secular abbot
Cleric with the title and some of the honors of the office of abbot, who holds benefices which originally belonged to monastic houses, but which, since the suppression of the latter, are now secularized and transferred to other churches.
There are three classes:
- those who possess quasi-episcopal jurisdiction and the right to wear pontifical insignia;
- those who have only the abbatial dignity;
- those who hold the title of abbot and the privilege of precedence in choir and assemblies in a church to which a suppressed monastery's benefice has been transferred.
New Catholic Dictionary
