Talk:Richard Rohr

Untitled
Hello everyone interested in Richard Rohr and his bio on Wikipedia ! I just came across this article from the point of knowing Richard quite well and having translated his talks and works into my language. I do believe that the article has most of the facts right but fails to convey the core of his efforts/teaching. Especially the "Richard’s Responses to Common Accusations by His Detractors" seems rather counterproductive in putting accent on confrontational topics - which is the exact opposite of what Richard does.

I would like to propose a change here and discuss this with everyone interested before attempting any edits here.

Regards

Tomas Svoboda (SvobodaT)

Svobodat (talk) 13:22, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree. Needs more content on his thought and activities. I added tags to this effect at the top of the article. Hugetim (talk) 20:27, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Reverted... He isn't a 'gay propagandist' although, yes, he has liberal (Catholic) views about homosexuality. I've met him, done a retreat with him, read half a dozen of his books, heard him speak publicly a dozen times and on CD etc. about 50 times...

Ron Cameron 03:57, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

And reverted on the same topic again

Ron Cameron 00:58, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Removed reference to non-biographical article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by PhxCatholic (talk • contribs) 22:35, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Rohr's associations with "New Ways Ministry" mark him as having been a supporter of perhaps the most notorious "Catholic" ministry accepting active homosexuality. "New Ways Ministry" is definitely inconsistent with the Catholic faith: it was investigated by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and after its leaders refused to express personal agreement with the moral truth that homosexual acts are sinful, they were subsequently restricted never to do ministry again to same sex attracted people, Fr Nugent agreed to this condition, Sr Jeannine Grammick refused, transferred to a different religious order, and continues in active dissent last I was aware. Rohr gave a presentation to a "New Ways Ministry" conference in 1997 in which he detailed incorporating male nudity and emotionally intimate sessions of touching in his men's retreats, in fact he gives an impression of this as a favorite aspect of the retreats: http://www.lospequenos.org/RohrDossier/Material/15.1%20Coloring%20Outside%20the%20Lines.pdf Rohr's connections with groups dissenting from the Catholic faith is abdundantly documented, not only "New Ways Ministry" but Call to Action, Soulforce (a group that tries to pressure Christians to approve of active homosexuality), etc. Unambiguously, he has been a public supporter of groups well known precisely for promoting beliefs at odds with the Catholic faith, while claiming to be Catholic. Fr Rohr is reported to have presided at a homosexual "wedding" in 1996, which earned him a reprimand from the bishop: http://www.lospequenos.org/RohrDossier/Sections/Section3.htm Richard Rohr continues to be a controversial figure within the Catholic Church, as evidenced by the numerous published criticisms by Catholics of his teaching and activities. Rohr's past association with various groups dedicated to dissent against Catholic teaching, most notably in regards to the sinfulness of homosexual behavior, seems to be well established fact which has been widely editorialized. --Elizdelphi (talk) 04:14, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

He certainly passes the Duck test. 78.151.25.227 (talk) 04:32, 26 May 2016 (UTC)

I'm not a super experienced editor in Catholic wiki pages, but is it common to ignore all of a person's life and work in favor of a summation of their position on homosexuality? If not, this article needs a lot of work. If so, that reflects poorly on Catholicism. 2601:85:4500:2F22:167:E601:942C:ED93 (talk) 00:51, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

BLP Noticeboard notification
Due to the current editing dispute with this article - and my concerns about another editor's apparent personal agenda - I have brought it to the attention of the BLP Noticeboard at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard#Richard_Rohr_article I would invite the other editor to also discuss matters there. Anglicanus (talk) 08:57, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Tagged for POV, OR, and primary sources
I have tagged this article for multiple issues. Another editor has been systematically removing or burying negative points of view on Rohr in violation of WP:NPOV. There is analysis presented which is not supported by the cited references, and I have tagged inline a few instances of this as WP:OR. Those cited references are WP:PRIMARY and should not be used for analysis, and not used at all if reliable secondary sources are available. Elizium23 (talk) 20:27, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I have added a tag for conflict of interest due to the single-purpose account who may be closely associated with Rohr. Elizium23 (talk) 20:38, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Thank you for removing the POV tag. I did not intend for it to stay if my proposed changes to the article were retained. The editor above seems keen to remove them, so we will wait and see what the next revision of the article looks like, and whether the tag should make a return, at which point I can spell out my objections if Anglicanus so desires. Elizium23 (talk) 04:13, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I am clearly new to the editing process and procedures for Wikipedia, and I have had limited time to learn, for example, how to even participate in Talk. I am planning to make some edits soon to address the problems Elizium23 has raised and hope to do so in a way that honors the Wikipedia guidelines. Thank you for your patience and understanding.Dmckee2020 (talk) 21:17, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

Review
In a review of The Divine Dance: The Trinity and Your Transformation, Fred Sanders remarks that "What you have to notice is that this book that claims to be about the Trinity is relentlessly committed to averting your focus from the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit... this book doesn’t contain sound Christian doctrine."

It is objected on grounds of WP:WEIGHT, which is confusing, because it is one source condensed into one sentence. It is remarkable that editors would strive to keep such information out based on invalid grounds such as these. 2600:8800:1880:91E:5604:A6FF:FE38:4B26 (talk) 19:50, 25 May 2018 (UTC)
 * You have an overly simplistic understanding of WP:WEIGHT. There is much more to WP:WEIGHT than how many words or sentences are contained in the edit. What makes this one source of criticism that you select representative of the consensus of opinions about Rohr's works? That's a violation of WP:WEIGHT. 173.209.178.244 (talk) 19:55, 25 May 2018 (UTC)
 * No, in fact you violate WP:WEIGHT by not allowing any criticism at all. Where is the current criticism in the article? You cite WP:CHERRY: let's read it?


 * ''Often the main tool of a coatrack article is fact picking. Instead of finding a balanced set of information about the subject (positive and negative), a coatrack goes out of its way to find facts that support a particular bias. As such, fact picking is a breach of neutral point of view by a failure to assign due weight to viewpoints in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources.


 * ''A common fact picking device is listing great numbers of individual people's quotes criticizing the nominal subject, while expending little or no effort mentioning that the criticism comes from a small fraction of people. That small fraction thus gets a soapbox that is far larger than reality warrants.


 * ''Even though the facts may be true as such, the proportional volume of the hand-picked facts drowns other information, giving a false impression to the reader.


 * The article's current state violates WP:WEIGHT and WP:NPOV due to its whitewashed state, and you militate against any change in a balanced and neutral direction by denying even a small paragraph of criticism. 2600:8800:1880:91E:5604:A6FF:FE38:4B26 (talk) 20:01, 25 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Take a couple of minutes to read the article. It is a summary of Rohr's life and ideas, not a critique of his ideas. If you want to add criticism to the article, it needs to reflect the consensus of opinions about his ideas, not just one person that you subjectively select. 173.209.178.244 (talk) 20:05, 25 May 2018 (UTC)
 * That is not how WP:WEIGHT works. We do not have to immediately distill every WP:RS into information for the article. We can take the sources and use them as they become available and as we have the opportunity. Your vision of the article without "critique of his ideas" is antithetical to Wikipedia's aims. We summarizes reliable secondary sources. 2600:8800:1880:91E:5604:A6FF:FE38:4B26 (talk) 20:08, 25 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes that's how WP:WEIGHT works, and it is not "antithetical to Wikipedia's aims". But I can see that the two of us likely will not come to a resolution of this issue. Please wait for a consensus before restoring your edit. Thank you. 173.209.178.244 (talk) 20:11, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

I read the whole article and I believe that the inclusion of criticism like the one in the proposed/reverted edit is not at all undue. If the article were larger we'd have a whole section on criticism because that's one of the things a biographical article about a scholar should have. The only question is whether this specific critique is the right one for this article. Presumably there were a lot of book reviews of Trinity. Was Fred Sanders giving the equivalent of a fringe view? (NOTE: Just a minority view isn't fringe. We could say "Although most reviews of Trinity focused on X, Fred Sanders said Y.")  The quote seems to be consistent with Wikipedia policy and contribute enough value to the article to be worth the space it takes up, so is there any specific reason not to use it? Darkfrog24 (talk) 11:35, 26 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your input . I should point out that stand-alone criticism sections are frowned upon because they attract excess (usually negative) and lack of balance. If the critique of Rohr's views was limited to one comment from one source, I would agree completely that the question becomes whether that source (and that comment) is the best choice. But the more relevant question is, are the criticisms in the article balanced. In this case "balanced" doesn't mean equal weight for every point of view. It means that what's in the Wikipedia article reflects the consensus of opinions about Rohr; this is the overarching theme of WP:WEIGHT, and a point that has been brushed aside in the previous discussion. A single comment from a single source can rarely reflect consensus of opinion. In this case, it is terribly one-sided. Before the Sanders information was added to the article, the article generally was just a summary of Rohr's life and ideas. Adding Sanders introjects criticism (not a bad thing per se), but is grossly unbalanced and a violation of WP:WEIGHT. 75.182.115.183 (talk) 21:56, 26 May 2018 (UTC) Full disclosure: I am the same person as 173.209.178.244, but editing from a different computer.

PR
This is not encyclopedic but is rather PR. Moved here in case the source can be used to generate encyclopedic content

Rohr is a contributing editor and writer for Sojourners magazine and a contributor to Tikkun magazine and the Huffington Post. He has been a featured essayist on NPR's "This I Believe," a guest of Mehmet Oz on the Oprah and Friends radio show, and a guest of Oprah Winfrey on Super Soul Sunday. He was one of several spiritual leaders featured in the 2006 documentary film ONE: The Movie and was included in Watkins' Spiritual 100 List for 2013. Rohr has given presentations with such spiritual leaders as Rob Bell, Cynthia Bourgeault, Joan Chittister, Shane Claiborne, James Finley, Laurence Freeman, Thomas Keating, Ronald Rolheiser, Jim Wallis, and the Dalai Lama.

-- Jytdog (talk) 22:35, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

Unsourced
Moved here per WP:PRESERVE. Per WP:BURDEN please do not restore without finding reliable sources, checking the content against them, citing them, and checking overall for WP:WEIGHT.

Scripture as liberation, the integration of action and contemplation, incarnational mysticism, community building, peace and social justice issues, male spirituality, the Enneagram of Personality, and eco-spirituality are among the many subjects addressed in Rohr's writings and teaching. He founded the international movement known as Men As Learners & Elders (M.A.L.E.s), which focuses on ritual and rites of passage to encourage men to greater spiritual consciousness. In 2013, Illuman took on the mission of continuing and expanding the M.A.L.E.s programs.

- Jytdog (talk) 22:36, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

Unclear writing
What does this paragraph mean? It is murky and obscure. "Bryce Sibley writes that Rohr asserts that God holds both the masculine and the feminine together rather than either or binary dualistic thinking and criticizes ecumenical religious rituals that focus on rules rather than the paramount centrality of relationship with God, and neighbor." NaySay (talk) 22:05, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

Unbalanced
I'm not very familiar with Rohr outside of a few quotes, which is why I looked him up here. However, I can't help but feel this article is extremely unbalanced. Basically half of it is devoted to quotes from people who don't like him, and the reader is forced to wonder how and why he has become "one of the most popular spirituality authors and speakers in the world" if everyone hates him so much! I recommend the Criticism section be trimmed some (not completely obviously, but not all these quotes are needed) and/or quotes from people who actually like him be added to explain the attraction he has for some people. The biography section itself could probably also be expanded and improved assuming there are more refs out there. For instance: Has he done anything notable other than write and endorse Soulforce? The lead says he's a speaker so I assume he's spoken somewhere. Has he taught anywhere? Is he still a Franciscan friar? What is his involvement with the church? Hopefully an editor with more knowledge can improve the page to tell a reader about him, and not just quote from people who hate him. 2600:1700:A240:7010:11D7:CD7:5EC9:9B86 (talk) 15:00, 27 October 2021 (UTC)
 * If you think he has some reception, then WP:PROVEIT. See the past NPOV and COI discussion. The material of the section is sourced and there isn't a point in watering down the criticism for the reasons you mentioned. And selectively including reception of Rohr's fringe writings is WP:FALSEBALANCE. WikiLinuz  ( talk ) 18:14, 27 October 2021 (UTC)