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From the "Catholic Encyclopedia", a very good source on Catholic teachings and terminology:
>As signifying the Church, the word Ecclesia is used by Christian writers, sometimes in a wider, sometimes in a more restricted sense.
>It is employed to denote all who, from the beginning of the world, have believed in the one true God, and have been made His children by grace. In this sense, it is sometimes distinguished, signifying the Church before the Old Covenant, the Church of the Old Covenant, or the Church of the New Covenant. Thus St. Gregory (Book V, Epistle 18) writes: "Sancti ante legem, sancti sub lege, sancti sub gratiâ, omnes hi . . . in membris Ecclesiæ sunt constituti" (The saints before the Law, the saints under the Law, and the saints under grace — all these are constituted members of the Church).
>It may signify the whole body of the faithful, including not merely the members of the Church who are alive on earth but those, too, whether in heaven or in purgatory, who form part of the one communion of saints. Considered thus, the Church is divided into the Church Militant, the Church Suffering, and the Church Triumphant.
>It is further employed to signify the Church Militant of the New Testament. Even in this restricted acceptation, there is some variety in the use of the term. The disciples of a single locality are often referred to in the New Testament as a Church (Revelation 2:18; Romans 16:4; Acts 9:31), and St. Paul even applies the term to disciples belonging to a single household (Romans 16:5; 1 Corinthians 16:19, Colossians 4:15; Philemon 1-2). Moreover, it may designate specially those who exercise the office of teaching and ruling the faithful, the Ecclesia Docens (Matthew 18:17), or again the governed as distinguished from their pastors, the Ecclesia Discens (Acts 20:28). In all these cases the name belonging to the whole is applied to a part. The term, in its full meaning, denotes the whole body of the faithful, both rulers and ruled, throughout the world (Ephesians 1:22; Colossians 1:18). It is in this meaning that the Church is treated of in the present article. As thus understood, the definition of the Church given by Bellarmine is that usually adopted by Catholic theologians: "A body of men united together by the profession of the same Christian Faith, and by participation in the same sacraments, under the governance of lawful pastors, more especially of the Roman Pontiff, the sole vicar of Christ on earth" (Coetus hominum ejusdem christianæ fidei professione, et eorumdem sacramentorum communione colligatus, sub regimine legitimorum pastorum et præcipue unius Christi in Terris vicarii Romani Pontificis. — Bellarmine, De Eccl., III, ii, 9). The accuracy of this definition will appear in the course of the article.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03744a.htm