Talk:Anti-clericalism/Archives/2008/December

"Teaching atheism"

Not trying to nit-pick, but how can one "teach atheism in schools"? It would be better to say "teaching from an atheist point of view". Alensha 18:10, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

Italy??

It's really weird that Italy is not mentioned here! Michael Hardy 04:44, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Catholicism and Freemasonry

I'm going to remove the link, since it has nothing to do with anti-clericalism as far as the actual article is concerned, and I have found no factual evidence to support the claim of the ties between Freemasonry and anti-clericalism, even in the Catholic Encyclopedia (where you would think it would be). It seem they are tied together mainly by being equally unpalatable to Catholic dogma, which does not make it fact. MSJapan 07:43, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

See my response (which uses quotes from the Catholic Encyclopedia) on the Catholicism and Freemasonry page. I think the link should be here - if one wishes, one could cite it as alleged, although masonic involvement in Italy is not really a debated point.DonaNobisPacem 07:41, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

As long as it is clarified, that's fine - I feel that the idea should be to let the reader come to their own conclusion. MSJapan 07:47, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

These new refs are awful....

I went to fix a typo in the Freemasonry section, and the refs are twice as long as the section, as the tags now bring the entirety of the reference into the section space. Does anybody know if there's a general discussion on this? It makes the article cleaner, but the editing is messier. MSJapan 01:55, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Anti-clericalism, laicism and the Spanish civil war

The Roman Catholic Church declared the war a "Crusade" a holy war on Franco’s part.

In 1930 the Spanish society was still suffering from having lost its overseas empire and deep social and economic reforms were needed at many levels. Democracy had been reinstated after a 7 year dictatorship by General Primo de Rivera and King Alfonso XIII had voluntarily decided to go into exile after realising it had lost the support of the majority of the Spanish society. The church had played an instrumental part under the monarchy and military dictatorship, and its widespread economic involvement meant it was facing reform at the many levels. As you can by now imagine they were not happy about it and opposed such changes, making a lot of enemies in the process.

In Ken Loach's "Land and Freedom" you can see a priest shooting from a church tower at militias and he is eventually is shot down. Though I have no other historical evidence there probably were far more incidents like this and the question arises why 6000 where killed and not the rest? Especially in a war that left around 2million dead in a country of less than 30mill at the time. Hence, to put down these 6000 dead priests as victims of anti-clericalism is rather dubious and should not be included without further references.

I am almost positive the Roman Catholic Church never declared the war a "Crusade", please provide a source for this.

The period of 1931-1936 is one of the most chaotic in the history of Spain, which constant turbulence from both the right (unhappy about an anti-clerical, leftist constitution) and the left (where the moderates were overwhelmed by the revolutionaries). The first important violent coups against the Republic came from the left in 1934 (incidently, I have yet to see a politician condemn this coups which are esentially as undemocratic as the one in 1936, with the only diference they failed). At least in one of those (Asturias,1934) priests were killed just for being priests (and teachers).

Your only "historical" evidence comes from a movie by Ken Loach (who is a member of the left-wing party Respect; I must say I think he is a good director). Even if the incident depicted is based on a real one (which I doubt) it would be something exceptional; The truth is that almost all of those 6000 were killed for being priests.

Finally I must make clear I don´t support the Alzamiento or Franco´s regime and they are guilty of atrocities; in some cases the Church might be considered an accomplice, however the killing of civilians (priests or not priests) is also a war crime.

---

The tone of the article makes anticlericalism sound like it sprouts independently. In my historical view it is rather a "response to", an "effect to" the church’s actions, its right wing conservative attitudes, its opposition to change and democracy. The church has historically thrived giving legitimacy to absolute regimes and dictators, which in turn responds to its own internal structure with the Pope at its head, who by definition cannot be wrong.

Furthermore, the church has apostolism (http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iglesia_Cat%C3%B3lica) as one of its 4 pillars. This means that they endeavour to convert everyone to their faith, and as fundamentalists they would also like to control and run as much of our lives. This can be seen in how the lives of its members are controlled. Opus Dei numeraries, for example, have their post opened and this is recognized publicly as a means to "protect them". They have to submit in advance what TV programmes they want to see, newpapers, books or even web pages to read, what activities they plan, even ask for permission to visit their family, which is often denied as their family is now Opus Dei. It is my view that anticlericalism is a response to these attitudes from the church, a means of defence.

I consider myself a laciest, but currently in Spain, the government gives part of my taxes to the church, and it finances the preaching of Catholicism in schools, whether I want my children to attend or not. Hence being a laciest now in Spain means I have to fight the catholic church and its power, which also makes me anticlerical.

Do we really need an article on anticlericalism as limited as the one we have now? I am new and don’t feel I should edit it.

cgonzalezdelhoyo@yahoo.com

The problem is that this is an encyclopedia that has to be NPOV. Part of that involves having sources, and if there are no real sources, we can't extrapolate a cause, because Wikipedia has a policy against original research WP:NOR. Now, if there was a source where someone examined the causes of anti-clericalism, we could then use that as part of the article. MSJapan 03:03, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Shinui

An anonymous editor added in Shinui as anti-clericalist, but the description in the text makes it sound more like religion-state separatism and not necessarily anti-clerical. I've left it in for now because I know nothing of the group; comments? --lquilter 22:08, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I think you're right. They don't act against religion per se, and they don't seek to abolish religion; they just want a more secular environment in Israel. I'll take a closer look, but my initial feeling is this should be removed. MSJapan 04:11, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Italy: Papal States criticised

I hate to wade into this, but I see someone changed the discription of the Papal States failure from 'alleged tyranny' to 'poor government'. Since I doubt it was irregualar bus service than led to criticism of Papal rule in Italy. I changed it to 'absolutism'.  :T L Miles 13:37, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject class rating

This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 03:45, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Use of Saint Joan reference

I was looking for an easy reference linking internal forces against clericalism. Happened to stumble across it in the preface to Saint Joan. George Bernard Shaw was an intellectual and a writer. Maybe not quite the scholar that we would want for this level of criticism but no man's fool either! Supposedly Protestant but I suspect agnostic.

I think without a lot of brainpower though, anyone can make this same association. Looking at the Franciscans particularly, since most people have read something about it, we can see that people were disgusted with the clergy as they existed and wanted to do something about it. It was a reaction. They wanted to reform from within. I don't want people erroneously thinking that anti-clericalism is something modern that the Reformation invented. It was around long before that.

The summary was taken not from the play itself (which is based on fact as far as that goes) but from the erudite preface, a series of monologues {or maybe rants! :) that crossed Shaw's mind. They are well informed and, let's face it, have passed the test of time. Student7 (talk) 02:17, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Two Distinct Meanings of the Term

I am writing this post in response to Student7's above comment and his addition to the intro re anticlericalism in the Franciscans, etc. I've included my comment under a separate heading because it is an issue of broader import to this article than merely his addition. I have again deleted the reference supported by his cite to Shaw. Even in Shaw's preface (especially if it is a "monologue" or "rant"), it is not an appropriate source. I understand the point Student7 is trying to make in the contribution to the article, but there is another problem with it which is separate from the source. If you take a look at the article on anticlericalism in the new Catholic Encyclopedia you will see what I mean. The term anti-clericalism is sometimes used to refer to two different things. One meaning is what this article is about, it is related to and largely originated in the French Revolution and its sequelae and in a sort of anti-religious strain in some quarters of the Enlightenment. It is distinct from the other usage of the word and this usage refers to a phenomenon which is often decidedly anti-Catholic, and also often anti-Christian and anti-religious in general. The other usage of the word, dating form the 12th or 13th century (according to Britannica) is the opposition to clerical excess, typically from within the Church. The latter and older usage, less commonly the usage modernly, referred to critique which was not opposed to Catholicism specifically, Christianity generally, or to the priesthood, etc. I don't think this article should cover the latter usage of the word. This is not a dictionary but an encyclopedia. The latter and older usage is seldom what people are referring to today when they use the term and introducing it in this article would only tend to conflate the two really unconnected movements and cause confusion. If editors insist on the article covering both distinct usages of the term (a bad idea in my estimation), I think care should be made to distinguish the two.Mamalujo (talk) 21:11, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

In retrospect, maybe the article should cover the term more broadly, including (within the Christian context) the term as it is used in the pre-Reformation period, during and after the Reformation in its use in relation to Catholic and Protestant clergy and in its more modern sense. Care should be used in editing to distinguish the different strains of anticlericalism. Thoughts?Mamalujo (talk) 21:34, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

I understand your point. I am having the opposite problem with an overly broad definition in Crusades and Criticism of the Catholic Church where the word "crusade" is retroactively defined to be anything the writer (or maybe historian) doesn't like about the church which had more than a few dozen people associated with it, the pope being personally and directly responsible, of course, by virtue of lumping them all together, whether he actually instigated them or not or even knew about them in advance. In both cases, it seems, the church comes out on the short side. Funny how that works out! Student7 (talk) 23:55, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Austro-Hungarian Empire

Far from the benign tonedeaf bungler depicted in the movie "Amadeus," Emperor Franz-Josef, nominally Catholic, closed monasteries and took them over during the early 19th century. Don't have the facts at my fingertips. Student7 (talk) 15:57, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Suppression of Jesuits

One of the classic political moves against the church was the successful pressure brought to bear by Spain and a large number of other countries on a weak pope to suppress the Jesuits because they advocated rights for Indians in the Americas, among other things. They opposed their enslavement. May be puzzling to a reader here. How can the pope be instrumental in anti-clericalism? Hmmm. Student7 (talk) 00:08, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

NPOV

Page clearly takes the stance that anti-clericalism is a negative (for example, by putting a religious persecution box onto it}, which is especially troubling in that it then links anti-clericalism to current political movements/organizations. That sounds like Bias to me... (Sorry, don't yet know how to sign.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.169.144.49 (talk) 21:46, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

New comments go on bottom. Archives are done from top down. You can sign with four tildes together.

Could you split up your criticism? Anti-clericalism resulted in deaths in Mexico during the 20th century. And while the Holocause took top billing, the Nazis methodically killed a lot of priests. So it is real. From the point of view of the person on whom the gun is being aimed at, this is negative.

This affects religions other than Catholic as well. Thus the box. So why is killing clergy positive? (I hadn't thought of it before but I suppose the Holocaust was a positive thing for Nazis. I'km not too sure they will get an apology for the tone of that article though!) Student7 (talk) 11:48, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Why is killing a positive thing ? Some people think that killing a criminal is a positive thing, but the criminal probably thing it's a negative thing, even more if the criminal is actually innocent. But for some people it's only justice. You say "anti-clericalims resulted in deaths", one could say : "justice resulted in deaths", so justice is a negative thing ? Clericalism resulted in deaths too, but strangely enough, it isn't mentioned on the article of clericalism. This article should mention the positive aspect of anticlericalism : the power of the church maintain the people in ignorance and superstition. The reject of the church leaded to enlightenment, to the progress of science and knowledge.Jikary 21:26, 8 November 2008 (UTC))

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Calendar

The whole world once considered Sunday as the first day of the week. In an apparent anti-Christian move most countries with the exception of the United States apparently use Monday as the first day. This was rather deliberate on Europe's part and rather obviously anti-clerical. Reference anyone? Student7 (talk) 15:54, 30 December 2008 (UTC)