Talk:Catholic Church in Scotland/Archive 1

Untitled
"Roman Catholic Church" is not inaccurate, as it refers to the "Holy Roman Church" or that part of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, which is only one (but the biggest) of the 20-odd churches which owe allegiance to the Roman Pontiff. It used to be distinguished by following a Latin rite and liturgy, in distiction to some 20 other rites (Marionite, Greek, etc) - all faithfully owing allegiance to Rome (but also having their own structure, canon law, etc - allowing their priests to marry for example). (They cause the Catholic Church some problems when they emigrate to America and want to keep their own, legitemate Catholic rite). These in turn are distinct from similar rite churches, which do not acknowledge Roman primacy - the Orthodox Churches, for example - but which Rome still considers to be part of the Catholic Church, if separated. Finally, these latter are to be distinguished from other "ecclesial communities" (ie Protestants and others) that nowadays Rome keeps quiet about, to avoid giving offence. Confusing? Easier to say, as has always been the case the "Roman Catholic Church", which has the benefit of being strictly accurate as regards the Catholics in Scotland.

Quibbles

 * 1) From its content, shouldn't this article be called Catholicism in Scotland? Catholic Church in Scotland sounds like it should be only be about the institution, not about the faith in general. So, of example, you'd expect to see quite a lot about sectarian issues in a "Catholicism..." article, but much less in a "Catholic Church..." article. I'd argue there should be both articles (there's plenty of interesting things to say about the church - its organisational structure, list of leaders, and details of its education both for the clergy and for laychildren).
 * 2) The sentence "One of the issues it has had to face is sectarianism, though this is now largely restricted to education" could use something of a makeover.  I think this conflates two things: practices in the past which limited education for catholics, and the modern practice of RC primary and high schools. The difference being that the former was done to catholics, the latter done by them (I appreciate in practice it's not quite as simple as that, but the sentence could be taken to mean that catholics are excluded from mainstream schools). We are, undoubtedly, deficient in our handling of catholic education in Scotland, with only a few lines in Education in Scotland to speak of (and no mention, I think anywhere, of private RC schools). -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 13:44, 14 March 2006 (UTC)


 * I concur. But I think that in general this new article is to be very warmly welcomed as a fine start. Thank you!--Mais oui! 18:42, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree with the first point, I suppose I might as well move unless anyone has any objections? Gavin Scott (talk) 20:02, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Whitby

 * The text reads: St Columba's withdrawal to Iona
 * should it be: Coleman's withdrawl to Innis Boffin
 * ?? ClemMcGann 20:41, 10 June 2006 (UTC)


 * "Some of these were resolved at the end of the seventh century following the Synod of Whitby and St Columba's withdrawal to Iona",Colmcille was certainly withdrawn to Iona by the time of the synod, 664AD. He had been interred near the Reilig Odhráin for 67 years by then! Tagging this article for facts and citations. Brendandh 20:41, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Italians, Lithuanians and Poles
Regarding "there are significant numbers of Italian and Lithuanian ancestory and more recently Polish immigrants". Although recent Polish immigration has greatly swelled those of Polish ancestry in Scotland, there was a significant population beforehand, which this phrasing ignores. Conversely, until recent years I'm pretty sure numbers of those of Lithuanian ancestry were not at all large. Even with the immigration of the last few years I'd want to see citation that shows Lithuanians are any more significant in numbers now than Roman Catholics of other nationalities/ancestries, e.g. Spanish, French or even German and English. Mutt Lunker 19:20, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Image copyright problem with File:Bishopsconferenceofscotland.jpg
The image File:Bishopsconferenceofscotland.jpg is used in this article under a claim of fair use, but it does not have an adequate explanation for why it meets the requirements for such images when used here. In particular, for each page the image is used on, it must have an explanation linking to that page which explains why it needs to be used on that page. Please check


 * That there is a non-free use rationale on the image's description page for the use in this article.
 * That this article is linked to from the image description page.

This is an automated notice by FairuseBot. For assistance on the image use policy, see Media copyright questions. --20:27, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I've removed the image from the article. Fishiehelper2 (talk) 00:21, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Why is Scots law based upon Roman law?
A discussion on the origins of the Scottish legal system is taking place at WikiProject Scotland. Editors of this article may be able to throw light on the topic. To contribute to the discussion, please click here. References, per WP:VERIFY, would be especially welcome! Thank you in advance. --Mais oui! (talk) 08:08, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Pope Benedict will visit Scotland

 * Pope Benedict will visit Scotland - "Cardinal Keith O'Brien, the leader of Scotland's Roman Catholics, hopes that Pope Benedict XVI will address the Scottish Parliament". --Mais oui! (talk) 18:16, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Synthesised material
For an explanation as to my removal of material regarding Leo Cushley and whether the Catholic Church is at a low ebb, see Talk:Leo Cushley "The Tablet article of 21 September 2013". The editor in question has been pushing this same material at the Cushley article. The first source regards Cushley commenting on the low ebb of the church or otherwise in regard to the O'Brien scandal; the second mentions Cushley, mentions some stats on priest numbers and members which may be disappointing to the church, does not though draw a conclusion that the church is at a low ebb and does not refer to Cushley's remark about the church not being a low ebb, in regard to O'Brien or to the unrelated stats about numbers. Mutt Lunker (talk) 08:53, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

Subheadings of History
At this diff I have added subheadings to the large and indigestible mass of text under History. I have taken Matt Lunker's comments into account and hope that all is agreeable. On the Patrick issue, I didn't express it well first time around, but the original comment was based on an 1864 source which heavily over-interprets Patrick's words on the matter, simply that some "apostate Picts" existed and had enslaved his converts. I hope that the new wording is acceptable. Richard Keatinge (talk) 17:11, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Only had time to quickly scan the new wording but am happier with it, thanks. Mutt Lunker (talk) 17:54, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

moved discussion from my talk page
See below, I thought I was getting close to consensus, but appareantly not. In order to prevent an edit war, would like opinion of other WIKIpedians. The disputed sentence is

A total of 1.7 million people said they were part of the Kirk family in 2011, down from more than 2.1 million a decade earlier.

An exact copy, word for word from a news article. Grsd (talk) 13:23, 6 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Seems resolved now, Mutt Lunker reinserted the text.


 * Always good to reach consensus.
 * Grsd (talk)

This talk page has been made very confusing with the insertion of a huge passage from Grsd's talk page, not framed as a quote and no indication where it begins and ends. It misrepresents a discussion about Grsd's editing on their talk page as if held here about this article specifically. Follow this link to it instead to see their talk page discussion. I'll give the benefit of the doubt that this is a WP:COMPETENCE issue rather than anything else. Mutt Lunker (talk) 20:35, 6 April 2014 (UTC)I'll italicise it:
 * When I read the diffs and the sources myself, I was somewhat unable to draw a conclusion that "Kirk family membership" = "Church of Scotland membership" which is what you seem to want to say in this article. That is not spelled out in the source, so you are going to need an additional source which supports this interpretation. Otherwise, it seems to me that the statistic is good, although religious census information is notoriously inherently inaccurate, so yet another source that used a different method to count would be helpful to determine margin of error or range of possible values. Elizium23 (talk) 13:40, 6 April 2014 (UTC)


 * I would have been fine with leaving the Kirk family sentence as Matt Lunker left it at 1 PM, so before your addition above. However Matt Lunker reverted his own reversion so now I am confused what he wants. In this case , by the way I propose to be lenient and not apply the three-revert rule, which says that an editor must not perform more than three reverts on a single page within a 24-hour period, as he reverted his own reversion and than re-reverted his own reversion.


 * As you have read the source, please let me (us) know if the Kirk Family sententie is okay or does not qualify because it is Original Research . Thanks Grsd (talk) 18:38, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

This afternoon I was removing Grsd's repeated additions of original research and synthesis and an edit conflict with that user led to the removal then accidental re-insertion of their misrepresented material.

Grsd, you are repeatedly adding your own interpretation of Scottish census stats, or putting a different spin on interpretations given in sources. Some of your personal interpretations may have a level of validity (though often they do not) but seem to be aimed somewhat at pushing a POV and when neither stated or implied in the sources are OR or SYNTH (i.e. vandalism). Your understanding of the subject also seems somewhat lacking, for instance repeatedly confusing actual church membership with simply noting religious affiliation on a census form. Your mode of expression is often in need of copyediting or rephrasing. Mutt Lunker (talk) 20:08, 6 April 2014 (UTC)


 * I have little issues with the article after your last revisions, but please enlighten me why following had to be deleten by you..... A total of 1.7 million people said they were part of the Kirk family in 2011, down from more than 2.1 million a decade earlier. ... This had been copied word by word from the source... I honestly do not understand how this can be a spin or own interpretation. So please help me and others understand why this sentence had to be removed.  Thanks Grsd (talk) 21:17, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes, one of your edit summaries said "article is about RC church, not battle with kirk", I am not sure what you meant by this. Please explain exactly why you did not allow this sentence to stand. Elizium23 (talk) 21:20, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Simply, the edits were becoming increasingly off-topic. This article is about the Roman Catholic church, not the Church of Scotland. Grsd appears to be advancing a thesis about the decline of adherents (although they insist in mis-attributing them as actual members) of the Church of Scotland and a supposed connection with an increase (which is fairly slight and in absolute, not proportionate, terms only) in those identifying as Roman Catholic which is either not present or not the main thrust of sources cited. Cherry-picking and adding in more and more stats about another entity to advance a thesis not actually advanced by a WP:RS is highly questionable. Though the census document re Glasgow mentions that CoS adherents have dropped in numbers below those of the RC church, this is given in the context of the significant trends regarding decrease of CoS adherents and an increase in those identifying as non-religious. Nothing is framed in terms of any of these groups "dominating" in Glasgow, in the past or now and to do so is either of questionable honesty or deficient competence in understanding the source. "the kirk family" is not a clear or meaningful term. I believe that what is in that section now reflects the stats and trends as they are presented in the sources; please don't distort this with personal analysis not given in sources. Mutt Lunker (talk) 23:33, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

How much Medieval?
I have replaced the largely unsourced text in the Medieval section with about the same amount of sourced text that gives a brief summary. What is the feeling about this bit of the article? It is well covered in the articles given in links, so I was not sure it needed a lot of details here, but plenty more could be supplied. My feeling was that this article should focus mainly on (the unique aspects of) post-Reformation Catholicism.--  SabreBD  (talk ) 17:22, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Requested move 14 May 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: Not moved. There should probably be a sitewide RfC on this issue at some point, as it is coming up across multiple different countries, and the results are not consistent. However, until that happens, from the discussion here, I see a WP:LOCALCONSENSUS not to move this article. &mdash; Amakuru (talk) 12:28, 24 May 2016 (UTC)

Roman Catholicism in Scotland → Catholic Church in Scotland – To be in line with definitive rename of main article to Catholic Church, and to avoid excluding Eastern Catholic presence in the country. (Yes, they exist there, e.g. St Andrew's Ukrainian Catholic Church.)  Deus vult!  Crusadestudent (talk) 07:46, 14 May 2016 (UTC) --Relisted. — JFG talk 12:25, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
 * User:Crusadestudent : You have already been informed that "Roman Catholic" etc includes the Eastern Catholics. "Roman Catholic" does not mean "Latin Catholic" despite what some ignorant people think. You have also been informed that when the consensus process decision to rename the "Roman Catholic Church" article to "Catholic Church" was made that it was made explicitly clear that this did not mean that other articles including "Roman Catholic" in their name (or elsewhere in the articles) should also be changed due to this. Despite this you have continued to unilaterally change "Roman Catholic" to "Catholic" in various articles without first seeking any discussion or consensus to do so. It is time you stopped this unjustified and disruptive editing. Afterwriting (talk) 13:14, 14 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Despite your POV-pushing, there are uses of RC that do exclude the Eastern Churches, if you would even read the sources you refer to yourself. The most NPOV way to handle these cases is to drop the "Roman", and switch the disputed solo "Catholicism" for the community-backed "Catholic Church".   Deus vult!   Crusadestudent (talk) 18:15, 14 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Support. If it's the Catholic Church, it's the Catholic Church in Scotland too. Gulangyu (talk) 05:51, 19 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Comment You might wish to curtail statements regarding the ability to reason of other participants in the debate and the repeated sign-off that your proposition is willed by God. It does nothing to enhance your case. Mutt Lunker (talk) 11:08, 19 May 2016 (UTC)
 * "vult" doesn't have any particular direct object. You don't know what I mean by it, so please don't project.  (wait for it...  )    Deus vult!   Crusadestudent (talk) 11:33, 19 May 2016 (UTC)


 * My very point. If you are saying something here which by your own admission will or may not be understood, particularly as it is expressed in a language which is not the language of this, the English language Wikipedia, the bulk of participants here, myself included, will have a limited grasp of that language and have difficulty understanding it. What can one do but project if the comment is knowingly obscure? If you are not arrogant, dismissive or intentionally provocative, appearing so does not assist your case. Best not to place yourself in this position. Mutt Lunker (talk) 13:09, 19 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Strongly Oppose: This proposal adds unnecessary ambiguity to the article names in a country that has had a long history of religious conflict, with several denominations historically or contemporarily considering themselves fully or partially to be the true "Catholic Church". Dozens of related articles would need to be carefully and manually updated to successfully make this an article name change unambiguous and clear. There is little benefit to be gained relative to the effort involved. --Zfish118⋉talk 17:44, 19 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Various denominations consider themselves small-c "catholic" (i.e. universal). But if you ask for directions to the Catholic Church in any Scottish town, no one is confused as to which denomination you mean. Gulangyu (talk) 07:35, 20 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Oppose Current title is better description of the article as Catholic Church implies a particular organisational structure, rather than belief or practice, especially since there was no organised church for a long period of Scotland's history.--  SabreBD  (talk ) 18:30, 19 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Oppose for now. I've been looking through the archives and page histories, and it seems that the article now at Catholic Church was renamed at some stage and that rename is the subject of much subsequent discussion... does anyone have a link to that RM? How recent was the rename, and how strong was the consensus? Andrewa (talk) 12:29, 22 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Catholic Encyclopedia has a good summary of why "Roman" needs to go. Gulangyu (talk) 12:20, 23 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Are you in any way serious? Hardly a dispassionate source, or a contemporary one. Over a century later is this still the position of the church we are referring to? The usage of Roman is from "dissidents" "unwilling to recognize the claims of the One True Church"! Mutt Lunker (talk) 12:50, 23 May 2016 (UTC)
 * I checked the current edition of OED (not online). The usage note quoted in CE is still there, so the historical aspect of the entry remains valid. During the Reformation, official English usage was "Romanist" or "Papist." The term "Roman Catholic" was created as an attempt to soften a blatantly insulting term. The arguments about ambiguity and how other denominations can be considered catholic too are thus after-the-fact handwaving. Gulangyu (talk) 22:11, 23 May 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.

Post RM
Obviously a very controversial topic, and I confess that, despite my Protestant background, I'm of two minds, but tending to think that Roman is a necessary qualifier.

I certainly agree with the closer that further discussion is needed.

I note that nobody has provided the link I requested to previous discussion (it seems that the article now at Catholic Church was renamed at some stage and that rename is the subject of much subsequent discussion... does anyone have a link to that RM? How recent was the rename...).

Trying to be objective, my main concern with the current name of the Catholic Church article is that it is seriously ambiguous. The Apostles Creed for example uses some variant of the Holy Catholic Church in all of its English translations (protestant and Catholic alike... yes I leave out Roman there deliberately), and is widely understood (even within Roman Catholic circles, especially but not only since Vatican II) to refer to a larger entity than the Roman Catholic Church. At the very least they would include other churches with which they have intercommunion.

On the other hand, Catholic Church is in many other contexts understood to mean Roman Catholic Church, and is widely used as a shorthand at least.

And of course many people have a strong theological reason for wanting to go one way or the other... at least one indicated as much in the discussion above. Not easy. Andrewa (talk) 22:45, 25 May 2016 (UTC)
 * The relevant discussions took place circa 2005-2006. Archive 7 of the talk pages appears to be the start. Try here: Talk:Catholic Church/Archive 7.  I have also started an essay summarizing the main concerns, including links to the relevant discussions.  Essay is here: Catholic or Roman Catholic?. --Zfish118⋉talk 15:47, 8 June 2016 (UTC)


 * Thank you! Catholic or Roman Catholic? is particularly helpful. Andrewa (talk) 16:50, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

Blanket move
It would appear that a discussion at Talk: Roman Catholicism in Armenia, requesting a move to Catholic Church in Armenia, was widened to include a large but not all-inclusive list of similarly-titled articles. The result was to move and to apply to all similarly-named articles, including ones not listed at the discussion. This article was one of those not listed there and the decision contradicts that reached above. I have objected there on the basis that those participating above have not been notified and reverted changes made today at this article as a consequence of this blanket application. Mutt Lunker (talk) 13:02, 28 October 2016 (UTC)
 * I agree with you that the move was a bit dodgy in that none of the affected articles seems to have been duly notified, however, I think I agree with the re-name (although not given it my full consideration yet). I have been dissatisfied with the old name for years but never got round to dealing with it. Out of interest, what does the Catholic Church in Scotland actually call itself, in official sources? Mais oui! (talk) 09:33, 29 October 2016 (UTC)