Talk:List of saints of Poland

Either: Incorrect Title or incorrect listings

The Wikipedia Title : List of Polish saints needs to be changed, if you want to keep the saints on the list as is. A more correct title would be List of saints revered in Poland or something like that.

If you want to keep a List of Polish saints then you need to remove a number of people from that list. An Observer (71.137.197.97 (talk) 20:34, 29 September 2008 (UTC)) 29 September 2008

"List of saints of Poland" listed at Redirects for discussion

A discussion is taking place to address the redirect List of saints of Poland. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 May 7#List of saints of Poland until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Veverve (talk) 01:34, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:List of American saints and beatified people which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 17:48, 23 May 2021 (UTC)

Requested move 15 July 2021

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Not moved. (non-admin closure) Vpab15 (talk) 14:31, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

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• List of saints of the Canary Islands → List of Roman Catholic saints, servants of God, blessed, venerable and beatified people from the Canary Islands
• List of Breton saints → List of Roman Catholic saints, servants of God, blessed, venerable and beatified people from Britanny
• List of saints from Oceania → List of Roman Catholic saints, servants of God, blessed, venerable and beatified people from Oceania
• List of American saints and beatified people → List of Roman Catholic saints, servants of God, blessed, venerable and beatified people from the USA
• List of saints of Poland → List of Roman Catholic saints, servants of God, blessed, venerable and beatified people from Poland
• List of Mexican saints → List of Roman Catholic saints, servants of God, blessed, venerable and beatified people from Mexico
• List of Maltese saints → List of Roman Catholic saints, servants of God, blessed, venerable and beatified people from Malta
• List of saints of India → List of Roman Catholic saints, servants of God, blessed, venerable and beatified people from India
• List of Croatian saints and beatified people → List of Roman Catholic saints, servants of God, blessed, venerable and beatified people from Croatia
• List of Brazilian saints → List of Roman Catholic saints, servants of God, blessed, venerable and beatified people from Brazil
• List of Australian saints → List of Roman Catholic saints, servants of God, blessed, venerable and beatified people from Australia
• List of Christian saints of Algeria → List of Roman Catholic saints, servants of God, blessed, venerable and beatified people from Algeria
• List of Catalonian saints → List of Roman Catholic saints, servants of God, blessed, venerable and beatified people from Catalonia
• List of Scandinavian saints → List of Roman Catholic saints, servants of God, blessed, venerable and beatified people from Scandinavia
• List of saints from Africa → List of Roman Catholic saints, servants of God, blessed, venerable and beatified people from Africa
• List of saints from Asia → List of Roman Catholic saints, servants of God, blessed, venerable and beatified people from Asia
• List of Central American and Caribbean saints → List of Roman Catholic saints, servants of God, blessed, venerable and beatified people from Central America and the Caribbeans
• List of South American saints → List of Roman Catholic saints, servants of God, blessed, venerable and beatified people from South America

– I have tried to harmonise the titles of the articles containing a list of Catholic saints before. I was met with reverts and a refusal; please see Talk:List_of_American_saints_and_beatified_people#Requested_move_23_May_2021 for the the arguments leading to the refusal.
I still believed those articles must be renamed, and that this renaming was important, in part to avoid confusion among the readers of said articles. Thus, I articulated my arguments and started a discussion at the WikiProject Christianity. Since no one is answering my arguments in this discussion for 6 days now, I request a PM.
I feel there is three problems to the current names:

1. The titles are not standardised.
2. The titles are "List of X saints" or "List of saints from Y", but also concern people the Catholic Church has deemed servants of God, or blessed, or venerable or beatified.
3. The articles are lists containing only people approved by the Catholic Church being titled List of Mexican saints, List of saints of Poland, or List of Scandinavian saints. Not all saints from those regions are Catholic, for example Sigfrid of Växjö (Sigfrid of Sweden) is a Scandinavian E. Orthodox and Anglican saint, and there is even a category for Polish saints of the Eastern Orthodox Church. Even if all the saints from a region were to be Catholic, I feel that for the sake of long-term maintainability and standardisation, the articles should still be renamed.

My proposal for a standard name for those articles is: "List of Roman Catholic saints, servants of God, blessed, venerable and beatified people from X" or . I also propose that the "List of X saints" and "List of saints from Y" redirects be deleted.
The first argument given against my renaming in the RM was that there would be no way to differenciate "saint who was a Catholic" and "person held to be a saint by Catholics". However, in mainstream Catholicism - i.e. not in traditional Catholicism -, saints, servants of God, blessed, venerable and beatified people are considered as all having been Catholics. The second argument was that such a title could create a confusion, i.e. does "Polish Catholic saints" equal "Catholic saints who are Polish" or "saints of Polish Catholicism"? The adjective "Roman" I added compared to my previous renamings will hopefully dissipate this confusion.
I feel the expression "Roman Catholic saint" or "Eastern Orthodox saint" already conveys the idea of "according to the Roman Catholic Church" or "according to the Eastern Orthodox Church". It is instinctively the way to state it which comes to mind. Besides, I believe it is important to state the denomination which considers those people as saints, servants of God, blessed, venerable and beatified people as early in the title as possible. Moreover, there is already List of Catholic saints and List of Eastern Orthodox saints; do those title mean that the WP contributors consider that those Christians, for the former believed in the filioque and papal supremacy, and for the latter were Palamists and believed in autocephaly for churches? No, the adjectives are widely understood as "according to X".
No redirect should be left, as they are misleading. Veverve (talk) 16:15, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose - I do understand the idea, but the suggested title is atrocious. There must be a common term for all these categories of virtuous people. Lembit Staan (talk) 16:50, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

@Lembit Staan: there is none, so I cannot make it up. Are you really implying the current titles are better that the ones I propose? Veverve (talk) 19:46, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

I wrote what I wrote, may be hastily and sloppily. If there is no clearly defined concept, then per MOS:LIST there should be no list. We do not create arbitrary groupings, like, List of pokemon, transformers, digimon, naruto, and tamagochi. A concept may be specified in a descriptive way; we allow descriptive article titles in Wikipedia. Think again. Something definitely was in your head when you concocted this list of a title. Lembit Staan (talk) 23:18, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

@Lembit Staan: The actual content of the articles was in my head, e.g. List of Central American and Caribbean saints states: "This page is a list of Central American and Caribbean saints, blesseds, venerables, and Servants of God, as recognized by the Roman Catholic Church. These people were born, died, or lived their religious life in any of the territories of North America, excluding Mexico, Canada and the United States." There is nothing more to add; as I wrote in my rationale, The titles are "List of X saints" or "List of saints from Y", but also concern people the Catholic Church has deemed servants of God, or blessed, or venerable or beatified. Veverve (talk) 23:44, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

I have re-read the suggested title again and now I suspect you are not an expert in religion. Please seek an advice from experts. Please don't ping me, I have nothing else to say. I do have a good idea, but I'm aint no expert either, so let other people speak. Lembit Staan (talk) 23:59, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose. The proposed titles are enormously long and look like lists in themselves. I understand that the current titles aren't ideal either, but if these list articles are going to exist at all then we need to identify a single, encompassing concept that unifies all the different ranks of ecclesiastical honors they include, and then use that singular term for the article title. Perhaps "honoree" or something similar? Like the above commentator points out, if we can't identify an umbrella that clearly unifies all these different things, then they probably shouldn't be grouped in the first place. ╠╣uw [talk] 10:40, 17 July 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose - I agree with other respondents above, these article titles are way too long. Could we perhaps use something like List of Roman Catholic candidates for canonization? I say this because all of these "titles" are different steps on the pathway to full canonization as a Catholic Saint (see Canonization#Since_1983).  Mysterymanblue  06:31, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

It would have to be 'saints and candidates for canonisation', since saints are already canonised. Note that some countries would prefer the word 'canonisation' in the title to be spelt with a z and others with an s. 06:48, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

@Mysterymanblue: @The Discoverer: Not all glorification of people in the Catholic Church are made in the goal of canonising. Much like not all steak cooking is made in the goal of making a beef Wellington. Veverve (talk) 13:09, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

@Veverve: From what I read, it sounds like these titles are all part of the process of canonization. Of course, not every one makes it all the way through the process. Is there a case where someone was declared a servant of God, venerable, or blessed without the possibility of progressing to a higher stage?  Mysterymanblue  22:21, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose:

1. As noted by the previous commenters, the proposed names are too long.
2. It should be 'saints of X' rather than 'saints from X', because 'from' connotes that the person originated from that place, but in many cases the persons are considered saints of countries other than their country of origin.
3. We should use 'Catholic' instead of 'Roman Catholic', because saints and the canonisation process are common between all Catholic rites.
4. We should not unnecessarily disambiguate by using 'Roman Catholic' or 'Catholic' for places where the only saints are Catholic.

The Discoverer (talk) 06:58, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

@The Discoverer: what is a saint "of Poland"? All saints in the RC Church are supposed to be universal saints.

We should use 'Catholic' instead of 'Roman Catholic', because saints and the canonisation process are common between all Catholic rites. what about all independent Catholic Churches?

We should not unnecessarily disambiguate by using 'Roman Catholic' or 'Catholic' for places where the only saints are Catholic. all countries have saints which are considered saints by other churches. Veverve (talk) 13:09, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

• what is a saint "of Poland"? Many of those listed in List of saints of Poland were not born in Poland or were not Poles. For example, right at the top of the list one can find Stojislav of Szkalka and Otto of Bamberg, both of whom were neither born nor died in Poland. All these are saints of Poland, and not saints from Poland. There is a reason why many of the listed articles do not contain the word 'from' in their titles.
• what about all independent Catholic Churches? By definition, Catholics accept the supreme authority of the Pope. 'Independent Catholic' is a misnomer, they are as much Catholic as Anglicans are. And they do not have saints.
• all countries have saints which are considered saints by other churches.: This statement is objectively false. Can you name some non-Catholic saints of Catalonia and Brazil?

The Discoverer (talk) 18:50, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose. The technical (Roman) Catholic distinctions are irrelevant here. Just as most people will call any female religious in habit a nun, even if she has not taken solemn vows, and almost all (Roman) Catholics understand this, so most of us think of all these people as saints (and there is even a theological basis for this). So the current names are perfectly recognisable. Also the proposed names are sufficiently far from being concise as to belong in a Monty Python script. Andrewa (talk) 17:52, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

@Andrewa: The disctinctions exist and are very real and used by Catholics, cf. Catholic Answers, the USCCB, Msgr. Robert J. Sarno. There is no theological basis for calling saint - i.e. someone whose sainthood is to be necessarily accepted universally - a servant of god. Veverve (talk) 18:54, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

I'm sure that is all true but it is irrelevant to this discussion. These subtleties will not help the reader to find the information they want. (And nobody was suggesting calling a saint a servant of God. Other way around. But the theological basis is not really relevant here either, that is why I bracketed it.) Andrewa (talk) 23:17, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

@Andrewa: Servant of God are not saints; the reader will the article has a misleading title like the ones I currently propose to move, e.g. if Bartholomew Holzhauser is put in a "List of saints" while he is not a saint. Those are not subtleties, or else you may attempt to ask for a merge of Beatification, Canonization, and Servant of God#Catholic Church. Veverve (talk) 23:24, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

So far as the general reader looking at the title and seeking particular information is concerned, they are esoteric distinctions and unhelpful. In other contexts, yes they are important. But the article lead is the place to make these distinctions, not the title. Their technical status in the churches should be made clear in the article.

You might like to read or listen to the old hymn I Sing a Song of the Saints of God. It may not have approval in all churches, but it is sung in many. And common use may not be quite so broad as that, but it's not quite so narrow as you suggest either. Andrewa (talk) 07:42, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

I agree, the distinctions are important. Veverve does point out a real issue, but none of these solutions are really the best.  Mysterymanblue  22:21, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

I'm sure the distinctions are important in an appropriate context. Just not in terms of either the spirit or letter of WP:AT when applied to this article. Mention them in the lead by all means and link to the detailed explanation. We do not want to mislead anyone of course.

And if there is a concise, recognisable term for all of these people that does not offend the sensibilities of those who prefer the esoteric meaning of saint, then by all means propose it. But I think we are probably stuck with saint. Andrewa (talk) 23:17, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

• Comment: If we have a long title, I would prefer something of the form "List of saints, blesseds, venerables, and servants of God". There is, as far as I can tell, no reason to list "beatified" and "blessed" separately, because "blessed" is the title given to beatified people. Also, I am unsure of why the nominator chose the particular order of titles that they did; I think the best order would be from most glorified to least glorified.  Mysterymanblue  22:21, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

• @Mysterymanblue: As I wrote above, what I had in mind was [t]he actual content of the articles [...], e.g. List of Central American and Caribbean saints states: "This page is a list of Central American and Caribbean saints, blesseds, venerables, and Servants of God, as recognized by the Roman Catholic Church. These people were born, died, or lived their religious life in any of the territories of North America, excluding Mexico, Canada and the United States."

From what I read at Beatification of Pope Paul VI: "Pope Benedict XVI [...] on 20 December 2012, signed the decree in recognition of his heroic virtues. This meant that he was titled Venerable" and "The beatification for Paul VI was held on 19 October 2014 at the Vatican, with the deceased pontiff receiving the title 'Blessed'. The next step would be the recognition of another miracle, which would result in his canonization." So it appears "blessed" and "venerable" are two different titles for two different purposes. Veverve (talk) 22:32, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

I agree: "blessed" and "venerable" are two different titles, but "blessed" and "beatified" are not.  Mysterymanblue  22:36, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

@Mysterymanblue: Yes, you are right. Nevertheless, I doubt removing one word would be enought to make people accept the renamings. Veverve (talk) 23:14, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose as before. Srnec (talk) 01:47, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.