA. He is not an editor of the RCC article in the sense that Xandar and I are - I make this distinction so his support vote is counted as valid. Wackymacs points here, if followed, would not result in article improvement but factual inaccuracies. I appreciate his comments but we can not follow his recommendations. NancyHeise (talk) 16:31, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
More resistance from Nancy, interesting. See the Talk page, this is uncooperative. Exactly why is it not actionable to consult the help of external copyeditors (at least two, this is such a large article)? — Wackymacs (talk ~ edits) 17:00, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Wackymacs, most of the suggestions you have made are 1) minor. and 2) Not improvements at all, as editors have noted above. Not agreeing with all your suggestions, especially when many are misguided, is not being "uncooperative," it is simply entering into a constructive engagement, which is the purpose of this process. A number of editors have worked on this article, and are still doing so. But I certainly do not feel that you have presented any evidence of major problems with the prose. And the items you have pointed to above are certainly no credible evidence for a failure of FA, or that the article needs a complete copyedit by "someone else". The suggestions above will be dealt with, where they are improvements, and we are quite open to any further suggestions you may have for improving sections of the prose. Xandar (talk) 22:23, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Wackymacs, please reread WP:FACR. The article's prose does not need to be "brilliant," only "engaging...and professional." If "brilliant" were a requirement, that clause would read: "its [the article's] prose is engaging, brilliant, and of a professional standard;" i.e. a serial conjunction. "Even brilliant" is being used as an Intensive in this case, not as an element of the conjunction. I admit that the wording in WP:FACR is poor and I will recomend a change on its talk page to reflect this. Lwnf360 (talk) 07:07, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(undent) Comment/Question Do Opposes and Supports from the immediately prior archived version still stand? If not, is someone gonna notify all those !voters of the restart? Ling.Nut (talk) 09:50, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No, in a restart comments from the archived version are not considered (we're really starting over). Generally, the nominator notifies all previous reviewers, but anyone can do that, as long as they notify both supporters and opposers and use a neutral message. Karanacs (talk) 13:41, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Is WP:AWB spam socially acceptable? Ling.Nut (talk) 14:03, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Support I've followed all the previous FACs on this as well as the extensive talk discussions and the multiple other by-ways this has nom lead to. But I never had the courage to speak up. I have to say I find the article impressive on a number of criteria, not least that it gives a balanced overview for non experts. I consider it engaging, informative, and unbiased, and overall a fine resource. Ceoil (talk) 14:52, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support - per previous nomination. Extensive research and discussion has clearly paid off here, as evident in the excellent prose. Good job. Rudget (Help?) 17:12, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I am totally unsure what the procedure here is. I have written pages and pages in the previous nom expressing my concerns about the quality of sourcing, the selection of data from those sources, provided specific examples of those problems, and so on. Those remain unaddressed. Am I supposed to repeat it all, and possibly engage in the same discussion over again? --Relata refero (disp.) 18:56, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • A restart functions the same as an entirely new FAC nomination. Any objections that you still hold and would like to see addressed should be restated here. The hope is that this doesn't come down to the same arguments as before, or at least that we can more succinctly discuss the issues as they relate to WP:WIAFA. Karanacs (talk) 19:08, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Well. If the same issues are raised, and met with the same obduracy that occurred in the previous two noms, to expect that it won't come down to the same arguments is perhaps unrealistic. Or perhaps not, as it will lead to reviewer exhaustion. --Relata refero (disp.) 06:16, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments.
    • In the opening paragraph of the lead, both "Western" and "Latin Rite" link to the article Latin Rite. That seems unnecessary. — Angr 21:13, 2 June 2008 — continues after insertion below
      Yes, I agree, I eliminated the Western one since the actual link is to "Latin Rite". NancyHeise (talk) 00:12, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • The link http://www.jknirp.com/miss2.htm gets a "404 - Not Found" message.
      I repaired it. NancyHeise (talk) 00:24, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Why not link to One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church (or to Four Marks of the Church, where it redirects to) when that phrase is mentioned in the lead and the main body of the text?
      Linked. NancyHeise (talk) 23:49, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • What translation is being used for the Bible quotes?
      I have not chosen the Bible quotes, they are linked to a page where reader may make the choice of Bible from which to read the quote and are in the same format without access dates as on the FA Islam which we have used as a guide. If I add access dates as a previous FAC reviewer on this page asks of me, I am afraid that I will then have to choose which Bible which will lead to POV wars - are you in favor of the current method or would you rather see me make a choice of Bible and use the cite web citation format so I can put access dates? Please elaborate on what you would rather see. Thanks. NancyHeise (talk) 23:49, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      OK, now I see that Gimmetrow has answered my question regarding this, we do not put in cite web format, we leave them as they are so the reader will be able to choose the Bible. NancyHeise (talk) 23:58, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      I'm not talking about the refs, though, I'm talking about the quotes actually used in the article itself. Of the many translations available on the page the refs link to, which one is actually used in the article? —Angr 06:19, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      I would guess it's the New American Bible.[5] Gimmetrow 06:49, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Words like "baptism" and "penance" shouldn't be capitalized. I fixed a few, but there are more.
    • Perhaps a link to Saint Dismas on the words "good thief" at the end of the section "Final judgment and afterlife"?
      I added a wikilink but since that is a quote, I can't put the wikilink inside of a quote so I placed it after it. NancyHeise (talk) 23:49, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      You can't put wikilinks inside quotes? —Angr 06:22, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      That's a particularly silly recommendation in the MoS that I for one regularly ignore. --Relata refero (disp.) 06:37, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      There is a guideline to that effect, but it's not absolute even as a guideline. Gimmetrow 06:43, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • In the sentence "Although it was superseded by the vernacular as the primary form of the Mass, it was never forbidden after the reforms of the Second Vatican Council;" it isn't immediately clear that "it" refers back to the Tridentine Mass, rather than one of the other nouns in the previous sentence.
      Ok, reworded making this clear. NancyHeise (talk) 23:49, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • "Catholic ministers may give the sacraments of Eucharist, Penance and Anointing of the Sick to Protestants if they freely ask for them." What about the other way round? Are there circumstances under which Catholics may receive the Eucharist from a Protestant minister (or at least a validly ordained non-RC priest in Apostolic Succession, like an Anglican, Old Catholic, etc.)?
      This produces a whole can of worms, which we can't really go into in the article. Catholics are not allowed to receive protestant communion, and for this purpose Anglicans count as Protestants since their orders were declared invalid for various reasons. Catholics are allowed to take Orthodox communion, but I don't think the Orthodox officially allow it, except in extremis. Xandar (talk) 03:58, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      I understand the article can't go into great detail on the issue, but since it brings up the issue of non-Catholics receiving Catholic Communion, it should really at least briefly summarize the issue of Catholics receiving non-Catholic Communion. —Angr 06:19, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      Isn't that covered by "intercommunion with the Eastern Orthodox ... is possible"? Relevant rule is canon 844 §2, which in case of "necessity" (for example, danger of death) and "it is physically or morally impossible to approach a Catholic minister", a Catholic may receive "penance, Eucharist and anointing of the sick from non-Catholic ministers in whose Churches these sacraments are valid". Gimmetrow 07:54, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I added text to cover this issue with reference to Catechism para 1400. Good comment Angr, thanks. NancyHeise (talk) 10:25, 5 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • "Christmas follows, beginning on the night of 24 December, Christmas Eve, and ending with the feast of the baptism of Jesus on 13 January." This contradicts Baptism of the Lord (which should be linked to), which says the feast was fixed on 13 January before Vatican II, but now is on whatever day between 7 January and 13 January inclusive is a Sunday. The sentence is also unsourced, and contradicts what I was always taught (in an Episcopal church, to be sure, but I thought we shared this with Catholics), namely that Christmas ends at Epiphany, but that the Christmas greenery may remain up in the church until the feast of the Presentation on 2 February.
      Christmas for Catholics ends on the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord per my Nihil Obstat source and I refd the entire paragraph for you too. I eliminated the date of January 13 since my source did not give an actual date and I wikilinked Baptism of the Lord. NancyHeise (talk) 23:49, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      Epiphany is included under the season of christmas in Catholic Churches, even though the traditional "12 days" of Christmas end on Epiphany. So the season of Christmas ends on the 13th january, after Epiphany week. However the old tradition of keeping christmas decorations up until Candlemas, 2nd of February, persists in part of Europe. Xandar (talk) 03:58, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Also unsourced is "Lent is the 40–day period of purification and penance that begins on Ash Wednesday and ends on Holy Thursday" which again contradicts what I learned, namely that Lent ends on Holy Saturday (the 40 days are the weekdays and Saturdays from Ash Wednesday to Holy Saturday).
      Referenced. Actually, the entire paragraph comes from the source refd at the end of the paragraph, I wasn't originally sure if I had to put a ref at the end of each sentence or not. NancyHeise (talk) 23:49, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      Oh, I didn't see the ref at the end of the paragraph. Sorry about that! Indeed, if the whole paragraph comes from the same source it's not necessary to ref every single sentence. —Angr 06:19, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Grouping "Lay members, Marriage" under a single heading seems a little odd. Marriage should be lower case, too.
We arent going to change this grouping because it is consistent with the structure in the rest of the Beleifs section where we discuss the relevant sacrament in the section that precipitates its use. Capitalization issue has been discussed at length and was resolved in favor of capping when used as proper noun. NancyHeise (talk) 10:25, 5 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • "Some parts of Europe, Ireland and the United States have experienced..." - Ireland is in Europe.
      Good point, eliminated mention of Ireland. NancyHeise (talk) 23:49, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • "Among those who have been excommunicated or incurred excommunication..." - what's the difference between being excommunicated and incurring excommunication?
      The first sentence of that same paragraph explains that a person may excommunicate themselves or be excommunicated. Incurring excommunication is when you excommunicate yourself. Would you like some more explanation added to the sentence? NancyHeise (talk) 23:49, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      Yes, please. It still seems, at least grammatically, that "incurring excommunication" would be a cover term for both cases, i.e. you have incurred excommunication regardless of whether you did it yourself or someone did it to you. —Angr 06:19, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I understand what you are saying now, yes, you're correct, and I changed wording in the text to reflect your comment here. NancyHeise (talk) 10:25, 5 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your comments Angr, I am not sure about your question regarding Catholics receiving communion from other churches, I'll have to do a little research to answer that one. Also, I am not sure about capitalization of sacraments. We have had a fair amount of MoS gurus go through the page and I think it was decided that they should be capped. I will do some research on that too or ask DanK to come give us some input there. We are also awaiting a decision from the MoS folks on whether to capitalize "Church" throughout the article when it referred to the RCC as opposed to being used in a generic way. Wikipedia policy was vague on that and the Mos people were hashing it out for us. NancyHeise (talk) 00:09, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia:Manual of Style (capital letters) states "Doctrinal topics or canonical religious ideas that may be traditionally capitalized within a faith are given in lower case in Wikipedia, such as virgin birth, original sin or transubstantiation." This seems fairly open to interpretation as to whether it includes the sacraments. My instinct would be to capitalize Church, Marriage, Eucharist, etc. when used as proper nouns just as you would capitalize Bible or God in the context of Christianity. --Laser brain (talk) 03:36, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It's a while since I left school, so my understanding of English grammar may possibly be out of date. Is it not the case that proper nouns are capitalised, whereas improper nouns are not? Does it not therefore seem consistent that "Marriage", when used as a proper noun referring to name of one of the sacraments, ought to be capitalised? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Malleus Fatuarum (talk • contribs) 23:33, June 2, 2008
I could agree with capitalization in phrases like "the Sacrament of Marriage" and "the Sacrament of Baptism", but not every time marriage or baptism is mentioned alone. —Angr 06:19, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'd just like to take this opportunity to remind everyone of WP:CIVIL. These vitriolic, sarcastic comments from both sides are not helping anyone. Benjamin Scrīptum est - Fecī 23:50, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Off-topic discussion moved to talk page SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:59, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(undent) Comment: I must confess that his debate may have passed me by. I had no problems Opposing the earlier versions. In many respects, the current version seems to skirt just barely under the WIAFA requirements, in my opinion. As I said before, I think any problems with the writing could be cleaned up. Major problems have been addressed. You might think, then, that "a little bit acceptable is still acceptable". Perhaps there's no such thing as being a little bit FA-worthy, like there's no such things as being a little bit pregnant. Well, the one fear I have stems from others' concerns that the article presents Catholicism through the worldview of Catholics. Unfortunately, you could take everything I know about the history of the Roman Catholic Church and fit it in a thimble, with room left over for three caraway seeds and the sympathy of a steely-eyed deletionist. I feel unable to Oppose and unable to Support. Will think further. Ling.Nut (talk) 02:37, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support, I find the article exceptionally well referenced, informative, and it sets a good example for all other religion articles to follow. The amount of effort that has gone in to pleasing such a diverse range of editors is akin to the task of Sisyphus. Religious topics seem to bring a higher degree of scrutiny, but that also makes for better articles. Also, perfection is impossible on Wikipedia; articles change by the minute. This is an exemplary article. --Storm Rider (talk) 03:05, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Strong oppose—1a. And I'm disappointed to see a resistant approach by the nominator towards critical reviewers. Please read the instructions. The "Support" immediately above does not, to me, reflect critical scrutiny, and the fact of continuous and open editing has nothing to do with our task here. Some of those one-word "Supports" don't hold much water, either; nor do the extravagent yet empty one-liners such as—

"Awesome article, beautifully written, meets all the criteria of an excellent article and everything we want in a featured article. Let's make this happen."

More like intra-club support, given the Latin in the user's signature.

I looked at just one section, "Origin and mission", which—right at the top—you'd expect to have been trawled over to the point of shine; but shine it doesn't, so I really wonder whether the drive-bys are based on any more than a quick glance.

  • "Scholars such as Edward Norman, agree that the Church was founded by Jesus and believe the historical record reveals that it was considered a Christian doctrinal authority from the beginning." What is the comma doing there? — Tony1 05:21, 3 June 2008 — continues after insertion below
Thank you for pointing out that stray comma, it was left over from answering another FAC reviewers comment to remove a section of the sentence that described Edward Norman' credentials as a respected historian.NancyHeise (talk) 12:50, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Scholars such as Edward Norman, agree that the Church was founded by Jesus and believe the historical record reveals that it was considered a Christian doctrinal authority from the beginning.[14] Others, like Eamon Duffy, caution that the insufficient number of clear written records surviving from the early years of Christianity make such precision difficult to confirm." Um ... where's this precision that may be hard to confirm?
This is now reworded and specified with help from other editors, thanks guys. NancyHeise (talk) 13:08, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • "He dismisses a letter from Pope Clement I (c. 95) that other historians cite as evidence of a presiding cleric,...". What's your angle here? That evdence from a presiding cleric is unreliable? Unclear.
Please see the paragraph again. NancyHeise (talk) 13:08, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Pope Benedict XVI summarized ..." and then "He states". Which tense is it to be?
  • "He states that these duties presuppose each other and are inseparable.[9] The Church therefore administers social programs throughout the world." Run that causal logic past me again.
  • "corporal"; my dictionary suggests that "corporeal" is more appropriate in this context.

Now, given that these issues occur in just one small part of a very large article, the best thing to do would be to withdraw the nomination and come back when the article has had time to brew: several months, not several weeks, I'd say, for proper NPOV consideration. TONY (talk) 05:21, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

< Personal commentary unrelated to FAC or WIAFA removed to talk page.> SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:35, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
These "issues" are merely your opinions. Your opinions are certainly interesting, but they do not carry the weight of law as you seem to believe. My opinion is that it would be better to let this restarted FAC take its course, hopefully with reviewers taking a more positive stance in fixing the odd misplaced comma or two and focusing instead on whether or not this article meets the FA criteria. Not the imaginary FA criteria for articles about controversial topics. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 05:51, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Could you expand on that, please? The snark is entertaining, but not precisely loaded with clarity. --Relata refero (disp.) 06:16, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comma use needs cleaning up, that's for sure. Gimmetrow 06:43, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Tony. you produced a few points which you have quibbles with, largely minor, however, you also appear, without good reason, to be failing to assume good faith among other editors, and in fact make unwarranted allegations against them. You also insist on making unhelpful blanket accusation of POV, without providing any specifics to discuss or be dealt with. And you repeat the desire that "someone else" (unnamed) rewrite the article, and that preferably it "go away" for a period of months (or years?) The article has been through several complete copyedits at different hands, and has also been up before the league of Copyeditors. However in an article which is large, of interest to many people, edited by many hands, and is being tweaked up to 50 times a day to respond to FAC comments and to revert vandalism, you are always going to come up with points of imperfection. With rspect to your actionable objections, which, to avoid breaking up your post, I have numbered for convenience:
1. Comma. Already dealt with by Gimmetrow.
2. I have (subsequent to Gimmetrow) further clarified this point.
3. Clarified
4. He can do both since one statement is written and therefore continuing. But these sentences have been made consistent.
5. The logic is quite simple. Pope Benedict expresses the centrality of charity. Church social programmes logically follow.
6. A matter of preference. Agree with Gimmetrow. Corporal means bodily. Corporeal is more old-fashioned, slightly less likely to be understood.
(No. 6: OK TONY (talk) 09:19, 4 June 2008 (UTC))[reply]
If you have any further specific actionable points, please bring them forward. If they're important enough to prevent FA status, they should be easy to identify. Xandar (talk) 13:24, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

RESPONSE: No, you're totally misconstruing the function of my examples: they're random examples of why the whole text falls below our requirement of "professional"-standard prose. Characterising them as "quibbles", "largely minor", and "merely [my] opinions" is an old trick here that we just don't buy. (BTW, everything that drops from my lips is my opinion.) You'd be the first to complain if a film contained little editing glitches; professional-standard writing does not have micro-errors for the reader to trip over; here, they occur throughout the article, and I'm not copy-editing it in its entirety for you—it's your nomination, not mine.

In this small window, some of the examples covered logic and clarity, which are by no means "minor". The logic of "He states that these duties presuppose each other and are inseparable.[9] The Church therefore administers social programs throughout the world" is still beyond me, despite your insistence. Duties that presuppose each other? Huh? And such presupposition and inseparability logically lead to the Church's administration of social programs throughout the world? What's the causal connection? Your response read in some implicit connection you came up with, but it needs to be explicit.

And finally, the barrage of personal abuse I've received over my review is unacceptable. I've been labelled as seeming to believe that my opinions carry the weight of law; and over the page, of having a "poor manner of speaking to people", of being "very mean and disrespectful", and there's the reference to "the sniffy attitude of those like you who reject our contributions in total after months of collaboration and consensus building".

Well, this sniffy, mean, disrespectful rewiever is moving to "Strong oppose": this article simply has too many problems. TONY (talk) 09:19, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I do not consider this an actionable oppose. Tony has not considered that Xandar has addressed his concerns since this posting. I am fine with Xandars changes to the text to remove any possible appearance of POV that were recently done in response to another reviewers comments. Extensive attention has been paid to the POV comments including additions of new text and rewordings. We have followed Tony's recommendations for writing an FA. We have responded to FAC comments positively as evidenced by the edit history. Tony's comments here are indicative of his offense at my efforts to help him see how his review comments offended all the other supporters of the page. Perhaps I should have politely asked him to reread the rules under WP:Civil instead of calling him disrespecful and sniffy, I apologize, I do request his apology to the many supporters of the page one of whom I know is an editor of a journal and possibly an academic, who has an email address from a prominent US university. He too performed a thorough edit of the article before posting his support - twice. I have qualifications too which I do not choose to post on my user page - its too puffy. I just thought that my obvious brilliance would be apparent without having to post my credentials. I guess I have not impressed the superior Tony. NancyHeise (talk) 21:12, 5 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Written in a non-neutral style, facts not selected per their importance in the field of study; poor sourcing, relies on the fact-selection and details from parochial sources, or theologians writing on history; specific objections to the Reformation section outlined two FACs ago, and to the absurd writing of the Latin American section ("some people") outlined in the last FAC. I am taking this off my watchlist now, per jbmurray's comments elsewhere on this page. A restart was patently un-necessary. --Relata refero (disp.) 08:28, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I do not know how to act upon this oppose, there is no mention of which source is unacceptable or how it fails to meet WP:RS or WP:Reliable source examples. Which sources does he consider parochial? The Bokenkotter book, written by a priest and university professor has been a standard text in University classrooms for decades. The other priest author, Vidmar, does not have any citations that are cited only to himself but serves as a double or triple to other authors whose books are written by non-priests, considered to be critics and/or published by university presses. Are there any factual inaccuracies? Have we omitted a notable event or criticism? Regarding non-neutral style, I have just eliminated mention of the 5000 priests who were killed in Nazi death camps because another reviewer felt this was POV. There is no mention in the article about the laws and discrimination of Catholics in the US for many decades and other similar issues explained in depth by editor Xandar here [6] in response to Karanacs comments. I think we have been very NPOV. While I complied with the request to remove mention of the 5000 priest killed by Nazis (and many more imprisoned), I don't see how reader is helped to know about the RCC when we fail to mention facts like these for (POV reasons) but I am trying to find common ground with reviewers.NancyHeise (talk) 10:16, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I will respond to only one of the above arguments; most of them, other than the last couple, I have already discussed elsewhere. Indeed, I have twice made the point that I am about to make again: that the narratives of history are formed by which "facts" are left in and which taken out; that points cited to Vidmar are also backed up by alternative sources does not change the fact that the history section broadly follows Vidmar's outline, and thus we are left with a non-neutral narrative. The action required to correct this is to revise the section and the choice of "facts" as well as the implied weightage of those facts after looking closely at the structure of other articles or historical surveys of the church. Normally I would have done this myself. --Relata refero (disp.) 22:22, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Please specify which notable facts of history have been omitted from the article otherwise I do not consider this an actionable oppose.NancyHeise (talk) 10:25, 5 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Its been done at length in the last FAC. No action was taken. Claiming it is not actionable just because I haven't repeated them is a little absurd. --Relata refero (disp.) 21:04, 5 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Your objections are not actionable if you cannot specify them and back them up. Your claims at the last FAC that the catholic church somehow instituted slavery were not backed up by any facts despite repeated requests for you to do so. Your claims of a "consensus opinion" on this matter which did not need any facts to back it up were proven erroneous, and you withdrew from the discussion. Ample proof was given from a multitude of sources that Catholic priests and bishops were indeed the main defenders of indigenous rights. You ignored this. In spite of this you were offered a sentence reflecting your point of view in the section - as what it is - a point of view. You refused this, and walked away, wanting your opinion to be the view of the article. That is not acceptable when it is contrary to the validated facts. Xandar (talk) 10:19, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
They're extensively specified in the archives, and outlined above. The fact that you choose to misrepresent one of them grossly by claiming that I said "the catholic church instituted slavery" is precisely why going through the whole rigmarole again is pointless. The Latin American Church benefited from forced labor, I presented dozens of unimpeachable references stating that it did so, and that it provided local justification and theological support for it at various times, that it was considered extremely problematic. Instead, that large section of the history of the Latin American church is dismissed with a focus on largely theoretical papal bulls and a claim that the near-universal statement that the Church had this record in reliable sources is merely an "opinion", but bulls are "facts", so the second must be prioritised, and the first reduced to a statement that "some scholars disagree with these obvious facts" or the like. This displays not only basic ignorance of historiography, and what constitutes a "fact" in history, but is the sort of attitude that is endemic throughout the history section. --Relata refero (disp.) 08:49, 9 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Responding to Relata's desire to include something about the Church supporting slavery in the article text. The facts do not support Relata's argument. I researched this subject previously and answered Relata in depth on the previous nom page but I will do it again here. The Catholic Church official position is stated in the article text via wikilinked papal bulls. There were some bad priests here and there who did not obey those pronouncements but their actions were not sanctioned by the Church. Just as we have omitted mention of them, we have NPOV omitted mention of the great number of saints who worked to free and care for the slaves. Slavery is mentioned with appropriate wikilinks to the papal bulls and to the Laws of Burgos affair - the most notable events. Your position, Relata, is that you want to single out the Catholic Church as a particular bad guy on the slavery issue. Maybe you dont know that per my sources, slavery was an institution all over the world in practically every place except Christian Europe. My Edward Norman book goes into the horrors of Muslim slavery when they ruled parts of Spain (page 67). I have a book called "Bird Woman Speaks" about Sacajawea that describes in detail the North American Indian's practice of killing another tribes adults and taking the children as slaves (she was a slave, forced against her will eventually to be the wife (sex slave) of Charboneu). Slavery was also an institution among the Indians of central and Latin America as well as Africa before the Europeans got there. My Justo Gonzalez book describes how the Catholic Church in Brazil operated independently of the rest of the Catholic Church and that some missionaries "used slave labor to generate the income necessary to support their mission , schools, and other activities." This same book later describes how Methodists, Baptists, and mainly Presbyterians moved to Brazil from the US so they could keep their slaves - Gonzalez then states that the southern branches of these Churches were sympathetic to these slave holders and provided them with material and spiritual support. (p 199-200). Earlier in the book, (p152) he describes how slaves in Cuba were required to learn "the principles of the Holy Roman Catholic Apostolic Religion" as required by the code of 1842. He then goes on to tell that this was a code enacted upon the slaves by the crown in an attempt to regulate the relationship between master and slave. In defiance, the Bishop sent Franciscan monks to educate the slaves because he was concerned about the high number of suicides - the Queen ruled against the bishop and left the education of slaves in the hands of slaveholders. Everything here shows that slavery was a fact of life supported by the government and often fought by the Church. Your arguments now and previously were dismissed because they do not improve the article but insert POV when the fact is that slavery was everywhere and the only voice for a long time raised against it was the Church. The controversy that some people think the Church did not do enough to end slavery is also a referenced fact in the text. NancyHeise (talk) 18:21, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Relata, I don't think I misrepresnted your arguments at all. On the issue of the Indians, it was clear that even the books you quoted admitted that the Church was their only defender. You then fell back on the issue of slavery. And here, one of the quotes you made was : "The State and the Church were essentially inseparable from each other in establishing the institution of African slavery in Portugal and its overseas colonies." Another was: "The Catholic Church was complicit in this system, either by justifying it in religious terms or through its own inquisitorial violence and extraction of revenues." However when we asked for verifiable facts to back up these startling assertions, you could provide none. In fact the one concrete figure you produced, Antonio Vieria, whose sermon, it was alleged, helped to create, "a general climate of agreement in favour of slavery." in fact virtually condemned slaveholders to perdition. You did produce some opinions from a number of academics which were condemnatory of the Church, but still no facts to back up these opinions. You argued that these opinions were somehow the "academic consensus", and should be the basis of the article. However it was demonstrated that numerous academics hold a contrary view - and one backed up by facts, such as papal pronouncements and priests identified or executed for assisting slave revolts. Articles on the church like the Britannica do not carry your view either. In view of this the most we could offer was to place the opinions you identified in the article as a school of opinion. You refused this, wanting your views to dominate. I am afraid we could not agree to this in violation of balance, accuracy and WP policies. Xandar (talk) 02:19, 13 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Some content still focuses on the Western perspective. "Lent is the 40–day period of purification..." This section is identified as the Latin rite calendar, but still, how is it 40 days from Ash Wednesday to Holy Thursday? Might it be better to just say "Lent is a period of preparation for Easter", which would cover both Eastern and Western practices? Also, "The couple desiring marriage are themselves the ministers of the sacrament" is a Western view. It would also be nice to write a conclusion for the article. Gimmetrow 09:41, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I made changes to reflect your comment here - no conclusion though per following comment by Xandar. NancyHeise (talk) 10:25, 5 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
An article conclusion would be very problematic. It's a big article about an ongoing institution. It would either be very bland and say "The church goes on into an incident-filled future..." or it would become a source of arguments about POV. Is it positive, negative etc? The article is long enough, and i don't see a useful purpose being served. Xandar (talk) 13:35, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong support. The article is: well written; comprehensive; factually accurate (emphatically per WP:V and WP:RS); neutral (per extensive talk page slug-fests); stable; has a strong structure, lead, and consistent citations; contains many appropriate images. It is lengthy, but this is justifiable due to its 2000 year history and social importance. These are all of the criteia in WP:FACR. My only quibble is the article title, which has been hashed out again and again--apparently, I'm 'wrong' that it's actually the Catholic Church instead of Roman Catholic Church, but what's an expert's knowledge worth? Lwnf360 (talk) 10:33, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Addendum: be forewarned that there will be hundreds if not thousands of similar comments from users that the article title and first sentance are inacurate when this becomes a FA. Suggest either correcting, or putting a note at the top of the talk page saying that this has been extensivly discussed, and the current version is a comprimise. Lwnf360 (talk) 10:42, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your support. Yes, I agree with you on the name but per Wikipedia policy WP:NC, "Generally, article naming should prefer what the greatest number of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature. This is justified by the following principle: The names of Wikipedia articles should be optimized for readers over editors, and for a general audience over specialists." Based on that policy, the article was named "Roman Catholic Church" with the redirect for "Catholic Church" coming to this page as well as offering the reader the fact that the Catholic Church officially calls itself the "Catholic Church". NancyHeise (talk) 11:54, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment the History section has 4993 words "readable prose size". The article History of the Roman Catholic Church has 850 words "readable prose size," and is essentially a mammoth time-line. I have been trying to look at this article with fresh eyes. I had an epiphany, but unfortunately it was a deeply discouraging one. After the previous FAC, I mentioned to Nancy that I was almost sure the "next FAC" (i.e., this one) would pass. I was looking at the organization of the article at that time, and projecting the amount of time until the prose could be brought up to speed. I now wonder if it needs major restructuring. i wonder if the History section should be farmed out to History of the Roman Catholic Church, the time-line from History of the Roman Catholic Church farmed out to Timeline of the Roman Catholic Church, and much material from Role of Catholic Church in Civilization (that was moved out of this article because it was too long!!) moved back. It is depressing. I also wonder... shouldn't South and central America get more verbiage? And I like the suggestion of a conclusion as per Gimmetrow, too... I am also seeing the prose as being more flawed than I had earlier thought (see the demographics section) . Ling.Nut (talk) 11:08, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Lingnut, some more for you to consider - Your restructuring would completely change the entire article which has been built by review and consensus for the past five months. You can't just all of a sudden decide on your own that the entire article gets tossed and a new one replaced. I too like the idea of a conclusion and I will perhaps offer one on my talk page later asking for comments and consensus to add it. NancyHeise (talk) 13:15, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Just a comment to FAC reviewers - Wackymacs and others have made some diparaging comments about "resistance" to reviewers comments by editors. I believe they are confusing editors of the RCC page (who have not voted on this FAC because we have substantially contributed to the page) and other FAC reviewers who are answering their comments. Just to clarify something here, Malleus Fatuorum and Johnbod are not editors of the RCC page but FAC reviewers who have cast support votes on this page and who have been extremely helpful to the editors in expressing our difficulties faced in answering many of the FAC reviewers comments that are outside of the FAC criteria. Please try to have more respect for your fellow FAC reviewers who are doing everything they can to help get this top page for Wikiproject Catholicism to FA. I personally appreciate their help very much and I dont think their comments have been anything but proper to the conversation. NancyHeise (talk) 11:50, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Now is not the time for a major restructure of the article, causing massive instability. As per the Britannica article, details of which have been posted below, History makes up a significant, and necessary part of both treatments. Even if the material were transferred, this article would still need a smaller History section, and deciding what went in that and at what weight would be horrendous. (Witness the six months of discussion here and on the Talk pages at RCC). the current length of the History section has been determined, not by the editors so much as by the need to deal with certain subjects in sufficient detail to present necessary viewpoints, and to balance events by importance and Due Weight considerations. Indeed, the History of the Church Article COULD be rewritten in prose style, but that is a mammoth undertaking and would need more detail than we currently have in the RCC article. I ams ure someone could take the current RCC text and expand on it, but that is another (quite large) project. When that is done might be the time to start thinking whether history content in the main article could be trimmed. Xandar (talk) 13:53, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments: NancyHeise left a message on my talk page concerning the restart; many thanks. On 30 May, NancyHeise responded to Ling.Nut and added other citations to text that were cited only to Vidmar. I had asked for replacement than just additions, but what was done is definitely a step in the right direction. It would be better if the text were supported on the solid sources alone. The facts that I stated concerning the book’s reliability still stand. There are potential pitfalls with this source: as I mentioned, one reason is that an erroneous statement could be supported. More importantly, another reason is the source could be used to subtly push a POV which violates criterion 1d. The latter reason was mentioned by Ling.Nut and Refero. So in summary, WIAFA concerns: 1c and 1d, Action: at least add solid sources to the text that cite only Vidmar, which may require some modification of the text. Some more comments and questions: — RelHistBuff 11:52, 3 June 2008 — continues after insertion below

  • The final paragraph of the "Modern era" section concerns the Church’s relationship with the Jews during World War II, a rather controversial subject, therefore it should stand on a bedrock of scholarship. Unfortunately, only a part is cited to solid scholars. The clause "because even though no Church teachings promote the killing of Jews" (cited to a NYT article) should be removed. The clause may be truthful, but I couldn't find that statement in the source.
I eliminated the clause and left the rest of the sentence. NancyHeise (talk) 17:30, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • The mention of prominent members of the Jewish community and the use of their quotes is simply sourced to a book of quotations. This makes it appear that cherry-picking was done which might bring out claims of WP:OR. The sentence should be supported by a solid source or removed.
I added Bokenkotter as a source and provided the quote to support the current text. NancyHeise (talk) 17:03, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The problem is a statement about "prominent Jews" (we are not told who made this statement) and the appearance of the cherry-picking of quotes. Bokenkotter’s text said that it was David G. Dalin who made the observation. He said four persons "would likely have been shocked" and he gave only quotes made by Einstein and Herzog. To correctly paraphrase Bokenkotter’s text, it should say something like "An American rabbi, David G. Dalin, states that Einstein and Herzog praised the actions of Pius...". The cite to the quotations book is not needed, otherwise it is cherry-picking quotes thus violating neutrality. --RelHistBuff (talk) 10:17, 9 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • The two final sentences in the paragraph (only cited to Vidmar), appear as if they were statements from an apologist; quoting a single Israeli consul making a unsupported claim may not be a direct example of a POV, but it is a POV by proxy. The previous clause quoting Dalin (cited to Bokenkotter) is sufficient. The sentence giving the number of priests killed by the Nazis is unrelated to Pius' and the Church's relations with the Jews and just appears defensive. The two sentences should be dropped as what is left in the paragraph is enough.
While I disagree that I can't use Vidmar, especially when the preceeding sentence supports the next one, I have eliminated these last two sentences in compromise with you. NancyHeise (talk) 17:03, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • On the subject of Mary I, who were the "Catholic spiritual advisor and others" mentioned?
Mary I was married to a Spanish Catholic who asked his chaplain to preach against the burnings, I was only able to find this fact in Vidmar and one other source but it was not a university press or a university professor so I did not use it as a back up. I eliminated the phrase "Catholic spiritual advisor" and replaced with "Spanish ambassador" as supported by the quote by Haigh.NancyHeise (talk) 17:03, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • On the subject of the Huguenots, ending a paragraph with the Edict of Nantes is misleading giving the impression that France became a tolerant nation. Surely, the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes and its rather devastating after effects should be mentioned as well?
After looking into this extensively through all my sources and online, I dont think that it deserves mention since my scholarly sources do not go into it, probably because it was not an action of the Catholic Church but a secular ruler. If you don't mind, I would like for the text to not stray too far off topic, there are a number of tangents we could follow in all areas of history but we have to have some kind of limit for size reasons. NancyHeise (talk) 17:28, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The Edict of Nantes was also emitted by a secular ruler. So the Revocation could also be included as well. Ending the paragraph like that would seriously misrepresent the history of the Church in France. The history of the religious decisions of secular rulers (e.g., Charles V of the HRE, Henry VIII, Mary I, and Elizabeth I of England, and Henry IV and Louis XIV of France) are tied to the history of the Church at that time. Adding a sentence on Louis XIV and the Revocation and its impact completes the story leaving France as a largely Catholic nation. --RelHistBuff (talk) 13:19, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I have inserted text with wikilink to Revocation of Edict of Nantes but it is in the French Revolution area listed as a reason for the anticlericalism that preceeded the French Revolution. Since the article is about the Roman Catholic Church, not France or the Huguenots, I think this is the best presentation. Readers who want to know what the Revocation did can find it through the link provided and this treatment is consistent throughout with other issues. NancyHeise (talk) 11:06, 5 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
As I said previously, I find this seriously misleading and I am concerned about 1d. The paragraph ends by mentioning the Edict of Nantes that declares tolerance in France. Then later in the article, it is mentioned that the persecution of priests developed after the Revocation of the Edict. This leaves a rather obvious lacuna in the history of the Church in France. The actual Revocation and its effects which were to either force the conversion of the Huguenots to Catholicism or to expel them appears as an attempt to hide some uncomfortable facts. A sentence on the Revocation and the effects on the Huguenots should be added at the end of the paragraph. --RelHistBuff (talk) 08:32, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

--RelHistBuff (talk) 11:52, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

We have provided the relevant facts for the history of the Church, we are not writing the history of all of Europe and we dont have the space to do so. The Church did not sanction the Revocation or its effects on the Huguenots. We are trying very hard not to confuse the actions of secular rulers with the actions of the Church. I think there is room to mention what you are asking for and I have posted on the talk page for suggestions and invited one editor to come and contribute. I posted your concerns on the talk page too. For purposes of FA nomination, this article does not omit any important fact or controversy in Catholic Church history including the Revocation of Edict of Nantes. I have made changes in the text to try to resolve your concerns and I continue to try via my postings on the talk page. I do not feel that your oppose is any more actionable as there are no FAC criteria being violated. NancyHeise (talk) 18:30, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I strongly disagree. I have not asked for a history of all of Europe to be written. I am asking for adherence to criterion 1d. Currently, the article mention a Catholic ruler who allowed for some toleration of a minority (Henry and the Edict) and secular attacks on Catholic clerics (after the Revocation). And yet there is no mention of the Revocation itself, i.e. the period in between, about a Catholic ruler (Louis XIV) who forced conversions to the Catholic faith and forced expulsion of hundreds of thousands of a minority leaving France almost wholly Catholic. This is an integral part of the history of the Church. Despite the danger of reusing a metaphor, I submit that this is "cherry-picking" bits of history in order to portray the Church and its supporting rulers in a positive light and dropping other bits that are inconvenient using the excuse that the actions were done by a "secular ruler". Both Henry and Louis XIV were secular rulers. Mentioning only one secular ruler but not the other is not only a violation of NPOV, it is a refusal to give the complete picture, thus violating comprehensiveness. --RelHistBuff (talk) 10:17, 9 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think there are ample scholarly sources to back up the WWII material in the article. Since this is about the Church and the Nazis, I think reference to numbers of priests killed is relevant. I will look up further references. Xandar (talk) 15:26, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I am sure there are sources to back it up. I was just stating that it is out-of-place in the context of Pius and the Jews. It looks like it was put there to defend the Church against charges of anti-Semitism, but in fact they are separate issues. The number would be fine in another paragraph on the Nazis interaction with the Church. --RelHistBuff (talk) 13:19, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
FAC criteria 1(c) requires the text to be "factually accurate: claims are verifiable against reliable sources, accurately represent the relevant body of published knowledge, and are supported with specific evidence and external citations; this involves the provision of a "References" section in which sources are listed, complemented by inline citations where appropriate;"
To meet this criteria, we used an equal balance of both apologist and critic sources in the text. Our main sources are from Edward Norman and Eamon Duffy who are introduced in the article in the Origins and Mission section in a way that helps the reader to understand that there are different scholarly viewpoints on Catholic Church history. Duffy and other authors who take the critical viewpoint are more than equally represented in the text than those like Norman who represent the apologist viewpoint. Sensitive areas of the article like Inquisitions, Crusades, Reformation, and Sexual Abuse were created using both critic and apologist sources and quotations from all of these sources were included to reader could see all the various viewpoints for themselves. The book RelHistBuf does not like, The Catholic Church Throughout the Ages by John Vidmar(2005) Paulist Press, is one of our apologist sources. It meets WP:RS criteria and qualifies as a top source per WP:Reliable source examples. Elimination of this book would leave a huge imbalance in the article balance of both points of view. Further, every Vidmar citation in the article text except for one point no one cares about is a double to another reference that no one has a problem with, in most cases the other ref has a quote included so you can see that the sentence is not "built" around Vidmar. Although wikipedia policies allow me to have some citations in the article text referenced only to Vidmar, I have conceeded to FAC reviewers comments and doubled all of his references. Vidmar's book was peer reviewed by critical historian Thomas Bokenkotter in the academic journal Catholic Historical Review which has been published since 1915, there is another peer review by a professor of Theology (theology departments teach Church history) at Graduate Theological Union, Berkley, and another on Googlebooks. None of these reveiws state that the book has any factual errors or radical POV and all of them recommend the book at the end of the review. Thus, there is no Wikipedia policy violated in using Vidmar and I have gone beyond the mere policies to satisfy RelHistBuf but I think it would violate policy completely to remove use of this book. In addition, there is neither any FAC criteria violated unless I do remove him. I will be answering all of RelHistBuf's other comments shortly just underneath his bulletpoints and I very much appreciate the fine way he has framed his comments and review here. I think his is a perfect example of polite opposition and organized review. Thanks RelHistBuf. NancyHeise (talk) 13:42, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I am sorry, but, yes, I remain in the opposition. I, like many of our other colleagues here on Wiki, would really like to see this article reach FA, but do not feel that it has quite satisfied WIAFA. Concerning your points, I have to question your definition of the split of apologist and critical sources. I get the impression that you are setting your own "goalpost" of what is acceptable or not. I have pointed out the reasons why the source is not reliable (the author's background, the publisher, the mistakes, the review) and they have not been refuted. Your criterion that a review has to state that it has factual errors or a radical POV in order to be rejected is an arbitrary one. The review speaks for itself: Bokenkotter disagrees with several points in the book and he calls the style "breezy". If there are no other scholarly reviews of the book, then that in itself is equally damning as the book is not even considered decent enough to show up on the journal review radar. However, as long there are other cites along with Vidmar, then 1c appears to be satisfied. I will start looking more in detail concerning WIAFA criterion 1d. --RelHistBuff (talk) 13:19, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I have answered all of RelHistBuf's concerns point by point making concessions to his desires except to remove use of Vidmar which I am not required to do per any Wikipedia policy as he meets specified requirements of WP:RS and WP:Reliable source examples. I do not consider this an actionable oppose. NancyHeise (talk) 11:06, 5 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I thank you again for leaving a note on my talk page. I am sorry, but not all of my points were addressed. Concerning the sources, I repeat, the artificial division of "apologist" and "critical" sources is an imaginary creation and simply moves a "goalpost" so as to justify the use of a very poor quality source which I have shown is not reliable (1c violation). I also opposed due to 1d. I have found neutrality problems as mentioned above. But these are just examples; I am afraid that this may just be the tip of the iceberg. Other reviewers (e.g., Awadewit and jbmurray) have already noted other POV problems, thus confirming my suspicions. The oppose is clearly actionable as I have given the criterion violated, the reasons why (none of which have been refuted), and the suggested possible solutions. --RelHistBuff (talk) 10:17, 9 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Rel HisBuff The specific concerns that you raised have been addressed. On Vidmar, you may disagree with the use of his book, but it breaks no FA rules, and his his use is backed with citations from other scholars. editors have net over backward to deal with your "neutrality concerns", but now you say these were "just examples", yet refuse to state WHICH other passages you have concerns about. If you cannot specify precisely what you are continuing to claim are POV concerns, then your oppose cannot be actionable. Editors cannot mind-read your concerns, and refusing to specify them or to engage in the process, makes them impossible to address. Therefore unless you do specify your precise concerns in an addressable manner, your continued oppose must be seen as non-actionable. 92.40.196.30 (talk) 21:06, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
One neutrality concern (1d), I "specified precisely", the Edict being included and the Revocation of the Edict being excluded, has not been addressed. I disagree with your claim that I refused to specify them. There is no need to "mind-read"; I repeat again, all my statements are actionable as I stated the criteria violated and suggested potential solutions. On the issue of Pius and the Jews, I suggested a formulation using a paraphrase of Bokenkotter without sourcing to a book of quotations which appears as cherry-picking (1d). Note also that on the article talk page, Qp10qp suggested a formulation to correct an error on the statement that Pope Clement VIII supported King Henry IV's edict when in fact Clement was dismayed by it (in my opinion, another 1d concern). Concerning Vidmar, your doubling of cites is a step in the right direction and partially solves 1c. But this point is not a matter of personal disagreement as you claim; the source is poor quality and biased. I gave the reasons why it is a poor source in detail (credentials with a Doctorate in Sacred Theology, works at a small Catholic college that does not do Ph.D level research, he is a member of the Paulists and published by the Paulists hence it is effectively self-published by a missionary organisation, gives a Catholic POV, errors in the book, one weak review with certain criticisms found in a Catholic journal). It is the use of that source that may contribute to the NPOV problems (1d). --RelHistBuff (talk) 09:55, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
RelHistBuff's oppose is unreasonable for these reasons:
  • Edict of Nantes is completely covered the third paragraph of Late Medieval and Renaissance where the sentence states that it was supported by Pope Clement III - a fact. Editor Qp10qp wanted to add text that said the Pope was dismayed by it but the Duffy quote says that he agreed with it after a "long hesitation" - it is very POV to assume that he was dismayed - perhaps he was putting the matter to prayer and after coming to know God's will in the matter, supported it. It is not unusual for a Catholic person to not know exactly the correct thing to do at the momment but to wait on a decision after putting the matter up to God in prayer. It is offensive to Catholics and very POV to then assume that a pope's hesitation over a big decision constitutes "dismay". Duffy is our most respected source in the article and his quote does not support use of the word "dismay".
The "perhaps" says it all. Qp10qp provided a source that supported the use of "dismay". Duffy does not say that the pope "supported" the Edict. --RelHistBuff (talk) 16:21, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Revocation of Edict of Nantes is covered in first paragraph of Enlightenment section. This is the actual sentence " In 1685 King Louis XIV of France issued the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, ending a century-long experiment in religious toleration. However, the religious conflicts of the Reformation era had provoked a backlash against Christianity. " Three editors have agreed to this placement as we have gone through the article making prose corrections. It was placed there by myself and edited by Ceoil and Xandar. It exists in its most logical place in the article text at a point that is discussing the buildup to the French Revolution. The Revocation was part of that buildup. RelHistBuf's opposition to the article because of no mention of Revocation of Edict of Nantes is made in error.
The change was made by Xandar yesterday (see [7]), I assume to address my comment, but no mention was made of it here until now. --RelHistBuff (talk) 16:21, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • RelHistBuf wanted me to eliminate a source contributed by another editor that is a book of quotes stating that it appears as if we were cherry picking those quotes. I supplemented the source with Bokenkotter who named those same quoted people and more and I added the actual quote from Bokenkotter in the reference to prove there was no cherry picking as he has improperly alleged. I do not see how the article should be denied FA because we have two sources instead of one supporting a controversial section. We want more not less sources in areas like that.
  • RelHistBuf opposes because he wants me to eliminate use of the book "The Catholic Church Through the Ages" by John Vidmar whose book is peer reviewed by Thomas Bokenkotter in the academic journal Catholic Historical Review. Bokenkotter calls the book "breezy" and points out some contentious statements made by Vidmar on issues not even covered by our article text. He never states the book is incorrect or radical and ends the review by recommending it to the reader. All cites to the Vidmar book serve as doubles to another reference and his book provides a valuable asset to the page by giving reader the perspective of a Catholic apologist in sensitive areas like Inquisitions, Crusades, Reformation, etc. where we included refs and quotes from a variety of authors from various perspectives. RelHistBuf's request to eliminate Vidmar is unreasonable and is not based on any Wikipedia policy and would make the article less informative and eliminate one of the sources used to satisfy FAC criteria 1c " accurately represent the relevant body of published knowledge".
  • For these reasons, I do not consider RelHistBuf's an actionable oppose. NancyHeise (talk) 14:54, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
No wonder people just give up commenting. A poor quality source is continually defended by wikilawyering. Wikipedia has no chance of improving with this kind of attitude. --RelHistBuff (talk) 16:21, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • On the Edict of Nantes, I think Qp10p's references established that the Pope publicly supported the Edict, but privately was "dismayed" - or something very similar. The current text is not in "error", as Carlaude dogmatically puts it, but would be improved by the insertion of, for example, "reluctantly" at the relevant point. Johnbod (talk) 15:04, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
But does Duffy support the assertion that the pope "supported" the Edict? --RelHistBuff (talk) 16:21, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
If we are going to fail FA over the use of one word, I do not have a problem with its insertion but I do not see how "a long hesitation" translates absolutely into "dismayed" or "relucatantly" when we are not in a position to know why he hesitated. It seems to be more POV and incorrect to make that assumption rather than to just leave the text as is - a plain factual statement minus any speculation over why he took his time. NancyHeise (talk) 15:19, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I just added "hesitantly accepted" and removed "supported" from the Edict of Nantes sentence. The new words directly reflect Duffy's message in his quote that I provided on the talk page discussion over this issue. NancyHeise (talk) 17:11, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - someone asked me to compare with the Encyclopedia Britannica entry (Roman Catholicism." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2008. Encyclopædia Britannica Online Library Edition). The EB entry is at "Roman Catholicism", is 121 pages long, and has the following structure:
Structure of Encyclopedia Britannica article on Roman Catholicism
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
  • Introduction
  • History of Roman Catholicism
    • The emergence of Catholic Christianity
      • The emergence of Roman Catholicism
        • Internal factors
        • External factors
        • The early medieval papacy
    • The church of the early Middle Ages
      • The concept of Christendom
      • A period of decadence
      • Popular Christianity 1000
    • The church of the High Middle Ages
      • Gregorian Reform
      • The reign of Gregory VII
      • The Investiture Controversy: Gregory VII to Calixtus II
      • The Crusades
      • The papacy at its height: the 12th and 13th centuries
      • The renaissance of the 12th century
      • The apostolic life
      • Religious orders: canons and monks
      • The mendicant orders
      • The rise of heresy
      • Religious life in the 13th century
      • The golden age of Scholasticism
      • The persecuting society
    • From the late Middle Ages to the Reformation
      • The “Babylonian Captivity”
      • Late medieval reform: the Great Schism and conciliarism
      • Jan Hus
      • Efforts to heal the East-West Schism
      • Roman Catholicism on the eve of the Reformation
      • The decline of Scholastic theology
      • Expressions of spirituality and folk piety
      • Roman Catholicism and Renaissance humanism
      • Roman Catholicism and the emergence of national consciousness
  • The age of Reformation and Counter-Reformation
    • Roman Catholicism and the Protestant Reformation
      • The Roman Catholic Reformation
        • The Council of Trent
        • New religious orders
    • The Counter-Reformation
    • Post-Reformation conditions
    • Developments in France
      • The Gallican problem
      • Jansenism
      • Quietism
    • Controversies involving the Jesuits
      • The Chinese rites controversy
      • Suppression of the Jesuits
    • Religious life in the 17th and 18th centuries
  • The church in the modern period
    • Catholicism in Revolutionary France
    • Napoleon I and the restoration
    • Pius IX
    • Leo XIII
    • The period of the World Wars
    • The Second Vatican Council
    • Aftermath of the council
  • Roman Catholicism outside Europe
    • The New World: Spanish and Portuguese empires
      • Colonial period
      • After independence
      • Spanish and French missions in North America
    • Roman Catholicism in the United States and Canada
      • United States
      • Canada
    • Roman Catholicism in Africa and Asia
      • Missions in Africa
      • Missions in Asia
  • Structure of the church
    • Doctrinal basis
      • The nature of the church
      • Apostolic succession
    • The papacy
      • The papal office
      • Ancient and medieval views of papal authority
      • Early-modern and modern views of papal authority
      • Historical conceptions of the relationship of the papacy to the world
      • Contemporary teaching on papal authority
    • The offices of the clergy
      • The Roman Curia and the College of Cardinals
      • The college of bishops
      • Ecumenical councils
      • The priesthood
    • Religious communities
      • Hermits and monks
      • Mendicant friars and clerks regular
      • Nuns and brothers
    • The laity
    • Canon law
  • Beliefs and practices
    • Faith
      • Concepts of faith
      • Preambles and motivation of faith
      • Heresy
    • Revelation
      • The concept of revelation
      • The content of revelation
    • Tradition and Scripture
      • The magisterium
      • The concept of teaching authority
      • Organs of teaching authority
      • Object and response
    • Major dogmas and doctrines
    • Sacraments
      • General characteristics
      • Baptism
      • Confirmation
      • The Eucharist
      • Reconciliation
      • Anointing of the sick
      • Marriage
      • Holy orders
    • Liturgy
      • The mass
      • The divine office
      • The liturgical year
    • Paraliturgical devotions
      • Eucharistic devotions
      • Cult of the saints
      • Mysticism
    • The order of the mass
      • The introductory rites
      • The liturgy of the Word
      • The liturgy of the Eucharist
      • The communion rite
      • The concluding rite
    • The role of the church in society
      • Missions
      • Education
      • Charitable activities
      • Church and state relations
      • Economic views and practice
      • The family
  • The church since Vatican II
  • Additional Reading
    • General Works
      • History
      • Belief and practice
    • The Latin church from antiquity to the late Middle Ages
    • Reformation and Counter-Reformation
    • Roman Catholicism in modern times
    • The papacy

References are lengthy:

References used for the EB article on Roman Catholicism
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
  • History:
    • Large-scale works are Hubert Jedin and John Patrick Dolan (eds.), History of the Church, 10 vol. (1986–89). John McManners (ed.), The Oxford Illustrated History of Christianity (1990, reissued 2001), is useful. Roland H. Bainton, The Horizon History of Christianity (1964, reissued as Christianity, 2000), is a well-written, beautifully illustrated, comprehensive introduction to Western Christianity through the centuries and includes references to modern Catholicism worldwide.
  • Belief and practice:
    • Reference works include Robert C. Broderick (ed.), The Catholic Encyclopedia, rev. and updated ed. (1987); Thomas Carson and Joann Cerrito (eds.), New Catholic Encyclopedia, 2nd ed., 15 vol. (2003), which treats all phases of Roman Catholicism; Karl Rahner et al. (eds.), Sacramentum Mundi: An Encyclopedia of Theology, 6 vol. (1968–70), which deals with Catholic doctrine and theological thought; and F.L. Cross and E.A. Livingstone (eds.), The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd ed. (1997), with informative articles on Roman Catholic subjects and helpful bibliographies.
    • An excellent brief compendium of doctrine is A New Catechism: Catholic Faith for Adults, trans. by Kevin Smyth (1967, reissued 1982; originally published in Dutch, 1966). Also valuable is Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (later elected as Pope Benedict XVI) and Christopher Schönborn (one of the contributors to the church's new catechism), Introduction to the Catechism of the Catholic Church (1994). Roman Catholic theology of the church is discussed by Hans Küng, The Church (1967, reissued 1976; originally published in German, 1967); and Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Called to Communion: Understanding the Church Today, trans. by Adrian Walker (1996; originally published in German, 1991).
    • The contemporary Roman Catholic Church is surveyed by John L. McKenzie, The Roman Catholic Church (1969, reissued 1971). A balanced and comprehensive introduction is Richard P. McBrien, Catholicism, completely rev. and updated (1994). See also Barrie Ruth Straus, The Catholic Church (1987, reissued 1992). Jaroslav Pelikan, The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine, 5 vol. (1971–91), opens with the apostolic Fathers and closes with the Second Vatican Council. Jaroslav Pelikan, Credo: Historical and Theological Guide to Creeds and Confessions of Faith in the Christian Tradition, 4 vol. (2003), is a comprehensive collection of statements of faith and includes a volume of commentary on the creeds. Rosemary Ruether and Eleanor McLaughlin (eds.), Women of Spirit: Female Leadership in the Jewish and Christian Traditions (1979, reissued 1998), is a step toward redressing the imbalance in most scholarship. An important starting point for developments in Roman Catholic theology after the Second Vatican Council is Hans Küng, On Being a Christian, trans. by Edward Quinn (1976, reissued 1984; originally published in German, 1974). On developments in Roman Catholic feminist theology, see Mary Jo Weaver, New Catholic Women: A Contemporary Challenge to Traditional Religious Authority (1985, reissued 1995).
  • The Latin church from antiquity to the late Middle Ages
    • Perceptive introductions to the medieval church are Bernard Hamilton, Religion in the Medieval West (1986); and R.W. Southern, Western Society and the Church in the Middle Ages (1970, reprinted 1990). A useful survey of the history of the early church is Peter Brown, The Rise of Western Christendom: Triumph and Diversity, AD 200–1000, 2nd ed. (2003). Important studies of the church in late antiquity and the early Middle Ages are Peter Brown, The Cult of the Saints: Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity (1983); R.A. Markus, The End of Ancient Christianity (1998); Richard E. Sullivan, Christian Missionary Activity in the Early Middle Ages (1994); and J.M. Wallace-Hadrill, The Frankish Church (1983). Étienne Gilson, History of Christian Philosophy in the Middle Ages (1955, reissued 1980), is a masterly summary with a full bibliography. Heiko A. Oberman, The Harvest of Medieval Theology: Gabriel Biel and Late Medieval Nominalism, rev. ed. (2000), looks at the theology of the late Middle Ages in its entirety, with special emphasis on nominalism. C.H. Lawrence, Medieval Monasticism: Forms of Religious Life in Western Europe in the Middle Ages, 3rd ed. (2001); and C.H. Lawrence, The Friars: The Impact of the Early Mendicant Movement on Western Society (1994), are accessible surveys of the medieval religious orders. The profound changes in spirituality and church organization that occurred in the 11th and 12th centuries are studied in Uta-Renate Blumenthal, The Investiture Controversy: Church and Monarchy from the Ninth to the Twelfth Century (1988, reissued 1991); Michael Frassetto (ed.), Medieval Purity and Piety: Essays on Medieval Clerical Celibacy and Religious Reform (1998); Rachel Fulton, From Judgment to Passion: Devotion to Christ and the Virgin Mary, 800–1200 (2002); Gerd Tellenbach, The Church in Western Europe from the Tenth to the Early Twelfth Century (1993); and Caroline Walker Bynum, Jesus as Mother: Studies in the Spirituality of the High Middle Ages (1982).
    • Henry Charles Lea, The Inquisition of the Middle Ages: Its Organization and Operation (1954, reissued 1993), remains the essential, but sectarian, introduction to the topic. Bernard Hamilton, The Medieval Inquisition (1981); and Edward Peters, Inquisition (1988), offer a more balanced view; and Henry Kamen, The Spanish Inquisition: A Historical Revision, 2nd ed. (1997, reissued 2000), is the best introduction to the institution in Spain. The history of medieval heresy is best examined in Malcom Lambert, Medieval Heresy: Popular Movements from the Gregorian Reform to the Reformation, 3rd ed. (2002); and R.I. Moore, The Origins of European Dissent (1977, reissued 1994).
    • A useful introduction to the Crusades is Thomas F. Madden, A Concise History of the Crusades (1999). Francis Oakley, The Western Church in the Later Middle Ages (1979, reissued 1985); and Steven Ozment, The Age of Reform, 1250–1550: An Intellectual and Religious History of Late Medieval and Reformation Europe (1980), cover the late Middle Ages with sound judgment. W.A. Pantin, The English Church in the Fourteenth Century (1955, reissued 1980), is a good introduction to late medieval English developments; and Lawrence G. Duggan, Bishop and Chapter: The Governance of the Bishopric of Speyer to 1552 (1978), an important study of the institutional church in Germany.
  • Reformation and Counter-Reformation:
    • The period is surveyed thoroughly in two reference works: Thomas A. Brady, Heiko A. Oberman, and James D. Tracy (eds.), Handbook of European History, 1400–1600: Late Middle Ages, Renaissance, and Reformation, 2 vol. (1994–96); and Hans J. Hillerbrand (ed.), The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Reformation, 4 vol. (1996). An important introduction is G.R. Elton (ed.), The Reformation, 1520–1559, 2nd ed., vol. 2 (1990) of The New Cambridge Modern History, 14 vol. (1957–77, reissued 1975–99). Other useful introductions to the period are John Bossy, Christianity in the West, 1400–1700 (1985); Euan Cameron, The European Reformation (1991); Heiko A. Oberman, The Dawn of the Reformation: Essays in Late Medieval and Early Reformation Thought (1986, reissued 1992); and Lewis W. Spitz, The Protestant Reformation, 1517–1559 (1985).
    • Jaroslav Pelikan, Obedient Rebels: Catholic Substance and Protestant Principle in Luther's Reformation (1964), is an investigation of Luther's thought; and Roland H. Bainton, Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther (1950, reissued 1995), remains the best introduction to Luther's life. Developments in England are considered in Eamon duffy, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England, 1400–1580 (1992). George Huntston Williams, The Radical Reformation, 3rd ed. (2000), is a synoptic presentation of the “left wing” of the Reformation. Reform in the Roman Catholic Church is treated best in Robert Bireley, The Refashioning of Catholicism, 1450–1700 (1999); Michael A. Mullett, The Catholic Reformation (1999); and R. Po-chia Hsia, The World of Catholic Renewal 1540–1770 (1998).
  • Roman Catholicism in modern times:
    • An extensive and valuable study is Kenneth Scott Latourette, Christianity in a Revolutionary Age: A History of Christianity in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, 5 vol. (1958–62, reissued 1973); vol. 1, 3, and 5 concentrate on Roman Catholic themes. E.E.Y. Hales, The Catholic Church in the Modern World: A Survey from the French Revolution to the Present, new rev. ed. (1960), concentrates on Europe and America. Two works that make aspects of the American Catholic experience readily available to readers are John Tracy Ellis, American Catholicism, 2nd ed. rev. (1969); and Jay P. Dolan, The American Catholic Experience: A History from Colonial Times to the Present (1985, reissued 2001), an essential study. Stephen Neill, Colonialism and Christian Missions (1966), and A History of Christian Missions, 2nd ed. rev. by Owen Chadwick (1986, reissued 1990), provide brief and generally fair comments on Catholic ventures. Gustavo Gutiérrez, A Theology of Liberation: History, Politics, and Salvation, trans. and ed. by Caridad Inda and John Eagleson, rev. ed. (2001; originally published in Spanish, 1972), is a provocative introduction to Roman Catholicism in the developing world. Another essential study is Anthony Gill, Rendering unto Caesar: The Catholic Church and the State in Latin America (1998). Adrian Hastings, The Church in Africa, 1450–1950 (1994), is a valuable introduction.
    • Lester R. Kurtz, The Politics of Heresy: The Modernist Crisis in Roman Catholicism (1986), provides an introduction to the debate over Modernism. Austin Flannery (ed.), Vatican Council II: The Conciliar and Post-Conciliar Documents, new rev. ed. (1996), is a useful collection of documents from the council; and Adrian Hastings (ed.), Modern Catholicism: Vatican II and After (1991), is a valuable consideration of the postconciliar Roman Catholic Church.
  • The papacy:
    • Eamon Duffy, Saints and Sinners: A History of the Popes, 2nd ed. (2002), is a comprehensive and lively study of the papacy. An excellent brief introduction to papal history up to the Reformation is Geoffrey Barraclough, The Medieval Papacy (1968, reissued 1979). Essential studies for the development of medieval papal claims are W. Ullmann, The Growth of Papal Government in the Middle Ages: A Study in the Ideological Relation of Clerical to Lay Power, 3rd ed. (1970); and Brian Tierney, Origins of Papal Infallibility, 1150–1350: A Study on the Concepts of Infallibility, Sovereignty, and Tradition in the Middle Ages (1972, reissued 1988). Other valuable studies of the medieval papacy are Peter Llewellyn, Rome in the Dark Ages (1971, reissued 1996); Colin Morris, The Papal Monarchy: The Western Church from 1050 to 1250 (1989); Guillaume Mollat, The Popes at Avignon, 1305–1378 , trans. by Janet Love (1963; originally published in French, 9th ed. 1949); and Francis Oakley, Council over Pope? Towards a Provisional Ecclesiology (1969).
    • Good studies of the papacy from the Renaissance to modern times include John A.F. Thomson, Popes and Princes, 1417–1517: Politics and Polity in the Late Medieval Church (1980); A.D. Wright, The Early Modern Papacy: From the Council of Trent to the French Revolution, 1564–1789 (2000); Owen Chadwick, The Popes and European Revolution (1981); and Frank J. Coppa, The Modern Papacy Since 1789 (1998). Edward Cuthbert Butler, The Vatican Council, 1869–1870: Based on Bishop Ullathorne's Letters, ed. by Christopher Butler (1930, reissued 1962), is a history of the First Vatican Council. Walter M. Abbott (ed.), The Documents of Vatican II (1966, reissued 1989), is an introduction to the achievement of the Second Vatican Council. Garry Wills, Papal Sin: Structures of Deceit (2000), is a controversial and highly critical commentary on the modern papacy.
    • Works on the papacy from theological perspectives include Paul C. Empie and T. Austin Murphy (eds.), Papal Primacy and the Universal Church (1974), an ecumenical dialogue; and Rudolf Schnackenburg, The Church in the New Testament (1965, reissued 1974; originally published in German, 1961), which presents the results of 20th-century Roman Catholic biblical scholarship. Raymond E. Brown, Karl P. Donfried, and John Reumann (eds.), Peter in the New Testament: A Collaborative Assessment by Protestant and Roman Catholic Scholars (1973, reissued 2002), considers the biblical problems in the Petrine question. Karl Rahner and Joseph Ratzinger, The Episcopate and the Primacy, trans. by Kenneth Barker (1962; originally published in German, 1961), is an analysis of the pope-bishop relationship; and Hans Küng, Infallible? An Unresolved Enquiry, new expanded ed. (1994; originally published in German, 1970), and Structures of the Church, trans. by Salvator Attanasio (1964, reissued 1982; originally published in German, 1962), are basic to an understanding of contemporary “liberal” Roman Catholic thinking on the papacy. Francis Dvornik, Byzantium and the Roman Primacy, trans. by Edwin A. Quain (1966, reprinted 1979; originally published in French, 1964); and John Meyendorff et al., The Primacy of Peter, 2nd ed. (1973, reissued 1992; originally published in French, 1960), are useful studies of Eastern Orthodox views on papal primacy.

Hope that's useful. If someone wants a copy of the article, drop me an email. Neıl 龱 13:17, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]


Interesting. But you must remember the EB article is far larger than ours, and has the advantage in terms that you can flip to whichever section you want by turning the page, rather than reading through long stretches of text as you tend to on a one-page article. That's why History, being the longest section, but not necessarily the one people will want to read first, has been placed where it is. Xandar (talk) 13:41, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose I have not read this article since its last FAC and I hoped to be able to support it this time around. In the meantime, actually, I read several books on church history to be able to better comment on the article. However, I find that I am not able to support the article, most unfortunately. I know that a lot of work has gone into it, but I feel that the article fails 1b, 1c, and 1d. — Awadewit 15:00, 3 June 2008 — continues after insertion below

  • The "History" section has a slight Catholic POV. I know that the editors have worked very hard to avoid this, so I am sure this is unintentional. However, the way some of the sentences are constructed and perhaps even the choice of sources have resulted in a Catholic POV. For example, the editors have made a good effort to begin several sentences "the Catholic Church believes...", however it is not clear where this distinction stops in a paragraph - what is believed only by the Catholic Church and what is not? The waters become muddied. Also, the omission of particular details creates a feeling that the section is a Catholic view of history. Let me give some examples of what I mean:
  • In the 16th century, partly in response to the Protestant Reformation, the Church engaged in a substantial process of reform and renewal, known as the Counter-Reformation. - A reflection of this problem occurs in the lead, actually. Considering that the Counter-Reformation also includes events such as the Spanish Inquisition, I feel that this sentence is a bit of a whitewash.
  • No. Spanish Inquisition began a good 60 years before the counter-reformation, and was no part of that process. It is dealt with in the High Middle Ages section Xandar (talk) 15:38, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • As the Spanish Inquisition page itself delineates, part of it had to do with with Counter-Reformation, since it lasted for hundreds of years. Anyway, this individual example is not really the point. The more important point is that the Counter-Reformation itself is misrepresented in the lead. Awadewit (talk) 17:17, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • The Spanish Inquisition was created by a secular King and was an arm of a secular government. If we have omitted the Spanish Inquisition from the text, I would consider your comment but the fact is that we have quite a lot of text on the inquisitions with many refs with quotes from many different sources to support the text. While we have certainly not covered every detail of history in our short summary of the 2000 year history of the Church, I know we have not omitted any main facts. I think that your insistence on requiring more commentary will not help the aritcle's summary style. The text provides a vast number of wikilinks including Spanish Inquisition and Counter Reformation that will help reader to discover all the missing facts we had to exclude for size considerations. NancyHeise (talk) 18:13, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Please reread my objection. I only used the Spanish Inquisition as an example. My main objection is to the misrepresentation of the Counter-Reformation in the lead. It is represented as an innocuous "reform" - it was not. Awadewit (talk) 20:43, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Many important reforms came out of the Counter reformation that are discussed in the article text. These are referenced to scholary sources. It appears to me that the scholars would disagree with you that this was "innocuos". NancyHeise (talk) 00:14, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I agree that many important reforms came out of the Counter-reformation, but so did some unpleasant events. That the lead only represents the positives is what makes the statement POV. It is uncontroversial statement that the Counter-Reformation produced some positives and negatives and that will appear in all of your sources. There is no reliable source that says the entire Counter-Reformation was all roses. There is no need to debate this. The sentence needs to be fixed. I have now explained this several times and I see no reason to explain it yet again. Awadewit (talk) 01:17, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • IF the Spanish Inquisition were a doing of the Catholic Church and not a secular ruler we might be able to include this fact. The pope protested to the King about its abuses, this was not sanctioned by the Church and you need to provide some sources to back up your statements since we have ours already referenced in the text. NancyHeise (talk) 04:28, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • You allege that the article "misrepresents" the Counter-reformation, and that the CR was not innocuous. Yet apart from the misplaced mention of the Spanish Inquisition, you have come up with no evidence for this. As already stated the Spanish Inquisition was not a part of the counter-reformation process. It existed in Spanish territory, but was already past its peak by the time the counter-reformation got going. You will find that most church histories consider the counter-reformation to have been based on a reform of church practice, a renewal of liturgy, stronger action against abuses, and the formation of new better-educated preaching orders. Yes, there were wars and other events in this period, but they have largely been mentioned under the reformation section. Xandar (talk) 09:35, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • The Catholic Church considers Pentecost to be its moment of origin because this was the day when the apostles first emerged from hiding to publicly preach the message of Jesus after his death - This is mixing theology with history. This belief was already stated in the "Origins" section, anyway, and this theological belief, which is not endorsed by historians, does not need to be included in a "History" section.
Another FAC reviewer endorsed the current text as an important lead and suggested that it was a necessary duplication. I am in agreement with that presentation. Reader needs to know what the Church considers to be its own historical beginning and Wikipedia policy requires us to present all significant viewpoints in the article text. NancyHeise (talk) 18:36, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Of course the reader needs to know the Catholic Church's version of its history - I have already suggested a way that could be done. However, the reader also needs to know that historians do not necessarily endorse all of the parts of the Church's official history. Right now, the mix of official Church history and scholarly history is confusing - including a theological belief such as Pentecost in the "History" section is particularly confusing. Awadewit (talk) 20:46, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia policy requires us to present all viewpoints. The history section is not exempt from this requirement. The Catholic viewpoint is a significant point of view that needs to be included in order to satisfy written policy. I would be in violation of this rule if I were to submit to your request. NancyHeise (talk) 00:19, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
No, you would not. I am asking that the Catholic POV be distinguished from other points of view so that readers are not confused. I am not asking you to eliminate the Catholic POV at all. I have already suggested one way in which to do this: create a section explaining the Church's own history of itself. The article already has the start of such a section: "Origins and mission". Expanding this a bit and removing the theology from the "History" section would be a perfectly satisfactory resolution to this problem. I feel no need to repeat myself on this point any further. Awadewit (talk) 01:17, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The sentence itself tells the reader that it is the Catholic POV, there isnt any more qualification required. NancyHeise (talk) 04:28, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
We have now specifically reinforced the elements that are based on Church Tradition and/or scripture in the Roman Empire Section. That is quite sufficient for any reader to have no serious chance of possible confusion. For reasons of coherence this information needs to be there, at least in overview form at the beginning of the Church History section, and secular historians did not start keeping records about the Church until much later. In addition Pentecost, as used here is a day when a particular important event is said to have occurred. It is not being used here, or defined in a theological manner. If the day this happened had beeen Caesar's birthday it would have been just the same.Xandar (talk) 09:27, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Since Pentecost is a church holiday which cannot be demonstrated in historical records (it is a mystical event), this is an excellent example of the article's slight Catholic POV. Awadewit (talk) 14:10, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • From the first century onward, the Church of Rome was respected as a doctrinal authority because the Apostles Peter and Paul had led the Church there - This is a Catholic view of history. The book Lost Christianities by the religious scholar Bart Ehrman, for example, explains that Rome was not the center of orthodoxy until the fourth century and that the orthodox actually developed this story about Rome being the center, emphasizing the role of Peter, in retrospect to solidify their authority. In fact, he even goes into detail regarding the academic reliability of various explanations of the emergence of orthodox Christianity, carefully explaining what academics support and what they do not. It is a very useful and accessible book.
  • Ehrman's view is just that - a view - and a rather extreme one. I'm sure you will find a satisfactory discussion of opposing views in the Origins and Mission section at the head of the article. This sentence in History, could be tweaked, however. Xandar (talk) 15:38, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Ehrman's view is not an extreme view. One reason I took so long to comment on this FAC was because I was reading books so that I could be fully informed. If you would like a full bibliography backing up this position, I can certainly provide you with one. I simply offered what I thought was the most accessible book on the subject. Moreover, just because the article explains the various views in one place does not mean it is off the hook in others. This suggests some reorganization needs to take place - if one section is NPOV and one place is POV to avoid repetition, perhaps some revision can be done, as you suggest.Awadewit (talk) 17:17, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • The text specifically does not say that the Church of Rome was the center of authority but that it was respected as a doctrinal authority because... and it is refd to three scholars, two falling into the critic categories and the refs have the actual quotes to support the text. NancyHeise (talk) 18:02, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • My point is exactly is that Rome was not the center of doctrinal authority. I also see that two of these references are to some of the sources that are in dispute. If you want, I can provide you with even more sources documenting the position I have outlined here. Awadewit (talk) 20:43, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
None of the sources are in dispute. All meet top standards for Wikipedia policy and that has already been proven. If I have a third source as well, why even bring this up, it is a referenced fact. The text does not say that the Church was the doctrinal authority, it says it was respected as one. The refs even have quotes. NancyHeise (talk) 21:53, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
For added measure, I referenced these sentences to Bokenkotter's book and provide the quote. Bokenkotter's book is a standard fare used in University classrooms for decades. Apparently representative of a majority view. One of the other books is the National Geographic Society compiled work of over 10 University professors, "Geography of Religion", also representative of a majority view and the other reference is to Vidmar, representative of the Catholic view. I have enough scholarly works and opinions to prove that the text is factual. NancyHeise (talk) 23:33, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, the sources are in dispute by other editors - I've read the FAC. I am going out of town tomorrow, but when I return I will place a bibliography, quotations, etc. on the article's talk page to demonstrate just how mainstream this view is. Awadewit (talk) 01:17, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This has been resolved. No person on this FAC, even though they have tried, has been able to prove that any of my sources violate WP:RS or not representative of the top sources described in WP:Reliable source examples. Please provide any bad reviews of my sources before you make such a false accusation please. NancyHeise (talk) 04:28, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
First of all, the article doesn't say that early Rome was THE doctrinal authority, but A doctrinal authority. I would say that this is beyond dispute. Apart from the attested Roman origin of the letters of Paul and possibly Peter, there was unchallenged belief in the time (ref: Irenaeus and others) that they had led the Church from there, and left their seal of doctrinal purity there. There is the letter of (Pope) Clement of 85 AD, already referred to in the text in which he sorts out problems in the Corinthian church, and early and most renowned Christian apologists, such as Justin Martyr were based in Rome. Mainstream histories such as Collins and Duffy all acknowledge the position of Rome. Any claim that there was no centrality at Rome before the 4th century is well beyond the mainstream, and seems to edge into Dan Brown territory. Xandar (talk) 09:57, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Please don't accuse me of relying on fictional sources when I have already provided you with a reliable source. Moreover, the overall tone of the paragraph is that Rome is where doctrinal authority emerged - quickly and because of Peter. The paragraph does not explain the sects and were stamped out. The problem here is also the tone and what is left out - the omissions. This is another good example of the slightly Catholic POV of the article. Awadewit (talk) 14:10, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Although competing forms of Christianity emerged early and persisted into the fifth century, the Roman Church retained the practice of meeting in ecumenical councils to ensure that any doctrinal differences were quickly resolved - This is a Catholic view of history - see again Lost Christianities which delineates the debates between these competing forms. It explains how some forms of Christianity were labeled "heresies", such as Gnosticism, and deliberately stamped out by an eventual victor, what we label the "proto-orthodox". This now seems inevitable, but it was not at the time. None of this would be considered "resolving doctrinal differences" - it was basically sect against sect.
  • You seem to misunderstand my point. I am pointing out that there was no established church in the way the article now suggests. It now says "within the Church itself", but histories of Christianity argue that there was no centralized, established church before the fourth or fifth century, so such a statement cannot be made. Awadewit (talk) 17:17, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • This is a very radical POV comment. All of my sources, including the ones considered critics do not hold the view offered by Awadewit here. There was a Roman Church, with a pope, beginning with either ST. Peter, according to Norman or someone earlier than Anicetus in the year 150 per Duffy. Oxford History of Christianity states:"Towards the latter part of the first century, Rome's presiding cleric named Clement wrote on behalf of his church to remonstrate with the Corinthian Christians ... Clement apologized not for intervening but for not having acted sooner. Moreover, during the second century the Roman community's leadership was evident in its generous alms to poorer churches. About 165 they erected monuments to their martyred apostles ... Roman bishops were already conscious of being custodians of the authentic tradition or true interpretation of the apostolic writings. In the conflict with Gnosticism Rome played a decisive role, and likewise in the deep division in Asia Minor created by the claims of the Montanist prophets to be the organs of the Holy Spirit's direct utterances." page 36. NancyHeise (talk) 20:05, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Wasn't it more that there was a (pretty loosely) centralized, established church in this period, but it contained a wider range of doctrinal views, and every so often one group or another split off? I do agree with Awa that the Pentecost bit, and maybe the whoole first two paras, may be better in "Origins", starting the history at a period when there is more material for historians to work with. Johnbod (talk) 19:25, 3 June 2008 (UTC) Johnbod (talk) 19:18, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
There is no scholarly source justification to remove the early history of the Catholic Church from the history section and present it as if it were a POV separate from the main body of historians whose books support the article text. Why do we have to comment on the whole of Christianity in the Roman Catholic Church article? We have right now, the history of the Roman Catholic Church in the history section, just because it overlaps with other Christian sects (which are mentioned) does not mean we have to eliminate that section of history from its logical position in the article. NancyHeise (talk) 20:05, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Nancy, I gave you a scholarly source for this view - Ehrman. He explains how orthodoxy did not really coalesce until the fourth century. If you want, I can give you many more sources explaining this view. This is actually a very widely held view among religious studies scholars. I realize that it is not a widely held view among Catholic theologians or Catholic historians, however. I suggested one solution to this problem - a short section on the Catholic Church's view of its history, but Johnbod's solution is another good one. That would not solve the POV problems in the rest of the "History" section, but it would be a good start. Awadewit (talk) 20:43, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
If orthodoxy did not coalesce until the fourth century does that mean that we remove the early history of the Church? The early history of the Church does not cease to exist just because the Church evolved over time and this fact is apparent in all of my sources. Ehrman is not suggesting that the Church did not exist prior to the 4th century and we have Duffy telling us that there were popes at least as far back as the year 150, National Geographic Society puts it at St. Peter. Peter was writing his letters from the Church of Rome. The Roman Catholic Church, as this article is named, has a history before the 4th century and we would be factually incorrect to exclude that from our article. NancyHeise (talk) 21:25, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think this is a straw man, actually. I'm very dubious that most "Catholic theologians or Catholic historians" would take general issue with a view that "orthodoxy did not really coalesce until the fourth century" - or maybe they would like it a lttle earlier. There's no doubt many big issues were still open for widely ranging views. This is what the quote from the article immediately below is talkling about, surely? Johnbod (talk) 21:34, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think a lot of confusion is creeping in here. Of course there was no "established church" before the 4th century. Christianity was not legalised, and was often under bitter persecution. These are not conditions in which an established church develops. However the sources are quite clear that there was a Christian Church at this time that was organised, considered itself one spiritual body, was organised under bishops in communion with the Bishop of Rome, and insisted on doctrinal orthodoxy in line with the scriptural writings and apostolic tradition. The fact that things like the Nicene Creed were not formall adopted until later does not mean that the Church was not secure in its teaching before this point. This church even called itself the Catholic Church. The article says that there were competing brands of Christianity at this time, and I can't really see any justification for adding much more. Yes there were gnostics, marcionites, and all sorts of other groups, but they were outside the official catholic church, and the church shunned interaction with them. Most of its writings at the time were to preserve orthodoxy from attacks by these groups. So the idea that there was amish-mash of widely differing beliefs within the Church, is a false one, even though it has been popularised by the likes of Dan brown. heresies like Arianism and Nestorianism could rise out of the Church, when individuals were influenced by outside groups, but actuion was always taken against them. The Arian controversy is already mentioned with respect to the Nicene creed. perhaps a sentence could be added to that, but I don't think much more is needed on these topics. Xandar (talk) 10:14, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Awadewit says she is going to provide us with quotes from actual historians who agree with her statements but I think she is going to be left dry on that. We can't change the text to suit her desires when it goes against the top WP:Reliable source examples we have referencing the content right now. NancyHeise (talk) 16:30, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps. This is from Christianity Through the Centuries. by Earle E Cairns. 1996..
p112. During the period between 100 and 313, the church was forced to give consideration to how it could best meet the external persecution from the Roman state and the internal problem of heretical teaching and consequent schism. It sought to close its ranks by the development of a canon of the New Testament, which gave it an authoritative Book for faith and practice; by the creation of a creed, which gace it an authoritative statement of belief; and by obedience to the monarchical bishops, among whom the Roman bishop took a place of leadership. The last gave it a bond of unity in the constitution of the church. Polemicists wrote books in controversy with heretics. Around 170 the church was calling itself the "catholic" or universal, church, a term first used by Ignatius in his Epistle to Smyrna (chap. 8). Xandar (talk) 20:23, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • In the first few centuries of its existence, the Church defined and formed its teachings and traditions into a systematic whole under the influence of theological apologists such as Pope Clement I, Ignatius of Antioch, Justin Martyr, and Augustine of Hippo. - In my opinion, this is tilted towards a Catholic view, because it implies that the doctrine developed at this time was "systematic" when really it was a response to all of the various versions of Christianity at the time. Some of the doctrinal additions at the time don't make much sense in combination with each other. See Ehrman's discussion of the development of the Nicene Creed in chapter 9 of Lost Christianities, for example.
I can not write something that is not in my references. Wikipedia policy specifically prohibits us from inserting opinion unless it is framed as opinion and requires facts. We have referenced facts in the article. All particulary sensitive sections have references to a variety of critic or apologist or neutral sources with quotes so reader can make the decision for themselves. NancyHeise (talk) 21:25, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The question is about "systemic" - a choice of wording here. Again, I would find it surprising if your reliable sources actually argued that the doctrine developed at this time was coherent. That would make the sources very questionable, actually, as it is abundantly clear that the doctrine is anything but a coherent system. Again, when I will return, I will add quotations, etc. to the talk page demonstrating this. Awadewit (talk) 01:17, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not quite sure what the objection is to "systematic", since doctrine did develop towards a systematic whole. The main issues were the precise nature of Christ and the Incarnation, and the purest sources of teaching authority. The Church fathers built on the established teachings and were very systematic. In fact they have been accused of being slaves to Greek philosophy! But how would you prefer the sentence to read? Xandar (talk) 10:31, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
They are not systematic - they do not go together as a coherent whole. It is frustrating that you are not reading the sources I provide that demonstrate this. You prefer to argue. Awadewit (talk) 14:10, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Matters grew still worse with the violent anti-clericalism of the French Revolution. The Church was outlawed, all monasteries destroyed, 30,000 priests were exiled and hundreds more were killed.[278] When Pope Pius VI took sides against the revolution in the First Coalition, Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Italy. The pope was imprisoned by French troops the following year and died after six weeks of captivity. After a change of heart, Napoleon then re-established the Catholic Church in France with the signing of the Concordat of 1801.[279] All over Europe, the end of the Napoleonic wars signaled by the Congress of Vienna, brought Catholic revival, renewed enthusiasm, and new respect for the papacy following the depredations of the previous era - This is also a rather one-sided perspective of the French Revolution. It does not acknowledge that any of the complaints against the clergy at the time might have had merit. In fact, it doesn't explain why any of this violence took place. See Sutherland's France 1789-1815, for a good one-volume history of the French Revolution on this point. There is a helpful index, which will guide you to the relevant sections on the "clergy".
  • There may have been complaints against the clergy, but I'm not sure such complaints are any justification for what happened. Compare Russian revolution, or complaints against Jews prior to pogroms. Xandar (talk) 15:38, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • But the reader cannot decide for themselves - you do not offer the people's perspective. In fact, the reader does not even understand why these acts took place. Right now, it just seems like random violence, but it was not - there were reasons for it. Whether or not you feel those reasons justify it is irrelevant - we should explain those reasons to the reader. The reader needs to know why people in eighteenth-century France thought it was accepted to exile and kill priests, etc. Awadewit (talk) 17:17, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • But that is like asking the Holocaust article to go into detail why the Nazi's wanted to kill them, it is assuming that some crime was being committed by the population of people who are being killed. In the Holocaust it was Jews, in the French Revolution it was priests. I think it is POV to insist that whoever is being wiped out at the time must have done something to deserve it in the first place. NancyHeise (talk) 18:17, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • The Holocaust article should (and does) explain very briefly the reasons why different things happened. That does not mean the victims are at fault and that the Germans are right. NPOV means includes the facts; the fact is that in France people thought XXX and used that for their justification for exiling or killing priests. The article is not meant to derive a conclusion on whether or not they were correct in thinking those thoughts or doing those deeds. Karanacs (talk) 18:35, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I added a sentence with wikilinks to lead into the French Revolution. Sources say that the cause of the French Revolution is a disputed point among historians, we have French Revolution wikilinked where the cause is discussed in detail. NancyHeise (talk) 00:09, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
We are not talking about the causes of the French Revolution. We are talking about one aspect of the French Revolution - the clerical controversy. Only one side of that controversy has been presented. Returning to the Nazi analogy, I would be shocked, actually, if the Holocaust article did not explain why the Nazis killed the Jews - if the article did not explain Anti-Semitism, White Supremacy, etc. Readers deserve to know what reasons the French people gave for killing and exiling their priests. In no way does this justify what they did, however. Awadewit (talk) 01:17, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
OK, I added more info to the section to address your comment here. NancyHeise (talk) 04:03, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think this could be explained more clearly, but this is much better. Awadewit (talk) 14:10, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

One way of solving this POV problem, I think, would be to have a section dedicated to the story the Catholic Church tells about its own origin and history - just a few paragraphs. This can include the information about Jesus, Peter, etc. However, the "History" section should be much more NPOV. I worry that we are going to have to "Histories of the church" sections on many different pages, such as Reformation, Lutheran Church, etc. that all present the history of the Christian church from a particular point of view and they will all sound different. This will be confusing to readers. All of these histories should sound similar - they should not sound Lutheran on one page and Catholic on another page, for example. That is why I would suggest dedicating one section to the Church's view of its own history.

  • I think this would risk fictionalising the church take on its history, and factualising opposition viewpoints. Best, I think, to try to do the best with scholarly material as it exists. Xandar (talk) 15:38, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Someone else linked this, I just saw it when I made an edit to French Revolution in response to comment above. NancyHeise (talk) 00:21, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I am also concerned that the article presents Catholic belief as a unified whole with very few or no dissenters. Catholic beliefs are interpreted different by liberal theologians, conservative theologians, different orders of monks, different national churches, etc. It is hard to see what those debates are here (there is one brief discussion of liberation theology, but that is about all). This choice could also be viewed as POV - the Catholic Church wants its followers to believe that it has a unified set of doctrines, when in fact those doctrines are not uniformly followed. A section dedicated to "Disputes over Catholic theology" or some such could help remedy this. I understand that it would be hard to sprinkle them through the entire article at this point.
  • This is a point. However there are not so many differences as some may think. Womens ordination has been mentioned, and Liberation Theology. There are Liberal views and Traditionalist views, which perhaps also deserve a brief mention. Xandar (talk) 15:38, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • We have mentioned in the Demographics section the fact that the number of practicing Catholics is not reliably known. Disputes over Catholic Theology are already discussed throughout the history section in a manner suggested by Jimbo Wales. Women's ordination, birth control, liberation theology and all the past disputes over Catholic theology like Arianism are talked about and wikilinked for the reader who wants to know more. NancyHeise (talk) 18:02, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Awadewit, what current core dispute in Catholic Theology exists that we have not mentioned? NancyHeise (talk) 21:03, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I can name two right off the bat: Christology and reproductive ethics. Both have resulted in not only intense internal but also external debate. They have been covered by both Catholic and non-Catholic media due to their results. The publication of several near-heretical books by Catholic theologians on Christology caused quite a stir a while back when the authors were investigated, for example, and the set of choices the Catholic Church has made regarding contraception has had a huge impact on its aid programs in Africa, particularly with regards to AIDS, and the way other countries and groups interact with those programs. Both of these topics are quite controversial and are very visible - for obvious reasons. Awadewit (talk) 21:18, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Reproduction and use of condoms is covered in the History section under Vatican II and we provide the fact that it is something the Church is criticized about especially in the instance of AIDS. Christology is not notable, no Church documents have changed, no wars, no mass exodus of Catholics over the issue. There are other things that people disagree with the Church about - throughout history - we mention the notable ones, others are covered in the article on Roman Catholic theology which is listed as a link in See Also section. Also throughout history, we mention the notable dissenting theologians whose works are notable, meaning they resulted in some significant event or change in Church doctrine. All notable facts are included. NancyHeise (talk) 21:55, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Actually, I was referring to a much wider discussion of reproductive issues - condoms are only one part of it. This section of the article is underdeveloped. Moreover, Christology has seen debate amongst theologians of the Church. I specifically gave an example of a larger political issue and a more specific theological issue. Awadewit (talk) 01:17, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Your examples are covered in proper detail except Christology which is not a notable issue. Liberation Theology is notable because there has been quite a lot of bloodshed and politics surrounding this. Christology is an issue only discussed among some academics and ordinary Catholics do not even know what it is. If you can not name a notable issue that I have omitted, then I can't answer your question. NancyHeise (talk) 04:03, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I have added a short section to cover Liberal and traditionalist dissenters in the postVaticanII section. Other dissenting topics are, as Nancy says, not notable enough for coverage in a broad article such as this. A book here and there on Christology is of little note even to a church like the Anglicans or the Baptists, and the issue of Christology is touched upon in the mention of Kung. Xandar (talk) 12:35, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I do not believe that the most important theological disputes of the Catholic Church are all political, actually, and that is the focus of these dissents. That is why it is clear to me there are gaps in the article. Awadewit (talk) 14:10, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • There is very little in the article on the Catholic Church's missions. This is a large and very significant section of the Church. I mentioned this problem in the last FAC. Brief mentions of charities do not explain the huge networks of schools, hospitals, etc. that the Catholic church builds and runs throughout the world. The article focuses too much on doctrine and history at this point. It does not really explain what the Church does.
  • The article does not omit the fact that the church has schools hospitals etc now or throughout history, this fact is throughout the article. I did some research after the last FAC and considered a section on the current work of the church throughout the world, possibly even listing all of the hospitals, schools, and missions but even after an extensive search, I could not find all that data in one place, I would have had to compile it myself via going to each country in the world's bishop's conference data and we are not allowed to do that on Wikipedia. What could be done is to have a separate wikipedia page on that subject that could link to this page when it is completed. NancyHeise (talk) 18:02, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I would anticipate that an entire page could be written on this topic and then summarized in this article. However, that does not mean that currently the article does an adequate job of covering this topic. It mentions but does not explain the Catholic Church's charity missions - one of its core functions as an institution. This a very serious omission. Awadewit (talk) 20:43, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have tried to suggest ways to fix the issues I have raised, so I hope these were helpful suggestions. I am sorry that I could not support at this time. I actually spent several days thinking about this oppose. I can see how hard this FAC has been and I wanted to make sure that I was opposing for very substantial reasons. These are not issues that I believe I could easily fix myself or that I believe could be fixed in a day. I believe that some thoughtful and careful revision needs to take place and some additions need to be made before the article should become an FA. However, I have no doubt that these changes can eventually be made. Awadewit (talk) 15:00, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • I have done my best to outline what I feel are the major problems with this article - its slight Catholic POV (of which I gave examples, but there are many more, some of which have been pointed out by other editors), and its omissions. I am leaving town for a few days. When I return, I will do my best to add helpful quotations and resources to the article's talk page. Awadewit (talk) 01:17, 4 June 2008 (UTC)\][reply]
Awadewit makes statements about Roman Catholic Church history that are not accurate. She needs to provide some refs and quotes to back up her assertions because we can not comply with several of her wishes here on the simple basis as they are incorrect. She does not point out any factual inaccuracies in the article text and can not provide any notable events we have omitted. She has called our presentation of history POV but does not provide any sources or quotes to reflect some other version. The source she did provide never states that the Roman Church did not exist before the 4th century, that is completely opposed to all historical evidence. It has often happened when dealing with Karanacs and Awadewit that I have been asked to add more info in a certain section to supposedly reveal some very bad side of the Church, yet when I have gone about my research to comply with their wishes, I find that the compendium of historical evidence in my top sources does not match their hoped for version. It is impossible for me to build a history except on the facts, as much as I have tried to make them happy, especially Karanacs through literally hundreds of her comments beginning in January. NancyHeise (talk) 04:28, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
My statements are correct. I have provided sources - that you have not checked them to verify my statements is the problem. These sources actually do agree with historical evidence. When I return from my trip, I will place all of the relevant quotations on the article's talk page. I have pointed out many POV problems with the article. I have been very patient in this FAC, but my patience is wearing thin at this point. I actually did a lot of research before commenting on this FAC to make sure that every statement I made at this FAC would be correct. What this research revealed to me was that the editors themselves have only scratched the surface of the research available - they are using very few sources and select sources at that. This has been pointed out numerous times in this FAC and the previous FAC. Anyone who doubts these statements is free to investigate this at the article's talk page in about a week's time, after I return from my trip and spend the hours it takes to type up all of the necessary references and quotations. Awadewit (talk) 11:47, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Just on the references issue at this point: Anyone who looks at the list of citations in the article, will see just how many different authorities there are here. Because some people have tried to make a fuss at some books actually written by catholic scholars being used, doesn't mean these books are poor sources. And no-one has pointed out any errors or falsities in the subject matter used. If you have other information. okay, but it has to be judged like the rest. Xandar (talk) 16:56, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I took you up on your offer to look at the list of citations, and I have to say I am unimpressed. Aside from the books, most of the sourcing is to official Vatican sources or otherwise presenting a Catholic opinion (which is fine, to a degree). I don't have the expertise to evaluate the books that are used, but I'll note that they are cited almost exclusively for the History section, and that four or five books predominate to a large degree. I'm not saying I agree with Awadewit's concerns, as I don't really have the knowledge to understand them, but looking through the citations does not convince me his arguments are invalid. Tuf-Kat (talk) 23:36, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Awadewit's comments have all been addressed. We have made changes to text where appropriate, provided valid reasons where we could not. I do not consider this an actionable oppose.NancyHeise (talk) 21:52, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I have been asked on my talk page whether my objection still stands and indeed it does. Nancy, "inacationable opposes" are those unrelated to the FAC criteria - all of my objections are related to the FAC critera. An "inactionable oppose" is something like "add an infobox", which is unrelated to the FAC criteria. It is now up to the FAC directors whether or not the oppose is sufficient. Let me explain why I am still opposing. 1) I gave examples of why the "History" section of the article has a slightly Catholic POV. Rather than try to fix these problems, the editors disputed the examples endlessly on the FAC page. Some of the problems I have pointed out have still not been fixed because the editors have either not understood my objections or for some other reason. Moreover, I did not list every example of POV. I listed the kinds of problems inherent in the page based on the periods I am most familiar with. Other editors, such as RelHistBuff, Jbmurray, and Durova, have listed the same kinds of problems from periods they are most familiar with. 2) I have described omissions from the article. Again, the editors have disputed the omissions rather than try to fix them. I would like to emphasize once again that I did not make this opposition lightly and I only did so after reading more books (I apologize I have not been able to add my sources to the talk page yet, but I will when I return from my trip - at this point I will have to rest on my reputation as a good researcher). I know that this article was difficult to write and to research, but I do not believe that it is FA quality yet. Awadewit (talk) 12:22, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Just to point out that it was not only editors responsible for the article who disputed your objections here (not all of them in my case, but several, not all commented on). If all the suggestions by those you mention above had been followed, I for one would be likely switch my position to strong oppose until balance had been restored. Likewise for Mike's objections below (is it?). Johnbod (talk) 12:51, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sorry, I don't quite understand what you have written here, Johnbod. Awadewit (talk) 12:57, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It seems clear enough to me - not all suggestions of objectors (generally)) would improve articles, and there are many here that would not. Johnbod (talk) 14:23, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Please make it clear which you feel would improve the article and which would not - thanks. Awadewit (talk) 14:10, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Further to Awadewit's objections, which need clarifying:
1. Many statements not prefaced with The Church believes: ADDRESSED in text rewording.
2. The Spanish Inquisition was an essential part of the Countereformation: Point of view REFUTED. Major Historians and the britannica do not take this view.
3. The counter-reformation was not an innocuous reform - Again the majority of history sources including EB present it as mainly a reform process. Your view appears to be a small minority one at best.
4. The Church's view of its origin should be placed in a separate section from Church History. We could not agree, since this is not the method used by most historians and would be POV by implying the Church position on its origin is not historical. However we adopted the solution at 5 below.
5. It is hard to tell which part of early history is Church tradition and which is historically verified. ADDRESSED. History section specifically changed to specify which events are church tradition and which are verified history.
6. pentecost is a mystical event, it should not be mentioned in History section. EXPLAINED that Pentecost is used as a day when an important Church event happened. It would be unreasonable not to mention it.
7. Objected to position of article that Rome became a doctrinal centre from early centuries. COULD NOT ACCEPT this objection as it is not proven. Most mainstream historians accept this position along with the Encyclopedia Britannica. The only support adduced for the position of the objector was a book from Bart Ehrman, a POV fringe historian who has written books connected with Da Vinci Code. His position is minority and cannot be the one of the article. alternative views are already mentioned in the Origins section, and the history section already states that competing forms of Christianity existed. That is enough.
8. Not enough information on reasons for French revolution attack on Church. ADDRESSED. Further background added.
9. Too little mention of alternative Catholic views. ADRESSED sections on Traditionalists, Liberals added as well as Liberation Theology section expanded as per other review. And, as stated there are mentions of AIDS, Arianism, Womens ordination and other controversies throughout the article.
Basically the editors have attempted to address all comments from Awadewit. Some we could not accede to since they would mean changing the article to reflect a small minority POV in the face of the consensus of academic opinion. Xandar (talk) 23:01, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I am adding this to the end of the FAC; this is unrelated to Awadewit's comments directly before this post. After several talk page and article talk page reminders throughout these FACs, I am formally and directly requesting that personalization of this FAC cease. I will remove further personal commentary, not directly related to the WP:FAC instructions or WP:WIAFA to the talk page. If someone simply must comment on an editor and not the content, pls do so elsewhere, or preferably, not at all. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:26, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]


  • Oppose. I've been reading and rereading the article, and the comments that others have offered about the article, since this was restarted to evaluate whether I am indeed holding this to a higher standard than other articles I review. I think that if I am, it is simply because I am much more familiar with the content in this article (at least the history) than other articles I review and can thus more easily see some potential issues. This is definitely a good article, and it has improved dramatially in the last few weeks. However, to fully meet the featured article criteria, I still think it needs more work. Following are a few suggestions (some are new, because I tried to read some of the sections I hadn't previously counted on). I think the easiest way to get over that last little hump would be to invite experts in some of these historical areas to help identify issues that they see in how things have been summarized to ensure that it is fully accurate and NPOV; identifying these on-wiki experts and getting them to help, though, could be difficult.
    • Is there any information on the true demographics of the church? Perhaps percentages by gender or age? It might also be useful to have a few sentences about the way the demographics of the church have changed over time; very broadly, this could mention any changes since countries stopped mandating Catholicism as the national religion (I think in much of Latin America this happened in the 20th century?), and especially demographic changes over the last 50 - 100 years. — Karanacs 18:00, 3 June 2008 — continues after insertion below
  • A table with that information (RC population by continent or bishops by continent) might be really useful in the demographics section. I just did a Google Scholar search on demographics and Roman Catholic Church. Did you know that there is a journal called Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion? It is not one I am familiar with, but I wonder if it would have demographic info? Karanacs (talk) 21:34, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I have searched for Catholic Church statistical info and that info has to be compiled which constitutes original research per Wikipedia policies. I answered a FAC comment of Awadewit's that a separate article could be made on Church missionary work which could also include this information that could then be linked to this article. I do not think that our failure to add this info right now should prevent the article from becoming FA.
What about this link? This gives the percentage of Catholics by continent.[8] Karanacs (talk) 20:30, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It gives figures for 2004. I think that is too old. I plan to do the separate article discussed with Awadewit and I believe I will have that info after intense future research. I dont think this has to fail FAC because it does not have this specific info, this article is a summary. NancyHeise (talk) 00:22, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • I think the article has a European/American focus.(Please note that the links provided are not sources I'm recommending you use, just a starting point so you can see what I am talking about)
      • There is only minimal mention in the article of the Church in Africa. As this is now one of the fastest-growing places for the church, it seems as if this merits a bit more discussion. From what I understand of the continent's history, Catholic churches were established in Africa very early, then languished, then a renewed missionary period in the late 15th century, then locals adapted the religion to look nothing like Catholicism, and missionaries started over in the early 17th century.
  • I'm answering here for clarity. The African church gets three mentions, in passing, and in conjunction with other areas of the world. These are those pieces: membership is growing, particularly in Africa and Asia, The apostles traveled to various areas in northern Africa, Asia Minor, Arabia, Greece, and Rome forming the first Christian communities, Through the late 15th and early 16th centuries European missionaries and explorers spread Catholicism to the Americas, Asia, Africa and Oceania. That's it. I would expect the fastest-growing area of the world in terms of Catholic population to have more coverage than that. Karanacs (talk) 21:34, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
OK, I have added a paragraph in Modern Era because that is when the Church really took off. I included the reasons for this effect which are really the only notable mentions needed for this effect. It explains for reader why the Church in Africa grew so quickly. NancyHeise (talk) 22:51, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • Also, it might be worth mentioning in the paragraph on more modern challenges the more specific challenges of the church in Africa. This would include witchcraft[9] and the fact that many of the church practices that Europeans/North Americans take for granted are not practiced as regularly there.[10]
  • Yes, without going into too much detail, the article text mentions the establishement of the Church in Africa in the Roman Empire section of History. Then article text mentions the missionary efforts going into Africa in the 15th century. The article text also includes mention of Africa in the demographics where it is noted that it is an area of population growth for the Church. I think this is sufficient mention of Africa. I just finished reading a biography on Michael Tansi, an African priest and there is much about the witchcraft problems that the priests had to deal with in helping the converts leave behind old superstitions - but this is a quality that is not limited to African converts. All missionary efforts had to deal with the indiginous practices of the people they converted. We dont go into this kind of detail in the aritcle and I disagree that we need to do so. NancyHeise (talk) 19:59, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • These are current issues facing the church, though, and I think they ought to be covered. Perhaps the article could place it in the context of missionary efforts as a whole, but as it is a current issue facing an area that is rapidly increasing in Catholic population, it is important to mention. Karanacs (talk) 21:34, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree that the article needs mention of this - it is not a notable historical fact, it is a pastoral concern for missionaries that has existed not just in our time but in all ages of the Church. Mentioning it would single out Africans which would present a POV problem. We have added a whole paragraph per your comments here and that is enough.NancyHeise (talk) 22:07, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • The article mentions the different rites and that they do have different liturgical practices. It does not mention any examples of how the rites differ, which would be useful to someone like me who isn't sure. It also isn't clear from the article whether any of the practices listed in the article are specific to the Latin Rite or not. This maybe ought to be more clear.
  • The article Beleifs section introducing reader to these different rites says this "Different liturgical traditions or rites exist throughout the worldwide Church that reflect "particular expressions characterized by the culture".[49] These are the Latin rite (most commonly used), the Byzantine rite, the Alexandrian or Coptic, Syriac, Armenian, Maronite, and Chaldean rites. Because of this diversity, variations exist in the liturgical practices of administering the sacraments within the different rites yet all hold the same beliefs.[49]". This text makes clear that the Latin rite is the most commonly used and provides Wikilinks to the other rites for the reader who wants to know more. In addition, the article text explaining the sacraments mentions specifically when a certain rite differs from the one being discussed. The section on the Mass tells reader that it is describing the Latin rite and tell them the Mass in Eastern Church's is called Divine Liturgy providing the wikilink for the reader who wants to know more. I disagree that more description of each of the rites will improve the article. We have omitted no relevant or significant facts. Also, this is English Wikipedia, in the English speaking world, the almost completely universal rite used is the Latin rite. NancyHeise (talk) 20:52, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I still felt like I didn't quite understand what the differences were, and since I am unfamiliar with the other rites I'm not sure how to fix this. Perhaps someone else has a suggestion? Karanacs (talk) 21:34, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The other rites (more appropriately, other churches in communion with the Roman Pontiff) constitute about 2% of the Catholic Church. Perhaps it deserves a brief sub-section in the Organization and Membership section, with a hat trick to the main article (Eastern Catholic Churches) and a one or two paragraph summary. More than that would be overkill for this article. Majoreditor (talk) 01:40, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
But they are already mentioned in the Beliefs section and wikilinked. All a reader has to do is click on the wikilink to know more and I dont think more mention is necessary. It is already mentioned in the Lead, Beliefs opening paragraph, certain areas in the different Beliefs sections and again in History. NancyHeise (talk) 03:43, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Everything is the same for all rites unless specifically identified in the article text. Places where differences in rites is discussed are: third para in Beliefs opening para, last sentence of Holy Spirit and Confirmation,second para of Eucharist with a wikilink after explanation (Because there are numerous rites and many differences in the liturgy for the Eucharist I do not advise addressing this in the article because it would be too lengthy, best to let the reader click on the wikilink and see the different rites). NancyHeise (talk) 00:32, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'm still not happy with this sentence The five solas were one attempt to express these differences.. Perhaps if we switch it from passive to active voice this would help? Which organization attemped to codify these differences and when? Something like, "During the Protestant Reformation in XXXX, so-and-so wrote the five solas to attempt to express the differences between Catholicism and Protestantism." That would give more context and help the sentence fit in place better.
    • In reading over the article as a result of some of jbmurray's concerns, I found that I was interpreting some of the stuff in the article potentially differently than was intended. For example, there are quotations sprinkled through the article. I assumed that most of those were quotes from Church publications that were then quoted in the source used, but in one sentence with two quotations, one was quoting Cardinal Ratzinger and the other was quoting the author of the book. The article needs to be able to differentiate who is being quote, and I don't think it is 100% there yet.
  • I can't answer this comment unless you have a particular error in the text you want to point out. I have already gone through all quotes in the entire article, it took me two days, checking to match each citation and quotes. NancyHeise (talk) 20:29, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • As I don't have the sources, I have no idea what these quotations are actually quoting. Would it be easier if I left a list of quotations on the article talk page? Karanacs (talk) 21:34, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes please make a list and I'll go through them all, I dont think there are very many anyway. NancyHeise (talk) 21:57, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The quotations have been checked. NancyHeise (talk) 16:08, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'd like to reiterate (but not argue over) statements I've made previously that I think the history section is subtly pro-Catholic POV. Using a critic's source for 50% of the citations and a pro-Catholic source for 50% of the citations absolutely does not mean the article is NPOV. It depends on how much information is taken from each source, and whether the information is appropriately balanced with opposing viewpoints on that particular issue. (relata has also brought this up.) I'd prefer that the article use neutral sources so we don't have to worry about pro-Catholic and anti-Catholic (surely there are historians who present no opinion one way or the other??). As an example, I feel that undue space is given to persecutions of Catholics while persecutions by Catholics are glossed over. Furthermore, this article's coverage of the missions is definitely pro-Catholic. When I've brought this up before, I was told that the coverage is this way because it was not officially Church policy to persecute non-Catholics or to cause bad things to happen in the missions. In my belief, though, if this was widespread practice, regardless of whether an official policy was issues, it should have mention here.
  • (ec) "apologist" and "critical", which I thought already something of a false dichotomy for the likes of Norman, Duffy and Le Goff, is now turning into "pro-Catholic" and "anti-Catholic", which is certainly excessive, though not in the case of Vidmar, who is unapologetically apologist. Critics of the balance have not done too well on citing some individual cases here in the past (or the passages have been changed), though Awa has another go just above. I don't say the balance is perfect, but this is the history of the RC Church, not the effect of the Church on the world, which would be a rather different topic. Which persecutions by Catholics do you think are glossed over? Johnbod (talk) 19:59, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I agree with Johnbod -what persecutions that the Church sanctioned are not mentioned in the article text? This article is about the Church, not what Catholics have done throughout history. That is off topic material. NancyHeise (talk) 20:17, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Regarding use of our sources, Wikipedia policy requires us to consider all significant viewpoints, the Catholic viewpoint of history is a significant viewpoint and the three sources to Vidmar, Norman and Woods provide us with that specific viewpoint. All other sources can not be classified in that category and some specifically fall into the critic category, also a significant point of view. These views become apparent in certain sensitive sections of the aritcle that NPOV considerations required us to provide refs to all viewpoints with added quotes so reader could see for themselves what various theologians have to say about the issue. While an equal 30% of sources are considered critic and 30% are considered apologist, the rest of the 40% do not fall into either category. I think what makes this article particulary FA is the high quality and varity of the particular sources used. NancyHeise (talk) 20:26, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • It is not that x% of the sources are of this type of source, it is how the sources are used and whether the percentage of information from each viewpoint is appropriately balanced. If only a few scholars put forth an explanation, and the vast majority of other scholars have differing interpretations, the vast majority should get the vast majority of the text, even if the minority espouse the RCC viewpoint. It does not mean the minority viewpoint gets equal weight with the majority. (I am not saying that this is necessarily the case in this issue, just trying to make the point clear.) As an example, just look at the difference in phrasing between the persecutions of Henry VIII (which were politicialy motivated and not due to religion) and Elizabeth I (again, primarily politically motivated) compared to that of Mary I. If we are not to include acts that were not officially sanctioned by the Vatican, perhaps we should not include things that affected Catholics but did not strike directly at the Vatican? Karanacs (talk) 21:34, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I feel this particular strand of criticism is misconceived. Firstly, getting a completely "neutral" source about history, especially on a subject like this is virtually impossible. All historians have their viewpoints and favoured theories. That is why a range of sources is best. Secondly, you have produced no evidence that persecutions of others by the Catholic Church are glossed over in the article, or treated differently from the persecutions mounted against Catholics. I would actually say that the way the English reformation section is written bends over backwards to accommodate and portray the Protestant view. For example the article possibly over-emphasizes the political nature of Henry's transformation of the Church, and only records the death of Thomas More. The article does not mention the hanging, disembowelling and quarterings of monks, priests and abbots, the massacres of English Catholics following the Pilgrimage of Grace, the Prayer Book Rebellion, and other attempts by them to follow their old faith, or the massacres undertaken in Ireland. And that is only a fraction of what is not mentioned in the article on the Catholic side. Producing a balanced account does not mean listing all the misdeeds that ever took place. As another example, at the last FAC, someone stated that we should cover the Spanish Civil War. We didn't, but if we had, we could list literally thousands of blameless priests, monks and nuns systematically murdered by Anarchist and Communist militias. Against my advice, nancy has also removed reference to the thousands of priests executed by the Nazis in WW2, which I would consider deserve mention as a counterbalance to allegations of Church collaboration. Xandar (talk) 22:44, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Do you know of an authoritative source that determines which viewpoint is the majority view? My sources meet Wikipedia guidelines as top sources per WP:Reliable source examples, the authors are very respected and the book reviews are good. None are radical POV's that Wikipedia does not allow us to use, even though some FAC reviewers have searched for bad reviews, none have found any, only good reviews. NancyHeise (talk) 22:00, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Are you saying the persecutions of Henry and Elizabeth were not religiously motivated, but those of Mary were? I find that a very dubious proposition; most rulers, and much public opinion, at the time regarded religious dissent as a political matter, and it is barely meaningful to attempt a distinction. Johnbod (talk) 22:07, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
SandyGeorgia, Johnbod's comment just above is not a response to my comment, he is responding to Karanacs. NancyHeise (talk) 21:52, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I can not act on this comment. It does not specify any source that is unacceptable per WP:RS. Karanacs. Pro-Catholic, you mean apologist sources are three books out of a huge list. All Vidmar cites are doubled with Bokenkotter, a critic or Duffy, also a critic. There are now many more critic cites than apologist. My original analysis noted a 30% critic, 29% apologist split with the other 40% indeterminable as to critic or apologist viewpoint. That has now changed with excessive addition of citations to Duffy and Bokenkotter. NancyHeise (talk) 00:28, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • This caption Early Christians were martyred as entertainment in the Colosseum in Rome, a short distance from Vatican City. Jean-Léon Gérôme, 1883. makes it seem as if Vatican City was already in existance at the time that Christians were killed in the Colosseum.
    • The vast majority of the images are right-aligned. Perhaps some of these could be left-aligned instead?

Karanacs (talk) 18:00, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Well, none of this ever came up at peer review or the last two FAC's but I'll try to answer each comment after some research, this may take me into tomorrow. Thanks. NancyHeise (talk) 19:01, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Karanacs comments have all been addressed. We have made changes where appropriate, provided valid reasons where not. I do not consider this an actionable oppose. NancyHeise (talk) 21:52, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Criterion 1D: neutrality. Wikipedia articles aren't supposed to advocate one school of scholarly thought over another, yet this article does, and does so editorially and repeatedly. I'll quote one passage as an example:
Historians note that for centuries Protestant propaganda and popular literature exaggerated the horrors of the inquisitions. According to Edward Norman, this propaganda "identified the entire Catholic Church ... with [the] occasional excesses" wrought by secular rulers. While one percent of those tried in the inquisitions received death penalties, Norman states that in the 16th century "the Inquisitions were regarded as far more enlightened than secular courts", which did not grant more lenient sentences for those who repented their crimes.
Twice, this discussion labels Protestant criticism of the inquisition as propaganda--using this highly pejorative term not as quote but as editorial assertion--then follows up with a quote and a paraphrase from a pro-Catholic scholar without any comparable attention to the criticism itself. In justice to the nominator, this is a difficult and nuanced area where--having familiarity with the subject myself--I agree that the inquisition was exaggerated in the Protestant world and exaggerations were used for propagandistic aims. Yet to make that element the central focus of a discussion on the inquisition itself results in a POV defense of Catholicism, by overlooking the actual abuses that did occur. The presentation's chronology is also confusing, even to a reader already grounded in the subject: this passage discusses late fifteenth and sixteenth century events in a section ostensibly dedicated to the High Middle Ages, then the following paragraph introduces the fourteenth century. Then the following section Late Medieval and Renaissance discusses the Protestant reformation without a hint of interplay between the Inqusition and the Protestants.
With gratitude and respect toward the person who obviously put a lot of effort into bringing the page this far, there are deep structural issues that stand between the present version and featured article quality. I do not believe that the issues at hand are cosmetic or can be addressed within the time frame of an FAC. It would require considerable additional research to achieve scholarly balance, and would require basic reworking to achieve adequate chronological or thematic structure (it ought to have one or the other and presently has neither). The inquisition, for example, had its roots in the Albigensian Crusade of the high middle ages but existed in its most objectionable form during the Renaissance--which receives scant mention. Long as this oppose is, it focuses on one fraction of a single paragraph to give a representative illustration of comprehensive problems. This is a difficult and ambitious subject. I applaud the nominator for choosing an important topic and for bringing it this far. I also, unambiguously, urge the withdrawal of this FAC and advise obtaining a collaborator in bringing the page to the next level. Based upon the previous FAC and responses to comments at this one, it really appears that this editor has done all that he or she can alone. Assistance is needed, and I offer my best wishes for a successful bid on the next try. DurovaCharge! 00:34, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your comments. In our efforts to satisfy Wikipedia's requirement to provide all significant viewpoints, we used several sources to reference each of the sensitive areas of Church History like Inquisitions. If you will click on the actual references you will see that they all mention the issue of Protestant propaganda and these sources are not just Catholic, but others as well - the most respected scholars some might say - on the subject of Church history. Wikipedia requires us to have facts in the article and that is what has been presented. These are not opinions of Catholic history but actual events - we have not omitted notable controversies or criticisms. If I were to eliminate the statement from Edward Norman, I would be eliminating a substantial point of view. NancyHeise (talk) 02:58, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I appreciate your comment and point of view. I understand there are many different structural ways that a person could present the information in this article. For over five months, we have labored over this article with many editors and reviewers through the GA process, two separate peer reviews and FAC's as well as pages and pages of talk page discussion to arrive at the present format and presentation. It is a reflection of much consensus building. I do not feel that I can change it based on the review of one person who has not been involved in the process until now. I appreciate your advice but I do not feel that I can act on this oppose for these reasons. NancyHeise (talk) 02:58, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure what point of view you impute; I'm the editor who raised Joan of Arc to FA--certainly no anti-Catholic bias. I agree; since it appears you have reached the limit of your own abilities, and the article still falls short, a collaborator would be the best solution here. Best wishes. DurovaCharge! 05:26, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think this counts as an "I'm going to make a controversial comment and then announce that there is no possible solution or discussion," oppose. Particularly with frankly insulting remarks to one of the main editors who has spent literally hundreds of hours opf her time on this project. The suggestion that "someone else" (unnamed) redo the article before it can be worthy of FA is NOT an FA criterion. Your comments on the inquisition are misplaced, since you yourself admit that much propaganda has been poured out relevant to the inquisition. This IS a fact. As for time periods, you should realize that many historical events run across necessarily artificial time-divisions. Events are dealt with largely in the PRINCIPAL era of their origin or effect. The Inquisitions were largely medieval in origin. It would be risible to introduce sections labelled Inquisition in the 16th century, Inquisition in the 17th century etc. If you refuse to discuss ways of resolving your objections, or even to state them in an addressable manner, your objection is not actionable. Xandar (talk) 12:54, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The notion that the Inquisition was principally Medieval is a popular myth. Its most active century was the sixteenth, it remained a potent force during the seventeenth, and it did not formally end until the eighteenth. If anything is risible it would be the uneven treatment that delves into its origins but fails to address either its peak or its conclusion, hence perpetuating the myth. I offered repeated and explicit thanks to the article's principal editor, yet that gets construed as insult. So I'll be more explicit: this article and its two FACs give the strong appearance of having been done by people who are hardworking and dedicated and who lack adequate grounding in the fundamentals of historiography. Others before me have attempted to articulate concerns about priority of sources and textual criticism, and the responses do not recognize what these concepts are or why they matter. How do I state that problem in an addressable manner? I identify it as criterion 1d, parse one brief example out of many in some depth, and suggest an additional collaborator--because really what this article must have is a contributor who distinguishes between theology and historical method. Without that it will probably remain more appropriate for the Catholic Encyclopedia than here. FA is not a thank-you for hard work; that is why we have barnstars. DurovaCharge! 14:10, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
OK everybody be nice please. I appreciate your comments Durova but the only discussion we need to be having here is which FAC criteria you think is not being met. Just because I am a person who does not want to fill my user page with my credentials does not mean that I fail to posess them. Please have a bit of faith in me. You have indicated that the article is not NPOV enough to meet to your satisfaction and I would like to correct that. Please tell me what you think should be removed and with what do we replace it? Do you have suggestions for appropriate texts? We faced textual criticism on this FAC because some people did not realize that all of our sources meet the top criteria required by WP:Reliable source examples. No one has been able to offer any wikipedia criteria failure nor any lack of or bad peer review of any of our sources. The authors are notable, respected, and highly recognizable authors representing the "representative" body of historical research on the Catholic Church. The actual text in the article identifying the height and duration of the inquisitions is here: "Abuses committed during the crusade caused Innocent III to informally institute the first papal inquisition to prevent future abuses and to root out the remaining Cathars.[220][221] Formalized under Gregory IX, this Medieval inquisition executed an average of three people per year for heresy at its height.[221][222] Over time, other inquisitions were launched by the Church or secular rulers to prosecute heretics, to respond to the threat of Moorish invasion or for political purposes.[223] The accused were encouraged to recant their heresy and those who did not could be punished by penance, fines, imprisonment, torture or execution by burning.[224][223] In the 14th century, King Philip IV of France created an inquisition for his suppression of the Knights Templar.[222] King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella formed an inquisition in 1480, originally to deal with distrusted ex-Jewish and ex-Muslim converts.[225] Over a 350-year period, the Spanish Inquisition executed between 3,000 and 4,000 people,[226] representing around two percent of those accused.[227" Can you identify for me any factual errors or omissions of notable fact? The following section containing Norman's quote is referenced to three different sources that verify the fact that this was eventually used as a propaganda against the Church, a notable fact we can not omit - agreed by a variety of scholars including John McManners Oxford Illustrated History of Christianity a book that is the consolidated work of 18 top university professors. If you would like to see another top source saying the same thing, please see [11]. This University of California Press book, by History professor Edward Peters, also uses the term Protestant Propaganda to describe the way the Inquisitions were reflected in English literature. It was very easy to find a multitude of sources saying the same thing by going to GoogleBooks and typing in Protestant Propaganda, Inquisition. So it appears to me that this is not some sort of POV but an important fact that had serious adverse repurcutions for the Catholic Church for centuries and is a notable fact. NancyHeise (talk) 15:10, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The point is, Durova, that this is meant to be a positive and constructive process. Objections should be made order to point out what specific things need to be done to improve the article with a view to it attaining FA status. It is not a matter of picking one sentence out of its context and then saying in so many words: the entire article is rubbish, the writers know nothing and "someone better" needs to redo it. The article has gained GA status and has has a lot of very positive support at its various FACs, including support for dealing with a very large, controversial and complex subject in a clear and informative way. The editors are always ready to deal with specific problems raised and to consider wordings that will help to improve the article and satisfy objections. Passages on subjects like the Inquisition have already been through much refining, agreement and compromise over the past six months. Arriving at a very late stage in the process, you may not realize this. However please make raise specific problems you may find in the text and be prepared to discuss them with the editors with a view to finding solutions. Xandar (talk) 16:35, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
On the issue of "the Inquisition", strictly there was no such thing. There was a Medieval inquisition which was virtually defunct by the end of the 15th century. There was a Roman Inquisition, which was under the control of the Pope, but ran under the supervision of local rulers in other Italian states, and is considered by far the mildest of the Inquisitions. The other two, the Spanish and the Portuguese were run by their respective governments with no "interference" permitted from the Vatican. I'm not sure which inquisition you claim peaked at the time of the Counter-reformation, but unless you can provide some proof of the claim that the Inquisition was a major part of the Counter-reformation movement, we will have to stick with the academic sources that say differently. Xandar (talk) 16:46, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(Outdent) Please refrain from imputing motives or paraphrasing my statements; it does not reflect well on either of us. The four lines I selected as an example are a striking case of WP:UNDUE: a lengthy in-article rebuttal of a notable position whose parameters are available only via the footnotes. The Google test is a poor metric for the editorial use of propaganda. Some people in the world seriously contend that the World Trade Center never existed and 9/11 is American propaganda. I get 241 Google Books returns for "World Trade Center 9/11 propaganda".[12] Of course it would be difficult to find a reputable scholar who argues the latter, yet the salient points remain: historiography isn't about stacking up two piles of books and counting which is taller than the other. Even if the Google test were a reasonable metric here, it's a flawed assumption to suppose that all uses of propaganda refer to Protestant exaggerations rather than Catholic defenses; the latter also has propagandistic elements. WP:NPOV is about presenting all notable points of view according to the relative weight those views carry among leading experts, thus empowering the reader to reach his or her own conclusions. A thoughtful reader could reasonably infer from the present text that early Protestants were so sympathetic to Islam and Judaism that they employed propaganda in defense of those other religions, because if the Inquisition had nothing to do with the Counter-Reformation then it leaves unanswered what all those Protestants were complaining about. This is one of the starker examples and in several kilobytes of discussion I see no movement at all. A few other instances, briefly:

  • No mention of a Protestant viewpoint on whether Peter was the first pope.
  • Pope Alexander VI appears only in relation to the Inter caetera bull. The name Borgia and its significance would shed light on the Renaissance.
  • The coverage of the California mission system gives a low figure for the decline in the indigenous population and attributes it to disease, not mentioning other factors.

Without intending any disrespect toward the Cathoic Church itself or toward the volunteers whose efforts have improved this article, these examples tend in a particular direction because the present text tends in the opposite direction. Explaining that one's sources are reputable scholars doesn't mean it's appropriate to promote an FAC that advocates one school of thought editorially. DurovaCharge! 19:54, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Durova has very eloquently expressed the same issues in the history section that I and several other opposing reviewers have been trying to point out for several FACs. I strongly endorse her description of the issues in the history section. Karanacs (talk) 20:47, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Karanacs was an editor for this article and it was she herself who provided us with the source and quote that was eventually used to build the paragraph in the California missions, the one you are claiming now is evidence of Catholic POV. I would like to ask that if you are stating we have a factual inaccuraccy in the text regarding the figure for the decline in the indigenous population, it would help us to bring this article to FA for you to maybe provide us with a source that you are certain says differently. Perhaps then we could include an estimated range with a sentence that states "historians differ as to the actual number of indians ...." I thank you for your directly addressed points regarding the protestant viewpoint on Peter and Pope Alexander, I will try to address those issues. To my knowledge though, I believe we have already addressed the Peter issue with our presentation of the different scholarly positions in the Origins and Missions section. We make this clear to reader that not everyone agrees that Peter was the first pope and I dont think anyone could accuse us of POV in that section regarding that issue. I think that maybe you havent read that section? Im not sure and I dont want to assume but it seems to me that a lot of text has been devoted just to the first pope issue already. NancyHeise (talk) 21:01, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I just did a bit of research and added a sentence to address your comment with "Because the simony and nepotism practiced in the Church of the 15th and early 16th centuries prevented any kind of papal reform, rich and powerful families like the Borgia's were able to control the papal office and seated their own worldly candidates like Alexander VI in (1492).[253] " The section contains several other sentences about this corruption so please read the whole section. I think this is what you wanted to see. Please let me know. Thanks, and that was a very good comment by the way. NancyHeise (talk) 21:33, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you very much for the attention. I may be a little slow in following up. This discussion has taken more time than I anticipated and I have a featured content drive of my own to work on--a photographic restoration. This kind of work is largely invisible because I pick up maybe a dozen edits onsite for the whole FPC, but spend so many days and hours in Photoshop that I dream in colloidon glass prints. Regards, DurovaCharge! 22:40, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
One more thing, it seems from your comment about books on 9/11 that you doubt what I have said about the Protestant Propaganda. There are two scholarly sources in the article text supporting this fact and I just provided you with another example above to the Cambridge University Press source. I hope you understand that I can not eliminate these highly referenced facts, because they are notable and important in the history of the Catholic Church. Elimination would be against Wikipedia policy and would make the article POV. NancyHeise (talk) 23:33, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Quite a few points here. 1. Durova. You haven't proved your point re the Inquisition being a major part of the Counter-reformation process. Most histories do not take this view. Just looking at Chadwick's "The Reformation", a quite authoritative treatment, I find 70 pages devoted to the Counter-reformation, of which just half a page refers in any way to inquisitions. That's the level of weight a major, unbiased historian gives it. 2. There is ample discussion of the origin of the papacy, which actually gives the "anti" view more space than the Catholic one. There is no additional requirement for a "Protestant" or even a Muslim viewpoint on Peter's status. 3. Nancy has put something in about Mr Borgia. 4. The mexican missions section was discussed at previous FAC and agreed. In fact I think it already goes past NPOV by implying that the missions were responsible for the large fall in the indian population when this occurred everywhere that Old World contact occurred, because of Indian susceptability to disease. It's probably unfair to connect this to the Church because the first contacts were friars rather than gold prospectors or cattlemen! But that is the agreed wording. Xandar (talk) 03:12, 5 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Again, on the issue of your claim that the article is fatally unbalanced because the Inquisition is not mentioned again with respect to the Counter-Reformation. I have just looked at the Roman Catholicism article at Encyclopaedia Britannica. The article is many times larger than ours. It has ten times as much space on the Counter Reformation. However in that treatment, the Inquisition, and its alleged central role are not mentioned once. Unless you are alleging that Britannica is twisting history in aid of the Catholic Church, I think that is a pretty authoritative back-up for the article as it stands. Xandar (talk) 17:46, 5 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Further to comments about the use of the term Protestant Propaganda with regard to the inquisitions, it is indeed common in respected histories. here is an additional example:
Armstrong, The European Reformation, Heinemann, (2002), p103, quote: "Contrary to subsequent Protestant propaganda the procedure followed by the (Papal) Inquisition was careful and respectful with regard to legal rights. Clear proof was required, along with two witnesses, and rarely was torture used to extract confessions. Anonymous denunciations were illegal, while a defence lawyer was guaranteed for the suspect. Punishments were generally lenient and designed to bring the guilty party back into the fold. The public abjuration of protestantism before a congregation might suffice, for example." Xandar (talk) 12:41, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Durova's comments have been addressed in full including changes to the text as indicated above. I do not consider this an actionable oppose. NancyHeise (talk) 21:52, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Others, like Eamon Duffy, caution that the insufficient number of clear written records surviving from the early years of Christianity make precision about the early status of Rome difficult." What does this sentence mean? Gimmetrow 00:50, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I am not sure what happened to that paragraph, maybe it was a mistake - please see the paragraph again. NancyHeise (talk) 03:11, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose on copyediting and neutrality grounds. (Later note: Consider my oppose strong, for whatever that's worth. It's apparent that my concerns are being dismissed, and that no attempt has been made to even understand my points, much less respond to them reasonably)
  • "God the Father, original sin, and Baptism": It's usually bad form to begin a section (or even a paragraph most of the time) with a direct quote. The beginning should describe the subject of the section. — Tuf-Kat 01:12, 4 June 2008 — continues after insertion below
Thank you for your comments. While I agree that there are numerous ways we could have presented this material, editors of the page, through consensus, decided upon the present format. The Nicene Creed is the central statement of Catholic belief so certain sections begin with a certain quote from the Creed that pertains to the section being discussed. This treatment was met with great approval from many reviewers, even some opposers on this page. The section title describes the contents being discussed in each section. The seven Church sacraments are discussed in each section of Beliefs that pertains to that specific sacrament - thus Baptism is in the same paragraph that describes original sin. NancyHeise (talk) 03:34, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It's not acceptable to start with a quote from the Nicene Creed, then explain what the section is about and why that quote is important. For more, see below. Tuf-Kat (talk) 23:14, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I changed the arrangment of the sentences to comply with your comment here. The quote has been moved. NancyHeise (talk) 18:30, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • According to the Church, the Holy Spirit reveals God's truth through Sacred Scripture, Sacred Tradition and the Magisterium. - is an excellent example of why I have neutrality concerns. This takes a statement that the Church might well have said precisely, and attempts to satisfy NPOV by slapping a "According to the Church" at the beginning. The "Holy Spirit" should be defined in that paragraph, and something better than "reveals" is needed. The meaning of "God's truth" is not clear. (They are vehicles through which God's grace is said to flow into all those who receive them with the proper disposition. is another example: adding "is said" to does not make a sentence neutral) A more neutral wording might be something like "The Church claims that its beliefs are inspired by one of the manifestations of God, the Holy Spirit, who is said to communicate God's will through a collection of sacred books, church traditions and the body of official pronouncements known as the Magisterium". (I'm not sure if that's really an accurate rewording, but that's because the original isn't clear either. I don't see any reason to use the terms "Sacred Scripture" or "Sacred Tradition".
Thank you. I added some wording to help the reader know who is the Holy Spirit, good comment. Holy Spirit is also wikilinked at the beginning of the Beliefs section. We have to use the phrases "According to the Church" etc in order to be able to concisely present Church belief. Size has been a consideration and it is not against Wikipedia policy or any violation of NPOV to frame these sentences as we have. Since all of this wording is in a section called Beliefs and we use "According to the Church" and "The Church believes" or " the Church teaches", etc, I doubt that anyone is going to think that we are presenting these items as facts rather than as Beliefs. Please see the FA Islam which incorporates similar language - I think it is just a factor of being able to explain a section without having to overqualify each sentence when it is clear from the heading alone that the section is not being presented as a statement of fact held by all people. NancyHeise (talk) 03:34, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You're missing my point. You can not take a sentence that presents the church's viewpoint, slap "According to the Church" on it and call it neutral. That is simply not a method of producing neutral prose. I'm not concerned about Islam and won't look at it now, as it's not relevant. It is possible to use phrases like "According to X" in a neutral manner, but you haven't done that in this article. Better prose (both better written and more neutral) would probably be smaller than the current length. Tuf-Kat (talk) 23:14, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Nancy here. The section is about explaining the Church's beliefs. There is no other way to do it other than saying "The Church believes X" or some similar formulation. This is simply a section for exposition of the Church's core beliefs. It isn't a section for debating whether those beliefs are right or wrong. This is factual material. To add to every belief something like: "The church believes it is guided by the Holy Spirit, but some Protestants don't believe this, since they think the Holy Spirit doesn't guide churches, but only people as they read the Bible," is just impracticable and confusing. And where would you stop? Why should only Protestant views of catholic beliefs be presented? You'd have to add "and Muslims don't believe the Holy Spirit is divine; while atheists don't believe in a Holy Spirit, or anything much, at all..." We do not need to put next to every belief that someone else doesn't believe it as well. 92.40.93.200 (talk) 00:10, 5 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know what you're talking about. My suggested version of the sentence did not present any points of view besides the Church's. The Church claims that its beliefs are inspired by one of the manifestations of God, the Holy Spirit, who is said to communicate God's will through a collection of sacred books, church traditions and the body of official pronouncements known as the Magisterium Statements like vehicles through which God's grace is said to flow into all those who receive them with the proper disposition and the Holy Spirit reveals God's truth are effectively religious jargon, as if you're not already familiar with Christian theology, terminology and imagery, it doesn't make sense. Tuf-Kat (talk) 01:15, 5 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't see that suggestion. It gets hard spotting everything in a long, changeable mass of text like this. I think, however, that your version tends toward POV in the other direction by being rather arch about things like the "collection of sacred books". (It sounds more like someone's Marilyn Monroe collection!) And saying that the Church's beliefs are "inspired by one of the manifestations of God" is still jargon, and doesn't explain that the church believes it is preserved from doctrinal error by the HS - which is extremely important to Catholicism. I think some religious jargon is unavoidable in an article like this, since (as with science or medicine) there are some concepts that ordinary language cannot properly convey. Feel free to suggest alternative wording for phrases that concern you, or provide a list of stuff you think is too impenetrable, and we'll take a look at it. Xandar (talk) 02:48, 5 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
How about something like "The Church claims that its beliefs are inspired by one of the manifestations of God, the Holy Spirit, who communicates God's will inerrantly through a collection of sacred scripture (the Bible), church traditions and the body of official pronouncements known as the Magisterium". (I still don't like the repetition of "God" within just a few words, and I like infallibly better than inerrantly but I know the former word has special meaning in this article). Tuf-Kat (talk) 21:25, 5 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The wording you suggest fails the test of precision. The Holy Spirit does not, according to catholics communicate God's will simply through sacred scripture. And the Magisterium is far more than a body of official pronouncements. However, i take your point about this section, and as I have said in response to your comment below, I will look into how this passage can be simplified and somewhat de-jargonized. Xandar (talk) 01:37, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This is better, but I'm still not entirely satisfied on this point. Tuf-Kat (talk) 15:18, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • to condemn false interpretations of scripture or define truths. - should be "to condemn alternative interpretations...", as it otherwise implicitly accepts the Church's pov.
But the beliefs section is supposed to explain the Church's pov and using this wording actually explains it. If it existed in any other section but Beliefs, I think your comment would be valid but not in this situation. NancyHeise (talk) 03:34, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Just because it's in the Beliefs section doesn't mean it can implicitly support the Church's position. You can explain Church viewpoints without imparting their truth to the reader. Tuf-Kat (talk) 23:14, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You have more of a point here. But replacing the phrase with "condemn alternative interpretations of scripture" would be inaccurate, since all alternative interpretations of scripture are not necessarily condemnable. However the sentence can be amended simply to something like "..to condemn interpretations of scripture believed to be false..." Xandar (talk) 01:56, 5 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
"alternative" is not exclusive (e.g. it doesn't imply that all possible alternatives are included), but anyway my first thought was "condemn particular interpretations of scripture", but I thought that would be rejected. I think "believed to be false" is wordier than necessary. Tuf-Kat (talk) 01:15, 5 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
the college of bishops acting in union with the pope to define truths or to condemn interpretations of scripture believed to be false - I can't support this wording, as it is longer than needed and begs the question "believed by whom?" Also, since they did both, it should be and instead of or right? Tuf-Kat (talk) 15:18, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This comment has been addressed by changes made in the text.NancyHeise (talk) 18:30, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • The beliefs of other Christian denominations differ from those of Catholics in varying degrees - this sentence has little informational utility.
The sentence right after this one explains what those differences are. We have to consider prose and not hit the reader with so many facts one right after the other without some nice transition. This sentence provides transition. NancyHeise (talk) 03:34, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
That doesn't matter. It's bad form to have sentences that don't really mean anything. You could replace "Christian demoninations" and "Catholics" with pretty much any combination of similar nouns, and it would be just as true, and just as meaningless. All people of every kind everywhere have beliefs that differ from each other in varying degrees. If a sentence doesn't itself communicate something useful, it's needless verbiage. If you mean for it to communicate something useful, it needs to be reworded. "Transition sentences" are not a part of proper formal writing, as high quality prose does not need them. Tuf-Kat (talk) 23:14, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Okay. The sentence has gone. Xandar (talk) 01:56, 5 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • The Church believes that this savior was Jesus, whom John the Baptist called "the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world". - what does the John the Baptist quote add? What does the Nicene Creed quote afterward add?
I changed the text a bit to make this clear. This comment is being written after the comments that follow so this comment has been addressed. NancyHeise (talk) 18:30, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It's still not clear why the quote, or those two sentences at all, are here. 1/8 of the paragraph that constitutes the entirety of this article's coverage of Jesus' theological importance is devoted to this quote - If it's really so important for some reason, it needs more elaboration on why. Tuf-Kat (talk) 15:18, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
These are all explanations about Church belief. The Nicene Creed, the central statement of Catholic faith, is sprinkled throughout in each area that explains that particular section of the Creed. This was a much liked arrangement agreed upon by many editors and reviewers in this and previous FACs and on our talk page.
Since you presumably know the significance of those quotes, I'm sure you do see their value. My point is that the reader (who is presumably reading this article because he doesn't know much about it) has no way of understanding why these quotes are important. I think it's already been established that Catholics believe Jesus "takes away the sin of the world", so why give this particular quote about it, with no explanation of what this quote is intended to illustrate to the reader. I'm fine with giving all or a portion of the Nicene Creed in this article. But it's not proper to start a section with a quote, because that doesn't communicate to the reader what the section is about. Nobody will understand why the Nicene Creed is relevant until they read the subsequent sentence. Tuf-Kat (talk) 23:14, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
TufKat, the Nicene Creed quotes sprinkled throughout the Beleifs section was an arrangement that was agreed upon by many editors after a lot of back and forth discussion, in the last FAC, peer review and even into this FAC. We used to have the entire Nicene Creed quoted in a box in the opening paragraph in Beliefs. Its presentation first was central to helping reader understand what was being discussed in each of the sections that followed. That was not acceptable to many FAC reviewers so we compromised and eliminated the entire quote, mentioned its importance in the Beliefs opening para and sprinkled it throughout the sections that discuss each part of it. This arrangement met with wide acceptance among our reviewers - everybody loved it. I do not understand how, after all of this, you are asking me to do something that sounds like what we had before. Please understand that we sometimes can not please everyone and we have to go with what will please the most. NancyHeise (talk) 01:13, 5 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with nancy that the John the Baptist quote is quite necessary where it is. It provides a concise way of explaining that Jesus's role as saviour is to take away the sins of the world. The quote adds colour to the text, which a more prosaic eplanation of this point would not. I think this is a stylistic point. As far as the use of the Nicene Creed goes. The fact that the Creed is the core statement of Catholic belief has already been explained in the lead and again in the main body of text. Its use in this manner is the result of a consensus decision taken after a lengthy debate over the past two FACs on the article, so we do not want to breach that consensus. Xandar (talk) 01:56, 5 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I've looked over the last two FACs, and I don't see any consensus, or discussion at all, that each section must begin with a quote from the Creed. I don't have any opinion on whether the Creed should be quoted at all, and I have only a vague idea of what the Creed is. It doesn't matter. Starting with a quote is always inappropriate because the first sentence explains what the topic is. Thus, the quote inherently replaces Wikipedia's neutral point of view explanation of the section's scope with another source's explanation, and/or, the quote simply doesn't provide
  • I'm not sure about the sectioning. If you have a section entitled "Eucharist and liturgical year", it needs to begin by stating what a eucharist and liturgical year are, then probably go into why it's important and where it comes from. I don't think that section ever really explains what a liturgical year is.
This has been moved, please see all the changes we have made in the text to comply with all of TufKat's comments. NancyHeise (talk) 18:30, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Liturgical year is the last paragraph in that section. Eucharist is the first part of the section. please see my explanation of sectio arrangement after your first comment. Thanks. NancyHeise (talk) 03:34, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I understand that the last paragraph is about the liturgical year. I've read it a number of times now, and I still don't know what exactly a "liturgical year" is, but I see that there is a paragraph about it. And aside from some vague hand-waving about consensus among those editing this article, I don't see how you've responded to my concerns about sectioning. I haven't even told you what they are, and you've already dismissed them. Tuf-Kat (talk) 23:14, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Your right, I improved the first two sentences to make that clear and I think this was a good comment, Im sorry I did not answer it right away, I have been very busy today. NancyHeise (talk) 01:13, 5 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Tuf-Kat (talk) 01:12, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The centrality of the Nicene Creed is discussed in the opening para on Beliefs, its presentation in the subsequent paras is based on its importance and proper introduction to the subject matter. I guess we will have to agree to disagree. Thanks for your comments. I can not change the things you want me to change and I do not feel there is a need to especially when you are the only reviewer to bring this up in Beliefs. The consensus of opinion regarding wording supports present text if we consider the past five or more months of FAC reviews and Peer reviews and MoS edits. I am sorry I can not comply here. NancyHeise (talk) 23:38, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
A better introduction to the Liturgical Year paragraph is under construction. Re Nicene Creed, see my note above. Xandar (talk) 01:56, 5 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Tuf Kat, another editor, Xandar, is going through and addressing some of your comments here. I am fine with whatever he decides in this matter. NancyHeise (talk) 00:42, 5 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It appears that the Nicene Creed is being quoted because it is itself worthy of special notice, not because it is informative. As a compromise, would you consider putting it in a box, such as using Template:Quotebox? (See Batman_(1989_film) for an example in action.)
The most recent discussion of a related topic in the archives appears to be Talk:Roman_Catholic_Church/Archive_16, The talk in the previous FAC and the most recent talk archive is both about the presence of the Creed reproduced in full, apparently as the full content of the "Beliefs" section (maybe). In any case, I don't see any discussion on including quotes from the Creed at the beginning of each section. Tuf-Kat (talk) 01:15, 5 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The quotebox was actually used for the Creed up to the recent change. I actually preferred the quotebox, but the consensus of editors were against me on that. The decision to use the creed as the basis of the beliefs section won approval from reviewers. On sections, it might be more logical to include Liturgical Year with Liturgy of the Hours rather than Eucharist. But other than that, we do not want to start a major revamp of sections now. What do others think of the Liturgical year suggestion? Xandar (talk) 02:11, 5 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
My understanding from the previous discussion was that the Creed was reproduced in full in one box, (maybe as the entirety of the beliefs section?) which is not what I'm proposing (each piece of the Creed in a box next to the section in question). In any case, my real suggestion is just to not start each section with a quote, and I still don't see where there's been any discussion at all on that point. Please point me to it. Tuf-Kat (talk) 21:25, 5 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I am very happy with Xandars edits to respond to TufKats FAC comments. I think the article is improved because of these changes. Regarding the liturgical year going into Liturgy of the Hours - definitely it is fine with me and is not a major change. If you want to make the edit, Xandar go ahead. Regarding the Creed quote going back in - there is no way we can possibly even consider doing that - it has been thoroughly and almost heatedly discussed over and over in depth, the current version is the result of MUCH discussion and consensus - please see where consensus was asked for and reached both on the talk page (after the second peer review and during this FAC process) and on the first page of this third FAC process. We have three separate sections representing consensus for current presentation of the Nicene Creed - we would be in violation of this well documented agreement by deciding now to change it between just the three of us. Please, lets respect other editors opinions on this matter. NancyHeise (talk) 02:43, 5 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Please point me to the previous discussion on the matter. I see a lot of discussion on presenting the Nicene Creed in a single box, but I don't see any mention of why each section must begin with an out-of-context quote from the Creed. Tuf-Kat (talk) 21:25, 5 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Tuf-Kat. I note that you have added a note to your "oppose", changing it to "strong oppose" and accused editors of not interacting with your comments. This, despite all of the clear attempts made by editors to discuss them above. Editors have been very reasonable in discussing all your points, and several changes have been made to the article in line with some of your comments. However your response is entirely negative. Discussion of an objection does NOT mean accepting all of an objector's ideas and notions without debate, especially when style and aricle-arrangement issues are involved. If changes you prefer have not been made, the reasons for this have been explained. We cannot ignore consensus decisions taken on matters under discussion long before you came to the article in order to accept one individual's views. The reasonableness of objectors and objections is a matter for consideration in this process, and I would therefore repeat that editors are here and willing to discuss genuine concerns, but there has to be give and take, and demands must be reasonable. Insisting on describing the bible as the "collection of sacred books", or speaking of the Church being "inspired by one of the manifestations of God" and similar round-about phrases, is unreasonable imo. I did ask you to bring any phrases forward you thought were too jargon-ridden, for consideration. So far you have not done this. If an objector refuses to take up the offers to participate in the FAC process, the validity of such an objection will come into question. Xandar (talk) 17:49, 5 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You have recently begun making serious attempts at meeting my objections (or at least, it seems that way, I don't have time to check now) - at the time I wrote that, Nancy had responded very cursorily to my comments, such as by dismissing my concerns about sectioning when I had only vaguely alluded to them, so she didn't even know what my concerns were. For the record, by nominating the article here, all prior consensus decisions are inherently reopened for discussion (they're never really closed, even outside of FAC, but especially not here) - the whole point of FAC is that reviewers are double-checking everything, and you can not dismiss objections just by invoking prior discussion. If you think the prior discussion is relevant, point directly to it and explain why and how.
I've already pointing to two sentences I'm concerned about, and that I don't think you've changed (could be wrong). I did not insist on discussing the bible as a "collection of sacred books". I offered an alternative phrasing for one sentence that uses that phrase. In any case, I frankly don't know the best, neutral formulation. I don't mean to be rude, but it's not my job to come up with one.
To clarify then, I'm objecting on the basis that this article uses Catholic terminology without sufficient context or clarification. This amounts to poor writing, breaches the manual of style and effectively presents the Church's views in a biased manner. Tuf-Kat (talk) 21:25, 5 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
On use of Catholic terminology without sufficient context or clarification. To some extent the use of catholic terminology is unavoidable. This is the same with all articles that cover specialised subjects, faiths, sciences etc. See your own Featured article; Timeline of prehistoric Scotland, which unavoidably makes use of specialist terminology, with terms such as "neanderthal", "interglacial", and "pleistocene", unclarified in the run of text. So there does exist necessary flexibility with regard to this. However, I can recognize that in the subsection "Beliefs" there may be places where presentation and explanation can be improved, and I will have a look into the prospect of simplifying and clarifying the text over the coming 24 hours Xandar (talk) 01:30, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
TufKat's comments have all been addressed including changes to the text as indicated above. I do not consider this an actionable oppose. NancyHeise (talk) 21:52, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think "neanderthal" and "interglacial" are really too specialized, and they are, at least, much more easily defined and explained through linking than religious terminology. In any case, I think you've much improved the article. Tuf-Kat (talk) 15:18, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong oppose This article is very bias and one sided. I think there should be a criticism section. The actions and teachings of the Roman Catholic Church have been criticized by many secular thinkers. I think some criticism of the Roman Catholic Church should be included in the article. Masterpiece2000 04:35, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

- :Thank you for your comment, per Jimbo Wales recommendation, we placed all criticism throughout the article instead of having it in a separate section called Criticism because he says these tend to become "troll nets". Which items in the text do you consider biased? Are there any factual inaccuracies that you can point out for us? Any ommissions of notable events? NancyHeise (talk) 04:32, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I will show you some examples. Masterpiece2000 04:35, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Don't you think the views of secular thinkers about the Roman Catholic Church should be included in the article? Masterpiece2000 04:46, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What do you propose? Please give us your ideas. NancyHeise (talk) 04:51, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Why not include the views of secular thinkers such as Bertrand Russell and Richard Dawkins? Dawkins is critical of Roman Catholic attitudes to family planning and population control. He states that leaders who forbid contraception, and "express a preference for 'natural' methods of population limitation" will get just such a method in the form of starvation. The article says nothing about the Galileo affair, in which Galileo Galilei came into conflict with the Catholic Church over his support of Copernican astronomy. The article says nothing about Catholic Church's support for creationism. The article is one-sided. Masterpiece2000 05:08, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Umm, I'm not sure of this at all. In particular, the RCC is far from explicitly supporting creationism. See theistic evolution, George Coyne and the main article Evolution and the Roman Catholic Church. --Relata refero (disp.) 09:03, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Relata refero, the RCC may not explicitly support creationism, but, they do support creationism/ID. Make no mistake about it. Masterpiece2000 (talk) 14:32, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The RCC does not support intelligent design in the way most people take the term to mean (God/gods directing the development of the world instead of letting natural selection run its course). The Church will of course say that God is the ultimate creator of the world. But in terms of how the species came to be as they are today, it absolutely does not oppose evolution by natural selection. 72.205.14.47 (talk) 23:48, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This would be going way off-topic. Dawkins etc. have a beef with all religion and any form of organized Christianity. Starting a discussion on rationalism versus religion and spirituality is not the purpose of this page. Maybe it might find a place under Christianity or rationalist versus deistic viewpoints, but it is not relevant to a specific article on the Roman Catholic Church.
As for Galileo. It may deserve a mention, but it would need to be set in context of the many Catholics who were important scientists. Galileo is often used to argue thst the Church has been anti-science. But the affair was more complex than often presented, and was a pretty isolated event. Xandar (talk) 09:17, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I used to have Gallileo in the article but after going through talk page discussion and GA there was consensus (from both Catholic and non) to remove mention of him for many reasons including Xandar's stated above. There is an article discussing in detail the many different arguments against Church doctrine, see Roman Catholic theology. In this RCC article, we make mention of the fact of the criticism, and provide both Church response and wikilink for reader who wants to know more. In the case of Galileo, he is discussed in the wikilink to Inquisition which is listed in the article text where we discuss the issue. The Theology wikipage is listed in the See Also section. NancyHeise (talk) 09:42, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This is a tough decision. I will make my final decision tomorrow. Masterpiece2000 (talk) 14:32, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I find it very hard to swallow the claim that over half of all Christians belong to the RCC.--Filll (talk | wpc) 20:07, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I believe that on the article talk page someone once said that this number counts all people who have been baptized Catholic; it does not take into consideration those who later leave the church. Karanacs (talk) 20:30, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well you better get some sources for all this. The numbers I am familiar with are so far away from this as to be laughable.--Filll (talk | wpc) 21:10, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The sources are the United States Government CIA world factbook and Zenit News Agency, it is also in the book Saints and Sinners by Eamon Duffy and was recently mentioned in all worldwide news services when the Vatican announced the the religion Islam now has more members than the Roman Catholic Church. In our Demographics section we also have it referenced to this USA Today article [13]. It is not just compiled from Catholic Church baptismal records, it is confirmed through census' of various countries and compiled by research centers like the one used for the USA today article. NancyHeise (talk) 22:02, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Nancy, is there any specific description in the sources of how those numbers are compiled? A brief mention of what exactly this is measuring might help address this concern. Karanacs (talk) 02:26, 5 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Karanacs, the CIA world Factbook has its own very nice Wikipage that gives this info here The World Factbook and the Center for Applied Research is a function of Georgetown University. What do you think of having a sentence that just says "according to the [[[The World Factbook]] and the Center for Applied Research (ref) the Catholic population is...." The person who wants to know the off topic information of how the info was compiled can then click on the World Factbook site. NancyHeise (talk) 02:57, 5 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
On further consideration, this is really off topic for our article. All anyone has to do is click on the reference and see them. NancyHeise (talk) 21:52, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The description of the relationship between the Western and Eastern Church(es) I find highly doubtful. I do not think the Eastern Orthodox Church considers itself to be an Eastern Catholic Church, if that is what is being implied here; it was not clear to me.--Filll (talk | wpc) 20:11, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The Eastern Orthodox Church is not the Eastern Catholic Churches, it is a separate entity, not in communion with the pope of Rome, they are led by a patriarch. I'll see if we can word this to make it clear, we dont want people to be confused - I guess the use of the word "Eastern" is confusing to some. NancyHeise (talk) 20:47, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I know that. But the article is not written very clearly.--Filll (talk | wpc) 21:10, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Your right, I made an edit to make this more clear. Thanks for your good comment. NancyHeise (talk) 21:58, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. I fully understand that it's not my place to suggest any course of action to the nominators, but I will do so nevertheless. This was always going to be a difficult gig, for all sorts of reasons. Even though I still support the article's promotion, it's also clear that the attempts to bring everyone on-side have fractured the prose and the flow somewhat. I'm reluctantly of the opinion that a period of consolidation away from the glare of the FA spotlight may be what's needed now. Just my 2p worth. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 00:55, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Flow is a relatively minor thing to address and adjust, I am reading through the article now. I will make any changes needed. No removal from FA spotlight is necessary. Thanks though, I appreciate all of your help through this FAC process very much. NancyHeise (talk) 01:02, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Changes have been made to the text per discussions with opposing reviewers (see article edit history). For comments that we are not able to address, we have posted our valid reasons why. As of this writing, all comments on this page have been addressed. NancyHeise (talk) 00:57, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well, the elephant in the corner is shouting Strong oppose. Try looking for another FAC that passed after a similar strong opposition. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 02:06, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Tuf-Kat's point has not been addressed, in my opinion. Quite a few terms are used vaguely. For instance: "They are vehicles through which God's grace is said to flow into all those who receive them with the proper disposition.[47] The Church encourages individuals to engage in adequate preparation before receiving certain sacraments.[48]" "Vehicles of grace" is not specific enough to explain what a sacrament is, and how it's different from, say, an icon or a relic. "Engage in adequate preparation" and "proper disposition" don't explain much, either. Gimmetrow 01:24, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
See my latest response to Tuf-Kat. These matters are being looked into, but it will take up to a day to produce something. Xandar (talk) 01:39, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I am answering TufKat's question regarding where the consensus for removal of the Creed was discussed. Please see the conversation that begins with the second comment from the top of this page here [14] and on the RCC talk page here [15], also in the second peer review as one of Karanacs comments that another editor agreed with her on here [16]. I responded to her comment by stating that I was going to put the discussion on the article talk page, which I did and there were several responses in favor of removing it. Xandar and I were intensly against removal of the Creed blockquote and argued against it to the exasperation of the others. We would be very happy to put the whole quote back in the block and remove the sprinkling of the Creed throughout. How can we do that after all this discussion that reveals so much consensus? If there is some higher authority who can make a final decision on this, we are willing to comply with TufKat's recommendation. NancyHeise (talk) 03:30, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I was not referring to the issue with the Creed, but to the use of religious language. "Proper disposition" is a codeword that means something to Catholics; if it's important to say it should be explained or linked. Alluding to some aspect of doctrine without a pointer to its meaning doesn't seem very informative. Gimmetrow 03:37, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I would really appreciate if you would help Xandar and I in our efforts to comply with this FAC comment and a list of the words in the text that we need to redefine would really help us. It is not necessary but it might help us understand what non-Catholics find confusing. NancyHeise (talk) 03:42, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I have also reworded the "proper disposition" item. NancyHeise (talk) 03:58, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
[17] I guess it's my fault, but this is not what I'm getting at. I think some parts of the Beliefs section try to allude to too many things. If the sacraments are important, then it's a given there will be some preparation for them. I was thinking more about focus on the key points: "Sacraments are visible rites which Catholics see as providing God's grace ex opere operato, and are thus central to most individual Catholics' approach to God." Gimmetrow 04:29, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
OK, I used your version a little without removing my ability to still use the ref at the end of the sentence. Rereading your comment above again, are you suggesting we eliminate mention of "engage in adequate preparation" or do you think we should explain it? NancyHeise (talk) 04:51, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
None of those discussions are relevant here. I suggested moving the Nicene Creed out of the first sentence of each section. The prior consensus is that the Nicene Creed should not be reproduced entirely, but there does not appear to be any consensus, or indeed discussion at all, that the quotes must be in the first sentence of each section. Tuf-Kat (talk) 14:42, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

TufKat, I have just gone through again and made changes to the areas of concern to you that I think will meet to your satisfaction. Xandar has also addressed a couple of points and Gimmetrow has been a tremendous help here as well. Please take another look at the particular areas of concern you have listed because we have made changes to each area you tagged in your comments. Thanks for your comments, I apologize if we were a little slow and reluctant to make changes, our fault. NancyHeise (talk) 05:23, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

<Commentary moved to talk page> SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:45, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Note from Nominator - The opposes on this page have been addressed in depth with many changes to the text and concessions to reviewers wishes. Some of those wishes were not conceeded based on valid reasons which were provided. At this point, I consider all of them unactionable. Things are pretty quiet around here now. NancyHeise (talk) 21:52, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Strong Oppose The article is too unweildy, while I understand what it is attempting to cover, it is doing so in a slipshod manner, not giving enough attention to certain areas and dwelling too much on insignificant ones. (I guess I'm the only one appalled that excommunicants and heretics get more mention than Saints and Doctors of the Church, itself). None of the Post Vatican 2 Controversy is dealt with. There are NPOV issues with regard to the Novus Ordo Missae and no mention at all in the Eucharist section on how the modern Mass' translation of the Consecration is a corruption of the words of Christ. There is no mention how after Vatican 2, mass attendance by Catholics plummeted to abysmally low levels due to modernizing the Mass and watering down dogma. There is no mention of why Vatican 2 was needed or how it was a continuation of the First Vatican Council. There is scant mention of the Bureacracy within the Church, how Latin is the Official Language, or the Church's impact beyond the middle ages. There are also numerous sourcing problems and I fail to see how summary works are used to source such a rich and diverse topic. It's not like there are not sources critical of the Church out there. I say this as a practicing Catholic...who attends Mass several times a week and one who graduated from the Seminary. The article has made vast improvements, but it is not ready for Featured Status, yet. The prose is weak in most places; it needs more polish, to promote it in its current state would be a huge disservice to the Church, itself.--Mike - Μολὼν λαβέ 02:28, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • (I guess I'm the only one appalled that excommunicants and heretics get more mention than Saints and Doctors of the Church, itself).
We can add Saints and Doctors, which ones do you suggest? NancyHeise (talk) 03:44, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Francis of Asissi, Thomas Aquinas, John of the Cross, and Theresa of Avilla for starters.--Mike - Μολὼν λαβέ 04:05, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Added. Please see the section for Thomas Aquinas in first para of High Middle Ages and others in the Counter Reformation section of Late Medieval and Renaissance. NancyHeise (talk) 05:10, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • None of the Post Vatican 2 Controversy is dealt with.
Please see the history section under Vatican II and Beyond. NancyHeise (talk) 03:44, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • There are NPOV issues with regard to the Novus Ordo Missae and no mention at all in the Eucharist section on how the modern Mass' translation of the Consecration is a corruption of the words of Christ.
That is an issue that is dealt with under the wikilink Traditionalist in the Vatican II section of history. "corruption of the words of Christ", a Traditionalist POV, is not a notable controversy. NancyHeise (talk) 03:44, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
[18] I guess if someone is ignorant of Faith, Language, and Tradition they could make that point.
That is your POV, per your source, "“Indeed,” the cardinal continued, “the formula ‘for all’ would undoubtedly correspond to a correct interpretation of the Lord’s intention expressed in the text. It is a dogma of faith that Christ died on the Cross for all men and women (cf. John 11:52; 2 Corinthians 5,14-15; Titus 2,11; 1 John 2,2).” Nonetheless, while “for all” is, “an explanation of the sort that belongs properly to catechesis,” Arinze said, “’for many’ is a faithful translation of ‘pro multis.’” " Mike, this argument is no not noteworthy to include in this summary article of the RCC. This is a quibble, not a war and I will argue with you based on what your own source says that the words used in the Mass are fine. NancyHeise (talk) 04:33, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • But still not the words in the Bible as said by Christ.
  • There is no mention how after Vatican 2, mass attendance by Catholics plummeted to abysmally low levels due to modernizing the Mass and watering down dogma.
The Vatican II controversy discusses these issues in history section. I added more per your comments here. NancyHeise (talk) 04:24, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • There is no mention of why Vatican 2 was needed or how it was a continuation of the First Vatican Council.
Added. NancyHeise (talk) 05:37, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • There is scant mention of the Bureacracy within the Church, how Latin is the Official Language, or the Church's impact beyond the middle ages.
All of this is already in the first para of Church organization and community including Latin as official language. NancyHeise (talk) 03:44, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Mike, I didn't lump them, we have a wikipage on them. The article provides the wikilink and the reader goes there to learn more. Would you like some sort of elaboraton on Traditionalists? NancyHeise (talk) 04:33, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This is an article that covers 2000 years of history and much else besides. Traditionalists and Liberals are given DUE WEIGHT in this summary account. There are wikilinks elsewhere for people interested in that aspect of Catholic controversy. I know these things are of greater importance to those involved, but there is not a way that we can cut something else out in order to detail various traditionalist and Liberal groups, man of which are very small. This is not the article to do that. Xandar (talk) 10:39, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • There are also numerous sourcing problems and I fail to see how summary works are used to source such a rich and diverse topic. It's not like there are not sources critical of the Church out there.
What sources do you suggest are not OK? Are you saying we dont have critic sources? We do, Duffy and Bokenkotter are considered critics. NancyHeise (talk) 03:44, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I say this as a practicing Catholic...who attends Mass several times a week and one who graduated from the Seminary. The article has made vast improvements, but it is not ready for Featured Status, yet. It needs more polish, to promote it in its current state would be a huge disservice to the Church, itself.--Mike - Μολὼν λαβέ 02:28, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps we can polish it right now with FAC comments. That is why we have brought it to FAC, to make a decent article. We thought we were there after our second peer review - we followed all protocol before bringing this up again. Mike, as a Traditionalist Catholic, you have a certain POV that you want to have presented in the article but that POV is already mentioned and I might add that it is an extremely minority POV. There are not a lot of Traditionalist Catholics, they are a schismatic group, a radical group with an agenda to push. We can't use the RCC article to do that. I will address your valid points. Thanks for offering them. NancyHeise (talk) 03:44, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
First of all, I am not a schismatic and will not tolerate such personal attacks. I am not SSPV or SSPX or pushing any POV. Read your Bible and tell me in which Gospel Jesus said "For All" and not "For Many". Christ's words are retained in the Tridentine Rite, they are absent from the Novus Ordo, but you'll never include that in this article because of your blatant POV pushing.--Mike - Μολὼν λαβέ 03:51, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Just noting that while some of your points are valid, you're pushing a POV supporting the Tridentine Mass and the pre-Vatican II church. Please note WP:NPOV. Sephiroth BCR (Converse) 02:34, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
How is that when the subject is not even broached in the article? Where have I made any such POV edit pushing? Do you see what I mean?--Mike - Μολὼν λαβέ 03:08, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Er, he's the only reviewer here with a POV?? Johnbod (talk) 03:19, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, that's what they say when they're open minded and I'm just a stupid jerk  :) --Mike - Μολὼν λαβέ 03:24, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Your word choice lends itself to a POV, whether it was inadvertent or not. Again, you do have valid points, and yes, naturally we do all have a POV. I'm not criticizing you, I'm just noting that some may construe your complaint as a POV-push. Sephiroth BCR (Converse) 03:30, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I have answered all of Mikes comments making additions in the text per his very good commments. No offense is intended by my comments about Traditionalist groups that are schismatic. It is just a fact that this exists. I did not know to which group you belonged but I am happy it is not the schismatic one! Peace. NancyHeise (talk) 05:40, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Ummm, again. I don't know what you are talking about. The only "group" I belong to is in Communion with Rome. It is just called the Roman Catholic Church...what this article is about.--Mike - Μολὼν λαβέ 06:10, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
To be fair, many traditionalists are in groups. I have some sympathy with some traditionalist points. However this is not the article for arguments on the precise wording of the mass etc. On sourcing, there are not actually a huge number of over-all histories of the Catholic Church that cover the whole course of events in depth. You will find that even the Encyclopedia Britannica article uses some of the books that we use, including Duffy and the Oxford illustrated History, as sources. There is nothing wrong with these sources. Xandar (talk) 10:39, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
No, that is a mischaracterization. There are some "extremists" in certain "societies", but that's the exception and not the rule, it does not exclude personal attacks and slander by insinuating that because someone has a love for the Latin Mass that they are a schismatic. There are plenty of over-all histories of the Church. Richard Mc Brien's Catholicism comes to mind, but it was excluded from the article because the nominator did not like the author(a liberal Roman Catholic Priest). It may not have a Nihil Obstat, because it was never sanctioned by a Bishop, however it is used as a textbook in many seminaries.--Mike - Μολὼν λαβέ 13:59, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
There is nothing in the article to link Traditionalists and schismatics, although there are one or two fringe groups have broken away. The section on Tradionalist Catholics links to a detailed article on that subject. As for your suggested History text. if you read through this FAC page and the previous ones, you will find most of the reviewers who object to some of the books used a sosurces, are objecting to the use of books written by Catholics. To have a source such as Fr Mc Brien, which is used as a textbook in catholic seminaries would not help with this problem. Xandar (talk) 23:18, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
No those vile repugnant comments and innuendos were made by the nominator on this very talk page and a while back (maybe the first FAC) before I stopped trying to fix this article. The article contains a gross misrepresentation of the facts when it comes to that and to be honest, it's just laughable the way it is written. As for your other point...they seem to object to nonscholarly works(as do I). McBrien is a priest, true, but a very liberal one. Despite his personal views (he's everything "traditionalists" like me hate but the modern church embraces: pro women priests, pro married clergy, hold hands during the Our Father, altar girls, liturgical dancers, etc) his book is spot on dogmatically and even his harshest critics mention this. I think this type of author, one who has been critical of the church and criticized by the church is precisely the type of balance that is needed. I would never receive the sacraments from him or go to one of his Masses, but his book is 100% dead-nuts accurate with regard to history and dogma(but then again, even satan can quote scripture).--Mike - Μολὼν λαβέ 06:28, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The book of which you speak is not a history, but rather very much a Theology work, viewing from a particular perspective. There is a brief historical section, but the work is certainly not suitable as a historical reference. Xandar (talk) 21:36, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Please note: Further threats and abuse on my talk page concerning this nomination will be removed immediately. TONY (talk) 02:41, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Further unwarranted allegations by yourself. There have been no threats and abuse on your talk page, merely a request that you apologise for your earlier allegations against editors and reviewers that have been proven to be false.Xandar (talk) 09:08, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Could future reviewers and those still holding objections please look at Featured Article Candidate London on this page. There you will see an example, (one among many,) of the most useful way to make objections to an article. Most objections are itemized, are specific for clarity, are bulletpointed and refer to specific sentences or paragraphs complained about. Following this format will make objections easier to see, identify, quickly address and acknowledge. Thank you. Xandar (talk) 23:18, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. I dislike the use of Church euphemism in the article. "...married persons are expected to be open to new life in their sexual relations"; "They usually live in community"; and the deferential "...led Pope John Paul II to issue two documents to explain Church teaching." I think it is crazy that defensive statements are present in the paragraph about sexual abuse of minors. The defensive statements about the Spanish Inquisition also are defensive and out of place. Tempshill (talk) 06:03, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I do not see how these sentences make the article Non-FA. But please bring forward your suggestions for amendments. On so-called "defensive" statements I'm afraid BOTH sides of an argument or debate have to be presented in Wikipedia articles. Not just one side. Xandar (talk) 20:24, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The church euphemisms you identify in your oppose are in sections describing Church belief, practices or community. These sections are stating the Church belief or teaching on particular issues. The wording in each of your cases pointed out here is factually correct. The statement "led Pope John Paul II..." is not deferential, it is a fact that is referenced to Bokenkotter and the actual Mulierus. Sexual abuse and Inquisitions provide all points of view as required by NPOV. NancyHeise (talk) 02:47, 9 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Note The following three opposes are restatements of earlier opposes at the top of the page (they are not new opposes). I asked all opposes to please come back and strike their comments that we have addressed. These are their responses to that request. NancyHeise (talk) 02:47, 9 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Continued Oppose. (Note, I have added "continued" oppose in response to repeated attempts to change my comments on this page, plus comments on my talk page of which I think rather poorly from one of this article's latest defenders: I've made my view about this clear here. It's sad that, just as the nominator was, in my view, doing rather better at working with reviewers, as I commented here, other supporters should rather undo her good work. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 09:01, 12 June 2008 (UTC)) I have been trying more or less to keep away from this FAC, and certainly from the article. Prompted (most appropriately) by NancyHeise to revisit it, I decided that I would take a paragraph almost at random--I say almost, because I decided I wouldn't take a paragraph from the "History" section, with which I know I have problems, and which I know has raised much controversy. I looked at the TOC, clicked on Church organizatoin and community, and found myself with the following:[reply]
The spiritual head and leader of the Catholic Church on earth is the pope. He governs from Vatican City in Rome, a sovereign state of which he is also the Head of State.[125] He is elected by the College of Cardinals, composed of bishops or priests who have been granted special status by the pope to serve as his advisors.[126] The cardinals may select any male member of the Church to be pope, but that person must be ordained as a bishop before taking office. The Church community is governed according to the Code of Canon Law. The Roman Curia assists the pope in the administration of the Church. Although the official language of the Church is Latin, Italian is the working language.[127]
There are numerous problems with the above.
  • The words "on earth" need to be explained. I presume the point is that the Church considers God (or Jesus?) to be its absolute head; but without that explanation, the insertion of "on earth" is confusing and distracting.
I added some wording to clarify for you.
  • Vatican City or "the Vatican City"? (I may be wrong here, as elsewhere, of course.)
Vatican City is correct. In Italian, they use "del" in front of Vatican but not so in English. NancyHeise (talk) 17:58, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • The third sentence is illogical, as it seems to suggest that the pope is elected by people whom he himself has already chosen.
Added clarifying language, thanks. NancyHeise (talk) 18:29, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • In the fourth sentence, "by the pope" is redundant." Probably so is "as a."
eliminated, thanks. NancyHeise (talk) 18:13, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Simply stating that "The Church community is governed according to the Code of Canon Law" is unhelpful without at least the briefest of explanations of what is meant. (I know that this is a long article and editors are undoubtedly loathe to add more content, but there are plenty of redundancies, as I've just suggested, and other opportunities for further concision.)
Code of Canon Law is wikilinked for reader who wants to know more. For summary style considerations we have to limit what we decide to expand upon and make use of the many wikilinks available to us. Stating that a world community is governed by a certain law, providing a link to that law is enough. NancyHeise (talk) 18:13, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. there's not really very much you can say about Canon Law other than that it is a list of regulations, which already seems explicit in the words "Code of Law".Xandar (talk) 22:49, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • As a whole, the paragraph simply does not flow. Connectors are missing, and so for instance its last three sentences are short non sequiturs. At best, therefore, the prose is clunky.
  • The sources are not really appropriate. I would have thought that all the above could and should be sourced by statements from the Vatican itself, as they detail its internal organization and functioning. This is not an instance where third-party sources are needed or even especially desirable. And yet we have a BBC Country profile, a Catholic News Service article, and an NYT article. I'd have thought that if wanted to know (e.g.) how the pope is elected, I would look first for some Vatican statement on the matter.
The Beliefs, prayer and worship and community sections are heavily referenced to self published sources like Code of Canon Law, Catechism and Vatican statements. Other references used are three third party books written by university professors whose books have Nihil obstat and Imprimatur declarations from the Church. Karanacs wanted to see some more third party sources so we have included newspapers as well. The references sourcing all of these sections meet WP:RS as top sources per WP:Reliable source examples. NancyHeise (talk) 18:13, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • The principle of citation is also rather random. I'm not necessarily one of those who demands a footnote after each paragraph, but here I can't see why some statements have notes (e.g. the issue of the Church's official language), but others (e.g. the role of Canon Law) don't. There's no consistency here.
WP:Cite Does not require us to cite something that is an obvious and generally undisputed fact. NancyHeise (talk) 18:13, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This paragraph is not egregiously bad. It could fairly easily be fixed. But I would want a paragraph chosen at random (indeed, chosen to avoid picking a very controversial paragraph) from a Featured Article to be much better.
Overall, I continue to think that the POV in this article is problematic: at best, it is written in quotation marks; at worst, it reflects a very particular view of the Church, which is especially conservative, and which confuses the Church (as a global sociological phenomenon) with the way in which the Church officially sees itself.
I can not act on this comment, it is too inspecific. NancyHeise (talk) 18:13, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I also think that there are problems with structure, and that the "Demographics" section is particularly weak, not least because it contains a misplaced sub-section on the technical criteria for membership.
I disagree that the membership section is misplaced, it is a vital piece of information to help reader know what makes a person a member, part of the discussion on Demographics. NancyHeise (talk) 18:13, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
And all this is without even touching on the way in which this FAC has been conducted. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 09:27, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you - I am sorry for any imperfections in my ability to conduct an FAC. I appreciate the help of the helpful editors out there who have been working with me to meet all opposing reviewers demands. I appreciate your bullet point summary here, JB. Peace. NancyHeise (talk) 18:13, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Still opposing—However, it is not a legitimate part of the process to require reviewers to restate their opposition: that opposition remains as the default until it has been shown to have been resolved. The continual refrain from nominators that resolution has occurred is most unconvincing. In addition, I'd like to echo JBMurray's conclusion that the article is written from the narrow POV of a certain establishment part of the RCC. The treatment of certain issues contains subtle angles that many catholics and non-catholics would disagree with. Again, I must ask nominators here not to post aggressive statements on my talk page in response to this. They don't intimidate me; they're just a nuisance to have to deal with. And if you want to impugn my character or behaviour, please do it on the assigned page overleaf, not here. TONY (talk) 12:56, 8 June 2008 (UTC)+[reply]
Actionable opposes need to be capable of being addressed. Vague implications of "POV" even if posted by more than one editor, do not therefore qualify without specific indication of the sentences and paragraphs at fault, and what should in the view of the objector be done to correct the perceived fault. Some people seem to be forgetting that the purpose of this process is to help articles forward to FA status, not to be an excuse to try to apply a personal veto hrough unresolvable objections. The POV of the article is similar to that of Britannica and most other encyclopedia coverage. It may not take radical off-centre viewpoints, but that is not its purpose. Xandar (talk) 21:11, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Xandar. We have worked extensively to eliminate any POV. What we have left are bare notable facts. We can not act on opposes that do not specify anything in particular. Prose is a point of personal taste, a minority of FAC reviewers here have a problem with the prose even though it has been extensively reworked by experienced editors. This should not prevent FA. NancyHeise (talk) 03:29, 9 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Nominator message to FA Director I posted a note on the talk pages of each opposing voter [19], [20], [21], [22], [23], [24], [25], [26], [27] asking them to please come see our responses to their comments, almost all of which have been answered by making changes to the article text. Afterward, Awadewit summarized her oppose by making statments that the editors of the article have not addressed all of her points, that we have a pro Catholic POV tone in the article and that other opposing editors share her view. Johnbod, another FA reviewer and article supporter (not an editor of this article) wrote this to respond to Awadewit:

"Just to point out that it was not only editors responsible for the article who disputed your objections here (not all of them in my case, but several, not all commented on). If all the suggestions by those you mention above had been followed, I for one would be likely switch my position to strong oppose until balance had been restored. Likewise for Mike's objections below (is it?). Johnbod (talk) 12:51, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
I'm sorry, I don't quite understand what you have written here, Johnbod. Awadewit (talk) 12:57, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
It seems clear enough to me - not all suggestions of objectors (generally)) would improve articles, and there are many here that would not. Johnbod (talk) 14:23, 8 June 2008 (UTC)"

Further, Mike's oppose accuses us of not being Catholic enough in our POV. We editors have been constantly accused of POV violations of one sort or another even as we have constantly sought to eliminate any perception of POV. Gimmetrow was helpful with this. Tempshill states that he thinks its crazy that we have defensive statements in sexual abuse paragraph and inquisitions para. We are required by WP:NPOV to include these facts. We have dealt with many reviewers on this article, some have knowledge of RCC but many do not. All have contributed valuable comments and almost all have contributed comments that, if we were to act upon, would result in grave violations of Wikipedia policies or factual inaccuracies. We have not been breezing by everyone's comments, blithly ingnoring valuable perspective. We have had to distinguish between what would bring the article up and what would destroy it. When we have decided against incorporating someone's comments, we have then been accused of being unresponsive or combative. In addition, Tony's oppose just above, accuses us of posting personal threats on his talk page. Wackymacs makes the same accusation. Please see his talk page, we have not posted any such thing. NancyHeise (talk) 17:07, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've never said any POV, much less yours, was not Catholic. Stop putting words in peoples' mouths. I said certain elements had POV issues. --Mike - Μολὼν λαβέ 17:22, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Mike, I answered all your comments by adding text (except your instance on the words in Mass controversy which I gave a valid reason for not changing). You have not even seen my changes to cross off your comments. You crossed off Thomas Aquinas. I added a lot of text on saints to comply with your wish - remember you stated that you had a problem with an article that talked more about heretics than saints? Please see Late Medieval and Renaissance toward the bottom in the Counter Reformation section. All of the textual additions are pointed out to you in my answers to your comments. All you have to do is go to the article and see them. Also, I can not act on an oppose that states a POV issue but does not specify or identify an sentence that is POV. WP:FAC requires opposers to be specific. NancyHeise (talk) 17:41, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Just a quick rejoinder to your claim about one of my several objections: Tempshill states that he thinks its crazy that we have defensive statements in sexual abuse paragraph and inquisitions para. We are required by WP:NPOV to include these facts. This is a misreading of NPOV. In an article about a person accused of murder, it is not necessary under NPOV to point out that several hundred thousand other people have also been accused of murder. Stating that the Church was accused of X, found guilty of Y, and paid Z does not at all need to be balanced with any other statement. I must assume that the reason you have the statement in there is to defend the Church, not to satisfy NPOV. Perhaps I'm wrong and you're honestly trying to be NPOV, but from the general tone of the article, I doubt I'm wrong. Tempshill (talk) 20:21, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Again, if you state precisely wording objected to, it helps a lot, rather than having editors have to guess or mind-read what your objection is. It appears now that your specific objection is the sentence relating to percentage sex-abusers in the Catholic Church and the percentage among US teachers. I happen to think the information sets the issues in context, and I do not see why you would object to readers having this referenced information. However there is certainly room for discussion on the wording.Xandar (talk) 22:38, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
All of the news reports about the Public School abuse, including the Washington Post article reference we used, made the comparison between the sex abuse in the schools and the Catholic Church. This is a notable fact that give significant context to the priest abuse scandal in the US, especially when the institutions dealt with it in exactly the same manner. It is NPOV to include the whole story. This is an important part of what makes this article particularly FA and is why it is a useful piece of information. NancyHeise (talk) 00:25, 9 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thought I'd revisit the article. Spot-checked one small portion of text. Eeuuuw, didn't like this:
    • "Church, works of mercy, and Anointing of the Sick". Why the alphabet soup? See MOS on caps in titles. Why not the anointing, since "the" wouldn't be the first word of the title?
"the" would be improper use. Catholics dont call the sacrament "the Anointing of the Sick" but "Anointing of the Sick" like "Baptism" is not called "the Baptism" but unlike "the Eucharist" which is used. Also, Anointing of the Sick is one of the seven church sacraments. MoS requires us to cap when referring to a proper noun, thus all the sacraments and the word Church, when referring to the Catholic Church are capped. We had quite an extensive discussion on this. We offered to lower case if MoS folks decided they wanted it the other way - we dont care. NancyHeise (talk) 12:44, 9 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • "Catholic social teaching is based on the word of Jesus ...". Bit of a stretch, that, when the word of the man has been filtered through linguistic, cultural, historical, and institutional veils, and not just thin veils. To use WP to assert that the hardest-line doctrines, such as the bans on abortion and homosexuality, hark back to what he said or thought, is on the extreme end of POV. I can't countenance an article on the RCC that seeks to make such universal, black-and-white statements that cannot be proven; this article needs to be carefully expressed in terms that are clearly not in-universe.
Thank you for pointing that out, I added words of clarification and expanded a bit on what that social teaching is. The controversy over abortion is discussed in the history section under Vatican II. The Church does not ban homosexuality. It is considered adultery and the church does not distinguish between heterosexial adultery and homosexual adultery, it is all adultery in their eyes, equally sinful for homosexuals and heterosexuals, no discrimination there. I would like to add that before any other church organization was ordaining homosexual men, the Catholic Church opened its arms to them, especially in the US until the latest church crisis which is a great shame for the many homosexual men who never violated their vows and lived very holy lives. NancyHeise (talk) 12:44, 9 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • "Catholic social teaching ... commits Catholics to the welfare of others." Well, it may commit catholics to what it sees is the welfare of others—or to what some people in positions of power in the institution see as this. I certainly know that the sect of nuns up the road don't view it quite the way the Vatican does, and were roundly told by Rome to shut up and back off about four years ago WRT one particular issue; again, it's an in-universe statement masquerading as a universal truth. This is unacceptable in a WP article, which must minimise the risk that readers will dismiss it as conveying POV. At stake is the credibility of the whole project when it comes to ideological matters. TONY (talk) 10:14, 9 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Regarding the nuns: yes, there is disagreement within the church and that is discussed in the history section under Vatican II, a manner of dealing with controversy expressly recommended by Jimbo Wales. Regarding Catholic social teaching, I changed the sentence to reflect your comment and expanded to include how the Church defines that teaching. Here's the new sentences: "Catholic social teaching is based on Church interpretation of the life and work of Jesus and commits Catholics to the welfare of others.[12] The seven main themes in this teaching are to encourage respect for human life and the dignity of each person, to strengthen and encourage the family unit, to encourage respect for the rights and responsibilities of each person, to care for the poor, to promote the rights and dignity of the worker, and to encourage the solidarity of all humans as one family.[12] " I dont think that WP is going to be considered a reliable encyclopedia if it prohibits all religion articles beliefs sections from actually stating those beliefs. Even Encyclopedia Brittanica has a section on beliefs. If we have to get shut out just because FAC reviewers have personal negative opinions about the religion, that will really make WP look ridiculous and unprofessional. The purpose of the article is to provide a definition of the church, it is not a blog or commentary. We provide the facts of what the church is, what it believes, who comprises the community, what their prayers and practices are and what they have done (history), all notable controversies are covered - completely scientific and professionally done. NancyHeise (talk) 12:44, 9 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong oppose. This page purposely, frequently, and without apology calls the Roman Catholic Church the Catholic Church, which is totally POV and tantamount to calling the Roman Catholic Church the one & only church. Please fix this.--Carlaude (talk) 13:58, 9 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your comments. While other church organizations in the world call themselves "catholic", no other church organization in the world offically calls itself the "Catholic Church" except for the Catholic Church (which does not call itself the Roman Catholic Church except in discussions with other Christian denominations to be polite). The official name of Catholic Church is a referenced fact in the very first sentence. One of the refs gives a very good explanation of this situation. It would be factually incorrect and against Wikipedia policy for us to remove our referenced fact in response to this oppose. NancyHeise (talk) 14:52, 9 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Yes, Nancy, Carlaude has a point: you have to be very careful in avoid in-universe POV when using WP as a mouthpiece. one and only needs to be clearly marked as a dogmatic phrase that has a stylised reference point. I'm not at all convinced by your response to my two POV objections above, which were mere examples (taken at random) of a broad problem in the article. For instance, saying that such and such is "discussed elsewhere in the article" does not prevent the POV angle from coming across there and then, towards the top of the article. TONY (talk) 15:32, 9 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
? The phrase "one and only" does not appear in the article; what is "a stylised reference point" anyway? I fail to see how using the name of an organization amounts to "in-universe POV when using WP as a mouthpiece". Johnbod (talk) 15:44, 9 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Is this alluding to the name Catholic Church, Use of the name the Church calls itself by, and has done for 1800 years, cannot really be POV. And of course all examples of alleged POV may be entered below... Xandar (talk) 16:02, 9 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The term "one and only" does not appear in the article text. No action can be taken regarding that comment because it is a comment made in error. Tony, the Beliefs section makes clear to reader right away in the title that it is a Beliefs section, not a Universal Truth section as you seem to allege. Almost every single sentence in that Beliefs section begins with or includes the phrase "Catholics believe" or the "Church teaches.." or "The Catechism states...", etc. More than that would make the whole section ridiculous and unreadable. We can not assume that the reader is so unintelligent that they don't understand that these are a compilation of Catholic Church beliefs. You are asking us to do a severe "dumbing down" of the article to address what you call POV that is clearly not framed as POV but as the beliefs of this particular church. I made the change you suggested to the sentence you identified. I am willing to make any more changes that are reasonable. Our criticisms are addressed in exactly the manner suggested by Jimbo Wales, if you have a better idea then maybe you can write an instructive article too. I have made use of the instructions currently recommended by the WP community and followed their advice. NancyHeise (talk) 16:12, 9 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
1. I would ask that every new Roman Catholic idea presented begins "Catholics believe" or the "Church teaches.." or "The Catechism states..." (not almost every).
(Under "Jesus, sin, and Penance" that article states "Since Baptism can only be received once..." as a known fact.. which it is not. It is POV.)
AND...
2. I would ask that every paragraght with a Roman Catholic ideas presented begins "Roman Catholics believe" or the "Roman Catholics Church teaches.." in the first sentence.--Carlaude (talk) 18:58, 9 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Note well--
Apart from anything else, there are many official documents where the Roman Church does use the term Roman Catholic Church of itself, eg ARCIC, several dioceses in England and Wales use the term on their websites and so on. (Quote of David Underdown)
Together this indicates that the RCC is apt to use the the "Catholic" name in documents to it those within and the "Roman Catholic" to those outside-- such as on ARCIC and websites. Which form do you think Wikipedia should take?--Carlaude (talk) 14:35, 9 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Note also-- The phrase "one and only" does not have to appear in the article-- it is the constant use of "Catholic" in the article that is objected to. This is an "in-universe POV" because RCC use that name for themselves, but no mater how consistently this is done it is still POV.
Note also-- the Roman Catholic Church can not be said to call itself the Catholic Church for 1800 years (not that this would make it NPOV) because 1800 years ago the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Western Catholic Church were the same church. They both-- however-- did call themselves the catholic church 1800 years ago-- and both still do.
I am copy and pasting this from the article talk page since your discussion was posted there and also here. These are two responses to your demands.NancyHeise (talk) 22:18, 9 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Many don't feel that referring to it as the "Catholic Church" implies Wikipedia's belief that it is the only legitimate church on Earth. I suppose a better example than Macedonia would be the article we have on the Eastern Orthodox Church. After the title and introduction, that article repeatedly refers to the "Orthodox" church and the beliefs of "Orthodox Christians", yet we readers understand that not everyone believes the church in question is the most correct or truthful. Or even the United Church of Christ. Examples of churches whose names claim exclusion are near infinite, but we still use their names. -BaronGrackle (talk) 21:16, 9 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The article provides references to support the article content stating that the official name of the Church is the Catholic Church. While other churches claim to be "catholic", no other church in the world calls itself the Catholic Church. I agree with BaronGrackle and there is ample consensus on this talk page to support current wording. I do not understand the POV charge when we are simply calling the church what it calls itself. Also, the Church uses the term Roman Catholic when discussing issues with other Christian denominations in an effort to be polite (as with ARCIC). It does not sign its official documents Roman Catholic Church unless it is an document signed in conjunction with another Christian denomination. There are many legal documents around the world that use the term Roman Catholic (only in English speaking world) but in the US all legal assets of a diocese are owned in the name of the presiding bishop - yet the name of the Church is not the name of the bishop - so we cant go by legal documents of English speaking countries! Please read the references before making any more claims of POV [28] and [29]. Also, please provide references to refute our presentation if you continue to pursue this issue, so far you have provided nothing to prove that our text is incorrect while we have referenced facts and talk page consensus. Thanks. NancyHeise (talk) 22:05, 9 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Regarding the issue of posting "Roman Catholics believe" in front of every sentence, please see my responses to Tony above. The Belief section is clearly marked as a "Belief" section. It is thus not a violation of NPOV to state the Church's beliefs under such a heading without a constant "Roman Catholics believe" even though we have sprinkled this phrase liberally throughout, it would be bad form, ridiculous logic and poor prose to have it there any more than we do. In regards to your comment about Baptism only being received once - all Christians who hold the Nicene Creed as their basic statement of faith (which is almost all Christians regardless of denomination) believe that you only recieve Baptism once. As a person baptized in the Episcopalian Church, I did not need to get re-baptized when I converted to the Catholic Church, they accept one baptism no matter where that baptism took place. NancyHeise (talk) 22:18, 9 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
NancyHeise, you are just making this stuff up, re: "posting 'Roman Catholics believe' in front of every sentence" Re: Nicene Creed and Baptism, I do not see Baptism even mentioned on the version on the Nicene Creed page... maybe you are thinking of a later creed... in any case not every church is going to interpet the phase "there is one baptism" the same way as you.
The Anglican church and all churches who use Nicene Creed to not require converts from other churches to get re-Baptised (Im not making that up!). NancyHeise (talk) 22:57, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
(and vice versa). NancyHeise (talk) 22:48, 9 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Additional note, the Catholic Church considers the Eastern Orthodox Church the Catholic Church too, the long lost sister with whom they are desperately trying to reunite. This has been a great desire of the Church ever since the split. NancyHeise (talk) 22:24, 9 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Although I have a website and a church published source as references to support "official name", for added measure I have also included a reference to a book written by a university professor and originally published by Harvard University to support current text that states that the official name of the Church is the Catholic Church. I included the quote in my ref but you can see it directly from the book here [30]. Thus, I do not consider Carlaude's an actionable oppose since compliance would require insertion of factual inaccuracies and violation of Wikipedia policies. NancyHeise (talk) 23:51, 9 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Huh?--Carlaude (talk) 15:35, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding the one-sided quotes and comments above I provide these...--Carlaude (talk) 15:35, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • ...I guess I just don't understand how a self-identifying term such as this that enjoys such wide usage is any more POV than using, say, "Macedonia" to describe the name of that country. Do we need more information stating that the Church is more prone to use the term "Roman Catholic" when speaking to people living in England? As for your other points (using "Catholics believe" or "the Church teaches"), I can't really say, other than hoping the article doesn't become halting or redundant. -BaronGrackle (talk) 19:40, 9 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
...
A claim that one church body is "orthodox" does not say that others are not orthodox, but a claim that one church body is "universal" does say that others are part of the universal church.
The United Church of Christ has never made any claims to universality, nor has any other church. What is more we do not confuse "united" with "universal." No one ever claimed or confused the United Kingdom with a sort of universal kingdom-- nor confused the United States of America with all states of America.--Carlaude (talk) 22:11, 9 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for the link to ewtn.com
  • 1. it begins with reference to the Creed that
"speaks of one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church. As everybody knows, however, the Church referred to in this Creed is more commonly called just the Catholic Church."
So right off the bat it admits that the pushing the term "Catholic Church" is part of the claim to be seen as the only church -- the only and true church referred to in the creed. You cannot deny this.
  • 2. It spends most of the text claiming the name "Catholic Church" for the Roman Church.
  • 3. Again at the end of the document written by Mr. Whiteheadit shows again his point of view of the true church being the Roman Church all along by stating:
"By the time of the first ecumenical council of the Church, held at Nicaea in Asia Minor in the year 325 A.D., the bishops of that council were legislating quite naturally in the name of the universal body they called in the Council of Nicaea's official documents "the Catholic Church." ...And it is the same name which is to be found in all 16 documents of the twenty-first ecumenical council of the Church, Vatican Council II.... for the name of the true Church of Christ has in no way been changed. It was inevitable that the Catechism of the Catholic Church would adopt the same name today that the Church has had throughout the whole of her very long history."
Of course this shows the term "Catholic Church" is used to claim that the Eastern Church split from the true Western church (and not the other way around, or split from each other with equal legitimacy.) All clearing showing the POV of the "Catholic Church."
The Rolling Stones call themselves The Greatest Rock and Roll Band in the World but it would be POV for Wikipedia to use it of the band in that way.--Carlaude (talk) 22:45, 9 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The article provides references to support the article content stating that the official name of the Church is the Catholic Church.... NancyHeise (talk) 22:05, 9 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It does not really matter how "official" it considers the name now. I am not claiming that "RCC" is more official, but that RCC is NPOV. It does matter that:

  • The name "Catholic Church" is highly POV (as we can see from the Roman Catholic ewtn.com link), and used to support there view of church history and theology.
  • Using "Roman Catholic" once a paragraph does not destroy the readability.
  • We can see that the Roman Catholic Church does not repudiate the label, (like say the way Oriental Orthodoxy does the label Monophysite, in favor of Miaphysite.) --Carlaude (talk) 15:14, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
We are not violating WP:NPOV by using the official name of the Church in an article about the Church, especially when that name is also recognized popularly by the average person on the street. When people talk about the Catholic Church in conversation, no one assumes it means the Methodist or Baptist or Anglican or any other Church. I used to be Episcopalian and no one refers to that church as the "Catholic Church" in casual conversation. However, it would be considered by Catholics as a POV statement to use RCC throughout the article since it has, in the past, been used by Protestants in an effort to make a POV statement about Catholics as revealed in two of the three references used in the text to support use of the word "official name". These references are a Catholic source here [31] and a Protestant source here [32]. Thus, it would be considered more of a violation of WP:NPOV to adhere to Carlaude's suggestion than what we currently have in the article text. I would also like to point out that I have provide WP:RS references to support my position here and Carlaude has provided none to support his position. NancyHeise (talk) 15:13, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • It is certainly not POV to use the name that the Church calls itself in the article. This is akin to saying that "United States" is POV (in lieu of "United States of America") because there are other states that are united in some way. This is absurd. In fact, a much stronger argument can be made that the article should be titled "Catholic Church" instead of "Roman Catholic Church" as the Catholic Church is composed of both a Latin/Roman rite (a particular church) and 23 Eastern rites (independent particular churches, who are part of the Catholic Church, but independent of the Latin/Roman rite.). Carlaude's objection to this is not only absurd, but also, erroneous, and irrelevant. Move to strike. Lwnf360 (talk) 07:44, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Image concerns resolved, Kelly hi! 12:07, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments on images

  • Image:Cristeros Caídos.jpg is likely non-free. The copyright term in Mexico is unusually long - life of the creator plus 100 years. The image page has no evidence to back up the public domain claim.
  • Image:PapalMass1.JPG seems suspicious to me, copyright-wise. It has been up for deletion before, and was kept on AGF grounds after minimal participation in the debate. Yet the uploader has only uploaded three images, and the other two included a PD-self claim, but also gave a website link. The description is disturbingly vague for a self-taken image. I would replace this with an image of more certain copyright.
  • The other images are beautifully sourced for the most part.

Kelly hi! 02:13, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for helping us with the pictures. I replaced the Cristero war pic with Miguel Pro but I am going to keep the picture of Benedict XVI celebrating Mass because it survived its attempts at deletion which means it is OK. NancyHeise (talk) 03:31, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Image:Miguel Pro.gif will need a fair use rationale for this article...also, a copyright holder needs to be specified for the image per WP:NFCC#10a, as I don't believe the copyright for this image belongs to Creighton University. An alternative would be to move the original image from Commons to here and use it under non-free content rules...it would need to have the copyright holder identified also, though. Oh, and the papal mass picture I was referring to was not the Benedict one (which is Agencia Brasil and is fine), but the John XXIII picture. Kelly hi! 03:43, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I really appreciate your help on this, I am not a picture guru, I can upload but the copyright thing is a fog. I replaced the two pictures you mentioned. Please see the new pics, I think they had solid copyrights but I need your help to determine that. Thanks. NancyHeise (talk) 04:33, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Image:Das Schwarze Korps Eugenio Pacelli Judenfreund Feind des Nationalsozialismus.jpg looks OK to me. Image:P6orthodox.jpg is unfortunately problematic - it has an obsolete license tag, and has permission claimed with no documentation. Image:Pro-life protest.jpg is probably OK - there is no OTRS ticket (I think the upload predates the OTRS system) and the copyright holder's statement is a little ambiguous in that they said "You may use the image from my Web site for your "Pro-Life" article..." and did not specifically agree to the GFDL license, though that is implied. For a featured article, I would look for something a little more solid from Commons:Category:Pro-life movement - for example, Image:March for life 2007.JPG or Image:UK Pro-life demonstrators.jpg. Regards - Kelly hi! 04:47, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Kelly, I changed the pro-life rally picture but the other picture Image:P6orthodox.jpg does have a GNU free license copyright, it is just a little further down the page after the alert tag. Can you take a look and tell me if that is a valid copyright, I dont mean to try your patience but I am not sure you saw that tag. NancyHeise (talk) 05:02, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I took another look - I'm afraid the main problem is that there's no evidence to support the license claims (either PD or GFDL), and I think the claim is pretty dubious. The uploader has been notified at Commons but the image will likely be deleted at Commons in a week or so unless permission is forthcoming, which I think is unlikely. Kelly hi! 05:05, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Can I keep the present picture and just let it get deleted if it doesnt get its permission? I don't really have to have a picture in that section and it really goes well there. Is this something that will prevent FA if I dont remove it? NancyHeise (talk) 05:09, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I have no objection - so far as its affect on the FA nomination, I'm not sure. I was just recruited by SandyGeorgia to help here at FAC based on my experience with image policy and copyrights - today is my first day. :) Kelly hi! 05:12, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
And they should use you again - you did a great job, I am very grateful for your help in this area. Thanks. NancyHeise (talk) 05:16, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • The section title "Beliefs" doesn't absolve the text of the responsibility to present every statement, at the time (not later), in a NPOV way.
  • In other sections, it may be OK to ascribe official beliefs to "the Church", or to say that "The Church teaches that ...", where there's little or no disharmony within the Church, but I see beliefs ascribed in some places to "catholics", that is, individual people. For example, "Catholics believe that God is the source and creator of nature and all that exists." I think one might allow individual Catholics a little leeway to see it their own way; and on a different matter, don't all christian churches teach this point? The statement can't help but imply that catholics are distinctive in this teaching. I think this is assuming one monolithic, ideological homogenous fact; but you readily agreed that it's not that kind of organisation in reality, in response to my example of the nuns (the laudable Sisters of Charity, who've battled church officialdom, including entrenched sexism, for almost 150 years to do good among the poor, drug addicts and the like). It's an irksome fact that you'll have to face up to that some people who call themselves catholics—among them, priests—don't privately believe in a god, or in papal infallibility. WP shouldn't take on the role of nailing their personal ideology by framing belief as monolithic. TONY (talk) 12:23, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I made changes in the text to address all of these comments. Please see and let me know if you are satisfied. Thanks. NancyHeise (talk) 14:59, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - I see the one fundamental problem with most of the comments I've read is that the article attempts to present what would be called a global perspective. When dealing with an organization which counts one-sixth of the global population as members, there are unavoidably going to be serious disagreements within the group itself, particularly given the different social and economic conditions which are found today. While those differences are certainly notable, I think most parties would agree that it is all but impossible to expect one single, comparatively short article, to convey all that information. This is particularly important considering that the church as a whole contains within it several smaller groups which are free to interpret the phrasing of the official policy in almost unlimited ways. Although I can see how many of these differences are encyclopedic, I also see that it would be functionally impossible to have "although groups of Catholics disagree", added after virtually every statement of general RC belief. John Carter (talk) 17:20, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, all the editors of the page are in agreement on this issue. What we have done is make mention of notable controversies and provide wikilinks to their own pages for the reader who wants to learn more. At present, we have a whole paragraph in the history section under Vatican II that describes the two polarized groups of liberal Catholics (with wikilink) and conservative or Traditional Catholics, (also with wikilink). They get the same treatment as all other controversies throughout the article. Thanks for your commment. NancyHeise (talk) 17:59, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I have answered this below next comment. Thanks NancyHeise (talk) 19:07, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Phrasing of "Although the historical record reveals his words and efforts were clearly against the Nazis, his actions continue to be a source of debate" appears contradictory. Use of "clearly" is editorializing and, given the presence of continuing debate, does not appear to be true (i.e. the record is, indeed, not clear). The interaction between Pius XII and the NS-Regime was controversial and reasonable people on both sides can disagree. Generally this section addresses the issue well, but this sentence does not seem to properly acknowledge that several "words and efforts" were, at best, ambiguous. Removing "clearly" and rephrasing of, for example (although not necessarily optimal), "Although aspects of the historical record reveal...", would resolve what I perceive to be a neutrality issue. ЭLСОВВОLД talk 15:29, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I removed the word "clearly" even though the reference itself uses the word "decisively" in conveying this message. Regarding use of the image - it is significant to illustrate that Pius XII was not considered a friend to the Nazi's even by the Nazi's. This cartoon was one of many but existed in a newspaper no longer in existence. Because we have omitted a significant amount of material on WWII due to summary style considerations and the conflict over Pius XII is so notable, this image is particularly important to this article that deals specifically with that issue. It is particularly important per WP:NFCC "Non-free content is used only if its presence would significantly increase readers' understanding of the topic." - this image does exactly this - it is a picture worth more than a thousand words and is the subject of the material in the article. I dont know how to make the picture use less of the image which I think would suffice if you would rather, I would appreciate your help in this matter, thanks.NancyHeise (talk) 17:50, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Replaced the cartoon with a low-res version. indopug (talk) 17:07, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you! The low-res, high-res issue is still a foggy issue to me. Thanks for stepping in and taking care of that. NancyHeise (talk) 18:39, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I would ask that the FA director and other editors take note that:
a) this is the article's 4th FA nomination
And? I've seen articles which have been at FAC more than 4 times. — Wackymacs (talk ~ edits) 09:50, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Note: incorrect, third nomination. The third item that was added to articlehistory was a restart of this same nomination. Also, do not alter other editors' declarations. Comments can be added below other editors' posts. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:24, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
To clarify my implied thesis: this article will never achieve FA status if vague objections from individuals pushing POV against Catholicism or religion in general are considered. This article does exemplify Wikipedia's best work, and it is being held to an unfair high standard by individuals who would likely prefer there be no neutral or positive article about the Church. I freely admit that I have a pro-catholic POV. However, I have not pushed for true statements like "the Church believes that all protestants are heretics whom stand little chance at salvation," to be included in the article. That would be over-the-top POV. Statements in the article being opposed here on POV grounds about the beliefs section such as "the Church believes that baptism can only be conferred once" (I paraphrase) are POV agenda pushing. Stating what the church beliefs about baptism under the beliefs section of the RCC article does not introduce POV--it is a statement of fact. It is my belief that certain individuals in the community wish to blackball this article from becoming featured. As I said, the article is not perfect--but take any featured article on any day and prove to me with specific concrete examples and logical argument that it meets FACR better than this article. Lwnf360 (talk) 11:01, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This is conspiracy theorizing. I see little if any evidence that people are opposing on anti-Catholic, still less anti-religious, grounds. Meanwhile, you seem to have difficulty identifying POV. The problem with the statement you give ("the Church believes that all protestants are heritics whom stand little chance at salvation"), beyond its obvious grammar and spelling issues, is not that it's "over-the-top POV"; rather, it is that it is unsourced. Should you have a source that verifies this "true" statement, then it could quite happily go in the article. As it happens, however, the article at present states instead that "the Church acknowledges that the Holy Spirit is active in diverse Christian churches and communities, and that Catholics are called to work for unity among all Christians." The reference given for this statement seems impeccable. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 10:47, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
b) the majority of the opposition is coming from individuals who either admit to being, or exemplify the position of:
-Anti-theists (those deeply opposed to all religion)
-Atheists (those indifferent to religion)
-Protestants (those groups who have been in schism for centuries)
-Schismatics (those who have been declared or are de facto in schism)
-Traditional Catholics (many of whom are borderline schismatic)
-Progressive Catholics (many of whom are borderline to de facto heretics)
Perhaps you might make it clear, for everyone's benefit, which opposes you align with each of these particular groups? I'd be particularly keen to learn where I fit in, in your judgement. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 09:03, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You'll have to make it obvious, either by your comments themselves, like several traditionalist Catholics here, or by a userbox, as others have, or like TONY, who has a clear statement on his user page: "Pet hates: Supernatural religion". I don't think there is anything wrong with editors of any views contributing here, but reviewer POV has clearly become an issue. Johnbod (talk) 13:07, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It is interesting that the article has such a spectrum of critics--all of whom have inherent POV bias. It shows in their vague objections. An article that upsets such a range of critics must have something going for it.
This is not to say that I do not have POV bias either--I am a devout catholic with extensive knowledge of this subject. I want to see the Church portrayed in an accurate and unbiased i.e. neutral light. E.g. rambling on about the priestly abuse scandal without noting that the abuse rate among priests is roughly half that of the general population, introduces a biased slant against the Church.
It is my view that this article is being held to an unfair higher standard compared to other FAs. Pick any FA on any day--prove to me how that article is beyond the WP:FACR when compared to this one. I submit that you can't. Because this article--though imperfect--meets or exceeds the FACR. I apologize for editorializing in this forum, but these points should be noted with respect to this nomination, given the history. Feel free to agree or disagree with me below. Best regards. Lwnf360 (talk) 08:19, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - I have struck my oppose, but I am not supporting this. Xandar themselves said thousands of edits have been made to this over the past six months. Hundreds have probably been made since this FAC nom started. I think both of these facts show that the wrong approach is being taken. Please discuss here. — Wackymacs (talk ~ edits) 09:48, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Lwnf (I wish you had an easier username): I'd like to see a reliable reference for your claim of half, and with it the knowledge of which "general population" priestly sexual abuse is compared with. And supposing it were the case; the main point is that priests are in a position of significant power over their flock, perhaps more than even doctors or school teachers. Sexual abuse is at its most damaging where there's a disparity in power between victim and perpetrator. In addition, priests are representing a moral system that stands against such abuse. Indeed, it's at the heart of their raison d'etre, whereas doctors and school teachers have a much less explicit and powerful role in the upholding of a system of morality. So half the rate of the general population, whatever that means exactly, is frankly appalling. TONY (talk) 10:21, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    For what it's worth, I disagree with Tony here. And, indeed, with Lwnf. Both are, essentially, engaging in what WP calls original research. The point, rather, is to document the scandal (which is clearly an important one) and the church's reaction, which should in turn be given due weight. In fact, I think that the article at present leans towards OR in this paragraph: at least, it gives that impression, albeit that a look through the footnotes suggests that it could be fixed fairly easily. I'll take this to the article talk page. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 19:51, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    On the talk page, I have suggested a partial re-write of this paragraph that deals with OR issues, as well as grammar, readability, and attribution problems. It is still probably over-referenced, but there we go. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 20:16, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Spot check on prose and MOS. I took the shortish lead to one section and found a high density of problems. While these might easily be fixed, the point I'm making is that I shouldn't be able to randomly pick small portions of text at this stage and find them wanting. (Aside: the POV issues do seem to have been addressed in the parts I complained about earlier.)
    • " Each pope is elected for life by the College of Cardinals: a body composed of bishops and priests who have been granted the status of Cardinal by previous popes." Ah, comma instead, please.
added. NancyHeise (talk) 14:08, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • "Head of State"—lower case, according to MOS.
done. NancyHeise (talk) 14:08, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • "The cardinals, who also serve as papal advisors, may select any male member of the Church to reign as pope, but that person must be ordained bishop before taking office." Seems contradictory: why make a claim and then show it's false. "Any male member" seems redundant.
What's the problem here? What false claim? "Any male member" is far from redundant, as most people think only cardinals, bishops or at least priests can be elected, though I suppose that popes have to be male is well-known. Johnbod (talk) 13:16, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
not sure what is being shown as false. If cardinals pick an abbot of a monastery (which has happened in the past) canon law requires them to ordain him a bishop before they can then make him pope. The sentence is factual. I am willing to make it more clear if you like. Let me think about it first. NancyHeise (talk) 14:08, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • "The basic administrative unit of the Catholic Church is the diocese each of which is led by a bishop. Each diocese is further divided into individual communities called parishes, which are usually staffed by at least one priest"
      • A comma is required after "the diocese".
done.NancyHeise (talk) 14:08, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • I think the grammar's wrong, anyway (singular/plural clash); why not remove "each of which is"?
changed. NancyHeise (talk) 14:08, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • Why "further"? Have we already been told about how diocese are divided?
done. NancyHeise (talk) 14:08, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • "Usually"—I thought more than half of the diocese were not staffed by a priest, because of a worldwide shortage.
I expect you thought wrong then. Is this a prose or MOS problem? Johnbod (talk) 13:16, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Tony, you are incorrect in your assumption. The sentence is factual and the priest shortage is addressed in the Demographics section. If there is no priest to staff a parish, there is no parish. There may not be a resident priest living there but it is always staffed by a priest since only priests can perform certain sacraments. About 25% of parishes do not have a resident priest living there but all parishes have priests staffing them. NancyHeise (talk) 14:08, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • "The official language of the Church is Latin, however Italian is the working language of the Vatican administration." This statement is like a shag on a rock, here. Doesn't seem to belong to either para. Any ideas on where it might be better located? TONY (talk) 10:39, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I do not have a better idea. The working language of the church is referring to the Vatican administration which is the subject of the paragraph in which that sentence is located. NancyHeise (talk) 14:08, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
“While similar to the national flag that is used today, the eagle in these arms is not holding a serpent in his talons and a crown has been affixed to the head of the eagle to signify the Empire. Variants of this flag that appeared in this period also included a naval flag that had the tricolor pattern, but only contained the eagle with the crown above its head. The military also used a similar, square, flag, but the eagle was larger than on the national flag. The national flag was officially decreed by Agustín de Iturbide in November 1821 and first officially used in July 1822. This flag was no longer used upon the abolishment of the empire.”
  • ” While similar to the national flag that is used today, the eagle in these arms is not holding a serpent in his [its] talons and a crown has been affixed to the [its] head of the eagle to signify the Empire”
  • “Variants of this flag that appeared in this period also included a naval flag that had the tricolor pattern, but only contained the eagle with the crown above its head.” The pronoun/antecedent issues are so bad that I would rewrite it:
”A naval variant of this tricolor flag also appeared in this period, but it only contained the eagle with the crown above its head” – Even then, the meaning of this sentence is confused. This sentence describes the exact same thing that the previous one does, but it seems to be here to indicate that the naval variant was somehow different. This isn’t merely a poor prose issue—it is a meaning issue.
  • ” The military also used a similar, square, flag, but the eagle was larger than on the national flag.” –Confused meaning. Is the national flag also square, or is it rectangular and the military flag is instead square? Also contains comma errors.
  • “The national flag was officially decreed by Agustín de Iturbide in November 1821 and first officially used in July 1822.” –How can flags be “decreed?” I would rewrite it:
”This design was decreed to be the national flag by Agustin de Iturbide in November 1821, and was first officially used in July 1822.”
  • ” This flag was no longer used upon the abolishment of the empire.” Awkward and I believe improper use of “upon.” Better as:
”This flag fell into disuse after the empire was abolished.” or some other such construction.

There you have it TONY: a random paragraph from a random featured article which has grammatical errors in every sentence. I am confidant that I could extend this exercise across all other featured articles. But I think I have made my point: unfair high standard. Lwnf360 (talk) 12:12, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Flag of Mexico became an FA in 2006, when the FA standards were lower. As you can see, yes, the standards have risen considerably—for the better. As such, new FAs need to meet the current 2008 standard, not the 2006 standard. Lwnf, if you are concerned about other FAs, there's always WP:FAR where they can eventually be delisted. — Wackymacs (talk ~ edits) 12:16, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yup, needs to be FAR/Ced, although a whole-article assessment would be necessary before doing that, and an attempt to get the article's guardians in there improving it, which probably wouldn't happen without the incentive of FAR/C, damn it. Lwnf, are you going to hang around this room and review nominations? We'd love you to do that: there's a shortage of reviewers and it's a large, continuous task. TONY (talk) 12:37, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
A sub-point of mine, which you seem to repeatedly fail to grasp--I thought at this point I was being blunt enough--is that the word "perfection" or any such synonym does not exist in WP:FACR. I did not want to name names, as it is impolite and in poor taste, but you, TONY, are one of the several individuals who by your own admission are opposed to organized religion. Lo and behold you are nit-picking grammar issues that are minor and beyond the standard in FACR, in an attempt to keep this excellent article from becoming FA. Lwnf360 (talk) 16:50, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Tony, FAC people like you need to consider that article builders do not have forever to spend bringing an article up to FA (We have spent six months on this). If you want to fail this FAC because of some errors in punctuation then you risk eliminating the article builders. If you really wanted to help Wikipedia bring an important article like this to FA (which you have stated that you don't) then you might consider taking about five minutes to go through and actually read the entire article making a list or correcting yourself the (few) errors of punctuation that you see. If this article fails FA because you can not spend any time to help it get there, and I have to go through someone like you to bring up another FA - I will not waste my time doing so ever again. I think that the comments of Lwnf360 are right on target. This article is being held to standards that are currently unwritten in the FAC criteria. If Wikipedia wants to help article builders, it needs to update FAC criteria or provide some helpful editor at the top of the process who will help with prose - you don't seem to want to be that person. NancyHeise (talk) 12:54, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Nobody is asking you to do all the work. I still don't see why you haven't consulted the help of a few external editors to copyedit this. There are lists of copyeditors at both Wikipedia:Peer review/volunteers and Wikipedia:WikiProject League of Copyeditors/Members (Don't submit to LOCE, just contact a few individual editors). — Wackymacs (talk ~ edits) 13:23, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I have consulted - the article was reveiwed by the editor of a journal who has a yale.edu email address, who is also a former seminarian with a graduate level degree in Theology (which means he knows a lot about church history). I know his name but I do not have permission to give it here. He supported the article. In addition, before bringing the article to FA this time, it went through a second peer review and we posted a message on the article talk page and at LOCE inviting editors to come and go through. Several did come and made changes directly or posted messages on the talk page not on the tag. NancyHeise (talk) 14:01, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I also would like to point out that Johnbod and Lwnf are not editors of this RCC article in the sense that Xandar and I are. They are FAC reviewers who have supported the article. I respect their opinions and I appreciate their support and help. Thanks. NancyHeise (talk) 15:03, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Addressing Tony's comments, I went through the article again to check for any punctuation, MoS, or errors in prose - now completed. NancyHeise (talk) 18:21, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]


Comment From my point of view, the article has still following issues:

  • It looks "overreferenced" - I know that it is an unintended result of edit wars, but it means on some places that it is hardly readable and perhaps goes into very deep details
This is not a FAC criteria. There is no violation of Wikipeida policy for having more rather than less references and we have good reason for having more as there are various points of view to consider we must have these references to meet FAC criteria 1c "accurately represent the relevant body of published knowledge,". We have eliminated useless references all others are necessary and some added in response to FAC reviewers comments on this page. NancyHeise (talk) 22:45, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • On the other side, many of the references are not exact enough. For example the 3rd sentence "The Church looks to the Pope, currently Pope Benedict XVI, as its highest human authority in matters of faith, morality and Church governance." is backed by a long Constitution without saying where exactly (= a page or a paragraph) is the theme described. (Moreover, the wording is not exact: In fact, the "highest human authority" is/should be Jesus, the same as in all other Christian churches; they probably mean the pope as the highest purely human authority.)
The wording is factually correct and encyclopedic. The Church belief that Jesus is its highest authority is covered in the section on "Church" and first paragraph in "Community". NancyHeise (talk) 22:45, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Some of the sources are not of highest quality/authority. For example Duffy, Saints and Sinners is a book intended for general public, not a scientific/theological study. There are better sources that can be used instead of it. Especially it is not good to use it as a source for dogmatical things (eg. the role of the Pope), because it is about history.
Duffy's Saints and Sinners is one of the most highly respected sources in the world. It is listed as a reference for the Encyclopedia Brittanica article (see above). NancyHeise (talk) 22:45, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Intro: "From at least the 4th century, the Church has played a prominent role in the history of Western civilization." - Should be mentioned, that it was the old unified church, containing roots of both today's RC and Orthodox churches, and not the RCC as defined above in the article.
The "Western" covers this I think; the unified church contained more than "roots" of the RCC. Johnbod (talk) 20:08, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Johnbod, the lead makes no secret about the split - it is enough. NancyHeise (talk) 22:57, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The history of the Western civilization was written also in Asia, Africa and East Europe in the time. But even if we stay in West Europe, the Church was still one, without the Roman/Orthodox distinction. Which is not as it is understood in the most of the article.--Ioannes Pragensis (talk) 20:31, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The schism is clearly discussed - I disagree that more clarification is needed here. Regarding the history of Western civilization part, this sentence is referenced. NancyHeise (talk) 22:57, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Intro: the Great Schism "largely over disagreements regarding papal primacy" seems oversimplified; it was also a cultural, political, liturgical and theological (Filioque!) schism.
The lead can not be required to discuss all details. The Great Schism sentence uses clarifying language "largely over disagreements..." - reader can know all the details by reading the history section. The purpose of the lead is to lead the reader into the article which is what we have done. NancyHeise (talk) 22:57, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Intro: "the Church engaged in a substantial process of reform and renewal, known as the Counter-Reformation." Too soft wording from a Middle-European perspective - in my country, the Counter-Reformation was also a mass expulsion of Protestants, wars and uprisings, executions and forced Re-catholisation.
This is all discussed in the history section. No notable events have been eliminated or glossed over. The Counter Reformation regarding the Church organization is properly presented in the lead. The article is about the organization Roman Catholic Church, too often, FAC reviewers have expected us to cover all of European and world history without remembering that we are trying to give reader a definition of the RCC. NancyHeise (talk) 22:57, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Without wishing to minimize the Czech experience at all, it was provioked by a political/dynastic struggle, and began many decades after the start of the counter-reformation, when it was winding down in much of Western Europe. But some mention of the Thirty Years War should be made. Johnbod (talk) 20:08, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, but both Reformation and Counter-Reformation were very heavily influenced by politics since their beginning. And it is not only about Czech Kingdom, but also about other countries - France, the Nederlands... The point is that the Counter-Reformation was not only a spiritual renewal, as mentioned in the article, but also a bold political (and consequently military) move. RCC played an important political role, both on its own and as a part of the politics of the European Powers.--Ioannes Pragensis (talk) 20:31, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
All of this is extensively covered in the history section. We can not adhere to FAC criteria if we are to be expected to go into historical details in the lead. NancyHeise (talk) 22:57, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think you misunderstand the idea of the Counter-reformation. The counter-reformation was a movement in the Church which was principally a reforming process. This is how you will see it described in most history texts and in other Encyclopedia articles such as Britannica. Wars occurred during the 16th and 17th centuries in which religion was one factor - but the wars were not a part of the counter-reformation process. They arose from dynastic and other considerations, and often found Catholic nations such as france and Austria on opposite sides. The thirty years war is specifically referred to in the text. The main war the Catholic Church was specifically involved in at the time was the defence of the West from the Turks, re the battles of Lepanto and Vienna - which we have not had space to include. Xandar (talk) 03:10, 13 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Intro: "The Church teaches that it is called by the Holy Spirit to work for unity among all Christians—a movement known as ecumenism" - sounds a bit strange - in fact the modern ecumenism originated in Protestant churches and RCC is not even a full member of the World Council of Churches. It sounds as if the RCC were the main originator and sponsor of the ecumenic movement.
The sentence is factually correct. We are giving reader a definition of RCC. It is very POV to say that RCC is not a main originator and sponsor of ecumenical movement. Catholics might disagree with you on that. NancyHeise (talk) 22:57, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Intro: "opposition to its pro-life stance" - should be more clear that there is also a strong internal opposition of the pro-life stance - that is, a better wording would be something like "conflicts about its pro-life stance".
"Opposition to its pro-life stance" correctly includes both internal and external opposition without needed to state both. Also, this is expanded upon in the history section under "Vatican II and beyond". NancyHeise (talk) 23:09, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Chapter Origin and mission: The Origin is worth to be singled out as a separate chapter. From the historical/theological point of view, almost no mention about the different meanings of the word ecclesia (church) in the early Christian literature and about the evolving structures of the early Chriatian community is given here. - Moreover, there is a lot of duplicity with the starting section of History below.
Disagree that there is any duplicity - the only thing that comes close to an overlap is mention of Pentacost as origin of Church. Also, mention of early Church history including evolution of Church structure is covered in History section. NancyHeise (talk) 23:09, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Chapter Origin and mission: It looks like an undue weight on the side of charity. But RCC is a church, not a charity, and the aspects of Word and Sacrament should be stressed more.
Other FAC reviewers thought we did not have enough to say about charity and wanted more. We could not provide more even though charity work is a major part of Church life. We are going to do a separate page and wikilink it in the future because present Wikipedia policy does not allow us to compile our own or translate statistics and this is what we would have to do in order to create a section like this for this article. NancyHeise (talk) 23:09, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Beliefs: The starting sentence "The Catholic Church's beliefs are detailed in the Catechism of the Catholic Church." is not well placed. It souds like if someone would start the definition of democracy with the statement "The rules of democracy are detailed in the Robert's Rules of Order." The Catechism is not the original or full/comprehensive source, but a contemporary try to summarize the most important beliefs in an authoritative way. It should be mentioned very early, that the two main sources of beliefs are Bible & Tradition, plus Magisterium to explain it, and define them.
Disagree. The article is an encyclopedia article and takes an encyclopedic approach to this issue. The reader who wants to know about RCC beliefs is directed right away to the most important book that compiles these beliefs. Thereafter, the article discusses what those beliefs are comprised of including extensive mentions of Bible, Tradition and Magisterium. NancyHeise (talk) 23:09, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The catechism is the current authoritative manual of catholic belief. This section is not concerned with the history or origins of belief, which are dealt with later. it simply states where authority on present day belief can be found. Xandar (talk) 03:10, 13 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • "the New Testament writings found in the Codex Vaticanus..." As far as I know, the Codex Vaticanus has no special place in the RC definition of the New Testament.
This sentence is referenced to Dr. Alan Schreck's "The Essential Catholic Catechism" a Nihil Obstat, Imprimatur declared third party source written by a professor of Theology at Franciscan University of Steubenville. The reference provides reader with the exact quote which includes mention of Codex Vaticanus. NancyHeise (talk) 23:12, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Sacred Tradition consists of those beliefs handed down through the Church since the time of the Apostles." In fact, it consist of those beliefs believed to be handed through the Church since the time of the Apostles. There are very few sources from the time of the Apostles other than NT. Therefore it is impossible to prove that the said beliefs really come from the time.
Added clarifying language to make this clear. NancyHeise (talk) 23:16, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The Magisterium includes infallible pronouncements of the pope..." Seems like a misleading wording; as far as I know, the Magisterium includes both "infallible" and "normal" pronouncements of popes and other bishops.
Again, this is a referenced fact to Dr. Shreck's Nihil obstat book.

NancyHeise (talk) 23:16, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Not every pronouncement of a Pope or bishop are part of the Magisterium. Some bishops were heretics. Xandar (talk) 03:10, 13 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I believe this is alluding to the "extraordinary magisterium" and the "infallible ordinary magisterium". I don't think this article needs to deal with such a subtle point of doctrine. Gimmetrow 03:25, 13 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • "According to the Catechism, Jesus instituted seven sacraments" - a strange statement, the Catechism has no special place in the development of the teaching about sacraments, it only repeates a stable teaching. The number 7 is far earlier, it comes from the Middle Ages.
This is a referenced fact coming directly from the Catechism. If you click on the reference it takes you directly to the Cathechism and gives you paragraph number so you can read it for yourself. I just checked it and the article text is correct. NancyHeise (talk) 23:32, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Again you seem to be confusing an overview of CURRENT belief with a historical treatment of how such beliefs came to be. The main purpose of the beliefs section is to state what the Church believes and teaches - not how beliefs arose, or theories about the same.Xandar (talk) 03:10, 13 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Others are the Byzantine rite, the Alexandrian or Coptic rite,..." Should be indicated, that the list of rites in the sentence is not complete (eg. there is a Mozarabic rite, an early form of the Latin rite not mentioned there).
This sentence comes from the Catechism - it is referenced and if you go there you will see that all releveant rites are mentioned. It would be factully incorrect for us to include Mozarabic if it is not even mentioned in the Catechism as one of the those in communion with Rome. NancyHeise (talk) 23:32, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
As far as I know, the Mozarabic rite, like the Use of Sarum in England, the Gallican rite, and other early liturgical variations was liturgical within the Roman Catholic Church; it did not have it's own bishops/patriarchs as the Eastern rites do. The Celtic Church is a different story, but I don't think the article can cover everything. Johnbod (talk) 20:08, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Of course, but the sentence should not look like a full list.--Ioannes Pragensis (talk) 20:31, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It is a full list of the groupings among the current Eastern Catholic Churches, is it not? Johnbod (talk) 20:39, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It is a referenced fact that is factually correct and complete and comes directly from the Catechism. NancyHeise (talk) 23:32, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • God the Father, original sin, and Baptism: The title sounds strange - God the Father is not responsible for the original sin in the Catholic belief.
The title is not saying that - it gives a list of what is discussed in each section as evidenced by the comma between each item. NancyHeise (talk) 23:32, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • God the Father, original sin, and Baptism: The content of the paragraph should give less weight on the biblical story of Adam & Eve ("figurative language" even according to the Catechism) and explain more the sense of baptism - it is deeply connected with the Jesus' death and resurrection, which is not mentioned here.
Jesus death and resurrection is directly connected to original sin - we tell the story from the beginning. NancyHeise (talk) 23:32, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Jesus, sin, and Penance: Again a strange title - per Catholic teaching, Jesus was without sin.
Remember the comma separating each item. NancyHeise (talk) 23:32, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • It sounds not very logical to describe the crucifixion before John the Baptist
We organized each section of Beliefs according to the sacraments since the sacraments are very identifying marks of the RCC. NancyHeise (talk) 23:32, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Why there are no mentions of the Jesus' key concept Kingdom of God, understood as the basis for the life of the Church? The whole paragraph looks too much concentrated on sins and not on other important concepts (Salvation, Resurrection...).

:Again, we organized by sacraments please also see discussions of Communion of saints and Body of Christ which also wikilink and cover Kingdom of God. NancyHeise (talk) 23:32, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have been thinking about this comment and after doing some research I added a couple of sentences to Jesus, sin, Penance section to address this. I think this is a good point and I am glad you brought this up, it really rounds out that section well. Thanks. NancyHeise (talk) 02:52, 13 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • "and the priest administers absolution, formally forgiving the person of his sins." - According to RCC, it is God who forgives here, not the priest.
I did some research on this and added some text to the Jesus sin and penance section. According to my nihil obstat source, Jesus conferred special authority to forgive sins in God's name upon the apostles. I added wording to this effect and the reference. NancyHeise (talk) 03:07, 13 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
"Ego te absolvo.." is (was) I think the phrase - "administers" and "formally" carry the meaning here, but perhaps too obscurely. Johnbod (talk) 20:08, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
As an interesting tidbit, the first-person form of absolution is attributed to Thomas Aquinas. (Can dig up a ref if desired). Gimmetrow 03:25, 13 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Penance helps prepare Catholics before they can licitly receive the sacraments of Confirmation and the Eucharist." Of course, but is it really so important? It can help to other sacraments as well and on the other side, it is not its principal purpose to support other sacraments.
Penance is a major part of the preparation process in the Catholic Church for those preparing for Confirmation and First Holy Communion. It is very appropriate for us to mention this here. NancyHeise (talk) 23:32, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • The penance is described in the "modern" (=post-Middle Ages) version; it should be perhaps a bit more general.
No, this section is not the history section, it is intended to give reader a current view of Catholic beliefs and practices, not a history of. Reader has the wikilink to penance if he or she wants more info. NancyHeise (talk) 23:32, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Holy Spirit and Confirmation: "Through the sacrament of Confirmation, Catholics ask for and receive the Holy Spirit." Is should be more clear that they believe that they receive the Holy Spirit. It is a matter of belief, not a matter of empirical science.
I added clarifying language to this sentence to respond to your comment here. NancyHeise (talk) 23:36, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I will try to read further, sorry for my bad English.--Ioannes Pragensis (talk) 19:35, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I would agree with most of the points, but have put some quibbles above. Maybe more later, but I keep getting edit conflicts.Johnbod (talk) 20:08, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comments from Dweller

This page is suffering a very bad case of WP:TLDR, so it could be I'm raising points already mentioned above. However, if I am, it's because they're still outstanding, so...

Object based on:

  • Article cites one scholar as suggesting the Catholic church was founded by Jesus. Now, I'm now religious expert, but I'm sure there are fairly hefty ("notable") opinions that disagree. Fine to include this one, but needs to be balanced. The balancing opinion doesn't need to be lovingly dissected (or rebutted) but omitting it means POV
The article provides the best scholars opinions on all views of the foundation of the Church. Norman, McManners and Duffy are the most respected scholars of various viewpoints - omission of Norman would make the article POV as he represents a significant point of view. The balancing opinion is factually portrayed. McManners is not a church apologist and his view supplements Duffy's lengthy piece. NancyHeise (talk) 20:05, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I must have missed the opposing view. I'll review. --Dweller (talk) 21:04, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
OK, I see the problem. That paragraph opens with an opinion about the foundation of the Catholic church, but then goes on to dissect various views of when the Pope's role may have begun. If indeed the institution and the office are one and the same, it should be clarified. If not, the article needs more work than that. --Dweller (talk) 09:11, 13 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Fall of Man / fall of man?
Per WP:MoS we are supposed to capitalize certain religious events like the Exodus or the Great Flood - the Fall of Man falls into that religious major event category thus we capped it. NancyHeise (talk) 21:24, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Ah. I was unclear. I mean that I saw it with both usages in the article. --Dweller (talk) 08:36, 13 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • The messianic texts of the Tanakh make up a small minority of the Christian Old Testament, as a matter of fact, given that the vast bulk of the Tanakh is made up of texts irrelevant to the issue and even in the few arguable texts like Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel etc, the messiah is not overtly mentioned and is alluded to occasionally only in the Hebrew text.
You are incorrect on this point. The article text is correct. The Tanakh comprises all the books of Moses, the propets and more - this is the majority of the Christian Old Testament. The sentence does not state that the Tanakh "is" the Old Testament and the clarifying language allows us to use the actual wording. NancyHeise (talk) 21:24, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Again, it seems I was unclear. Sorry. What I mean is that the vast majority of the Tanakh is not even by the most generous of interpretations, "messianic texts". Yet, because of an ambiguity in the text, it seems that the article is saying the opposite. I thank my stars English has no nominative and accusative suffixes, but in cases like this it would be helpful. You need to reword to show that the subject of the sentence is the Christian OT, not the Tanakh. --Dweller (talk) 08:36, 13 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • In that supposed bulk of the OT, the article claims that "God promises to send his people a savior." The claim is referenced, but some verses should be cited. I for one would like to be educated on this point. Again, I think you'll find that this interpretation of a handful of verses is disputed. Describing it as "much of" the OT and and implying no conflict is POV.
    FWIW, I disagree with this point, and hence with Nancy's recent revision. The sentences could perhaps be re-worded, but the point is that messianism is also a Jewish belief: it's not simply Christians who claim that God promises a savior in (um) the messianic texts of the Old Testament. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 21:13, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I added a wikilink to a very nice wikipage that will help educate anyone who wants to know more. For our article I think it is sufficient to state what Christians believe and not try to add language about what other religions believe. Why? Because we are going to attract a lot of hate mail if we try to make observations about what all the different types of Jews believe in the RCC article - not a good idea! :)NancyHeise (talk) 21:24, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think the wikilink is perfect - and very educational to this ignoramus to boot. Struck. --Dweller (talk) 09:16, 13 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • The Penance section could do with a link to an article about Confession. No mention made of the Confessional box.
No mention is made because in many churches they don't use a confessional "box". A priest can hear a confession anywhere, no box required. NancyHeise (talk) 20:05, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Even if not universal, is it not a notable element in the Catholic approach to Penance? --Dweller (talk) 21:04, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
No because in many churches the priest just sits in a pew and people will come up to him for confession. There are more churches without them in the world (Africa, Asia, remote Latin American churches and those in very poor countries) than with them - you guys watch too many movies. NancyHeise (talk) 21:24, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
OK. If it ain't notable, it ain't notable. Struck. --Dweller (talk) 08:57, 13 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Ensure citations follow punctuation - an example at current number 95
  • This article implies Eucharist and Mass are not the same thing. The Mass article implies they are. Can you help?
The Mass is composed of the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist. The Eucharist part of the Mass. The Mass article needs to be changed not ours. I will be happy to work on it after we get through this one. NancyHeise (talk) 20:05, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Cool. Struck. --Dweller (talk) 21:04, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have great concerns re WP:SIZE. This article crashed my browser. Long articles are excusable (I'm about to nominate one myself) but this is massive and needs a careful but effectual prune, most particularly of the overly long history section. Yeah, it's a long and important history, but summarise it and point people to the daughter article(s) Credit where it's due - I think the authors of the article have handled a number of negative issues sensitively and NPOV in the History section.
The article would be worthless if it gets chopped - no one wants to see that happen. We tried it once already in the last FAC. NancyHeise (talk) 20:05, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
That's hyperbole. Are you seriously suggesting that not a single sentence could be cut without rendering the article "worthless"? I have to disagree. Strongly. --Dweller (talk) 21:04, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Given that each sentence has been argued over for months - yes I think it would not go over too well with the rest of the community. NancyHeise (talk) 21:31, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I do agree on the WP:size point. This article is massive. I feel that its size, or rather breadth of content, is justified. However, any change that reduces length without substantially short-changing content should be pursued. Lwnf360 (talk) 23:01, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
On size. the article was far shorter before the FACs. You will find, reading the above, that most editors want matter adding. That is why the History section in particular is so large. In order to maintain Balance and DUE WEIGHT, we have to give each historical period and each important event a fair amount of coverage. So if people want extra sections on Latin America, the Reformation, Inquisitions, Liberal and Traditionalist movements, these must be added without reducing the Due Weight given to other notable events. Material is added as concisely as possible, in keeping with fair coverage of the issues. However on many issues there are controversies that require significant detail and which would quickly gather objections if we attempted to gloss over them or redirect to another article. So there is extremely little that could be cut without removing important information or unbalancing the article. Things such as missions, monasticism and architecture may not be as sexy as the Crusades, but they are every bit as important to the history of the Church. Xandar (talk) 03:10, 13 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
If the article truly cannot be reduced in size to any meaningful extent, then (gasp) perhaps it is one of those articles that just cannot reach FA quality? We can't espouse as the highest possible quality an article that crashes browsers and is much larger than the suggested maximum in our own guidelines. Please can someone calculate the readable prose size of the article at present? --Dweller (talk) 09:34, 13 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
With thanks to The Rambling Man, who's pointed me in the direction of the nifty tool apparently on every FAC page, which hasn't stopped me from <ahem> not noticing it ever! It's 74K readable prose, which is less than I thought it'd be, but still pretty long according to our guideline. I feel a little less strongly about this now that I realise it's some way short of 100K readable prose (can't believe there's as much as 70K+ that's not, but there you go). Interested in the opinions of others; I'd be prepared to strike this element of my objection if persuaded (as ever) and I'm eminently persuadable now that it seems less of an egregious problem than I thought. --Dweller (talk) 11:23, 13 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Why are those particular titles selected for further reading? Erm... is the bibliography too short?!?
I did not add the titles to the Bibliography but I kept them out of respect for the non-Catholic editor who added them since I felt that maybe these books helped them in some way.NancyHeise (talk) 20:05, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Would it be easier if I deleted them for you? --Dweller (talk) 21:04, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. Thanks. NancyHeise (talk) 21:31, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Done. Struck. --Dweller (talk) 09:34, 13 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In short, this is a terrific piece of work. Huge, impressive and... not FA quality yet. I may well have made some errors above, especially where my lack of erudition comes in, but, I suspect I've hit at least some bullseyes. --Dweller (talk) 19:49, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment (cont. by Ioannes)

  • Holy Spirit and Confirmation: "To be licitly confirmed, Catholics must be in a state of grace, in that they cannot be conscious of having committed a mortal sin. They must also have prepared spiritually for the sacrament, chosen a sponsor or godparent for spiritual support, and selected a saint to be their special patron and intercessor." - As far as I know, only the first sentence holds. As the following sentence states, in some rites it is possible to be licitly confirmed as a smyll child without spiritual preparation. Moreover the first sentence is too narrow: not only Confirmation, but all other sacraments except Baptism and Penance should be accepted in a state of grace in RCC. I would drop both cited sentences.
I disagree that your suggestions would make the aritcle more factually correct. The article expressly states the differences between Eastern rites and Latin rite in each section of the article. Small children in Eastern rites have their sponsor or godparent and patron saint chosen for them. They are assumed to be in a state of grace already as small children dont often commit mortal sins. This section is just below the description on Latin rite so there's no confusion. NancyHeise (talk) 21:55, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Regarding your comment about all sacraments requiring state of grace (except Baptism and Penance), this is discussed in Beliefs opening paragraph with a wikilink to help reader understand what this means. We have mentioned this expressly for Confirmation and Eucharist for purposes of emphasis (because the Church itself emphasizes this) and gentle reader reminder. NancyHeise (talk) 22:19, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Infant baptism in the Eastern rites is immediately followed by the reception of Confirmation and the Eucharist." In fact, it is each and every baptism in the Eastern rite, regardless of the age. With exception of emergency baptisms, as in all rites.
I clarified this in the text by making this clear. Thanks. NancyHeise (talk) 21:55, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Church, works of mercy, and Anointing of the Sick: "In its apostolic constitution, the Church acknowledges..." There are many apostolic constitutions, should be cited by name.
It now reads "its apostolic constitution Lumen Gentium..." - thanks. NancyHeise (talk) 22:01, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • The part about the Catholic social teaching sounds too general and without detailed information. It should be shortly mentioned, who started it, when and why and how it developed.
Those facts are addressed in the history section. The Beliefs section is a summary of Catholic beliefs. Catholic Social teaching is part of those beliefs and is wikilinked for reader to learn more right away - all history is in the history section. Please see additional text added per your next comment. NancyHeise (talk) 22:26, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • "the Church is known for its staunch opposition to ... capital punishment": The Church State itself administered capital punishments till 19th century, not to speak about the so called Catholic countries. Should be written in a historical perspective. A similar case is the environment, mentioned at the end of the sentence: Only too recently they (and most of us "civilized people") started to think about it in this way. Even the importance of abortion & euthanasia in the RCC propaganda is very recent, it is hard to find these words in the 100+ years old Catholic books .
The sentences are factually correct. They are connected to the discussion about Catholic Social Teaching which is not only wikilinked so reader can learn more right away, it is also discussed in the history section so there is no confusion about when this teaching emerged. I will consider adding a date of foundation in the beliefs section - working on wording. NancyHeise (talk) 21:31, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

::I added wording to clarify that this teaching emerged in 1891 as a result of Pope Leo XIII's Rerum Novarum and provide wikilinks for reader. Also, the article text states "Modern application of Catholic social teaching ..." before going into abortion opposition etc. the text does not hide the fact that it is recent so I dont think the second half of your comment here recognizes that. Regarding Catholic Church administering capital punishments till 19th century - please read the history section. Thanks. NancyHeise (talk) 22:14, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The last paragraph in [33]] doesn't seem right. Rerum Novarum is mostly known for the "living wage" philosophy, and its related support for private property and guilds. Notions about the dignity of each person and solidarity of all humans as one family are rather more developments of Pope John Paul II. Opposition to capital punishment grew considerably during his pontificate, too. Gimmetrow 00:39, 13 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Per your comment Gimmetrow, I elimiated my last edit, it is too problematic and off topic to explain the history of Catholic Social Teaching in the beliefs section. If we have explained it in history section, I dont see the need to do it again in Beliefs, especially when it is wikilinked and we state "Modern application of this teaching ....". NancyHeise (talk) 02:24, 13 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
[34] That's better. It was reading as if Rerum Novarum laid out seven themes. Does the article say anywhere that contemporary Catholic opposition to capital punishment is largely based on John Paul II's theology? [35] Gimmetrow 02:41, 13 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I added two new sentences to the second to the last para in Vatican II and beyond to address your comment here. Thanks. NancyHeise (talk) 03:36, 13 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

OK, enough for today, good night from Europe.--Ioannes Pragensis (talk) 21:16, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Restatement—As I've said before in more than one place, I'll not be intimidated or put off by the rankling and accusations of the supporters of this nomination. Lwfm, whatever it is, you should know better than to call, in effect, the faulty sentences I cited in my latest mini-review, of "professional standard". Have a good look at them, please. And those who think small glitches in prose are not worth worrying about would be the first to complain if there were editing glitches in a movie they'd paid to see. Even micro-glitches.
I expect that'll be TONY above. Johnbod (talk) 13:04, 13 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comments
  • Regarding the huge size of the article, I'd recommend significantly trimming the quotes in the references-- my MS Word counts 48000 characters in the section, which I think is some 46 kb; a quarter of the article. (Probably even significantly more than this since it doesn't count the undisplayed, text such as web-addresses.)
  • Check out the Kenneth King link.
  • There's a stray "January 22, 2002" without links: be consistent. Since the article is not American, shouldn't international dates (! January 2008) be used?
  • all–male/all-male?
  • "best reflected in Pope Paul VI's statement"--who says its "best reflected" in that statement?
  • Could those two stubby sentences/paras in the Lay members, Marriage section be merged with the ones preceding them? Looks/reads better.
  • I'm not sure this article addresses the very lay reader (me) yet: The first mention of anything related to the Bible is "founded upon Jesus' biblical command". Yet nowhere before this is it explained what the Bible is supposed to be, nor is it linked (anywhere throughout the article).
  • Link Peter first time
  • Any reason why the Spanish Inquisition is told largely from Edward Norman's viewpoints? The references point to many scholars but both quotes following the intial statement are from him.
  • That paragraph uses the word "inquisiion" eight times in nine sentences, by the way.
  • Why do some of the books in the Bibliography have GoogleBooks links? We aren't advertising them you know. indopug (talk) 12:39, 13 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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