User talk:Andrewa/Naming conventions (Catholicism)

Why this page
See Talk:Roman Catholic Diocese of Helsinki. Andrewa (talk) 01:23, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

As our article on Christian denomination points out, the Catholic Church does not see itself as a denomination. So I suppose we should be grateful they don't want to move the pages currently at Christian Church and Church and redirect those titles to Catholic Church too. Or maybe that's next? But see below. Andrewa (talk) 22:20, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

My interest has been revived by discussion at Talk:Catholic Church art. Andrewa (talk) 21:06, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

Some principles
Keep it simple, keep it short. As concise as possible.

Disclose and respect our various POVs. I can't completely escape my loyalty to the Protestant tradition of which I am part, and neither can the many members of the Catholic Church, who have an obvious interest in these issues and knowledge to contribute. But if we can come to a consensus, it will be a good one. Andrewa (talk) 23:13, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

Other interesting pages
and many many more I'm sure. Andrewa (talk) 01:33, 18 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Talk:Catholicity/Archive 6 and other parts of this archive page
 * Talk:Catholic (term)
 * Page history of Catholic
 * Catholicity
 * Catholicism
 * Catholic (disambiguation)
 * My own POV (off this Wiki)
 * My own POV (off this Wiki)

Some lateral thinking
Could we make an exception to the rule on the for contentious names that can be resolved by an initial capital letter? Would The Catholic Diocese of Helsinki be more acceptable than Roman Catholic Diocese of Helsinki?

Probably not, but is there a better workaround? Andrewa (talk) 05:13, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

Some previous discussions
This issue has come up again at Talk:Catholic Church art, and a centralised discussion suggested.

I have linked there to several relevant past proposals and discussions, and list them again here:
 * Proposed naming conventions (Catholic Church) tagged as a failed proposal following an RfC
 * Wikipedia talk:Proposed naming conventions (Catholic Church) contains the RfC closed as Consensus was reached to reject the proposal, 6 October 2017
 * User:Vaquero100/CC vs. RCC last edited by the user in 2006
 * User talk:Vaquero100/CC vs. RCC last edited in 2007
 * User:Pseudo-Richard/Names of the Catholic Church last edited by the user in 2012
 * User talk:Pseudo-Richard/Names of the Catholic Church last edited in 2009
 * WikiProject Catholicism/Terminology a misplaced discussion page, last significant edit for this issue 2015 (the four subsequent editors may disagree!)
 * Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Catholicism/Terminology consists of just the WikiProject banner

and I have asked there whether I missed any but as yet none have been forthcoming.

It has been strongly suggested there that the first (Proposed naming conventions (Catholic Church)) should be further discussed on its talk page. This seems to me pointless, as the RfC which rejected it is less than a year old. Similarly, the three other pages listed are older than this failed proposal, and were presumably considered at the time of the RfC as editors involved in discussing those pages also contributed to the RfC. New input is required.

I do not intend to propose this essay as a guideline as it stands. But I think the points it raises need to be considered in any new proposal, and hope it would be useful in that way. Any new proposal should also be as short and concise as possible, and based on the experience of the previous discussions listed above. Andrewa (talk) 21:42, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

Two POVs to avoid
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13121a.htm was cited in the RM on Catholic Diocese of Helsinki. It states in part:

''Roman Catholic: A qualification of the name Catholic commonly used in English-speaking countries by those unwilling to recognize the claims of the One True Church. Out of condescension for these dissidents, the members of that Church are wont in official documents to be styled "Roman Catholics" as if the term Catholic represented a genus of which those who owned allegiance to the pope formed a particular species. It is in fact a prevalent conception among Anglicans to regard the whole Catholic Church as made up of three principal branches, the Roman Catholic, the Anglo-Catholic and the Greek Catholic. As the erroneousness of this point of view has been sufficiently explained in the articles CHURCH and CATHOLIC, it is only needful here to consider the history of the composite term with which we are now concerned...''

In my view of course this is divisive, POV and rather arrogant... my church (the Uniting Church in Australia) uses the phrase holy catholic church (sometimes even Holy Catholic Church) to refer to the Church universal of which we consider ourselves part, as do many other churches not part of the Roman Catholic, the Anglo-Catholic and the Greek Catholic.

But my POV would be equally arrogant to many, and even if not, does not belong in the article namespace any more than that POV does. Andrewa (talk) 15:21, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

Possible new proposal name
I suggest Naming conventions (Catholicism), to match WikiProject Catholicism, as the eventual name.

But it should not be a subpage of WikiProject Catholicism. This is in order to minimise the risk or even suggestion of local consensus.

In order to avoid unnecessary dispute, it should first be developed and discussed at another name, and added to Category:Wikipedia naming conventions proposals until its adoption. This exact name is unimportant but the intended name if adopted (such as Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Catholicism)) should be clearly stated above the page lead. Andrewa (talk) 22:14, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

But see this contribution. Andrewa (talk) 21:31, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

It's also arguable that a proposal in the project namespace should have the word proposal in its name, see ''22:28, 22 October 2017‎ Zfish118 (talk | contribs | block)‎. . (86 bytes) (+86)‎. . (Zfish118 moved page Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Catholic Church) to Wikipedia:Proposed naming conventions (Catholic Church) over redirect: renamed to reflect status)''. However Category:Wikipedia naming conventions proposals contains many non-current naming conventions without names that reflect status, so I do not see the problem.

See Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Catholicism). Andrewa (talk) 23:15, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

The task is daunting
There are many thousands of incoming links to the redirect at, and I have not even attempted to count the number of articles whose title starts Roman Catholic....

All of these articles are potentially affected by this discussion. Andrewa (talk) 15:18, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Relatedly, please see this list for convenience: User:Grabado/List. Chicbyaccident (talk) 12:00, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

Merge proposal
It is complicated enough as it is. I suggest merging this article into Naming conventions (Catholicism)l in order to proceed in a collaborative draft effort as early as possible. Chicbyaccident (talk) 10:19, 27 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Just for a start, it's not an article, nor a proposal for one.
 * And frankly, there is so much else wrong with the current version that I don't know where to start. I'll see when I can give it some time. Rather busy with other things at present. Andrewa (talk) 10:51, 27 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Well, even a rough intervetion would be welcome to that common location, better than nothing at all. In the end, this will have to be collective project anyway Chicbyaccident (talk) 20:29, 27 August 2018 (UTC)