Glossary of the Catholic Church

Updated on Dec 17, 2024

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This is a glossary of terms used within the Catholic Church.

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References

A

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

B

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

C

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)

D

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)

E

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

F

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

G

Grace (Christianity)

Grace (prayer)

H

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

I

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)

J

Judicial vicar

Just War doctrine

L

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

M

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)

N

Narthex

Nave

Novitiate

Nun — see also: Sister (below)

Nuncio

O

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)

P

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)

Q

Quinque Viæ — Aquinas' famous philosophical proofs for the existence of God found in his Summa Theologiæ

R

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

S

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)

T

Territorial prelature

Titular bishop

Titular church

Tradition, Sacred – see: Sacred Tradition (above)

Transept

Transitional deacon – see: Deacon (above)

Transubstantiation

Tribunal

Trinity, The

V

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)

U

Universal Church

W

Wage, Family — see: Family wage (above)

War, just — see: Just war (above)

Ways, Five — see: Quinque Viæ(above)

References

Glossary of the Catholic Church Wikipedia

(Text) CC BY-SA

Contents

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

L

M

N

O

P

Q

R

S

T

V

U

W

References