This is a glossary of terms used within the Catholic Church.
Abbess — the female head of a community of nuns (abbey)
Abbot — the male head of a community of monks (monastery)
Acolyte
Actual grace
Ad limina visits — visit by diocesan bishop to the Holy See, usually every five years
Altar
Altar server
Altarage — the revenue reserved for the chaplain (altarist or altar-thane) in contradistinction to the income of the parish priest, it came to signify the fees received by a priest from the laity when discharging any function for them
Ambo
Ambry
Annulment – see: Declaration of Nullity (below)
Apostolic administrator
Apostolic Chancery — a former office of the Roman Curia
Apostolic life, Society of — see: Society of apostolic life (below)
Apostolic nuncio — see: Nuncio (below)
Apostolic prefect
Apostolic succession
Apostolic vicar
Apse
Archbishop — the bishop of an archdiocese, with limited jurisdiction over his suffragan sees; an titular and largely honorary designation granted to certain bishops, often Nuncios and other members of the Holy See diplomatic corps
Archpriest (Latin Church) — see: Vicar Forane (below)
Auxiliary bishop
Baptism
Baptism of Jesus
Baptismal font
Beatification
Bishop — an ordained minister who holds the fullness of the sacrament of Holy Orders and is responsible for teaching the Catholic faith and ruling the Church
Bishop emeritus (or Archbishop emeritus) — the title given to a retired bishop or archbishop
Bishops' conference — see: Episcopal conference (below)
Blessed (beatified person) — see: Beatification (above)
Brother — a lay member of a Catholic religious institute
Canon law
Cardinal
Cardinal Vicar
Catholicism - the body of the Catholic faith, its theologies and doctrines, its liturgical, ethical, spiritual, and behavioural characteristics, as well as a religious people as a whole.
Catechism - an official exposition of Church teachings
Chancery, Apostolic — see: Apostolic Chancery (above)
Chancery, Diocesan – see: Diocesan chancery (below)
Chaplain of His Holiness
Clergy, Regular – see: Regular clergy (below)
Clergy, Secular – see: Secular clergy (below)
Coadjutor bishop — an auxiliary bishop with the legal right of succession to the see of which he is coadjutor
Code of Canon Law, 1917
Code of Canon Law, 1983
Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches
College of Cardinals
College of Consultors
Communion - see: Eucharist (below) and Full communion (below)
Communion rite
Communion of Saints
Confession – see: Sacrament of Penance (below)
Confirmation
Congregation, Religious
Congregation (Roman Curia)
Congregation, Sacred – see: Congregation (Roman Curia) (above)
Consecrated life
Consecrated life (Catholic Church)
Consecrated life, Institute of – see: Institute of consecrated life (below)
Corpus Juris Canonici
Council, Pontifical – see: Pontifical Council (below)
Counter-Reformation - the period of Catholic revival beginning with the Council of Trent and ending at the close of the Thirty Years' War.
Credence table
Crosier
Crucifix
Curia, Moderator of the - see: Moderator of the Curia (below)
Curia (Roman Catholic Church)
Curia, Roman - see: Roman Curia (below)
Deacon
Dean — see: Vicar forane (below)
Declaration of Nullity — a canonical judicial sentence declaring that the matrimonial covenant was invalid from the beginning due to some point of law or other factor
Definitor
Diaconate — see: Deacon (above)
Dicastery
Diocesan administrator
Diocesan bishop
Diocesan chancery
Diocesan curia — see: "Curia (Roman Catholic Church)" (above)
Diocesan priest
Diocesan tribunal — see: Tribunal (below)
Discalceation
Dulia — see also: Hyperdulia (below)
East–West Schism - divided medieval Christianity into Eastern (Greek) and Western (Latin) branches, which later became known as the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church, respectively
Eastern Catholic Churches
Ecclesiastical judge
Eminence – see: His Eminence (below)
Eparchy
Episcopal conference
Episcopal see
Episcopal vicar
Eucharist - a Christian sacrament or ordinance, generally considered to be a commemoration of the Last Supper, the final meal that Jesus Christ shared with his disciples before his arrest and eventual crucifixion
Exarch
Excardination — see also: Incardination
Exclaustration
Excommunication - a religious censure used to deprive or suspend membership in a religious community
Exemption
Exorcism - the practice of evicting demons or other spiritual entities from a person or place which they are believed to have possessed
Fall of Man — the transition of the first humans from a state of innocent obedience to God, to a state of guilty disobedience to God
Family wage
Father (cleric) — a traditional title of priests
Father, God the — a name for the First Person of the Blessed Trinity
Five Ways — see: Quinque Viæ (below)
Font, Baptismal — see: Baptismal font (above)
Font, Holy water — see: Holy water font (below)
Friar
Full communion
Grace (Christianity)
Grace (prayer)
Hierarchy
His Eminence
His Holiness
Holy Communion – see: Eucharist (above)
Holy Orders
Holy See – the episcopal jurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome (who is commonly known as the Pope), and is the preeminent episcopal see of the Catholic Church, forming the central government of the Church
Holy water font (or stoup) (church)
Holy water stoup (home) – see: Home stoup (below)
Home stoup
Honorary Prelate
Horarium – the daily schedule of those living in a religious community or seminary. See also Liturgy of the Hours.
Hyperdulia – veneration of the Blessed Virgin Mary see also: dulia
Hypostasis – in Jesus Christ, the union of two natures, divine and human, in the one divine person of the Son of God
Immaculate Conception — the dogma that Mary was conceived without original sin (not to be confused with the Incarnation of Christ)
Incardination — see also: excardination (above)
Incarnation — The Word of God taking on a human nature and becoming true man, Jesus Christ (not to be confused with the Immaculate Conception of Mary)
Institute of consecrated life
Institute, Religious — see: Religious institute (below)
Institute, Secular — see: Secular institute (below)
Judicial vicar
Just War doctrine
Laity
Lapsed Catholic — a Catholic who has ceased practicing the Catholic faith. Such a person is said to have lapsed from the faith
Latin Church
Latin liturgical rites
Law, canon — see: Canon law (above)
Lay communion — the status of a cleric who is in communion with the Church, but only with the standing of a lay person.
Lay ecclesial ministry
Lectio Divina
Lectionary
Lector — see: Reader (below)
Limbo — a speculative idea about the afterlife condition of those who die in original sin without being assigned to the Hell of the damned. Limbo is not an official doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church or any other
Latria — worship and prayer owed to God alone
Liturgy — public worship
Local ordinary
Mass — the usual English-language name for the Eucharistic celebration in the Latin liturgical rites of the Catholic Church
Mariology — the theology concerned with the Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ
Mediatrix — the role of the Blessed Virgin Mary as a mediator in the salvation process
Metropolitan archbishop
Military ordinariate
Missal
Missal, Roman — see: Roman Missal (below)
Mission sui juris
Mitre
Monk
Monsignor
Most Holy Trinity — see:Trinity (below)
Narthex
Nave
Novitiate
Nun — see also: Sister (below)
Nuncio
Officialis — see: Judicial vicar (above)
Order, Religious — see: Religious order (below)
Ordinariate, Military — see: Military ordinariate (above)
Ordinariate, Personal — see: Personal ordinariate (below)
Ordinary — see: Local ordinary (above)
Papal court
Parish
Pastor
Penance – see: Sacrament of Penance (below)
Permanent deacon – see: Deacon (above)
Personal ordinariate
Personal prelature
Pew
Pontiff
Pontifical Council
Pope -
Prefect apostolic – see: Apostolic prefect (above)
Prelate
Prelate, Honorary – see: Honorary Prelate (above)
Prelature, Personal – see: Personal prelature (above)
Prelature, Territorial – see: Territorial prelature (below)
Priest -
Priest, Diocesan – see: Diocesan priest (above)
Priest, Religious – see: Regular clergy (below)
Prior
Prioress
Protonotary apostolic
Pulpit – see: Ambo (above)
Quinque Viæ — Aquinas' famous philosophical proofs for the existence of God found in his Summa Theologiæ
Ratum sed non consummatum
Reader
Reconciliation – see: Sacrament of Penance (below)
Rector (cathedral or seminary)
Regular clergy
Religious
Religious brother – see: Brother (above)
Religious congregation – see: Congregation, Religious (above)
Religious institute (Catholic)
Religious order
Religious priest – see: Regular clergy (above)
Religious sister – see: Sister (below)
Right of Option - a way of obtaining a benefice or a title, by the choice of the new titulary himself
Roman Catholic -
Roman Curia — "the complex of dicasteries and institutes that help the Roman Pontiff in the exercise of his supreme pastoral function for the good and service of the whole Church and of the particular Churches"
Roman Missal
Sacrament of Penance - (commonly called Confession, Reconciliation or Penance) is the method given by Christ to the Church by which individual men and women may be freed from sins committed after receiving Baptism
Sacred congregation – see: Congregation (Roman Curia) (above)
Sacred Tradition
Saints, Communion of – see: Communion of Saints (above)
Sanctifying grace – see: Grace (Christianity) (above)
Sanctuary
Secular clergy
Secular institute
Sede vacante
See, Episcopal - see: Episcopal see (above)
Seminarian
Server – see: Altar server (above)
Side altar
Simple vow -
Sister -
Society of apostolic life
Solemn vow -
Stoup, Holy water – see: Holy water font (above) and Home stoup (above)
Summa Theologiæ — Thomas Aquinas' masterwork of Scholastic philosophical theology
Supreme Pontiff – see: Pontiff (above)
Territorial prelature
Titular bishop
Titular church
Tradition, Sacred – see: Sacred Tradition (above)
Transept
Transitional deacon – see: Deacon (above)
Transubstantiation
Tribunal
Trinity, The
Vacant see — see: Sede vacante (above)
Venerable
Vatican (disambiguation)
Vicar apostolic — see: Apostolic vicar (above)
Vicar forane — also known as "dean" or, in the Latin Church, "archpriest"
Vicar general
Vicar, judicial — see: Judicial vicar (above)
Vicar of Christ
Vow — see: Simple vow (above) or Solemn vow (above)
Universal Church
Wage, Family — see: Family wage (above)
War, just — see: Just war (above)
Ways, Five — see: Quinque Viæ(above)
Glossary of the Catholic Church Wikipedia (Text) CC BY-SA