Talk:Catholic Church

GA Reassessment

Catholic Church

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • Most recent review

Result: No consensus. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 00:27, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

Several uncited sections, including almost the entire first section of the History section. History focuses disproportionately on 20th and 21st century. Z1720 (talk) 17:27, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

Disagree that the history weighting is a significant problem. Might require a minor rebalancing—-I’m not sure why John Paul II has his own section while other popes do not (aside from Francis, but the case for having a section on the current pope is strong)—-but that’s a modest edit, not a reason to delist. The several uncited paragraphs in the History section (which look to be the only significantly uncited section to me) do need fixed, but I note that History of the Catholic Church has a pretty well-cited early history section, so that shouldn’t be a hard fix. Reassessment seems a pretty big overreaction for these problems—-it’s pretty firmly WP:JUSTDOIT territory. El Sandifer (talk) 20:25, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

• Keep on grounds offered. The first part of the History section appears to be a lede-style summary of the subsections afterward (a la WP:LEADCITE), with the relevant citations in the respective subsections. If truly desired, go and move the relevant citations back up, but this is a style that isn't unreasonable. As for focus - the Catholic Church is a topic where multi-volume books have been written on it, there is no one perfect amount to cover on each time period. I will say that random readers are probably more interested in the recent history aspect, so it wouldn't shock me if the 2424 article on the Catholic Church disproportionately focuses on the 24th century. SnowFire (talk) 21:56, 12 February 2024 (UTC)
• Delist 1) if the unsourced content in the history section is a sourced elsewhere in the article, it is redundant and needs to be removed per GACR#3b 2) obvious recentism in the history section. The Catholic Church has a really long history so the twentieth and twenty first centuries need to be covered in similar amount of detail as other historical epochs, and summary style needs to be used. Note that I did not look at the rest of the article (t · c) buidhe 17:41, 13 February 2024 (UTC)
• Keep There is no obvious "recentism" in the history section. The 20th century section does not appear disproportionately long compared to the rest of the section. I also see no uncited sections. Note that my comments pertain to this most recent revision. –Zfish118^⋉talk 18:58, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

Note that Zfish118's comment follows my examination and removal of the offending parts. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 03:04, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

Excellent work in trimming the history section! –Zfish118^⋉talk 03:30, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Image in the "Nature of God" subsection of the Doctrine section should be changed.

Hello, I believe the picture in the "Nature of God" subsection under Doctrine should be changed to a more appropriate visual. It depicts a Trifacial interpretation of the Trinity, which is a style specifically condemned by the church as inappropriate. Because this is an image that is rejected by Catholics, it should probably be replaced with one that is accepted by them. Such as a "shield of the Trinity" or a different painting. I bring this up because it is misleading to have this image in the article with the implication that it is accurate to Catholic belief when it isn't. 18 Kawasaki P-1s (talk) 14:22, 22 March 2026 (UTC)

You're right, Trifacial Trinity is condemned by the Catholic Church. The "shield of the Trinity" would be better.--JasterOmega (talk) 20:52, 22 March 2026 (UTC)

Apostolic terminology

I'd like to ask a question because I was left with some doubt when I looked up the common name for the Church of Rome in English. In Spanish (my native language), it's common to call it the Roman Catholic Apostolic Church because it maintains that it is the only Church founded by Christ, entrusted to the Apostle Saint Peter, to whom He entrusted its spread and governance along with the other apostles. This is because the title of the true Church of this apostle was debated with the Eastern Orthodox Church (Orthodox Catholic Apostolic Church). The issue is that in the United States there has been a Restorationist church since 1831 that calls itself the "Catholic Apostolic Church", so I don't know if the term "Apostolic" is used for the Church of Rome in the Anglo world or only in Romance languages. Lulasaurius (talk) 02:22, 3 April 2026 (UTC)

In the name it isn't used, though "Apostolic" features in the attributes it claims. It's Catholic Church or Roman Catholic Church. Johnbod (talk) 03:30, 3 April 2026 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. But wouldn't it be a good idea to call the page "Roman Catholic Church"? The Eastern Orthodox Church is also called Catholic (officially the Orthodox Catholic Church). Lulasaurius (talk) 04:03, 3 April 2026 (UTC)

This has been discussed ad nauseam, with the short answer being "no". See the discussions listed above for some of the discussions the lead to most recent precedent. The longer answer is that any reasonable reliable source discussing things at an encyclopedic level could refer to the subject as the "Catholic Church" and there would be no doubt about what they were referring to. Reliable sources primarily refer to this subject with the term Catholic Church. Reliable sources sometimes use the term Roman Catholic to distinguish Catholics from other Christians or simply to describe the church, but other reliable sources use Roman Catholic to distinguish the Latin Church from the Eastern Catholic Churches. As such, we include the alternate name bolded in the first sentence of this article, but do not use it as the preferred name for the subject. It can get more detailed than that, but that's the high-level summary of thousands of lines of debates over the last two and a half decades. Best, ~ Pbritti (talk) 14:33, 4 April 2026 (UTC)

SSPX should be on the list of “separations” in the wiki box

In context of the recent excommunications & declaration of schism it only makes sense ~2026-38076-19 (talk) 15:16, 3 July 2026 (UTC)

They're just not that significant a grouping nor terribly distinct from groups that already gall under the listed prior schisms. Best, ~ Pbritti (talk) 17:32, 3 July 2026 (UTC)

Sedevacantists & Old Catholics are no more significant ~2026-38082-78 (talk) 01:05, 5 July 2026 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 18 July 2026

Change “becoming the largest non-governmental provider of education and health care” to “being the largest non-governmental provider of education and health care”

to make consistent the verb tense of the sentence as a whole ~2026-40576-77 (talk) 18:55, 18 July 2026 (UTC)

Partly done: Changed to "making it the largest non-governmental provider of education and health care", which seems like the best way to word things. Day Creature (talk) 05:37, 19 July 2026 (UTC)