Talk:United States Conference of Catholic Bishops/Archive 1

Departments
The list of departments and offices seems kinda, um, odd. Links to general topics like Liturgy and Human Resources seem not very useful. I think we should shorten it to a select list of departments, limiting it to only those that have a Wikipedia article, such as the North American College and the movie rating office (who's name escapes me at the moment). Gentgeen 08:53, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject class rating
This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 16:15, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Committee for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs
Information on the Committee for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, which is apparently one of the most important departments within the USCCB, would very much be welcome. ADM (talk) 22:04, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I started looking into this, and there are other committees and functions missing as well. The reason is that   the Departments section shows the organization chart from this USCCB page.  It might be more interesting, and show more of the work rather than the structure, to show the committees and functions similar to this related USCCB page, maybe without the names of the chairs.  Any comments?  Chuckiesdad/Talk/Contribs 22:46, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Internal politics of the conference
It would be interesting if the article could try to explain why the USCCB is commonly thought to have left-leaning politics, with some commentators tying it to an old-stock Democratic Party background going as far back as the 1880s during the Progressive Era. This relationship is thought to have reached a high point with the 1960s Kennedy administration. It all started to change though in the 1980s, with many American bishops being on friendly terms with the pro-life Republican administration of Ronald Reagan. I saw that there is already an article on Catholicism and American politics, the only thing would be to explain how the USCCB article is related to the politics article. Another separate matter would be to explain ideological tensions between far-left and far-right Catholics within the conference itself, for instance in different magazines like National Catholic Reporter and The Remnant. ADM (talk) 05:48, 11 April 2009 (UTC)


 * The USCCB has its roots in the National Catholic War Council (later the National Catholic Welfare Council). The National Catholic War Council proposed the Bishops' Program of Social Reconstruction, a progressive program for social reform.  The Catholic social justice movement was strong in latter part of the 19th century and the early part of the 20th century.  The USCCB is conservative in matters such as abortion but I can imagine that it would be more progressive in matters of social justice.  We should elaborate on this part of its history.  --Richard (talk) 18:40, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Irish and Hispanics
A related socio-political issue would be to examine the ethnic representativity of bishops within the USCCB's leadership. I think that there is a case to be made that the Irish have a disproportionate amount of bishops, while the Hispanics have disproportionately few bishops, something which could create a bit of cultural alienation in the context of language-preservation efforts by Hispanophones. In the 19th century, there was a similar ecclesiastical rivalry between the Irish and the French, and the Irish ultimately won that dispute and began to culturally assimilate French-speaking parishes. I also noticed that comparatively few Hispanic bishops were involved in the recent sex abuse crisis, which could give them a cultural advantage in the current anti-abuse climate. There is a similar ethnic issue in the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, which as traditionally been divided among Irish and French elements. ADM (talk) 05:32, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Cooperation with other episcopal conferences
The article should also explain to what extent the USCCB cooperates with other episcopal conferences. A common criticism of episcopal conferences is that they tend to become ecclesiastically and theologically isolated, a bit like the cultural isolation found in the autocephalous Churches of the Eastern Orthodox Church. It should try to show the collegial work done with other groups such as the CELAM, the CCCB, the ECBC, the SACBC, etc. ADM (talk) 06:27, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Pre-WW1 organizations
I don't think it's really appropriate to cite pre-WW1 organizations such as the plenary councils of Baltimore in the USCCB article, because those were just local synods that had very little to do with the modern concept of episcopal conferences. Strictly speaking, the early history of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops begins in the 1920-1960 period, where associations of bishops were founded that effectively took on the role of episcopal conferences after such organizations were approved by the Roman Curia in the 1960s, during the time of the Second Vatican Council. ADM (talk)
 * Agreed. The first 3 subsections of History (thru Plenary Council of Baltimore) would fit better in other historical articles, and don't establish any basis for a national association.  The National Catholic War Council, or possibly National Catholic Welfare Council, seems a more natural start for the History section regarding a national conference. Chuckiesdad/Talk/Contribs 23:02, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

National Catholic War Council and National Catholic Welfare Council
For the benefit of whoever will be tackling the new article, there are existing articles on the National Catholic War Council and the National Catholic Welfare Council. The latter is referenced as the main article for a section on the National Catholic Welfare Conference in the article on Catholic Church and politics in the United States. Eagle4000 (talk) 05:09, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Oops, I just noticed these articles are already referenced earlier in the discussion. Sorry. As they say, "Never mind ...." Eagle4000 (talk) 05:41, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

2 articles have several identical sections in common
The article on History of Roman Catholicism in the United States and the article on Catholic Church and politics in the United States have several identical sections in common, including "Catholic Worker Movement", "National Catholic Welfare Conference", and "1930s" .... Eagle4000 (talk) 05:37, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
 * If you have a handle on the overlap, maybe you could propose a section merger in one direction or the other to attract some comments and interested editors? If you're not familiar with the process, the templates are {mergeto} and {mergefrom}, or drop a note on my talk page.  Regards, Chuckiesdad/Talk/Contribs 17:16, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't have a "handle on the overlap", but if you need help, I'd be happy to pursue your suggestion of proposing a section merger. I'm not familiar with the process; how would I go about using the templates you cite? I don't have time today, but I'll look at section merger when I can find some time. In the meantime, any advice you can offer would be welcome. Eagle4000 (talk) 17:29, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

National Federation of Priests' Councils
There is a parallel association for priests in the United States which is known as the National Federation of Priests' Councils. Because it has often dealt with its episcopal superiors within the USCCB, I think it probably deserves to have a stub of sorts within this encyclopedia. ADM (talk) 14:05, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I think it's worth an article. News coverage has been scant, but the body has done some significant behind-the-scenes work, and there's enough depth of coverage in publications and websites to establish notability, I believe.  If you want to start an article, I have some time to assist thru Jan 3, just drop me a note.  Let's include some refs and notability assertions in the first draft so a quick-trigger deletionist doesn't speedily delete it.  Regards, Chuckiesdad/Talk/Contribs 21:10, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Stub started. Chuckiesdad/Talk/Contribs 05:33, 3 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Okay, thanks for creating that entry. I read it and it looks good. ADM (talk) 05:36, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Proposed merge of National Pastoral Initiative for Marriage into this page
I'm proposing that the article at National Pastoral Initiative for Marriage be merged into this article. At present, the 'Pastoral initiatives' section of this article only has one line, referring to the NPIM and marked as unsourced, and the NPIM article is short and lacking in third-party sources. Carminowe of Hendra (talk) 21:03, 24 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I think it's a good idea. If the initiative were to take on new substantial activity, it could be separated out again; meanwhile, though I'm not sure it's a pastoral initiative or not (and I will broaden the section head accordingly), I'm heading toward adding the USCCB birth control initiative here, now; and they seem to go together fine. 18:19 Post script: I realize that there must have been more than these now-two initiatives by the Conference. I'm hoping the section provides a good place to move toward more comprehensive coverage. Swliv (talk) 19:24, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

For newbies, is the USCCB the top official Bishop's organization in the USA? Or some splinter group?
How would one know, from this article? It claims that "all" Bishops in the US belong, but do they really? By order of whom, the Pope? If so, say so. Are they all active in it? Do they support its conclusions? On everything? How are those conclusions reached? From the Pope down, or from the grassroots bishops up? Is disagreement allowed? Tolerated? Encouraged? As written, this anodyne article tells very little that is useful to the average lay reader. Benefac (talk) 18:48, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

A. The USCCB is the recognized Episcopal conference of bishops for the United States of America. FullfillC21 (talk) 12:52, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

Added section for Religious Liberty
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Conference_of_Catholic_Bishops#Religious_Liberty FullfillC21 (talk) 12:52, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

Move "National Right to Life Committee (1968–73)" from History section
With these edits of May 2014 a new sub-section on the National Right to Life Committee was added to the history section. These edits leave the misleading impression that the NRLC was one of the precursors of the USCCB (as are all the other entities under the history section) rather than one of its affiliates. In the interest of historical accuracy, this sub-section should either be moved or deleted. If it is moved, the present relation with the USCCB should be clarified. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 01:11, 21 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Hearing no comment, I've moved this section to the heading Initiatives; it probably still needs some editing to fit in properly. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 17:54, 24 June 2018 (UTC)