Talk:Roman Catholic (term)

Short description
The previous Short description "Latin Catholic Church" is incomplete and ambiguous. Instead I've used "The Term describing the Catholic Church or its members", which is accurate and neutral. –Zfish118⋉talk 15:32, 21 October 2023 (UTC)
 * This proposed wording significantly alters the meaning, by removing any reference to Latin vs. Eastern Churches. I suggest the following: "Term describing either the Latin Church or the whole Catholic Church and their members". A shorter alternative: "Term describing either the Latin Church or the whole Catholic Church". This short description should be both concise and complete, and it should at the very least refer to both major understandings of the term. In case consensus cannot be reached, revert to previous version. Place Clichy (talk) 16:24, 22 October 2023 (UTC)
 * I agree with Place Clichy: however, sometimes the way to have a "short" description is to have a kind of hierachical one, thus avoiding "ands" and "ors". I suggest "Term used for the Catholic church, specifically all churches in communion with the Bishop of Rome, particularly those using so-called Latin liturgical rites, particularly the Roman Rite." Or go to bullet points.
 * Rick Jelliffe (talk) 03:17, 28 October 2023 (UTC)

Vague language in lead
There are several instances of inappropriately vague language in the lead (See this previous version for reference). For instance:
 * "The term Roman Catholic is sometime used to differentiate members... from other Christians...". There is no ambiguity on the primary meaning that it distinguishes Roman Catholics from non-. A well cited sentence might say that the term is "used less commonly", but the wording "sometimes" is too vague without explicit context provided by a third-party source.
 * (I don't take strong issue with the use of "sometimes" relative to secondary meaning of Latin versus non-Latin Catholics)

My intent is to make various trimming edits to address the above concerns, relative to the previous version linked above. –Zfish118⋉talk 15:59, 21 October 2023 (UTC)
 * "It is not the official name preferred by the Holy See or bishops" This statement is uncited, although a source appears to have been recently deleted. The originally quoted source notes that "Roman Catholic Church" is used in some diplomatic contexts, but is rather "disliked", making the preference language fair. Diplomatic use should be considered for expansion within the article. –Zfish118⋉talk 16:40, 21 October 2023 (UTC)
 * "but remains a popular term among both Catholics and non-Catholic." This statement is not cited; it might be read to imply popularity despite not being "preferred", so should be cited so that the third-party source's intent is clear.
 * "The last official magisterial document to use "Roman Catholic Church" was issued by Pope Pius XII in 1950." [original research?] - has an original research tag. The statement appears to be based on personal examination of Vatican documents, not attributed to a third party source who performed this research.
 * "The term "Catholic Church" is officially used by the Holy See." - This statement is not cited (specifically the wording "is officially used"). It appears to be synthesized conclusion based on the previous original research statement, as well as personal survey of recent Vatican documents.
 * ""Catholic Church" and "Catholic(s)" is also broadly reflected in most English-language academia and media." - This statement is too broad to be cited to a raw Google "Ngram". A third party source must be used to interpret and provide commentary raw data such as Ngrams. (See Roman Catholic for more commentary about the difficulty of interpreting Ngrams in this context).
 * I disagree there is any need to contrast the two meanings. The term "Roman Catholic" historical refers the Catholic Church as a whole. Its use referring to the Latin Church exclusively is a newer secondary definition. Additional sources might substantiate a statement that this secondary definition referring to the Latin Church is becoming more commonly used, but without such sources, the two definitions shouldn't be treated as equal. –Zfish118⋉talk
 * In a spirit of neutrality, I believe the lede sentence should plainly state the two major uses of the term, one next to the other, without a value judgement as to which is more important than the other. At worst, this can do no harm. The assumption you seem to be making that one usage trumps the other needs to be demonstrated. That's the only reason for the word "sometimes" in the first sentence, which cannot be understood or discussed independently from the part that mentions Latin vs. Eastern Catholics. If you don't like "sometimes... sometimes", we could write "either... or" or "historically... more recently" or any other phrasing that establishes a double meaning from the start. Place Clichy (talk) 16:44, 22 October 2023 (UTC)
 * This isn't really a matter of neutrality. The plain dictionary definition of "Roman Catholic" refers to the whole church (Webster, Oxford, Colins). The secondary definition is not shown in these dictionaries, because it is a best still a neologism with a developing literally meaning, or at worst a revisionist definition. Only Wikitionary included the secondary definition, likely influenced by its sister project here. The body of this article (specifically the section ""Roman Catholic" and "Latin Catholic"") states that the Holy See has only used "Roman Catholic" to refer to the whole church, and that "some" use it to refer specifically the Latin Church (I personally even like this newer meaning referring to the Latin Church). However, treating the two definitions as equal or nearly equal could only be done if sufficient reliable sources make such statement. Such sources do not appear to exist. –Zfish118⋉talk 13:44, 23 October 2023 (UTC)
 * I might support some phrasing of the secondary definition to say "can also" rather than "sometimes" be used to distinguish Latin from Eastern, if appropriate sources (even sources already in the article) are cited. My opposition to "sometimes" is in the primary definition. –Zfish118⋉talk 13:57, 23 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Editors might also consider the possibility that there may be different typical usage (and levels of pejorativeness) in different languages, communities and countries.
 * A member of a Uniate church with their own rite would presumably never use "Roman Catholic" to mean all churches in communion with Rome such as their own, they would use it strictly for the churches of the Roman Rite: we might expect Maronites to be in this category, and therefore Christian Lebanese in general, and therefore nth-generation Christian Lebanese immigrants to follow this usage.
 * The question is what rhetorical purpose in the source the "Roman" serves: political (like Irish anti-(Anglican-)establishment sentiments, to an extent), nationalistic (like use by Catholics with non-Latin Rites, to an extent, like Maronites), affilliatory (for people in pluralistic countries with multiple churches claiming to be Catholic, like US), doctrinal/ecclessiatical (for ultra-montanists versus conciliarists versus episcopalians versus fuzzy generalists), clarifying (for academics), for faithfulness to the source (good quoting), idiolectical (like the children of the above even if in a diaspora), inflammatory (where the writer expects the readership to have a negative view of the "Roman" even if OK with the "Catholic"), limiting (where the writer wants to exclude "Roman Catholic" from "Catholic") or unnecessary/wrong (where plain "Catholic" would be better, such as when all in communion with Rome is meant.) Rick Jelliffe (talk) 02:54, 28 October 2023 (UTC)
 * "Its use referring to the Latin Church exclusively is a newer secondary definition." Hmmm.  It does not matter what came first, does it? Some terms are not univocal, and cannot be defined as if they were.  We need to get away from demanding that everyone else's idiom matches our own.  Rick Jelliffe (talk) 03:22, 28 October 2023 (UTC)
 * People can idiomatically use words however they want. Unless the idiomatic use is widely recognized in reliable sources, such idiomatic use wouldn't belong on Wikipedia. There are clearly sources sources listed throughout the article supporting RC to refer only to the Latin Church, but only as a secondary definition. Even if this definition were predominant today, noting that this is a newer meaning of the term would be appropriate to avoid confusion, as the vast majority of sources in this article use the older meaning. –Zfish118⋉talk 11:26, 28 October 2023 (UTC)

Self-Identify
"The term Roman Catholic is used to differentiate members of the Catholic Church in full communion with the pope in Rome from other Christians who also self-identify as 'Catholic'." I'm concerned about "self-identify" in the lead sentence. I would prefer "identify", as this would cover both self-identification by the religious groups themselves, and external-identification by civil law and/or scholarly scholar as "catholic" entities. –Zfish118⋉talk 16:18, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

Uncited material
The following is was not cited, and removed from article:
 * In cases of dialogue with the churches and ecclesial communities of the west, however, who are in dialogue specifically with the Latin Church from which they derive, the term Roman Catholic is ambiguous whether it refers to the Latin Church specifically, or the entire Catholic communion, as in the dialogue with Archbishop of Canterbury Donald Coggan on 29 April 1977,
 * These exceptions prove the rule, however. The total usage by popes of "Catholic Church" rather than "Roman Catholic" is a factor of 10:1, according to the Holy See's website, and there is zero usage as such in official documents of papal magisterium in the last 66 years.
 * Fifty years after Vatican II, one third of the Catholic church's 1.2 billion members lived in the Western world. With large contingent of the hierarchy, clergy, and laity from the non-Western world had led to further distancing from the term "Roman' within Catholic circles.
 * The two earlier documents that the council stated had applied the phrase "Roman Church" to the Church itself, the church "governed by the successor of Saint Peter and by the bishops in communion with him," were the Tridentine Profession of Faith and the First Vatican Council's dogmatic constitution on faith. Not in source
 * Other examples include occasional, minor addresses or lectures, usually written by minor curial staff.
 * The name "Roman Catholic Church" is occasionally used by popes, bishops, other clergy and laity, who do not see it as opprobrious or having the suggested overtone.
 * Scholarly debate on the proper form of reference to the Catholic Church within specific contexts continues. For instance, the Catechism of the Catholic Church does not contain the term "Roman Catholic Church", referring to the church only by names such as "Catholic Church" (as in its title).
 * The last known magisterial use of "Roman Catholic Church" was Pope Pius XII in Humani generis who taught that "the Mystical Body of Christ and the Roman Catholic Church are one and the same thing". The Second Vatican Council would take a more nuanced view of this issue (Lumen gentium, 7–8).
 * As far back as 1208 the adjective "Roman" was applied to the Church "outside which we believe that no one is saved." Considerable change in this doctrine on salvation is reflected by 1965 in the conciliar Declaration on Religious Freedom of the Second Vatican Council.
 * While it typically refers to the Diocese of Rome, [clarification needed] such as in Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, it has also occurred in the context of ecumenical dialogue with dialogue partners preferring this usage

Signed –Zfish118⋉talk 14:41, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

"Roman Catholic" and "Roman Rite Catholic"
When referring to worship, the term Roman Catholic is at times used to refer to the "Roman Rite", which is not a church but a form of liturgy. The Roman Rite is distinct from the liturgies of the Eastern Catholic Churches and also from other Western liturgical rites such as the Ambrosian Rite, which have a much smaller following than the Roman Rite.

An example of this usage is provided in the book Roman Catholic Worship: Trent to today states: We use the term Roman Catholic Worship throughout to make it clear that we are not covering all forms of Catholic worship. There are a number of Eastern Rite churches that can justly claim the title Catholic, but many of the statements we make do not apply to them at all.

Compared to the Roman Rite, the other Western liturgical rites have little following. Hence, the Vatican department that deals with forms of worship (including music) in the Western Church often issues documents that deal only with the Roman Rite. Any involvement by the Holy See in questions of Eastern liturgies is handled by the Congregation for the Oriental Churches.
 * The above text (see here) has multiple issues, mostly relating to sourcing. The first paragraph is uncited. The second is at best borderline synthesis to support the uncited first paragraph. The third paragraph itself appears to be synthesis (and has been long tagged as such). Only the fourth paragraph was well cited, unambiguously used "Roman Catholic" to mean "Roman Rite", while also stating this use was rare. I consolidated this paragraph into the section above "Roman Catholic and Latin Catholic". The above middle paragraph quoting from "Trent to Today" only tangentially makes the claim, explaining it only a convention used in that source, without asserting it to be a general use. It also not not clearly distinguish "Roman Catholic" worship from "worship in the Latin Church" compared to "worship in the Roman Rite". –Zfish118⋉talk 23:48, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

Parishes and dioceses
When the term "Roman Catholic" is used as part of the name of a parish it usually indicates that it is a Western parish that follows the Roman Rite in its liturgy, rather than, for instance, the less common Ambrosian Rite, e.g. St. Dominic Roman Catholic Church, Oyster Bay, New York. The shorter term "Catholic" may also appear in parish names and "Roman Catholic" sometimes even appears in the compound name of Eastern Catholic parishes, e.g. St. Anthony Maronite Roman Catholic Church.

All Catholic parishes are part of an ecclesiastical jurisdiction, usually a diocese (called an eparchy in the canon law of the Eastern Catholic Churches). These jurisdictions are usually grouped in ecclesiastical provinces, headed by a metropolitan archdiocese. All dioceses and similar jurisdictions—Eastern and Western—come under the authority of the Pope. The term "Roman Catholic archdiocese" is formally used to refer to both Western and Eastern Churches. As of January 2009, there were 630 Roman Catholic archdioceses, Western and Eastern.
 * The above paragraph (see here) has little to say about "Roman Catholic" in particular. What it does say is pretty synthetic. The content about parish and dioceses seems off topic, and may be a hold out from a much earlier version of this article that discussed the whole of the Roman Catholic faith. –Zfish118⋉talk

Repetitive
Is it just me or does the whole article seem quite repetitive?

I also suspect that this article should generally direct users to Rick Jelliffe (talk) 00:23, 2 November 2023 (UTC)
 * The history section is pretty clearly the specific history of the meaning and use of "Roman Catholic", and is sufficiently sourced that deletion would be highly inappropriate. The "current use" section, however, has been in need of serious clean up for years. –Zfish118⋉talk 16:35, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

Latin Catholic and Eastern Catholic
The section previously title "Roman Catholic and Latin Catholic" (See Here) largely discussed Roman Catholic being used to distinguish the Latin Church from the Eastern Churches. The section titled "Views of Eastern Catholics" covered very similar material. Both have been whittled down lately to be well-sourced. Rather than have similar content scattered through the article, I combined these as "Roman Catholic and Eastern Catholic". –Zfish118⋉talk 01:01, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

Catechisms
The section on the catechisms primarily dealt with the Baltimore Catechism, which may not be representative of use in other countries. I combined that content with other content regarding American Catholic usage to avoid undue prominence. –Zfish118⋉talk 01:39, 14 November 2023 (UTC)