Ultramontanism
An image of
Pope Alexander I.
Ultramontane Catholics emphasized the authority of the Pope over
temporal affairs of civil governments as well as the spiritual affairs
of the
Church.
Ultramontanism is a religious belief found within the
Catholic Church that places strong emphasis on the prerogatives and powers of the
Pope.
History
The term originates in ecclesiastical language from the
Middle Ages: when a non-Italian man was elected to the papacy, he was said to be
papa ultramontano, that is, a Pope from beyond the mountains (referring to the
Alps). Foreign students at medieval Italian universities were also referred to as
ultramontanes.
The word was revived but the meaning reversed after the
Protestant Reformation in France, to indicate the 'man beyond the mountains' located in Italy. In France, the name
ultramontain was applied to people who supported papal authority in French political affairs, as opposed to the
Gallican and
Jansenist
factions of the indigenous French Catholic Church. The term was
intended to be insulting, or at least to imply a lack of true
patriotism.
From the 17th century, ultramontanism became closely associated with the
Jesuits, who defended the superiority of Popes over councils and kings, even in temporal questions.
In the 18th century the word passed to
Germany (
Josephinism and
Febronianism),
where it acquired a much wider significance, being applicable to all
the conflicts between Church and State, the supporters of the Church
being called
Ultramontanes. In Great Britain and Ireland, it was a reaction to
Cisalpinism, the stance of moderate lay Catholics who sought to make patriotic concessions to the Protestant state to achieve
Catholic emancipation.
The word ultramontanism was revived in the context of the
French Third Republic as a general insulting term for policies advocating the involvement of the
Roman Catholic Church in the policies of the French government, in opposition to
laïcité.
In the above cases, the ultramontanist movement acted as a
counterbalance to growing power of the state in Europe. Roman Catholic
apologists argued that if the Pope has ultimate authority in the Church,
then national churches would be more immune to interference from their
governments.
Within the Roman Catholic Church, Ultramontanism achieved victory over
conciliarism at the
First Vatican Council with the pronouncement of
papal infallibility (the ability of the pope to define dogmas free from error
ex cathedra) and of
papal supremacy,
i.e., supreme, full, immediate, and universal ordinary jurisdiction of
the Pope. Other Christian groups outside the Catholic Church declared
this as the triumph of what they termed "the
heresy of Ultramontanism." It was specifically decried in the
Declaration of the Catholic Congress at Munich, in the
Theses of Bonn, and in the
Declaration of Utrecht, which became the foundational documents of
Old Catholics (Altkatholische) who split with Rome over the declaration on infallibility and supremacy, joining the
Old Episcopal Order Catholic See of Utrecht, which had been independent from
Rome since 1723.
Italian unification under the leadership of
Giuseppe Mazzini and
Giuseppe Garibaldi dissolved the political entity of the
Papal States in 1870. Thus, as a result of the 1929
Lateran Treaty which established a
Concordat between the
Holy See and the nation of Italy, the secular power of the
Bishop of Rome, i.e., the
Pope, was reduced to the one square mile of
Vatican City, the smallest sovereign nation on earth. Prior to the demise of the Papal States, the
First Vatican Council had been convened by Pope
Pius IX.
After
Italian Unification and the abrupt (and unofficial) end of the
First Vatican Council in 1870 because of the outbreak of the
Franco-Prussian War,
the Ultramontanist movement and the opposing Conciliarism became
obsolete to a large extent. However, some very extreme tendencies of a
minority of adherents to Ultramontanism—especially those attributing to
the Roman Pontiff, even in his private opinions, absolute infallibility
even in matters beyond faith and morals, and
impeccability—survived and were eagerly used by opponents of the
Catholic Church and papacy before the
Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) for use in their propaganda. These extreme tendencies, however, were never supported by the
First Vatican Council's
dogma of 1870 of papal infallibility and primacy, but are rather
inspired by erroneous private opinions of some Roman Catholic laymen who
tend to identify themselves completely with the
Holy See.
[Note this wiki article has a SERIOUS gap insofar as leaving out the conflict between Rome and Protestant Germany. ]
http://continuingcounterreformation.blogspot.com/2011/06/cardinal-wisemanthe-decisive-battle.html
http://continuingcounterreformation.blogspot.com/2011/06/kulturkampf-1874.html
http://continuingcounterreformation.blogspot.com/2009/07/wlodimir-ledochowski-kulturkampf_17.html
At the
Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) the debate on papal primacy and authority re-emerged,
[citation needed] and in the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church
Lumen Gentium,
the Roman Catholic Church's teaching on the authority of the Pope,
bishops and councils was further elaborated. The post-conciliar position
of the
Apostolic See did not deny any of the previous dogmas of
papal infallibility or
papal primacy; rather, it shifted emphasis from structural and organizational authority to doctrinal teaching authority (also known as the
Magisterium). Papal
Magisterium, i.e., Papal teaching authority, was defined in
Lumen Gentium #25 and later codified in the 1983 revision of
Canon Law.
Controversy
Some
[who?] may claim the
Catholic Social Teaching (see
Distributism) of
subsidiarity contradicts Ultramontanism and accuse it of decentralizing the Roman Catholic Church, whereas others
[who?]
defend it as merely a bureaucratic adjustment to give more pastoral
responsibility to local bishops and priests of local parishes. However,
subsidiarity involves the distribution of authority in structures
outside of the Church's clergy and thus does not contradict
Ultramontanism.
Challenges to Ultramontanism have remained strong within and outside of Roman jurisdiction
[citation needed]. Ultramontanism has particularly overshadowed ecumenical work between the Roman Catholic Church and both
Lutherans and
Anglicans[citation needed]. The joint
Anglican-Roman Catholic International Consultation published The Gift of Authority (see external links below) in 1998 and highlights agreements and differences on these issues.
Position of other Apostolic Churches
Ultramontanism is not recognised by either the
Eastern Orthodox communion, the
Oriental Orthodox communion, or the
Church of the East, which view it as an innovation unsupported by Scripture and Tradition. These Churches regard the Pope as having been
primus inter pares
when the two churches were in communion, and do not recognize the
doctrines of infallibility or the Pope's alleged universal jurisdiction
over patriarchates and autocephalous Churches other than that of Rome,
except insofar as this is part of the concept of
primus inter pares[citation needed]
See also