Talk:Criticism of Pope John Paul II

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I'm a little concerned that an article of this nature has no references. — Trilobite (Talk) 22:21, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Criticism from Conservatives

I expanded on the criticism John Paul faced from traditional Catholics to try to make the article a bit more rounded, to show that John Paul faced criticism not just from the left, but from some conservatives as well. I wanted to show to what lengths people went who felt John Paul wasn't conservative enough for their tastes.
JesseG 23:24, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reorganization

While for the most part, the material here seems POV balanced (at least in tone), and it jives with what my recollections of anecdotes in several biographies of JP2 which I have read, the material does smack of being cut and pasted by several editors independently. I would like to rewrite each section as if it was written by one author. I do not want to remove any content (but see below), but organize it as if it were not simply one contributer adding to the previous to "balance" the first's POV. (Not at all an insult to your good contributions JesseG, but rather an acknowledgement that it should not read as such).

Furthermore, I would like to remove unnecessary descriptions of the Church's positions (of course the Pope will stick to them; that should be assumed). I prefer the words "critics" and "detractors" to "opponents" and "enemies", on POV grounds. And while I do not know whether I will remove them yet, I do not think the actions of the various "Traditional Catholics" described herein in response to the criticisms of JP2 are necessary.

Baccyak4H 04:05, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV in "Criticism" article

This passage

John Paul was criticised for his support for the Opus Dei prelature, which some argue is essentially a cult operating within the Church. Others criticised the canonization of its founder, Josemaría Escrivá, claiming he was an admirer of Spanish dictator Francisco Franco.

has been removed by Pianoman123 with the note "NPOV". I acknowledge that the passage, and indeed nearly every passage in this article, are critical (to the subject, Pope John Paul II) and not balanced for POV with respect to him. However, this article purports to be just that - criticism - and so long as the content is clearly worded as being from critical POVs, and not presented as fact, I believe everything is acceptable. By the standards Pianoman123 appears to be using, this article could not even exist in WP. So the first question is, indeed could it??

I recently went through this article to remove what I saw as "rebuttals" to many points of criticism as I felt that was not the purpose. Perhaps there should be rebuttals, but I worry about the content sounding too pedantic. I invite discussion on this matter.

Baccyak4H 03:29, 26 August 2006 (UTC)



I can understand the objections to the removal, but here are my contentions: I don't find it problematic that all the sections of this article are critical, in keeping with the title, but there need to be sources cited for the claims made, as some of them are quite weighty. Right now, they appear to be either original research or simply "common knowledge." Additionally, one way to balance things would be to find a source which offers an alternative point of view, for instance, on Pope John Paul II's support for Opus Dei.

The above comment pertaining to this is questionable:

"...However, this article purports to be just that - criticism - and so long as the content is clearly worded as being from critical POVs, and not presented as fact, I believe everything is acceptable." What's disputable here is that POVs are claimed to be acceptable, when in fact, they are not allowed in any uncited context. Additionally, the comment purports that it is adequate for something to be deliberately presented as fiction ("not presented as fact") so long as it is clear to the reader that it is fiction; however, this would constitute an injection of a non-neutral point of view.

You may be right, though, about the licitness of the article's presence in WP. Much of the content here is repeated elsewhere, in more substantial articles, and is better and more fairly represented there.

Pianoman123 07:28, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for replying and clarifying.
First, a big correction. "not presented as fact" is not synonymous with "presented as fiction." "presented as someone's POV" is the intended equivalent in the context of this article designated at "criticism" of someone (so it could indeed turn out to be fact, or fiction, or some combination of both, yet not obviously discernable as such in general).
The idea of NPOV is that our edits reflect NPOV. But for this article (or subsection in main JP2, see other talk discussion), the material itself is intended to be a non-neutral ("criticism of JP2") summary. Our statements have to reflect NPOV, with respect to the subject of the article. But others' statements which are stated here are intended to be non-neutral. It's OK to report others' POV in (part of) an article designed to do just that.
I completely agree that claims made here are not widely disputed (which ones are original research? Point this out and if we cannot verify that someone made them we can correctly delete). As to finding a citation suggesting JP2's support of Opus Dei, while I think that wouldn't hurt, I am not sure it is necessary as this article purports to describe criticism of those who believed (rightly or wrongly) that he did support them. In some sense, it doesn't matter that he did, but rather that some people thought he did and objected. And then again, the Escrivá canonization (and published material relating to it) should be more than enough to support JP2's support. Do we need to footnote further?
Baccyak4H 03:52, 27 August 2006 (UTC)


I disagree with the contention that an article can exist under the disclaimer of it's being a repository for non-neutral points of view: "the material itself is intended to be a non-neutral ("criticism of JP2") summary." Is someone actually willing to write at the top: "hearsay about John Paul II?" If not, then we should only include information which can be verified. Otherwise, the quality of the article will suffer, and it will violate Wikipedia standards by purposefully promoting non-neutrality on two levels. This is also against Wikipedia rules: "It's OK to report others' POV in (part of) an article designed to do just that." While it is okay to include multiple points of view in a comprehensive article, it is not okay to have an article in Wikipedia whose only purpose is to report POVs unless they're cited; it's simply a breach of the rules.

The chief danger is that most people, when they read an article, presume its content to be verified if its accuracy is not already disputed. You can see where this leads--false conclusions about Pope John Paul II and the Church.

Pianoman123 01:10, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for replying - appreciate your input.
The end of your first PP is essentially a vote for inclusion of this entire article back into the main JP2 article (to prevent the JP2 article from being "unbalanced"). That issue was raised below; you may wish to chime in there too. The nature of the small segment you deleted is no different than the rest of this material as to whether it should be its own article or a subsection of the main, so there is no reason to exclude it for these reasons.
As for the chief danger, you are failing to make the distinction between the levels of discussion here regarding POVs. While above it may (or may not) be unacceptable to neutrally elucidate specific non-neutral POVs (in which the WP material itself does not imply support -- or opposition -- for those POVs discussed, so thus is itself neutral), the true chief danger is not a danger at all but rather supposedly one of the very purposes WP exists. Try:
The chief danger nature of WP is that most people, when they read an this article, presume its content to be verified if its accuracy is not already disputed. You can see where this leads--false nominally true conclusions that certain specific criticisms have been made of about Pope John Paul II and the Church.
We have no obligation, in this article (or JP2 subsection) to vouch for the accuracy of the criticisms themselves. Indeed, a clear and credible refutation may be appropriate; I for one do not like the idea of "rebuttals" in an article (or subsection) like this, but only on style grounds; perhaps that should be done (or linked...). But that is a different issue, we can discuss elsewhere. The only standard for this article (or subsection) is that it is actually true that such criticisms were made. I do agree that the material now does not cite instances of such criticisms and perhaps it should (and that will not be hard to do), but note your deleted material is no worse (or better) at attaining that standard, so its singular deletion makes no sense on these grounds either.
Recap: There is a difference between "truth of such and such criticisms" and "truth that such and such criticisms were made". A very important one.
And if I may, note that there are many expressions of opinions of this or that person(s) in WP. The risk that someone will read that such opinions exist, and thus decide they are true, is always present, but has almost never been an obstacle to the opinions' inclusion. The onus is on us then to present the opinions without implicit support or opposition. That is NPOV.
Again, what material do you think is original research? Only a couple of claims am I not familiar with (I didn't introduce any, only reorganized them), and I will give the benefit of the doubt, unless challenged. So what are they? Again, if they do not pan out, we can delete them. And on a controversial topic such as this, we should.
I wish to point out that twice now you have rephrased my words in a way which was superficially subtle but fundamentally and perhaps crucially inaccurate ("not presented as fact" ==> "presented as fiction", and now "criticism ==> "hearsay"). I am assuming good faith, and want you to know how annoying that misrepresentation is, because rather than concentrate on the WP material, I have to rejoin wrongly split hairs. So please read carefully hereupon, especially with respect to the two levels of POV.
Baccyak4H 04:02, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
Oops. Sorry Pianoman123, just noticed you did chime in below about the organization of JP2 criticism. My bad. Baccyak4H 04:03, 29 August 2006 (UTC)



Alas, I don't think this is worth pursuing much further. I think my assertions have been slightly oversimplified above, but I probably could have presented them better the first time. Here are some last thoughts from the WP page on neutrality:

A simple formulation

We sometimes give an alternative formulation of the non-bias policy: assert facts, including facts about opinions — but don't assert opinions themselves. There is a difference between facts and opinions. By "fact" we mean "a piece of information about which there is no serious dispute." For example, that a survey produced a certain published result would be a fact. That there is a planet called Mars is a fact. That Plato was a philosopher is a fact. No one seriously disputes any of these things. So we can feel free to assert as many of them as we can.

The most important step now is to work on this article's potential merger with the main JP II article.

Pianoman123 22:39, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Then transubstantiation must be removed from the sacraments article, unless you have a chemical test for the presence of divinity. The existence of an opinion is a fact, my friend. Thus, it is as perfectly acceptable to say, "Pope John Paul II was criticised for re-asserting the Church's commitment to priestly celibacy in the Latin Rite," as it is to say, "Many scholars in the West are of the opinion that JP II's support for the Solidarity movement in Poland, and its cognates in other countries, was a leading cause of the fall of the Soviety Union." hat would be unacceptable opnion is to say, "JP II was wrong to enfoce celibacy," or "JP II is a great guy for defeating Communism."HarvardOxon 22:48, 29 August 2006 (UTC)



This is getting silly. I obviously agree that the existence of an opinion is a fact, and that it is acceptable to post opinions that have been stated by various people (how could I not?). What I'm contesting here is the spirit of the article: even if it's purpose is to criticize JP II, there should still be a logical structure to the article (statements, citations, conclusions, etc.). My other issue is that very litte in this article is cited. It's just plain bothersome, since some very serious claims are made. Wikipedia rules define a fact as "a piece of information about which there is no serious dispute." There are serious disputes about the topics in question here, so we should find some sources. Thanks for your consideration, Pianoman123 02:13, 30 August 2006 (UTC)


OK OK. I am sensing a consensus building that this "criticism" material should be returned to the main JP2 article and definitely cited better. While I am not saying that is the best solution (albeit I have no idea what best would be here), this sounds to me to be a very good solution. Note (as below) that I have made (for better or worse) similar edits in both the "fork" article and the main JP2 article, so they will read similarly in many places. This may make consolidation easier - I hope it does.

No hard feelings Pianoman. When I'm perfect, I'll hold you to that standard too ;). But I still really, really want you to share what you feel is (1) original research; (2) opinions for which there is serious dispute about the fact that they are held (regardless whether the opinions are right, or wrong, or untestable, or...). While I mentioned that there is little material here I am not aware of, there still is some. But, of note, not opposition to JP2's support of Opus Dei, or to the Escrivá canonization, which you object to.

Anyway, I like this plan. Baccyak4H 04:03, 31 August 2006 (UTC)




I think I can guess why you're pursuing this. You're probably wondering why I took issue with the Opus Dei section and not the others, since they're similar; I'll bet you're trying to discern a bias on my part in favor of Opus Dei or JP II. To be completely honest, my reaction to that section was a visceral one, mostly on account of the verbiage. What has bothered me all along is the word choice and phrasing:

"John Paul was criticised for his support for the Opus Dei prelature, which some argue is essentially a cult operating within the Church. Others criticised the canonization of its founder, Josemaría Escrivá."

This would be better:

"John Paul II was criticised for his approval of Opus Dei, a controversial personal prelature of the Catholic Church. Others criticised the canonization of its founder, Josemaría Escrivá."

This article is not about Opus Dei; it's about JP II. If someone wants a balanced description of what Opus Dei is, they can go to the Opus Dei WP page. But a one-phrase characterization simply doesn't do the issue justice, and seems to make a furtive argument against OD within the context of criticism of JP II. You've convinced me that we only need to mention one-sided criticism of JP II in this article (since that's the article's purpose), but I think that if another topic (Opus Dei) is described as part of the criticism, it should be presented objectively.

Pianoman123 21:30, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

To answer your speculation, yes and no. "...why I took issue...": yes; "...trying to discern a bias on my part...": no. I only could not understand that specific omission, as the particular objections are more common knowledge than many others in the article. That's all. You could have picked about 3/4 of the other material and my reaction would have been the same. Although maybe that is what you meant since that particular material is exactly what you did wish to omit...no matter, now I'm splitting hairs...sorry.
"John Paul II was criticised for his approval of Opus Dei, a controversial personal prelature of the Catholic Church. Others criticised the canonization of its founder, Josemaría Escrivá." ~Pianoman123
Actually, I think that is considerably better than either the original text (for your points exactly), or its complete omission. Some indication of the rationale for the criticism is warranted, but this indeed does refocus on criticism of John Paul II as opposed to what is really background info.
A small suggestion: "Others criticized..." I would suggest that it be better to point out that most opposition to the Escrivá issue is probably because of the perceived criticism of OD and that he was its founder. So perhaps make one sentence with the transition "...of the Catholic Church, and some criticized...". Or better yet how about
"John Paul II was criticised for his approval of Opus Dei, a controversial personal prelature of the Catholic Church, and for the canonization of its founder, Josemaría Escrivá."
I read here a suggestion that the two oppositions are related and could be from the same people, yet clearly there is no imperative that they are all so. I would only object to any remote implication that the two sets of criticizers for (1) support for OD; (2) canonization of Escrivá; are indeed disjoint.
Perhaps too some fleshing out of what you summarized as " "approvel" ". There was some material way back when I started cleaning up, something about JP2 stating how OD was part of what he called the "Universal call to Holiness" or something similar. (I recall that attribution to him repeated in the news several times.) Quoting "approval" can send the message that it was lip service at best; not approval. But I agree that this is better fleshed out than the criticizers' particular objections to OD since this is a specific JP2 position which is criticized, while the objections to OD which inform JP2 criticizers are not those of JP2 or about him.
I am glad you pointed this out, as deep down I was still wary of the "Criticism is by definition not neutral" argument. I think your principled suggestion is a great improvement of that particular content, and alleviated a roadblock to better content.
Baccyak4H 03:03, 4 September 2006 (UTC)


Great-- this sounds good to me. On the point about the support for OD and Escriva's canonization, I'm undecided. On the one hand, his connection with OD is obviously paramount. At the same time, one of the reasons some people criticized JP2 during the canonization was that it was expedited in a way to which they were not accustomed (this can be explained by a slight change in the Vatican policy on canonization, which caused some to see a connection between the policy tweak and Escriva). At the same time though, Escriva's process of canonization may have never received so much scrutiny were he not the founder of OD. So I'd say it's fair to make the edit you suggest above. Feel free to do so, of course. Best, Pianoman123 04:27, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

I went ahead and made my edit. And you can disregard my concerns about quotes; I misinterpreted your material here as the quotes did not appear in the article. I gather they was to show us here in Talk the differences rather than showing up verbatim in the article. Yes, perhaps JP2's opinion (object of criticism) could be elaborated, but as it stands I think acceptable. I do not myself wish to add the canonization policy tweak issue, but feel free (anyone) if you are so inclined. Baccyak4H 03:28, 6 September 2006 (UTC)


Another note-- since the article appears to be growing, I was just noticing that about 95% of the material in this article is uncited. Some of it is undisputed, so it's fine. But it would help with the credibility if those who recently added material would find a few sources. Thanks Pianoman123 08:42, 6 September 2006 (UTC)





[edit] This seems like a POV fork and as such should be merged into Pope John Paul II

Can someone explain to me why this is not a POV fork? --Richard 03:57, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

This, and the other articles on John Paul II were created because of space. Before the article was broken up like this, it ran at one stage to over 100K. That is more than 3 times the maximum recommended article size. It is nothing to do with forking. It is to do with bringing the main article to a satisfactory length. This is done in all big articles. It is standard. Your forking theory is irrelevant. FearÉIREANN\(caint) 04:04, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry to disagree but the "Criticisms" section in Pope John Paul II is at least as long as this article and this article is not long enough to make a significant dent in the length of the Pope John Paul II article. It looks like a POV fork to me and a useless one anyway since there is a substantial "Criticisms" section in the primary article. In fact, I would argue that the "Criticisms" section in the primary article is superior to this article. I would propose merging the content of this article back into the Pope John Paul II article. I doubt the merge would increase the size of the Pope John Paul II article significantly.
Another viable alternative would be to expand this article significantly.
--Richard 08:13, 26 August 2006 (UTC)


I agree. I think we should merge this article with the Pope John Paul II article. Besides, if we were to expand this article, it would undoubtedly overlap with much of what's already in the Pope John Paul II article.

Pianoman123 16:43, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

You all raise some good points. I have been cleaning up both now for a few days because they both read (past tense) like a cut/paste/append hangover. That may be why they lately have read somewhat similarly (as Pianoman123 points out). There was a link from the relevant section of the main JP2 page here, but then it was gone, and then it was back... I have no objection to where the material is, I'll go with everyone else's consensus as to where it should be. Baccyak4H 03:08, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Update. I am leaning towards returning the criticism to the main article as (1) it does not add relatively much length to the article; (2) it avoids the ambiguity of whether an article of "criticism" is by definition not NPOV (while I disagree that it is by definition not NPOV, I admit to the ambiguity). In the above section, there was more apparent support for rejoining, but I defer to those contributors to (further) speak their respective cases. Baccyak4H 04:11, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

I'd strongly advise against putting it in the main article. The main article ebbs and flows in length. (It once was 100K. The maximum size is meant to be under 32K!) Even if now the two articles together are under 32K, what happens everytime is that the JPII article grows again, goes oversize, is broken up, someone says that x or y article is a fork, is remerged, grows over size, is broken up, etc etc. And in all the merging and demerging and remerging and redemerging and reremerging that goes on with big articles, chunks of text get mucked up or lost, edit wars break out over 'who took x out/put y in?' etc. It was decided to split chunks of it away and keep them away to give the main article enough space to grow without having to be chopped up again. If this one goes back, going on precedent, other users on other pages will demand the other articles be merged saying (why can criticism get into the main article but not x or y? That is POV-pushing). And we be back on the same old merging, demerging, remerging, redemerging, etc etc, coupled with edit wars, complaints over lost bits, complaints over footnote problems, writing styles, etc. (I've been through this on a couple of big articles. At the end those who wanted to remerge bits ended up cursing the idea, and reaching for the valium.) Remerging the article really is not worth the hassle. And even if it was done, remerging is usually followed by a regrowth in the main articles, and this article will end up reappearing back where it is now in a couple of weeks. (On one page, the merger was reversed 18 hours later!) FearÉIREANN\(caint) 04:38, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
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