different peoples—in short, that all may be Catholic rather than all become Latin. Benedict XIV, however, echoing the words of Pope Gelasius I, universally banned the practice of females serving the priest at the altar, noting that the practice had spread to certain Oriental Rites. Chinese rites and Indian rites He had a very active papacy, reforming the education of priests, the calendar of feasts of the church, and many papal institutions. 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 (11 July 1742), and Omnium sollicitudinum (12 September 1744). In these bulls he ruled on the custom of accommodating non-Christian words and usages to express Christian ideas and practices of the native cultures, which had been extensively done by the Jesuits in their Indian and Chinese missions. An example of this is the statues of ancestors – there had long been uncertainty whether honour paid to one's ancestors was unacceptable 'ancestor worship,' or if it was something more like the Catholic veneration of the saints. This question was especially pressing in the case of an ancestor known not to have been a Christian. The choice of a Chinese translation for the name of God had also been debated since the early 17th century. Benedict XIV denounced these practices in these two bulls. The consequence of this was that many of these converts left the church. During his papacy, Benedict XIV commissioned a team of architects, led by Nicola Salvi and Luigi Vanvitelli, to design a large palace that was to be 'more complex and with greater baroque style than the box of a palace Vanvitelli designed in Caserta'. The palace was to be built south of St. Peter's Basilica, but was never built, as the plans were quietly ignored by Benedict's successor, Clement XIII. They were brought up once more by Pius VI late in his papacy, but had to stop due to the possibility of invasion. On 15 December 1744, Benedict XIV blessed the baroque chapel (Chapel of St. John the Baptist) in Sant'Antonio dei Portoghesi in Rome, which featured mosaics on the sides, floor, and wall behind the altar made of semi-precious stones. The chapel, which had been commissioned by King John V of Portugal in 1740, was designed by Nicola Salvi and Luigi Vanvitelli. When complete, it was then shipped