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Antichrist???

I think the part: "The Northern Irish Protestant leader Ian Paisley has repeatedly accused John Paul II of being the Antichrist." should be deleted from the Criticism, as it is not a real criticism, rather an insult.

  • I agree it should be deleted. It is a real criticism, based on disagreeing with the Pope's claim to be "head of the church". However it is a general theological criticism directed at all Popes, not John Paul II in particular, and so it would be better to deal with this somewhere other than the biography of an individual Pope. PatGallacher 15:38, 2005 Apr 10 (UTC)
Agreed, and done. Bratschetalk 03:51, Apr 11, 2005 (UTC)

Length of article

This article is becoming very long, at 85 kb. Does anyone have any ideas as to how we should reduce its length, perhaps by continuing to move material into subsidary articles.--File Éireann 20:35, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I agree. For starters, the excessive detail about his health issues seems irrelevant now, except insofar as they highlight the issue of a pope being unable to serve and his own struggles with that issue. -summa

The bulk of this article should be limited to his basic biography: birth, education, life, general information about his papacy, brief sections on his death and funeral with appropriate links (i.e., Funeral of Pope John Paul II). His health was significant so I suggest it stay in this main article; unless we can't find a way to shorten the section it should go to Health of Pope John Paul II.
Death and world reactions to his death should be moved to an article called, Death of Pope John Paul II. Information concerning his work in trying to heal religious wounds between faith traditions, whether it be with Eastern Orthodoxy, Judaism or the Church of England, should be moved to Diplomacy of Pope John Paul II. We could more extensively deal with his international travels at that article as well. Issues of art, entertainment, film, literature, et al should be moved to Pop culture of Pope John Paul II. All of these articles can of course be indexed at Category:Pope John Paul II. --Gerald Farinas 21:55, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Good God! This article is 87K!!! The maximum size for an article is 32K. This is so big it will have to be broken up into 3, probably 4, articles!!! If it goes above 32k, many wikipedia users on very common browsers cannot enter it. (If they do and save, they'll wipe out eveything in the article over 32K.) Very big chunks will have to be removed. I cannot help, I'm afraid - my goddamned browser is of the 32K variety.

The first thing to do is to stop anyone else adding anything else in for the moment. A banner should be put at the top of the page saying something like

Due to the popularity of this page, and the number of edits, the page now exceeds the maximum number of kilobites for a wikipedia article. Wikipedia requests that no more text be added in to the article for the moment while the page is restructured. Please see the talk page for details.

Then on the talk page, people can discuss categorising different sections of the article, to see what should remain in the main article and what should be moved to linked pages. It might even be an idea to protect the main page to stop editing, with the explanation at the top. Then people could discuss here what subcategories we should have and what should be moved. Once that is agreed, so everyone has the agreed template to work from, the broken up page could be opened up again for edits.

In many ways the size of this page is indicative of wikipedia success. It shows how good it is as creating a contemporaneous record of a world event. Perhaps we should have copped on sooner that this would happen, temporarily protected the page to stop edits, set up a set of linked pages and then unprotected it, so that everyone wouldn't have been working on the one rapidly growing page. FearÉIREANN 01:27, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

This probably won't make a dent in the size of the article, but shouldn't the following be deleted from the "Other" section since it is more about Stanislaw and not the Pope?: "Archbishop Stanisław Dziwisz was the Pope's private secretary. A fellow Pole, he was ordained in 1963 by Bishop Wojtyła, he became the second secretary to Archbishop Wojtyła in 1966, and shortly after, the principal secretary. Pope John Paul II ordained him a bishop in 1998." I think most of that information is on Stanislaw's page anyway. -Edwardian

32K is not an absolute max on the size of a page. Yes, this page is too long, but there's no need for a special note. john k 06:37, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

It was agreed that no pages should be over 32K and a warning note was created to tell people not to go over 32K.

According to the advice A rule of thumb for splitting pages (including lists and tables), and combining small pages:

  • >32KB - should be divided unless it is a list
  • >20KB - may need to be divided (make sure sections are <20K - preferably much smaller)
  • <20KB - probably should not be divided

The problem is that some browsers will not allow people to edit pages over 32K. Mine does so. The newer version that doesn't has other problems with special characters. I tried using it but it threw wikipedia into chaos (and then saved that chaos for everyone to enjoy if I tried saving a page!) A lot of people are caught in the same problem. Every browser I have tried has had some irritating glitch when using wikipedia. The only one that doesn't just keeps freezing the computer. Until I can get one that works properly I am stuck with this one, which means, for example I cannot edit this page except in special edit chunks but parts of the page aren't editable that way.

If I tried to edit the page now the page would run down as far as the following, under the headine World Reactions. (And if I saved then I would wipe out everything below it.)

In Poland, Catholics gathered at the church at Wadowice, the birthplace of the pontiff. State television cancelled all comedy-related shows beginning April 1st, 2005, and began showing mass. The Poles, who had a deep sense of devotion towards the pontiff and referred to him as their "father," were particularly devastated by his death. The government declared six days of mourning for him.

Many world leaders expressed their condolences and ordered flags in their count [end]

Because of this (a lot of people were saving small changes innocently and then finding that they were being called vandals for inadvertently wiping out much of the page over 32K) it was agreed that pages should not go over 32K and that if one did, it should automatically be broken up or edited. Otherwise you a situation where some wikipedians are excluded from editing some articles. Or even worse new users who inadvertently wipe out a chunk of the page get banned as vandals. So we do need to have a message and we do need to move most of this article to linked pages. FearÉIREANN 21:18, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

One suggestion I have is to put more of the page in chronological order, rather than have a "Life's work" and "Other" sections separate from the "Biography" section. While this won't have any immediate benefits of reducing the article size, it will be a lot more obvious what bits have too much about them and should be spun out. JYolkowski 15:43, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

"The Great"

Can we stop removing stuff we don't like??? I added "The Great" to the name of the Pope as the Church has done... Even given an explenation to why... Is this realy sutch a problem? User:Golf

It is actually. I say you should give a credible source before making such a statement in the article.
EliasAlucard|Talk 15:56, Apr 8, 2005 (UTC)
Well, lets see. BBC based there claim on the origonal texts of the ceremonies surounding the death, next to that I believe one could have listend to them there selfs, do it would have been in Latin. User:Golf
Link please?
EliasAlucard|Talk 16:05, Apr 8, 2005 (UTC)
Remembering 'John Paul The Great'
Cardinal's 'great Pope' tribute
John Paul on Fast-Track to Be a Saint
-- KTC 14:22, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Currently there is no page listing there broadcasted claim (BBC), yet Google News does have an article on it, so here is the link:
http://www.detnews.com/2005/religion/0504/08/01-140230.htm
I also found a Vatican transcript of the funeral mass, it mentioned "great" in the English translation bt Bablefish, yet the translation is of pour quality, but here is the link to the Italian version:
http://www.vatican.va/news_services/liturgy/2005/documents/ns_lit_doc_20050408_messa-esequiale-jp-ii_it.html
B.t.w. Calling someone a dipshit isn;t a nice thing to do!
(Thanks KTC) User:Golf
I see, it wasn't B.S. then. But I think we should wait one or two more days just to be on the safe side. This Great nickname isn't 100% confirmed as of yet; It's not exactly in the history books yet. Sorry about that Golf, I thought you guys were spaming like they usually do. Use your registered nickname :)
EliasAlucard|Talk 16:27, Apr 8, 2005 (UTC)
Personly I feel we have to relay all facts as they come in, so I intend to add the title and the explenation again. In a couple of day's we can always change the text to suite the current thinking again, currently this is the thinking, so... User:Golf
Well, apology excepted, yet if there are so many people spamming, then Wikipedia soulden't allow them to edit pages. The way the Wikipedia is great is that everyone can edit content, but people wo are just looking for stuff to BS are just wreking my good will for writing stuff here... User:Golf


Yes Golf, you're not a vandal, you're just a POV pusher. I've removed it again. There is already a section on the stupid "John Paul the Great" business. Until this becomes standard, that is to say, he is actually frequently referred to as John Paul the Great, and not just occasionally, we should not give this in the beginning of the article. As to the section, it was deeply inaccurate as written - many popes have become saints, only a very few have been designated "the Great." I have also removed the weaselly unattributed claim about "some observers" thinking there may be a vox populi (among other things, everyone who has used "the great" has been a, well, cardinal, which is hardly the vox populi). john k 14:44, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

While I'm not going to add or delete it myself. To say that the only people who have use "the Great" have been Cardinals is complete BS. Have you been living in a crave in the last few days? -- KTC 14:53, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Perhaps I'm a POV pusher, could you include the a refference to the fact that in the Uligy he was called "The Great", a nice compromise? User:Golf (B.T.W. how many people have to say "the Great" before we accept it?)
Before we add it, there should be more people calling him "the great" than those who don't give him the title. As has been said on here many times its too soon to know if the name will survive the test of history or not - wait until all the fuss has died down. Thryduulf 14:58, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Lol, I have to say that that title can only be given by the people of the Earth to a Pope. And for the history, with current events like this we are creating it by being journalists, so to omit it would be also POV stuff.
So, a) About one Billion people would agree that he is "great", b) your removal of the title is also POV edditing, c) the fact that he was called "great" in the Uligy isn't on the site ATM, so that is just plain bad journalism (witch job it is to state the facts)...
User:Golf
I also have reverted it. There were one or two suggestions but at the moment there doesn't seem to be any kind of groundswell of people calling him by that title and no sign of the Holy See website changing to that name. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 15:00, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Golf, I happen to be a Catholic myself, but you see, the thing is that we must all keep a Wikipedia Netrual Point of View. As much as he is loved by Catholics and Christians, we can't allow personal feelings to be included in the articles. There are other non-catholics reading christian articles, and I'm sure they wouldn't appreciate biased content.
EliasAlucard|Talk 17:17, Apr 8, 2005 (UTC)
Well, I find that a great thing, yet as I try to point out: Omitting surtain facts is POV stuff. One could atleast mention them from a nutrual viewpoint, wich I tryed to do and wasn't allowed to... I say the people who remove facts are bias, not my reporting a fact. User:Golf
Sure, whatever man. I fail to see how I can be biased for removing that he's great whilst I'm Catholic and you adding it back. Either way, please try to spell better because it gets confusing to decipher what's written. Also, there seems to be a consensus that as of now, he shouldn't be named the great since it's not a 100% fact.
EliasAlucard|Talk 17:28, Apr 8, 2005 (UTC)
I see that you don’t see what I see, but I do see it... I say that people who remove facts are pushing POV or are bad journalists. That is what I say and what I believe. When writing articles (or editing them) for Wikipedia I only write facts, and that is what I am pushing, the inclusion of the fact (that it was mentioned), without involving my own point of view. User:Golf


I have just seen that there is a paragraph about the fact, so I'm happy User:Golf

You are quite incorrect in adding "The Great" at this time as a formal title to Pope John Paul II. While I hold the late pope in higher esteem than any other person in public life in the last century, and while I hope and confidently expect that he will one day hold this title, it has not yet become general, and the title should not be given to him in a formal way at the top of the article. I think it is better rather to argue as to the reasons for his great importance. Popes Leo and Gregory the Great reigned well over a thousand years ago and I do not believe that they contributed more than Pope John Paul II. However, although I myself am itching to use this title I cannot do so as yet until it is more widely accepted...perhaps the world today is unwilling to give this title to a twenty-first century human being.--File Éireann 16:13, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

While, of course, I was being hyperbolic in saying that only cardinals have been calling him "John Paul the Great," it is certainly true that this stuff seems to be being pushed by the hierarchy, and that there is, as yet, no evidence of a vox populi, and certainly no evidence that one billion Catholics are agreed that he should be known as "the Great." Personally, although I am not Catholic (my father was raised Catholic, though, does that give me special standing?), it seems to me that this whole "the Great" thing is both tasteless and premature. This title has been given to two popes, ever, and the more recent of them died 1400 years ago. Gregory the Great, it may be added, essentially created the idea of the Pope as the supreme head of the Church, whereas before he had simply been first among equals among the bishops. The Catholic Encyclopedia calls him the father of the medieval papacy. Leo the Great saved Rome from the Huns (supposedly). It seems to me that it is deeply inappropriate to try to appropriate this title to a man who has just died, in the immediate onrush of grief that has followed the death of a pope who was, after all, and only partly due to his own actions, the most visible pope of all time (that is to say, yes, he travelled more, and was seen by more people, than any previous pope, but this seems to be about as much a result of the pace of technology as it is of his own actions). The whole thing seems to me to be pretty explicitly political. An article on the subject at Beliefnet quotes Georgetown Professor of Catholic social thought Rev. John Langan as saying, "The other thing that's going on here is the desire of some people to put this pope on a level above other popes and ensure his policies are not deviated from. They're trying to get guarantees that the policies continue." [1] This seems about right to me. Personally, I'm deeply reluctant to sanction this highly political action unless it is very clear that this really is general usage, and not just an attempt by Catholic conservatives to put a thumb in the eye of liberals in the church. john k 17:02, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

That's what I've been saying, let's chill a little with the great title a little until it has been established in his papacy name.
EliasAlucard|Talk 19:45, Apr 8, 2005 (UTC)

As a side note. Google search http://www.google.com/search?&q=%22%20John%20Paul%20the%20Great%22 for "John Paul the Great" show over 36000 hits... Przepla 20:26, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

There are a lot of hits, huh? It's funny, because those saying it seem to be trying to create a groundswell by saying there is one, "Some people are already calling him Pope John Paul the Great," seems to be the usual formulation. Except that most people who are already calling him that are the people talking about how people are already calling him that. At any rate, I wouldn't object to some expansion of the section on this issue. But it shouldn't be in the intro unless it becomes as common as talking about "Frederick the Great" or "Alexander the Great." john k 22:10, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

In the relevent section, I have changed the sentence:

Scholars of canon law state that although there is no official process for declaring a pope "Great", the title gains credibility each time it is rendered in speech or written form.

to:

Scholars of canon law state that there is no official process for declaring a pope "Great", the title establishes itself through popular, and continued, usage.

I felt the former to be slightly POV, and also slightly too eulogistic for an encyclopedia. Rje 02:36, Apr 9, 2005 (UTC)

Just to put the Google statistics in perspective, as of today 09APRGMT0543 it is 46,900 hits ... over a total of 13,700,000 for "John Paul II". 0.34% barely qualifies for a footnote. User:Forschung

Americanised Spelling... Of Sorts

Eleassar777 has made some American spelling changes to the article, I'm sure this attention to detail is appreciated but as this is a primarily Euro-centric article, can the spelling changes be reverted back to British English? Again, this is one of the areas of Wikipedia that cannot be resolved without splintering articles for sake of a few "z's" or unused "u's"

I'd welcome discussion on this matter, I'd like to stress Eleassar777's welcome work, it's just not suitable for this particular article - Thirdvertigo

Sincerely, I don't care about spelling as long as it is consistent. I chose American English spelling style, as more Catholics come from the USA than from the UK. I also made other grammar corrections, so please do not revert them. --Eleassar777 20:49, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Wikipedia policy is that an article should use the language that it was originally written in. If the article was originally written in British English, then please change your spellings to British English. It is irrelevant how many Catholics are in which country. Many of us who never use American English (indeed who regard American English spellings with horror!) nevertheless if an article was originally written in AE we have written our contributions in AE. Please follow the agreed rules the rest of us follow. FearÉIREANN 21:01, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I would note that the oldest version in the page history uses American date formats. Gentgeen 21:49, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

It was originally written in British English, as seen with the amount of edits, only very recently, have certain members took it upon themselves to change it to Americanised spelling, so a revert may be needed

Again, this is not a socio-concious act, simply a machine doing a machines job, logic :-) - Thirdvertigo

The Wikipedia FAQ clearly says that we should use British English for articles that have British relations, and in my opinion we should use it for all articles because there are so many forms of English and using all of them in every article would make it very confusing for people that don't master the English language to read.
EliasAlucard|Talk 16:18, Apr 8, 2005 (UTC)
American English is twice as common as all other types put together. AlbertCahalan 22:54, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)
That is 100% irrelevant. There are people here who use British English, Hiberno-English, Indian English, Canadian English, American English and various other versions. The rule is straight forward. If the topic is clearly about a British or Commonwealth topic (ie an area where they don't use American English, and that is most of the planet), it should be written in BE. If the topic is about an American English, to avoid freaking about AE users who couldn't cope with all the additional letters (what the rest of the world calls correct spelling :p ) it should be written in AE. If it is an international topic, it should be written by everyone in the original form of english used in the article. That was British English, which means bye bye American English from this article. I guess when the article settles a bit a major cull of the AE is going to have to be done to restore it to the english version authorised by the wikipedia used (in this case BE). FearÉIREANN 00:49, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)
honestly..who cares? it's just something petty to fight over. I don't even notice the difference one way or another. --Alterego 00:52, Apr 9, 2005 (UTC)
It is indeed irrelevant. People are always putting this forward as an argument to change everything to American spellings, and it makes me wonder if they have ever even read Wikipedia policy on this. If anyone who wants to change the spelling to American hasn't read the policy I'd recommend they do so, and then follow it up with a look at this recent ill-fated proposal to change it. — Trilobite (Talk) 03:26, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)
If only it was. I was working on one article last year that suddenly erupted into an edit war because someone using AE changed all the BE spellings, then someone else changed them back, then the first person changed them back, then someone else said that if AE users were going to "highjack" a BE page and change it to AE, then he was going to take over an AE page and change it to BE, etc etc. Within 24 hours there were five different edit wars on different pages (to be blunt, in four of the cases it was AE users who started the wars). I got so fed up of the childishness I quit wikipedia. The rule is there to stop that sort of thing happening again. The real danger is that if one person ignores the rule and changes the spelling here then another user will do the same somewhere else, and you'll have the whole damn nonsense all over again. We lost two of our best editors over the nonsense the last time. I don't want to see the whole farce beginning again. (And unfortunately it was usually started by Americans deciding, as one put it, "this is an American encyclopaedia. If you want British spelling, set up your own British wikipedia!" and annoying hosts of non-americans. FearÉIREANN 03:43, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Are all the (relatively) recently hyphenated words (EG "world-wide", "co-operation", "cardio-circulatory") supposed to be AE vs BE or CE issues? They aren't listed as 'British variants' on m-w.com, nor are they specifically listed in my British English: A to Zed. Niteowlneils 20:50, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Writers who use BE are, I find, somewhat more loathesome to commingle words without hypgens.
James F. (talk) 23:03, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Yeah, I finally found a general comment to that effect in an appendix of BE: A to Zed. I also confirmed that the OED uses "co-operation", and while it didn't list either "cardio-circulatory" or "cardiocirculatory", since it hyphenates "cardio-pulmonary", it would probably go with the former. However, the OED lists "worldwide" first with "world-wide" as an 'also', FWIW. Niteowlneils 23:22, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

This whole thing is simply silly. American vs. British spelling is the least of the problems facing this article. If somebody wants to go through and make the spelling entirely consistent—American or British style—I wouldn't mind, but the time would really be better spent checking facts, finding references, and figuring out how to split this behemoth up. —Brent Dax 02:33, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

It was almost exclusively BE until User:Randy Johnston (21:55, 10 Apr 2005 and the next edit) and an anon (22:53, 10 Apr 2005 68.195.57.9) changed a bunch of it to AE. Niteowlneils 00:00, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Randy didn't realise it had been BE and shouldn't have been changed to AE. I spoke to him about it and he apologies. It was a genuine error. (Maybe we should have some way of indicating on a page what the original form of english used was. Then we could avoid any confusion. FearÉIREANN 00:43, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Seems like a hidden HTML comment at the top (<!--- This article uses British English. Please be consistent. -->), or something to that effect might help, if no one knows any better solution. Niteowlneils 01:16, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Reigned vs led

I removed the reference to reigning over the Catholic Church... John Paul The Great was elected as any other leader, A monarch may reign, his or her powers given through succesive family lines... but a Pope is not assumed in that manner - Thirdvertigo

Monarchs may be elected as well as inheriting throne. People always talk about papal reigns, just as the pope sits on the papal throne and until 1978 were crowns. Popes are always regarded as monarchs. FearÉIREANN 21:04, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

He was an elective monarch - monarchs reign, and a pope does so in both a secular (temporal) and ecclesiastical sense. Further, he was hardly an elective leader in that it did not occur more than once and was rather a ballot of 100 votes by a group who believe themselves to being led by the holy spirit. The pope reigns, as he is an autocrat - this is not the opposite of being initially elected. Remember, Hitler was initially elected but was not elective - he was an autocrat who could be said to "reign". --Oldak Quill 17:40, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I agree that reign is as good as led, and perhaps both should be used. Don't forget, the Pope is Head of State in the Vatican City as well as the leader of the Catholic Church in Rome and, ipso facto, in the world. Matthew

In the so-called Holy Roman Empire, the emperor was elected by an electoral college with a hereditary membership; in fact, it is from the Holy Roman Empire that we get the term electoral college. That doesn't stop anyone from using the word reign to refer to what the Holy Roman Emperor did. In the pope's case, each pope actually chooses cardinals who will elect his successor, and can unilaterally change the rules (e.g., JPII decided no one over the age of 80 can vote, and a pope could easily decide that all bishops between the ages of 40 and 43 can vote, as well as deacons who have blue eyes), so we're talking about a much more "monarchical" than "republican" situation than what even the Holy Roman Empire had. Michael Hardy 02:23, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

263rd successor of Saint Peter

The comment 263rd successor of Saint Peter in the box on the right-hand side is problematic (minor) for two reasons:

  • I checked the two previous popes, and it isn't in their box. Seems like these should be consistent.
  • "Successor of Saint Peter" is POV. The majority of Protestants do not accept that he was the bona-fide successor of St. Peter. Many would dispute whether St. Peter had any successors at all. I believe the Eastern Orthodox would disagree, as well. For that matter, identifying him as the 263rd could be POV even among Catholics: there were anti-popes in the past, and someone might quarrel with the declarations as to which line was the "official" line of successors, and there are sedevacantists today who believe he is not a valid successor.

I cannot see how this comment can ever possibly be NPOV. I'm going to change it to "263rd Pope." Someone wanting consistency should probably either eliminate it or add corresponding comments to the box for the other Popes. Jdavidb 19:48, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Okay, weird. I see that someone is quarrelling over the number. (Vandalism?) I suggest the proper course of action is to take it out. Meanwhile, I'm changing the wording. Jdavidb 19:49, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The (N)th Pope is considered (N-1)th successor of St. Peter as Bishop of Rome.Whether being Bishop of Rome qualifies a man to appoint/approve all other Bishops is the substance of the Protestants' argument,unless you are saying that the historicity of the recorded line of bishops is doubtful?--Louis E./le@put.com/12.144.5.2 20:04, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I am saying some or all Protestants question whether there was ever any successor of St. Peter at all.

I note that somebody reverted my change without discussing on the talk page. Bad form. Jdavidb 20:08, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

My point is that it is glaringly obvious that Saint Peter has been succeeded as Bishop of Rome,the Protestants' argument rests on what powers rest in the office in which these men have succeeded Peter.I believe Cantus was picking on my edit,not yours...he thinks it's "vandalism" to give the Pope's full style rather than the extremely misleading abbreviation "His Holiness the Bishop of Rome",which I've never seen anywhere.--Louis E./12.144.5.2 20:22, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I think you've allowed a subset of Protestantism to speak for the whole. The doctrine of apostolic succession is not accepted by all Protestants. There is more in dispute than just the powers of the office; of course, the exact amount of what is disputed varies from Protestant church to Protestant church (and, in fact, from Protestant church member to Protestant church member), ranging from, "Well he's the successor of St. Peter, but he is only over Rome" to the pejorative "He's the Beast of Revelation!" Wikipedia can't conclude whether something is "glaringly obvious" or not. It can only report the various points of view, properly contextualized.

Rather than simply leaving out the appelation "successor of Saint Peter," it would be okay to say something like, "263rd (or whatever the number is) successor of Saint Peter, to Roman Catholics."

But again let me point out that no other Pope has this in the box on his article. I think we should take it out entirely, or add it in and standardize it. Jdavidb 20:31, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Just to point out before this discussion carry on, our own List of Popes & Catholic Encyclopedia list 265 Popes !! -- KTC 20:45, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The Catholic Encylopedia differs from what the Vatican officially reports. Pope Stephen II died three days after being elected and isn't counted by the Vatican. I've put 264 back. JYolkowski 21:03, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Pope assume office on acceptance of election and being a bishop. Hence the reason it's in our own List of Popes & in Catholic Encylopedia. If we're going to decide otherwise about counting him, then we're going need to change all articles we have about Popes, papal election, & list of Popes etc. Listing him in List of Popes and not then counting him in this article is just plain inconsistence. -- KTC 21:21, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)
We should go with the offical count though. I'll update List of popes as well. JYolkowski 21:45, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

You may wish to notice that there are two mentions of the number in question: one in the caption box beneath his picture and the other immediately following his name at the inception of the article. However it is decided, the number should be consistently displayed. --Magda 20:57, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Oops, forgot to edit that one. -- KTC 21:21, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Either way,remember that a "Pope" number must always be one more than the same person's "successor to Saint Peter" number.--L.E./12.144.5.2 21:11, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The box again says, "successor of St. Peter," yet consensus has not been reached here. The persons putting in this wording have not even discussed it. Inappropriate. This change was made by 24.85.108.6 (in an uncommented edit), who also added the change to Pope John Paul I, which is good for consistency, but still not NPOV.

When a change has been disputed on the talk page, someone needs to actually respond on the talk page so we can reach consensus, rather than just reverting. Reverts especially do not need to be made without commenting in the edit summary. The purpose of the edit summary is so we can identify when an edit happened. If and when we come to a consensus that your edit is the way it should be, we still want to know when it happened.

I am unpersuaded that it is NPOV to use the phrase "successor of Saint Peter," and so far nobody who has reverted my change has bothered to discuss it with me or to even be bold enough to describe their revert in the edit summary. My thanks to those of you who have been gracious enough to discuss here.

As for the numbering of the Pope, I'm unqualified to say other than that Wikipedia should be consistent. :) I'll respect the consensus that Nth Pope is N-1th successor of St. Peter. :) If and when a consensus emerges here as to what number he was, I will respect and assist in enforcing it.

Finally I'd like to go off topic and express my condolences to all Catholics reading this upon the death of your beloved Pope. He was a good man, and I know he meant a lot to you. Jdavidb 21:43, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Wow; Bratsche has already fixed this. :) Although I think he was reverting based on the value of N and doesn't necessarily imply agreement with my opinion about the NPOV issue. Thanks, anyway! I know we'll come to consensus on this at some point. Suggested compromises welcome.

I am going to go look at the articles for the preceeding Popes, as I noticed that 24.85.108.6 was moving on to them. Not sure if he just did Pope John Paul I or moved on. They should match, whatever we decide. Jdavidb 21:46, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Number wise, I still think we should count Pope Stephen II if we're going to go with a number. However, the best proposal I can come up with is probably just delete the count if we can't reach a consensus on it. Seeing we never had a count in any of the other Pope before today addition to Pope John Paul I, why do we have to have a count in the first place anyway ? (And just a note for myself and everyone else, the count is also in Papal conclave, 2005 so will need to change that whatever is decided). -- KTC 22:24, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I think regarding a mention that billions regard the pope as the lineal successor of St. Peter is frankly an absurd and ridiculous argument. There are hundreds of disputed religious offices. The normal encyclopaedic way to deal with this is to use the definition of those who believe in a particular lineage of an office. For example, their are two archbishops of Armagh, one Anglican, one Roman Catholic, that claim lineage from St. Patrick and believe that they not the other guy, are the real successor. If you stop it being said that JPI is not the 363rd successor of St Peter, are you going to stop Archbishop Robert Eames being described as the successor to St. Patrick, because Catholics don't believe that the Anglican Eames is not the real guy, but their man, Archbishop Sean Brady is. And vice-versa; are you going to stop Brady being called the successor of St. Patrick because protestant believe that Eames is? And what about the fact that some catholics don't believe that the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury is the successor of pre-reformation archbishops. Must we delete the claim to succession of Archbishop Rowan Williams? What about rival Catholic and Anglican claimants to thousands of bishoprics and archbishoprics worldwide?
The normal solution is in lists on the Anglican Archbishop of Armagh to list the pre-reformation archbishops followed by the post-reformation protestant Archbishops. And on lists about the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Armagh to list the pre-reformation archbishops followed by the post-reformation Catholic archbishops. Ditto with Bishops of Clogher, Archbishops of Canterbury, Archbishops of Paris and everywhere else. Calling the pope the successor of St Peter is not saying "we endorse that claim", anymore than listing Archbishop Robin Eames as a successor to St. Patrick is endorsing him over the claim of Archbishop Sean Brady. Either you remove every single claim from every single article about every single religious office at every single time there is a dispute for millennia, or you cop and simply state in an individual page 'this is what this lot claim' by putting the claim on whichever page; the Catholic claim of succession on pages about Catholic claimants, the Protestant claim of succession about Protestant claimants, the Eastern Orthodox claim of succession about Eastern Orthodox claimants, the Russian Orthodox claim about Russian Orthodox claimants, the various Jewish claims about different claimants within different strands of the Jewish faith, the Islamic claim of succession about various claimants from different brands of Islamic claimants, etc. Frankly I think the claim that stating a pope is the whatever number successor is POV is itself POV. We should simply be pluralist and say 'if this lot on this page believe they are the legitimate successors to 'x', fine. State it. It is either the same tolerance of claims for all, or denying everyone's claims everywhere in every article. And that is unworkable and ludicrous. FearÉIREANN 22:48, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

BTW - for the record, as someone from a Catholic background and a historian I don't regard St. Peter as being the first pope. IMHO he was slotted in to give additional status to the bishop of Rome vis-a-vis other bishops. Historically it is a very dubious claim. But, heck, billions believe it so it has to be stated. FearÉIREANN 22:48, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I kind of agree with KTC, the count isn't important enough to have twice in the first screenful. We might want to mention later in the article that he is, "the 264th Pope according to the Vatican (the 265th according to [some other source]", but I don't think that the number needs to have the prominence it currently has. Anyone else have any thoughts about this? JYolkowski 22:59, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for coming to the table to discuss this, guys. I'd far rather talk it out than watch it fought with unsummarized edits. :) I want to declare I am open to considering what ÉIREANN said about the normal encyclopedic way to do things. I do think that the Wikipedia way may be slightly different, which is that rather than removing claims, we contextualize them. Nobody here has any problem agreeing that the Catholic church considers the Pope to be the successor of Peter. :) We all agree that is fact. The only real problem with that is it being so long and unwieldy to say.

JYolkowski, I think honestly my preferred answer to that box is to remove the line entirely. As you say, it was not present prior to today. Moreover, it is not present except for the two most recent popes, so the articles are not consistent. (Although this might have changed since I looked last.) Finally, it's much easier to fit what we need to say with NPOV into the text of the article than into that box. :) Jdavidb 02:00, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Cool. Since no-one's disagreed, I've removed the 264 from the lead paragraph and added a sentence or so further down. JYolkowski 02:09, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

As far as the "successor to St. Peter," I don't see how this is POV against Protestants, who, whether or not they believe in the apostolic succession, can certainly believe that the Pope is Peter's successor as Bishop of Rome in a purely institutional sense (this not getting into the question of whether Peter was actually Bishop of Rome, which, as jtdirl notes, seems unlikely in a strict historical sense). As to Pope Stephen II, my understanding was that he was not initially counted as a pope, but it was later decided that he should count. I'd also suggest that we move the articles on Popes Stephen, so that we move Pope Stephen II to Pope Stephen (II), Stephen III to Pope Stephen II (III), and so forth, since this is how they are normally referred... john k 03:49, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

  • I don't think it's necessary to reflect every single view in this article. I think it's implied that anything said about JPII is the view of Catholics and/or the official line from the Vatican. So, whether Protestants believe that he is the successor of Peter or not is immaterial to the article. Have a link to a separate article on Protestants if you like and in there discuss the dissention. I mean, why can't you just simply state, "In the opinion of the Roman Catholic Church..." and have done with it? Or, even better, in my opinion, is to just state it the way the Church says it. Then, have a link to the Protestants page or other religions. I just think it's silly to keep inserting the POV of other religions on a page dealing with Catholicism.Gurp13 16:25, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I prefer the formula Nth Pope to Nth successor to St. Peter. I'm afraid the only thing which is generally accepted here is that there was an early Christian leader called Peter who is mentioned a handful of times in the epistles of St. Paul, everything else is POV. It is not even universally accepted that St. Peter visited Rome, although I realise many Protestants do accept this. We should consider the sensibilities of Muslims and Jews as well. PatGallacher 15:38, 2005 Apr 10 (UTC)

Peter is also mentioned in the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles, and is traditionally ascribed to be the author of two epistles. At any rate, I don't see how Muslims and Jews care one way or another if Peter visited Rome. It's the Orthodox who would probably take exception. As to "Nth Pope" vs "Nth Successor to St. Peter," both present equal problems, since the Nth Pope designation includes Peter as 1st Pope. john k 15:43, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

You can always say something like "John Paul II is considered by the Roman Rite Catholics to be the 263rd successor of Peter" or something such, thus saying from whose viewpoint the comment comes and maintaining NPOV. You also thus don't have to worry about the Orthodox, Protestants, Muslims, Jews and for that matter Hindus, Buddhists, or Shintos. Bo-Lingua 16:53, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Films

Obviously John Paul II was not "only" a poet but also a writer. Two films were recorded on his stories: The Jeweller's Shop and Our God's Brother, both entered into imdb. So if anyone knows exact titles and other details of those novels as well as any other books, let him/her put that nto the article.

Pop Culture

In an earlier thread, I gave support for a popular culture section: detailing how Pope John Paul II influenced various artistic media, commerce, common language, entertainment and other facets of society. From what I've seen of the current pop culture section, a mere two lines on an episode of South Park and The Simpsons is far from what I had in mind:

The Pope has been depicted on popular television shows quite often. The Pope was featured on South Park, when asked if the mentally handicapped go to hell. However, due to old age the Pope just said "huh?" and rubbed his lips together.
The Pope was also depicted on The Simpsons, but in a humorous fashion he had an English accent, eyeglasses and was reading a newspaper (La Stampa).

The scope must be broader, considering things with actual lasting impression beyond silly cartoons. Unless someone can make such an effort to piece together such a section, then there shouldn't be a pop culture section. Do it right or don't do it at all.

And please do not address a cartoon image of Pope John Paul II on South Park as "His Holiness." That's just utterly offensive. There is a huge difference in calling a mocking caricature "His Holiness" and the actual man holding the office to which that title is honored. --Gerald Farinas 15:27, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I DISAGREE FARINAS. It respects other views of the "holy" man. Not everyone agreed with him. The pope is viewed humorously by many peoples and cultures and is a part of entertainment also. Jean-Louis

I'm not asking for the removal of the South Park and The Simpsons references. (I disagreed with the total removal of the section earlier.) I just think there should be more material there beyond those references. It looks odd on its own. --Gerald Farinas 16:53, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)
That's fine, I just don't like the fact that someone annonymously deleted it with no discussion and no edit summary. I only reverted it back to what it was. Change the language, add to it, talk about it here, whatever. -- KTC 15:34, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Given that he was one of the most famous people in the world, it's inevitable that he will be depicted in popular culture. However, a simple list of two random examples with no context does not belong in the article. It looks highly amateurish for us to say, in the middle of a serious article, the Pope was once featured in South Park, and he was also once featured in the Simpsons. If someone wants to write a proper section detailing and explaining which particular characteristics were picked up on when he was depicted in popular culture and why then that would be much better than the awful section we have at the moment. I'm removing it for now. — Trilobite (Talk) 17:10, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

As I am the one who added it, I agree that it should be extended. I added the South Park picture, I didn't even consider it could be offensive. I thought SHOWING what he is seen elsewhere would be informative. I guess it wasn't wise of me to mention just The Simpsons and South park originally. -- Shazza 12:50, 8 Apr 2005 (AEST)

First thing I'll like to say is that I'm a Catholic and I don't find the picture offensive. Now, I think everyone agrees on that the section should / could probably do with a bit extending. What people seems to disagree on is whether we should have what we have now in its current form before the section is actually extended. I'll say why not? I'm not very experience on here, but I definitly don't see article deleted just because it's a stub. Leaving it there, maybe with a request for expansion let people know that it could do with a bit of an expansion. Taking it out on the other hand, probably just make people forget about it, and end up less likely to extend on it. -- KTC 03:15, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I continue to remove the Pop Culture section as it is not a section that provides any direct value to the overall article. As conveyed on this page, it is an immature attempt to mock the Pope. Are we to place every reference to popular figures on pages as well? I don't think so. The references that continued to be re-submitted do not provide comprehensive analysis, but refer to the Pope on "South Park" and the "Simpsons". These are not reflections of pop culture, but reflections of American Society. -- Socreins

The Argument for "Pop Culture Reference" is Hogwash.

The insistence on a so-called "Pop Culture" section is shallow and frivolous, given that nobody bothers to or thinks of giving ridiculous cartoon examples in other serious biographical articles dealing with historical/political figures. And the specific examples given, of all the possible examples that come to mind, are clearly meant by the author to mock, not to "inform" or to "contribute" intellectually. Proof of this malice is in the details. Other than for its shock value and for the pleasure derived therefrom, there is no logical purpose for going into such superfluous detail as giving the actual lines of dialogue, in all of their humorous profanity, which I might laugh at if I saw the cartoon, but which in the context of this article is nothing but trollery.

I agree with Socreins. That wasn't really popular culture, but a veiled attack on the pope. On South Park he was obviously being shown as a decrepit, senile old man, not the pope that the real world knew. Bratschetalk 02:31, Apr 10, 2005 (UTC)

Arguments about unwise edits

Your Pope section is biased. John Paul is not just some of a great man. He is a bigot. He hated Gays and women's rights. Yet his priests were child molesters and gay too all along. People such as the pope set our society back from respect from others and accepting of others. As Voltaire would say, very popular in my home country of France, ECRASEZ L'INFAME, it means to stop the superstition they want to destroy reason.

I say that your sections on Atheism and Religions are in general very good, but you have gone far into elevating the pope who is like Bush, one who wishes to stop the ideological progress of society.

As my home state and Les Etats d'Unis America both say - freedom. This man however was against it.

Please add a section respecting the views of non-Catholics. Many popes were in general murderers and backwards. I admire your many historically accurate articles on such early popes. Be accurate on one which we have more information on as well. Merci, Jean-Louis

There is a criticism section in the article, but if you feel it doesn't go far enough, you're welcome to make constructive edits. What you have been doing is pure vandalism, which is why you get reverted on sight. — Trilobite (Talk) 16:52, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

My apologies and sorrow. Thank you for returning the criticism section. Someone keeps deleting. Now to return pop culture section... Jean-Louis

Pop-culture section added towards the end with picture in OTHER section to assist people who respect the pope in reading his glorius life first. This way we please everyone and are unbiased. However a request, please look over my English as it is somewhat mediocre. Also please make a break before further reading, the break looks awkward between sections OTHER, POP CULTURE and FUTHER READING. Merci, Jean-Louis

The very first section is not neutral--it says John Paul "defended marriage" by opposing same-sex marriage: this is quite a controversial claim. - CTessone

It says: "He claimed to defend human life by opposing abortion, contraception, capital punishment and war. He claimed to defend marriage by opposing divorce and same-sex marriage."
The operative phrase is that "he claimed" to have done those things and therefore is neutral. --Gerald Farinas 19:09, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Pop Culture Section

Trilobite I notice your reversions. Why do you do this? This section was on the Pope's page before and was taken out. I am unhappy with this consensus. Who is voting for this? Pop culture section is required for point of views other than mainstream media and church and governments. Please keep the work saved. Jean-Louis

I have explained why I removed it on this very page, and I've also left messages on your talk page. I'm not going to revert you any more. Someone else can do it. You are being deliberately disruptive in my opinion. — Trilobite (Talk) 17:32, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I won't change it, but...

Whoever has taken the charge of overseeing this article should review its content.

There is some incredibly vicious and/or sardonic language appearing in the article, such as "pagan pope" and "decomposing body." I believe this language is inappropriate, in this context. One does not convey a point to confer: all dead bodies decompose.

I recommend that this article be put NPVA or corrected.

Such high disrespect. I would want to know what great moral and/or social achievements the authors of such texts, themselves, make to humanity.

What little respect I have for people who have more time to carve disrespectful diatribes about a significant leader into an international forum than to feed the poor or advocate positive change and constructive thought in their own immediate communities.


    • Thanks to whomever changed it. I knew that wouldn't last. I have a habit of putting in 2 cents, however, and I had to say something.
      • Next time you should just change it yourself, btw. Tempshill 05:17, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Need to revert and add changes

There was a huge deletion of material about one hour ago in this article, in user:65.1.92.214's edit. This may have been accidental. Please revert to User:81.109.165.33;s edit, and reapply subsequent changes. I'd do it myself, but I've drunk rather a lot of wine.

Looks like User:65.1.92.214 has restored most if not all of it.

Hrm... Someone recently edited the article using awkward present tense

Someone apparently edited the article as though John Paul II were still alive (i.e., in present tense. Thank you, 165.95.228.14)

INCORRECT
"He stands firmly against abortion and defends the Church's traditional approach to human sexuality."
CORRECT
"He stood firmly against abortion and defended the Church's traditional approach to human sexuality."

In addition, someone clearly needs to return to school and study proper English composition.

INCORRECT
"Pope John Paul II has beatified and canonized far more persons than any previous pope."
CORRECT
"Pope John Paul II beatified and canonized more persons than previous popes."

Notice that "has" is not required before "beatified".

The latest version of the article is actually quite horrible. The many editorial failures recently introduced must be corrected.

Adraeus 09:46, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I see what you mean: the "has beatified" instead of "beatified" point is minor of course but use of "persons" instead of "people" is horrible. -- Derek Ross | Talk 14:57, Apr 8, 2005 (UTC)

Vandalism

I've noticed vandals inserting random, inflammatory phrases, such as saying JPII's favorite quote was "Jesus is my homeboy" or that JPII was a dictator. I was trying to correct those. I believe BrendanConway also was correcting them. Kudos. I also want to apologize. I deleted the reference to Wojtyla and a seminarian voluntering to chop up frozen excrement because I thought it was vandalism (due to the "excrement" term) but I see now that someone (BrendanConway?) changed it to indicate that this is from the official biography. I didn't know and I'm sorry for deleting it. Gurp13 18:35, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Thanks.Reference: Witness to Hope by George Weigel, the popes official biography. Chapter 2 From the Underground page 75 in the paperback edition 2001 Harper Collins--File Éireann 19:29, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC) (BrendanConway)
Thanks to anyone who puts this page (and who knows, maybe the next big news story?) on their watchlist and works to revert obvious vandalism. It is possible to make a genuine mistake in doing this kind of work and the best thing to do in such a case is correct the error and apologise like this. Kudos both. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 21:59, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The Pope of the Youth

If anyone has time, it would be great to write something about pope and his relation to Catholic youth. --Eleassar777 22:47, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

  • FWIW, I am Catholic and was at the Los Angeles Youth Day in 1987 when the Pope came here. If you've watched CNN lately, they keep running a profile about Tony Melendez, a man with no arms who plays the guitar, who sang for JPII when he visited. Of course, that was a long time ago and all I have are personal thoughts on the matter. I'm not sure if that's appropriate. Someone let me know if any thing I could add would be useful. Gurp13 06:23, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

criticisms

While the list of links critical of JP2 is an excellent addition, it seems to me a bit unbalanced to have no corresponding list of links to articles that praise him, rather than simply report on him. This article will be mildly biased until this situation is recitified. --Zantastik 04:52, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC) P.S. We need to write about his works -- he was a scholar, and left a lot of work. Right now, we're just writing about stuff that's been in the news. It'd be good to have an article that thoroughly dealt with his writings, of which there many.

  • You know, I sorta think that a "criticisms" section is out of bounds. It seems to me that an encyclopedia should be a "just the facts" kind of place. Sure, it's a fact that there were criticisms. But, is that really what someone is looking for if they query Wikipedia on JPII. Not to say that we should only report rosy things about JPII, either, but it does seem like it's going too far in the other direction of POV. For me, I want to know what happened, who the guy was, in a nutshell. If I want to know more, I can pick up a book. Is it Wikipedia's goal to actually present every side of every story? I admit I'm new here so if it is then I'll pipe down. But, I just feel like people want to try and leaven the nice things being said about the man. I suppose if it's really salient, then, okay. But, the fact is, I think, that he seems to have done far more right than wrong. Or maybe I'm biased.  :-) Gurp13 06:20, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)
    • It might be better to integrate the criticisms into the body of the article, but I think it will be many years before it will be possible to make a cool assessment of him. In the meantime, having a separate criticisms section is probably the best we can do.-gadfium 06:37, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)
    • The criticisms section is totally in-bounds, as frankly his faults should be pointed out and displayed. I wouldn't have a problem integrating it with the rest of the article, but it would be POV to remove them enitrely. The point is to have a neutral point of view on every topic, not to be biased or to try and exhibit some sort of preference for any viewpoint. Titanium Dragon 01:13, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)
    • Until someone takes the time to integrate this section into the main text it must be kept. The article is already pushing the limits of POV as it is, in places it is almost openly eulogistic (I have tried to remedy this where possible). If this section were to be removed the article's credibility would be severely damaged. Rje 15:18, Apr 11, 2005 (UTC)

Praises

I agree to what was said above that it will be unbalanced not to mention here the praises that have been said about JPII. There should one section on that, or at least these praises should be integrated within the some of the sections.

I also agree that there should be more space given to his writings, his intellectual contributions. That is what respectable encyclopedias contain. That is why when there are moves to trim this page, we have to try to keep the sections on his teachings, his social and political stance, his writings. Banazzraq

I agree too that there should be a Praises section if there's a Criticisms section. Otherwise, this is not a balanced page or encyclopedia. Joo

The article generally presents a very positive view of him, a bit too positive in certain cases (for instance, implying he had any real important role in the downfall of Communism). It doesn't require a "praises" section. I would have no problem integrating the criticisms into the rest of the article, but they definitely belong there. Titanium Dragon 01:15, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Spanish Civil War

I was going to add:

He has beatified or canonized hundreds of martyrs of the Spanish Civil War, Catholics executed by leftist militias during the Spanish Civil War.

but don't find a good place. --Error 22:50, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

  • The "Other" section already mentions his beatifications and canonizations; can you work it into that paragraph? —Brent Dax 07:44, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Splitting off pages

Has any consideration been given to splitting off several main articles, such as "Biography of John Paul II" and (possibly) "Work of John Paul II"? I hate to delete good information, but this article is far too large as it stands right now. —Brent Dax 22:48, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

You may do as you wish and split the article, if you have time, however do not delete any good information, as this is considered vandalism. Otherwise, happy wiki-ing! --Eleassar777 08:13, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)
This needs to be done - the article is 88kb, nearly 3 times a recommended size of 32kb. Subarticles are a must. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 09:59, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I've set up a new spin-off article - Biography of Pope John Paul II by copying the entire biogrpahy section to the new place and then radically trimming the main article. Although it is better than it was someone else may want to remove even more from the main article as I'm not sure I've been ruthless enough.
Both articles could almost certainly do with cleanup. Thryduulf 12:38, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I think the bio information should stay on the main article, as that is what most people will be looking for when they accessm Pope John Paul II. Teachings, and works done in lifetime should get separate articles, just to condense the main article into an accessible size. Actually, I'd like to see all of the info in one gigantic article (Firefox can handle it :), but since that's not going to be possible, we should do the above. Bratschetalk 03:48, Apr 11, 2005 (UTC)
I agree with Bratsche on this. If everything else has to be split off, the biography should remain on this page. When I look up a person on wikipedia the first thing I expect to find is biographical information, and I think most people are the same. Rje 15:22, Apr 11, 2005 (UTC)

Factual accuracy dispute?

The "Death" section has a factual accuracy dispute tag. Is this entire section disputed or just a sub-section? Carbonite | Talk 14:13, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I've removed the tag and the offensive sentence:
According to Father Jarek Cielecki, the Pope's last word before death was "Amen"; then he closed his eyes. (La Repubblica link)
Other sources have said that JPII was unable to speak. Can we try to confirm this one way or the other? If it's true, we should put it back in. —Brent Dax 18:29, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)
If you look back in the archived Talk, I believe what was disputed was "... Anointing of the Sick (informally known as Last Rites) of the Roman Catholic Church, the first time that the pontiff had received the sacrament since the 1981 assassination attempt."--the person that added the disputed tag said he thot the rites were given prior to one or both of the Pope's early 90's surgeries. Niteowlneils 00:47, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)
PS I looked a bit, and didn't find anything one way or the other. If nobody can find a clear, reliable reference, "..., the first time that the pontiff had received the sacrament since the 1981 assassination attempt" should probably be removed. Niteowlneils 00:58, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I removed a whole bunch of "opinion" articles. There are zillions of them. If they contain encyclopedic and important opinions by notable persons, then by definition they must be covred in the article. Otherwise people can google themselves. For the last reason they are also useless as references: opinions described in the text must be properly attributed, not just "some say... others say...". See m:When should I link externally and Wikipedia:External links for more arguments. Mikkalai 18:16, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Biased content ??

I don't think this article is in accordance with the NPOV stance of wikipedia. It seems to be an advertisement for how great the Pope was with even the criticism section really trying to apologize for his faulty views. Telling people not to use contraceptives in a time where the spread of AIDS is rampant is nothing less than genocide. -Theo

You (and a lot of people) seems to be forgetting that the Catholic church didn't teach people to go round having sex and not use contraception. The church teaching was, don't have premarital period (full-stop). Remember, not having sex is the only foolproof way of not getting STD. And calling the teaching genocide is not exactly NPOV either ;-) -- KTC 23:16, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Yes, yes it did go around and teach people to not use contraceptives while having sex. They oppose the use of contraceptives (full-stop). Yes, they discourage other things as well, but that DOESN'T change the fact that they oppose the use of contraceptives. Titanium Dragon 01:21, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Ok, so as far I know, the only approved form of contraception is the rhythm method. Birth control medications, abortions, and condoms are all wrong in the eyes of the Church. I don't think that promotion of abstinence in place of birth control counts as genocide. We should just put the criticism next to his work, and leave it at that. Bratschetalk 03:45, Apr 11, 2005 (UTC)

His Holiness needs to be removed

Dead people do not have honorific titles such as "His Holiness". Someone added "His Holiness" to a bunch of dead popes (not all of them, though); however, none of the dead royalty, ect. have such honorifics. This is POV pushing. It needs to be taken off of this and the prior pope articles. User 65.92.32.21 was the one who did this.

Honestly, this isn't hard. Wikipedia is supposed to be NPOV. We shouldn't even have these titles, but as long as all living people have them, I guess it is at least consistant. However, not even all of THOSE have titles. I didn't actually remove "His Holiness" with the edit I said I did, but it really should be removed. Titanium Dragon 02:33, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Maybe we need to add honourifics to dead royalty? I don't see why we should treat articles on living people different from dead people. Personally I don't see the harm in having "His Holiness" at the start of the article (not everywhere, naturally). JYolkowski 02:42, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)
No. We don't. Really, this has been an issue where a few users hd pushed their PoV on the subject, and added them. The problem is that it is inherently POV. Most Catholics would not appreciate having antipopes have "His Holiness" stuck on before their names, but NPOV if popes get it, antipopes get it. Sorry, but that's the way the cookie crumbles. Additionally, it would require thousands upon thousands of pages of edits of historical figures that are seldom looked at, while removing it from current figures (as it originally was, and likely should be).
The issue is that appending such titles is POV. Which honorifics should we use, if there is more than one? Who qualifies for one (lots of people, some of whom are despised is the NPOV answer)? Ect. Really, we shouldn't have them at all.
Even if we do decide to have them, practically no one refers to dead people as "His Holiness" or "His Majesty". I have certainly never heard someone call Henry VIII "his majesty", nor any other dead king or queen, save in plays and dramas set in the era. Historical documentaries refer to them simply as Henry VIII or King Henry VIII, not His Majesty Henry VIII. It isn't common usage on dead people. Titanium Dragon 02:52, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)
The question of whether it's POV is separate from the question of whether or not it should be applied to living and dead. john k 03:13, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I think that, since a common title for a living pope is "His Holiness," we should use it. However, once a pope has died, he should be referred to by his name. I don't think the title is POV, since most royalty, and other people of respect are given titles such as "His Majesty" or "The Honorable So-and-So." I might not think that a certain judge/senator is honorable, but I will still address him/her as such out of respect of the given title. Bratschetalk 03:38, Apr 11, 2005 (UTC)

I don't think we need to actually use the style for either living or dead popes. But I don't see why we shouldn't list it at the beginning of the article. john k 15:33, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

relations with the Jewish people

"This meeting was the last official public meeting that this Pope had had, and brought with it the making of world history." Though I appreciate the importance of the event, I think this is a silly sentence. Unless someone objects, it should be changed to "It was John Paul II's last official public meeting."

In general, this section can be pared heavily, with info moved to its own separate article. -andersem

I have made this change, and have also removed several other POV comments from this section. I do not have time right now to fully clean up this section and possibly split it from the article, so if anyone wants to do this it would be much appreciated. Rje 15:33, Apr 11, 2005 (UTC)
I've been thinking of doing this for a while. I'll take a crack at this. JYolkowski 16:55, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Hmmm, I've done that and created Relations between Catholicism and Judaism but an anon (I'm not going to speculate who) has put most of it back. I might restore my version later but if anyone else wants to help trimming this section feel free because it's all in the above article. JYolkowski 20:46, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

mistake?

On the right hand side, under his picture, it says the Pope died on April 5th. It was not the 5th...

Picture caption

Isn't the box thing at the top of the photo a bit much? We don't do it for other monarchs nor for other religious leaders. I notice we don't do it for every pope either, just far enough back to make the casual researcher think that it's a common style for all. And what's with the Latin? Was there any justification for any of this?Grace Note 00:23, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

As for the use of Latin, see reversals war in the history of the article "Pope John Paul I" to get a clearer picture. This was a compromise. --Eleassar777 11:01, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)
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