User talk:Harmakheru/Archive 1

Welcome!

Welcome to Wikipedia, Harmakheru! I am SarekOfVulcan and have been editing Wikipedia for quite some time. I just wanted to say hi and welcome you to Wikipedia! If you have any questions, feel free to leave me a message on my talk page or by typing {{helpme}} at the bottom of this page. I love to help new users, so don't be afraid to leave a message! I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

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SarekOfVulcan (talk) 22:20, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Catholic Church

		The Socratic Barnstar
		To Harmakheru, for detailed research and patient explanation of contentious issues at Catholic Church. Karanacs (talk) 17:53, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Please don't give up. Karanacs (talk) 17:53, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

What Karanacs says. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 22:36, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Many thanks for your contributions - it's very encouraging to experience someone able to so intelligently confront the nonsense written by those editors who seek to have the article conform to a highly conservative and unscholarly understanding of official church teaching. Afterwriting (talk) 14:19, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for having the energy to research this matter, even if you do have the sources at your fingertips - and I am intrigued by the thought-experiment of your last post. Let's see what happens. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:04, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, my last edit summary refers to A Civil Campaign. An excellent book, but one not everybody has read (and the end of a series, not the best place to start). Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:37, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Catlick page

You make some very good points and have clearly done your homework...but can I ask you to ease up on the snarkiness? You'll probably think i'm a hypocrite because I've made the exact same arguments you're making regarding source material etc. and might have been more caustic dealing with other editors like Nancy and Xandar, but I think if we all act a little more civil we might get through this thing better than we have in the past and produce something worthwhile.--Mike - Μολὼν λαβέ

No, we will get prevarication, fraud, and lies; that's what piety is to some people - of all religions, Marxism (and pure atheism) not excluded. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:35, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Commies

Have they developed since my source, vintage 1937? If I recall correctly, that view held the Bolsheviks are merely the agents of the moneylenders, like that well-known Jew William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley (we can tell he's a Jew by his arms - miscited). But you are right, it would be off topic. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:35, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Pam, you are one sick little gerbil.--Mike - Μολὼν λαβέ 06:35, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Not my view, as I trust is clear; that of William Thomas Walsh (SJ?), Phillip II, Sheed and Ward, New York, 1937; :London, 1938. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:19, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

jokes

Good one! Heard that before, but i think it was Canon Lawyer in there or something else.--Mike - Μολὼν λαβέ 06:37, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Under the Heel

A fascinating book; it might be worth it to you to inquire into interlibrary loan. a tendency to oversimplify a touch; Richelieu was not typically pious, nor Newton a typical Anglican. But I'm only half-way through. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:18, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

32 m statues that sweat, bleed, and perform competitive miracles. I suppose, as a classist, I should be happier; but where is the new Pheidias or Euripides?

Although the Mother of God as defender of clerical chastity is a very old tradition; if you will forgive another quotation (checked this time) dea domina Dindymi, procul a mea tuus sit furor omnis, era, domo: alios age incitatos, alios age rabidos.. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:04, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Dispute resolution

I have opened a user RfC at Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/NancyHeise. From my analysis of the diffs, I think you are eligible to certify this, although you are, of course, under no obligation to do so. If you choose to certify, please check to make sure that I have not missed any key diffs in your attempts to resolve the dispute. Thank you. Karanacs (talk) 17:33, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

I just remembered that you are a new user and are likely not familiar with dispute resolution steps yet. I left a brief explanation at NancyHeise's talk page [1] that should explain most of it. If you have questions, please feel free to ask me or any of the others involved in the dispute. Karanacs (talk) 17:35, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Parallel

You should read H[umfrey] Michell's Sparta. He solves the conflicting evidence on Spartan army organization by assuming that they reorganized between every piece of evidence, including between the two descriptions by Thucydides during the Peloponnesian War. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:50, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Flattered

You might be interested in looking at this. I feel flattered at being confused with you by some opponent of yours on the Catholic Church page who created the log-in name User:JPBHarris in order to accuse you anonymously. Lima (talk) 22:42, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Lumen Gentium

Harmakheru,

• Do you have a source that says the Catholic Church does not accept the historicity of the list of pope supplied by Irenaeus? In Catholic Bibles, there is a section listing all of the popes from Peter to the present pope. The Catholic Bible is specifically approved by the Church and required in catechetical classes teaching the faith. If the list of popes and the historical document by Irenaeus is not officially accepted by the Church - can you explain its acceptance by the Church and its use in teaching the faith?
• Also, your analysis of Lumen Gentium is incorrect. Lumen cites Pastor aeternus, Lumen specifically refers to the Vatican I descriptions given to us in Pastor aeternus and affirms the assertions made in that document - so that is a double verification of the wording in that document. NancyHeise ^talk 00:13, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

With regard to your opening question, you are looking at the issue backwards. The proper question is not whether there is a source saying the Church doesn't accept Irenaeus' list; the question is whether there is a credible contemporary source which says that the Church does officially insist on that list's historicity. (Remember, the burden of proof in such matters almost always rests on the one making the affirmative claim, not on the one disputing it.) Personally I don't know of any such source. As far as I can tell, none of the sources you have brought forward so far actually claim that what they are presenting is the official Church teaching on these points; and even if they did, given the upheaval in such matters after Vatican II, anything published before 1962 is essentially obsolete now and can't be used to establish what the Church believes and teaches today.

As for the listing of popes in Catholic Bibles (or any other source), this really proves nothing. As the Wikipedia article on this subject says, "There is no official list of popes." [2] There is also no "the" Catholic Bible; there are many Bibles which have been approved by various ecclesiastical authorities for general reading and study, and Rome usually does not get involved in vetting these except for deciding whether the translation itself is appropriate for liturgical use. Consequently, different publishers are free to incorporate into "Catholic" Bibles all sorts of other materials that do not have any particular doctrinal authority. As I have explained before, even if a specific Bible (or any other material for that matter) has the Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur, this does not constitute an endorsement of its contents; all it means is that there is nothing in the material that contradicts the Church's teachings on faith and morals. On any other topic, it could be radically in error and still be approved for publication.

Yes, Lumen Gentium cites Pastor Aeternus, but Pastor Aeternus does not endorse the bulk of the traditional narrative. It says that Peter received the primacy from Christ, that he "founded" the See of Rome and "consecrated" it with his blood, and that his successors in the See of Rome thereby obtain the primacy as well. That's it. It says nothing about whether Peter was bishop of Rome, or how long he stayed there, or who his successors were, or even whether he ordained any successors at all. Given how concerned Vatican I was to put the Roman primacy on as firm a footing as possible, and how widespread and deeply rooted those traditions were for over a thousand years, the failure of Vatican I to even allude to them is astonishing--unless the pope and the bishops had already realized by this point that the tradition could not be substantiated, and therefore should not be relied on. Harmakheru ✍ 23:23, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

• I disagree with your analysis of Pastor Aeternus. The document does not have to list the line of popes for us to know what the Catholic Church approves as "the" line of popes - the one used in Catholic Bibles.
• Catholic Bibles must contain certain books in order to have the Nihil obstat imprimatur designations, for instance, Protestant Bibles omit certain books like Tobit and some New Testament era letters. A Bible containing a list of popes that is not approved by the Church would not get the Nihil obstat, Imprimatur. A publisher can not just go in on their own and place any old list in there. Do you disagree with this?
• Pope Benedict, a scholar, an expert on Church theology and history and the ultimate Imprimatur has a book out that includes a section discussing the origins of the Church [3] from page 34 -37 he gives us the traditional narrative of the Church. Here's a very relevant quote from page 37 "In this way for Irenaeus and for the universal Church, the episcopal succession of the Church of Rome becomes the sign, criterion and guarantee of the unbroken transmission of apostolic faith". Here, Benedict clearly links Irenaeus letter and the Church which accepted Irenaeus' letter as fact.
• Eamon Duffy, even though he provides us with an alternate POV, states that Irenaeus' position was apparently accepted without question.
• John Vidmar also comments on this and points to "negative evidence" suggesting that there is no rival tradition and that even though Peter was bishop of Antioch for a time, that church conceded that he had moved on to head the Church of Rome.
• Franzen states that there is a continual list of uncontested witnesses attesting to this list.
• Thomas Noble states that the tradition that he "headed the Church" of Rome is a "reliable Tradition". His book is a university textbook - widely accepted. Thomas Noble is a professor of papal history according to his Notre Dame University faculty page here [4].
• You keep insisting that the Church has no official doctrine regarding its own historical origins. When I point you to specific documents and scholarly sources that provide us with this historical POV, you redefine our argument into something it was not - ie the use of the term "bishop". The argument is not over use of this term which no one argues is a term that evolved into full use at a later date. The argument is over the existence of the office. The scholars are not arguing over the use of the term, they are in disagreement over the existence of the office in the apostolic era with regard to the Church of Rome - a point that the Church holds a particular position, one that is in agreement with the historical document written by Irenaeus. NancyHeise ^talk 01:40, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Before I respond to the rest of this, please answer three questions for me:

• What "Catholic Bible" are you using--i.e., which version is it, who published it, and when?
• What are the names of the first ten popes according to the list contained in that Bible?
• What "New Testament era letters" are present in your Bible that would be missing from Protestant Bibles?

Once you have answered these three simple questions, we can continue. Harmakheru ✍ 04:10, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

One of my Catholic Bibles is the New American Bible, The Catholic Study Edition, required by my daughter's Catholic school to be used in her religion class. It has the Nihil obstat and Imprimatur designations, published in 1987 by Catholic Bible Press, (a division of Thomas Nelson Publishers) and includes a list of popes beginning with Peter, Linus, Anacletus, Clement I, Evaristus, Alexander, Sixtus, Telephorus, Hyginus, Pius I. This list appears right after Revelation. This is exactly the same list as that listed in Catholic Encyclopedia [5].

Catholic Bible vs Protestant Bible as defined by the USCCB for the Catholic Church is here (see number 2) [6], the Protestant and Catholic books of the New Testament are the same but the Old Testament books are not. NancyHeise ^talk 22:36, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Now notice what else it says on the USCCB page you linked to above: "Besides the various versions of the Scriptural text, many different publishers have produced editions of the NAB. Each publisher has added other material, such as photographs, maps, devotions and prayers, and reference matter, to the basic text." Among the material added in some editions is a list of popes; in the case of the Bible you are using, it is--as you say--identical to the one in the Catholic Encyclopedia, and most likely originally came from there. But just as the "photographs, maps, devotions and prayers, and reference matter" added to various NAB Bibles by different publishers are not necessarily endorsed by Rome just because they happen to appear in a Catholic Bible, so the list of popes in your Bible is not necessarily endorsed by Rome either. It's just a list someone came up with and published almost a century ago, and others have copied it; that doesn't make it "official", and the fact that it appears in a book with Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur doesn't make it official, either.

But it gets worse, because there is another (and older) list that has a much stronger claim to be "official". This was published by the Holy See itself in the Annuario Pontificio, or Pontifical Yearbook, in December 1866--less than four years before Pastor Aeternus--under the authority of the same pope who promulgated Pastor Aeternus, Pius IX. You can download the whole thing from Google Books here [7]. And if you turn to page 19 you will find a list of popes: Peter, Linus, Cletus, Clement, Anacletus, Evaristus, Alexander, Sixtus, etc. But look carefully: This is not the same list as the one in your Bible.

So according to you, Pastor Aeternus "does not have to list the line of popes for us to know what the Catholic Church approves as "the" line of popes - the one used in Catholic Bibles"; but the very pope who promulgated Pastor Aeternus, or at least the Holy See acting under his authority, disagrees with you and offers a significantly different list. Apparently when Pope Pius IX invoked Irenaeus as a witness to the traditional narrative, he had one list of popes in mind--and when Pope Benedict invoked Irenaeus as a witness to the same things, he had a different list. All of which may help to explain why neither one of them explicitly lists the alleged succession from Peter: because they both knew the succession lists are unhistorical and unverifiable, and that it would be foolish to build the Roman Primacy on such a questionable foundation. Harmakheru ✍ 06:01, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Harmakheru, if you read WP:OR it will tell you that we can not draw our own conclusions - we have to cite modern scholarship that states what we are trying to put into the article. I think what you are saying above is OR. If you look at the 1876 Annuario Pontificio that you link above (page 19-20) you will see the line of popes listed there from Peter on. [8]. If I look at modern scholarship, the 2007 Annuario Pontificio, I see the exact same list as that in my Catholic Bible and Catholic Encyclopedia. The only difference between the 1867 Annuario and the 2007 Annuario is the name of Anacleto has been presented on the same line as Cleto in the 2007 edition "Anacleto o Cleto" because the think he was the same person. This discrepancy is explained by Catholic Encyclopedia here [9] which states "We can accept the list of Irenaeus — Linus, Anacletus, Clement, Evaristus, Alexander, Xystus, Telesphorus, Hyginus, Pius, and Anicetus. Anicetus reigned certainly in 154." NancyHeise ^talk 18:13, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Nancy, you do "original research" every time you draw unwarranted conclusions from the documents you cite, as when you attempt to combine a sentence in Lumen Gentium with the sketchy outline of the traditional narrative in Pastor Aeternus and the list of popes in your Bible to prove that the Catholic Church still stands by that narrative in detail. Not only is this sort of thing exactly what the "original research" guidelines prohibit, but you in particular are in no position to be doing original research even if it was permitted, because there is a great deal about the Catholic Church that you clearly do not understand. Consider, for example, your claim above that Catholic Bibles contain New Testament letters which Protestant Bibles omit. As you now admit, that claim is false. More importantly, the fact that Protestants and Catholics use the same New Testament is the sort of basic stuff you should have been taught in RCIA; and the fact that you could be so grievously mistaken about something so fundamental is very disturbing in someone who exerts de facto ownership over the Catholic Church article, especially when you presume to lecture and correct others who know a great deal more about such things than you do. It is precisely because of this sort of nonsense that I stopped even trying to contribute to the Catholic Church page; the cost of making progress against your continual misconstrual of sources and your absurd argumentation is simply too high. Harmakheru ✍ 18:44, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Wow, you get really hot headed when you are proven wrong! I just pointed out to you that 2007 Annuario Pontificio has the same list of popes as my nihil obstat, imprimatur Catholic Bible and the Catholic Encyclopedia - that should lead to agreement that the Church does have an officially accepted list of popes - contrary to your persistent claims. Yet instead, you go on a rant and bring up a mistake I made in an edit above regarding Protestant Bibles New Testaments. I am not editing a Protesant Christian denomination article. I am editing the Catholic Church one and I did not profess to know exactly what is in or not in the many different Protestant denominations Bibles. I don't think that is a requirement of editing the Catholic article do you? NancyHeise ^talk 18:50, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

I do think that a research expert would be able to see that Lumen Gentium references Pastor Aeternus in the notes to the section of Lumen discussing the Church origins. The wording of Lumen in that section even affirms the statements on Church origins made at Vatican I in Pastor Aeternus. Even Pope Benedict in his book [10] from page 34 -37 he gives us the traditional narrative of the Church that agrees with Pastor Aeternus and Lumen Gentium. Yet even though I have given you sources that contradict your preferred POV, you still attack me personally and throw up your hands in disgust. It is I who should be doing that in dealing with you. Clearly no one agrees with you that there is no officially agreed Church list of popes or we would have a scholar saying this somewhere or we might see some alternate list in the Annuario or Catholic Bible. But we don't have that so I am telling you that your position is WP:OR unless you can produce a reference to back up your claim. I would like to work amicably with you but your temper and snobbishness prohibits you from this goal. I suggest that you try to do away with the claims of eminence in the area of research especially when you have clearly been proven wrong more than once now. NancyHeise ^talk 19:01, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

So when you think "a research expert" would agree with your logic and draw the same conclusions as you have, that isn't original research and you are permitted to use it. But when I think an expert would agree with my logic and draw the same conclusions as I have, that is original research and I am not permitted to use it. Nice double standard. But then we see the same sort of behavior from you in other areas. You can be uncivil to others, but they are not allowed to be uncivil to you. You are allowed to have your little temper tantrums--calling people "trolls" and "sock puppets" merely for the crime of persistently disagreeing with you--but no one else can express any frustration in dealing with you. The technical term for this is "hypocrisy".

As for your claims to have proven me wrong "more than once now", you are in no position to make such claims. You don't know enough about either the subject matter or proper methods of argumentation to discern who is winning and who is losing, or by how much. But that won't stop you from trying, and you will continue to drive other editors out of the discussion as long as you get your way by doing it. Harmakheru ✍ 20:11, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Indefectibilism

Interesting suggestion; but does it distinguish them? Presumably Acton and Doellinger would have agreed that the Church was indefectible (in the long run); but they were better historians than Nancy. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:42, 9 December 2009 (UTC)