Talk:A Catholic Statement on Pluralism and Abortion/Archive 1

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Image of the advertisement

I have ProQuest access, so I can get an image of the ad. It's obviously not public domain, but does it add to readers' understanding of the topic (justifying a fair-use rationale)? Or is it only the text, rather than the structure, layout etc., that is significant? Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 21:52, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

I think it would be very helpful to see the page as a fair-use image. Binksternet (talk) 22:11, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
I don't overly love dealing with that sort of thing (everything I've uploaded is public domain) so should I e-mail it to you? Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 16:13, 11 August 2011 (UTC)
Yes, please. Binksternet (talk) 16:31, 11 August 2011 (UTC)
Excellent! The large version is readable, very useful for its text and names. Too bad it had to be reduced for fair use. Thank you for the scan! Binksternet (talk) 17:46, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Article too big

It is arguable that this article is not even notable enough to be in Wikipedia. But even if it remains, I humbly suggest for its size to be cut down. It is horribly big. Big articles are harder to verify. Of course, sometimes you can't help but writing a big article, such as when writing an article about George Washington. This is because there is a lot of notable information to be said about Washington, and dozens or even hundreds of Wikipedians care about George Washington, so it will be verified even if its big. But in the case of this New York Times ad, we have two conditions 1) The article is pretty big and therefore time-consuming to verify 2) Few people will care about it.

Therefore, the chance of misinformation appearing here is pretty big. Would you please trim it down? I know you had a lot of work putting all this together, but please, trim it down. -- Jorge Peixoto (talk) 15:35, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

No, it is the size that it is because of the good sources. What's this about misinformation? Explain. Binksternet (talk) 15:49, 11 August 2011 (UTC)
Misinformation is any false information. Wikipedia is full of it. The bigger the article, the smaller the chance that people will verify each sentence is in the source, and each source is reliable. Therefore, the bigger the article the greater the chance of misinformation. On the other hand, the greater the amount of Wikipedians that care about the article, the greater the chance that it will be verified. In short: an article few Wikipedians care about should be small. -- Jorge Peixoto (talk) 16:02, 11 August 2011 (UTC)
Do you actually have any productive comments to make about the article? Are there errors you have found? Do you think it is unnavigable? Do you think it could be better organized? "It's just too big, man because we should keep our coverage of Fake Catholics to a minimum even when we have dozens of excellent sources" is not a complaint that anyone can legitimately act on to improve the article. Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 16:09, 11 August 2011 (UTC)
Is there any hope for you to quit being cynical, playing the victim card, and assuming bad faith? -- Jorge Peixoto (talk) 16:14, 11 August 2011 (UTC)
Take your complaints about me to Wikiquette Assistance, rather than cluttering up yet another article talk page with them, please. Do you actually have any productive comments to make about the article? If so, now would be a good time to post them. Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 16:21, 11 August 2011 (UTC)
WOW, this is just bizarre. I have written a section making a suggestion about the article, and you make a completely gratuitous, out-of-the-blue, "assume bad faith and play the victim card" attack, and I'm the one cluttering yet another talk page with personal attacks? -- Jorge Peixoto (talk) 16:27, 11 August 2011 (UTC)
Your complaint about the article was petty, with no validity. No wonder you were attacked. Binksternet (talk) 16:30, 11 August 2011 (UTC)
Do you honestly think like that? if you disagrees with some objection, you can forget about the objection and start personal attacks? This is simply outrageous.
Big is irrelevant. Well-cited, on the other hand, is very relevant, so there's no need or reason to cut this down. On the other hand, you're free to take it to AfD and claim that despite its verifiability, it's not sufficiently notable to support a separate article. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 17:01, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

The Interim source

Not reliable. Using "pro-abortion" and putting "Catholics" in scare quotes is generally a good litmus test. It's currently cited for three statements:

  1. "The timing was intended to help Ferraro retain support in her campaign" - Already cited to another source.
  2. "The bottom of the page held 97 names divided into two groups: 14 members of the Catholic Committee on Pluralism and Abortion, and 83 others in a group marked 'Other Signers'" - This is self-evident from the ad.
  3. "Sister Donna Quinn, a past president of the National Coalition of American Nuns, said, 'We believe we have a right to speak out when we have a differing opinion, and this is something European men do not understand.'" - Appears in Sisters in crisis and "Shutting the Door on Dissent." The Interim actually misquotes slightly.

Let's replace these. We shouldn't give the impression that it's okay to use attack sources, even when they're being cited only for neutral statements. --Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 18:56, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

 Done. Agree 100% with removal of Interim. I put two cites after the Donna Quinn quote where removal of Interim left it bare. Binksternet (talk) 19:22, 11 August 2011 (UTC)
Ta. Just thought I'd check. Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 19:25, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Ruether & Kissling not reliable sources

A significant source for much of this article is the Encyclopedia of Women and Religion in North America. The Encyclopedia is the sole source for many of the article's more sweeping and contentious assertions, including the following:

  • The ad was "the most widely seen conflict between the Vatican and its religious women in America."
  • The ad and reaction "elicited a storm of international press coverage, likely the most attention ever given to a single advocacy advertisement in The New York Times."
  • "In seeking to discipline the nuns, the Vatican did not contact any one of them personally, and did not respond to direct individual communication."
  • "A few nuns disavowed their position on abortion and the cases were quickly closed. Most nuns stood fast to their earlier conviction."
  • "The superiors of these more resolute nuns sent letters saying that they accepted Church teaching, but many privately interpreted the teaching differently."
  • "Once a nun's superior had sent a letter to the Vatican, the case was closed, without any further attempt to prevent the nun from speaking out on the issues."
  • "Some Catholic theologians who signed the statement reported being threatened with stagnation in their careers, and found that speaking engagements were canceled because of the controversy. Such retribution was reported by Daniel Maguire, Rosemary Radford Ruether, Giles Milhaven and Elizabeth Jane Via."
  • "The response by the Catholic Church did not help their pro-life political goals."
  • "The more publicity was given to the issue, the more it was shown the public that there were differing opinions among Catholics."
  • "The public was made more aware that nuns, priests and leading Catholic theologians could hold pro-choice views."
  • "Prominent nuns were given a platform to air their views including activist nuns such as Marjorie Tuite, Margaret Traxler, and ... six nuns of the order Sisters of Loretto, an order known for its work on pacifism and social justice."
  • "In some cases, signers of the statement grew more radical in their beliefs after being reprimanded by church authority."
  • "The fact that the majority of American Catholics were pro-choice was a statistic the Catholic Church did not want widely known"
  • A nun's TV spot analogized to "the Church's inability to hide the fact of differing public opinion."

All these statements are POV and self-serving, casting the signers consistently in a heroic and favorable light. No surpise there, since one of the two editors of the Encyclopedia of Women and Religion in North America is Rosemary Radford Ruether, a feminist theologian and board member of Catholics for Choice, and who was in fact a prominent signer of the very advertisement in question. Ms. Ruether has an obvious COI with respect to the advertisement, which is plainly revealed in these quotes. The Encyclopedia is not a reliable source per WP:RS. I propose to delete all these statements, unless reliable sources can be found to corroborate any of them. Cloonmore (talk) 22:12, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

Ruether's supposed conflict is moderated by the assumed peer review process of the scholarly publisher Indiana University Press, and more directly by review from her fellow editor, Dr. Rosemary Skinner Keller, the former Academic Dean at Union Theological Seminary. Ruether herself is also a scholarly theologian who has held professorships at several schools. I cannot imagine who would be a better judge of the article topic than someone who was involved and who has a doctorate in theology. Let the experts write about the topic!
What you have not yet noticed is that the situation from your standpoint is worse than you originally thought: the cited pages are all within a chapter called "Women's Freedom and Reproductive Rights: The Core Fear of Patriarchy", written by Frances Kissling, the former president of Catholics for Free Choice. Kissling is also a scholar, a visiting scholar at the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania. In 2008, Kissling was a research fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies; a position that acknowledges doctoral level expertise. Yes, we all know Kissling is very opinionated and biased, but this university book used extensively as a cite is a reliable scholarly work. It rises far above the level of opinion piece or blog or self-published rant.
Note that the book is used as a very reliable source by more than 50 Wikipedia articles.
At WP:RS, the guideline endorses scholarly works as among the best available sources, the most reliable: "When available, academic and peer-reviewed publications, scholarly monographs, and textbooks are usually the most reliable sources. However, some scholarly material may be outdated, in competition with alternate theories, or controversial within the relevant field. Try to cite present scholarly consensus when available, recognizing that this is often absent... Material such as an article, book, monograph, or research paper that has been vetted by the scholarly community is regarded as reliable. If the material has been published in reputable peer-reviewed sources or by well-regarded academic presses, generally it has been at least preliminarily vetted by one or more other scholars."
What this means to us is that the Kissling piece stands as the expert on the topic until another piece is found that contradicts her. If another scholarly writer suggests that any one of the "sweeping and contentious assertions" made by Kissling is incorrect, then we can revisit this question. Binksternet (talk) 23:33, 21 August 2011 (UTC)
You're making the case for me. There's no such thing as an "assumed peer review process"; there either is one or there isn't, and there's no evidence that this source was peer-reviewed. There's no particular magic to being published by a university press, as univ. presses publish many popular titles. IU Press's own website says that the book is intended for a general audience, not for scholars. Kissling is, of course, even more conflicted than Ruether, as she not only signed the ad but conceived of it and headed the group that placed it. "I cannot imagine who would be a better judge of the article topic than someone who was involved" -- I can: someone neutral and objective, which are qualities not possessed by Ruether & Kissling. "the Kissling piece stands as the expert on the topic until another piece is found that contradicts her" -- Sorry, but that's not how Wikipedia works. We start with Reliable Sources. Cloonmore (talk) 00:40, 22 August 2011 (UTC)
I find your URL link helpful to my case: the publishers note that this book won the American Historical Association's 2006 Waldo G. Leland Prize and the 2007 Choice Outstanding Academic Title. They call it an "essential reference". Peer review comes to Kissling's chapter in the form of editing applied by Ruether and Keller, and by their associate editor Cantlon. The book is a reliable source par excellence; one of the best possible sources. The chapter written by Kissling is exemplary of neutral scholarly writing. She is not ascending the bully pulpit to preach nor is she whipping the crowd into a frenzy here—she is simply documenting history for those who follow. Binksternet (talk) 03:01, 22 August 2011 (UTC)
You apparently don't understand the difference between peer review and editing. Do you understand the meaning of "neutral"? Kissling and Ruether were orchestrators of the events they purport to document. They by definition aren't neutral. They're especially unreliable when they extol "resolute" and "prominent" nuns and spin the controversy as a win for the signers and a loss for the church. Their POV is evident. Cloonmore (talk) 03:35, 22 August 2011 (UTC)
Their scholarship stands unchallenged by contrary scholarship. If we had contrary sources, we could describe both with attribution and we could even try to assess which one was the more neutral. That situation is not ours. Binksternet (talk) 03:44, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Cloonmore is right on the money here. There is no silver bullet factor of default reliability in that the original article on a half-notable, but in its time highly publicized opinion ad, was part of a book published by "a well-respected university". Universities publish lots of books. The point that Ruether/Kissling are writing about a media event that they were themselves central to orchestrating is much more important, and there can be no requirement of first "finding another notable source" that points out the weaknesses or probable hyperboles to trim down and remove much of the stuff that's been tossed into the article only from their text. Whatever position one has on abortion, Ruether/Kissling's description as cited here looks like a self-serving eulogy.Strausszek (talk) 00:28, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Cloonmore is certainly close to being right on the money, although the fact that a source is not impartial doesn't automatically render it "not RS" - however it certainly should affect the way we use it as a source. Just because a book is written by a professional academic, and published by a university press, does not automatically mean it is a neutral source. I have a feeling Binksternet misunderstands the meaning of "peer review" in this context: in the natural sciences, peer review is a powerful means for attempting to ensure objective accuracy. But here there is no expectation that the authors would be objective: it would be entirely natural and expected for them, as key participants in the events they describe, and as people with their own strong opinions on the matter to write in a way reflecting their own perspective, even if they're writing in an academic context. This seems likely to influence the material in several ways: most obviously the narrative portrayed (in particular, for the focus to be on the signers as active, essentially heroic, participants contrasted to a church hierarchy in a reactive, and ultimately reactionary, role; one can only suspect an equivalent narrative by the church hierarchy would have cast themselves as proactively defending their faith, against signers who had blindly, naively stumbled into accepting the corrupted ideas of the secular world and mistaken them as compatible with Catholicism) but also subjective opinions on the success and legacy of the campaign, assertions about the thinking and motives of the church hierarchy, and the choice of language used (one good rule of thumb is to be skeptical of the "NPOVness" of adverbs and adjectives in otherwise plain-factual descriptions).

Book-editing and peer review are not academia's version of NPOVing, although accuracy-checking is certainly an aspect of it. Neither is critical praise or even the winning of literary and academic accolades, an indication of widespread acceptance of neutrality and objectivity. It's expected for texts to reflect the perspectives of their authors, and that does not invalidate them as excellent academic references. Nota bene: Wikipedia is an encyclopedic not academic project, so our standards and aims may differ. In fact many academics would dispute that "neutrality" in the Wikipedian sense, is an achievable or even a valid goal to aim for. While I agree with Strausszek and Cloonmore that caution should be applied when using this source, and the paucity of sources does not automatically leave this source as the default "neutral", I disagree with Cloonmore's assertion that all aspects of this article referenced to it should be removed. A sensible comparison would be with how we would use an autobiography (in fact, the source is clearly at least partly autobiographical in nature, the authors being participants in the events described!). For many of Wikipedia's biographical articles, an autobiography is the only available source for much of the subject's life, but that doesn't mean we automatically accept it as neutral (even if it's won prizes!) and for some of the claims made (pretty much anything beyond an undisputed statement of fact), we would have to qualify as the author's opinion. Here, I think this particularly applies to claims about the long-term influence of the campaign, and attribution is in order. This is also true for other "sweeping or contentious assertions", for instance a campaign being "the most widely seen conflict between the Vatican and its religious women in America" suggests some form of objective measurement - in principle this could have been quantitatively investigated by an opinion poll company - but here seems to rest on the subjective assessment of the authors. If we repeat that claim, then the fact that its makers were also proponents of the campaign should therefore be reported to our readers. TheGrappler (talk) 02:52, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Nice analysis, Grappler. This looks like one of many (too many) instances on WP where people just assume that "reliability" and "scholarly excellence" are achieved the same way in natural sciences, especially physics and medicine, and humanities/social sciences. In physics there is extensive checking of whether a proof is binding, the writing neutral and the quantitative data correct, in disciplines such as history, sociology and archaeology/history of art and old technologies all of that occurs to some extent but they are not seen as absolute conditions or as sufficient in order to get a work to be seen as valid or worthy of recognition and accolades. Historians don't typically go around shouting at each other "you were not neutral in that paragraph on page 283!" - newspaper editorialists and pundits may call attention to some of that in a detailed way, but historians themselves are casually aware that a work of history, especially on contemporary or sensitive issues, is rarely 100% neutral, factual/consensual and NPOV anyway, not in the hardline sense expected in physics. Nor is it the case that only professional historians can spot tendentiousness, unreliuable facts and authorly perspectives in a scholarly book about history, and so only they would be allowed to pronounce any kind of opinion worth listening to - in natural sciences that's pretty regularly the case: a doctor or a nuclear physicist doesn't take advice from an amateur.
Seriously I think WP needs some sort of space for criticism of facts, that is, pointing out when something is very likely tainted by hyperbole, factual mistakes (you'll find serious mistakes and erratic data in academic books too, and certainly in newspapers, even the best ones) or demonstrably impossible or logically in conflict with the gist of the article. In this case, K&R could be identified as essentially a primary source, but there are a good deal of cases when people smuggle in big chunks of clearly tendentious or overstated material from some obviously POVed writer, and then defend it by saying "this stuff is from a notable source /though maybe nobody took the book seriously when it was published because it was so bloody minded/ and he doesn't make any direct lies, does he?" Well, you can misrepresent by the way you describe something, by the quotes you pull out of context and by what is left out. When this kind of thing happens in an article, WP often seems to hit a brick wall, because any attempt to clear things up without searching through a hundred books to get citations pointing out the misrepresentations you've already spotted is branded "original research" or "WP Syn" by the editor/s who wants his/their stuff kept in, and sometimes by their cronies.Strausszek (talk) 04:32, 27 August 2011 (UTC)
Thank you for your thoughts, Grappler & Strausszek. I think all of the assertions of fact by Kissling and Ruether have to be weighed very carefully, and considered in light of other, preferably secondary sources. I would agree that some of their statements of fact could be kept in the article, with them identified as the source. Other statements, I believe, are far too subjective and weighted to be included without violationg WP:Primary, such as the following:
  • "the most widely seen conflict between the Vatican and its religious women in America."
  • "elicited a storm of international press coverage, likely the most attention ever given to a single advocacy advertisement in The New York Times."
  • "Most nuns stood fast to their earlier conviction."
  • "The superiors of these more resolute nuns sent letters saying that they accepted Church teaching, but many privately interpreted the teaching differently."
  • "Some Catholic theologians who signed the statement reported being threatened with stagnation in their careers, and found that speaking engagements were canceled because of the controversy. Such retribution was reported by Daniel Maguire, Rosemary Radford Ruether, Giles Milhaven and Elizabeth Jane Via."
  • "The response by the Catholic Church did not help their pro-life political goals."
  • "The more publicity was given to the issue, the more it was shown the public that there were differing opinions among Catholics."
  • "The public was made more aware that nuns, priests and leading Catholic theologians could hold pro-choice views."
  • "Prominent nuns were given a platform to air their views including activist nuns ...."
  • "In some cases, signers of the statement grew more radical in their beliefs after being reprimanded by church authority."
  • "The fact that the majority of American Catholics were pro-choice was a statistic the Catholic Church did not want widely known"
  • "the Church's inability to hide the fact of differing public opinion."
I don't think any of these statements are salvageable or appropriate for this article -- even with an introductory phrase, "Kissling believes" or "Ruether contends". They're all primary, slanted and blatantly self-serving, with the troubling sheen of an academic imprimatur. And many, as Grappler notes, purport to draw conclusions from the very event the authors partcipated in. Would welcome your thoughts. Cloonmore (talk) 05:21, 27 August 2011 (UTC)
I would agree the listed statements have to be dropped - and anyway, the fact that many Roman Catholics were not rigidly following the stance of the Church on abortions and contraceptives was probably not such a big secret as Kissling makes it out to be. Politically sensitive yes (because politics in America often ride high on "family values"), but hardly such a huge surprise in a private context to people who were ordinary lay Catholics, or protestants with many RC friends.Strausszek (talk) 05:58, 27 August 2011 (UTC)
I don't think the problem is so urgent as to require immediate removal of the statements, mostly because it would disrupt the article text - as Bink pointed out, it is an academic source, although the writer is involved - so perhaps the users interested in keeping the statements can take a little time to work on finding other sources for the material. Some of the statements listed above are also ones where there's no problem citing this source - for example, the Traxler ad (if the complaint is that Kissling is too closely affiliated with the nuns here, why does this affiliation make her an inferior source about a commercial in which one of the nuns appeared?), the Maguire/Ruether/Milhaven/Via thing (likewise), the thing about signers growing more radical (likewise). Some of the issues are also with phrasing rather than with sourcing ("stood fast," "resolute" - there's no basic factual problem with either of these statements). "Prominent" is used by at least four separate unaffiliated sources to describe the signers, so we could substitute any of those. How's that for a start? –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 06:26, 27 August 2011 (UTC)
The list of statements for deletion we are now discussing is the second version, after the posts by Grappler and myself. It does not include the lines on Traxler and Tuite and a few other phrasings. Most of the statements were kept in the list though, and they seem phrased in a highly POV way, sometimes contain unverifiable assertions (e.g. the death threats against Ruether and others and the statements on the long-term significance of the feud) and consistently push the image of this as a heroic and unique moment in the history of U.S. Catholicism. I'd like to add that I am pro-choice myself and not Catholic at all, but the overuse of Ruether/Kissling makes the article very dubious as a balanced or reasoned account of the event.
The lines on Traxler and Tuite could be edited to "A number of nuns and religious sisters found a platform to air their views including activist nuns such as Marjorie Tuite, Margaret Traxler, and six nuns..." Activist is probably verifiable and accurate as a description of their stand and methods, "prominent" depends completely on whom you asked and in what context is implied (prominent within the church? prominent before the ad? in the coverage after the ad?) Nuns and religious sisters - as noted below, the two are not the same.
By the way, much of the article seems to be a patchwork of statements by the signers, indirectly related to the events, culled from contemporary media (like the Time article) and later books that may have felt little commitment to being neutral and would not have checked every statement by an interviewee for balance and accuracy. For instance:
"Some 35 of the signers met at the St. Charles Hotel in Washington, D.C. on December 19, 1984 to determine a course of action. The meeting included 18 nuns of the Vatican 24. They said the Vatican, in its stern reaction, "seeks to stifle freedom of speech and public discussion in the Roman Catholic Church and create the appearance of a consensus where none exists." They said the current Church stance was not in the spirit of the Vatican II which said, "Let there be unity in what is necessary, freedom in what is unsettled and charity in any case." Sister Donna Quinn, a past president of the National Coalition of American Nuns, said, "We believe we have a right to speak out when we have a differing opinion, and this is something European men do not understand."
Strausszek (talk) 11:18, 27 August 2011 (UTC)
You cannot apply WP:PRIMARY to the chapter by Kissling. It is not the same as a witness describing an accident directly following the event. She does not simply say 'We did this, then we did that.' The chapter is written from the vantage point of time's objectivity. Kissling is "one step removed from" this event in that she is studying what happened, referring to notes, interviewing participants, etc. Binksternet (talk) 06:29, 27 August 2011 (UTC)
Sorry, you seem naive about this. Kissling (in particular, but Ruether too) was at the center of events, in a highly committed way, and she was in fact one of the authors/editors of the statement. She was a key person both on and behind the stage and there is every reason to treat her as a biased and selective source.Strausszek (talk) 11:02, 27 August 2011 (UTC)
What is naive about the appreciation that Kissling used many sources outside of her personal experience to compile a history of an event that she participated in? She acknowledges that she drew upon the following sources:
  • Beverly Wildung Harrison: Our Rights to Choose: Toward a New Ethic of Abortion (1983)
  • Daniel A. Dombrowski and Robert Deltete: A Brief, Liberal, Catholic Defense of Abortion (2000)
  • Linda Gordon: The Moral Property of Women (2002)
  • Arlene Carmen and Howard Moody: Abortion Counseling and Social Change (1973)
This is a summary of events, a secondary source. Binksternet (talk) 19:11, 27 August 2011 (UTC)
You've just borrowed the list of "furtrher reading" at the end of the chapter or the like. Politicians writing their memoirs, or a book in defence of part of their legacy (which, needless to say, is not sold as a personal defence) sometimes add a list of books or people they have talked to during the process of writing. That doesn't make them fully reliable and evenhanded sources. Bersides, you're still just pushing supposed activities in the editing and writing process.
  • We have no way of knowing what particular facts or points of view she took from the cited works. We don't even know to what extent she consulted them; they might just be works she wants her readers to read as well. Needless to say, she didn't include anything written from the point of view of the Roman Catholic clergy.
  • Every one of the contested statements will have to be soundly corroborated on its own here, that is verified from a good and truthful source and checked against other sources. On its own.
  • Even if one of the Kissling statements also appeared in one of the cited books that's in no way conclusive. They may have overstated it and they may have got it from Kissling, Ruether or other participants.
  • How could a 1973 (or 1983) book actually corroborate any fricken thing about a 1984 newspaper opinion ad??
  • The titles of some of those books ("A Brief, Liberal, Catholic Defense of Abortion") suggest that they are hardly neutral or non-committed. Plus, none of them appeared within the, let's say, five years following the event. Two are earlier, twhich sort of disqualifies them; two are much later and presumably written from a point of view where orchestrating remembered history as a series of victories and heroic battles has become important and some things are magnified or simplified.
  • As Grappler and me put it before, the 'imprimatur' of a university printing press is no kind of guarantee that a book or essay is reliable or neutral. Some books published by universities are anything but solidly reliable, some are acclaimed but nowhere near neutral or consistent. There's no magic about it: books and their content and reasoning have to be judged on their own merits - and in history, humanities and social ciences this is to some extent possible to do in a reliable way for laymen also, unlike the situation in e.g. physics and mathematics. If there is a plain or likely bias this detracts from the use of those works as sources. Especially if it's essentially a participant's story or if there are no other trustworthy sources saying the same thing, independently from the biased ones.Strausszek (talk) 11:33, 28 August 2011 (UTC)
Kissling gave her sources for the chapter in a section following the chapter. The section is entitled "SOURCES", not "Further reading" as you seem to think. The whole book has the same style, with no inline footnotes; rather, each chapter is followed by a section containing its sources. The Kissling chapter involves a lot more history than just 1984, which is why she could use a 1973 source. We do not need our reliable sources to be neutral, we only need them to be reliable and verifiable. We do not hold reliable and verifiable authors to Wikipedia's guidelines in the writing of their works, which means your conjecture about the possible biases of Kissling's sources is misplaced. Binksternet (talk) 18:20, 28 August 2011 (UTC)
Kissling is writing about a series of events where she herself was playing a very active role, and she is obviously neither neutral nor reliable in those respects. For any of her statements to be valid as source here, they would have to be backed by some truly secondary and perspicacious source. Since none of the works she gives as her "sources" is even close to the events in our article in time, and two were even written years before the 1984 ad had been conceived, they are of no consequence. End of story.Strausszek (talk) 01:26, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Binksternet, it is neither helpful nor productive for you to continue to call Kissling "a secondary source", who is "one step removed from" the events in question, since those statements are manifestly false. Cloonmore (talk) 17:26, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

What good is it for you to point to statements I made and say, without proof or support, that I am wrong? Simple gainsaying gets nowhere. Binksternet (talk) 18:20, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Defining a secondary source

At WP:SECONDARY, the example is given of a historian who writes about World War II, including some sentences about his personal experiences. The part of the written history which describes general campaigns, dates, leaders, units and battles is classified as a secondary source. The part where he says "And there we were, freezing in our foxholes"... that would be the primary part of the history. The case of Kissling is analogous.

Kissling in writing the chapter "Women's Freedom and Reproductive Rights: The Core Fear of Patriarchy" is writing about general campaigns, dates, movements, leaders, "battles", etc. She does not place herself in the chapter. In writing the chapter, Kissling's role was the same as the historian writing about the history of the larger war, larger than his foxhole. Binksternet (talk) 18:20, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

The flaw in your logic is that this article is precisely about Kissling's foxhole, not the "larger war." Cloonmore (talk) 18:32, 28 August 2011 (UTC)
The statements identified by Cloon should be removed as violations of PRIMARY.– Lionel (talk) 04:09, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Catechism as a source

The article has had this progression of versions in the beginning, to describe the composition of Catholics for a Free Choice (CFFC):

I do not think that quoting the catechism is appropriate to the article. The catechism link does not mention the CFFC or the Catholic Statement on Pluralism and Abortion. Assembling the quote and the link is a synthesis here, disallowed by the guideline WP:SYNTH.

Moreover, none of the sources refer to the concept that CFFC is against abortion because it is "gravely contrary to the moral law", they just talk about the Catholic Church being opposed to abortion and CFFC being opposed to the Church's opposition to abortion. For instance, Encyclopedia of American religion and politics says that "CFFC has been very critical of the Roman Catholic Church's position that abortion should be illegal and that artificial contraception is illegitimate." In Roman Catholicism in America, Chester Gillis describes how Kissling's CFFC was only asking for "open discussion" about abortion. In Catholics and politics: the dynamic tension between faith and power, the authors describe how Bishops Law and O'Connor were polarizing politics by singling abortion out as the one political yardstick against which to measure candidates, thus indirectly advocating votes for and against candidates. CFFC and other pro-choice Catholics were thus prevented "from taking solace from their agreement with the bishops on issues other than abortion." This is the atmosphere within which CFFC took action. They did not react against the catechism—they reacted against the politicization of the abortion issue as voiced by the bishops. They reacted against the Church's position that abortion should be illegal. Nothing in the catechism says that abortion should be outlawed by secular legislation. It is the Church's favoring of politicians friendly to legislation against abortion that CFFC fought.

I move that either the first or third version of the lead be restored, or something more appropriate to the real concerns of CFFC. Binksternet (talk) 03:40, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

I changed it to the following:
It was the legal issue which was paramount to CFFC, per the Encyclopedia of American religion and politics. Binksternet (talk) 03:48, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
It's synth, yes, but what I see as the bigger problem is that the way the lead is phrased, we are describing CFFC, when we should be describing the message of the ad. CFFC is linked and readers can follow the link to learn more about them. The lead should focus on the ad (the subject of the article), ie. on its statement that despite the common belief that the only "Catholic" position is the one in line with hierarchy pronouncements against abortion, most Catholics believe otherwise. The ad's statement opposing laws restricting abortion rights is really a secondary point. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 04:01, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
I am interested in seeing how you would rewrite the lead. Binksternet (talk) 04:29, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
Hrm...

A Catholic Statement on Pluralism and Abortion [should we include "A Diversity of Opinions..." as alternate title??] was a full-page advertisement placed on October 7, 1984 in The New York Times by Catholics for a Free Choice (CFFC). The ad stated that while recent pronouncements from the church hierarchy might have given the American public the impression that there was only one Catholic position on abortion, most Catholics in fact disagreed with those pronouncements, and many believed, for a number of reasons, that abortion could be moral. The statement was signed by 97 leading Catholics including theologians, nuns, priests and lay persons. This was the most widely seen conflict between the Vatican and its religious women in America.[2] A great deal of controversy and publicity for CFFC was generated by the ad,[1] referred to by some participants as "The New York Times ad" or the "New York ad".

I'm not sure if this is the ideal summary - it seems to go a little too much into detail, but I'm not sure what to do about that - but it's a start, I guess? –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 04:40, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
That's pretty good, a fine indication of the direction you wish to go. Regarding the sentence "A Diversity of Opinions Regarding Abortion Exists Among Committed Catholics", I, too, wondered how to approach the fact that one reliable source calls this pull quote the title, simplistically, because it appears at the top of the advertisement. Every other reliable sources calls the title "A Catholic Statement on Pluralism and Abortion". I guess NPOV calls us to give the alternate title as soon as possible but I am resistant to creating an unreadable first sentence or first paragraph. Binksternet (talk) 14:56, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
You're right, it would make it harder to read - if most sources don't call it "A Diversity..." that doesn't need to go in the first line. Any suggestions for making the description of the ad less of a detailed paraphrase? –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 18:19, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
I took a stab at rewriting the lead, taking your constructive criticism to heart. See what you think. Binksternet (talk) 20:57, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

1982 concerns

I wrote that the 1982 Congressional meeting was one "at which Catholic concerns were discussed, including the difference between Vatican dogma and personal practice." Cloonmore changed it to "at which CFFC concerns were discussed, including the difference between Vatican dogma and personal practice."

Kristin E. Heyer, Mark J. Rozell and Michael A. Genovese write in Catholics and politics: the dynamic tension between faith and power (published by Georgetown University) about CFFC in 1982 that "The group invited members of Congress to attend a briefing on the special problems facing Catholic politicians." The authors cite page 120 in a 1993 book by Timothy A. Byrnes: Catholic Bishops in American Politics, published by Princeton University. The briefing was not described as only addressing "CFFC concerns".

That's why I worded it the first way. Binksternet (talk) 03:56, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Your sentence, "In 1982, the group Catholics for a Free Choice (CFFC) invited Catholic members of the United States Congress to a briefing at which Catholic concerns were discussed, including the difference between Vatican dogma and personal practice", is a POV parody of your source material. Cloonmore (talk) 03:13, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
I can see where Cloonmore is coming from. Something more about their practice as Catholics rather than generalising it. I'll have another look at both too. Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:18, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
Maybe "at which views/dilemmas on Catholicism and politics were discussed, including the difference between Vatican dogma and personal practice" ? Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:23, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
or "interpretations" ? Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:23, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
Certainly the briefing was about the concerns of Catholic politicians rather than Catholics in general. The "views/dilemmas" bit is okay with me, but could benefit from a little polishing. Binksternet (talk) 03:53, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Bias/primary sources

I find this article quite biased - clearly towards one side of this issue. To back up certain statements, it cites sources of information coming from articles written by individuals who are themselves cited as being at the centre of the controversy. How can you stack something in your favour more than that? Marty55 (talk) 02:25, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

The answer is, of course, that you can't. Which is why wikipedia has a very sensible policy that restricts the use of primary sources, i.e., "accounts written by people who are directly involved, offering an insider's view of an event," which is exactly what we have here in the use of materials written and edited by Kissling and Ruether about the very events they orchestrated and participated in. Cloonmore (talk) 02:34, 27 August 2011 (UTC)
The article cites all the sources that I could find. A few of the sources were written by participants, but the majority of sources were not. All of the sources agree in general on what happened, with some minor differences on specifics such as whether there were 24 or 26 nuns, and the sources agree on the outcome of the advertisement. If you feel the article is biased, find a new source which describes a viewpoint more critical of CFFC and the signers or more sympathetic to O'Connor, Hamer and the Church. I looked and looked but could not find such a source. Binksternet (talk) 07:36, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

There are some crucial statements made in the article, such as, "The fact that the majority of American Catholics were pro-choice was a statistic the Catholic Church did not want widely known," which are subjective but are stated as though they are fact. If it is a fact that a majority of American Catholics were pro-choice at the time then there should be a reliable source cited for this, and not just a statement coming from one of those involved in the issue. Marty55 (talk) 21:33, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

That most Catholics disagreed with Church teachings that abortion was wrong under every circumstance should be uncontroversial; the ad cites a survey, and we can cite the same survey. (Or news, etc.: [1], [2] - there are some stories which appear actually to be covering the survey, but I can't view them because of a paywall.) The only problematic part there is the statement that the RCC wanted to keep this fact secret. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 21:59, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

The following quote, taken from the Wikipedia article, Catholic Church and politics in the United States, states: "Polling shows an increase in the number of Catholics classifying themselves as pro-life; a 2009 poll showed a 52% majority identifying as pro-life." The poll was conducted by Gallup. I would like to see the article on A Catholic Statement... rendered in an even and fair manner with sources that are easily verifiable. Marty55 (talk) 02:05, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Ri-ight. You want a recent poll asking people whether they are "pro-life" to be in this article. For starters, this article is about a moment in time decades ago. More importantly, "pro-life" is a catchall term hopelessly absent of specifics. Someone can say they are pro-life yet if you question them further many will say that abortion should be allowed in case of rape, or if the child will be born with terrible genetic problems. It is exactly these more subtle questions that the Catholic Statement was interested in asking. Binksternet (talk) 03:21, 28 August 2011 (UTC)
The BBC says that 64% of U.S. Catholics say they disapprove of the statement that "abortion is morally wrong in every case" – the official Church doctrine. But let's dump polls for a second and look at practice: Catholics account for 28 to 33 percent of all U.S. abortions, according to Guttmacher, and the per capita abortion rate for Catholic Americans is virtually the same as for the general American population. Some 97% of Catholic women in America have used contraception. The observer cannot help but notice that actual practice among Catholics differs significantly from Church teaching. Binksternet (talk) 04:20, 28 August 2011 (UTC)
Okay, we're getting off-topic here (both of you). At the time the ad was published, there was a recent survey which showed that a majority of Catholics disagreed with the RCC position that abortion was always wrong. The ad directly refers to this survey. We, too, can cite this survey or a news article covering it - I have managed to conquer the paywall and currently have in front of me a Chicago Tribune article from 1978 which reports the results of a NORC survey finding that 66% of Catholics would favor an abortion in the event of fetal defects, and 76% in the case of a threat to the woman's health. This may be the survey referred to (presumably more detailed findings were available at the time the A Catholic Statement was written, whence the 11% figure). –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 05:07, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

nun != religious sister

Please consider correcting this article. A nun is not the same as a religious sister. See: Nun#Distinction between nun and religious sister. Thank you. --88.67.182.166 (talk) 04:04, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Can you clarify where you believe this article conflates the two? –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 05:05, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

97 leading...

These four separate sources use the term "prominent" to describe the signers. It's not an NPOV violation to use language that reflects the sources' evaluation of the subject - on the contrary, it's more of a NPOV violation to pretend that these were just a hundred people off the street.

(I am not signing this with a date. If this is going to keep happening, maybe it shouldn't be archived.)

–Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs)

UPI (the actual source for the last one) is hardly an unqualified RS as such - a news agency is definitely not always reliable - but the first two ones look sound. And I don't really object to saying the signers included some prominent catholic names. It's more the lionizing and narrative-heaving statements of a big part of the present article text that concern me.Strausszek (talk) 02:29, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
The UPI source was written by veteran religion and social issues reporter David E. Anderson, now the senior editor for Religion News Service. He's as straight up and reliable as they come. The term "leading" is a perfectly good synonym for "prominent". In using "leading", I was simply doing my part to restate the sources and so avoid copyright violations.
If you have problems with the wording or the "half-notable" character of the article, please address those issues directly. The wording should be handled here on the talk page, or go with WP:BRD. The notability is either accepted as solid or challenged by AfD. Binksternet (talk) 04:30, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
Bink, please stop running the "my way or the highway" strategy. I haven't suggested an outright deletion, nor has Cloonmore, but there's no WP practice saying that if one or two sources are heavily used in an article and they are challenged on the grounds of serious bias or one of them being effectively a primary source (an insider's story of her own patch), then the article would either have to stay as it is or be voted for deletion.
Nor is it necessary to amass new sourced stuff to the same amount as the compromised matter. Statements which are mendacious or seriously misleading should be removed on sight.
The UPI guy sounds okay, but "leading" is a problematic wording because in many contexts it implies overall senior rank, or being among the very best known of all in a class (here, U.S. American Catholics). Which was hardly the case with the signers of the ad in question, nor were the nuns "leading figures" in that sense, not even in their own orders. Keeping "prominent" carries no implication of plagiarizing.Strausszek (talk) 14:29, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Tom Davis says...

Tom Davis says "Since that time the organization, under the leadership of Frances Kissling, has been a key part of the pro-choice movement."

Tom Davis says "Many Catholic women were upset because the cardinal had not been nearly as critical of prominent male Catholic politicians such as Governor Mario Cuomo and Senator Ted Kenneday."

Please revert yourself, Cloonmore. Binksternet (talk) 00:41, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

And why should we believe anything about what "Tom Davis says"? He's a United Church of Christ minister, former chaplain of Planned Parenthood and professor of religion. He's not a historian or even a socioligist. And his book features blurbs by Frances Kissling and Sarah Weddington. So what's so reliable about what "Tom Davis says" about what "many Catholic women" thought? (BTW, binks, you seem to think the first quote above supports the lead. It doesn't.) Cloonmore (talk) 01:08, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
I do think the first example supports the lead sentence. I also know that we do not require our sources to be neutral, just reliable and verifiable. Davis's book is not somehow poisoned by blurbs from those he interviewed. It was published by Rutgers University and so it is hardly a poor source, the kind to remove along with text it supports. The Davis book is cited by Mary Zeiss Stange, Carol K. Oyster and Jane E. Sloan in Encyclopedia of Women in Today's World. It was cited by Jennifer Baumgardner in Abortion & Life. It's been cited by Dr. Cathy Moran Hajo of the Margaret Sanger Papers at NYU, in her Birth Control on Main Street: Organizing Clinics in the United States, 1916–1939. It's been cited by Colleen McDannell in her The Spirit of Vatican II: A History of Catholic Reform in America. It's been cited by John H. Evans in his Contested Reproduction: Genetic Technologies, Religion, and Public Debate; and it has been cited by Paul D. Simmons in his Faith and health: religion, science, and public policy. There are more, but you get the point. The Davis book stands. Binksternet (talk) 01:20, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
It "stands"?? No one's argued that Davis's book doesn't stand for certain non-contentious statements of fact. But that doesn't mean everything he says is reliable. There's no reason to think he holds any insights into what "many Catholic women" thought. What women? The ones who signed the ad? We don't need Davis to tell us that. The fact that he's been cited by others in the pro-choice echo chamber only reinforces my point. He's got a strong POV. Cloonmore (talk) 03:00, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
Not everybody who has written a book is a credible source, Bink. NYyankees51 (talk) 03:26, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
Pro-choice echo chamber? I will have to remember that one. Davis is cited by scholars. Davis stands as a source for his opinion on what Catholic women thought. Your arguments don't hold. There is little to recommend a Wikipedia editor arguing against a published author who is cited by scholars. Binksternet (talk) 04:40, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
Who cares about "his opinion"? You're citing it as fact. If it's not reliable as a fact, which it isn't, then it goes. Davis's opinion about what Catholic women thought is worthless. BTW, have any -- *ahem* -- "scholars" cited Davis for his opinions about what Catholic women thought? Cloonmore (talk) 04:51, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
Cited by scholars, see list above. Davis can certainly be quoted saying many Catholic women were upset. What foundation do you have to say he's wrong? None. And if you do find a source saying few Catholic women were upset, feel free to bring it into the article alongside Davis, for perspective. Binksternet (talk) 15:03, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
Keep in mind that the burden's on you. Cloonmore (talk) 15:16, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
Please read WP:BURDEN so that you know what you are saying. I have cited text with a reliable source, a book cited by scholars. After that, you take it to some noticeboard if you wish. See you there. Binksternet (talk) 15:29, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
Again, you seem confused. The book's in, but not for that quote. And if you read that passage in the book again, it seems plain that his "many Catholic women" are none other than the signers! We don't need a source to state the obvious in a confusing manner. As for the lead, the sentence you cite above (about CFC being a "key part" of the pro-choice movement "since" the ad's publication) doesn't support the assertion that "The publicity and controversy which followed its publication helped to make the CFFC an important element of the pro-choice movement." That's your spin, violating WP:SYNTH. Again. Cloonmore (talk) 15:51, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
I don't see how you get "the signers" from "many Catholic women". It's not so stated by Davis, and saying that specifically would have been easy enough. The sentence starting "Since that time" is part of a summary in which Davis is absolutely saying that the Catholic Statement on Pluralism and Abortion was a critical step in CFFC under Kissling gaining pro-choice leadership. Do you have a reliable source saying that CFFC suffered from the October 1984 advertisement, or that they did not benefit? Binksternet (talk) 20:26, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
There is plainly no way Tom D. would know about what "many Catholic women" as in 'a large share of female U.S. Roman Catholics at the time' thought about this. He is plainly concerned with those who signed the ad or who were directly involved with the CFFC, and few others - though being partisan he does his best to make people believe their opinions were echoed by a huge silent majority. There is nothing in this that has a claim on being seen as reliable in and of itself.
And again, a source having been classed as "belonging to the group of RS" (something that's far too easy to do for some uncritical and Holier-than-Thou people here) doesn't mean that it's an instant verifier for everything said therein. If Niels Bohr said at some point that there might be native people on Mars or (as a joke) that the moon is made of green cheese, that isn't a verifier for those statements being true or even worth considering on the weight of what he said or who he was. Not even if he said it in a university lecture hall and it was published or mentioned in a book published by Harvard University. Reliability only exists as far as the source can have a reasonable claim to know what it's talking about in the local case.
And as already pointed out, none of these sources we're discussing were 'peer-reviewed' in the natural sciences sense,.as Bink is implying. So there has been no default cheking on them just because they are university related.Strausszek (talk) 15:03, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
Are we generally in the habit of discrediting a source because of the author's sex or religion (per Cloonmore who cites that he's a UCC minister)? Presumably he did what every other writer does and, y'know, used contemporary sources. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 17:11, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
Some 56 Catholic women signed the statement. The debate here seems to revolve around whether Tom Davis was saying the 56 female signers were the ones making up the "many" "upset" Catholic women, or whether Davis was saying there were other Catholic women who were upset as well. At the bottom of the published NYT statement, it says others were sympathetic but chose not to sign because of career concerns. The next year, some 1,000 people signed a support statement. It's clear there were more Catholic women than just 56 signers who were upset. Debaters here seem to think that Davis did not investigate the breadth of what Catholic women were thinking at the time, but I contend we cannot gainsay him without some inkling he might have been wrong—without an indication that he did not do proper research (there is no such indication) or in the presence of conflicting evidence showing few Catholic women to be upset (there is no such evidence.) I can but point again to those scholars who cite Davis's book and ask how can we editors here consider ourselves more expert on the matter than respected scholars? Binksternet (talk) 17:51, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
Bink, it would always be possible for someone who truly wanted to show that the moon is made of green cheese (or that there is a highly significant possibility that part of it is, the rear side for instance which hasn't been visited by people or landing probes) to quote some eminent physicist who had tossed this out once (e.g. Niels Bohr, see my last post). If the statement were challenged by other WP editors that guy could always say "unless you can find another scientist as prominent and reliable as Bohr who castigated him over this, then it must stay in the article".
Nope, that doesn't make it one bit more verified. You really, and I mean really, need a course in logic or scientific method.
You're about as good at understanding verifiability and the logical import of using something as a source, taking it as grounds for what goes into an article, as the people who are guarding the Sarah Palin article, and who are steadily trying to keep out anything to do with the, erm, controversial sides of her politics - and we're talking here of statements, issues and endorsements that have been widely reported in the mainstream media, the "death panels" card for instance and where there is hard backing for claiming that they influence people's image of her.. Those editors are committed to their agenda, it outweighs the accuracy of the article in question - and so are you, to the point of ignoring any kind of reliable method or weighing of sources.Strausszek (talk)
I'm talking about Catholic women and the possibility that more than 56 were "upset" at Ferraro's treatment by O'Connor, and you respond with an ad hominem attack, a notional green cheese Moon and Sarah Palin intractable supporters? I should think a logical debate response would address the question of Catholic women's thinking in 1984 rather than bringing in irrelevant comparisons. Binksternet (talk) 20:31, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
Now now, sometimes one must begin with a little bit of method and you haven't made yourself known for having a grip about using sources in a critical way.
The example "the moon is made of green cheese; this is verifiably true because Niels Bohr joked that it was" points to the same fallacy that's in current use here. And there's a few people around who would not need that pointed out.Strausszek (talk) 00:26, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
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