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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was speedy keep. Withdrawn by nominator (non-admin closure) Username 6892 14:52, 10 June 2020 (UTC) reply

Miraculous plague cure of 1522

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Miraculous plague cure of 1522 (  | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – ( View log · Stats)
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This article is particularly worrisome because it can be seen as supporting certain current efforts to exempt religious services and processions from public health measures during the COVID-19 pandemic - see [1] and Misinformation related to the COVID-19 pandemic#Religious protection. The article says:

When the second plague pandemic hit Rome, Italy, the local authorities banned processions so as to stop the plague. However, Catholics made a 16-day crucifix procession from San Marcello al Corso, through the streets of Rome, and back to St. Peter's Basilica.... As the crucifix toured a neighborhood, the people of the neighborhood were miraculously cured of the Black Plague, so that each neighborhood sought to have the crucifix stay with them as long as possible. When the crucifix entered St. Peter's Basilica, Rome was miraculously completely cured of the plague.

The article concludes by noting that Pope Francis prayed before the same crucifix for an end to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Soon after the article's creation in March, an editor placed a template about the need for reliable sourcing, but three months later the article still has just a single source, Vatican News. I have not been able to find any reliable independent sources. I am proposing it for deletion because it violates WP:V, WP:FRINGE, and WP:MEDRS by giving credence to beliefs in faith healing. NightHeron ( talk) 20:03, 7 June 2020 (UTC) reply


Keep History is full of people believing in faith healing. The WP policies on pseudoscience were not intended to scrub history of pseudoscience, but to prevent people from advocating for it in the present day. If this was an article about how you need to go to a shrine to be cured from coronavirus, it would be a different picture altogether.-- Epiphyllumlover ( talk) 20:41, 7 June 2020 (UTC) reply
  • Delete I have done a search for "Miraculous plague cure of 1522", I get no hits in any books or journals. As no reliable sources discuss this topic, the article should be deleted. Psychologist Guy ( talk) 20:48, 7 June 2020 (UTC) reply
That's a rather overprecise (and not very idiomatic) search term. Try a proper search - the difference is, well, miraculous! Johnbod ( talk) 20:58, 7 June 2020 (UTC) reply
  • Keep or Merge to Oratory of Santissimo Crocifisso, where the cross now is after rewriting to better match the source. There are in fact, many, many RS on this, so it could be kept. The nom seems motivated by POV concerns. NightHeron and User:Psychologist Guy - what is the matter with you? Did nobody ever teach you how to do an internet search???? Johnbod ( talk) 20:58, 7 June 2020 (UTC) reply
  • Not really convinced by the FRINGE concerns: there is no FRIDGE or MEDRS issue with saying that 500 years ago people attributed something to magic. I think the merge suggested by Johnbod is very reasonable, though -- the different aspects of the cross and its location can be covered together, and it avoids the very awkward title of this article. -- JBL ( talk) 21:23, 7 June 2020 (UTC) reply
  • Keep probably should be renamed to be about the crucifix, but yeah... this is definitely notable. The recent use of the item by the Pope in the pandemic brought significant attention, and given that it was significant enough for him to use, you're all but certain to find significant commentary on it in Italian sources making it notable outside the COVID-19 situation. Also see Johnbod's link above. I suggesIt was before, but especially given recent events it would easily meet GNG. When I worked more in content I spent a lot of time cleaning up overly religously or badly sourced Catholic articles, so I'm certainly sympathetic to NightHeron's concerns, but we typically consider relics, saints, and other religious subjects that are considered significant by a major religious group to be notable, because there will be significant commentary in their non-primary source histories and theologies. That's definitely the case here. Yes, the article could probably use a rewrite and a rename, but deletion is not the best option. TonyBallioni ( talk) 21:26, 7 June 2020 (UTC) reply
  • I disagree about re-naming for the crucifix. The procession qualifies as a notable event (I have little doubt that it happened) and reporting on what people thought it did for them is a legitimate subject. If there is significantly more about the crucifix than is in this article, a new article could be created without deletitng this one. Beyond My Ken ( talk) 03:28, 8 June 2020 (UTC) reply
  • Comment There are only two pages on Google books of visible material for Johnbod's search and they all seem off-topic or not in depth coverage. Can you list one reliable source that actually discusses this Miraculous plague cure of 1522 in depth? Some of those seems to be discussing something else. I am not convinced this is a notable topic. This looks like WP:SYNTH to me. Historians do not seem to be discussing this topic. I do a lot of historical research myself and I have never come across this. For me this is not notable. Psychologist Guy ( talk) 21:29, 7 June 2020 (UTC) reply
    • Psychologist Guy, sure:
      • Eitel-Porter, Rhoda. "The Oratorio Del SS. Crocifisso in Rome Revisited." The Burlington Magazine 142, no. 1171 (2000): 613-23. Accessed June 7, 2020. www.jstor.org/stable/888898.
      • O'Regan, Noel. "Processions and Their Music in Post-Tridentine Rome." Recercare 4 (1992): 45-80. Accessed June 7, 2020. www.jstor.org/stable/41701104.
      • Von Henneberg, Josephine. "An Early Work by Giacomo Della Porta: The Oratorio Del Santissimo Crocifisso Di San Marcello in Rome." The Art Bulletin 52, no. 2 (1970): 157-71. Accessed June 7, 2020. doi:10.2307/3048704.
      • Pope Francis, his crucifix and the Virgin Mary: miraculous or merely traditional?
These are all in the context of the confraternity associated with the church building, but discuss the alleged miracle and the crucifixes later use in processions. @ Johnbod, Joel B. Lewis, and Andreas Philopater: I think keeping and changing to be about the crucifix is probably better than merging. It seems to be notable on its own in addition to being a significant part of the church. Again, I'd rename this article to be about the art object associated with it, because there seems to have been enough academic writing on that to meet our notability standards. TonyBallioni ( talk) 22:04, 7 June 2020 (UTC) reply
The oratory was built to house the crucifix; it makes no sense to have separate articles on each of them. It would if they had since been separated, but as it is it would like having an article about a painting and an article about its frame. -- Andreas Philopater ( talk) 22:09, 7 June 2020 (UTC) reply
The oratory is a physical building that is notable in its own right. The crucifix and the related traditions behind it is distinct as an art object. We also likely don't have as much writing about it in English because of the whole Henry VIII thing. I'd expect there to be even more on the crucifix itself in Italian. TonyBallioni ( talk) 22:11, 7 June 2020 (UTC) reply
If the sources can be found, sure. So far I'm not seeing them (and I have been looking). -- Andreas Philopater ( talk) 22:49, 7 June 2020 (UTC) reply
Here's a dissertation to mine for sources, later revised and published. Oratory, archconfraternity and crucifix all look notable enough, but they should all fit nicely in a single article. fiveby( zero) 00:00, 8 June 2020 (UTC) reply
Delumeau Jean (1951). "Une confrérie romaine au XVI siècle". Mélanges d'archéologie et d'histoire. 63: 281–306. looks like most cited source independent of oratory. fiveby( zero) 00:30, 8 June 2020 (UTC) reply
Fiveby, good finds. I had already seen Delumeau's article, but since it is primarily about the confraternity, and only talks about the supposed miracles as a context for its existence, I didn't take that as a basis for keeping the end of the 1522 epidemic as a primary topic. At a glance the same applies to the dissertation, although I'm open to being persuaded otherwise. -- Andreas Philopater ( talk) 13:21, 8 June 2020 (UTC) reply
  • Comment If the article is retitled so that it's about a notable relic rather than a miraculous plague cure, and if it's written so as not to suggest that belief in divine intervention to cure a pandemic is part of living Catholic belief, I'd be fine with that. As JBL said, there's no problem with reporting that people 500 years ago believed in magic. The problem is that today certain religious groupings still believe in magic, and this belief is widespread and powerful enough so that 15 US states have complete religious exemption from social-distancing measures during the pandemic. If the rewritten article mentions Pope Francis' prayer in front of the crucifix, it should not give the impression that the Pope wants people to anticipate divine intervention to stop COVID-19. NightHeron ( talk) 00:34, 8 June 2020 (UTC) reply
  • Keep Leaning a bit more towards Andreas Philopater's view rather than TonyBallioni's, but that is probably best resolved by someone reading the sources and working on the article(s), not at Afd. fiveby( zero) 01:15, 8 June 2020 (UTC) reply
  • Keep - I've added some references (from CNN and Reuters) to confirm that the alleged procession is thought to have happened, but I also moved it to Plague procession of 1522, on the theory that we should not say in Wikipedia's voice that this was an actual "miraculous plague cure". The new title seemed preferable to adding "alleged" to the current title, which was the other option. (Besides, I found almost no references to "Miraculous plague cure of 1522" on Google, so it's not like it's a common expression.) The title could also have been "Roman plague procession of 1522", but I didn't think additional disambiguation was necessary. Beyond My Ken ( talk) 02:04, 8 June 2020 (UTC) reply
  • Keep per the interesting discussion, and per the edits to the page since the nomination which seem to have moved it to the realm of the savable. Randy Kryn ( talk) 03:15, 8 June 2020 (UTC) reply
  • Keep as clearly notable. Any issues with the title of the page or how we organise the related articles should be discussed on the relevant talk/Wikiproject pages. Phil Bridger ( talk) 08:36, 8 June 2020 (UTC) reply
  • Keep (speedy, even, since the nominator appears to have withdrawn their nomination and the single !vote to delete seems to lack a WP:BEFORE): The subject has received scholarly treatment (as noted above, and e.g. Albinsky in Space, Place, and Motion: Locating Confraternities in the Late Medieval and Early Modern Period), and the single sentence devoted to its 21st-century relevance is quite due. —— Serial # 09:12, 8 June 2020 (UTC) reply
Excellent expansion of the article. Bravo! Beyond My Ken ( talk) 16:43, 8 June 2020 (UTC) reply
Just needed the mumbo-jumbo getting rid of, Beyond My Ken  ;) —— Serial # 17:46, 8 June 2020 (UTC) reply
Don't be modest, you also provided a lot more context. Beyond My Ken ( talk) 18:04, 8 June 2020 (UTC) reply
  • Keep. Notable subject matter, and not really fringe if treated as historical. Alexbrn ( talk) 16:37, 8 June 2020 (UTC) reply
  • Comment According to the Italian article on the Oratorio del Crocifisso, the cross there is a copy of the "miracle cross", which is actually housed in the " Chiesa di San Marcello al Corso". The information about the "miracle" of the cross (surviving a fire that destroyed the church it was in) and its use as a miracle cure during the plague in 1522 is in this latter article. There are few references in the Italian article so I am not saying that it provides definitive proof, but I have my doubts that the Oratorio (which seems to be known primarily as a venue for music) is deeply related to the "miracle cross." Lamona ( talk) 20:34, 8 June 2020 (UTC) reply
    @ Lamona: The problem here arises from the fact that the Oratory of Santissimo Crocifisso and the San Marcello al Corso Church are the same place; the oratory is an oratory attached to the church. So the cross, presumably, is in the Oratory of the Holy Crucifixion in the Church of St Marcellus. The church existed before the 1522 plague but the oratory did not. I suggest merging the two, and possibly merging this article with them both. GPinkerton ( talk) 14:29, 9 June 2020 (UTC) reply
  • Keep and repurpose The notable thing here is either the crucifix housed in San Marcello al Corso, or the 1522 plague epidemic in Rome, not some plagiarized papal miracle imitating the old Roman Plague of 590 legend. I would prefer a title like 1522 Plague of Rome or Crucifix of San Marcello al Corso. GPinkerton ( talk) 02:51, 9 June 2020 (UTC) reply
  • Comment NightHeron, if you could withdraw this nomination, we can carry on discussing the page move on the article talk page per WP:LOUSYTITLE. —— Serial # 13:23, 9 June 2020 (UTC) reply
Serial Number 54129: Done. And thanks for your extensive work improving the article. NightHeron ( talk) 15:39, 9 June 2020 (UTC) reply
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
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