My main concern with the Duffy book is that section in the review that says "While not necessarily uncovering anything strikingly new and more akin to a handbook than a treatise, this work merits applause for providing a people's papal retrospective. Those wishing for heavier intellectual discourse.." which strikes me as saying the book is more a coffee table type book than a scholarly history of the papacy. The other review from Amazon.com says ".. is a wonder of comprehensive compression--a sumptuously illustrated, one-volume history..." which also doesn't lend credence to it being terribly scholarly. (Scholars never lavishly illustrate something, it's too expensive (grins)). I don't necessarily have terrible issues with the book, but I think you could do better. Ealdgyth - Talk 22:45, 31 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Nancy, please reread what I wrote. I said "you could do better". I won't oppose based on the National Geographic book or the Duffy book, but I DO think you could do with better sources. Frankly, I'd rather not see the Oxford Illustrated History book either, but it is better than nothing. I'm not holding you to any higher standard than I do with other sources, you can see that I look at the FACs and take websites over the coals, and I have taken the Richard Mentor Johnson FAC to task for using an older source. I'm not the only person to express concerns about the Duffy book, it's on the talk page as a concern from others. I'll be frank, I really hesitated before even going back to the RCC article to look at things. I did not like the tone of some of the comments on the talk page, where a number comments seem to imply that if you have concerns about the article, you must be anti-Catholic. And frankly, dealing with that sort of thing isn't something I wanna deal with. But, I do think you want the article to be the best it could be, so I felt that I should respond to your request. Yes, the article has improved. But it could be better still. That's the general goal, isn't it? Ealdgyth - Talk 00:15, 1 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The person who questioned the Duffy book is a Catholic who wanted to remove Duffy's opposing viewpoint regarding the origins of the church. The person is a relatively new editor and didnt know that Duffy was a well known and very respected historian or that Wikipedia policies for NPOV require us to show all viewpoints. Since the issue of church origins was a topic of much discussion and much misunderstanding with two admins on the page before I got to it, we needed the Duffy book's observations to satisfy NPOV. The Duffy book is exclusively a history of the Roman Catholic Church, that makes it even more valuable and pertinent a source for our page, like the Norman book. Honestly, I have searched far and wide and I dont think there are any better sources for the article than these two top sources that are Roman Catholic Church specific. NancyHeise (talk) 00:24, 1 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I must have missed something about the National Geographic book, it's RCC specific? That's one of my concerns with it, that it doesn't appear (at least from it's Google Books listing to be specific to the RCC. Or are you referring to another book? And isn't the Duffy book a history of the popes, and only in passing about the history of the church? I'll repeat, I won't oppose based on the usage of those two books. However, I do believe I'm allowed to bring up my opinion on them, when you asked for it. Please don't fasten upon just one or two parts of my concerns, there were other issues too. Ealdgyth - Talk 00:31, 1 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The Duffy book is a very scholarly history of the Roman Catholic Church from the perspective of the popes through the ages. It is RCC specific. The Woods book is RCC specific. The scholarly Norman book is RCC specific as well as some of my other new scholarly sources. The National Geographic book is not RCC specific and neither is the Oxford History but they both discuss the Roman church and major events like council of Jerusalem, Inquistions, crusades, reformation, etc that are undisputed parts of Roman Catholic Church history. The Edward Norman book is the one I was referring to as being one of my best sources in conjuction with Eamon Duffy's book.NancyHeise (talk) 02:18, 1 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hi could you give your imput on this article. Thanks. Callelinea (talk) 23:51, 1 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I would go for linking all the ones who have a Wikipedia page. However, I'm not sure this is what the MOS recommends. Randomblue (talk) 03:06, 5 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Nancy. I have found the law of celibacy is in the Western Code of Canon Law in the following canons:

Canon 277 http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG1104/__PY.HTM

Canon 1037 http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG1104/__P3R.HTM

Canon 1042 http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG1104/__P3S.HTM

The Code of Canon Law for the Eastern Catholic Churches, The Codex Canonum Ecclesiarum Orientalium 1990, Is available in Latin at http://www.intratext.com/X/LAT0758.HTM

An English translation (unofficial) has canons on married priesthood linked below:

Canons 285, 373, 374, 758 http://www.jgray.org/codes/cceo90eng.html You can reference to the English or the Latin....

On married priests from other denominations, there is this pretty authoritative article from the Vatican website. http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cclergy/documents/rc_con_cclergy_doc_01011993_chisto_en.html

The final paragraph says that it is an exception set by papal precedent. Xandar (talk) 03:19, 6 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Nancy, at your request I've archived your talk page through March 31st. If you were still having conversations under any of the previous posts, you can go to the archive page (linked in the table above) and copy and paste that information back to this page.

As for your questions about italics, I think that Catholic News Network is probably like the Associated Press. It wouldn't be italicized, but any publications that they offer would be. Karanacs (talk) 13:44, 7 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your help! NancyHeise (talk) 20:16, 7 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Late comments

Great work on the Roman Catholic Church page. I made a couple comments and then noticed you were sending to the copy editors. My points were all minor so I'll just copypasta here. None are close to deal breakers but just wanted to keep you informed.

• Ref 240 is due to expire according to the Dead Link checker

• Do you live in the Midwest of United States? To my knowledge that is the only place suffering that kind of situation - I think Latin America has an overload of Catholic persons to priests ratio but not sure about no coverage in some areas. I am not sure that is reportable but I'll do some research and put it in there if its notable. NancyHeise (talk) 17:05, 2 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

West Coast here, and we are very short on Priests.

• Should "college of bishops" be capitalized?

Its not even capitalized in Canon Law so I think we are safe with it lower case.--DizFreak ^{talk Contributions} 18:41, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, I will redo ref 240. Priest shortage comment was already addressed by adding more info and ref to Demographics section. Thanks for info on "college of bishops". I did not know the answer to that one. NancyHeise (talk) 20:35, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Further to your comments. I've posted a response on the RCC talk page. But I do not think that just saying that the Inquisition was State run and that it was terrible, but not the Church's responsibility solves the problem. As most people know, it may have been state run but it was staffed by Catholic, largely Dominican, prelates. They may have been hand-picked by the government and reported directly back to them, but most people will still see it as at least partially a catholic body. That's why even the Spanish Inquisition's actions need to be set in context with their time, and what percentage of people were actually killed. If you read books like Kamen, you will see that apart from the period when it was being used to prosecute the moors under Ferdinand and Isabella, and when the first protestants appeared in Spain and the Netherlands, you actually had to work pretty hard to get yourself executed. I think, from memory, Kamen says that according to the records, through most of its history the Spanish Inquisition was responsible for 2 to 3 executions a year across the Empire, from the Phillipines to Peru. Now we can't put all this and other relevant facts in the RCC article, so it's best to put a ercentage or something else that sets things in context quickly. Xandar (talk) 20:45, 11 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You can now use rollback to reverse obvious vandalism. It's faster than undo. Gimmetrow 02:14, 13 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the tip! NancyHeise (talk) 02:17, 13 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There isn't the formal demand for a university degree in the UK, or in Ireland, but seminary study is longer. More like six years. There's some official information on the following webpages

http://www.ukpriest.org/becomingapriest.htm

http://www.ukpriest.org/help.htm#6

http://www.vocations.ie/Diocesan_Priesthood/Commonly_asked_questions#How%20long%20do%20you%20have%20to%20study?#How%20long%20do%20you%20have%20to%20study?#How%20long%20do%20you%20have%20to%20study? Xandar (talk) 15:42, 14 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Some interesting statistics on total numbers of ordained priests worldwide are on this page. http://www.ukpriest.org/resources.htm Xandar (talk) 00:22, 15 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Xandar, I am going to try to find out if there is some book that is used by our local seminary that will help us with this section. The FA people like books so give me a little time on this one to dig up a really good source. Thanks for the websites, if we cant find any books, I guess we will resort to web sites. Thanks for your hard work! NancyHeise (talk) 17:45, 15 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Nancy, I hope you realize that I am not trying to cause an issue to achieving FA status on the Catholic Church article. However, this current topic was one that I had discussed pretty thoroughly on other articles. Unfortunately, the position now being taken was the losing position back then. Time is important and I think an answer should be forced as soon as possible. You have done outstanding work and you are to be commended.

I did find it surprising that Karanacs did not even know where the MOS article was; strange. --Storm Rider ^(talk) 18:40, 7 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Storm Rider. I thought that Ling.Nut addressed this during the last FAC, and that you yourself said you took the lowercase side on the Miami Diocese article. So you can imagine my shock and surprise to see that all that had changed. Again, I want to re-iterate what Storm Rider has said, that this should not be an attack on the stability of the article. As for the "official title", I could be missing something, but it isn't exactly clear to me how the citation you added can be used to verify the "official title" claim. But I'm glad to hear that you are ok with my changes. I think the citation can clearly be used to show that the term "Catholic Church" without Roman is often used. Good luck with the FAC.-Andrew c ^[talk] 15:20, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hi there, I looked at your user page and I am just curious - what was your religious experience that motivated you to convert? I am a member of the Eastern rite of the Chaldean Catholic Church, an autonomous church in full communion with Rome. Nice to meet you too. Tourskin (talk) 06:24, 10 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I responded to this inquiry and saved it for you to see. I deleted it because I would like to remain professional on my talk page. Anyone who wants to know the answer to that question may go into the history of this page and pull it up on just before this entry. Thanks. NancyHeise (talk) 14:17, 10 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]