Talk:Nguyễn Văn Thuận

Neutrality Disputed
I have placed the neutrality and factual accuracy warning at the top of this article. It reads like something from a Diem Government newspaper in 1963, not like a Wikipedia article. It is more or less a straightforward Vietnamese Catholic propaganda piece. Writtenright 22:15, 18 September 2007 (UTC)Writtenright
 * Could you please specify the passages in the article, which seem to you as lacking neutrality? If there are some (I can not find any personal judgements in the article), they could be rewrited.Ans-mo 07:01, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I would also dispute accuracy.... ordained a priest at 12 years of age? —Preceding unsigned comment added by DavidPersyn (talk • contribs) 23:12, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

External links modified
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Use of "Roman Catholic" in the article
The article frequently refers to Cardinal Văn Thuận, his diocese, etc. as "Roman Catholic." The "Roman" qualifier is fine for distinguishing the actual see in Rome from other sees, or the Roman rite from other rites, but it's especially confusing in this article because Cardinal Văn Thuận is Vietnamese, not Roman. The article refers to him elsewhere as a Vietnamese Catholic. This is the qualifier that should be used, if any qualifier is used at all. Otherwise, he and his diocese should be called Catholic, since the official name of the organization to which he and his diocese belong is the Catholic Church. Using the "Roman" qualifier in such a nebulous way runs the risk of suggesting pejorative or political implications.

Edit: To be clear, I'm aware that a few documents from the 20th century use this qualifier in somewhat similar ways, but it is by far the less common self-designation, and is virtually nonexistent in recent decades. Broadly speaking, in English media, "Roman Catholic" is an exonym often chosen for its specific connotations. Catholics themselves, and especially Catholics outside the Anglosphere, are immensely more likely to call themselves "Catholic" than "Roman Catholic." Needless to say, Wikipedia should respect their self-designation unless there's a pressing encyclopedic interest in rejecting it.

Also, the Wikipedia article for the Catholic Church is called Catholic Church, and the "Roman Catholic Church" is only mentioned in the lede as another name by which it is known. The article itself discusses this controversy. So Wikipedia readers who aren't already familiar with the terms will be confused, since Wikipedia refers to the same entity with different names.

And one of those names only constitutes an additional adjective, which makes it seem like it's a narrower subset of the other group; after all, that's what "Vietnamese Catholic Church" generally means. It's just a regional subset of the Catholic Church proper. But "Roman Catholic Church" is used in this article to refer to the Catholic Church as a whole, since it describes Cardinal Văn Thuận as a member of it. He can't be both a Roman Catholic and a Vietnamese Catholic unless 1) he has some hitherto-unknown ancient Roman heritage; or 2) the phrase "Roman Catholic" refers to the same group as "Catholic."

Clearly, the addition of "Roman" to the name does not change its referent; it only changes the political and religious connotations. And that's essentially what Wikipedia itself says on the Catholic Church article. So the distinction would only be useful for someone who denies that the "Roman Catholic Church" is the actual Catholic Church, which is an idea only expressed in some fringe religious invective; not any kind of scholarly minority opinion. —Aminomancer (talk) 23:37, 14 April 2022 (UTC)