LUKE, a learned Roman Catholic priest, was born at Waterford, October 16, 1588. At the age of fifteen he was sent abroad to be educated for the church, and he studied first at the Jesuit seminary at Lisbon, and after entering the Franciscan order in 1605, at their convents at Liria, Coimbra, and Lisbon. Having taken orders, he proceeded to Salamanca, and was appointed lecturer in theology at that university. In 1618, he accompanied the bishop of Cartagena, who went to Rome as a legate to settle the controversy on the Immaculate Conception; and on this subject he wrote several pamphlets as well as a history of the legation. Wadding also found time to edit the great Hebrew Concordance of Calasio, who had died before his work could be printed, and to publish an edition of some writings of St Francis, and of the whole works of Duns Scotus, with a life of the "subtle doctor," in 12 vols. fol., 1639. His most important original work is the Annals of the Franciscan Order, in 8 vols. folio, 1639. The greater part of his life was spent at Rome, where he died in 1637. Wadding was one of the councillors appointed in the case of the celebrated Jansen, and had pronounced an opinion in favour of his doctrines; but when the papal bull condemned them, he unhesitatingly retracted his former statements.