Talk:Pope Benedict XVI: Difference between revisions - Wikipedia

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:::::::::I think that's pretty clear cut. [[User:RutgerH|RutgerH]] ([[User talk:RutgerH|talk]]) 14:21, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

::::::::::Have I once said that the Catholic News is independent of the Church? It doesn't mean that the Catholic News isn't a reliable source---it still is, but you'd have to take into consideration who/what it is. The fact that it is Catholic does not mean that it is not committed to truth/verifiability/etc.

::::::::::The NCR, however, is independent of the Catholic Church and is recognized as such. It is recognized for being an objective source committed to journalistic integrity.

::::::::::No I do not pretend that their being Catholic makes them better, heck you do have to use them with care, but being Catholic Newspapers do not make them by definition faulty. It would be parallel to somebody from England saying, you can't trust the New York Times or USA today to report on the President of the USA because they are American Papers. Or that you can't rely on an Israeli newspaper to talk about issues in the Gaza Strip. Take the Huffington Post for example, it is a very liberal news organization, but that does not diminish the fact that it is a reliable source. On the other side you have the Drudge Report. The New York Times is criticize by conservatives as being jaded, while liberals scorn the Wall Street Journal objectivity. Then there is Playboy... You may want other sources, but these sources have shown themselves to be reliable sources. You may prefer sources other than Catholic newspapers/magazines (I would too) but that does not mean taht you can make blanket statements condemning them.

::::::::::And yes, you have shown yourself to be a religious bigot. You cannot fathom that Catholics can be objective. By your definition, Catholics should not have any voice whatsoever. You might have garnered more sympathy if you had criticized a specific source and given specific reasons why you questioned a specific source, but your reasoning was "Both sources are clearly questionable sources, not reliable sources (Catholic newspapers)". That shows your bias. Even when presented with the facts showing you that Allen is a highly respected journalist and the NCR is independent, you refuse to even entertain the notion that they might be objective and reliable because they are Catholic. That my friend is religious bigotry.---'''[[User:Balloonman|<font color="purple">Balloonman</font>]]''' ''[[User talk:Balloonman|<b>^{<small>NO! I'm Spartacus!</small>}</b>]]'' 15:12, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Er, the fact that a newspaper is Catholic doesn't mean it's biased, any more than any newspaper published by humans would be "biased in regard to humans". The NCR is an independent American newspaper just like any newspaper, and it's a quality source on all things Vatican. It's comparable to a magazine focusing on, say, Latin America. Such a magazine wouldn't be "biased" in regard to questions concerning Latin America, on the contrary it would be a quality source because of its expertise in that field. The NCR is a quality source in this article because the Catholic Church is its primary focus, yet, it's an independent source. The NCR is not "owned by the Vatican", on the contrary, and it's often critical of the Vatican, and John L. Allen's 2000 biography of Cardinal Ratzinger was actually quite a critical book. Also, the information in question is found in countless sources, not just in the NCR (that particular source was just chosen because it's a high-quality source, you might have noticed that lots of information found in other English sources originally stem from publications by John L. Allen, the leading expert on the Pope's life). I would also like to just point out that the fact that the URL of the article written by Damian Thompson (see above) contains the word "blogs" doesn't make it a blog in the sense of WP:RS. Thompson is a journalist with The Daily Telegraph. His article must be considered as a journalistic piece. Also, your comparison with the human rights lawyer is ridiculous. Allen is an internationally recognized expert on the pope's life (as demonstrated by the fact that vast parts of this article as it has been for the last 5-6 years and a vast number of other English sources are based on his work). Just being some human rights lawyer (which is a different field!) with fringe views doesn't make you an expert on what constitutes a state, when you are in disagreement with nearly every single government in the world (and probably every serious scholar in the field). We've been through these questions now over and over again, you haven't provided us with any real sources or arguments that can be taken seriously (you have not proved that this [the Vatican not being a state] is a ''credible/mainstream view'', just that ''one random human rights lawyer'' holds this view, which is irrelevant), and I think it's time to take off your [[Wikipedia:No climbing the Reichstag dressed as Spider-Man|suit]]. [[User:Jeannedeba|Jeannedeba]] ([[User talk:Jeannedeba|talk]]) 14:51, 14 April 2010 (UTC)