Category talk:English Catholics

references?

Making a list of people that belong to a certain faith seems to me rather controversal. I'd like to think you have some proof for all of this... Care to cite it? aLii 21:44, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Do believe me: they are

But I'll of course quote everything you all need about all the people I'll be adding from now on.

Each one of the guys appearing on this list have publicly declared their Catholic upbringing so many times, and they're proud of it (not like I am, i.e.!), so believe me...but I'll show you of course.

For instance, try and visit Sting's page and you'll clearly see what I mean, and the same goes for the Gallaghers and the rest.

Another Wikipedian had the splendid clue of writing a preface to this list clearly stating that this page is dedicated to these people's upbringing and not to their current faith, which is what this page was made for. I'm about to thank this mate for having fulfilled this task better than what I tried to do. Gianmaria Framarin 6:28 5 June 2006

George Harrison

I see Paul McCartney's name but you forgot George Harrison. He was born and raised a practicing Roman Catholic in a Liverpool Irish family. In fact, I've read that George was the Beatle who most identified himself with being Irish. He would often refer to himself as 'Liverpool Irish'. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.160.28.79 (talk) 15:07, 10 February 2007 (UTC).

Malcolm Muggeridge

Can someone add him to the list? I apologise, but I don't know how to edit entries in the list format? Thanks.Signof4 (talk) 15:15, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Consider moving page

I am considering renaming this page to Category:English Catholics as the Catholic Church does not appreciate the "Roman" demonym, and also because it is unlikely that [m]any of the people in this category are Roman. —Preceding unsigned comment added by T.M.M. Dowd (talk • contribs) 12:47, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

What? Since when does the Catholic Church not appreciate the "Roman" demonym? I'm afraid you're wrong on that count.118.71.11.248 (talk) 09:17, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Historical persons

I was a little surprised to see Robin Hood, Richard I of England and Henry V of England categorized as English Roman Catholics - they lived at a time where practically everybody living in England would have been a Roman Catholic, and I can't find a significant influence of Catholicism in, say, the life of Henry V. Many other historical figures of the same era, despite being just as Catholic, aren't categorized by religion (rightly so, in my opinion). Is there any rhyme or reason to these categorizations? Huon (talk) 16:19, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

I agree. This categorization is completely absurd. It begins to make sense only at the point where being Catholic in England is in any way remarkable, i.e. from the 16th Century onwards. I would welcome further discussion on this point followed by a cleanup. It would do the category itself a favour.Humphrey20020 (talk) 08:17, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

I'll invite the relevant WikiProjects, Catholicism and England, to join the discussion. I suppose I'll have the time to do some cleanup over the holidays. Huon (talk) 17:11, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

I see someone has already started, invoking this discussion, perhaps prematurely. Lady Margaret Beaufort was in fact notably pious, & a founder of religious houses etc, but in general I agree the categorization is excessive. Johnbod (talk) 00:27, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Contacting WikiProject Catholicism, WikiProject England and WikiProject Biography had generated no response for more than a week. I doubt there would have been more responses if I had waited another week (or another year). Beaufort is a borderline case; her sponsorship of a Cambridge professorship of divinity may make her Catholicism significant enough for the category although she is primarily known for her more worldly role as mother of King Henry VII and regent for Henry VIII. Huon (talk) 00:48, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

• Huon is now removing post-Reformation Catholics, including converts, citing this discussion. There is absolutely no consensus for this, indeed such people have not been mentioned so far here. Don't be offended if I roll these back. The objection raised above is to pre-Reformation people, as being a Catholic is clearly not defining for them. This is not the case for later people, and we normally do categorize by religious affiliation. Several people removed from the category were prominent and active Catholics in various ways, but this is not necessary for the category. By the way this is not the right page for this discussion, as this category is specifically for people who were NOT RC (or Anglo-Catholics), but from other fringe Catholic churches. Johnbod (talk) 13:36, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Indeed I am. In order to weed out the badly-categorized pre-Reformation Catholics, I decided the easiest way would be to look at them all and fix everything in need of fixing in the process. My removal criteria were a lack of any significant effect the person's Catholicism had on their life, or, conversely, the person's life had on Catholicism - basically, people for whom Catholicism is not an "essential, defining characteristic" per WP:CAT. Despite Johnbod's claim, we do not usually categorize people by religion; I just checked the first dozen or so articles in Category:British Nobel laureates, and only two had religious categories (which imo do not belong on both). In particular:

• I removed all religious categories where no reliable source mentions the person's religion. No source, no category. Examples: Michael Carr (Labour politician): All we had there was a school which is probably Catholic. I doubt he chose his own school, and the article never discusses his religion. He may actually be Catholic, and we might find a source, but it would still not be an essential characteristic. Lady Rachel Billington: No source for either religion or conversion.
• I removed a few redundant categories when someone was a member of both a category and a subcategory. Example: Adrian Carton de Wiart was categorized as both a British Roman Catholic and an English Roman Catholic. Per WP:CAT: "[I]f a page belongs to a subcategory of C (or a subcategory of a subcategory of C, and so on) then it is not normally placed directly into C." The exceptions noted in WP:CAT did not apply.
• I removed religious categories from persons whose religion only featured early on, such as "raised Catholic" with no further mention later on that their religious upbringing had a significant influence. Example: John Biggs-Davison, whose only brush with Catholicism after his education seems to be his work on Catholic Unionists in Ireland, which probably is not a religious work but a political one.
• I removed religious categories from people who converted so late in life that they had done all their notable stuff before their conversion. I currently cannot find an example where such a conversion was actually sourced, and one of rather few where it is even mentioned in the article is George Brown, Baron George-Brown. None of those converts were categorized by the religion they had while they actually did their notable stuff.
• I removed religious categories from a few Reformation era people who were not significantly influenced by their religion and where evidence is equivocal. These cases are probably closest to borderline; they include Anthony Browne (died 1548), whose Catholicism must be surmised from him being sent against a Catholic uprising as a test of his loyalty (he had no qualms about quashing that uprising), and Thomas Bromley (chief justice), whose religion is covered by a single, context-free sentence: "Burnet says of him that he was 'a papist at heart.'" I couldn't tell who Burnet is, and I took "papist at heart" to mean that publicly, Bromley wasn't Catholic.
• I removed religious categories from people whose religion is noted, but is not an essential characteristic. Example: Andy Burnham. We have a source, but his religion is no more essential than him being a fan of Everton football club (which is also sourced, and actually seems more significant).

If you can point to an article where I removed a category that should be there, please be specific. I may err in judgement, I may miss details (as I did with Margaret Beaufort), my criteria might be considered overly strict. But I am still surprised by blanket reversals. In particular, on re-checking my edits the converts seem especially clear-cut cases of wrong categorization. Maybe I should have had more variation in my edit summaries instead of just referring to this discussion, but what variation I had did not prevent the blanket reversal. As an aside, Category talk:English Roman Catholics redirects here. I would not mind ending that situation, but I did not realize it when I started this discussion and afterwards keeping the discussion here was the easiest course. Huon (talk) 15:27, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

I left some, like Anthony Browne (died 1548). Biggs-Davison was in his day one of the most prominent Catholic Tory MPs, then a much smaller group than now; find me an obituary that doesn't mention his Catholicism, and see this gbook search. It was probably the single thing he was best known for. In the same way, a google search of "Andy Burnham" Catholic readily disproves that it is not defining for him. "people who converted so late in life that they had done all their notable stuff before their conversion" is not adequate grounds for removal - Kenneth Clark's literal death-bed conversion generated a great deal of coverage, and some controversy. For older periods, being an English Catholic, under the Penal laws, was inevitably totally defining. I'm happy to discuss individual cases, but please don't cite this section in your edit summary - you have no support here for changes such as these. Johnbod (talk) 16:11, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Policy supports me in removing all those categories which are unsourced. This includes Biggs-Davidson. If his Catholicism is that important, the correct procedure is first adding content to the article explaining its significance, with a reliable source, then adding the category, not the other way around. I tried to find any obituary whatsoever but failed. Similarly, if Kenneth Clark's literal death-bed conversion generated a great deal of coverage, it should be easy to provide a reliable source. According to Google Books, his biography mentions "convert" exactly once: "However he, though an admirer of the church, was no convert." (Google Books showed no mention of "conversion" or "Catholic", and "Roman" only in "Roman Empire".) No other source provided in the article mentions his conversion.

This leaves us with people whose religion is sourced but of dubious significance, including Andy Burnham. Admittedly the Google search shows about 20% more hits for "Andy Burnham Catholic" than for "Andy Burnham" Everton, but quite a few of those hits actually discuss what a lukewarm Catholic he is. Not a single one of the 400+ Google News hits mentions "Catholic", unlike "Everton". I am not impressed by that level of significance. But if you insist I will bring up those cases where a source actually exists on the articles' talk pages instead of removing the categories outright.

I believe I left all articles untouched which mentioned the English anti-Catholic laws. Huon (talk) 17:22, 3 January 2012 (UTC)