Template talk:Infobox diocese

Singular/Plural

I'm not sure, how to fix it but usually there is only one vicar general, so the "s" should be removed from the box. On the other hand there may be more than one auxilary bishop, so I would recomand an "s" there. --Heraklitcnl (talk) 12:35, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

 Done --Heraklitcnl (talk) 16:16, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

@Heraklitcnl:, in the Catholic Church, it's up to the bishop of each diocese whether he wishes to have one vicar general or several. Some bishops of larger dioceses appoing all of their auxiliary bishops as vicars general, while others appoint one auxiliary bishop as vicar general and the rest as episcopal vicars. The safest approach actually seems to be to have the tag say "Vicar(s) general" to allow for both cases. Norm1979 (talk) 21:17, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

I wasn't aware of CIC 475 §2. Thanks for your answer. --Heraklitcnl (talk) 16:01, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

Diocesan Administrator

Could a field be added after Apostolic Administrator, to name a Diocesan Administrator if the Diocese doesn't have a bishop or Apostolic Administrator such as what the Catholic Diocese of Leeds currently has [1].Mharris99 (talk) 20:35, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

I would rather not see this. It is a transitory phenomenon. The Apostolic Administrator is not really that prominent, and is, indeed, merely an "administrator" with little policy initiative. He is replaced in short order by a bishop usually nominated by his metropolitan and officially named by the Vatican. This might be different for illness, I admit. Student7 (talk) 20:12, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, it's always a temporary situation. Best practice probably would be to put "(Vacant) <br><name>, Diocesan Adminiatrator" or "(Vacant) <br><name>, Apostolic Administrator" (where <name> is the name of the administrator) in the tag for the diocesan bishop. This will display as "(Vacant)" with the name and type of administrator on the next line. And from the time that a new bishop is chosen until he takes office, one can append "<br><name2>, Bishop Elect" to display the name of the bishop elect on the subsequent line. In the (extremely rare) situation where there's an administrator because the diocesan bishop is impeded, the same practice will work except leaving the name of the diocesan bishop in place of (Vacant) in this format. Norm1979 (talk) 15:40, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

Leadership: Can Primate be added?

Could an entry be added for "Primate", please? That is the title used in some of the churches in the Anglican communion for the leader of the church at a national level. Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 19:01, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

I suggest that this title goes with the individual rather than the diocese, even though the Primate normally is bishop of a certain diocese. That is, the attribute belongs to the person, not the diocese. The diocese could (theoretically) be changed. But the person would retain the title "Primate." Student7 (talk) 17:23, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Yes, this is another term that various denominations use differently. In the Catholic Church, a primate is the bishop of the first diocese erected in a particular country, and that role may range from purely honorific (ceremonial precedence), as in the case of the Archbishop of Baltimore here in the United States, to an ex officio role of leadership defined by the statues of the respective episcopal conference. But at the other extreme, the Primate of the Traditional Anglican Church (TAC) is essentially that denomination's pope. Norm1979 (talk) 15:54, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

Suppressed See?

Could someone add a section for Suppressed? I am trying to work on Titular Sees and they aren't dissolved. Gi22account (talk) 13:57, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

@Gi22account:, what you are proposing might be in the "too hard" category. The problem here is that a titular see is not necessarily the title of a suppressed diocese.
* The Diocese of Walla Walla (Washington) was abandoned, but never apparently canonically suppressed even though the Diocese of Oregon City assumed administration of its territory and later reorganized as the Diocese of Nesqually -- the see of which was later transferred to Seattle. This made both Walla Walla and Nesqually available for use as titular sees.
* The see of the Diocese of Bardstown was transferred to Louisville, making Bardstown available for use as a titular see.
If the info box for a titular see is going to account for how the title became available for that use, it needs to reflect all of the possibilities (canonical suppression, transfer of see, abandonment, merger, and possibly several other scenarios. We should think this through thoroughly before making changes. Norm1979 (talk) 20:39, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 17 June 2022

The TemplateData should be changed so that:

1. 'sui_iuris_church' and 'latin' are not automatically included. The reason is that those parameters are completely useless for non-Catholic denominations, since this terminology (sui iuris) only exists in Catholicism and that Latin is the official language only of the Catholic Church
2. 'language' is not automatically included. The reason is that most of the time there is no information available to know the language (I guess it means liturgical language and not the local language of the inhabitants; 'language' is very vague...), and that having this parameter always present encourages people to add what they believe is the language by making wild guesses and speculations (thus hindering WP:V)

Veverve (talk) 08:31, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

 Not done: According to the page's protection level you should be able to edit the page yourself. If you seem to be unable to, please reopen the request with further details. The code that governs TemplateData, strangely, lives on the documentation page, which is typically not protected. – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:27, 28 June 2022 (UTC)

Episcopal conference

For Catholic dioceses, would it be recommended to put the Episcopal Conference in the country section or do people feel there ought to be a separate parameter for this? Vesuvio14 (talk) 11:53, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

I oppose including the conference unless a separate parameter was created (it would be right under province, in my preference). ~ Pbritti (talk) 14:49, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

@Pbritti: I think I'd agree with you. Would you also be in favour of adding ecclesiastical region to this infobox? Vesuvio14 (talk) 17:32, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

@Vesuvio14: I support it but only in situations where clarification is necessary (like the Caribbean). ~ Pbritti (talk) 17:45, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

@Pbritti: and @Vesuvio14:, we should be careful of the order of these tags. The ecclesiastical province and the episcopal conference are part of the ecclesiastical organization and the former always lies within the latter, so these tags should be together -- probably with episcopal conference first. The country, however, pertains to civil governance so it should not come within the block for ecclesiastical structure.

In the episcopal conferences that are divided into regions, most ecclesiastical provinces seem to lie within a single region -- but not all. Here in the States, for example, the Diocese of Salt lake City is in Region XIII but it belongs to the Metropolitan Province of San Francisco, the rest of which is in Region XI. So if there's a separate tag for the ecclesiastical region, it's probably best positioned after the tag for the episcopal conference and before the tag for the ecclesiastical province.

The bottom line here is that nothing is perfect, but the order probably should be Episcopal Conference - Ecclesiastical Region (if a separate tag) - Ecclesiastical Province

And, JTOL, I'm wondering if the term actually should be "Metropolitan Province" or simply "Metropolitan" rather than "Ecclesiastical Province" because that term is both correct for the Roman Rite and consistent with the usage of the Orthodox Communion and the sui juris ritual churches within the Catholic Church.

BTW, there are also particular churches that are not part of an ecclesiastical province -- including the Archdiocese for the Military Services USA and the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter here in the States and the Archdiocese of Edmonton in Canada. Norm1979 (talk) 21:06, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

@Norm1979: Good suggestion regarding the ordering, I will amend the request now. The parameter of Metropolitan already exists, but I feel that that would better correspond to the archdiocese rather than the province in itself. Just a thought, though- what would you think? Vesuvio14 (talk) 21:45, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

@Vesuvio14:, I think it's best to avoid multiple tags that contain the same information. There's no point in doing things that are repetitive or redundant.  :-) Thus, I prefer a tag that's ecumenical over a tag that's fully equivalent but strictly Roman Catholic. Norm1979 (talk) 21:51, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

So to clarify, that would look like the following:

Addition of: 1-Episcopal Conference (beneath territory), and 2-Ecclesiastical Region (above ecclesiastical province). Is that right? Vesuvio14 (talk) 15:45, 1 July 2022 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 22 June 2022

Please add the parameters to the Location section of this infobox as per discussion above:
1.Episcopal Conference, beneath territory, and
2.Ecclesiastical region, above ecclesiastical province. Thank you! Vesuvio14 (talk) 21:47, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

Please replace all code in {{Infobox diocese}} ← {{Infobox diocese/sandbox}} (diff).

New parameters:

• |episcopal conference=
• |ecclesiastical region=

Test: Template:Infobox diocese/testcases § Tests (Jun 2022)

Below I logged the preparations. -DePiep (talk) 18:15, 30 June 2022 (UTC)

Todo: adjust documentation. -DePiep (talk) 18:16, 30 June 2022 (UTC)

Preparing

• Preparing in {{Infobox diocese/sandbox}}:

Test: Template:Infobox diocese/testcases § Tests (Jun 2022)

Expect (the new paramters are in sequence):

territory = _1 territory
[[Episcopal conference]] = _2 episcopal conference
[[Ecclesiastical region]] = _3 ecclesiastical region
province =_4 province

New parameters:

• |episcopal conference=
• |ecclesiastical region=

-DePiep (talk) 18:11, 30 June 2022 (UTC)

/sandbox Ready

Y. Sandbox is ready. See testcases and diff. @Vesuvio14:.

-DePiep (talk) 18:11, 30 June 2022 (UTC)

@DePiep: That’s all perfect! Vesuvio14 (talk) 21:46, 30 June 2022 (UTC)

 Not done for now: looks like a consensus needs to be established for this alteration. Please garner the needed consensus before using the {{edit template-protected}} template again. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. ^put'r there 15:08, 1 July 2022 (UTC)

Consensus has been established, see discussion above. Vesuvio14 (talk) 15:13, 1 July 2022 (UTC)

Yes, I read that, but all I see is some discussion about this with several suggestions, and I cannot discern a consensus for these edits. It appears that more discussion is needed to clarify the need for this edit. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. ^put'r there 15:23, 1 July 2022 (UTC)

@Paine Ellsworth: I have re-opened this request on the basis that three months without any ideas to the contrary might constitute a silent consensus. If this is the case, please could the previously discussed changes be implemented? Thank you! Vesuvio14 (talk) 15:27, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

Okay, we can see if it continues to "stick". P.I. Ellsworth , ed. ^put'r there 16:56, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

Brilliant, thank you so much! Vesuvio14 (talk) 19:00, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

'headquarters' parameter required?

In the Visual Editor, the "headquarters" parameter is marked as required (with an asterisk) and if I do not fill it in before "applying" changes to an infobox diocese, the VE crashes with a modal dialog. Why/how is this parameter required? I have not encountered it on Roman Catholic diocesan articles, and I wouldn't really know how to fill it in. Please make this parameter optional. Elizium23 (talk) 20:19, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

Agreed! It being a required param is frustrating when VE-editing Episcopal diocesan articles too. Ductwork (talk) 01:47, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 26 July 2022

Stop requiring "headquarters" parameter. It is unused in several major use-cases, including Catholic and Anglican. Elizium23 (talk) 01:58, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

Think that is governed by the TemplateData section on the /doc page, so it should now be  done, i.e., "suggested" instead of "required" from this edit to the /doc page, which is not protected. So if this change needs to be made in other template documentation, please remember this procedure, because you will likely be able to fix it yourself. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. ^put'r there 03:04, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

Ah, thanks! Yeah, I didn't really know where that requirement was coming from. I'll keep this in mind! Elizium23 (talk) 03:10, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

my pleasure! Paine  03:17, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

Adding an "attendance" parameter?

What do editors think about the addition of a parameter for "attendance" under the statistics section of the infobox? Average weekly/Sunday attendance is a documented metric in the Anglican Church of Canada, Episcopal Church, Church of Ireland, Anglican Church in North America, etc., and its inclusion where figures are available provides a valuable data point for understanding the subject of the article. Dclemens1971 (talk) 17:41, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

OPPOSED You can add it. But to what purpose? And where do you find the data? More categories does not necessarily make a better infobox, Vicedomino (talk) 07:59, 12 March 2023 (UTC)

parameter "Catholics"

On the "Catholics" parameter, the parenthetical remark "(including non-members)" has unclear meaning – it isn't clear what "non-members" refers to in this context. I guess it is trying to say that the figure may contain "lapsed Catholics" who no longer consider themselves "Catholic". However, whether or not that's true in any case depends on where the figure is coming from. For example, for Australian Catholic dioceses, the number is probably coming from the optional religion question on the Australian census – since identifying as "Catholic" on the census is completely voluntary, it seems reasonable to assume that any adult ticking the "Catholic" box actually considers Catholicism to (in some sense) be their religion, at least at the time they filled out the census (once every 5 years). So, for Australian Catholic dioceses, whatever this confusing phrase is trying to say, is probably incorrect. However, for Catholic dioceses in other countries – since there are numerous ways of counting "who is Catholic", it is possible some of those ways are including people who view themselves as "ex-Catholic". But, here's the thing – if we put this kind of proviso in the template, it ends up everywhere, even in cases where it is wrong; if it is wrong in some cases, it doesn't belong in the template. Added to that, from a Catholic viewpoint, "members" is not really the right terminology – Catholicism does not have a notion of "membership" as such. It is really taking a term which makes sense in secular contexts, or maybe even for some other churches (especially some Protestant ones), and applying it to a religious tradition which generally doesn't use it, and I don't think that makes a lot of sense. @Vicedomino: you raised this issue in 2020 but nobody responded. SomethingForDeletion (talk) 07:27, 12 March 2023 (UTC)

I agree with all the criticisms expressed by SomethingForDeletion. Catholic statistics, as found in Annuario Pontificio are often estimates, and (as in the case of Italy, where estimates run 90-99%, where the actual figure is admitted to be below 40%). They are said to represent "baptized Catholics" in a diocese, but, in addition to all the considerations expressed above, people move from place to place, making baptismal statistics a poor guide to who is actually there. "Including non-members" has to be dropped. Vicedomino (talk) 08:07, 12 March 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply. I added an edit request below to remove this phrase. SomethingForDeletion (talk) 08:38, 12 March 2023 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 12 March 2023

Change "Catholics (including non-members)" to just say "Catholics" per above discussion SomethingForDeletion (talk) 08:27, 12 March 2023 (UTC)

 Completed. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. ^{put'er there} 13:13, 12 March 2023 (UTC)

Thank you. SomethingForDeletion (talk) 22:11, 12 March 2023 (UTC)

my pleasure! Paine  22:25, 12 March 2023 (UTC)

Deacons

It was previously proposed to add |deacons= as a parameter to capture a count of the number of deacons (permanent) in the diocese, but there was no follow-up discussion or action taken to implement this. At least for Catholic dioceses, this information could be sourced from the dioceses themselves or from the Annuario Pontificio.

Are folks open to adding this parameter to be placed immediately below the |priests= parameter?  — Archer1234 (t·c) 00:23, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

I support your proposal. I think you can go ahead and create a "Template-protected edit request" to officially request adding it. Nobody has spoken against it, and I'd be surprised if anyone is going to. Especially since it is an optional parameter, which means that if there is any diocese (especially non-Catholic ones) for which the information might not be available/relevant, we can just ignore it for them.

One comment though – I'm worried people will be confused about the distinction between permanent deacons, transitional deacons, or counting both. It might be better to have "permanent_deacons" as a parameter–I'm assuming any available statistics re either only going to count permanent deacons, or separately count the permanent and transitional ones. Another concern I have is around deaconesses, which while they don't (currently) exist in Catholicism, are found in some Anglican and Orthodox dioceses. Orthodox understand deaconesses as a separate order from the male-order only of deacons, so they'd never include deaconesses in statistics on deacons; but the majority (but not all) of Anglicans do view deaconesses as female deacons, and so would include that in a count of deacons. I'm not sure how best to address those differences, but I don't see those concerns as blocking your proposal, I'm just raising them for your awareness as potential gotchas worth thinking about. SomethingForDeletion (talk) 01:40, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

I know I'm a bit late here, but would we want to draw a distinction between permanent and transitional deacons? Does the AP differentiate the data in such a manner? Maximilian775 (talk) 19:48, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

That's a good question. How does the AP count deacons? Ergo Sum 21:11, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

Leadership

The current leadership of the Diocese of Sodor and Man is Mark Davies, bishop of Middleton, after the retirement of Peter Eagles in October 2023. 147.161.145.93 (talk) 09:07, 26 March 2024 (UTC)