Talk:History of the Roman Catholic Church

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Catholicism, which collaborates on articles related to the Roman Catholic Church. To participate, edit this article or visit the project page for details.
Start This article has been rated as Start-Class on the Project's quality scale.
High This article has been rated as High-importance on the Project's importance scale.


Contents

[edit] 15th Century

No mention of the Spanish Inquisition? I feel as though that had enough to do with Catholicism to be mentioned, at the very least. Laneb2005 00:50, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Common Misconception?

I read somewhere (I forget exactly) that Jesus was not the son of a carpenter, and that this notion is the result of a mistranslation: Joseph, Jesus's (earthly) father was actually a land-surveyor, a minor official in local government and thus something of a middle-class professional. To the extent that his son took up the family trade is, I believe (somone check me on this) among those details absent from the New Testament, but mention of how he impressed the Rabbis early in his youth, and his subsequent career of preaching and ministering, suggests a religious/Rabinnical education.

Anyways, is there someone out there familiar with the Greek or Aramaic enough to say either way? [Unsigned]


A most uncommon and quite baseless misconception. Lima 05:19, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Very Pleased

I'm very pleased to see the amount of users who are contributing to this article. This will no doubt evole into quite an ourstanding work. -Husnock 02:35, 30 May 2005 (UTC)


There is also the great falling away from orthodoxy before, during and after the second Vatican council, but that is something which is hard to document without being ostracised. www.danon.co.uk

[edit] First Pope of 21st Century?

This is what it says under the picture of Benedict XVI, but this is clearly not true as John Paul didn't die 'til 2005.

He was the first Pope appointed in the 21st century is what the intent is. -Husnock 14:51, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] 1003 entry

Survival of the feared millenium? Can we say urban legend?--24.203.61.236 18:48, 7 August 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Page moves

A few users have moved this page to History of the Catholic Church, removing the word "Roman" from the title and then purging the article of all references to the word Roman. While I am not entirely against such a massive edit, I feel it should be discussed before such a major change to the article is attempted. -Husnock 05:54, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

i think it's only one user Rchamberlain (talk contribs), and this guy (i presume male) is a problem that is becoming apparent. i think the admins/arbcom need to become aware of him. r b-j 04:01, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
Whether or not its one user, that would be the appropriate edit, since this is talking about the history of the Catholic Church, and not just the Roman (ie, Latin Rite) Catholic Church. This is a problem in other pages too, though, since some english language press tend to conflate the two, even though the church's current practice is clear (for example, it isn't the "Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church" is it?) Protoclete
I think it should be "Catholic Church" w/o Roman since the latter term was only applied after the reformation, whist the historic phrase, "Catholic Church", was in use from at least the early second century. Thus it seems the more apt historic title. Lostcaesar 22:01, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
If editors seriously wish to reopen this painful discussion (and I see no immediate reason why they would want to), the appropriate place to do so would be Talk:Roman Catholic Church for consistency's sake. Slac speak up! 22:07, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] History of the Papacy

I have created a page on the History of the Papacy - as distinct from that of the Catholic Church as a whole. Contributions welcome.

Jackiespeel 23:49, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Asia and the Americas

I added an entry on the start of Christianity in Asia and on our Lady of Guadalupe, to make this less Eurocentric... --Nino Gonzales 07:14, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Gospel of Peter 70-90 AD!?

Including the Gospel of Peter as being from the late first century and from the same time as the synoptics is silly. Nobody mentions the Gospel until about 200 when Serapion briefly allows it before he read it. Most scholars seem to place it somewhere in the second century as it shows influences from the synpotics and John.

[edit] Persistent insertion of unverifiable and false statements

The early-twentieth-century Adrian Fortescue does say that "Pope Victor I (190-202), an African, seems to have been the first to use Latin at Rome." But the later Josef Jungmann is much more precise: "The transition did not occur at one go. The inscriptions of the graves of the Popes are written in Latin from the second half of the third century, beginning with Cornelius (d. 253). Since even before Constantine there were in Rome more than 40 churches, Greek minorities will have continued to have their Greek liturgy even later than the time of Cornelius, just as Latin communities may already have existed before Cornelius. Even as late as 360 Marius Victorinus quotes in Greek from a Roman oratio oblationis of his time." (my translation from page 65 of volume I of his Missarum Sollemnia - Eine genetische Erklärung der römischen Messe (Vienna, 1949). Lima 08:48, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Accordingly, saying that "Transition of Church language from Greek to Latin begins" c. 195 is an unsupported statement. Content must be verifiable.

"Christians believe that although Joseph was the spouse of Mary, his real father is God the Father, the Creator." This statement is made in the context of human generation, a context in which Christians believe Jesus had no father.

"According to the Christian Gospels, both Mary and Joseph are descendants of King David." False. Both Gospel genealogies lead to Joseph, not to Mary.

"Christians believe this (i.e. AD 1) to be the date when the Messiah was born." They do not. They believe Jesus was born while King Herod was still alive. He was not alive in AD 1.

Pope Victor I "Earliest Christian writer in the Latin language." What about Novatian? What writing in any language that is certainly by Pope Victor can be cited? "... attributed later by St. Jerome as the first Latin writer of the Church." Where did St Jerome make this false statement?

"It's dogmatic theology same way muhammad flew on a horse to heaven and back" deserves several exclamation marks. This article is headed "History". Again, "content must be verifiable".

Enough said.

Lima 20:21, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Jesus rose from the dead"

From an encyclopedic and historic perspective, can such phrase be sayd here?. Perhaps to say that he "allegedly rose from the death" or "according to gospels, he rose from the death". As it stands its just a minor mistake, as there is really no proofs that he really rose from the death, against mayor evidence that could opose to that (such as: humans dont usually rise from the death for example, thus Ockam Razor tells us that he probably didnt resurect to begin with).

[edit] Proposal for a task force on the History of Christianity

I have proposed a History task force on Wikipedia:WikiProject Christianity/General which would cover this article among others. Please read the proposal, comment on it and consider joining. --Richard 17:30, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Misleading lede

Currently the first sentence of the articles states:

"making the Church the oldest continuously existing religious institution in history"

This is false, although the argument could be made that it is the oldest continuously existing Christian denomination. Zoroastrianism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and other Dharmic religions and arguably Judaism and Mithraism (the latter of which is still extant believe it or not) are older "continuosly existing" religions. If an academic has made this argument, it probably would be best to directly quote them.- WeniWidiWiki 15:36, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Those are not "continuously existing religious institutions". Most of them have no institutional structure such as an episcopate. The sentence, as I gather it, is not really talking about religious beliefs, in the vague sense, but religious institutions in the concrete sense (hence: "the Church", not Christianity). That would seem to exclude the examples you gave except perhaps Rabbinic Judaism, depending on how one interpretes the events of 70 and 120 as formative in the institutional structure of Judaism. (PS, "denominations" didn't come into existence until a hundred years ago or so). Lostcaesar 15:42, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I will just state that I think you are misinformed about the histories and structures of the other religions mentioned, and your above comments seem to indicate a slightly Western POV which is not bourne out through looking at the empirical facts of the matter. If you are hypothesizing the sentence to conform to the highly-structured organization of the RCC POV as being the only quantifiable form of "religious institution", then simply providing a direct quote from a neutral and verifiable source to this effect is the best resolution. - WeniWidiWiki 05:34, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Well I was just explaining what I thought the sentence meant. And it seems you agree insofar as you seem to concede that the other religions don't have the same level of institutional organization continuously existing in their history, but then make an apology for it. Whatever the case, I'm just sharing what I think the sentence is trying to say - you're free to disagree. Lostcaesar 07:54, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, the lede of the Hinduism entry is making a similar claim (with a strong source), and the Buddhism entry claims that the Sangha monastics are one of the oldest orders on Earth. I am going to change it to "making the Church one of the oldest continuously existing religious institutions in history". - WeniWidiWiki 08:14, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

sounds fair; Lostcaesar 09:48, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Cool. - WeniWidiWiki 15:28, 10 February 2007 (UTC)