a piece of ground adjoining to a church, and set apart for the interment of the dead.

In the church of Rome such grounds are blessed or consecrated with great solemnity. If a churchyard which has been thus consecrated shall afterwards be polluted by any indecent action, or profaned by the burial of an infidel, a heretic, an excommunicated or unbaptized person, it must be reconciled; and the ceremony of the reconciliation is performed with the same solemnity as that of the blessing or consecration.