What Aquinas Calls a Causa in English

In our language, it might be better to talk about an objective explanatory factor. What Aquinas calls a causa is broader than what we call a cause in contemporary English. In each of these cases, I ask you a question, and you answer it by pointing to an explanatory factor. These factors really do account for the facts in question. So they are objective explanatory factors, or what a Thomas would call a cause.