Talk:Catholic Church in Europe

What is "Central Europe"?
The article with these incredibly precise statistics is very vague when it comes to the geography. /Pieter Kuiper 19:30, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

What does the map mean?
The map has no key, so it is difficult to tell what it means. It would be more useful to have a map with multiple colors, with each color representing a different percentage. A table of each country in Europe with the Catholic percentage would be useful. There used to be a table, but it only divided Europe into Eastern, Central and Western, which wasn't very useful.--RLent (talk) 19:27, 26 October 2011 (UTC)


 * I copied the following text from the talk page of the map, I do agree fully with this comment.
 * - - - Very few academic sources would label the Czech Republic as a Catholic country in any real sense. The lack of sourcing is concerning -just like article text, maps don't get a free pass on WP:V and WP:RS. Knepflerle  - - -
 * To add the recent 2011 Czech census comes up with 10 % catholics, so I can understadn why academic sources would not label the Czech republic as catholic.
 * Grsd (talk) 21:30, 17 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately a vandalist using different IPs keeps reinserting this map - and seems oblivious of something like TALK pages ..will remove unsourced map once again.
 * Grsd (talk) 20:32, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Today once again removed this map - rather persistent vandalism by unknown user using different IPs all the time. Several users are trying to keep this page clean by removing this map but this unknown user seems to have a rather persisting personality lacking unfortunately any inclination to use the talk page. This page probably has to be semi-protected soon to stop this annoying vandalism.
 * Grsd (talk) 23:14, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Seems the same person is at it again. Maybe an explanation why this repeated vandalism is necessary woud be nice.
 * Grsd (talk) 20:38, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
 * This map and maps like these are not the problem. This map has been correctly drawn, but is based on the historical distribution of Roman Catholicism. The problem is the lack of explanation within these maps and the superimposition of modern international borders which contradict and dilute the past and the present. This has to be indicated. While this map indeed shows the historical distribution of Roman Catholicism in Europe, before the rise of irreligion since 1945, the current international boundaries are superimposed. For historicity, putting maps like these that show the past distributions of religion and sects, before the rise of irreligion is educational. But the past and the present situation and thesuperimposition of modern international borders must be indicated, when preparing historical maps. I will make changes on this map in Wikimedia Commons, by adding these explanations. Ramscheid (talk) 21:45, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Looking forward to an improved map, anything better than the current misleading unsourced map. 08:23, 2 February 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Grsd (talk • contribs)
 * Unfortunately the map is still not accounting for the fact that catholics do outnumber protestants in several countries and the fact that catholics are the predominant religion in cities like Amsterdam (capital of the Netherlands), Utrecht, Bundeslaender like Baden-Wurtemberg etc etc. The earlier concern from user Knepflerle about ""The lack of sourcing is concerning -just like article text, maps don't get a free pass on WP:V and WP:RS. Knepflerle """had not been adressed. Grsd (talk) 22:01, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Too bad, the map still has not been provided with a source. Looks like it will have to be deleted, after all as per WIKI quality standards no unsourced entries. Grsd (talk) 22:14, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

The now notorious map once again
See discussion above, now an user is refuting the fact that currently catholics outnumber protestants in The Netherlands, Switzerland etc. Time to delete this map if not provided with a soure. Anyway ... Historically, before the existance of protestants all European countries were 100% catholic for centuries. Grsd (talk) 20:24, 27 April 2013 (UTC)
 * seems like again an edit war is about to start with anonymous IPs Grsd (talk) 21:53, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
 * It takes two to edit war. Elizium23 (talk) 05:37, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
 * And again an anonymous IP is "edit warring"..Grsd (talk) 21:38, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
 * The map is a historic map, and does not reflect the present situation. And is used for historical reference ONLY. Please do not make unilateral changes that are contradictory with the map. It will be automatically reverted. Thank you. Ramscheid (talk) 14:30, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Requested move 19 September 2016

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: Moved &mdash; Amakuru (talk) 20:21, 4 October 2016 (UTC)

Roman Catholicism in Europe → Catholic Church in Europe – In consistancy with all the other equivalent articles, including the "original" article on the Catholic Church, Catholic Church in Africa, Catholic Church of England and Wales, Catholic Church in the United States, etc. - Chicbyaccident (talk) 20:54, 19 September 2016 (UTC) --Relisting. — JFG talk 00:55, 27 September 2016 (UTC)

Actually, the articles for some countries and regions use "Roman Catholicism in" and others use "Catholic Church in". Thus, to be consistent it would be necessary to check all these articles. Furthermore, it should be considered to add a section about the Catholic churches which are not "Roman Catholic", e.g. Greek Catholic churches, which are in full communion with the Holy See, but possibly also Catholic churches which are not associated with the Roman Catholic Church, like e.g. the Old Catholic Church.--QuasiPerlach (talk) 12:38, 20 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Sorry, those aspects have already been extensively discussed on the talk page of Catholic Church. A summery of the existant consenus is that your view is not accepted. Chicbyaccident (talk) 11:03, 21 September 2016 (UTC)


 * I see your point. However, it looks like they solved the problem by adding a disambiguation header to the page. Furthermore, nevertheless the problem remains that also other pages should be renamed to be consistent (like e.g. Roman Catholicism in Ireland; it looks like a for a majority of the pages for European countries it is still "Roman Catholicism in").--QuasiPerlach (talk) 12:39, 22 September 2016 (UTC) Furthermore, it would be necessary also to check the corresponding templates (like e.g. the one named "Roman Catholicism in Europe" and the one named "Roman Catholicism in Asia") and categories.--QuasiPerlach (talk) 12:46, 22 September 2016 (UTC)
 * There's no obstacle of having a disambiguation page at the top of this page afterwards. About other subpages is no reason against a move. You might as well petition there, if you like. That also applies to the categories. Again, hardly a valid argument against the move, if you don't convince otherwise at the prime article of the subject. Chicbyaccident (talk) 20:13, 24 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Support. If you say "Catholic Church," no one is confused as to which church you mean. The disambiguation argument is spurious. If the main article is at Catholic Church, the supporting articles should correspond. Pandas and people (talk) 22:32, 22 September 2016 (UTC)

Since nobody has formally objected in almost a week, I suppose a move would be valid. Chicbyaccident (talk) 14:43, 25 September 2016 (UTC)  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice.
 * Support for consistency. — JFG talk 01:01, 27 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Object: The discussion and the result on the page Catholic church is still valid. No reason to change this consensus. --Nillurcheier (talk) 07:37, 27 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I don't understand. Why would you object on that basis, since the link you refer to implicately endorses a change of the name of this article? Chicbyaccident (talk) 19:01, 27 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I wasn't precise enough. After reading the long 2006-discussion I found: "The current name of this article should not be used as a precedent for the naming of any other Wikipedia articles. In particular, do not rename any articles related to the Catholic Church or Catholicism without first achieving a consensus to do so." So we have to continue the discussion here. --Nillurcheier (talk) 07:31, 28 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Support for consistency with the main article and other similar sub-articles.--Cúchullain t/ c 17:57, 3 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment I note that a discussion on a multi-article move from Roman Catholicism in X to Catholic Church in X has been opened in Talk:Roman Catholicism in Armenia --Erp (talk) 01:57, 4 October 2016 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Please note that a general discussion on the subject has been raised at Talk:Roman Catholicism in Armenia. Chicbyaccident ( Please notify with (Talk) 16:19, 8 October 2016 (UTC)

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Catholic Church naming conventions RfC
There is currently an RfC at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Catholic Church) that may be of interest. Chicbyaccident (talk) 09:58, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

COVID-19 response
Grayfell, your explanation for removing my addition of how the Church in Europe and the Vatican is not of lasting encyclopedic significance, what is it based on? It's pretty self-evident that the Pope holding Easter Mass to a largely empty St. Peter's Basilica is of historical significance. If you're still not convinced, let me share some more RS: https://www.npr.org/2020/04/12/832833507/pope-francis-praises-the-contagion-of-hope-in-easter-message https://religionnews.com/2020/03/18/coronavirus-restrictions-on-easter-is-a-return-to-vaticans-not-so-ancient-rules/ https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/05/europe/pope-francis-palm-sunday-coronavirus-intl/index.html https://www.yorkdispatch.com/story/news/2020/04/12/pope-urges-solidarity-easter-filled-joy-sorrow/111540794/ https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/coronavirus-pandemic-covid-19-latest-news-2020-04-11/ I can provide more, if you need it. Adding to that, with a large percentage of the outbreak being in Europe, wouldn't it be relevant to include how the Catholic Church has responded? I am adhering to policy and to all your points, and you have not really provided a good reason for not allowing this information to be posted on the page.Greatawakening2020 (talk) 23:19, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I can't understand this irrational resistance to a sourced paragraph about the pandemic's effect on the Church in Europe. It takes two to edit-war, so here is our discussion, what have you to say for this? Elizium23 (talk) 23:32, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Thank you, Elizium23. Also found some more supporting evidence for the importance of recording religious responses to COVID-19: https://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/events/the-covid-19-crisis-taking-stock-of-religious-responses Greatawakening2020 (talk) 23:38, 17 April 2020 (UTC)


 * Well, first of all, calling my actions "irrational" poisons the well and makes consensus much harder. Please avoid personal insults.
 * As I've said elsewhere, it is trivially easy for anyone with access to a search engine to find sources about Covid-19, but Wikipedia isn't a platform for breaking news. It's not enough to merely mention that something has happened based on news sources. There needs to be some context as to why it is encyclopedically significant. We evaluate all sources in context, on a case-by-case basis.
 * To be clear, I am not claiming that Covid-19 is not significant in a general sense. Obviously, it's incredibly significant to the globe, but that's not the same as being significant to this encyclopedia topic. Does that distinction make sense? I understand this might seem odd of overly fussy, but I think it's important for many reasons.
 * So there are several specific issues here (which happen to apply to other articles as well, but again, this needs to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis).
 * One issue is that this article isn't about the entire Catholic Church, and this article isn't about Vatican City. It is about the Church in Europe. Are these sources about the Church in Europe as a continent? It doesn't really appear that way to me. It appears these are more specifically about specific incidents. If these incidents are significant, we need to use sources to explain why they are significant to tne Church in this continent, but not at large. We cannot take it on face value. I don't think these belong yet, at all, but grouping these recent stories into a section is essentially telling readers that it is vitally important to understanding the specific topic of the Church in Europe. This is adding a lot of noise, but is not necessarily making anything clearer to readers attempting to understand the "Catholic Church in Europe".
 * Another related issues is that the raw quantity of breaking news is not sufficient for this to belong here, because it is not an impartial sample of all sources. None of the claims of these sources are particularly surprising, but they would potentially drown-out other perspectives. Sources such as "German bishops criticize continued church service ban" suggest that's not simple. Presenting it as simple would be a mistake for many reasons. From an outside perspective, the Church is not as monolithic as it presents itself, so we need to be cautious not to over-simplify this.
 * Due weight means including all perspectives in proportion to due weight. This also means holding-off on adding news content until its weight becomes clear. This will also allow us to evaluate the lasting significance of these blurbs.
 * As an aside, you cannot fix a ping. If you intend to notify another editor, you must use the template in the same edit as a signature, otherwise it will not go through. It was only by chance that I noticed this discussion. Grayfell (talk) 00:10, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Hello Grayfell. I understand that Wikipedia is not a platform for breaking news. Your judgment of what constitutes breaking news is highly subjective. So do we say with every addition to Wikipedia, “this is encyclopedically significant because?” As with the Pope holding Easter Mass to a largely empty St. Peter’s Basilica, some events' encyclopedic significance is self-evident. I can give you plenty of examples where there would be general consensus of an event's lasting encyclopedic significance without needing to explicitly provide the context every time. The sources I provided are reputable, credible sources and I have abided by RS. When you say adding a section like this “adds a lot of noise,” for who? For which readers? This is a highly subjective statement as well, and nobody else has protested to adding a COVID-19 response section to the page. When do you say you don’t think these belong yet, when is your personal stipulation as to when they will belong? Plenty of information are being added all over Wikipedia within a few days or weeks of occurrence. Again, saying that these “do not belong yet” is your personal opinion. If other perspectives are drowned out, wouldn’t it make sense to add these information to balance out the perspective instead of deleting the section I added altogether? Working on the distribution of “weight” as you said? It seems you don’t want the entire section all together. If due weight is your main concern, I can modify the section and include encompassing perspectives that would prevent the representation to be “monolithic.” I stand by the fact that this section does belong to this page, and it is entirely significant to the Catholic Church in Europe.Greatawakening2020 (talk) 20:06, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Since this discussion is about consensus, and not just arguing for its own sake, I have created a revised COVID-19 section for this page, addressing your concerns about due weight. I have also added two templates for expansion and due weight, to signal to readers that this section is a work and progress, and instead of deleting we can make it better, which would the whole page as well.

Across Europe, church leaders urged “solidarity and prudence” in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In some European countries, Catholic masses were completely halted while in others smaller groups continued to congregate. In Spain, the Bishops’ Conference “suspended all talks, concerts and catechesis sessions on church premises, and urged Catholics ‘with chronic diseases, elderly, weakened or with potential risk, and those who live with them’ to follow Masses via the media.” In Poland, the Bishop’s conference canceled its March plenary. In Italy’s northern Bergamo Diocese, clergy tested positive for COVID-19 with six deaths as of March 2020.

Catholic dioceses and religious institutes offered church facilities to accommodate healthcare operations and provide housing for the needy in the COVID-19 crisis. The Holy See implemented measures to protect its high-risk residents who were more susceptible to developing complications from COVID-19. Pope Francis celebrated Holy Week and Easter Sunday in St. Peter's Basilica during the pandemic; the pope celebrated Mass in a nearly empty church.

In Germany, the head of the German’s bishop conference Bishop George Batzing expressed disappointment over the church services ban being kept in place as announced April 15 by Chancellor Angela Merkel. Batzing emphasized religious freedom and said that he was confident that discussing the matter with the federal government “will very soon lead to a consensus that will make responsible forms of worship in our churches possible again.”

East European Catholics supported measures to mitigate the spread of COVID-19, but for some in the group, the pandemic “revived painful memories of communist rule.” According to ncronline, questioning and resistance also emerged in Western Europe, “where some Catholics have questioned the right of civil authorities to prohibit religious worship.” Polish radio presenter Glabisz-Pniewska described the sight of empty church “terrifying,” drawing a parallel between the situation and the hypothetical Catholic Church today “if past anti-Catholic hostilities had prevailed.” Romanian Catholic Bishop Virgil Bercea, from a church who experienced persecution under communist, said although church closures were questioned in Romania, he predicted that most critics would have a different reaction if their own families were affected by COVID-19. “We've experienced this before, when having nothing was normal. At that time, it was communism, and now it's the coronavirus. The situation is different, but the realities are much the same.”

In April 2020, Europe surpassed 100,000 coronavirus fatalities.

Greatawakening2020 (talk) 21:12, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Thoughts?Greatawakening2020 (talk) 21:20, 20 April 2020 (UTC)


 * Third opinion   Howdy hello folks! Saw this advertised on the 'ol WP:3O board. Now on a technicality y'all already have three opinions, as there are three people in this debate. However having three voices hasn't seemed to help, so I'll chime in anyway. Obviously, take my comments with a grain of salt as you would any third opinion, and especially considering this is in essence a fourth opinion. Taking a look, I think that the revised section is better than the original. But I think this is an issue of scope. This is about the Church in Europe, and I think some of the coverage here is better suited for other articles on the Church, or perhaps a separate article such as Catholic Church and COVID-19 (or whatever the current naming conventions for such pages are). I think that by itself the section gives undue weight to COVID compared to the 2,000 year history of the Church, and shows our WP:RECENTISM bias. Wikipedia is WP:NOTNEWS, and with so much Corona coverage now being routine, we have to weigh what will be notable and WP:DUE coverage compared to the volume of coverage. So TLDR: I could see it being included, but would prefer it not be included, or be in a separate/more appropriate article.  CaptainEek  Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 22:32, 27 April 2020 (UTC)