Roman Catholicism is the entirety of the beliefs and practices of the Western and Eastern churches which are in full communion with the Pope of Rome as the claimed successor of St. Peter the Apostle, united together as the Catholic Church. The term Roman Catholic was defined by the Roman Emperor Theodosius on February 27 AD 380 in the Theodosian Code XVI.i.2: "It is our desire that all the various nations which are subject to our clemency and moderation, should continue the profession of that religion which was delivered to the Romans by the divine Apostle Peter, as it has been preserved by faithful tradition and which is now professed by the Pontiff Damasus and by Peter, Bishop of Alexandria, a man of apostolic holiness. According to the apostolic teaching and the doctrine of the Gospel, let us believe in the one Deity of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, in equal majesty and in a holy Trinity. We authorize the followers of this law to assume the title Roman Catholic Christians; but as for the others, since in our judgment they are foolish madmen, we decree that they shall be branded with the ignominious name of heretics, and shall not presume to give their conventicles the name of churches. They will suffer in the first place the chastisement of divine condemnation and the second the punishment of our authority, in accordance with the will of heaven shall decide to inflict."

_{[Extract of English translation from Henry Bettenson, ed., Documents of the Christian Church (London: Oxford University Press, 1943), p. 31, cited at Medieval Sourcebook: Theodosian Code XVI by Paul Halsall, Fordham University. Retrieved Jan 5, 2007. The full Latin text of the code is at IMPERATORIS THEODOSIANI CODEX Liber Decimus Sextus (170KB download), archived from George Mason University. trieved Jan 5, 2007.]}

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The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Miami is a particular church of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States. Its ecclesiastic territory includes Broward, Miami-Dade and Monroe counties in Florida. The archdiocese is the metropolitan see for the Roman Catholic Church in the State of Florida. The current archbishop is John Favalora. As archbishop, Favalora also serves as pastor of the Cathedral of Saint Mary, the mother church of the archdiocese. Also serving are 428 priests, 160 Permanent Deacons, 50 Religious Brothers and 300 Religious Sisters who are members of various Roman Catholic religious orders. These priests, deacons and religious serve a Catholic population in South Florida of 1,300,000 in 118 parishes and missions.Because of the vast number of immigrants, Catholic Mass is offered in at least a dozen languages in parishes throughout the archdiocese.Educational institutions consist of two schools for the disabled, 60 elementary/middle schools, 13 high schools, two universities, and two seminaries.
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The Trevi Fountain is the largest — standing 25.9 meters (85 feet) high and 19.8 meters (65 feet) wide — and most ambitious of the Baroque fountains of Rome. Competitions had become the rage during the Baroque era to design buildings, fountains, and even the Spanish Steps. In 1730 Pope Clement XII organized a contest in which Nicola Salvi initially lost to Alessandro Galilei — but due to the outcry in Rome over the fact that a Florentine won, Salvi was awarded the commission anyway. Work began in 1732, and the fountain was completed in 1762, long after Clement's death, when Pietro Bracci's 'Neptune' was set in the central niche.

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James VI and I (19 June 1566 – 27 March 1625) was King of Scots as James VI, and King of England and King of Ireland as James I. He ruled in Scotland as James VI from 24 July 1567, when he was only one year old, succeeding his mother Mary, Queen of Scots. Regents governed during his minority, which ended officially in 1578, though he did not gain full control of his government until 1581.On 24 March 1603, as James I, he succeeded the last Tudor monarch of England and Ireland, Elizabeth I, who died without issue. He then ruled England, Scotland and Ireland for 22 years, until his death at the age of 58.James achieved most of his aims in Scotland but faced great difficulties in England,including the Gunpowder Plot in 1605 and repeated conflicts with the English Parliament. According to a tradition originating with historians of the mid-seventeenth-century, James's taste for political absolutism, his financial irresponsibility, and his cultivation of unpopular favourites established the foundation for the English Civil War.
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Did you know...

• ...that American painter George Cooke's Interior of St. Peter's Rome (pictured), measuring 17 by 23.5 feet, was the largest oil painting of its time, and still ranks among the world's largest?
• ...that because Fr. Joseph Strub believed the Irish were not seen to be as hard-working as Germans, he specifically requested that Fr. William Power not be selected as the first rector of the Pittsburgh Catholic College?
• ...that Count John A. Creighton was ennobled by Pope Leo XIII in recognition of his contributions to Creighton University, the Catholic community in Omaha, and the city of Omaha in general?
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Feast Day of November 21

Pope Gelasius I was the third pope of African origin (more exactly from Kabylie) in Catholic history. Gelasius had been closely employed by his predecessor, Felix III, especially in drafting papal documents.

Gelasius' election, March 1, 492, was a gesture for continuity: Gelasius inherited Felix's struggles with Eastern Roman Emperor Anastasius I and the patriarch of Constantinople and exacerbated them by insisting on the removal of the name of the late Acacius, patriarch of Constantinople, from the diptychs, in spite of every ecumenical gesture by the current, otherwise quite orthodox patriarch Euphemius (q.v. for details of the Acacian schism).

The split with the emperor and the patriarch of Constantinople was inevitable, from the western point of view, because they had embraced a view of a single, Divine ('Monophysite') nature of Christ, which the papal party viewed as heresy. Gelasius' book De duabus in Christo naturis ('On the dual nature of Christ') delineated the western view.

Thus Gelasius, for all the conservative Latinity of his writing style stood on the cusp of Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages.

During the Acacian schism, Gelasius went further than his predecessors in asserting the primacy of Rome over the entire Church, East and West, and he presented this doctrine in terms that set the model for subsequent popes asserting the claims of papal supremacy.

In 494, Gelasius wrote a very influential letter, known from its incipit as Duo sunt, to Anastasius. This letter established the dualistic principle that would underlie all Western European political thought for almost a millennium. In the letter Gelasius expressed a distinction between "two powers", which he called the "holy authority of bishops" (auctoritas sacrata pontificum) and the "royal power" (regalis potestas). These two powers, auctoritas lending justification to potestas, and potestas providing the executive strength for auctoritas were, he said, to be considered independent in their own spheres of operation, yet expected to work together in harmony.

Closer to home, Gelasius finally suppressed the ancient Roman festival of the Lupercalia after a long contest. Gelasius' letter to Andromachus, the senator, covers the main lines of the controversy and incidentally offers some details of this festival combining fertility and purification that might have been lost otherwise. Significantly, this festival of purification, which had given its name— dies februatus, from februare, "to purify"— to the month of February, was replaced with a Christian festival celebrating the purification of the Virgin Mary instead: Candlemas, observed forty days after Christmas, on 2 February.

Gelasius smoked out the closeted Manichaeans, the heretical dualists who considered themselves Christians and certainly passed for such and were suspected to be present in Rome in large numbers. Gelasius decreed that the Eucharist had to be received "under both kinds", with wine as well as bread. As the Manichaeans held wine to be impure and essentially sinful, they would refuse the chalice and thus be recognized. Later, with the Manichaeans suppressed, the old method of receiving communion under one kind - the bread - was restored.

After a brief but dynamic reign, his death occurred on November 19, 496; his interment occurred on November 21.

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