Talk:Concordat

There's a whole host of data at Concordat Watch that isn't touched and could be utilized. Working on it.

Surely users do not search for "Concordat of year xxxx", but, "Concordats of country xxxx". A better format might look like:

I'm proposing we delete Bavaria as a category:
Bavaria is no longer an independent country (now a German state).
The 1817 Concordat link has no content.
I'm writing up a better article that will come under the "Germany" title. Once that's done (and nothing is lost), I'll go ahead. Thoughts? --PeterBrietbart (talk) 11:51, 29 June 2010 (UTC)
I've written an article that is a work in progress for dealing with the Concordats with individual states of Germany
I'll get rid of the "Bavaria" title, since it is now defunct. --PeterBrietbart (talk) 22:56, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

The Criticism of Concordats section was edited on the 23rd of December to read

is an anti-Catholic website supporting secularism, abortion and feminism which documents from their own point of view historical and contemporary concordats across the world.[ref]For example, Concordat Watch is cited as a source in Plichtová and Petrjánošová (2008, p.46, 50), DiMarco (2009, p.5), Baker (2010, p.38), and Hosack (2010). [/ref]

Previously:

is a website supporting separation of church and state which documents historical and contemporary concordats across the world.[ref]For example, Concordat Watch is cited as a source in Plichtová and Petrjánošová (2008, p.46, 50), DiMarco (2009, p.5), Baker (2010, p.38), and Hosack (2010). [/ref]

< > to [ ] for clarity.

I have since reverted the changes, since I consider the use of inflammatory language unhelpful, and because the reference did not substantiate anything like those claims. I would appreciate the assistance of neutral Wikipedia editors to referee any potential edit-wars that ensue.

I understand that these are delicate issues for Catholics, and as such I would appreciate a flourishing discussion here.

PeterBrietbart (talk) 12:04, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't see anyone trying to bring back the problematic formulation, so I removed the tag. --Jules.LT (talk) 10:02, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

I will be adding the standard warning for a non neutral page. This website relies heavily upon an anti catholic website to define a catholic topic. That really says it all. Furthermore, even linking to this website to show the text of a concordat is a bad practice because often the website adds in their own comments at the top before you get to read the actual text. That would be like sending somebody to a website to read a copy of the constitution that has been prefaced by a biased anti American statement. Also, see my comment below under the Ref heading. --Fictio-cedit-veritati (talk) 22:27, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Fictio, the neutrality tag is not a "Warning". It is intended to bring editors into an existing discussion on the talk page. Tagging the article when there is no active discussion is not what the tag is intended for. As I mentioned elsewhere, we don't typically deem sources unreliable simply because they are "anti-religious", or "anti-catholic". Indeed, when dealing with the criticism of a religious practice, many of the sources we find will contain such material, for obvious reasons. In your edit, you have added "anti-catholic" before a statement, which I'll note is unsourced, and can probably be seen as a bit pov on the other end. I'm going to remove that "anti-catholic" bit, per WP:BRD. We can still talk about it here, of course. I'd urge you to reconsider the POV tag, since there's no consensus regarding neutrality concerns, or an active discussion to draw in editors. All the best,   — Jess· Δ♥ 04:39, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Jess, this page clearly has pov issues. As to concordant leaks being anti-catholic, it's obviously anti-catholic. Asking for a source on that is unreasonable, almost like asking for a source on calling Neo-Nazi website anti-Semitic. Furthermore, this has been discussed on this page before. I will revert back to fico's edit. --150.108.238.38 (talk) 07:28, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

I'd ask that you please don't edit war. I see no other discussion of adding the "anti-catholic" prefix to the description, and consensus should be established for such an addition before it is reintroduced. Frankly, I think the "separation of church and state" descriptor is probably a bit much too, so it might be better to just remove the whole concordantwatch thing altogether. I see it picked up nowhere in secondary sources (correct me if I'm wrong). That said, whether it's left in or not, we can't describe it like that without sourcing. Perhaps you have a better source for some of this content? I'd certainly welcome it!   — Jess· Δ♥ 20:00, 24 September 2011 (UTC

Nobody is edit-warring- there's just a consensus here that the site is anti-catholic. Also, the website says that it is 'for the separation of church and state' (http://www.concordatwatch.eu/showtopic.php?org_id=843&kb_header_id=29281) so there is nothing wrong with noting that here. No source is really needed to call it anti-catholic, as that is self evident by reading it. Here is a source though from a catholic source deeming the cite anti-catholic (http://forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=557779). If a Jewish source was to term something anti-Semitic we'd note that, so we'll note that here too. Also, the site relies heavily on news articles from atheistic and militant sensualist websites (with self-proclaimed agendas against religion). Please cease removing the anti-catholic comment. There is a consensus among editors and there is now evidence that the site has been termed anti-catholic by catholic sources. --150.108.232.75 (talk) 21:42, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

We can't add content to the article based on the opinions (even the majority opinions) of editors here. We need a reliable source for such a descriptor, and even if we had one, we'd have to attribute it. We can't simply state such a thing in wikipedia's voice. Please see WP:V - the threshold for inclusion on wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. You are, indeed, edit warring (see WP:EW), which is disruptive, and I'd kindly ask that you stop. The "source" you provided to forums.catholic.com is to a forum, which is not a reliable source. Do you have a reliable, secondary source which deems the site anti-catholic. That all said, I'd like to remove the entire thing, and I'm going to boldly do that now, hoping that it will be a reasonable compromise. If you find that compromise unacceptable, please discuss the matter further here, per guideline at WP:BRD, and don't simply reintroduce the "anti-catholic" descriptor without discussion. Thank you.   — Jess· Δ♥ 06:18, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Jess, thanks for removing that material. While what stands right now is a lot better than what was there, it is currently not sourced and and when it was it came from concordatwatch. What I'll do now is change the wording slightly so as to make the reader aware the concordats are literally just treaties under different names, and that any criticism of them being undiplomatic should be directed at the treaty signing process in general, not at specifically concordats. I'll work to have this reflected on the criticism page as well. --Fictio-cedit-veritati (talk) 19:50, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Hi Fictio. I partially undid one sentence of your proposal, which I explained in my edit summary. If my reasoning there isn't clear, let me know here and we can discuss it further. Thanks!   — Jess· Δ♥ 20:35, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Hi Jess- the fact that concordats are what the Holy See calls treaties is what I would consider common knowledge; wikipedia mentions as much on other pages concerning concordats as well. Any law textbook in International Law will explain the international personality of the Holy See and thus their power to create and enter into treaties. The way in which the concordats are signed was sourced, the source being the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. You can read the convention if you want- it lays out how treaties are signed (and yes, some might call that undemocratic). Given this, do you still take issue with my sentence?

You may find the following useful. It will actually pose as an excellent source (the best I've seen so far) for the continued reworking of these pages.

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04196a.htm --Fictio-cedit-veritati (talk) 21:15, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Hmm. Maybe there was a misunderstanding here. I only reverted the portion which began "Most criticisms against concordats, however, apply to all treaties". We don't have a source for that, as far as I can tell. We'd need a strong source, and then we'd likely have to attribute it to someone. Does that make sense?   — Jess· Δ♥ 21:22, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

BTW, can you indent your posts? I just went through and indented this section. It gets hard to read when posts are all jumbled together. Thanks.   — Jess· Δ♥ 21:24, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Hi Jess, maybe there has been a misunderstanding, but this conversation is about neutrality. Until the matter of concordat watch is finished we'll leave it up. If we decide not to trust it then we have to get rid of the criticism sentence because while it isn't sourced right now it's drawn entirely from concordatwatch. As to my sentence that you deleted- I don't understand what you think needs a strong source. The fact that concordats are the same as treaties? --Fictio-cedit-veritati (talk) 23:09, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

I just checked the criticism page, and right in the header it acknowledges that concordats are treaties with the Holy See. I've also noticed this in other articles on here. So right now wikipeida 'agrees' with me if you will. I think you should accept this norm, or else you'd have to go to all of those articles and change them. And again, this is really considered to be common knowledge- go to the UN's website and run a search on concordats, you'll soon get the picture. I'll work on finding a formal statement, but I think for now it is really in our best interest to continue with the precedence set in various other wikipeida articles and other places on the web. --Fictio-cedit-veritati (talk) 23:19, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Hi Fictio. 1) I guess we're back to edit warring over the neutrality tag. That's not really all that productive. As I explained above, the tag is not intended to "mark the article", as you're using it. It's intended to draw editors into an existing discussion. There isn't an existing discussion on the topic you believe is contentious, so the tag is inappropriate. It should not sit there forever because one editor believes the article needs improvement. 2) Thank you for indenting your posts. I appreciate it. I've fixed your signature, which was sitting on the next line. 3) I never said concordats are not treaties. I said we cannot write "criticisms of concordats apply to other things too" without sourcing. If other articles say the same thing without sourcing, then they need to be fixed. It's not my job to fix them in order to keep this article from repeating the same mistake. 4) Common sense is not a metric for including content. Sources are. We need sourcing to include that content, both for verifiability, and so we can attribute the claim to someone.   — Jess· Δ♥ 05:05, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Hi Jess. Rather unfortunately, I've been away from this for quite sometime. Thanks for leaving everything intact. 1) I understand what you're saying about the neutrality tag, and you certainly have a better understanding of the workings of wikipedia than I do. The reason I put the tag up is because I believe that biased sources have been used in the writing of the articles and that, as a result of this, readers ought to be forewarned until we can come to some form of understanding. There is perhaps a better tag to communicate this, do you know of one? 2) Thank you. 3) I understand what you are saying here, though I have provided sources more carefully explaining the nature of concordats. I will again include those in any future edits. 4) I think you misunderstood the sense in which I used 'common sense'. I'm certainly not suggesting that we write factual statements and then not source them because they are 'common sense'. I pointed you in the direction of where information supporting my position can be found, and will again work to include such links in future posts. --Fictio-cedit-veritati (talk) 23:23, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Currently, this section does not cite any sources. Given this, I would like to remove it, leaving only the link to the actual criticism page, unless others can provide some links to credible websites to support some of the assertions made. --Fictio-cedit-veritati (talk) 23:25, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

From a Church-State scholar's perspective, the contentions regarding Concordats seems reasonable to resolve. From a Catholic perspective, the Church has the moral and theological right to enter into diplomatic relations with states in order to reach agreements regarding the care of its members residing there. This is the concept of libertas ecclesiastica (freedom of the Church). However, from a non-Catholic perspective (NOT an anti-Catholic perspective), this poses certain concerns regarding religious freedom, such as: 1) Concordats give to the Church a privileged position that other religious groups are denied (European history in numerous books reveals this fact), 2) Concordats are not "the same as treaties" because they are entered into by an entity that is BOTH religious and political in nature, viz., the Catholic Church, whereas any other treaty is between two sovereign entities on a horizontal level, i.e., purely political in nature (see Robert A. Graham, “Introduction: Reflections on Vatican Diplomacy,” in Kent and Pollard, eds., Papal Diplomacy, 1, 2), and 3) depending on the negotiations agreed upon in the Concordat, some religious groups face the threat of being marginalized (example: in Spain, although the Constitution guarantees religious freedom (theoretically), yet in practice, Protestant, Muslim, and Jewish groups are restricted from certain forms of proselytism).Nobody'sman (talk) 16:41, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

I hold a Ph.D. in Church-State Relations and had added the previous paragraph (above) to the main page under the section "Criticism of Concordats," providing a balanced view of them. However, someone else added footnotes 5-13 that are NOT balanced nor substantiated. For example, the statement preceding footnote 7 implies that the shops, hotel resorts, etc. are owned by the Catholic Church and that the Church, in order to avoid payment of taxes for a commercial enterprise, had built small shrines to make it appear like a religious facility. As the paragraph currently reads, this is the surmising of its author and cannot be substantiated. The only other logical conclusions is that those businesses are not owned by the Church, but the proprietors have built small shrines in order to claim tax exemption status, in which case this is NOT the fault of the Church, but instead the proprietors who have hypocritically used the shrine to mask a commercial enterprise. In America, many Pentecostal and mega-church organizations do the same thing -- they have small stores built onto the main sanctuary where they sell items purportedly under the name of their church and thus avoid taxes. If the Catholic Church does something similar, they are not the only religious organization to do this. From this perspective, mentioning only the Catholic Church in the Criticism section is NOT balanced and is full of BIAS. This paragraph should be removed, or re-written to reflect a substantiated and balanced view of concordats in the country(ies) mentioned. Tax-exempt status is not particular to the Catholic Church, at least not in America, where all religious organizations enjoy such a status because one of America's enlightened statesman, James Madison, realized that the power to tax is the power to destroy. If churches had to pay taxes, and one year they could not gather the funds to pay property taxes, the government would have the power to close their doors. Since religious organizations are beneficial to society, they are properly accorded a tax-exempt status.Nobody'sman (talk) 06:22, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Given that the Holy See must have entered into hundreds (thousands) of treaties with states over the last millenium or so, this list is at considerable risk of becoming WP:INDISCRIMINATE. Of particular concern are:

• Concordats lacking their own article -- likelihood of being non-notable, and therefore unsuitable for inclusion.
• Concordats lacking either their own article or a citation -- not WP:Verifiable, and therefore clearly unsuitable for inclusion.

Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 02:57, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

I wasn't aware of WP:INDISCRIMINATE, but having read it, it does seem like it is a valid concern for 'The List'. I clicked on a fair number of the concordats that have pages, and the majority of those pages are stubs written from one source (usually a bad one). So what do you propose? Cut down the list, and/or the pages as well? --Fictio-cedit-veritati (talk) 03:39, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

(i) Cut them down. Then (ii) either rename the article to List of concordats (this is what the article currently is really) or add significant WP:SECONDARY discussion of the history, current usage, etc of concordats. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 03:52, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

I could be amenable to a plan like that. I don't know how much sense it would make to not have a general page about concordats and yet have a list page with criticism on it, so we'd definitely want to add some discussion of the history, current usage, etc., as you suggested. For right now, would you agree that we should remove condordatwatch as the source referenced for several concordats? --Fictio-cedit-veritati (talk) 04:04, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

I'd be happy with the removal of any apparently-WP:SPS that nobody has made a specific defence of (unless claim to reliability is self-evident -- e.g. some published religious historian's blog). But this means that any concordats cited only to such sources will also have to go. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 04:21, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

The Holy See concluded only 74 concordats from 1098 (first concordat) to World War I (cf. Metz, pg. 137) and from 1919-1959 concluded only 39 conventions and concordats (cf. Metz, pg. 138). I object to the conjectured and unfounded "given" at the top of this section "that the Holy See must have entered into hundreds (thousands) of treaties with states over the last millenium or so" and I therefore disagree that the list of concordats is in danger of becoming WP:INDISCRIMINATE. Canon Law Junkie §§§ Talk 04:41, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

GUYS, JUST SHUT UPSO THEY CAN FINISH THIS ARTICLE! --Jon — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.250.208.49 (talk) 23:57, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

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