[Wikipedia-l] Re: MT and pro-Catholic bias

Tue Oct 21 22:41:15 UTC 2003

James-

> What I tried to achieve was a biographical article on MT that covered both
> her positive and negative image and reputations, with the massive detail
> added in by Eloquence put in a separate page called [[Criticisms of Mother
> Teresa]]

That was a clear violation of NPOV. We do not split away criticisms just  
because the person is question is considered a "saint" by some. You did  
not bother to write as much as an edit comment for your massive changes,  
let alone announce them in advance. I tried repeatedly to reach consensus  
with you on this, you refused and insulted me instead (and still do).

> /Mother Teresa with Charles Keating, convicted of fraud in the Savings and
> Loan scandal and sentenced to 12 years in prison. Mother Teresa received
> over a million dollars in donations from him, which she did not return after
> the conviction. She did, however, send a plea for clemency to Keating's
> trial judge/

That is a perfectly neutral description of what happened. There are plenty  
of precedents for having comprehensive image captions that do more than  
just say "Mother Teresa, left, with Charles Keating, right", e.g. [[Donald  
Rumsfeld]]. It should be possible for a casual reader to get the necessary  
information what an image is about and why it is reproduced by reading the  
caption. Take a look at any electronic encyclopedia that has space for  
captions, and you will notice that the exact same style is used.

> Her (MT's) view that abortion is immoral even in cases of rape and incest is
> rigid even by Catholic standards

> As anyone who knows anything about the teachings of various religions on
> abortion, or who has followed the abortion debates for longer than 5 minutes
> knows, the above view is the /standard/ RC view, not a right wing fringe
> view.

You keep repeating this, but it does not become any more true when you do  
so-- of course opposition to abortion and contraception is the official  
line of the Roman Catholic Church. Obviously, however, not every Roman  
Catholic in a position of power and influence shares that position. MT  
would have been in a perfect position to challenge papal authority on  
these matters, instead she contributed to this deadly campaign that is  
taking a toll among millions of people -- often by lobbying various  
governments for harsher laws against both abortion and artificial  
contraception. That is what the critics complain about, and that view of  
course needs to represented in an article about MT.

> Yet attempts to do so have been met by Eloquence by reversions

Wrong. I tried whenever there was a difference of opinion to reason with  
you, explained my reasons in the edit comments and on the talk page. You  
did not write any edit comments, did not bother to respond much on the  
talk page (and when you did, always with personal attacks), and did not  
follow through on arguments to reach consensus. When I offered compromises  
you again simply reverted without comment.

> and by
> demands now that I be banned,

Yes, for your repeated and gross violations of Wikipedia's behavioral  
standards, which makes any productive cooperation impossible. You do not  
discuss, you do not seek consensus, you resort to vile personal attacks  
and false accusations, you revert without comment. This must stop.

Regards,

Erik