Wiktionary
n. An official document or edict from the Pope.
WordNet
n. a formal proclamation issued by the pope (usually written in antiquated characters and sealed with a leaden bulla) [syn: bull]
Wikipedia
A papal bull is a particular type of letters patent or charter issued by a Pope of the Roman Catholic Church. It is named after the lead seal ( bulla) that was appended to the end in order to authenticate it.
Usage examples of "papal bull".
I suggest it was at this eleventh hour that Harold was told (either in William's message, or by the monk himself, or by his own monk who had returned from Hastings) that William was fighting under the papal banner, that he was wearing on his finger the holy relic of St Peter and suspended round his neck the very relics on which Harold had sworn the oath in Normandy, even that William or his Bishop Odo was bearing a papal bull of Harold's excommunication.
The modern Gregorian calendar had been decreed by a papal bull in 1582, and was immediately adopted by Spain, Portugal, France and Italy.
A papal bull correcting the worst abuses of indulgences would probably have satisfied everyone, including Luther.
Luther burned the papal bull in the presence of an admiring multitude and from that moment, peace between himself and the Pope was no longer possible.
His expression grew bitter as he recounted how the papal bull Pastoralis praeeminentiae, issued on November 22, 1307, had ordered all monarchs of Christendom to arrest the Templars and sequester their lands in the name of the papacy.
The Ladies who, nonetheless, were shielded from the Inquisition by Father General Vitelleschi, even in the face of a papal bull dissolving them.