Talk:Catholic League (U.S.)/Archive 1

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Contents 1 Umm 2 Catholics for a Free Choice 3 Donohue POV 4 Not a Non-Partisan Organization 5 Needs a section on positions, and a section on criticisms 6 Ezola Foster's Religion 7 "Direct" control of the church 8 Utter nonsense showing exactly what is wrong with Wikipedia

[edit] Umm

Umm, seems like this article would have been written by the pope himself, if he could learn how to read and write. It's sad to see such Catholic propaganda slithering its way onto Wikipedia.

Umm, seems like this comment was made by an anti-Catholic bigot. Back to the ADL page for you. OY!

[edit] Catholics for a Free Choice

Anyone who happens to edit this may know about that organization as well^. Please help me with that article if you are able to. Thank you. JG of Borg 22:51, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

I've added to the See also section, not sure if anything else makes sense. Benjiboi 01:08, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Donohue POV

I believe that it is not POV to say that the claim that the Jews killed Jesus is centuries-old Antisemitic propaganda. Jesus was _not_ killed by the Jews, he was killed by the Romans. In addition, even if he was killed by people who were Jewish, saying "the Jews" (all of them) killed Jesus would still be false. This statement becomes even more ludicrous when we take into account that Jesus was Jewish (one of his disciples even refers to him as "Rabbi"). And Jesus was even once saved by a Jew, the "good samaritan". And people do not go around saying "the Jews saved Jesus" because of the actions of this one individual. Yet this statement has been repeated for centuries in order to incite hatred against the Jews. One could say that saying that it is antisemitic propaganda is POV because some people disagree with it. You could also say that we should change the entire Holocaust article to reflect that everthing it says happened is really "claimed", because of the Holocaust deniers. Eternalbeans 13:37, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

I removed the because it was unsourced and unimportant to the article, as it says nothing about the organization, which is not Anti-Semitic. I'm ready to remove that whole paragraph as the link you provided is broken. Please fix that, or I'll do so.JG of Borg 17:23, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

I checked out the link, which it appears is actually working, and didn't find a flat-out anti-Semitic comment by Donahue. Therefore I'll keep it removed, as how you had it phrased before is both blatantly POV and irrelevant. JG of Borg 17:27, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

I checked out the link, which it appears is actually working, and didn't find a flat-out anti-Semitic comment by Donahue. Therefore I'll keep it removed, as how you had it phrased before is both blatantly POV and irrelevant. JG of Borg 17:27, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree with you that having things about Donnohue's personal views in this article may mislead people as to the intents of the Catholic league. I was just adding content to already-existing things about Donnohue. I moved that section to the main William A. Donohue article and elaborated on and increased the NPOVity of my comments about his Antisemitic propaganda. Eternalbeans 19:20, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Why was my edit reverted? Both the lines "On October 13, 2005 Catholic League president William Donohue appeared on NBC's Today. Reacting to the priest sexual abuse scandal, he claimed that the crisis was a 'homosexual scandal, not a pedophilia scandal.' " and the external link to his comments to MSNBC belong to an article about Donohue, not the League in general. His comments were not an official statement by the League, and they may well misrepresent the positions of the League in general. This is a blatant example of adding inflammatory language to an article in a POV fashion to excite a particular, in this case negative response. There is no justification. GreetingsEarthling 18:28, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

I reverted your edits because you removed not only POV material but factual information as well. I then removed the POV material (the word "inflammatory" is POV, I instead quoted the remarks). I believe these remarks are relevant to the article since Donohue made them as a representative of the Catholic League. However, if you'd rather they be replaced with similar remarks from official Catholic league publications I could do that instead. -- Dragonfiend 01:48, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your response. Material can, of course, be both factual and POV. However, I am open to material from offical statements or pulbications, rather than from Donahue himself. We'll need to make sure they stay in context - one thing which bothered me about the way you quoted Donahue in the edit I reverted was the way only the most shocking of his comments were cited. If a rationale or explanation for the comments is well-known, that's important to summarize also, to make sure both sides of the issues get covered. GreetingsEarthling 03:48, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Not a Non-Partisan Organization

The Catholic League rarely -- if ever -- attacks Republicans. They save all their vitriol for Democrats. Moreover, their board is jam-packed with conservative Republicans.

During his first run for Presidency, when George W. Bush spoke at Bob Jones University, I filed a complaint through their on-line service which allows Catholics to complain about acts of anti-Catholicism. I never heard back from them, and the League never spoke out on the matter until after John McCain shamed them in to doing it when he brought it to the attention of Michigan voters.

I only recall one instance when the Catholic League proactively attacked Republicans. When the GOP house leaders were considering a new chaplain, they asked some insulting questions about the Catholic candidate, a well qualified cleric. The League did come to his defense, but this has been a rare exception to their modus operandi of badgering Democrats. I would suggest that this may be because the GOP is more friendly to Roman Catholics, as the Democrats are the more "secular" party, they are closer to the feminists, atheists, radical gay groups etc. that are more likely to loathe Catholocism, I fail to see how this makes the Catholic League 'partisan'..."jme

That in itself is partisan bs. "radical gay groups", the phrase in itself exposes you for a right-wing hack. I suppose any gay person who thinks they have rights at all is a "radical". The GOP isn't friendlier towards religion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.249.195.232 (talk • contribs)

The paragraph claiming their supposed viewpoints that are in opposition to the catholic church need citations. --J8427 01:55, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Needs a section on positions, and a section on criticisms

The current bland article reads like a promotional pamphlet. It conveys almost no actual information about the group. The group is defined by the stances it takes, so there needs to be a section on controversial and prominent positions it has taken on specific issues, and the article also needs a section on criticisms of the group. Just saying it parrots the Catholic Church is not informative; the article needs to discuss specific incidents. Tempshill 16:58, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ezola Foster's Religion

Foster's page lists her as being Catholic, but this page says she can't be in the Catholic League because she's not Catholic.

No mention of Foster is in the current article, if that should change then go for it. Benjiboi 01:17, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Direct" control of the church

The term "direct" control implies that the Catholic Church has some other kind of control over the Catholic League, yet the article provides no citation or justification for any such indirect control. Indeed, the League's website flaunts its independence from the Church (from [1], emphasis added):

We don’t receive a dime from the Church. Nor should we: we are a lay organization. Sure, we have many clergy who are members and all are welcome to join – but our financial base comes from individuals, not the Church.

Why is this so important? Because as a lay Catholic organization we don’t have to worry about violating church and state lines. Besides, we shouldn’t ask the clergy to do our job; when the Church is attacked, so are its members, and that means you. That is why we must provide a response.

Unless there is evidence is that some kind of indirect control exists, I feel the term "direct" should be deleted. -- Cat Whisperer 10:42, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Utter nonsense showing exactly what is wrong with Wikipedia

This article reads like a press release, and uncritically accepts the claim that the CL is a "civil rights" organization whose primary purpose is fighting "bigotry", when in fact they attack anyone who criticizes any aspect of Catholicism no matter how politely or correctly, they actively proselytize for Catholicism as the one true religion, and their leader William Donohue, who is for all practical purposes their only member, has made numerous anti-Jewish statements. It is also a lie to say that the CL is a lay organization not controlled by the Church, when in fact their office is located within the Archdiocese of New York's headquarters and they work closely with the Archbishop to coordinate media strategies.

The NPOV and anti-libel policy on Wikipedia has become an "accept anything everyone says without blinking an eye and don't criticize anyone on relevant grounds" policy because none of the editors here actually know anything about the subjects of the articles. If someone who was not a fifteen-year-old anime-watching idiot could actually become an administrator around here, maybe we could see an article on the Catholic League actually discuss what the Catholic League is known for in American politics. Instead, we get nonsense criticism sections telling us things like what PETA thinks of Beyonce Knowles, while anything of actual relevance to the world today is declawed for fear of "offending" people who don't like the truth or for being sued for libel due to a poor understanding of the law. Randy Blackamoor 06:52, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

This is a lovely bit of a rant but doesn't seem to actually make constructive criticisms as much as simply criticizing the entire project. If you have specific issues speak to those directly on whichever articles specifically. Be bold and edit rather than complain that's how articles generally are improved although complaining certainly might work. Benjiboi 08:03, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

OK, I completely rewrote the article, meticulously sourcing every statement, and focusing on the question of what the Catholic League is known for in American politics rather than on a disorganized collection of trvia. I hope that was bold enough for you. We'll see how long this version of the article lasts before someone decides that it can't be allowed to stand because it disagrees with his preconceived notions of the world.Randy Blackamoor 21:13, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Actually I think you'll find that numerous editors will come along and tweak a bunch of small fixes and then someone else, like yourself, will be disgruntled about something, and re-do some organizing or add some other section. It can be a painful process. Benjiboi 00:06, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

I've started to weed through the additions, if I don't get to it please consider refocusing the section titles down so they are a bit more concise. Benjiboi 13:53, 4 October 2007 (UTC)