WADDING, LUKE: English Franciscan, historian of the Franciscan order; b. at Waterford (63 m. e.n.e. of Cork), Ireland, Oct. 16, 1588; , d. at Rome Nov. 18, 1657. He studied theology in Lisbon and Coimbra, Portugal; became a Franciscan 1607; was ordained priest in 1613; went in 1617 to Salamanca, where he became president of the Irish College; went to Rome, 1618, as chaplain to the Spanish ambassador, and remained there the rest of his life. In 1625 he founded there the College of St. Isidore for Irish students of the Franciscan order. From 1630 to 1634 he was procurator of his order at Rome, and from 1645 to 1648 vicecommissary. He was an ardent advocate of the Irish cause in the war of 1641, and sent officers and arms to Ireland. He was one of the councilors in the settlement of the Jansenist controversy, and pronounced an opinion in favor of these doctrines; but, on the appearance of the bull of Innocent X. (Cum occasions, 1653), he retracted. His works include Legatio Philippi III. et IV., regum Hispanise, ad Paulum V.; Crregorium XV., et Urbanism VIII. pro sleftnienda controversia immaeulatee conceptionis B. Marine Virginis, Louvain, 1624 (a history of the controversy to decide which the bishop of Cartagena went to Rome as an ambassador, which was consequently the occasion of Wadding's Roman residence); Apologeticus de prsetenso monachstu Augusliniano S. Francisci (Madrid, 1625); especially noteworthy is his work on the Annales ordinis Minorum (8 vols., Lyons and Rome, 1625-54; later ed., 16 vols., vol. xvii., Index, Rome, 1731-36)-this is .the great history of the Franciscan order; Wadding brought it down to 1540; it has been continued by De Luca to 1553 (vol. xviii., 1740), by Ancona to 1564 (vol, xix., 1745), by Asculano to 1754 (vol. xx., 1794), by De Cerreto to 1584 (vol. xxi., 1844) Scriptores ordinis Minorum, 1650, new edition with Sbaraglia's corrections, 1806 (a bibliography of the order); Immsculatse conceptionis Virginis Marine opusculum (1655); Vita Clementis VIII. (later edition, 1723). He also edited the "Sermons" of Anthony of Padua (1624), the Opuscula of Francis of Assisi (Lyons, 1637), the works of Duns Scotus, with a "Life" (12 vols., 1639), and superintended the publication of the posthumous Hebrew Concordance of Marius de Calasio (4 vols., Rome, 1621), to which he contributed an essay upon the Hebrew language.

Bibliography: A "Life" was written by his nephew, F. Harold, prefixed to the Annales, and separately issued at Rome, 1731; and by J. A. O'Shea, Dublin, 1885. Consult further: C. Anderson, Historical Sketches of the Native Irish, London, 1830; C. P. Meehan, Rise and Fall of the Irish Franciscan Monasteries, London, 1877; KL, xii. 1141-44.