Talk:Canon law (Catholic Church)

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Contents 1 Article creation 2 changes made 3 Page rename 4 Bracketed article naming

[edit] Article creation

This article was created on May 13th, 2006 with material moved from the article, Canon law which at this time will remain a general article on the subject.

As I am able to have time, it I will be filling out the additional sections listed here:

• Major divisions of canon law
  • Religious life
  • Orders
  • Marriage/Annulments
  • Sacraments

If you have any suggestions or thoughts for these articles, please let me know. --Vaquero100 19:49, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] changes made

THis material was removed for two reasons. First, it doesn't belong here. Second, it isn't true. There are lots of faculties of canon law, not just the Gregorian, and just as many, or more, canonists in the US (for instance) from CUA. The Angelicum is as widely known. Why the peroration on the fantasticality of the Greg. in the middle of this article is beyond me. There are also an awful lot of cardinals who have never earned a degree from the Greg. Finally, plenty of canonists practice in diocesan and metropolitan tribunals having never been "admitted to the bar" of the Signatura, which is a lawyer's court for disputes among Roman dicasteries -- the Rota is where the vast majority of cases wind up in any event.HarvardOxon 20:51, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Page rename

Andrew c (talk • contribs) unilaterally moved this page to a different name, giving as the reason The title used in wikipedia's main article is RCC. Unless that changes, these pages should reflect that consensus. It's not clear how that reason is relevant here. The article CC redirects to RCC, and as this was determined by a specific vote, it could be argued that it is the consensus view that CC and RCC are interchangeable. It's also not clear how the naming of this article relates to the so-called "main article." Furthermore, discussions at RCC have generally agreed that in the specific topic of "Catholic Church and Canon Law", "Catholic" is not ambiguous and does not need modification with "Roman." Therefore I ask that the move be reverted, ideally self-reverted by Andrew. Gimmetrow 16:02, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

I have reverted the last move of this article because it was done without due process. At the very least, this requires a discussion on the talk page. If this kind of unilateral action continues, it will have to be reported. Vaquero100 16:13, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

While I'm thinking of it, an anon added a lot of content to Canon law, such that now the "summary" there is about as big as the article here. Suggest it be reduced back to a summary with content merged here. Gimmetrow 16:27, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Vaquero's reversion has been re-reverted by MacGyverMagic (talk • contribs). The redirect at Canon law (Catholic Church) was deleted for some reason, causing confusion. To avoid a move war I am listing this on requested moves for comment. Gimmetrow 15:14, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

The article should not be at Canon law (Roman Catholic Church)

• In the context of Canon law, there is no real confusion about what Catholic Church means
• Insisting on Roman in this context appears to push a POV where none is needed
• Moves away from the original name were done without discussion, and apparently out-of-process.
• Parenthetical elements in titles are generally undesirable.

It also seems odd to maintain the disputed name during a dispute. Gimmetrow 15:14, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

• Seeing as both names are disputed by some party, I think keeping it here while we're talking this out is appropriate to do. I moved this because Vaquero100 has been moving around pages removing the word "Roman" without any kind of discussion. The Catholic encyclopedia linked in this article [1] mentions several other Catholic denominations. Right now, the article only mentions the Roman Catholic Church so I don't see what a move would accomplish. If these are mentioned in the article so all different types of Catholicism are included, I'd be happy to move no questions asked. - Mgm|^(talk) 16:37, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Short response - if it were up to me I would probably name this article "Canon law of the Catholic Church". The article at Canon law should discuss ecclesiastical law in general, esp. history. In the context of canon law, "Catholic Church" is not really ambiguous - and in a sense there is a consensus on this, as the point has been made multiple times in the CC/RCC naming discussion and nobody has objected as far as I can recall. Note that this article does cover the Eastern Catholic Churches, who may (in this context) not identify as Roman, and so "Roman" is arguably inappropriate. (I don't see what you are referring to in the Catholic encyclopedia article.) We really need some uses of Catholic Church without Roman to avoid the opposite form of POV pushing. Gimmetrow 17:09, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Arbitrary moving of this article cannot be excused by objecting to purported arbitrary moves of other articles. Mgm, It is intersting that when an article is moved against your POV you find it contemptible. If, however, it it moved in accordance with your personal POV, it must remain while "this is in discussion." I think we need to request some editors whose biases are at least not so blatantly transparent.

Frankly, as Gimmetrow so politely indicated already, this HAS already been discussed. Fishhead64 posted the matter at Requests for Comment directing the conversation to Talk:Roman Catholic/Church Name. Please see the discussion there.

Also, please see the discussion at CC v. RCC. One of the perpetual problems in these discussions is that folks drop by for a moment make a quick comment based on their non-WP presumptions (particularly religious ones) and when they are faced with well-reasoned argument, they refuse to engage. I never realized before coming to WP how intractible and viceral people's reactions are to "Catholic Church." Those who weigh in on this topic so vociferously usually do so from a religious POV. They are not your average reader, they usually have a theological background. All the evidence from objective WP approved sources regarding general use of the English language point overwhelmingly toward "Catholic Church." Those who vote on this topic seem to do so on their pre-judgements and ignore the arguments based on general use as well as those based on the self-identification of the entity and the official name of the entity. This is what AndrewC was doing the other day. He just made changes based on whatever, ingnoring entirely the best arguments on the subject.

If this is how WP actually functions, then there is a fatal irreparable flaw. Perhaps that flaw lies in Administrators approving new administrators who share their biases. Perhaps, it is just human nature. But there is something wrong when an organization purports to be based on rational argument is more governed by feelings, pre-judgements and political leveraging. Vaquero100 23:37, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Another sign of blatant hostility is MGM's and Andrew's refusal to make intelligent edits rather than simply conveniently reverting material which might draw into question their very actions.

An example is this section:

==Terminology==

Roman Catholic Church is especially an inaccurate term with regard to the Church's canon law as Eastern Rite Catholics have their own canon law and never use "Roman" to describe themselves. Eastern Rite Catholics are in communion with Rome and are Catholics but are not "Roman Catholics." It is always incorrect to refer to the Canon Law of the "Roman Catholic Church" unless one is speaking only of the law governing the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church.

Somehow I doubt that either AndrewC or MGM have any real familiarity with the subject of Canon Law in the Catholic Church. I have taken 3 graduate courses. It's not a degree, but I know enough to state the above. If there were any question about a source for this material, I would be glad to furnish it. Precisely how many canons of Catholic Canon Law have either of you two read???

Vaquero100 23:50, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Without commenting either way on what this page should be called, shouldn't the template on top of this talk page be changed somehow? It currently suggests moving the article to the name where it already is located. —Mira 07:51, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bracketed article naming

When I named this article originally, I used the brackets without realizing that it is not preferred by some WP editors. I am certainly not wedded to this format, although I have used it for several articles.

The origins of this format lie in the months long discussion of articles related to the Catholic Church. Some editors expressed concern that articles related to the Catholic Church should not simply be titled Catholic X, because that might be confused with the theological (or credal) concept of "Catholic" as used by some churches, Anglicans in particular. Articles which clearly refer to an aspect of the Catholic Church as an institution, it has been suggested, should reflect the institutional nature of the article to avoid confusion with the theological sense of the word.

My personal sense of this distinction is that it will make no difference to the average user. These are the kinds of hairsplitting distinctions that satisfy specialist editors (or at least mollify some of them to some degree). In the case of Canon Law as stated above by Gimmetrow, how can there be a "Catholic Canon Law" in the theological sense? Canon Law as product of institutions, cannot really refer to anything but the particular institutional and distinct and fairly unrelated systems of canon law in the various churches which call themselves Catholic in the sense of their proper name (Polish National Catholic Church, Independent Catholic Church, Catholic Church, etc.) and those who identify themselves as Catholic theologically (Orthodox Churches, Oriental Orthodox Churches, Anglican Churches, etc.) Such an article would be unwieldly and non productive. Even an article on Anglican Canon law can do little more than discuss the evolution of canon law in England and then note that each Anglican province has its own church law which is independent.

Anyway, if this article were named "Canon law of the Catholic Church," I would be fine with that. What is particularly objectionable in my view and from the point of view of the Canon Law of the Catholic Church is the use of "Roman," for reasons stated above. If the current format is problematic, I would be glad to discuss other article naming ideas that anyone might have. We can discuss that here, but as I said, other articles should follow the same format agreed upon here, I would think anyway. Such articles include Eucmenism (Catholic Church), Consecrated life (Catholic Church, and others I will have to check on. So, this conversation might work well in a venue attached to the Catholic Church article or on the Wikipedia WikiProject Catholicism 101 in order to centralize it. Vaquero100 17:34, 6 July 2006 (UTC)