Top Ten Longest Featured Wikipedia Articles Includes One on a Pope.

So I saw an article at Slashdot regarding a list of the longest featured articles on Wikipedia. First here is a definition of what Wikipedia considers a featured article to mean.

Featured articles are considered to be the best articles Wikipedia has to offer, as determined by Wikipedia’s editors. They are used by editors as examples for writing other articles. Before being listed here, articles are reviewed as featured article candidates for accuracy, neutrality, completeness, and style according to our featured article criteria.

The top ten longest featured articles is a rather eclectic list while also containing topics you would expect to be there.

1. Elvis Presley
7. Michael Jackson

The interesting mix contains:

History of Poland (1945–89), Manhattan Project, Military history of Puerto Rico, Byzantine navy, Maya civilization, Spanish conquest of Petén, Air raids on Japan.

The summary Slashdot article referenced that one of the articles concerned a pope. At first I expected it to be on Saint John Paul II, but was not really surprised it concerned Pope Pius XII – coming in at #5.

What surprised me though is that the article really fit the definition of featured within the metrics Wikipedia described. This article is well worth reading and I loved the picture of Eugenio Pacelli at six. There is a wealth of information regarding his career in the Church before becoming pope along with his close to 20 years as pope. I already knew the date he died, as it was one day before I was born.

I certainly found it interesting that he was consecrated Bishop on the on May 13th, 1917 the exact date of the first Marian apparition at Fátima and was buried on Feast Day of Our Lady of Fátima, 13 October 1958.

While this article did address various controversies from critics, this was done in a balanced way and the counter-view to the critics was aptly presented. The book “Hitler’s Pope” was mentioned, but was not given much credence in the larger context. Plus there is mention of Josef Müller of the German resistance who Venerable Pope Pius XII worked with extensively in moving against Hitler. The excellent and fascinating book Church of Spies details the Pope’s attempts to have Hitler removed.

Just a very good article all-around with many highlights concerning Venerable Pius XII contributions to the Church and interesting details. For example I found out that he was the first Pope to move away from the predominance of Italian Cardinals and making selection from around the world. Considering that he was born in Rome adds to this.