Catholic Dictionary

Find accurate definitions of over 5,000 Catholic terms and phrases (including abbreviations). Based on Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

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SECULAR

That which belongs to this life, in contrast with the sacred, which pertains to the life to come. The secualr, therefore, is the earthly and not celestial; the human and not the divine; the created and not the uncreated; the temporal and not the eternal; the visible and not the spiritual; the humanly rational and explainable and not the mysterious and ineffable; the relative and therefore changeable with time, place, and circumstances, and not the absolute, which is immutable because and insofar as it is associated with the unchangeable God. (Etym. Latin saecularis, pertaining to the world, saeculum, the world.)