Decidable (= separable) objects and morphisms in lextensive categories

After investigating all conceivable properties of decidable objects and maps in left exact categories with well-behaved finite sums (‘lextensive categories’), we give a characterization in such categories of decidable morphisms which are (finite) coverings (in an appropriate sense). Finally, we give two applications of this result, to separable algebras and to local homeomorphisms. In both cases it explains categorically the advantage of two well-known notions — strongly separable algebras and local homeomorphisms with path lifting property, respectively.