Wikipedia talk:Proposed naming conventions (Catholic Church)

Introduction

Please note that this naming convention was drafted on a WP:Bold basis. It is still hatnoted and categorised as a proposal. In the end it is, like nothing on Wikipedia, "written in stone". Nevertheless, obviously there are already multiple personal essays or essay-like documents on the subject floating around, and tt's not clear how yet another one would help.

It is a nisched subject, really, but still pertains to general Wikipedia policies. As such, the intiative echoes that of Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Latter Day Saints), arguably no less merited for a collected consideration of arguments recurring in sometimes contentious discussions previously scattered in numerous talk pages and archives. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Chicbyaccident (talk • contribs) 11:33, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

As of 3 October 2017, I would say the draft is finished for evaluation. Thanks for the collaboration. Chicbyaccident (talk) 21:31, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

Background section

As much as consensus has tended to lean towards Catholic rather than Roman Catholic, this does remain objected from time to time. However, whereas objections 1) to WP:Primarytopic has tended to be refuted on the basis of sheer number estimations, the objections 2) referring to scholarly support of "Roman Catholic" has been refuted for other reasons. To what degree the refutation of objection #2 is valid - ostensibly, arguably by scholarly support being associated with the WP:Fringe policy (echoing Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Latter Day Saints)) - is pretty much a key issue of the discussion, hence the background to this centralised article.

The association to WP:Fringe, mirroring equivalent terminology in Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(Latter_Day_Saints) on it was built, could naturally be a subject of discussion. There is a lack of academic research on how Wikipedia talk pages work it that we can refer to, although it would be interesting. In this regard, the meta level discussion on Wikipedia naming conventions naturally don't exactly follow the rules of the content of article content. However, better way of describing how related arguments have been refuted is still welcome. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Chicbyaccident (talk • contribs) 06:27, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

Regarding the edit by TonyBallioni (talk · contribs), and the remark made by TSP (talk · contribs) below the RfC. Please note the deleted hatnote information in question was not intended as consideration of the general discussion of the article's subject, but as a destillation of how arguments tend to be exchanged on talk pages. Chicbyaccident (talk) 22:18, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

Latin Church - "Roman Catholic"?

@TonyBallioni: Like or not like, I just don't see the arguments for the Latin Catholic entities specifically being called "Roman Catholic". But it's good that you bring it up, though, since it has been touched upon priorly. Would you mind giving your arguments? Chicbyaccident (talk) 06:27, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

Sure, it is used in reliable sourcing, especially in Eastern Europe and to some extent South Asia, as a way to distinguish from Greek Catholics or some other sui iuris church, and in English the usage sometimes reflects this. My addition of that to this proposed guideline doesn't require that Wikipedia use it, but points out we deal with those cases on an individual basis: i.e. you'd be free to argue against it and I'd be free to argue for it. TonyBallioni (talk) 13:00, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

Could you provide some of those sources? Every one I've found (Oxford English Dictionary, Catholic Encyclopedia, the Vatican's own site) seems to use "Roman Catholic" - when it is used at all - as synonymous with "Catholic", and never to mean "Latin Rite". TSP (talk) 14:43, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

Sure, here is a randomly selected group of books from the Google Book search "Roman Catholic" AND "Greek Catholic" [1],[2], [3], [4], [5], [6]. There are plenty more on that Gbooks search, and I didn't have the time to do a search in the South Asian context, where it is also used. Regardless of whether or not it should be used, it is a common usage in English-language publications when dealing with regions that have sizable populations of multiple sui iuris particular churches. TonyBallioni (talk) 14:59, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

Alright. For WP:Consistency, the Category:Latin Church category tree ought to follow a coherent nomenclature, right? So whether regional synonyms may be referenced, what would be the arguments to let these variations override parent category tree nomenclature, effectively violating category tree coherence, please? Chicbyaccident (talk) 15:36, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

OK, the sources establish that it does get used in that way. However, I think it is clear (per OED, Vatican, Catholic Encyclopedia) that that usage is a minority usage in English; the usual English meaning of "Roman Catholic" (the only one found in any of those sources) is "that part of the Christian Church which acknowledges the Pope as its head" (OED). So I think there might be cases to say "We should specifically not use Roman Catholic in this case because use is ambiguous in relation to this country"; but I would suggest that we should never use "Roman Catholic" to mean "Latin Rite Catholic", because that is not the usual meaning of that term in English. TSP (talk) 15:43, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

Pretty strongly disagree on that point. Rite vs. Church is a difficult distinction, but if we use them as easy synonyms in this case we see that Roman is a much more common usage to distinguish the various rites than Latin is [7]. Latin Church is a technical term that is rarely used in English even in Catholic Church circles. There is no question that Roman Catholic primarily refers to the Catholic Church as a whole, but it is also the most common usage to refer to a member of the Latin Church as being distinct from a non-Latin Catholic. TonyBallioni (talk) 16:15, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

That's not a useful graph, I don't think, because Roman Rite doesn't mean that. Our usual usage here on Wikipedia seems to be Latin Church. TSP (talk) 17:12, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

I was using it because the English usage often varies: rite != sui iuris church, but it is often used incorrectly in English to mean it that way. You'll often hear people refer to themselves as "Roman Rite Catholics", when there is no such thing officially. See this example of a reliable source incorrectly using the term that way.

Yes: the correct name for the article particular church sui iurison Wikipedia is Latin Church. That's not what we are discussing. The question is in any of the articles on local Catholic subjects whether or not Roman is a valid disambiguator as compared to the very rarely used Latin in this context.

My point is that the relationship between the Eastern Churches and the Latin Church is very complex and nuanced, and the naming usages used in English are equally complex. I think you'd find that most reliable sources refer to Roman Catholics rather than Latin Catholics when used in comparison to Eastern Churches, and that article titles where this might occur should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, which is exactly what we do with diocese in countries where the the Catholic Church is a minority in an otherwise majority Christian nation. This is not calling for its usage, just recognizing that there are cases where it may be the preferred disambiguating term, and that each RM or talk page should weight the factors accordingly. Outlawing Roman Catholic in this usage would be acting against reliable sourcing in an area where naming conventions are very complex and shouldn't be handled across the board. TonyBallioni (talk) 17:31, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

There are related discussions at:

• "New discussions on Catholicism (term)" -Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Christianity/Noticeboard 9/6/17
• "Catholic versus Roman Catholic" - Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Catholicism (7/5/17); plus this notice "New discussions on Catholicism (term)" (9/3/17)
• "Merge from Catholicism (term)" - Talk:Catholic (term) 9/2/17 ... which was then moved to
• Talk:Catholicism (term) (9/7/17), which now also includes "Article name concerns (August-September 2017)" (9/1/17)
• Talk:Catholic Church (9/18/17)
• this page (9/18/17)

not to mention:

• Wikipedia talk:Catholic or Roman Catholic? (9/20/17) and
• one additional page, that I can't seem to locate!

-and this doesn't include all the discussions regarding categories.

I am perplexed. I'm not even entirely sure this is the right page to post this. After reading all these, there seems to be some degree of confusion among the terms "catholic", "catholicism", and " catholicity; conflation of "church" vs. "rite"; and the issue of when to use/not use the qualifier "Roman" (apparently never). To quote Walter, "The discussion has become too involved." (ya think?!)

Please stop and take a breath. What is the issue/issues? What is the plan? Can anyone outline the approach to be taken to address them? (Preferably one at a time). Respectfully yours, Thank you. Mannanan51 (talk) 07:21, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

That's what this attempt of a centralised discussion hub is for, right? Chicbyaccident (talk) 10:59, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

Then it doesn't appear to be quite working, right? (Also, Talk:Anglican–Catholic dialogue (9/25/17)) Mannanan51 (talk) 16:49, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

Usage on en.wiki has been trending towards using Catholic Church or Catholic, and Roman is becoming increasingly less frequent. This is not universal, however, and while Cuchullain does have a fair point at that talk page (I'd likely agree with them), the naming convention when dealing with Anglicanism is more complex because of the existence of Anglo-Catholics. My general view on this guideline is that it should be something along the lines of Usage of Roman is not common on the English Wikipedia, but there are cases where discussion on the talk page might determine it is needed because of individual circumstances involving relationships between different Christian bodies. In some of these cases, Roman may be used as a disambiguating adjective.

Something like that would recognize that our naming conventions are shifting towards Catholic over Roman Catholic, but that in some circumstances Roman can be justified with consensus. TonyBallioni (talk) 17:21, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

The Anglican–Catholic dialogue move (done in a week based on exactly two votes in favour) seems like a particularly poor one. This is an example of a field where the Catholic Church itself accepts the need to use "Roman Catholic" for clarity and lack of offence (cf. Anglican–Roman Catholic International Commission etc.). It seems odd that we don't accept the same. TSP (talk) 15:45, 26 September 2017 (UTC)

Dioceses

NOTE: Another section with this heading ("Dioceses") appears below (i.e., the 2nd section below this one). Eagle4000 (talk) 02:12, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

As for dioceses, the naming convention text currently states that "Notably, for article names of Catholic dioceses located in historically Catholic-minority, Christian regions, though, consensus seems unclear". — Preceding unsigned comment added by Chicbyaccident (talk • contribs) 06:27, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

Why not just use what they call themselves? Mannanan51 (talk) 07:34, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

That is what we typically do in RMs, which means that Roman is often used. TonyBallioni (talk) 17:10, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

No Italian dioceses ever uses the 'Roman' part, yet ALL of the wiki pages for those do? Why so? — Preceding unsigned comment added by ‎Eccekevin (talk • contribs) 20:21, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

Because it doesn't matter what the name is in Italian. It matters what the common English name is for each see. I'm not arguing in favour of it in these cases. I'm simply saying that like we do with all article titles, we make a judgement on each case on their own. Typically this means for general purpose Catholicism related pages, we don't use Roman. For things that are more local, we sometimes do. It depends, and it is difficult to create a hard rule. The only question is to what the most common English-language name is for the subject. Argue from that in individual RMs. TonyBallioni (talk) 20:26, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

Catholic Universities in the USA

I believe Catholic universities in the USA should use the term 'Catholic' or 'Catholic Church' to describe affiliation since no ambiguity is present that would need 'Roman'. This is in line with the page policy. If anyone disagrees, please discussEccekevin (talk) 20:30, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

• Support. Chicbyaccident (talk) 20:31, 28 September 2017 (UTC)
• What pages are you talking about? You haven't linked to anything that I can see. My guess is that you are discussing infoboxes. That is a MOS issue and not a naming conventions issue. Universities almost always go by their proper name as their title, so this proposal doesn't serve a purpose for a naming conventions page. Also, this is a proposed naming conventions guideline, not an actual guideline. TonyBallioni (talk) 20:39, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

You're welcome to make this request/argument and even to boldly edit a few articles. But don't edit articles and claim that this "policy" supports your edits when (a) this is a proposed policy, (b) it's only 2-weeks old, and (c) it applies to the names of articles.

Please seek further input and find consensus for these contested edits. I recommend posting a note at WT:UNI at a bare minimum. ElKevbo (talk) 21:49, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

• I am talking about the infoboxes. Why should pages have Roman Catholic Church in the infobox when it is a redirect to Catholic Church ? It seems like an unnecessary redirect? Eccekevin (talk) 17:27, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

Dioceses

NOTE: Another section with this heading ("Dioceses") appears above (i.e., the 2nd section above this one). Eagle4000 (talk) 02:13, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

I agree that the WP for the Catholic Archdiocese of New York should be called Catholic Archdiocese of New York City' to differentiate from non Catholic dioceses such as the Episcopal one. But why 'Roman'? The official name of the diocese, what they call themselves, is the 'Archdiocese of New York City'. Again, I agree to add the 'Catholic' part, but why the 'Roman'?

This goes for all dioceses pages. I see no ambiguity that is solved by the word Roman. There is no (non-Roman) Catholic dioceses page, even the Old Catholic one is called Old Catholic Archdiocese of Utrecht.

I propose removing the 'Roman' form every Catholic dioceses title. Eccekevin (talk) 20:35, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

• It is simply false that Roman serves no disambiguating purpose in the case of all diocese. See above for the Latin Church question, where Roman does serve as a valid disambiguator used in reliable sources. Also, the policy is WP:COMMONNAME. If local diocese are call themselves Roman Catholic and the local press and other reliable sources call them that, we call them that. Wikipedia is not a place to right great wrongs. The RM process is working fine for local dioceses as it is. We do not need a formal naming guideline for them because COMMONNAME works just fine on its own. TonyBallioni (talk) 20:43, 28 September 2017 (UTC)
  • I agree, but for 'Catholic', not "Roman Catholic'. Could you provide one example of dioceses where there is a 'Roman Catholic' one a non-roman but Catholic one?— Preceding unsigned comment added by Eccekevin (talk • contribs) 01:08, 30 September 2017 (UTC)
    • Syro-Malabar Catholic Eparchy of St. Thomas of Chicago and Roman Catholic Diocese of Chicago. I'm aware of the eparchy/diocese distinction, but diocese is often applied to Eastern Catholic sees in colloquial English. There is also the entire Indian subcontinent, Ukraine, and other countries outside of Western Europe and the Americas. It does help considering that the Latin Church is only one of the sui iuris churches. TonyBallioni (talk) 02:02, 30 September 2017 (UTC)
    • Here are 3 more examples: Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia and Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia, Roman Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh and Ruthenian Catholic Archeparchy of Pittsburgh, and Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy of Saint Josaphat in Parma and Ruthenian Catholic Eparchy of Parma. Eagle4000 (talk) 02:06, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

• • I agree, that is a very good point. But it is a really small subset of dioceses namely only the ones in places with a substantial sui-iuris population. I still think that in 95% of cases 'Roman' is redundant. This said, I do think consistency is good.Eccekevin (talk) 07:48, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

RfC: should this page be made a naming convention

Creating a sub-section since this is what Chicbyaccident seemed to be trying to do. This is a request for comment on the following question: Should the proposed naming conventions guideline located at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Catholic Church) be made an official naming convention guideline? TonyBallioni (talk) 21:28, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

• Neutral started this procedurally. Not sure where I stand now. Will probably weigh in towards the end of the RfC. TonyBallioni (talk) 21:28, 3 October 2017 (UTC)
• Support. I wasn't sure if the draft was ready for evaluation yet, but I guess it is if you think it is. As for the question, from what I can gather the tendence to WP:Consensus has been clear both in maintainance of existing, stable patters as well as expressed in discussions regarding individual move requests of both articles and category names. For references of individual cases, please evaluate for instance the proposals of Grabado (talk · contribs). Chicbyaccident (talk) 21:59, 3 October 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose at the moment. Thanks to Tony for removing [edit: most of] the narrative stuff - frankly I find it astonishing that a draft naming convention was ever written on Wikipedia which appeared to be giving as its justification the position that Protestantism is a fringe position [edit: actually, I see that's still there in the summary], or cited the conversion of John Henry Newman as evidence - but this still seems to be largely an argument for the reasons for one extreme. No reason has been presented why "Preference for shorter titles over longer ones" should be a uniquely Catholic church thing, except that it gives preference to the primary author's preferred 'Catholic Church' over 'Roman Catholic Church'; nor why two essays on one side are noted as being taken into account, but the essay putting the other viewpoint is only noted as existing. Now the most ridiculously POV stuff has been removed, perhaps this can be made into something neutrally useful, but I don't think it's there yet. TSP (talk) 22:08, 3 October 2017 (UTC)
  • TSP, thanks for pointing the remaining narrative out: those claims don't belong in any naming guideline. As I said above, I started this procedurally since an RfC template was placed on the talk page. I have no opinion myself as to whether or not it should be made the convention. TonyBallioni (talk) 22:17, 3 October 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose - This is an attempt to stop Roman Catholic being used anywhere on Wikipedia (as this user is already trying to do through their edits and page moves, and as seen in the POV original wording). Roman Catholic Church is common use in many countries and it is not offensive, derogatory, or wrong. As per Wikipedia:Catholic or Roman Catholic?, "However, Roman Catholic has been applied in other contexts in order to avoid ambiguity, particularly when discussing complex histories regarding multiple denominations and in some ecumenical contexts." There is no need to introduce this. Gaia Octavia Agrippa ^Talk 23:27, 3 October 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose I would expect a disambiguated page to specify "Roman Catholic" rather than "Catholic Church". I'd go further and say that in historical contexts, it can be very important to specify Roman Catholic instead of merely Catholic, due to the existence of schismatic Catholic Churches, such as the Avignon Papacy, which considered itself to be Catholic. The Wikipedia:Catholic or Roman Catholic? article, in trying to pick the shortest common form, has potentially over-generalised for certain articles. Rhialto (talk) 23:43, 3 October 2017 (UTC)
  • Additionally, articles such as Eastern Catholic Churches clearly show that "Roman Catholic" is a subset of "Catholic" even in a modern context, and Catholic should not be used when the article is specifically about Roman Catholics. Rhialto (talk) 23:48, 3 October 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose: I came to this page via WP:EPISCOPALCONFERENCES which is poorly thought out and violates WP:COMMONNAME at almost every point. StAnselm (talk) 23:55, 3 October 2017

(UTC)

• Oppose There are certainly contexts where the usage 'Catholic Church' is to be preferred but not all. The English formula 'Roman Catholic Church' is widely applied in contexts where the unqualified term 'Catholic Church' might be ambiguous or uncertain; including on occasions such usage being applied by official organs of the Church of Rome. Note, for example, the usage in the article,Cyril of Jerusalem TomHennell (talk) 00:28, 4 October 2017 (UTC)