Talk:Catholic Church in Romania

Untitled
Why was this now so important to redirect Roman Catholicism in Romania to Romanian Roman-Catholic Church? Is the adjective "Romanian" is the most important? All other countries say Roman Catholicism here and here, now the Romanians has to emphasize their nationalism even here, when it is about a thoroughly universal organization?! Furthermore, the article itself says that inside Catholic Church in Romania the Romanians themselves are not the largest group in terms of ethnicity. And this Romanian Roman-Catholic Church sounds quite funny anyway.
 * There's a bit of spirited discussion over how to characterize things inside wikiproject:catholicism. I expect that such moves are going to happen all over the catholic content as the project members come to a consensus over how things should be labeled. It's currently pretty inconsistent. TMLutas 22:11, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Alphabetical turn
The images of the churches at the end in this article are alphabetic classified, sure after the name of the village, not of the commune. For example, the church of Şandra is at Ş, not at B (from Beltiug commune). Consequently, the place of the church from Babda is at B, not at C (from Cenei commune). --Mihai Andrei (talk) 18:58, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
 * The chance that we should have articles on villages is minuscule and contradicts WP:NOT (even if they take the liberty on Romanian wiki). You were right about the village-to-commune for Beltiug, but that was the only slip-up here (I simply forgot to check what commune the village was in). Dahn (talk) 19:07, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I do not agree with erasing the identity of the villages. It is evident that the famous orthodox church in Sibiel is in Sibiel, even when Sibiel belongs to the Sălişte commune etc. Please see the excellent ro:Format:Biserici de lemn din Salaj and admite the primate of the village name. Any other solution where absurd, because in one commune are many villages whit each own church. --Mihai Andrei (talk) 19:14, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
 * The notability of individual villages remains dubious to say the least, and the "several churches per commune" argument is irrelevant here (since nu such instance occurs or will likely occur in this here article). Any info about any village can fit nicely into the articles on their communes. Dahn (talk) 19:23, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
 * You have no right to expropriate the church of Şandra from the citizens of Şandra for giving it to the citizens of Beltiug. What you are dong is to desinformate the article lecturer. --Mihai Andrei (talk) 19:26, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Oh, here we go again... Dahn (talk) 19:28, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Would you move the Probota Monastery at Dolhasca Monastery, because Dolhasca is the commune, and Probota the village!? See: Painted churches of northern Moldavia. --Mihai Andrei (talk) 19:49, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Did I move them? Are these articles on churches? Take a moment to ponder why your analogy is irrelevant. Dahn (talk) 20:07, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
 * No, you only described the Image:Biserica Bobda - Timis.jpg as "Church of Cenei", and the church of Şandra as "Church of Beltiug", in disrespect for truth and for local people. --Mihai Andrei (talk) 20:35, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Do the people not live in that commune, Mihai Andrei? Is their administration disrespecting them every day? Are you not basing your examples on individual monuments (i.e.: not on the villages)? Is there any logaical possibility that all villages become articles? And, finally, what is it to me or this project how a user decided to name his photo? Dahn (talk) 20:50, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Mihai, you are right that there could be more than one Roman Catholic church in a commune, that's why I propose this version, which includes the name of the village, but it also links to the commune. Dahn is also right that probably 90% of the villages don't need separate articles, but rather sections in the commune articles, because there's not much to say about them and for most of them, we would not be able to fill more than half a page. bogdan (talk) 01:07, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
 * D'accord. --Mihai Andrei (talk) 12:25, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

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Name and infobox
The Latin Church of the Catholic Church is known by most people in Romania as the "Roman-Catholic Church". This distinction is used in order to distinguish between the Latin Church and the Greek Catholic Church. For other countries which don't have an Eastern Catholic Sui iuris church it is common to only say "Catholic Church", and others that do have eastern catholics might be familiar with the term "Latin Catholic", but this is not the case in Romania. In Romania nobody knows what "The Latin Church" is. The name that is used by the public is "Roman Catholic Church" which is also the official name under which the Government of Romania recognizes this denomination legally. This page primarily talks about the Latin Church because the Greek one has it's own page. If we want to make this page talk about all catholics in Romania then we have a problem with the infobox in the sections: Type, Orientation, Metropolitan Archbishop (Aurel Percă has jurisdiction only over the Latin Church), Bishops (there are more then 6 if we consider the Greek Church also), the Ecclesiastical provinces, the list of dioceses, Liturgy, Headquarters and even the number of members, clerics and churches which are all only for the Latin Church, excluding the greek catholics. If we mix the Greek-Catholics in those sections as well (they already have their own infobox with all of those) we are left not knowing necessary distinctives about the Latin Church in Romania. - Barumbarumba (talk) 18:31, 24 March 2023 (UTC)
 * The CER represents non-Latin Catholics of Romania as well as all Latin Catholics in the country. The nation's domestic hierarchy is administer all within the same episcopal conference, despite the presence of at least three formally organized sui iuris churches. While you're unfamiliar with nomenclature used extensively throughout Wikipedia and in the English language, this does not negate the fact that 1.) this article is intended to provide coverage of all Romanian Catholics (Latin/"Roman", Armenian, Romanian Byzantine, etc.) and 2.) they share certain hierarchies not precisely congruent with legal realities. The article and the sources cited all make this clear. ~ Pbritti (talk) 20:09, 24 March 2023 (UTC)
 * You have not adressed the problem of the infobox. Change what you want with the page, but leave the infobox as it was before because the Romanian Greek Catholic Church has an accurate infobox on it's page, but the Latin Church doesn't. At least do a separation as does the Catholic Church in Ukraine infobox regarding members and leaders and so on, if you are not willing to make a different page for the Latin Church in this country. Barumbarumba (talk) 09:59, 25 March 2023 (UTC)
 * The infobox is correct as it is at present. ~ Pbritti (talk) 14:44, 25 March 2023 (UTC)
 * No, it's not. I was the one who made it and i did it only for the Latin Church. The 741,276 members are only the ones that are of the latin rite not counting the greek. And if you want to add the greeks to that number as well you have a problem: the church itself claims some 500.000 but only 150,000 romanians actually declare themselves greek-catholic. Barumbarumba (talk) 20:24, 25 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Then you inserted the infobox with an inaccurate representation of what is the article's subject: both the Latin Church and the Eastern Catholic bodies (the latter including those from multiple ECCs). With this fundamental misunderstanding in mind, I'll remove the the infobox. ~ Pbritti (talk) 20:28, 25 March 2023 (UTC)

Survey
Recently, a set of unwise changes has been imposed on this article. Broadly, they involve: a) removing the infobox, which is bizarre given its crucial role in giving ready information; b) removing the photo gallery, again strange: readers will naturally be interested in knowing what the churches described look like; c) diluting the lead section. As far as I can tell, this series of modifications has to do with a sudden wish to expand the scope of the article from Latin Rite Catholics to all Catholics, i.e. to add Greek-Catholics into the mix. This is ill-advised for at least four reasons: first, the two rites have different histories, cultures and structures; second, there’s a separate article on the Romanian Greek-Catholic Church; third, sources (government and otherwise) generally treat the two separately — there isn’t much material that covers both branches under the same heading; fourth, it really isn’t an issue if we limit the scope to Latin Rite Catholicism, provided we note (as we always have!) that an important Greek-Catholic Church also exists.

Therefore, I propose reverting to the stable version of 7 January, keeping the above principles in mind. Going forward, minor changes can be made, but the basic structure and scope of the article will be as before.

Pinging interested editors:


 * Support as proposer. — Biruitorul Talk 10:59, 28 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Support most of the changes make absolutely no sense. Dahn (talk) 11:06, 28 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Support Pbritti should seek consensus before making these changes. Super   Ψ   Dro  12:09, 28 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Oppose Beside blatant canvassing—which should nullify this discussion right out the gate—none of these editors seem to understand that the article, like other articles on the Catholic Church in other countries, addresses Catholics of all sui iuris churches. Not only did Barumbarumba misunderstand the concept this article was covering in creating the infobox (which was then filled with information using deprecated terminology), but now other editors seem to also forget that the current article also covers more than just the Latin and Romanian Greek Catholic Churches. In short, a very, very poor showing from the above editors. ~ Pbritti (talk) 13:10, 28 March 2023 (UTC)
 * I'll also add that Biruitorul is mischaracterizing my edits in a very inappropriate manner. For example, they claim my removal of a gallery is strange, but should know our standards on them are very clearly dictated in WP:GALLERY—hence my removal of a gallery with the explicit reasoning I provided. An absurd survey meant to bulldoze an editor outside the subject area to contradict policy and MOS while having the appearance of discussion. ~ Pbritti (talk) 13:21, 28 March 2023 (UTC)
 * To address the each point raised in this survey: user Dahn added much of the content to this page–content that since completion of their initial 2007 page expansion has covered not only the Latin Church in Romania but also the Armenians and "Greek-Catholics" (the latter presently organized under the Romanian Greek Catholic Church). In 2021, user Barumbarumba unilaterally added an infobox–an infobox exclusively about the Latin Church in the country. I have removed this infobox because it inadequately covered the longstanding subject of this article: the entire Catholic Church in Romanian, not just the Latin Church. Biruitorul says that my edits were to add Greek-Catholics into the mix, but looking beyond the lede and at any number of other national-level "Catholic Church in X" articles will demonstrate the scope of this article already included them (and the Armenian Catholics). ~ Pbritti (talk) 14:57, 28 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Middle Way I would propose a compromise: we should break this page into two. Make one for the Latin Church in Romania and another one for the Catholic Church in general as is the case for Ukraine which has Catholic Church in Ukraine (Latin Church in Ukraine and Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church). I propose this page to remain Catholic Church in Romania, but with the other one having the former infobox as well as most of the content in this article (as it speaks of the Latin Church mostly). — Barumbarumba Talk 17:18, 28 March 2023 (UTC)
 * What sources would you use for an article covering all Romanian Catholics? I suspect such an article would either be little more than a disambiguation page, or it would contain a fair amount of original research. — Biruitorul Talk 17:34, 28 March 2023 (UTC)
 * I don't know. That shouldn't be our problem, but Pbritti's. He is the one wanting to change it. I think a disambiguation page would do for the moment and the other one could just be the entire 7th January version of this page. If he wants to expand the disambiguation page and add general informations about the Catholic Church in Romania, then he is free to do it, given that he provides correct references. Barumbarumba (talk) 17:52, 28 March 2023 (UTC)
 * The article quite literally already engaged with Catholics as a whole, Latin or otherwise. You are the ones who want to change the topic of the article. Please refer to Catholic Church in the United States, Catholic Church in Poland, Catholic Church in Australia, and quite literally any other article on this topic: they all refer to the Catholic Church as a whole in the country. While emphasis is naturally going to be on the Latin Church in most nations–it has the overwhelming majority of Catholic adherents in most territories–to suggest that it's original research to discuss multiple sui iuris churches is baffling, particularly in this context. This article already notes that, administratively, Romanian Armenian Catholics are reliant on the Latin Church hierarchy. There are several well-cited points that directly discuss Byzantine Catholic community in association with the Latin Church (and vice-versa). You all are arguing to change the topic of this article from what it has been for 16 years because you don't seem to have read past the lede. ~ Pbritti (talk) 18:01, 28 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Of course, that doesn't really matter, because the whole survey was created with the intention of canvassing for support between editors who regularly coordinate. ~ Pbritti (talk) 18:03, 28 March 2023 (UTC)
 * But if you don't think this is a good idea and you decide to keep this page as it was before I'll support it. What do you think? — Barumbarumba (talk) 18:04, 28 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Well, personally I would not object to moving the January 7 version (with minor, appropriate modifications) to “Latin Church” and having “Catholic Church” as a short overview about all Romanian Catholics. I do think it’s a slight overkill, but it’s an acceptable compromise in my view. — Biruitorul Talk 18:06, 28 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Again with the canvassing. Editors fail to even acknowledge discussion from opposing view. Both of you are on notice for both the canvassing and failure to engage. ~ Pbritti (talk) 18:17, 28 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Support; it is obvious that, since its creation, the main subject of the article has been the Roman (Latin rite) Catholic Church. Meanwhile, in its current form, the article has rather become quite confusing, various information and data strictly referring to the Latin rite being (erroneously) attributed to all rites. Any addition of new content is welcome as long as it serves the clarity of the respective article, but in this case, the constant addition of new content about the Romanian Greek Catholic Church is also redundant, as long as there is already an article dedicated to this topic. For better management, the present article should remain centered on the Latin Church in Romania (and renamed as such) and eventually, a synthesis article (in order to address the Template:Catholic Church in Europe) could be created from scratch for the general Catholic Church in Romania article. A link to a document that might help: pp. 134-139. (Rgvis (talk) 08:40, 4 April 2023 (UTC)).

Break

More than thirty hours with no response and a current no consensus for reverting the edits. The minimal third-party consensus on the discussion elsewhere seems to be that there was votestacking by OP. Barring any substantive final statements, I'll fulfill the OP's request of an early-in-the-week closure. Plan is to close this discussion once it passes the one-week mark (after 11:00 UTC today). Closure doesn't preclude further discussion on this, of course, but the OP's concerns have been repeatedly addressed. ~ Pbritti (talk) 03:29, 4 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Comment — I’ve notified WikiProject Romania about the discussion, so hopefully we’ll have even more participants. If anyone can think of other projects to notify, by all means that should happen. We do seem to be moving towards a consensus, but let’s keep the discussion open until next week. — Biruitorul Talk 06:38, 29 March 2023 (UTC)
 * No, we aren't even moving towards a consensus: you canvassed for support, waited a day for those you wanted to respond to respond, then notified one relevant WikiProject (without notifying any other WikiProjects!). Clearly, you have no interest in building a consensus. Not only do we not have a consensus now—as you concede—but one is impossible in this discussion. ~ Pbritti (talk) 13:16, 29 March 2023 (UTC)
 * To address any lingering issues with the format this discussion has taken: one, it’s not canvassing for “an editor who may wish to draw a wider range of informed, but uninvolved, editors to a discussion to place a message” on an article talk page, provided the editors were not selected on the basis of their opinions — which they were not; they were selected by virtue of being the main author (1), an active editor on Romania-related pages (1) and having edited the article recently (2). Two , WP:CIV and WP:AGF are still policies in effect. Three , I’m not planning to perform some complicated acrobatics to inform an arbitrary set of people so that the discussion will pass muster with one filibustering user. I’ve informed involved and interested editors, I’ve informed a relevant WikiProject. The discussion is not secret and no one is stopping anyone else from informing any other group of editors. It’s also an obscure point on an obscure topic and simply unrealistic to expect vast participation. Perhaps next I’ll be asked to fly a banner off an airplane or buy ads on television. Four , we’ll wait until early next week, see what the consensus is and act accordingly. Any objections can be raised in further discussion. At present, there is a clear preference for rolling back these major changes and proceeding more cautiously, seeking consensus first. No big deal, really, and surely nothing to fear, if the case for the changes is so powerful. Now, I’ve said enough to all this verbiage. — Biruitorul Talk 21:10, 29 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks for finally responding. 1.) You clearly canvassed twice, first opting to ping only editors you hoped would support you in this discussion–including one with no prior recent or significant involvement on this article–without pinging the editor whose edits you disagreed with then later only raising the discussion on one WikiProject page (the same WikiProject that you drew upon to garner support). 2.) You're right, WP:CIV and WP:AGF are still in effect–which is why it is odd you described two edits that I explained in edit summaries as bizarre and strange. Instead of engaging with the policy rationale behind both those edits, you wrote them off as peculiar behavior without good-faith motives. 3.) You canvass, acquire a majority through that canvassing, canvass again, chose not to notify any other WikiProjects, then say notifying other WikiProjects would be arbitrary and that further participation is unlikely (I wonder if that's somehow related). 4.) If you try to enforce this canvassed discussion's meritless non-consensus–because, remarkably, not a single comment from you or your pinged editors has raised a point based off sourcing or policy nor did you believe we had consensus as of 06:38 UTC today–I will raise this issue at one of the relevant discussion boards. 5. Now, I’ve said enough to all this verbiage. For all your verbosity, I think the closest you came to a policy- or content-based point was calling my edits strange. ~ Pbritti (talk) 21:53, 29 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Again, to summarize the changes Biruitorul wants to make by reverting to Jan 7: 1.) reintroduce a lede and infobox that inaccurately described the article as only discussing the Latin Church (not Latin Rite Catholicism, by the way). Not only were several passages in that revision devoted exclusively to the Eastern Catholic groups (again, not just Greek-Catholics) but also passages that described relationships/commonalities between the different sui iuris churches. 2.) reintroduce a gallery of church buildings with no encyclopedic merit, which goes against WP:GALLERY. It should also be noted that some of those churches aren't Latin–it's almost as if the article was about Catholics of all stripes in Romania. 3.) remove corrected errors and properly sourced content that have not even been discussed. ~ Pbritti (talk) 22:05, 29 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Comment — just a courtesy notification that I’ve notified WikiProject Catholicism, the other WikiProject in the banners on top. Now that all relevant WikiProjects have been notified, let’s wait another week or so before pronouncing on any consensus — we do want to be sure all interested editors have a chance to voice their opinion. — Biruitorul Talk 10:36, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
 * You'll need to make a new discussion. Again, a discussion that's been canvassed like this is tainted from the get go. ~ Pbritti (talk) 15:01, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Oppose Like the dozens of similar articles, the topic of this article is the Catholic Church in Romania, not the Latin Catholic Church in Romania. It would be appropriate to have a different article about the Latin Catholic Church in Romania, if we want one. It's not appropriate to turn this article, which should cover Latin, Greek and Armenian rite Catholics into that. Jahaza (talk) 02:37, 2 April 2023 (UTC)
 * As I noted above, I’m open to that possibility, but how do you envision the structure of an article covering Romanian Catholicism as a whole? There aren’t many sources doing that (do you know of any?), so we’d more or less end up with a disambiguation page. — Biruitorul Talk 08:17, 2 April 2023 (UTC)
 * There are at least nine sources doing that, among the most academic sources in the article. ~ Pbritti (talk) 15:19, 2 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Anything that didn’t receive a nihil obstat around 1946 and reads like a Pathé newsreel voiceover? Any scholarship undertaken, let’s say, after the fall of Communism, if not the turn of the millennium? — Biruitorul Talk 16:35, 2 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Sure, among them this government source (which seems to also rely on a document linked on the page webpage which interestingly also outright disproves Barumbarumba claim that "Latin Church" isn't a term used in Romanian). The book Protestantism and Politics in Eastern Europe and Russia, a 1992 Duke University Press monograph, contains a surprising amount on Romanian Catholics including repeated reference to the Latin and Greek Catholic persecutions; I don't have access to Routledge's Central and South-Eastern Europe 2004 but take it on good-faith that its references to Latin and Greek Catholic matters are in fact present. The Preda and Bucur source briefly worried me (it's posted to what appears to be an unaffiliated and since closed hosting site) but upon further review both authors indeed contributed to scholarly volumes on the Catholic Church in Romania and this piece seems to be by them. It's a tad thin on material of all stripes, but it captures that no reference to the Catholic Church in Romania is complete without at least mention of both the Latins and the Greeks. Another great source–which was written by lauded Eastern Christian scholar Donald Attwater and received an nihil obstat but was published by the decidedly secular and well-reputed Macmillan Publishers–is the Catholic Dictionary from 1961. Especially useful is that it essentially provides a prototype for what an article on the Catholic Church in Romanian should look like: one that brings in reference to the whole of the Catholic Church in the country. I'm sure that we could find even more academic sources (in fact, I just found several in the Wikipedia Library which I'll add now!). ~ Pbritti (talk) 17:19, 2 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Considering this discussion closed with no consensus. The votestacked editors have repeated demonstrably inaccurate statements without providing explicit source-based rationale; the one source cited in the most recent comment even goes further to discount their assertions, directly commenting on multiple Catholic bodies as part of a larger grouping. ~ Pbritti (talk) 14:47, 4 April 2023 (UTC)