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earlier comments on this category
Maybe a bit late to ask, but should this category include articles like
cardinal or just article about individual cardinals? -- User:Docu
This page should only contain categories containing people. Articles about religious leadership positions or roles should go in
Category:Religious leadership roles and articles about individuals should be placed in an appropriate sub-category. If the sub-category doesn't exist, create it (with this Category as its parent). --
JeffW20:23, 2 March 2006 (UTC)reply
Organization proposal
Here's an idea on how to have this organized...
Religious leaders by religion
Christian religions leaders
Methodist religious leaders
Roman Catholic religious leaders
Anglican religious leaders
...
Jewish religions leaders
Muslim religious leaders
Buddhist religious leaders
Taoist religions leaders
...
Religious leaders by title
Clergy
Priests
Imams
Rabbis
...
Religious leaders by nationality
(as it is now, mostly)
And intersections of those, such as Wiccan priests, Anglican priests, Roman Catholic bishops, Italian clergy, American rabbis, etc. Titles that're only used by one religion (such as, say, Grand Mufti) wouldn't need an adjective saying what religion they're for, they'd just go under (in this example) Religious leaders by title and Muslim religious leaders (or Sunni religious leaders). Other things, such as priest, ought to be subdivided by religion. There'd be some grey areas, but it'd be more structured and less haphazard than now. What do others think?
Mairi05:43, 24 September 2006 (UTC)reply
I like it up to a point. Personally, I would like to see the categorization go something like this:
Religious leaders by religion
Christian religions leaders
Methodist religious leaders
Methodist bishops
Methodist priests
...
Roman Catholic religious leaders
Roman Catholic Popes
Roman Catholic archbishops
Roman Catholic bishops
Roman Catholic priests
Roman Catholic religious
Anglican religious leaders
Anglican archbishops
Anglican bishops
Anglican priests
Anglican religious
...
Jewish religions leaders
High Priests of Israel
Rabbis
Muslim religious leaders
Shi'ite religious leaders
Sunni religious leaders
Buddhist religious leaders
Taoist religions leaders
...
(the rest as per the proposal above).
I say this only because I think it might be a good idea, particularly in the larger faiths, to break down the structure of the church by its own internal hierarchy, hopefully listing only the highest position achieved for each person, but definitely listing at least that position. This would make it easier to find the real "heavyweights" in the various religions, for those who are inclined to do so. I am leaving a copy of the message that was sent to the
WikiProject Religion on the talk pages of all of the "daughter" projects, and hope that we will hear from some of them soon as well.
Badbilltucker21:54, 9 December 2006 (UTC)reply
Both look fine to me ... I like the second one better, although I would keep in mind that most denominations probably will not need to be split up into sub-categories.
BigDT22:54, 9 December 2006 (UTC)reply
I'm glad we're having this discussion. I like the second one better as well. The only thing I would mention is there needs to be a category for lay religious leaders.
NinaEliza23:01, 9 December 2006 (UTC)reply
That's roughly what I intended too, so I'm fine with that. I agree about the need for lay religious leaders categories; they could just go under Category:Foo lay religious leaders, unless the church has a specific name for them.
Mairi23:51, 9 December 2006 (UTC)reply
Personally, I agree wholeheartedly with
BigDT above. I think we might try to create categories only when there is already a specific page in wikipedia already about the "denomination" (if that's what it's called). Otherwise, if I, for instance, am found out to have started the Church of
Cthulhu, but there is no specific existing article for my church, then I should be included only in the category of religious leaders from physical area Foo, and, maybe, in a generic religious category like
Category:New age religious leaders, for example.
Badbilltucker21:57, 10 December 2006 (UTC)reply
And, as a defender of religious belief in all its forms, I would support you in doing so. People should be allowed to create any tax dodges they can think of. But I do think that maybe a bit of clarification of my earlier statement is in order anyway. To clarify (I hope) a little, I think maybe we would only create categories if there already exists a category for that particular named religious group. So, as their is a
Category:Hinduism, there would be subcategories created. If there is not a category, like, for instance for the
Church Universal and Triumphant, their leaders would be classified in the
Category:Leaders... of whatever existing Category is included on their page to describe their church, in the case above, maybe either
Category:New Age religious leaders and/or
Category:Spirituality religious leaders (which in this case don't really make a lot of sense, so probably would not be created.)
Badbilltucker03:11, 11 December 2006 (UTC)reply
Mairi's idea is good, but I think that
User:Badbilltucker's improvement will work better because of the vastly different structure and terminology between churches. In the
Seventh-day Adventist Church, the top-down structure is:
This note is intended for reference rather than discussion on this page, as I will update it and link back to it from further CfD discussions.
I propose a series of CFD nominations to merge the two layers of categories for "clergy" and "religious leaders", because it's largely a duplicate layer. Having a separate layer for "clergy" is over-categorization by
WP:SHAREDNAME, as not all churches use the term. The word "clergy" can be retained below the "religious leaders by denomination" level, only within the denominational families where "clergy" is the main term used for leaders; the categories for other denominations will use their preferred terms, at the same level. There was a third layer for "Christian ministers", and I started by taking out that extra layer. Here are some links to discussions of clergy & ministers categories, renamed to "religious leaders" or specific terms.
A discussion of female "clergy" at
Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2014 June 2 was closed with no consensus over whether clergy are "religious leaders" or "religious workers", so a CFD or other discussion on that may be needed soon.
@
Marcocapelle: No, neither of those... Merge Clergy into Religious leaders, and merge Christian clergy into Christian religious leaders. I had not thought much about "religious workers" before the June 2 CFD, which created a "Female" sub-cat under that name. As I see it, Religious leaders should be a sub-cat of Religious workers, in which case Christian religious leaders should be under a new
Category:Christian religious workers. –
FayenaticLondon21:50, 4 October 2014 (UTC)reply
Should have been:
So a top level summary of your proposal is to rename Christian Clergy into Christian religious leaders, and rename Christian religious leaders into Christian religious workers, right?
Of course it can be similarly applied to other religions and to the religion top level. I agree that in the new setup religious leaders should be a sub-cat of religious workers, just like now clergy is a sub-cat of religious leaders.
Marcocapelle (
talk)
22:01, 4 October 2014 (UTC)reply
"Category:Roman Catholic clergy, or should that one be Category:Roman Catholic priests?" No. "Clergy" is broader than "priests" priests should be a subcat of clergy. For instance
Franz Liszt was a Roman Catholic clergyman, since he received tonsure and several of the minor orders, but was not a priest.--
Samuel J. Howard (
talk)
15:59, 29 December 2014 (UTC)reply
Thanks,
Samuel. I see from the article that Liszt received the four minor orders of
porter,
lector,
exorcist, and
acolyte. After this ordination he was often called Abbé Liszt. It seems to me that these four orders, like being a Protestant lay preacher, are not
WP:DEFINING. Liszt should therefore stay categorised in Hungarian Roman Catholics, but not Roman Catholic clergy. In my opinion, therefore, categories for RC clergy should be deleted, for the same reason as I oppose a broader category of
Pentecostal ministers. This would of course require a full discussion, and in practice, if deletion is approved, it would need to be selectively merged to RC priests. –
FayenaticLondon23:58, 4 January 2015 (UTC)reply
Bishops and priests are both subcategories of clergy that are defining in the sense you want. But this defining business is clearly not how categories are actually being used in Wikipedia. Your entire scheme seems to be based on this misaphrension. We use categories for alumni relationships for example. Or is being a painter really defining for
Adolf Hitler? --
Samuel J. Howard (
talk)
19:33, 5 January 2015 (UTC)reply
In most cases, the clergy and priests categories are used as synonyms. Bishops would be a subcategory of priests, if the clergy level was removed.
OK... the problem is that would be WRONG. This is not the common conceptual scheme used by the Church, in which clerics is the overarching category for bishops, priests, deacons (and the minor orders at various points and in various places). You're creating your own conceptual scheme, it's a form of --
Samuel J. Howard (
talk)
15:16, 6 January 2015 (UTC)reply
The way you're using defining is highly problematic, but leaving that aside, ordination in the Roman Catholic Church would still qualify as standard biographical details per
WP:COP#N. Being ordained is just as much a standard biographical detail as being an alumnus of this or that university, which isn't generally defining.--
Samuel J. Howard (
talk)
15:16, 6 January 2015 (UTC)reply
Here's the burning question: If Liszt were alive for World War II, would he have exorcised Hitler? Would that have been a defining moment for classical music?
Elizium23 (
talk)
00:57, 14 July 2019 (UTC)reply