Wikipedia talk:Catholic or Roman Catholic?

New Catholic Encyclopedia

I checked out New Catholic Encyclopedia and it seems that the church no longer minds being called "Roman." But IMO the term "Roman Catholic" should still be avoided. It leads to one of two misconceptions: 1) that the term "Roman Catholic" has some sort of official status, or 2) that Roman Catholic is one of various subdivisions of Catholic. Here is the NCE entry:

Roman Catholic. This qualification of the name CATHOLIC seems to have been first introduced by those reformers who resented the Roman claim to any monopoly of CATHOLICITY. In England many of the reformers thought of themselves as catholic. So the term Roman Catholic became accepted as a useful designation of those who owed allegiance to the pope, and it passed into legal usage. English Catholics resented the appellation Roman insofar as it implied that they were but a part of the one true catholic church that also included the Anglo-Catholics and the Orthodox.

On the other hand, Roman is an apt designation of the true Church. Peter was given a PRIMACY in the Church by Christ; his successors continue this office; and as these successors are in fact the succeeding bishops of Rome, the Church of Christ is by this token Roman. Theologians discuss whether the connection with Rome is simply an accident of history or whether it was divinely intended from the beginning that Peter should set up his see in Rome, but all agree that there has been a special disposition of Providence that up to this moment has always connected the primacy with Rome, and so a condition of one’s succeeding Peter is election to the See of Rome. This leaves open the question as to whether at some future date the pope himself could sever the connection with Rome. Up to now there has been an unbroken line since Peter. This connection with Rome does not necessarily involve actual residence in the city; it is sufficient that the pope should be bishop of Rome, but it is desirable that he should be in residence there.

There is a further aspect of the term Roman Catholic that needs consideration. The Roman Church can be used to refer, not to the Church universal insofar as it possesses a primate who is bishop of Rome, but to the local Church of Rome, which has the privilege of its bishop being also primate of the whole Church. This local Church has its own customs and rites; consequently one must not confuse these particularities with the practice of the universal Church. Historical circumstances have meant that the ROMAN RITE and law have won acceptance in many parts of the world, and this has been a potent factor in maintaining unity. Nevertheless one has to distinguish between the particular Roman elements that could be dispensed with, and the faith itself centered on the primacy, which is an essential element in the structure of the Church. There is always the danger that sufficient attention will not be paid to local cultures and the Church will become too closely bound up with western European thought. That is why Vatican Council II was anxious to decentralize on several matters and allow more scope to the local episcopate. See Also: APOSTOLIC SEE; BRANCH THEORY OF THE CHURCH; CHURCH, ARTICLES ON. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gulangyu (talk • contribs)

A necessary discussion

This looks a great start.

To avoid reinventing the wheel, permalinks to particular arguments from the archives here on the talk page would be good, IMO, rather than restating them.

It should not be expected to be a quick process.

The goal of course is not to promote either view of the church. The goal is to produce the best encyclopedia for readers. The problem is, that of course means accuracy, and we have some varying ideas of what is correct and what is misleading. See WP:creed for more on this! Andrewa (talk) 23:36, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

Articles on other Christian traditions and ecumenical issues

As a general principle it is my view that in articles which are primarily on other Christian traditions and ecumenical issues that "Roman Catholic Church", "Roman Catholic" and "Roman Catholicism" are usually more appropriate, especially since "Catholic Church", "Catholic" and "Catholicism" (not just uncapitalised "catholic Church" / "catholic church", "catholic" and "catholicism") are used in other Christian traditions with other understandings of what they refer to. Thoughts? Afterwriting (talk) 00:57, 17 June 2016 (UTC)

I generally agree with that as a convention, especially as mere capitalization is too difficult to use consistently to be effective. --Zfish118^⋉talk 21:29, 17 June 2016 (UTC)

See also

Worth looking at (some of them already wikilinked from the project page):

• Catholic Church (disambiguation)
• Roman Catholic Church (disambiguation)
• Catholic (disambiguation)
• Catholic (term)

and lots of pages linked to from these four. Andrewa (talk) 07:52, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

Also Catholicism. Afterwriting (talk) 00:42, 17 June 2016 (UTC)

Update asked for, and merge with User:Vaquero100/CC vs. RCC

If we compare with the more elaborate essay User:Vaquero100/CC vs. RCC, the current state of this Wikipedia style essay come across as neglecting general, WP:Global widely perceived connotations of moniker slur of the disambiguation "Roman" attributed to the universal church in communion with the Pope. Chicbyaccident (talk) 20:05, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

No. This essay will not be merged. If it represents a minority point of view, so be it. –Zfish118^⋉talk 20:42, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

You are of course free to retain any personal essays as a subpage of your user account, as Vaquero100 (talk · contribs) did, for the record. However, as you published your essay into the common Wikipedia realm, why wouldn't you invite a collective way of editing it? Chicbyaccident (talk) 20:54, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

Alright. This essay may be maintained with the scope you created it, but for convienience, would you mind either 1) Moving it to your personal user account realm, and/or 2) changing its name in order to more WP:Precisely reflect its contents as a collection of arguments for "Roman Catholic"? Chicbyaccident (talk) 13:44, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

Discussion

@Chicbyaccident: You have never articulated a reason for removing my essay, except suggesting it be vaguely "merged" or replaced with a more "elaborate" essay written by someone else. I am simply not going to remove my essay without any reason being articulated!

I further do not believe there any necessity: There is no ambiguity as to the status of the essay; it is clearly labeled an essay, with numerous hatnotes to that effect. Even if your proposal is successful, this essay barely conflicts: the primary argument is that "Roman Catholic" should not be added or subtracted without good reason. If you can articulate strong reasons and build consensus, then the essay would even argue against reversing those changes without significantly better information!

So far, however, you have only suggested that "Roman Catholic" be removed as a "fringe" use, which appears to be a significant misunderstanding of the word "fringe" in English. You have provided no scholarly sources describing it as "fringe", used exclusively by those outside of the mainstream to describe the Catholic Church. It cannot be a fringe use, as Roman Catholics still actively use to describe themselves. Even the Vatican website has examples dating as early as this 2017 this year! You have also suggested that is a "slur" or is "disparaging"; again, you have provided no resources stating that Roman Catholic has "widely perceived connotations" as a slur. If you have reliable sources, please introduce them! The term simply does not have such negative connotations in the English language anymore, if it ever had.

To be clear, I have no issue with you proposing your own essay to promote and collaboratively develop your vision, but I ask that you not promote it by directly undermining competing visions with vague proposal to "merge", "move", etc., especially before your essay has had any discussion or yet gained any traction towards a consensus. Your proposal is also incomplete, as it does not address significant content that many users have worked tirelessly to make consistent. For instance, nearly all dioceses have been named according to "Roman Catholic Diocese of X"; bishops "Roman Catholic (arch)Bishop of X". Your essay does not discusses whether these should be kept, or articulate reasons that these should be renamed en mass. Without covering such topics, it is simply not ready to be a policy.

I would encourage you to label your document as an essay, and use it to further develop a consensus. Understand, that as a proposed policy, it may be rejected and archived, but essays have no experation date. Essays are used to articulate the priorities of one or more editors in interpreting policies and guidelines. I have no preference whether you develop such an essay in the project space or your userspace. In Wikiproject:Catholicism, there are thousands of articles that are affected, written over the past decade and a half as Wikipedia changed greatly. Few formal policies existed when many were written, and a strong policy developed through consensus cannot be built by fiat. –Zfish118^⋉talk 23:46, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for your contributions. I am not advocating to remove yours. However, wouldn't it be better if you kept it under your own userpage rather than introducing it into the general area if you completely want to own it?

As for the contents of your essay draft, you have yourself in your essay admitted that "there is no governing policy", while asserting that "Roman Catholic" is "certainly possessing a controversial history". Examples of similar self-designation is another in itself a pretty uncontroversial matter, yet neither definitive as seen in Catholic Church#Name. You further mention correctly that [T]he rule of thumb in Wikipedia is that If it ain't broke, don't fix it" and that "Articles that use 'Roman Catholic', should not be changed, except to make the use consistent and clear". I agree. Most changes that have been made have referred precisely to WP:Consistency - thus a concern of something broken - ultimately originating in Catholic Church, and Category:Catholic Church.

As for the rest, I have attempted to address the issues more pertaining to the naming convention here on Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_(Catholic_Church).

I've placed it in the project space because I feel the essay speaks for a significant portion of concerned editors. You are free to disagree with the essay, but advocating it be rewritten to argue the opposite is inappropriate. Many editors believe Roman Catholic is not only appropriate but preferable. This essay was written to avoid rehashing that discussion over and over, and explain how both terms have been used subsequently on Wikipedia. It reflects a balance of opinions and concerns expressed by others gathered by reviewing prior discussions, even though I wrote it. I appreciate that you have developed your own essay, as I think that will be a more productive way of developing and expressing your concerns.

If significant community consensus changes, I may consider archiving it or making other changes; however, thus far, only a few recent editors have been proposing major changes to long standing practices. They may be unaware of prior practices (I for instance only recently learned of the diocesan and bishop conventions). No discussion going forward is going to be productive without understanding what the current situation is. –Zfish118^⋉talk 13:42, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

Alright. As you have been an active counterpart in the discussions, would you mind providing your best arguments for "Roman Catholic" as opposed to "Catholic" for a general WP:Consistency in a separate heading under Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(Catholic_Church)#Background? Chicbyaccident (talk) 14:08, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

This essay is all that I have to say on the topic. I believe things should be decided on a case-by-case basis, with no need to change an article from one use to another for the sole reason of "consistency". I am also very strongly against the idea that "Roman Catholic" is inappropriate. –Zfish118^⋉talk 17:11, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

The 'Roman' part is excessive. It should only be used striclty where there could be ambiguity. The vast majority of diocese in Europe, for exmpale, have no non-Catholic counterpart, let alone a no-Roman Cahtolic counterpert. Actually, I think they shouild all be "Catholic diocese....". There is no need for 'Roman Catholic', since there a re no n non-Roman but just Catholic dioceses, with the exceptio of the Utrecth one, which odes habe no Catholic counterpart. I propose the eilimination of the 'Roman' partEccekevin (talk) 20:24, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

Dioceses

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)

The "Old Catholic" church also claims to be the "Catholic" church. The "Old" in "Old Catholic" serves the same disambiguation as "Roman" in "Roman Catholic". The website for the NY archdiocese describes itself as the "Roman Catholic Archdiocese"; both forms are used. –Zfish118^⋉talk 13:20, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

June 2018

There is a massive ambiguity added by the current convention, since the "Roman Catholic dioceses" category and all its subcategories is actually Latin Church dioceses. The current Category hierarchy is

• Category:Dioceses by denomination
  • Category:Catholic dioceses (recently excluded from supercat, I'm re-adding it now)
    • Category:Roman Catholic dioceses → and subcat tree Fooian Roman Catholic dioceses
    • Category:Eastern Catholic dioceses → and subcat tree Fooian Eastern Catholic dioceses
  • Category:Old Catholic dioceses (added by me just now)

IMO "Roman Catholic" should never be used where "Latin Church" is the intended meaning, or even a plausible misreading. The simplest solution is to make each Fooian Eastern Catholic dioceses a subcat of Fooian Roman Catholic dioceses instead of a sibling, so that the ambiguity is irrelevant. As a second step, renaming some or all Fooian Roman Catholic dioceses to Fooian Catholic dioceses makes sense where Foo has a lot of Eastern Catholics, and is only problematic where Foo has a lot of Old or Anglo-Catholics. jnestorius^(talk) 17:24, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

@Jnestorius: Sure. Please feel free to go ahead at make the relevant proposal(s). Chicbyaccident (talk) 20:09, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

• First, "Roman Catholic" is used in the legal name of the vast majority of dioceses, and it makes no sense to artificially remove it. For instance, the "Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York" (http://www.ny-archdiocese.org/the-archdiocese). Second, do you personally, @Jnestorius: wish to go through every article and enforce this consistency, or do you expect other to do this work? Third, I personally take no issue with making Eastern Catholic diocese a subcategory of Roman Catholic dioceses, but step two does not logically follow. It makes little sense that some diocese should be titled "Roman Catholic", and others not. There is geographic overlap throughout most of the western hemisphere. For instance, in Germany, there is an "Archdiocese of Berlin", a "Diocese of Berlin and Germany", and a "Diocese of Berlin". No matter where in the world you go, you will have similarly named organizations, and it makes no sense to remove the natural disambiguation provided by "Roman Catholic". –Zfish118^⋉talk 05:35, 17 June 2018 (UTC)
  • @Zfish118: I was only thinking of renaming categories, for which I know there are bots. Perhaps some day there will be similar bots for articles. In any case, saying "it is thus because it is too much trouble to change and nobody wants to do the work" is different from saying "it is thus because that is the correct way for it to be". "Roman Catholic" is used in the legal name of the vast majority of dioceses (1) (2) Wikipedia uses WP:COMMONNAME not "legal name". It makes little sense that some diocese should be titled "Roman Catholic", and others not. It lacks nothing in sense; it lacks something only in consistency. WP:CRITERIA does mention Consistency, but after Conciseness and Naturalness. In my opinion Consistency is less important than WP:COMMONNAME. geographic overlap does not imply having the same name. In your example, Archdiocese of Berlin redirects to Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Berlin. So does Diocese of Berlin : I don't know what other entity described at Episcopal Conference of Germany you are referring to as "Diocese of Berlin". Diocese of Berlin and Germany does not exist but would surely redirect to Diocese of Berlin and Germany (Russian Orthodox Church). jnestorius^(talk) 18:09, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

"there are bots" I did not address the effort involved here. You originally responded to an inactive discussion thread. (1) Any persual of the subject matter will reveal this. Please do not blindly accuse me of not doing my research. This whole essay reflects my research into the matter. (2) Wikipedia uses WP:COMMONNAME not "legal name". Please do not accuse me of not knowing Wikipedia's policies. That is pedantic and off putting. I refer to "Legal name", because many of the websites for dioceses omit the denomination except for the "about us page". See "Archdiocese of New York" where the masthead omits the denomination, but the "about us" page uses "Roman Catholic". The same goes for the Archdiocese of Baltimore, the prime church in the United States. If you investigate the diocese webpages, you will see that "Roman Catholic" is by far the most common description. Please address this issue in your response, as "Roman Catholic" being clearly more common when discussing diocese is the only issue I will address further. Further, the existence of inconsistencies in non-Roman Catholic diocesan articles is not directly relevant to the discussion of Roman Catholic article conventions, I provide them only to illustrate that there are geographically similar dioceses within other churches, and that consistent disambiguation is helpful. –Zfish118^⋉talk 16:31, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

{{cn}} does not mean, "you did not do your research", it means "please show me the source of your research". Searching for "catholic" "diocese" in FindLaw suggests most though not all in the USA are "Roman Catholic [Archd|D]iocese" or "Roman Catholic [Archb|B]ishop" rather than "Catholic" without "Roman"; however, that is only one country. Category:Roman Catholic dioceses in Italy etc might be very different. The following table of Category names proves there is currently a lack of standardisation; my contention is that the misleading name "Roman Catholic dioceses" has encouraged this.

Foo	parent cat [Roman] Catholic dioceses in Foo	subcat Latin-church Catholic dioceses in Foo	subcat Eastern Catholic dioceses in Foo
United States	Category:Catholic dioceses in the United States	Category:Roman Catholic dioceses in the United States	Category:Eastern Catholic dioceses in the United States
Hungary	Category:Catholic dioceses in Hungary	Category:Roman Catholic dioceses in Hungary	Category:Eastern Catholic dioceses in Hungary
Italy	Category:Roman Catholic dioceses in Italy	subset but not subcat of Roman Catholic dioceses in Italy	subset but not subcat of Roman Catholic dioceses in Italy
Romania	Category:Roman Catholic dioceses in Romania	subset but not subcat of Roman Catholic dioceses in Romania	subset but not subcat of Roman Catholic dioceses in Romania
Russia	None	Category:Roman Catholic dioceses in Russia	none (Russian Catholic Apostolic Exarchate of Russia not included)
Ukraine	Category:Dioceses in Ukraine	Category:Roman Catholic dioceses in Ukraine	Category:Ukrainian Greek Catholic eparchies‎
United Kingdom	subset but not subcat of Category:Catholicism in the United Kingdom and Category:Dioceses in the United Kingdom	Category:Roman Catholic dioceses in the United Kingdom	subset but not subcat of Category:Eastern Catholicism in the United Kingdom and Category:Dioceses in the United Kingdom

jnestorius^(talk) 12:25, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

If Category:Catholic dioceses in Italy existed, then the Eastern Catholic Italo-Albanese Eparchy of Lungro would fit into it. Laurel Lodged (talk) 14:28, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

I the common names do use "Roman Catholic". Look at New York, as previously linked

• Option B Upmerge all RC categories to Catholic. Make Eastern Catholic dioceses a subcat of Catholic dioceses. Laurel Lodged (talk) 12:59, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

• Support option B. Chicbyaccident (talk) 13:29, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

April 2019

@Chicbyaccident, Laurel Lodged, Jnestorius, Zfish118, and Vaquero100: I have a solution. I propose changing from “Roman Catholic diocese of ....” to “Latin Catholic diocese of......” This maintains parallelism of naming after Rites and allows for distinction.Questions? Thoughts on this solution?Manabimasu (talk) 04:29, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

@Manabimasu: Your contributions are welcome, although I'm not sure I'm following your reasoning on the redirects question. Have you contemplated contributing to the naming convention proposal as whole, though? PPEMES (talk) 10:44, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

@Chicbyaccident: In the English language, “Roman Catholic Church” is associated with the whole entire church. However, I prefer “Roman Catholic Church” redirects to Roman_Catholic_Church_(disambiguation). For example, if I type “Roman Catholic” or “Roman Catholic Church”, I will be redirected to the disambiguation page mentioned above. However, it depends on the usage. For example, “Roman Rite Catholic” as a term is much more specific. This indicates the reader is aware of liturgical rites within the Church, so that term would redirect to the “Latin Church” not the “Catholic Church”. If all references, to “Roman Catholic” were deleted it would cause confusion among readers. Redirecting “Roman Catholic“ to “Latin Church” is the end ideal goal, but first “Roman Catholic” should go to the “Roman_Catholic_Church_(disambiguation)” where people can learn their errors about the term. We as a project will maintain the disambiguation page. The target page, however, will not(WP:POV is being violated in this sentence.) even mention the pages that redirect to it. So if I type “Roman Catholic” an I am redirected to the disambiguation page and then I click on “Catholic Church”, or “Church in Rome, or “Latin Church”. None of these wikis should use have a hat note explaining that “Roman Catholic redirect here. For more info see .......”. What I said in the above two sentences is that the hat note defeats the purpose of change. People have the freedom to use whatever terms but we should properly redirect them. Informing the reader that the term “Roman Catholic” is a vague term and that “Catholic Church” is more diverse and not just of the Latin Church on the Roman_Catholic_Church_(disambiguation) because most people(I assume are unaware of the oriental churches). This way readers can find pages but we can give then information on the misleading term. Also, if a sandbox page is needed, I can do that as well for the disambiguation page. If you have any questions, please ask and best if you highlight the exact place of confusion and reply, so I can clear it up. God bless!Manabimasu (talk) 12:29, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply. But have you considered contributing to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Catholicism) as whole, though? PPEMES (talk) 20:49, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

@Chicbyaccident:Can you clarify? I am fairly new to Wikipedia. Also,personally, I would ask a clergy member for their input. I come from Eastern Catholicism, so I have a biased viewpoint when it comes to naming. I can, if you can point me in the right direction. I think you know as well as I do that Wikipedians want a balanced scale. The changes that strict constructionists in nomenclature ask for are fought back by outside Wikipedians on implications. I am trying to figure out a common ground between them. If you can answer my question, I want to know your thoughts. God Bless!Manabimasu (talk) 21:06, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

Well, why don't you just go there and improve per WP:BOLD? PPEMES (talk) 18:47, 10 May 2019 (UTC)