One of the original thirteen of the United States of America.

A term used by the Synod of Elvira (c. 306) to stigmatize those Christians who appeared as accusers of their brethren.

Painter, born at Paris, 17 July, 1797; died 4 November, 1856.

Artist's biography with bibliography.

This article is confined to the non-Christian notion of the Deity.

Historical survey and critique.

Or Dichuil. Elder brother of St. Gall and missionary companion of St. Columbanus. Deicolus died in 625.

A formulæ added to the titles of ecclesiastical dignitaries.

Theologian, catechist, b. at Straburg, Alsace, 11 April, 1800; d. at Maria-Laach, 8 November, 1871.

A canonical penalty by which an ecclesiastic is entirely and perpetually deprived of all office, benefice, dignity, and power conferred on him by ordination; and by a special ceremony is reduced to the state of a layman, losing the privileges of the clerical state and being given over to the secular arm.

Historical painter, born in Bockenem, Hanover, 15 April, 1809; died in Düsseldorf, 27 Jan., 1885.

Generally speaking, the governing council of an order.

An official in secular deaneries and in certain religious orders.

An irrevocable decision, by which the supreme teaching authority in the Church decides a question appertaining to faith or morals, and which binds the whole Church.

An official whose duty is to defend the marriage-bond in the procedure prescribed for the hearing of matrimonial causes which involve the validity or nullity of a marriage already contracted.

A once famous Scotch monastery. According to the Celtic legend St. Columcille, his disciple Drostan, and others, went from Hy (Iona) into Buchan and established an important missionary centre at Deer on the banks of the Ugie on lands given him by the mormaer or chief of the district whose son he had by his prayers freed of a dangerous illness.

An argument or reasoning process, that kind of mediate inference by which from truths already known we advance to a knowledge of other truths necessarily implied in the former; the mental product or result of that process. Also a method, the deductive method, by which we increase our knowledge through a series of such inferences.

Also called the Feast of the Machabees and Feast of Lights.

A term which, though sometimes used of persons who are consecrated to God's service, is more properly applied to the "setting aside" of places for a special and sacred purpose.

In the wide sense the term decretalis signifies a pontifical letter containing a decretum, or pontifical decision. In a narrower sense it denotes a decision on a matter of discipline. In the strictest sense of the word, it means a rescript, an answer of the pope when he has been appealed to or his advice has been sought on a matter of discipline.

In a general sense, an order or law made by a superior authority for the direction of others. In ecclesiastical use it has various meanings. Any papal Bull, Brief, or Motu Proprio is a decree inasmuch as these documents are legislative acts of the Holy Father.

The titles of nobility, orders of Christian knighthood and other marks of honour and distinction which the papal court confers upon men of unblemished character who have in any way promoted the interests of society, the Church, and the Holy See.

A German sculptor of the middle of the fifteenth century.