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forded in the books of the canon law beginning with the " Concordance " of Evatian (c. 1150), but this has never been pronounced a final authority. The best summary of the leading articles of the Roman faith is contained in the Creed of Pius IV., which is binding upon all priests and public teachers, and which must be confessed by all converts. It consists of the Nicene Creed and eleven articles. To these must now be added the two additional Vatican dogmas of the Immaculate Conception (q.v.), of the Virgin Mary and the Infallibility of the Pope (q.v.). The Roman Catholic system of doctrine was prepared as to matter by the Fathers (especially Irenmus, Cyprian, Augustine, Jerome, Leo I., Gregory I., qq.v.), logically analyzed, defined, and defended by the medieval schoolmen (Anselm, Alexander Hales, Peter the Lombard, Thomas Aquinas, Dana Scotus, qq.v.), and vindicated, in opposition to Protestantism, by Bellarmin, Bossuet, and MShler (qq.v.), and completed in the Vatican dogma of papal infallibility, which excludes all possibility of doctrinal reformation. A question once settled by infallible authority is settled forever, and can not be reopened. But the same authority may add new dogmas, such as the assumption of the Virgin Mary, which still remains only a " pious opinion " of a large number of Catholics, as the immaculate conception was before 1854.

8. Government and Discipline: The Roman Church has reared up the grandest governmental fabric known in history. It is an absolute spiritual monarchy, culminating in the pope, who claims to be the successor of Peter, and the vicar of Christ and God on earth, and hence the supreme and infallible head of the Church. The laity are excluded from all participation even in matters of temporal administration; they must obey the priest; the priests must obey the bishop; and the bishops, the pope, to whom they are bound by the most solemn oath. This system is the growth of ages, and reached its final statement at the Vatican Council (q.v.). The claim of the bishop of Rome to universal dominion over the Christian Church, and even over the temporal kingdoms professing the Roman Catholic faith, goes back to the days of Leo I. (440461), and was renewed by Nicholas I., Gregory VIL, Innocent III., Boniface VIII., Leo X., and by other less prominent pontiffs. But this claim has always been resisted by the Greek Church, which has claimed equal rights for the Eastern patriarchs, and by the German emperors and other princes, who were jealous of the independent rights of their sovereignty. The conflict between the pope and the emperor, between priestcraft and statecraft, runs through the whole Middle Ages, and was revived under a new aspect by the papal syllabus of 1884, which reasserted the most extravagant claims of the medieval papacy, and provoked the so-called Kulturkampf in Germany and France (see ULTRA nIONTANIsm), and the recent movements in France (q.v.) culminating in the complete separation of Church and State.

The pope is aided in the exercise of his functions by a college of cardinals limited to seventy. Archbishop McCloskey (q.v.) of New York was the first American cardinal, appointed in 1875, and Arch-

bishop Gibbons (q.v.) of Baltimore the second (1882). The pope was at first chosen by the Roman clergy and people; but since the time of Gregory VII. he has been elected by the cardinals (for method of election see POPE, PAPACY, PAPAL SYSTEM, II.). The pope with the cardinals together form the Consistory (q.v.). The various departments of administration are assigned to Congregations (q.v.), under the presidency of a cardinal, such as the Congregation of the Index librorum prohibitorum, the Congregation of Sacred Rites, the Congregation of Indulgences, and the Congregation de propaganda fide. The pope has regular nuncios in the principal Roman Catholic capitals of Europe except Paris, namely, in Munich, Vienna, Lisbon, Madrid, and Brussels. The greatest public display of the Roman hierarchy was made in the Lateran Council of 1214 under Innocent III., and in the Vatican Council of 1870 under Pius IX.

8. Worship and Ceremonies: These are embodied in the Roman Missal, the Roman Breviary, and other liturgical books for public and private devotion (see BREvIAIey; MISSAL). The Roman Church accompanies its members from the cradle to the grave, receiving them into life by baptism, dismissing them into the other world by extreme unction, and consecrating all their important acts by the sacramental mysteries and blessings. The worship is a most elaborate system of ritualism, which addresses itself chiefly to the eye and the ear, sad draws all the fine arts into its service. Cathedrals, altars, crucifixes, madonnas, pictures, statues, and relics of saints, rich decorations, solemn processions, operatic music, combine to lend to it great attractions for the common people and for cultured persons of prevailing esthetic tastes, especially among the Latin races. Yet it must be noted that converts from Rome often awing to the opposite extreme of utmost simplicity. In this communion every day of the calendar is devoted to the memory of one or more saints. The leading festivals are Christmas, Easter, Pentecost, the feast of the Immaculate Conception, the Annunciation (Mar. 25), Purification (Feb. 2), Assumption of the Virgin Mary, All Saints, and All Souls (Nov. 1, 2; see FEAsTB AND FEsTIvALs). The weekly Sabbath is not nearly as strictly observed in Roman Catholi~· countries as in Great Britain and the United States. Roman Catholic worship is the same all over the world, even in language, the Latin being its sacred organ, and the vernacular being used only for sermons, which are subordinate. Its throne is the altar, not the pulpit (which is usually built at one side). It centers in the Mass (q.v.), and this is regarded as a real though unbloody repetition of the atoning sacrifice of Christ on the cross. At the moment when the officiating priest pronounces the words, "This is my body," the elements of bread and wine are believed to be changed into the very substance of the body and blood of our Savior; and these are offered to God the Father for the sins of the living and the dead in purgatory. The Reformers saw in the mass a relapse into Judaism, a refined form of idolatry, and a virtual denial of the one sacrifice of Christ, who, " by one offering hath perfected forever them that are sanctified " (Heb.