Talk:Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Baghdad

Latest comment: 4 years ago by Dekimasu in topic Requested move 5 January 2020

Map edit

AndrewRT(Talk) 20:54, 5 January 2012 (UTC)Reply

Requested move 14 December 2019 edit

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: consensus to move the page to the requested title at this time, per the discussion below. Dekimasuよ! 17:45, 2 January 2020 (UTC)Reply


Latin Catholic Archdiocese of BaghdadRoman Catholic Archdiocese of Baghdad – Consistency with all the other (arch)diocesan articles Elizium23 (talk) 05:41, 14 December 2019 (UTC)Relisting. Dekimasuよ! 03:36, 24 December 2019 (UTC)Reply

Actually, the term "Roman" indicates that dioceses are Latin Church structures. The archeparchies you mention are not, by this measure, Roman Catholic, but rather Chaldean Catholic and Syriac Catholic. "Roman Catholic (Arch)Diocese of..." is the standard on Wikipedia for the Latin Church. There are thousands and thousands of examples; this one is an outlier that was named wrong. Elizium23 (talk) 22:04, 15 December 2019 (UTC)Reply
I disagree. Roman Catholic = Catholic. The main article was at Roman Catholic Church for years (and should still be, IMO). "Roman" refers to the city of Rome, whose bishop is head of the church, and "Latin" refers to a language and by extension a rite. Srnec (talk) 22:44, 15 December 2019 (UTC)Reply
You seem ignorant to the widespread common usage of "Roman Catholic Diocese of..." and "Roman Catholic Parish" by the organizations themselves, meaning Latin Church. I have seen zero parishes or dioceses which call themselves "Latin Catholic". Therefore your oppose fails WP:V. Here on Wikipedia we follow what the sources say. Elizium23 (talk) 22:57, 15 December 2019 (UTC)Reply
The formal name of this diocese is Bagdathensis Latinorum ([3][4]) and you can google "Baghdad of the Latins". Srnec (talk) 23:13, 15 December 2019 (UTC)Reply
"Roman Catholic," properly speaking, refers to the Roman Rite of the Latin Church. The term can also be used for the Church universal, but this is generally done only when needed to distinguish the actual Catholic Church from other ecclesial bodies that claim to be Catholic. This seems to be the point of confusion in the above discussion. The "Latin Catholic Church" is a Church sui juris, and the "Roman Rite" is the main rite of the Latin Catholic Church. There is no such thing as a "Latin rite" unless you are speaking in the plural to mean all the rites of the Latin Church. The term "Latin" denotes a group of people (the Latin Church), whereas the term "Roman" denotes how they worship. But because the Latin Church is the only church that uses the Roman Rite, and because the Roman Rite is so predominant within the Latin Church, the two terms are, in practice, basically synonymous. So you are correct, Srnec, that "Latin Catholic Archdiocese" should be the more correct terminology, because a diocese is a group of people within the Latin Church. However, for historical reasons, the term "Roman Catholic" (meaning Roman Rite) is by far the more commonly-used term for dioceses of the Latin Church, and so, for the sake of consistency, this is the standard we use on Wikipedia. Jdcompguy (talk) 08:46, 16 December 2019 (UTC)Reply
I never thought that titles like, e.g., Roman Catholic Diocese of Limoges existed to indicate that Limoges is a Latin diocese. Indeed, when that page took that title back in 2008 the main article was still at Roman Catholic Church, which is not a redirect to Latin Church (as Elizium surely knows [5]). So I don't get it. If Roman Catholic Church ≠ Latin Church, why is Roman Catholic here taken to be synonymous with Latin?
To be clear, it is my opinion that an article like Roman Catholic Diocese of Limoges should be moved to plain Diocese of Limoges. The words on the front are their per WP:NATURALDIS, but in many (most?) cases are superfluous. Srnec (talk) 23:25, 16 December 2019 (UTC)Reply
Dropping "Roman Catholic" from diocesan article titles entirely is not a good idea; we need that so that the reader knows immediately that this is a diocese of the Latin Church without the reader having to hunt down that information in the article body. In answer to your question, "Roman Catholic" has two different meanings depending on the context. It can refer to the universal Catholic Church (the pope of which is based in Rome), or it can refer to the Roman Rite of the Latin Church of the Catholic Church. In most areas of the world (Americas, Europe, East Asia), the phrase "Roman Catholic Diocese" refers to a diocese of the Latin Church, as distinguished from an eparchy of one of the eastern churches. I understand that in the Middle East, the nomenclature is different, with "Roman Catholic" being used in the broad sense, and "Latin Catholic" being used for the Latin Church. Based on your comments, I presume you are likely approaching this from a Middle Eastern perspective. Because this is English Wikipedia, it will naturally be biased towards the nomenclature of natively-English-language parts of the world, in which Catholics would refer to the Latin archdiocese of Baghdad as the "Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Baghdad." In any case, your arguments have a bearing on the titles of numerous articles, not just this one. If you would like to propose that we switch to the less-commonly-used but more-technically-correct terminology ("Latin Catholic Diocese") across English Wikipedia, or propose we drop "Roman Catholic" entirely, or propose we make a nomenclature exception on English Wikipedia for dioceses of the Middle East (where "Roman Catholic" has a different nuance), the place to do that is at WikiProject Catholicism, not in the context of a debate for the article title of a single Middle Eastern diocese. Jdcompguy (talk) 07:45, 18 December 2019 (UTC)Reply
The only articles affected by arguments are ones where "Roman Catholic Diocese of X" is ambiguous because there is more than one Roman Catholic diocese of X. Baghdad needs special treatment because there are several Catholic dioceses based in it. Limoges, e.g., does not. Other diocese may need only be disambiguated from Protestant or Orthodox sees, but not other Catholic ones. It is only when there are multiple Catholic sees with the same name in English that we need to use an completely unambiguous title. This is such a case and the proposed title isn't it. I absolutely think this is about "a single Middle Eastern diocese" and nothing else. Srnec (talk) 01:31, 19 December 2019 (UTC)Reply
The overall community consensus among editors of pages for Latin Catholic dioceses (as reflected in practically all other diocesan articles) is that "Roman Catholic" is synonymous with "Latin Catholic" in this context, and we go with "Roman Catholic" because it is much more commonly used in the English-speaking world. If you would like to challenge that understanding, I recommend you do so at WikiProject Catholicism as I mentioned. With that understanding in mind, "Roman Catholic" is unambiguous in this context; but even if it were ambiguous, the use of the word "Archdiocese" is a sufficient disambiguator for the title by itself, because the Eastern Catholic jurisdictions (Syrian, Chaldean, and Armenian) all have the name "Archeparchy," not "Archdiocese." As I said in my Support vote below, your argument has some merit, but the status quo is such that "Roman Catholic" is the title consistent with present usage on English Wikipedia. I am very open to the status quo changing if consensus is achieved through the right channels. Jdcompguy (talk) 10:45, 19 December 2019 (UTC)Reply
  • Support per WP:CONSISTENCY. PPEMES (talk) 17:27, 17 December 2019 (UTC)Reply
  • Support. Although the opposition argument has some merit (see above discussion), the opposition's proposed nomenclature would need to be implemented across a large swath of articles, not on this article alone. If the opposition side feels strongly about this, they should make a proposal at WikiProject Catholicism and get consensus there. Arguing that the article title of a single diocese should be kept inconsistent with the article title of every other Latin Catholic diocese on English Wikipedia is not productive. I support renaming for consistency, and would be open to the persons opposed making a proposal through the appropriate channels. Jdcompguy (talk) 07:45, 18 December 2019 (UTC)Reply
  • Support – since all articles about Catholic dioceses or archdioceses are titled in this way. There is no good reason to implement a large-scale change of titles. —Bloom6132 (talk) 16:50, 30 December 2019 (UTC)Reply
  • Support - The Roman Rite is the predominant rite in the Latin church. While "Latin" may be the more technically accurate, "Roman" is more common. Wikipedia is not written for canonists, and no one calls themselves a "Latin Catholic". Manannan67 (talk) 18:13, 30 December 2019 (UTC)Reply
  • Oppose per Srnec. There is no excuse for inaccuracy in article titles, and the current title is as Srnec points in detail, the accurate one given that there are other (Roman) Catholic diocese in the same city. Arguing for CONSISTENCY should not be at the exclusion of accuracy, so the above support arguments are not valid.  — Amakuru (talk) 12:57, 1 January 2020 (UTC)Reply
    • So would you support 10,000 other requested moves in the alleged name of WP:ACCURACY? There are no other Roman Catholic dioceses in the same city, they are Eastern Catholic. Elizium23 (talk) 16:24, 1 January 2020 (UTC)Reply
    • @Amakuru: "Roman Catholic Archdiocese" is both accurate and consistent. You're getting "Roman Catholic Archdiocese" confused with "Eastern Catholic Archeparchy." There is not a single other Roman Catholic Archdiocese in Baghdad. Jdcompguy (talk) 05:58, 2 January 2020 (UTC)Reply
      OK, I have looked into it a bit more and it seems you're right - "Roman Catholic" is used in most sources to refer just to the church headed by the pope, rather than all of the faiths in communion with it. I've therefore struck my oppose and will Support the proposal. Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 09:58, 2 January 2020 (UTC)Reply

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Requested move 5 January 2020 edit

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: consensus not to move the page to the proposed title at this time, per the discussion below. Dekimasuよ! 17:10, 12 January 2020 (UTC)Reply


Roman Catholic Archdiocese of BaghdadRoman Catholic Archdiocese of Baghdad of the Latins – Current title is ambiguous. See Roman Catholic (term). The term covers the Catholic Church in its entirety, including Eastern Catholics. There are Eastern Catholic archdioceses of Baghdad. We call them archeparchies here, but that term is synonymous and interchangeable with archdiocese. To describe a diocese as the Roman Catholic archdiocese of Baghdad is to invite the question, which one? Srnec (talk) 05:12, 5 January 2020 (UTC)Reply

  • Oppose. Unambiguous current title. Proposed move only muddies the waters. There are no other "Roman Catholic" dioceses in Baghdad, only Eastern Catholic ones. Elizium23 (talk) 05:17, 5 January 2020 (UTC)Reply
  • Muddies the waters? Have you read Roman Catholic (term)? Do you think it is wrong? This redefining of "Roman Catholic" is bullshit. Srnec (talk) 20:34, 5 January 2020 (UTC)Reply
  • Oppose and speedy close. We've just had a debate on this and there was firm consensus to move to this current title per consistency with others. It was clearly shown that there is no ambiguity in this title, which is why I was persuaded to change my !vote above.  — Amakuru (talk) 08:35, 5 January 2020 (UTC)Reply
  • It's a distinct proposal, since it avoids the issue raised above by leaving the prefix "Roman Catholic" on the title. You said above that "'Roman Catholic' is used in most sources to refer just to the church headed by the pope, rather than all of the faiths in communion with it", but there is no such thing as a faith in [full] communion with Rome not accepting the pope as head. All the Eastern Catholic churches accept the supremacy (and not just primacy!) of the bishop of Rome. Srnec (talk) 20:34, 5 January 2020 (UTC)Reply
  • WP:SNOW close please. We just closed a move discussion with overwhelming consensus on a specific consistent title. Elizium23 (talk) 20:36, 5 January 2020 (UTC)Reply
  • You argued based on consistency, this proposal accepts that and proposes an alternative method of fixing the ambiguity. Srnec (talk) 20:51, 5 January 2020 (UTC)Reply
  • Speedy closure was attempted and reverted by the proposer: This RM is a rehash of the RM that was concluded 3 days ago. It is being proposed by the only user who disagreed with the previous consensus. Because this seemed to be a clear case of a user blatantly disregarding the outcome of an RM, I speedily-closed this on the grounds of WP:SNOW. Srnec (the proposer) reverted my closure edit on the basis that I was "involved," whereas in fact I am only now making my first contribution to this particular RM discussion. Srnec tries to have it both ways, saying that this is a separate/distinct RM, while also considering me to be "involved" in this RM because I was involved in the last one -- which indicates that Srnec does, in fact, consider this to be a rehash. Rather than start an edit war, I will leave it be and let someone else deal with this. Jdcompguy (talk) 16:56, 6 January 2020 (UTC)Reply
  • Oppose. No one confuses eparchy with archdiocese. Eparchy by definition indicates Eastern Rite. Who are these "Latins"? I had no idea there were so many Hispanics in Baghdad. Manannan67 (talk) 22:34, 6 January 2020 (UTC)Reply
@Manannan67: Please see Latins (Middle Ages). Either, I would oppose the inclusion of that demarker here. PPEMES (talk) 22:48, 6 January 2020 (UTC)Reply
Please note, we are not living in the Middle Ages. Manannan67 (talk) 22:58, 6 January 2020 (UTC)Reply
It is not a fanciful construction, it is a direct literal translation of the Archdiocese's Latin official name. "Latinorum" = "of the Latins". "The Latins" in this case are the faithful and clergy of the Latin Church, as opposed to the Eastern Churches. But of course this is a redundant qualifier because it's already the "Roman Catholic Archdiocese". Elizium23 (talk) 00:55, 7 January 2020 (UTC)Reply
  • Oppose. "Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Baghdad" seems to suffice, per argments presented. PPEMES (talk) 22:48, 6 January 2020 (UTC)Reply

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.