Animal rurale

• animal rurale: (Latin) country animal, from The Prophecy of the Popes attributed to St. Malachy, this designation is assigned to Pope Benedict XIV (1675 – 1758), pope from 1740 to his death. Perhaps the most important act of Benedict XIV's pontificate was the promulgation of his famous laws about missions in the two bulls, Ex quo singulari and Omnium solicitudinum. In these bulls he ruled on the custom of accommodating Christian words and usages to express non-Christian ideas and practices of the native cultures.

• • The Prophecy of the Popes: attributed to Saint Malachy, a 12th-century Irish bishop. The document is a list of 112 short phrases in Latin. They purport to describe each of the Roman Catholic popes (along with a few anti-popes), beginning with Pope Celestine II (elected in 1143)