Talk:Lumen gentium

Merge proposal
Someone has suggested, without giving any reasons in support of his idea, that the article "Subsistit in" in Lumen Gentium be merged here.

--Ambrosius007 (talk) 11:13, 19 May 2008 (UTC) --If there is no disagreement, I will remove the merger proposal by June 8, 2008.--Ambrosius007 (talk) 15:27, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Oppose "Subsistit in" is an important concept in its own right, requiring a separate article of appropriate length, not a mere section of another article.  In view of the shortness of the Lumen Gentium article, merging the other material into it would turn it into an article on "subsistit in" but with an inaccurate title.  Lima (talk) 06:35, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Mildly Support The significance of this phrase comes from its selection by the Council fathers for this particular document. I have no major objection to a separate article continuing to exist, but the merger does make sense.ClaudeMuncey (talk) 19:06, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Oppose "Subsistit in" (SI) is a matter that the Church itself considers worthy of its own special recognition and discussion -- hence the reason why this separate article exists.  While he rest of the text of LG is a restatement of long-held ecclesial doctrines, SI is regarded by many as a novelty of Vatican II requiring frequent clarification by those who argue it is not a novelty. It is a on-going dispute in a way that nothing else in LG is (or was). patsw (talk) 01:00, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Strongly Oppose This is a very important RC topic, which needs more meat, better linking and better wording  and additions. There also have been new publications shedding important light on this issue see Sebastian Tromp--Ambrosius007 (talk) 11:13, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Strongly Oppose. This is a major topic in all ecumenical discussion.  It is, however, only one of many, many topics covered in Lumen Gentium.EastmeetsWest (talk) 02:20, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Gérard Philips
There should maybe be an article about Belgian theologian Gérard Philips, since he generally thought to have been the original ghost writer behind Lumen Gentium, having composed the first draft. ADM (talk) 13:50, 17 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Actually, the first draft was composed by a committee. For example, Yves Congar was the primary author of the first draft of sections 1-8 (in Chapter 1) and sections 9, 13, 16, and 17 (in Chapter 2).  According to Congar, Philips did write more than any other single person, and he may deserve an article, but it would be an oversimplification to call him the author.  And the term ghost writer isn't really appropriate; the authors' names were never publicized, but neither was it a secret that the bishops didn't do most of the writing themselves.  In fact, it was well known during the council that the periti (including Yves Congar, Henri de Lubac, Karl Rahner, Joseph Ratzinger, Willy Onclin, Joseph Lecuyer, and many more) were doing most of the actual writing of the documents.  The bishops debated the theoretical content while their periti composed most of the text at the direction of the bishops -- but it was only later that Catholic scholars learned some details of who wrote which parts. &mdash; Lawrence King ( talk ) 01:05, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Separate article for the Nota explicativa praevia
Lumen Gentium's Nota explicativa praevia has its own article. There is a discussion about whether this article -- Nota Praevia -- should be kept as it is, renamed, or merged into the Lumen Gentium article. If any editors have an opinion, please chime in at Talk:Nota Praevia &mdash; Lawrence King ( talk ) 22:30, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Title case?
An editor today replaced Lumen Gentium with Lumen gentium in the body of this article (and others). I reverted the change here because it is not consistent with the title of this article. If the latter form is preferred, there needs to be a discussion about moving (renaming) the article here first.--Srleffler (talk) 01:51, 13 February 2015 (UTC)
 * It was my intention to have the article title conform to the incipit. My requests to make this change have been accepted as non-controversial in many other articles.  As a test, I made the request in the form for potentially controversial moves when getting Pacem in Terris changed to Pacem in terris, as can be seen here.  If User:Srleffler, whose reaction was of course quite natural, does not oppose (and if nobody else objects), I will make a similar request in non-controversial form for a move to Lumen gentium.  If there are objections, I will of course follow the path for controversial moves.
 * As reverted, the body of this article displays a non-uniform mixture of "Lumen Gentium" and "Lumen gentium". The actual incipit is Lumen gentium''.  Esoglou (talk) 08:34, 13 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't have a strong objection to the change. I reverted just due to the inconsistency between the article title and the text. It's not necessarily true though that we should follow the form of the incipit. If Lumen Gentium is typically treated as a proper name for this work, then in English it would be correct to capitalize both words. Hopefully some other editors will opine on the change; it would be good to have input from others who are familiar with the subject matter.--Srleffler (talk) 03:30, 14 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, as you say, English writers often capitalize both words, treating the phrase as a title. But they don't always: see, for instance, here; here; here; here; here.  It isn't really a title.  The title of the document is "Dogmatic Constitution on the Church".  It is an incipit, like Gloria in excelsis Deo (which, I presume, some think of as Gloria in Excelsis Deo), and like the arias La donna è mobile, Nessun dorma, Ombra mai fu, Una furtiva lagrima, Vesti la giubba ...  This article uses both "Lumen Gentium" and "Lumen gentium".  I am not saying that either is wrong, but a choice has to be made between the two forms.  Where the question has been discussed before, here and here, there has been a decided consensus in favour of treating such names on Wikipedia as incipits, not as titles.  If you maintain your not strong objection, I will go through the process here too of having it discussed again.  Do you maintain it?  Esoglou (talk) 08:27, 14 February 2015 (UTC)
 * If nobody else complains, go ahead and request a non-controversial page move.--Srleffler (talk) 18:41, 14 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I'll do that.  Esoglou (talk) 21:14, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

Bishop Butler's commentary on Vatican II
Must this be seen as an unreliable source, given the stature of Christopher Butler, one of the most influential bishops at Vatican II, who is writing his reflections on this website? Jzsj (talk) 03:15, 25 September 2019 (UTC)
 * WP:SPS stipulates that Self-published sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications. Upon investigation, I would say that 'vatican2voice.org' meets this kind of requirement, and we can safely consider it to be reliable for this kind of subject matter. Elizium23 (talk) 03:23, 25 September 2019 (UTC)