Talk:Church of Rome

Unnecessary details

Can we agree that we need say no more than this?

Church of Rome or Roman Church may, according to context, mean:

• the Diocese of Rome or the Holy See; or
• the Latin church; or
• the Roman Catholic Church.

If you add details, they have to be accurate.

1. Why change "Diocese of Rome" to "Diocese of the city of Rome"? Does it mean that the countryside and small towns outside the city are not part of the Church of Rome?
2. Wikipedia says elsewhere: "When the distinction (between synecdoche and metonomy) is made, it is the following: when A is used to refer to B, it is a synecdoche if A is a component of B and a metonym if A is commonly associated with B but not actually part of its whole." The Diocese of Rome is a component not only of the Roman Catholic Church as a whole, but also of the Latin Church. So why say one case is synecdoche and the other merely metonomy and make Wikipedia contradict itself?
3. What is the basis of the unsourced statement, "The Latin church is identified by allusion to its most widely used rite, the Roman rite"? Surely the Latin Church is (sometimes, indeed rarely) called the Church of Rome by allusion not to one of its liturgical rites but to its association with the Bishop of Rome, whom some look on as the "patriarch" of the Latin or Western Church?
4. Is it logical to say that by synecdoche the Roman Catholic Church is called the Church of Rome because it "includes all the particular churches in communion with the Holy See". Is it not more logical to say that it is called the Church of Rome by synecdoche because it includes, as its central point of reference, the Diocese or Rome? The first explanation does not include the Holy See itself as a component of the Roman Catholic Church in its explanation of why this is a case of synecdoche, and yet a synecdoche requires that the narrower name given to the larger body must be that of a component of the larger body. Soidi (talk) 18:03, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Hi Soidi, thanks for commenting.

The details I added are accurate. To whit: (1) Rome is a city. "Diocese of Rome" means the same thing as "Diocese of the city of Rome". There is no need to belabor this pedantic point further. (2) You raise an interesting point that I never thought of before. Usually when I hear CoR used to identify the Latin rite, it is in the context of Liturgy, thus the metonomy. Obviously, a church is not a rite, but the metonymy works well despite that fact. (3) Although the point can be spelled out differently, it is obvious that the RCC is a shorthand for the communion of all churches in communion with Rome. Obviously, that communion includes the Diocese of Rome, or the word communion has no meaning.

While I agree that the minimum that can be said is being said, I'd like to point out that this article is about a term, and not about a thing. Obviously it is appropriate that the things that the term refers to be featured prominently in the links, but I think that something can be said for the term itself. Is it a proper name? Is it metonymy? Is it synecdoche? Information about the term is worth inclusion in the article. Rwflammang (talk) 16:26, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes, the article is about the term "Church of Rome", which is applied to three different things. "Rite" is another term that even in its specifically Christian use is applied to three different things. As you rightly say, the "Church of Rome" is not a "rite" in either the first or the second of the three meanings listed in Rite#Christian; the term "Church of Rome" is sometimes loosely applied to the Latin or Western Church, a "rite" in the quite distinct third sense, that of an autonomous particular Church. What is obvious for most people is that the RCC is the Church of those persons who are in communion with Rome: most people know little or nothing about the different autonomous particular Churches (the "rites" in the third sense) that are in communion with Rome. Most people also have no idea what is meant by synecdoche or even metonomy and are uninterested in whether the different meanings attached to either "Church of Rome" or "rite" can be classified as instances of synecdoche or of metonomy, which, as the Wikipedia article says, are not always distinguished even by the experts. Soidi (talk) 23:50, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

All true, but I'm having a hard time seeing the point. Do people consult encyclopedias to see information they already know, or to learn something new? The fact that most people don't know what metonymy or synecdoche are is an argument for their inclusion, not their exclusion. This is especially true given that the term this article is about is an example of both. Rwflammang (talk) 13:07, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

And I'm having a hard time seeing why someone's (disputed) opinion about whether a particular use of the term is by synecdoche or by metonomy needs to be mentioned in this particular page, when other disambiguation pages get on quite well without such opinions. Soidi (talk) 13:50, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

The answer to why is as simple as it is obvious, this term is a much more interesting one than those typically needing disambiguation pages. Rwflammang (talk) 14:56, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

I doubt if many would agree, at least with regard to its synecdoche/metonomy aspect. Soidi (talk) 17:17, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

"Holy Roman Church (Disambiguation)" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Holy Roman Church (Disambiguation) and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 August 24#Holy Roman Church (Disambiguation) until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Steel1943 (talk) 15:42, 24 August 2022 (UTC)