Talk:Anti-clericalism/Archives/2010/March

RfC: Does this article provide a balanced overview of Anti-clericalism and its intellectual origins?

Much of this article appears to be written from one specific religious viewpoint and provides virtually no explanation of the philosophical and political origins and historical development of Anti-clericalism. --Tediouspedant (talk) 00:49, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

This is a good article that provides alot of informations. And ofcourse there can be added many more. So just include informations that you are missing. --Templeknight (talk) 09:55, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

RfC needs more detail - Following on temple's comment; Tedious, I don't think you will find many editors who are expert on Anti-clericalism. Hence, I doubt you will meet many people able to say generally whether the article is balanced. I would suggest you point to piece of the article that lack NPOV for discussion. NickCT (talk) 01:59, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

I would definitely say that the article (as it is now) is not balanced or neutral in tone. Instead of neutrally discussing what Anticlericism is, where it came from and how it developed over time, the article instead focuses on presenting a coatracked series of claims that such and such historical event or movement was anticlerical. There is little discussion as to why these things were or are considered examples of anticlericism. More importantly, there is no discussion of the causes of Anticlericism, or the development of Anticlericism through the years.

This is definitely a viable topic... but the article needs a lot of work. Blueboar (talk) 15:50, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

The article discusses anti‐Catholicism almost exclusively. I’m not an expert on anti‐Clericalism but would guess that anti‐Clerical movements against non‐Catholic clergy have also happened. Furthermore, the article portrays Catholicism in an overtly positive light almost throughout by mentioning only the most notorious events, each of them against Catholic clergy. Many of the sources cited are quite partisan and non‐neutral, and much of the content is not cited. The topic is viable and some of the content is good; but the organization overlaps, is incomplete, is very confusing, and focuses on too few regions and periods. There seems to be some consensus on this matter.

I suggest rewriting the article completely keeping some of the better content (perhaps whole sections) but with more neutral sources, new information, more complete coverage, and more attention from experts. Thoughts?  dmyersturnbull  ⇒ talk 21:16, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

That was my feeling too. There are references to historical facts that should be kept, but historical events need explanations of the issues and controversies that led to them. The examples also seem unrepresentative - only in some nations with specific political tensions and undemocratic government did anti-clericalism lead to massacres of the clergy of the kind highlighted here. In other nations they were merely removed from political power through a process of secularization. I think, in light of comments received so far, that a rewrite to include the background issues but to retain existing items would be appropriate. --Tediouspedant (talk) 23:34, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

As above, individual attacks on clergy were mostly unprovoked by the victims. In some countries where anti-clericalism was worst (England after the reformation, Mexico, French revolution), clergy were simply murdered for no better reason than they were clergy. I haven't checked the article Holocaust, but one wonders if equal time for Nazis ideas of why Jews should be killed are "fairly" presented.

You may be able to make anti-clericalism sound very noble on paper, but the details get a bit messy when carried out by the man-in-the-street with a weapon. Student7 (talk) 21:39, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Just a few thoughts.

1. I dare say the article overall is rather biased, though I'd point out 1 instance where it understates its case: the burning of churches in Spain started before the Civil War, & was 1 of its causes.
2. AC does seem to be largely anti-Catholic. It's been said (somewhere) that you tend to get AC in Catholic countries, secularism in Protestant ones. I think (OR?) the idea is that the Catholic Church has quite definite views, resulting in increasing tensions between it & modern secular society. So-called mainstream Protestant churches tend to get "wishy-washy" & adopt secular values a lot of the time.

Peter jackson (talk) 16:14, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Presumably that reflects the fact that Protestantism was partly a rejection in northern nations of political control from Rome and so had already rejected the subservience of the State to the Church in preference for subservience of the State to the People. Therefore the kind of political allegiance between the Church and the Army seen in Franco's Spain, Salazar's Portugal, Mussolini's Italy, Marcos' Philippines, Pinochet's Chile and in most nations in Latin America, which pitched them in violent conflict against the poor and the left, was not generally seen in Protestant nations. --Tediouspedant (talk) 17:27, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Sounds about right. I'd add that Protestantism often meant the subservience of the Church to the State, though by no means always. Peter jackson (talk) 17:38, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

While those are very interesting opinions, these articles depend upon reliable sources, not editor opinions. Mamalujo (talk) 19:19, 4 March 2010 (UTC)