Talk:Brother Rice High School (Chicago)

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[edit] "Irish-Catholic"

Chicago politicians (e.g.: Mayor Richard M. Daley) claim that his city is racially or otherwise ethnically diversified. I agree, Chicago appears diversified, however, neighborhoods are racially segregated at the same time. Why? Neighborhoods are segregated because of IGNORANCE. People are generally IGNORANT of other racial or ethnic groups. For instance, Barry Glassner pointed out in his book Fear, that non-African Americans generally "fear the black man." These people owe their baseless fears to the news media, which depicts African American males and other people of color as criminal deviants. Chicago partly owes its segregation to immigration. For example, Pilsen was once a point of entry for Czech, Polish, and more recently, Mexican immigrants. It is essential for these ethnic groups to live in a community where they can retain their deep and surface cultures until they assimilate to American society. However, there is no need for them to segregate themselves from other Americans once they assimilate. Thus, I disagree with articles that reinforce labeling neighborhoods (e.g.: "predominantly Irish-Catholic") based on race and or religion. Labeling a neighborhood without acknowledging that a significant number of residents are of different ethnic origins and practice different religions is inappropriate. I will actively continue to root out and nominate baseless articles such as "Irishtown, Chicago" for deletion. There is no such thing as an "Irish-Catholic" church. More importantly, it does not matter what race or ethnic group a student belongs to, or where they come from, believing that they are all EQUAL in the eyes of God. Voice of Reason

Well, the simple fact is, the RCC did designate a number of churches as "ethnic" churches in the US, to better minister to the various immigrant populations. There were indeed Irish Catholic churches, as well as Polish, Italian, etc. The reasoning was not that the people were unequal, but that they could be more effectively ministered to if they were grouped by common tradition and language. Sorry this breaks your worldview. /blahedo (t) 05:10, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

However, it is not relevant to the topic. Brother Rice is a DIVERSE Catholic high school; so please spare us the 19th century history lesson. Anyone can come to the conclusion that people of Irish descent make up a majority of the communities already mentioned by simply reading the corresponding articles. Mentioning it again in this article is merely redundant. Please don't edit this article again, or at least have the decency to edit with your own user name. Voice of Reason

Dude, are you accusing me of sockpuppeting? I never edit except under my own username. I don't care much either way about what you said in the article, but what you said in your first paragraph above, to wit "There is no such thing as an "Irish-Catholic" church," is simply not true. And labels like "predominantly Irish-Catholic" are perfectly valid for use on Wikipedia (wherever they're true, of course). /blahedo (t) 22:53, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

"Sorry this breaks your worldview", but that's right... there is no such thing as an "Irish-Catholic" church, especially in the 21st century. The term wasn't even relevant before the changes implemented by the Second Vatican Council. Up until that point, the Holy Mass was conducted in Latin regardless of language spoken by laypeople. Nevertheless, I'm amazed that Irish-Americans are the only ethnic group that still elects to differentiate themselves from the rest of the Roman Catholic Church. Do you hear Polish people say "we're Polish-Catholics," or Italians refer to themselves as "Italian-Catholics?" I haven't, probably because they understand that it’s the same Holy Mass regardless of what ethnic group attends. Voice of Reason

Well, yes, I have heard people refer to themselves in those terms. It's not meant as a religious subdivision, though, but rather as a cultural one. There were and are parts of Chicago that are inhabited chiefly by people who are Catholic and of Irish descent, and these people have a cohesive subculture that is variously called "South Side Irish" or "Irish-Catholic", the latter also referring to similar subgroups in other US cities. If you are removing the sentence you keep removing because it is no longer true, that's fine; I really don't know and don't much care to check. But your stated reason for repeatedly reverting the change is that there shouldn't be such appelations and we oughtn't to reinforce them, and that's not a valid justification on Wikipedia. /blahedo (t) 06:14, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

I've lived in this city my whole life, I have Polish and Italians friends, and I've never heard them refer to themselves in that fashion. Furthermore, adding it again to this article would be redundant on the basis that the reader can click the links of the mentioned communities (e.g.: Oak Lawn, Beverly, and so forth) for demographic information. Additionally, it would be irrelevant and undermining the school's diversity. Imagine if we were to label the school "Irish-Catholic," making it sound as if it were exclusively open to a specific ethnic and religious group. Brother Rice would not be as inviting to people of different ethnic religious groups, thus it would lose revenue and eventually close like some Catholic schools have in the past. Voice of Reason