Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Papal Oath (Traditionalist Catholic)

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was no consensus. --Coredesat 03:11, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Papal Oath (Traditionalist Catholic)

Papal Oath (Traditionalist Catholic) (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

[edit] Discussion on whether to delete

Proceedual nomination for deletion as begun by an IP user. No stance at this time -- saberwyn 23:13, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

I am puzzled by this entry. If I understand right, an anonymous editor has nominated this article for deletion, but has indicated no grounds for the proposal. It is hard to see why an article on a topic harped upon on several Web sites should be excluded from Wikipedia. Lima 05:06, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

*Delete per WP:V, some rumor on a few websites isn't encyclopedic. -- Kendrick7^talk 07:56, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

At last a reason is proposed. However, the websites present the oath not as a rumour, but as a fact. Just look up the sites mentioned in the article. It is also published, as fact, in at least one fairly widely read book. One of the websites is that of the somewhat important Society of St. Pius X. Another, to which Wikipedia does not allow links (but whose name includes "fisheaters"), no longer gives the oath as an undoubted fact, but it still says: "You should be familiar with the above form of the oath because it is often seen in traditionalist circles." "Often seen in traditionalist circles" - surely a very good reason why Wikipedia should speak of it. Lima 09:02, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

• Comment: there does seem to have been a Papal oath at some point in time of little notability; but this article seems largely devoted to a Traditionalist Catholic conspiracy theory, no? Possibly this article could be renamed to reflect this, but I don't think articles should generally start out X does not exist, but.... -- Kendrick7^talk 19:25, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

• Comment The earliest reference I can find to the text of the oath given comes from Dowling, John (1845). The History of Romanism: from the Earliest Corruptions of Christianity to the Present Time, fourth, E. Walker, 140.  Put forths an extremely anti-Catholic POV, and should be dismissed as entirely dubious; for example Book VIII, chapter 1 opens with According to the Scriptural marks of the predicted Romish Apostasy, the Babylonish Harlot of the Apocalypse, is the following and starts going on about how the Pope is the anti-Christ.[1] -- Kendrick7^talk 19:58, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
  • The article does not start out with "The Papal Oath does not exist." It starts by saying the Papal Oath is an oath (in fact a concrete existing oath, whose concrete existing text is quoted) that some (many, to judge by the number of times the text is quoted) Traditionalist Catholics firmly believe was until recently taken by all Popes at their coronation.

  The article thus treats of an existing text and an existing belief. There are articles on other people's beliefs, e.g. Apostolic Succession, Papal Infallibility, "Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus" etc.

  Kendrick's idea of moving the article to another title might be a good one. But what title? "Traditionalist Catholics' Belief in a Papal Coronation Oath Used from Agatho to Paul VI"? On the whole I prefer the present title.

  Interesting the reference to the 1845 book. Does that book speak of the Liber Diurnus profession of faith published in 1680, or of the quite different text that today's traditionalist Catholics believe in and that the Wikipedia article is about? (In view of the ignorance of Latin displayed by the author of the oath the article is about, how could it have been written by any educated person of 1845?) Does that book say that the text it speaks of, whether or not it was the oath the Wikipedia article deals with, was used in nineteenth-century papal coronations? Unfortunately, Kendrick only gives a link to and quotes from a text (by the same author) that makes no mention whatever of any oath by any Pope. Lima 22:01, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

  Perhaps Papal Oath (Traditional Catholicism) would be OK, or perhaps some shorter version could just be merged into Traditional Catholicism. I'm still concerned this falls under WP:HOAX. You can find the passage cited above on google books. In Dowling's version, it is the Pope who forces all his bishops, in his specific example Saint Boniface, to take the oath over the grave of Saint Peter. It isn't perfectly aligned with the text at Papal_oath#The_text_of_the_alleged_oath, but it's strikingly similiar. Go have a look if you are able. -- Kendrick7^talk 22:33, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

• Comment. This article concerns a real Papal Oath apparently used until the 11th century. The story/legend that this oath was used until recently seems notable by its presence on numerous sites, and discussing an urban legend as urban legend is fine with WP:HOAX. However, as currently written this part of the article has the appearances of original research, even if it is accurate. It lists a number of sources which treat the story/legend as fact, then criticizes them, but gives no sources repeating these criticisms, or even sources which state that it is an urban legend. Compare The Franklin Prophecy which lists sources directly arguing against authenticity. It would be nice if at least one source could be cited which actually states these other sources are repeating a legend. (Disclosure: I seem to have edited this article once.) Gimmetrow 23:23, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

• Keep, split and disambig OK, I'm crossing out my original vote. If there was a real WP:V oath, that's what the article should be about. Or we can split and disambig between the historical and the quasi-historical theories of the Traditionalists. -- Kendrick7^talk 00:16, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Copying a quote from the link. The latin text in the article seems to be the "solemn oath at their accession" mentioned here, given its specific mention of the sixth ecumenical council. However, there may not be a whole lot more to say about it other than the modern story/legend. Gimmetrow 03:45, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

    An œcumenical Council, universally acknowledged in the East and in the West, held in Constantinople, 680, condemned and excommunicated Honorius, 'the former Pope of Old Rome,' as a heretic, who with the help of the old serpent had scattered deadly error.... The succeeding Popes down to the eleventh century, in a solemn oath at their accession, endorsed the sixth œcumenical Council, and pronounced 'an eternal anathema' on the authors of the Monothelite heresy, together with Pope Honorius, because he had given aid and comfort to the perverse doctrines of the heretics. The Popes themselves, therefore, for more than three centuries, publicly recognized, first, that an œcumenical Council may condemn a Pope for open heresy, and, secondly, that Pope Honorius was justly condemned for heresy. (From Philip Schaff, Creeds of Christendom, 1877)

  • Looking further at the Dowling passage, it seems to be talking about an oath of allegiance made to a Pope by someone else (there, Pope Gregory II and Saint Boniface). This article is supposedly about an oath the Pope makes at his own accession - attributed to Pope Agatho and the sixth ecumenical council. Gimmetrow 05:40, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
    • Right, but I thought it was strikingly similiar to the oath the Traditionalists are talking about. -- Kendrick7^talk 05:59, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Even after reading all the above, I do not see why Papal Oath - or "Papal Oath (Traditionalist Catholics)" or "Papal Coronation Oath (Traditionalist Catholics)" - should be treated any differently from Sirianism or Međugorje or ...

As for "original research", surely ungainsayable statements are permissible. Do we need to quote a source for a statement like "two is more than one"? By the way, I have noticed that a recent (9 February 2007) contributor to a blog has written: "In response to Traditio in Radice's call for additional information on the papal coronation oath, we have done a little here in Rome. From an initial survey of the 'Liber Diurnus Romanorum Pontificum' as it appears in Migne's Patrologia Latina, it would appear that the information given at Wikipedia, concerning it is more or less correct. I will try to see if I can find some of the more accurate versions of the document; otherwise I will simply send the text as it is found in PL." Would that count as a source, were one needed? But this source will, I suppose, soon disappear from the Internet.

Something is "original research" if the argument is published first on WP. Can any source be cited that is aware of the story/legend of the traditionalists and says it is a legend? Gimmetrow 20:31, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

My reading of the Papal Oath - not the profession of faith that at least one Pope sent to the representative at Ravenna of the Constantinopolitan emperor to ask for recognition of his election as Pope (and for how long did Ravenna and Rome remain under the emperor's power? certainly not "until the 11th century") - is that it was in part a "translation" from the Liber Diurnus text by someone with a very limited knowledge of Latin with just a few wishful-thinking additions.

There is no evidence that even the Liber Diurnus text (much less the "Papal Oath") was ever used as part of a papal coronation ceremony. Lima 09:38, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

• Rename to "Papal Oath (Traditionalist Catholic)" per above, and focus on the Trad. Cath. theory about the Papal Oath. There appears to be very little outside of the Trad. Cath. POV to substantiate this. That said, it needs to be re-written with a little less disdain towards those who hold to the theory. -- Pastordavid 19:34, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
  • There is no reason to rename this with some arbitrary parenthetic disambiguation. The Liber Diurnus text is real. The article should be about that, and about the notable stories/legends of its use. Gimmetrow 20:31, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
• Keep but with a rewrite to cut down on the (apparently original) arguments. The source quoted section goes into much too bizarre detail about a typo. Only one of the 6 sites listed has "1005". By the way, the IQnaut site is a mirror of an old version of this wiki page. (This article has reversed since it was created.) Most of the arguments in the "Authenticity of the text" (regarding "Thy", successors of Christ, revealed, "Vicar of Peter", etc.) section should probably have some citations. (I'm not saying the arguments are inaccurate.) Likewise the "Alleged use in coronation ceremonies" section. Obviously, making the case for a negative is difficult, but some of this stuff needs citations. Gimmetrow 20:31, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

This article is no more about the Liber Diurnus, which has its own article: Liber Diurnus Romanorum Pontificum, than Sirianism is about Cardinal Giuseppe Siri.

Since there seems to be a consensus to keep the article, it is time to revise it. I have made an attempt. Lima 08:38, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so that consensus may be reached
 Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, (the above discussion is interesting, but does not provide enough to determine consensus.) —Doug Bell ^talk 05:31, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Continuation of discussion

• Comment I've gone ahead and made the disambig, though I'm not a Latin or Church scholar, and I'm somewhat unclear how Liber Diurnus Romanorum Pontificum relates to all this. -- Kendrick7^talk 06:11, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

  Er, why do we need a disambiguation again? This article isn't about the Liber Diurnus, but about one text in it. I see the article structured like:

  • Intro: There is this old text which some sources say may have been used as an oath before the 11th century.
  • Text: Give latin text from Liber Diurnus / Migne. (or links to wikisource if appropriate)
  • Popular story: There is this story/legend that this text was used until recently.
    • The English "translation" and original source, footnoting some organizations that repeat this text
    • The criticisms of this story/legend

  I really don't see the point disambiguating this. Gimmetrow 06:24, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Gimmetrow. "Papal Oath" does not "refer to" the Liber Diurnus. There is no need for a page to say that "a papal oath" can mean an oath taken by a Pope. Popes must have taken many different oaths in the course of the centuries. None of those oaths, not even the profession of faith that one or two Popes seem to have taken when Constantinopolitan emperors ruled Rome, can be referred to as the Papal Oath. I have reverted the disambiguation change. I have not reverted the move from "Papal Oath" to "Papal Oath (Traditionalist Catholic)" - by the way, shouldn't it be "... (Traditionalist Catholics)"? But shouldn't we first settle the question "Delete or not delete" before taking any action whatever? Is anyone at all now in favour of deleting? Lima 08:32, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

"Popes must have taken many different oaths in the course of the centuries" Cite??? As Jesus said oaths were from the devil, this is kind of important, don't you think? -- Kendrick7^talk 08:43, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Google "pope swore" and you'll find a number of cases. So, again, why single out as "the" Papal Oath a text in an obscure source about one particular oath that formed part of a communication from one newly elected Pope, or at most a very few newly elected Popes, to the Imperial Exarch at Ravenna? According to Exarchate of Ravenna, the last such Exarch was killed in 751, long before the eleventh century!

There is no oath whatever that can be called the Papal Oath apart from the one in the urban legend spread by traditionalist Catholics in writing (paper and Internet) and by word of mouth. The text of this "Papal Oath" is obviously loosely based on the text in the letter to the Imperial Exarch, both because of the similarity of some of its expressions and because the letter that the (one?) Pope sent to the Exarch mentions his predecessor Agatho, and this mention has been completely distorted to mean that it was Agatho who took the oath!

[The Liber Diurnus text mentions "Constantino piae memoriae", which shows that the Pope who wrote to the Exarch, giving him the text of his profession of faith, was elected after the death of Emperor Constantine IV in September 685; so the Pope in question was probably Conon (686-687) or Sergius I (687-701). (This comment is not mine: it is in one of the notes in the Patrologia Latina volume.) At latest, the Pope who wrote can only have been John VI (701-705), John VII (705-707), Sissinius (January-February 708), Constantine (708-715), Gregory II (715-731), Gregory III (731-741) or Zachary (741-752).] Lima 11:24, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

I see now that Kendrick has restored his disambiguation page on the grounds that "Papal Oath shouldn't redirect to a myth." What else is there to direct to? All of the oaths that Popes have taken over the centuries? Or just one arbirarily selected oath from those that were really taken? Which one? There is really nothing whatever to direct to as "the Papal Oath" except the "myth" (in the non-technical sense) or urban legend. There never was anything else, even among the oaths that Popes did take, that could be referred to, with capitals, as the Papal Oath.

I do not believe in edit wars. Let someone else deal with this. Lima 12:30, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Look first you say Google "pope swore" and you'll find a number of cases then you say There is really nothing whatever to direct to as "the Papal Oath" except the "myth" (in the non-technical sense) or urban legend which leaves me befuddled; these two statements contradict themselves. If there are a number of such oaths or purported oaths, Papal Oath should be a disambig, plain and simple. That would indeed seem to be the case. -- Kendrick7^talk 17:54, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

It still seems obvious to me: "papal oaths" are many; "the Papal Oath" (singular, with definite article, and capitalized) is only one thing, and that thing cannot be confused with anything else. Lima 19:17, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Eh... I don't know. I only recently linked to the Church in an article the other day, which bizarrely directed to an 80s Australian rock band, which I only half-heartedly fixed. An accident of capitalization seems an odd way to go, when your capitalized version is an obscure theory of some small Christian sect. So Papal oath does to disambig, then a dab link back to it from Papal Oath would satisfy you? -- Kendrick7^talk 20:36, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

To me it seems plain silly to devote a disambiguation page to saying that a papal oath is ... wait for it ... an oath by a Pope, and that "the Papal Oath" (a quite widespread urban legend) is something different. But this discussion is no better than an edit war. I leave the matter to others. Lima 20:48, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

I am merely doubtful as to how "widespread" this belief is. Its unclear that there has even been a Vatican response to this claim, for example. -- Kendrick7^talk 21:10, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

• Very strong Keep What business of ours' is it to judge what oath any or all popes may or may not have taken? How can we possibly be expected to reach a verdict--by our own theological judgement? by our own interpretation of the church-historical sources? This article is a sourced discussion of the claimed material, and a discussion of the controversy concerning it--just what a WP article ought to be. Since it is one of the distinctive doctrines of a very N church, what more is there to say. Deletion would be pushing the POV that there is no such thing. I do know a very little about the sources & have my own interpretation of the controversy, but I am not a RS, and neither is anyone else in this discussion--unless they may happen to have published discussions of it, in which case they should add the cites to the article, not the AfD. DGG 02:07, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
• Keep as an article on a notable topic, even as a legend it is still notable enough for an article. Mermaid from the Baltic Sea 06:36, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
• Keep I'm all in favor of keeping this. I just prefer a disambig to separate fact from fiction. -- Kendrick7^talk 06:45, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
• Keep As I said above, it seems no one at all wants to delete the article, which is one of the 149 in the Urban Legends category. The others in that category do not need a disambig page to say that, for instance, "Hairy hands" can refer to hairy hands, "The Licked Hand" can refer to a licked hand, "The Hook" can refer to a hook, "Hundredth Monkey" to a hundredth monkey ... But someone thinks we do need to be told that "Papal Oath" can refer to a papal oath. Lima 07:44, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment But none of those have completely disparate factual and apparently fictional examples. There's also something to be said for the fact that, unlike the examples you cite, the Pope is, most days, a living person, and giving the appearance of casting dispersions about him or her should bring in the principles of WP:LIVING. -- Kendrick7^talk 16:45, 27 February 2007 (UTC) I was unaware that Agatho or any of the other Popes down to Paul VI, the ones that are said to have taken the Papal Oath, are alive. Or that the Papal Oath is more fictional than the other urban legends. Or is it that it is more factual than the others? After all, the legends do exist, they are real, even if what they recount is fiction. Lima 17:03, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
• Comment - it appears the actions proposed by this AfD have already taken place -- namely the dab page and the rename. I think that those changes, along with the edits to the article by Lima, have made this into a very good article. -- Pastordavid 18:06, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
  • There was no reason to rename or disambiguate this - what exactly is it being disambiguated from? Gimmetrow 18:25, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
    • This should be obvious from the disambiguation page. There seems to be yet another oath sworn by some set of Popes beginning with a Pope Eugenius II in a document called Constitutio. Like Lima said, there are perhaps any number of Papal oaths. -- Kendrick7^talk 19:17, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
• please clarify which page we are discussing. The current Papal Oath (Traditionalist Catholic)? And is the question whether to rename it just Papal Oath? The current p. under the current name seems just right. To claim it is THE Papal Oath is very clearly POV, based on that p, and our discussion, and many other WP pages. DGG 19:27, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
  • • There was yet another oath demanded of the Pope by the council of Basel. So that's at least four different oaths. -- Kendrick7^talk 19:38, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
      • If the disambiguation page is to list every possible "papal oath", and the articles for these other oaths existed, I could see a dab page. However, there is still no reason for the parenthetical disambiguation used to move and rename this article contrary to two objections. No other page in Category:Urban legends is disambiguated by who propagated it; there is no article Hundredth Monkey (Watson), just Hundredth Monkey. Nor do we have separate articles for John Gilchrist (actor) and John Gilchrist (dead actor) to "separate fact from fiction". With Two stout monks, the legend is addressed within an article on an actual text, just as it should be here. Gimmetrow 20:13, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
        • Whatever is the number of papal oaths (oaths taken by a pope), does Papal Oath (as the article was called before Kendrick unilaterally changed it and was prepared to start an edit war to keep it changed) need to be disambiguated from them any more than The Hook needs to be disambiguated from whatever is the number of hooks (they too certainly exist and some of them have curious forms and histories)? Lima 20:29, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
        • Comment I should gladly stub out other articles for these other oaths should I be able to find mention of them in multiple sources for the sake of WP:N as there seems to be such interest in the topic. I have to agree with User:DGG above. As we are dealing with different oaths taken by somewhere between zero and 191 different people I don't see any reason they would not merit separate articles. Your arguments as to urban legends seems to be grasping at straws. -- Kendrick7^talk 20:36, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
          • Re: your last sentence. I don't really know how to respond to that civilly. Perhaps if you would explain the reason you moved the article to that specific name (against objections), I wouldn't need to guess at your reasons. Gimmetrow 21:01, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
            • I'm not too particular about what the article about the Traditionalist Catholic belief about Papal oaths is called. The move itself seemed called for per WP:Disambiguation. -- Kendrick7^talk 21:08, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
          • I'm not going to argue against what I think you were doing any more, since you've already mocked me once for that. There are many many other options that you could have chosen within WP:DAB. Why exactly did you move the article to that page, and put the dab page at Papal Oath? Gimmetrow 22:00, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
            • You shouldn't feel mocked because I declared the repeated arguments over urban legend disambiguation a strawman. Disambiguating is something I do regularly, recently repointing The Church from The Church (band) to Church (disambiguation), creating Illusion (disambiguation) and Sens (disambiguation) last week, cleaning up the disambiguation page for Jebus a few days ago. No one objected, that I could tell, when I first made the suggestion above. -- Kendrick7^talk 22:22, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
          • "... that I could tell" ? Does this mean you failed to read the discussion above? And that you still elect not to explain your specific reasons for this rename, despite being asked directly multiple times? Gimmetrow 22:42, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
            • I still don't see where anyone objected to the disambig after I proposed it here; if there was some subtext of disapproval in the academic discussion which followed I still don't see it. You did mention the article should be about Liber Diurnus anyway, but that already has it's own article, as Lima then pointed out, so I thought your objection was sensibly settled. "Papal oath" can clearly have any number of meanings and a disambiguation page is the correct way to handle this. -- Kendrick7^talk 22:52, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
          • "There is no reason to rename this with some arbitrary parenthetic disambiguation." That's about as blunt as can be. Create a disambiguation page at Papal Oath (disambiguation) if you feel so inclined (that is, after all, one of the options given at WP:DAB) but this article should be at Papal Oath if it exists at all. And as far as I know, I never said this article should be about the Liber Diurnus (which would be absurd, as there already is an article about that at an obviously more appropriate name), but that it should be about a specific text from that document and the legend that has grown about it. Gimmetrow 23:06, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
            • Oooh. So what you really want to do is rescope Papal Oath (Traditionalist Catholic) to deal with the historical oath taken from the 5th to 11th centuries. The way its lead is written now, it's not about the historical oath, but the Traditionalist Catholic theory on it. I have no problem with such an article, which Papal Oath (Traditionalist Catholic) could be eventually merged into, but that doesn't seem to exist at present. -- Kendrick7^talk 23:20, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
          • The most notable thing about this obscure text is the legend surrounding it. Gimmetrow 23:54, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
        • I wouldn't call this a legend, more like a 50 year old (or less) unconfirmed rumor. That's hardly as notable as a religious rite which was practiced by the leader of what is now the world's largest religion for 600 years. Plus, as Papal Oath (Traditionalist Catholic)#Comparison of the text of the Papal Oath with that in the Liber Diurnus points out, there's little real correspondance between the two. Anyway, I've stubbed out the historical article. You can always propose a merge. -- Kendrick7^talk 03:25, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
• Comment. This AfD is not improving things. Now we have two articles. One article is a stub with incorrect information - does the citation really assert this was used "from the fifth through eleventh centuries"? The other article discusses a story, which I do think is an urban legend, yet still lacks a single citation to anyone who actually says the story is an urban legend. At this point, they should both be deleted. Gimmetrow 03:56, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
  • I don't see that having two articles has solved anything, but just made the problems worse. Now we are going to have a lot of confusion about which one we're talking about! Mermaid from the Baltic Sea 04:05, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
    • You are correct; I should have moved this page when I moved the article under discussion. This should be cleared up now, I thought this discussion would have been closed as a WP:SNOW by now as there hasn't been a single vote for delete, not even by the nominator. -- Kendrick7^talk 05:30, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

'comment I appreciate the clarification. Now that I know which article it is , I would say strong keep as there is no doubt that such a belief exists. To what extent it is based on fact should be discussed on the article talk page. Personally, I don;t see how we can actually judge something like that--we just report the opinions. Whether the people who hold the opinions may possibly be confused themselves is --fortunately--not something we have to decide. DGG 06:27, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Kendrick has gone too far, making unilateral changes in complete disregard of others, indeed against the opposition of others and without the support of even one other person. Now he has gone further: inventing pages that claim that "the Papal Oath" can mean various other things. Can he quote a single source outside of Wikipedia that says the profession of faith found in the Liber Diurnus is called "the Papal Oath"? ...

I trust I do have support for moving the article this discussion is about to "The Papal Oath". This is unambiguous: no papal oath other than the one attributed to the Popes from Agatho to Paul VI is known as "the Papal Oath". It is NPOV, while "Papal Oath (Traditionalist Catholic)" contradicts the POV of those Traditionalist Catholics who claim that the text in question is not just a Traditionalist Catholic Papal Oath, but a genuine oath actually taken by the Popes.

The question of keeping or not keeping the article has been settled long ago, and there was no real need to continue that discussion. The discussion now is on the name of the article that we are keeping. Do we support the move to "The Papal Oath"?

1. Support Lima 07:27, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

   WP:AFD isn't the right place to discuss a move, Lima. All the sources I'm using are freely available on google books; this link should answering your question above, that indeed I can quote a single source outside of Wikipedia that says the profession of faith found in the Liber Diurnus is called "the Papal Oath". -- Kendrick7^talk 08:10, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

   Kendrick is right in saying that according to the strict rules there is a proper procedure for proposing possibly controversial moves. Kendrick chose not to follow that procedure, and we have been discussing here the unilateral action he took in breach of those rules. Why should we not continue the discussion, and find out for certain what support if any Kendrick has for his POV renaming of the article? If Kendrick prefers, let him revert all the changes and return to the status quo ante, and then we can put into operation the normal method of deciding whether to move an article. Lima 08:35, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

   By the way, I cannot find in the Liber Diurnus text the words that Schaff seems to attribute to it: "smites with eternal anathema the originators of the new heresy ..." (a heresy that cannot have still been considered new in the eleventh century). But I leave consideration of that till later, in order to concentrate on the question of the name of the article we are discussing. Lima 09:15, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

   I have acted in accordance with WP:DISAMBIG. Your argument that the phrase "papal oath" with certain capitalizations or prefaced by "the" can only possibly refer to one of the four papal oaths lack verifiability and is counterexampled by my link above and WP:NAMING. -- Kendrick7^talk 08:44, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

2. I substantially agree with Lima. The article discussing the story/legend should be at "Papal Oath" where it started. If that means the article needs to expand to mention that there have been other "papal oaths", so be it; that should only add a paragraph or so of verifiable material. If any disambiguation was necessary, it should have happened at Papal Oath (disambiguation), per Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Primary_topic. The Schaff book is a non-Catholic source arguing against papal infallibility, but it seems to cite the Rozière text, if that helps. I would still really like to see the article have at least one citation to a reliable source, aware of the story/legend, that says it is a legend. Material counts as original research if it "introduces an analysis or synthesis of published facts, opinions, or arguments in a way that advances a position favored by the editor, without attributing that analysis or synthesis to a reliable source who has published the material in relation to the topic of the article." Gimmetrow 12:23, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

   I wish you were able to cite even one reliable source to show it is a well known legend, let alone a legend period. Otherwise, I don't think you can claim Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Primary_topic applies. Just because it is well known to you, doesn't mean it is well known to the average reader. -- Kendrick7^talk 20:04, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

   Have you even bothered to read the article which is being discussed? It cites a book, and used to cite a rather large number of websites. But fine, if it is not a "well known" legend, then the article should be deleted, so there is absolutely no reason whatsoever for the absurd disambiguation you've adopted. Gimmetrow 22:43, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

   My reasoning was that they are 4 different Papal oaths, involving different Popes, different text, even different millenia. -- Kendrick7^talk 23:23, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

3. Support MOVE per Lima mv to Papal Oath. Dominick ^(TALK) 19:45, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

• Merge all back to a common title, Papal oath. This article gives vastly undue weight to a bit of conspiracycruft reverse-engineered by trads (and probably most especially by sedevacantists) as a way of supporting their pre-existing beliefs. The sources for the supposed oath having been used to any great extent appear highly dubious and partisan, the Vatican's view appears to be that this is a negligible bit of historical colour. WP:NPOV#Undue weight and POV fork apply. Guy (Help!) 16:00, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment Well you can't merge them back since this wasn't a split to begin with; Papal Oath (Liber Diurnus) is tangentally related to Papal Oath (Traditionalist Catholic), but Papal Oath (Constitutio Romana) and Papal Oath (Council of Basel) aren't. The correct title would be Papal Oaths since there has been more than one, right? As you point out, merging them all into one article opens up a can worms in regards to undue weight. What order would they go in for example? I would suggest the Traditionalist Catholic related one should go last, though a sedevacantists might argue that it should go second if we order them strictly temporal by (alleged) start date. -- Kendrick7^talk 20:08, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

• Comment. This all started out so simple. There was one article, it had some issues. At this point Kendrick7's actions have sidetracked this discussion far away from the point at hand. I hope this entire discussion is closed without prejudice, the article can be moved back to where it started (which requires an admin now...) and the AfD can be restarted at a later date if anyone wishes. The article originally being discussed still does not cite a single source which is aware of the store/legend and calls it a legend, and so has problems with WP:OR that need addressing. Gimmetrow 21:06, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

• Delete although the article appears to be refed in fact the notes are very thin, and the only published source appears to be a self-published book. The whole thing lopks like a very fishy attempt to gain credibility for something that is self-evidently bogus. NBeale 11:17, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Alteration of other articles to correspond to Kendrick7's move from "Papal Oath"

• I feel certain that no Traditionalist Catholic, whether they believe the Papal Oath is real or not, would accept Kendrick7's characterization of it as the Traditionalist Catholic Papal Oath! He seems to have failed to win the support here of even one editor for his unilateral move of the article away from "Papal Oath" to a POV title. Yet he has now gone and retouched I do not know how many other articles to make them fit his unsupported personal idea. Is this a proper way to act on Wikipedia? Can anyone give an authoritative ruling on this? I wonder if his action can be classified as vandalism. Lima 05:37, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, Lima, it's called WP:BOLD. I'm not sure what's POV about the title but I'm open to ideas. -- Kendrick7^talk 06:46, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

WP:BOLD says: "The Wikipedia community encourages users to be bold in updating articles (emphasis in original). It does not say: "Be bold in altering titles of articles even when it is clear that the alteration is opposed." Lima 08:14, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

And isn't it clear that that those who believe the Papal Oath is genuine would object to it being called the Traditionalist Catholic Papal Oath, rather than just the Papal Oath? And isn't it clear that traditionalist Catholics who do not believe the Papal Oath is genuine would object to the attribution to all traditionalist Catholics without distinction what they consider to be an invention? Lima 08:28, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

I said I am open to ideas for how to distinguish by title this Papal Oath from the others. You keep complaining about the name I picked but you aren't offering a new suggestion. -- Kendrick7^talk 20:59, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Several new articles by Kendrick7

• Delete. The following pages have been derived from the original article this AfD was about, and so fall under the scope of this AfD. Merge: Papal Oath (Liber Diurnus) and Papal Oath (Council of Basel) and Papal Oath (Traditionalist Catholic) to a single article at Papal Oath, Deleting all redirects and the senseless disambiguation that currently exists there. Gimmetrow 22:43, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

I didn't derive those first two from the third. I suppose the 4 different Papal oaths, could be merged into one article, though since each has little in common with the others (besides the obvious), that doesn't make a lot of sense to me. -- Kendrick7^talk 23:23, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

So what if there are different papal oaths? There have been different popes too, not just one person, but that doesn't mean that Pope should be nothing more than a disambiguation page. Mermaid from the Baltic Sea 00:40, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Um, there are different articles on different Popes. -- Kendrick7^talk 04:23, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.