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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SPIRITUALS

Term popularly applied to several groups of the Friars Minor who were in opposition to the modifications of the original rule, notably in the practice of poverty during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. They wished to observe the rule in its primitive severity, but failed in their aim and through the errors of their leaders were led into schism and heresy. Their misguided zeal, when finally brought under control by full submission to papal authority, helped to purify the Franciscan Order and eventually to unify the Friars Minor.