Wikipedia talk:Requests for mediation/Roman Catholic Church/Archive 10

Motion to close mediation

The purpose of this mediation was to determine if the article Roman Catholic Church could rightfully place the term "Roman Catholic Church, officially known as 'Catholic Church'" into the lead sentence. At the opening of this mediation, Gimmetrow stated

"So far the phrase is not sufficiently supported to state without qualification. The appropriate support for the unqualified statement would be an official statement of the church clearly giving its unique "official" name. That seems not to exist."

• In stating this, Gimmetrow was rejecting the EWTN Whithead source (see full text here [1]) that states that the Church

  "Very early in post-apostolic times, however. the Church did acquire a proper name--and precisely in order to distinguish herself from rival bodies which by then were already beginning to form. The name that the Church acquired when it became necessary for her to have a proper name was the name by which she has been known ever since-the Catholic Church."

• Two new sources were found after mediation began to supplement this claim:
• Academic American Encyclopedia, 2007 edition which states

  " the Church of Rome claimed the word catholic as its title"

• Encyclopedia Brittanica's 11th edition [2] states

  "The Church of Rome alone, officially and in popular parlance, is "the Catholic Church".

• These new sources bring to 7 the number of sources that meet WP:RS we have brought forward to support article text use of the word "official".
• Gimmetrow and co have not brought forward any WP:RS sources that support their positions that the Church has more than one official name (the situation in England is covered in the note because of the special circumstances there)
• Gimmetrow and co have rejected even these new sources as sufficient and failed to bring forth WP:RS sources that we could use to reword the sentence in a way pleasing to them which is clear evidence of the futility of trying to work with them on coming to any kind of factually accurate article text.
• I move to close this mediation with the intention of bringing the matter to arbcom if the page editors are further harrassed by Gimmetrow and co unless they are forthcoming with some WP:RS sources to support their positions.

Please post your vote below and put any discussion in another section, thanks. NancyHeise ^talk 17:13, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

AGREE

• AGREENancyHeise ^talk 17:13, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
• AGREE - The multiple references provided clearly define the official name of the Church; however, by declaring its official name does not mean that the Church does not use alternative names to describe herself as circumstances demand. She may use a multitude of alternative names, but the name that will always remain its official name is Catholic Church. --^StormRider 17:41, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
• WEAK AGREE - Sorry I didn't realize mediation had started, this was my first mediation. I agree with the text as stated in the proposal to close mediation, but based on the comments I read I think closing discussion now may not have really solved anything and the arguements will continue making this entire step "useless". Marauder40 (talk) 18:41, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
• AGREE Whilst I confess that I have lightly observed this discussion, I think I am correct when I say that this is one of those of debates which screws the mind over time, and the least one engages in such fruitless debates, the better they are. The ample evidence for the name of this Church is not to be overlooked, simply because a desired wording is missing, or because the Church may refer to herself by different names - the Catholic Church sometimes addresses itself as Roman Catholic to distinguish itself from its Eastern counterparts who are in full communion with it. It uses the word Roman to emphasize the fact that it is built on the ashes of the Roman Empire, to show that they have "conquered the Pagan Empire". It uses the word Roman to emphasize Apostolic succession to St Peter and St Paul, who are by tradition believed to have died at Rome. Gabr-el 02:47, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
• AGREE I would support "...officially known as the Catholic Church", but would prefer "The Catholic Church, sometimes referred to as the Roman Catholic Church,..."--SynKobiety (talk) 16:56, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

DISAGREE

1. Strongly disagree. The alleged sources (largely opinion pieces like Whitehead's) do not all support the idea that the Church has ever adopted a single official name. The Church itself uses several names as official. The Church has officially stated in Lumen Gentium that in official documents it is called by names other than the one that Nancy believes to be the only name that it uses officially. The Church has acquired and claimed at its title several proper names. Defteri (talk) 17:26, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
2. Strongly disagree Nancy's stated objectives in opening and closing this mediation are not the purpose of a request for mediation. I have provided links to WP:RFM that establish what the purpose of a mediation is, what the process is (well, sort of) and what the role of the mediator is. Progress has been made here towards a compromise solution, one that Nancy objects to because she did not come here with a good-faith intent to develop a "a mutual agreement to resolve a dispute over content". Despite my posting a link to WP:RFARB, I think that Nancy still misunderstands the nature of arbitration and I doubt that they will accept a case which is primarily a content dispute. Even if they did accept it, I doubt that Nancy will get the result that she imagines she will get. I had written this off the mediation talk page because I did not want to add fuel to a fire that I was hoping would go out but, if we are going down this road anyway, I may as well bring it out for everyone to read. --Richard (talk) 17:43, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
3. Disagree - This doesn't seem to be a solution and it seems to be a rush to end this. I realize this is a tiring process but it seems like this arbitration process has mainly been run by us and with little input from Shell. I'd like to give him a chance to actually mediate this and perhaps slow the dialog down a bit. --Kraftlos (Talk | Contrib) 20:29, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Neutral

• Sorry, I can't face even reading this page. Please count me out unless I find the strength. Mind you, if you think this is bad, take a look at Talk:Humanism at the moment. Johnbod (talk) 04:37, 27 February 2009 (UTC)
• Is this with or without a note? I am fine with it as is - with a few choice citaions. Adding a note just gives a platform for divergent views to continue the fight. I support the proposal MINUS any note. -- Secisek (talk) 23:34, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

discussion

I agree with Marauder40 that closing this mediation is useless in the sense that all it does is create a failed mediation which, admittedly, is a requirement for WP:RFARB. It is clear from Nancy's statements that her primary objective in requesting this mediation was to either achieve agreement on her terms (i.e. her definition of reliable sources) or establish grounds for sanctions via arbitration. I have already pointed out that ARBCOM deals with conduct issues, not content issues.

I should further point out the "privileged nature of mediation". The following comes from Wikipedia:Mediation...

It is very important for all parties to recognize and respect that all communications during mediation are privileged. In the interests of facilitating open communication between parties, the Mediation Committee pledges to protect any and all communications made during mediation, and in particular will attempt to prevent such communications being used as evidence in other dispute resolution or similar discussions, including (but not limited to) arbitration and user conduct requests for comment.

When made aware of any use of mediation-based communications as evidence in such proceedings, the Mediation Committee will make every attempt to prevent such use. If communications from a mediation case are introduced as evidence in a request for arbitration, the Mediation Committee will make known its strongest possible objection to the use of such materials, and will appeal the matter to Jimmy Wales where necessary. The Mediation Committee believes that the Arbitration Committee shares a commitment to protecting the privileged nature of mediation, as noted in their arbitration policy. The Committee is confident that the Arbitration Committee would act quickly and decisively to prevent such use.

The Mediation Committee reserves the right to decline to become involved in a situation where a party's bad faith conduct in mediation is utilized in disciplinary proceedings. Protecting the integrity of mediation does not extend to protecting users who deliberately disrupt and subvert official dispute resolution, and the Mediation Committee will not allow its policies to be abused to protect bad-faith actions.

Now, I'm not very familiar with mediation and arbitration so I can't say which communications would be blocked as evidence and which would be considered "bad-faith actions". For example, if a case were brought before ARBCOM, I might consider lodging an objection on the grounds that this entire mediation has not been conducted in good faith.

It is my opinion that this is a content dispute and that it should be settled either here in this mediation or (hopefully not) on the article Talk Page. Contrary to the tack that Nancy is on, Wikipedia is not a place with courts, appeals courts and a Supreme Court. At least, not on content. I have not seen any really sanctionable bad conduct on this article. A lot of incivility, lack of collegiality and collaboration but nothing like violations of WP:3RR or even edit-warring. At least two of the "illegitimate editors" (myself included) are admins so I doubt that you would catch us violating Wikipedia policy. Many ARBCOM decisions come when admins forget themselves and start using their admin powers to push their own POV. Ain't been anything close to that happening here.

--Richard (talk) 19:01, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Richard, just wondering what definition of reliable sources you think is uniquely my own. Can you list for me any sources put forth by the opposing side to this arguement that you consider as meeting WP:RS, WP:Reliable source examples, or WP:V? I keep asking for them to provide them but none are forthcoming and even you and Defteri admitted that it was impossible to find sources to support their position that the Church has more than one official name. NancyHeise ^talk 19:31, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Nancy, since you demand sources, please provide even one source where the church itself says it has an official name? It just needs to be one source from the church itself and not the opinion of someone else. Since you have yet to provide this, the academic report of the view of the bishop of Brixen ought to be a significant view for the article. If you reject that, I expect you to specify exactly why, with explicit reference to the appropriate parts of the WP:RS guideline which justified excluding that view. I'm calling you out on this. It took us months to get removed an unsigned opinion piece that happened to support your bias, so your track record with reliable sourcing is highly suspect, Nancy. You only allowed that to be removed because the same source had an opposite view you didn't want to reflect in the article. Gimmetrow 19:40, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Gimmetrow, the only reference to bishop of Brixen in any piece of scholarship anywhere regarding Church name is in an opinion piece by HG Hughes in American Ecclesiastical Review which also ran an opposing opinion piece that stated the opposite. We mutually agreed to exclude both opinion pieces because opinion pieces are not WP:RS. However, Whitehead is not an opinion piece, it is a book that is cited by not just one but two of the world's largest and most respected Catholic media outlets EWTN and Our Sunday Visitor to explain the Church's name. Further, Academic American Encyclopedia is not an opinion piece and neither is Encyclopedia Brittanica, they are highly respected scholarly works who support Whiteheads conclusions. These comprise agreement among "modern scholarship" on the issue of the Church's name which is further supplemented by all of the other sources we provided including McClintock, Madrid, Belloc, etc. Can you please point me to the Wikipedia policy that requires me to ignore modern scholarship? You are asking me to perform my own WP:OR and redo what has already been done by people who are acknowledged experts. That is not Wikipedia policy but is expressly forbidden. NancyHeise ^talk 20:32, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Nancy is mistaken on multiple points above. Enough said. Gimmetrow 19:59, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

The issue right now is closing the mediation not whether or not Grimmtrow (or anyone) can come up with a reliable souse or make a persuasive argument from existing sources. It seems to me to be a rush to end this tiring debate and doesn't seem any different from the 3-5 debates we've already had on the talkpage. Can we please slow down, perhaps take a day or two off and let the mediator run the show, not us. Thanks. --Kraftlos (Talk | Contrib) 20:37, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

Thank you, Kraftlos. I agree. It seems silly to request a mediation and then shut it down before it has gotten off the ground and before the mediator has had a chance to practice his art. I think we have gone around this carousel enough times that it won't hurt us to just let it go for a day or two and see if Shell comes back. Hopefully, he's just busy and nothing untoward has happened to him. --Richard (talk) 20:48, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

That sounds like a good idea if you can convince Richard. I'm taking a few days off from this to see if Shell comes around. I'll be back on Sunday. Thanks. NancyHeise ^talk 20:42, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Um, Nancy, what is it that you want Kraftlos to convince me of? To stop the discussion of the proposed compromises? Ordinarily, I would resist doing that but, seeing that the discussion of compromise texts seems to repeatedly go off the rails, I see little point in trying to push them any further. Giving up for the time being doesn't change my opinion about that being the proper path for this mediation. I still consider your objectives for this mediation inappropriate for a mediation but I've presented that case already and so I will leave you to draw your own conclusions about next steps. --Richard (talk) 20:48, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately, what we have not seen is genuine discussion on proposed compromises. The compromise offered by myself has been brushed aside by Defteri and Gimmetrow upon the alleged "grounds" that the Catholic Church uses other names officially than the "Catholic Church. However, despite repeated questioning they have failed to come up with the other names that they believe the Catholic Church uses officially, at what frequency these names are used, and the evidence for such usage. Since they have refused to produce such evidence, it can only be assumed that they are engaged in intransigent POV-pushing, and that no solution would be acceptable to them that agrees with our references and the overwhelming evidence (i.e. - that Catholic Church is the proper, official or actual name of the Church.) In that case, they have entered these discussions in bad faith, since they are sticking to a position they refuse to justify.

There are people on Wikipedia with very strong agendas on this issue. Some person or persons, for example, has gone to the immense time and trouble to go through every single one of the many hundreds of Catholic Diocese articles on WP, and move each page from "Catholic Diocese of", or "Diocese of..." to "Roman Catholic Diocese of..." They have however left most Anglican, Lutheran and Orthodox Dioceses unmodified. (see Diocese of London (This is Anglican, it could be confused with others, but is left unqualified.) Compare Diocese of Paris (There is only one Diocese of Paris, but the article has been moved to "RC Diocese")). In other words there are people who are prepared to put in an immense amount of time to POV-pushing on this issue. The six month campaign of Soidi, Defteri, Gimmetrow and others to prevent any clear statement of the Church's proper name, whatever the wording, no matter how well attested, is a symptom of this fanaticism. These discussions can only succeed if people are prepared to discuss their reasons for opposing a certain referenced fact's inclusion, and provide the evidence to support their view. They have refused to do this and continue opposing on the insistence, based solely on their unreferenced opinion, that some undefined other name is used officially as much as Catholic Church. Opposition that continues unreasonably on such a basis becomes trolling.

Additionally: as I have said, starting the article with "Catholic Church" without changing the article title is merely rescheduling the row for FAC - which is not a solution. Xandar 21:48, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

So, are you now saying that you will only support "The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church" if the article title is simultaneously changed to "the Catholic Church"?

If so, I fully understand your position although it is disappointing because we all know that changing the title will incur much opposition (although it IS the right thing to do).

The funny thing is... I bet Gimmetrow, Soidi and Defteri would support this wording AND the title change. I really don't think they have the agenda that you think they do. I don't think they are arguing that "Roman Catholic Church" is the official name of the church.

I certainly don't have this agenda. However, as an aside, I have to confess that, a year or more ago, I engaged in a small part of changing articles titled Catholicism in Country X to Roman Catholicism in Country X not because I have an "agenda" but because 90%+ of articles were already titled Roman Catholicism in Country X and it only made sense to me to change the last handful to conform to the existing standard.

What I'm saying is that, unless we claim the name "Catholic" across all of Wikipedia, we are stuck using "Roman Catholic" uniformly in all Wikipedia articles including "Roman Catholic Diocese of X". Anything else would lead to weird inconsistencies in article titles.

--Richard (talk) 00:42, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

I would support "The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church". Unless we change the name of the article (which I would also support) it does not require that we change the name of any other articles across Wikipedia.

This may be the most workable suggestion. I'm interested in hearing from others. Majoreditor (talk) 01:41, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

CAUTION: See this archive, especially the section "Naming". Defteri (talk) 09:52, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't see consensus there against using "The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church". Majoreditor (talk) 03:20, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Xandar; as far as I know, List of dioceses of the Anglican Church of Canada and Dioceses of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America all have a prefix. What is the reason the situation is different for Diocese of London? Gimmetrow 04:29, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Eastern Catholics

PS I have made this point ample times before, and I shall make it again, since it continues to fall on deaf ears - do you really think that Eastern Churches such as the Chaldean Catholic Church of the East would call themselves "Roman"? Never!! The Church of the East was never even part of the Roman Empire!!! To say that the Catholic Church is actually Roman Catholic officially is lowering yourself to the ignorance of western academics who continue to ignore the existence of the Church of the East!!! Gabr-el 02:47, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Whether the people you speak of call themselves Roman or not - and I know that in general at least the Byzantine Romanians do not - they are part of the Church that the Popes and the First and Second Vatican Councils call Roman. The Popes and the Councils surely use the word "Roman" as a reference to the central place of the Bishop of Rome in that Church, which they identify with the Mystical Body of Christ and outside of which they say there is no salvation. This is the sense in which they quite legitimately call the Church Roman, the sense in which Byzantine-rite Catholics are part of the Roman Catholic Apostolic Church, even if they and we prefer not to call them Roman Catholics. This understanding seems preferable to terming the Popes and the Councils ignorant. Defteri (talk) 05:30, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

I would be interested in seeing some twentieth or twenty-first-century instance in which the Church "has addressed itself as Roman Catholic to distinguish itself from its Eastern counterparts who are in full communion with it". Though I have found Easterners who do use "Roman Catholic" in this sense, I have failed to find any instance of the Church (Pope, Council ...) doing so. Defteri (talk) 05:38, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

The simple fact is that the Church calls itself, and has always called itself simply the "Catholic Church". That is the crucial fact with regard to Wikipedia naming policy. "Roman Catholic" is an unofficial term, used chiefly by rival religious groups, and carrying with it a weight of ideological baggage. It is not and never has been adopted by the worldwide Church as it's own proper name.

As I have said, starting the article with "Catholic Church", really demands a change in title in order to bring finality to the debate. At the link defteri posted, the earlier use of this "hybrid" solution was challenged. I can't see the hybrid solution surviving FAC, and it is no solution to accept that here, knowing that it would immediately be challenged at FAC. Making the change to titling the article "Catholic Church" may be necessary, but I would expect strong objections to that from certain quarters

I'm not going to go round the thousand odd WP articles on Catholic issues, now labelled "Roman Catholic diocese of...", and change them to "Catholic diocese of..." although I would prefer this wording. People know what is meant, even if they don't agree with it. However on this central Catholic Church article, there has to be accuracy on the naming issue, and my suggested wording would hopefully provide that without having to change the article name. Xandar 11:54, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Yet again you and others continue to ignore the actual historical facts of this complex issue and instead replace them with your own simplistic and wishful thinking - bolstered by a third-rate (and unofficial) reference used by a third-rate and unofficial media / propaganda organisation. Your assertion that "the Church calls itself, and has always called itself simply the "Catholic Church" is blatantly false and utter nonsense. Whilst you continue to insist on this fantasy there will be no resolution to this dispute. Afterwriting (talk) 12:23, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Afterwing, your ridiculous claim that the Church is not called the Catholic Church, when that is a fact obvious to any reasonable person, shows what we're up against here. As usual you provide no references but your own personal POv and an abusive attitude. People like yourself are determined the dispute will never be resolved, and seem determined not to have any accommodation with the facts. There comes a point where such persons have to be ignored. Xandar 14:45, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Honestly things are getting way too heated. Yes the Church has used different names for itself in the past, "Christian Church", "The Way", "Catholic Church", etc. What is important is what is the current name of the church. The official name isn't even the "Catholic Church" the official name would be the name in Latin. In English the church refers to the entire church as the Catholic church when talking about the universal church in all its aspects including the eastern rite churches. Has it refered to itself by other names in the past? Yes. That doesn't change the name in any way. If also uses the term Roman to describe the church at times because its "heart" is roman but that doesn't change the name. As has been said on here, one of the primary documents that talks about the church and explains it to modern people calls itself the "Catechism of the Catholic Church", not the Roman Catholic Church, not any other name. Doing things like calling sources "third-rate" and calling the largest Catholic network "third-rate" don't help the matter. Also calling people abusive doesn't help. Calm down, do what Nancy and Richard have suggested, take some time off. Marauder40 (talk) 15:14, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Although I have tried to keep out of this as far as possible, please excuse me for not having resisted this echo of Xandar's words:

Xandar, your ridiculous claim that Afterwing said that the Church is not called the Catholic Church and your other ridiculous claim that the Church calls itself only the Catholic Church, when it is obvious to any reasonable person that Afterwing did not say what you attribute to him and that Catholic Church is not the only name by which the Church calls itself, shows what we're up against here. As usual you provide no valid references but your own personal POV and an abusive attitude. People like yourself are determined the dispute will never be resolved, and seem determined not to have any accommodation with the facts. Soidi (talk) 15:21, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

I think this kind of discussion is counter-productive. What we keep seeing is an unending cycle of sniping at each other. I had hoped to move towards a compromise but that effort seems to have broken down and there is a request from a number of participants to suspend this mediation until the mediator, Shell_Kinney, returns. Please, the objective is to get out of the hole, not dig the hole deeper. --Richard (talk) 17:46, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Agreed, this isn't the same kind of discussion that we've already had for months on the talk page. This is mediation. Please, stop this and wait for Shell. We obviously need mediation or we wouldn't be here. --Kraftlos (Talk | Contrib) 22:10, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. Majoreditor (talk) 03:21, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. And apologies for yielding to the temptation to echo. Soidi (talk) 05:08, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm all for sensible mediation. What is frustrating is that as soon as we seem to be getting anwhere, people start hurling spanners in the works. Xandar 10:20, 26 February 2009 (UTC)