Karl Eichwalder wrote:
"James Duffy" <jtdire(a)hotmail.com>
writes:
When someone is beatified, wikipedia articles
start with the
beatification name, eg, 'Blessed John XXIII'.
This must be changed. Wikipedia is not a catholic encyclopedia. First
of all, these are human beings and later on other human beings said
they are blessed. Within the article, don't use "St" as a predicate;
instead write "saint" (if necessary at all).
Starting an article as follows: "Saint Bernard of Clairvaux" will offend
many a lot human beings who are not members of the Roman church.
I partially agree, and partially disagree. "Saint Bernard of Clairvaux"
is perfectly fine, as people who have been beatified are often referred
to as such, both by those who recognize the sainthood and those who do
not (there are plenty of atheists who debate the viewpoints of Saint
Peter, for example). I do think "Blessed ..." is inappropriate though,
and frankly a little ridiculous. If we do this, to be consistent, we
need to start off other articles as follows:
[[Patriarch Bartholomew]] -- '''His All Holiness Patriarch
Bartholomew'''
[[Tom Delay]] - '''The Honorable Tom DeLay'''
[[Clarence Thomas]] -- '''The Honorable Clarence Thomas'''
And so on. I personally vote to do away with all of these. If they are
used at all, it should be later in the article, and specifically noted
as an honorific (as in, "Tom DeLay's official title as Congressman is
''The Honorable Tom DeLay''", or "Upon beatification, Mother
Theresa's
is now officially known as ''The Blessed Mother Theresa''".
But it should be clear it is not *us* who is referring to the assorted
Blessed, Honorable, or All Holinesses by those titles.
Titles I think we should use are those that are in common usage:
President, King, Pope, Saint, Representative, Congressperson, Senator,
Prime Minister, etc.
-Mark