Ultramontanism

The term descends from the Middle Ages, when a non-Italian pope was said to be papa ultramontano – a pope from beyond the mountains (the Alps).[1] Foreign students at medieval Italian universities also were referred to as ultramontani.

After the Protestant Reformation in France, the concept was revived but with its directionality reversed to indicate the man "beyond the mountains" in Italy: the Pope. The term ultramontain was used to refer to Catholics who supported papal authority in French affairs – as opposed to the Gallican and Jansenist factions, who did not – and was intended as an insult implying lack of patriotism.[1] From the 17th century, ultramontanism became closely associated with the Jesuits.[2]

In the 18th century the term came to refer to supporters of the Church in any conflict between church and state. In Austria ultramontanists were opposed to Josephinism, and in Germany to Febronianism. In Great Britain and Ireland ultramontanists resisted Cisalpinism, which favored concessions to the Protestant state in order to achieve Catholic emancipation.

In eighteenth-century Spain, the Bourbon monarchs began implementing policies of regalism, which expanded the power of the monarchy and sought to bring the Catholic Church under its jurisdiction in all matters except the spiritual sphere. Charles III of Spain's ministers, Count of Floridablanca and the Count of Campomanes rejected the arguments of the ultramontanists that the Church had inalienable rights in the secular sphere.[3] The regalist reforms that the Spanish crown sought to implement were not completely successful, and the resistance to them were attributed to support for the Society of Jesus, which had been expelled from the Spanish Empire in 1767, but prior to that were educators.[4]

In Canada, the majority of Catholic clergy despised the French Revolution and its anti-clerical bias and looked to Rome for both spiritual and political guidance. There were many laymen and laywomen who supported these ideals as key to preserving Canadian institutions and values. For this reason they were called ultramontanists. The ultramontanes distrusted both the Protestant anglophone and francophone politicians, but the Church found it easier to deal with British governors, who appreciated the role of the Church in containing dissent, than with the francophone liberal professionals who were secularists.[5]

Pope Pius IX called the First Vatican Council

According to Catholic academic Jeffrey P. von Arx,

The threat to the Catholic Church and the papacy through the 19th century was real, and the church’s reaction to that threat was understandable. Indeed, the church remained threatened on all sides. On the left, secular liberals sought to reduce or eliminate the role of the church in public life and civil society (by suppressing church schools, for example, and expelling religious congregations). The more radical heirs of the revolution and the socialists and communists into whom they evolved remained committed to the church’s utter destruction. But the threat was also from the nationalist right. Otto von Bismarck’s Kulturkampf was aimed directly at the Catholic Church, imposing state supervision of Catholic schools and seminaries and government appointment of bishops with no reference to Rome.[6]

The response was a condemnation of Gallicanism as heretical:

[W]e condemn and reject the opinions of those who hold that this communication of the supreme head with pastors and flocks may be lawfully obstructed; or that it should be dependent on the civil power, which leads them to maintain that what is determined by the apostolic see or by its authority concerning the government of the church, has no force or effect unless it is confirmed by the agreement of the civil authority.[7]

Cardinal Henry Edward Manning

The Council also asserted papal primacy. In July 1870, it issued the Dogmatic constitution Pastor aeternus, defining four doctrines of the Catholic faith: the apostolic primacy conferred on Peter, the perpetuity of this primacy in the Roman pontiffs, the meaning and power of the papal primacy, and Papal infallibility.

[W]e teach and declare that, by divine ordinance, the Roman Church possesses a pre-eminence of ordinary power over every other Church, and that this jurisdictional power of the Roman Pontiff is both episcopal and immediate. Both clergy and faithful, of whatever rite and dignity, both singly and collectively, are bound to submit to this power by the duty of hierarchical subordination and true obedience, and this not only in matters concerning faith and morals, but also in those which regard the discipline and government of the Church throughout the world."[8]

Von Arx compares this to "...the great empires and national states of the 19th century, which used new means of communication and transportation to consolidate power, enforce unity and build bureaucracies."[6] "Cardinal Henry Edward Manning in Great Britain thought unity and discipline within the church were of the utmost importance in protecting the church and advancing its interests in a liberal, democratic state, and so he was one of the strongest advocates of the ultramontane position."[6] The English bishops at the Council were characterized by their ultramontanism and described as "being more Catholic than the Pope himself".[9]

1881 illustration depicting papal infallibility

Some, such as the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, claim the Catholic Social Teaching of subsidiarity can overrun ultramontanism and has the potential to decentralize the Roman Catholic Church,[11] whereas others defend it as merely a bureaucratic adjustment to give more pastoral responsibility to local bishops and priests of local parishes.[12]

Challenges to ultramontanism have remained strong within and outside Roman jurisdiction.[13] Ultramontanism has particularly overshadowed ecumenical work between the Roman Catholic Church and both Lutherans and Anglicans.[14] The joint Anglican-Roman Catholic International Consultation published The Gift of Authority in 1999, highlights agreements and differences on these issues.[15]

Papal primacy, supremacy and infallibility
Overview Primacy of Peter & Papal primacy Papal supremacy Papal infallibility First Vatican Council § Papal infallibility
Patriarchs compared to popes Papal primacy Episcopal see § Catholic Church Apiarius of Sicca § Appeal to the bishop of Rome Pentarchy § After the East–West Schism Pope John XIX § Life Gregory II Youssef § First Vatican Council Ravenna Document Eastern Orthodox opposition to papal supremacy
Ecumenical councils compared to popes Conciliarity Conciliarism § Modern conciliarism Ecumenical council § Acceptance of the councils To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation § The Third Wall: Authority to Call a Council Ultrajectines
Catholic episcopal councils compared to popes Febronianism Christus Dominus § Controversy The Ratzinger Report
Political rulers compared to popes Gallicanism Patronato real Josephinism Febronianism Cisalpinism Appointment of Catholic bishops § Centralization of papal power Concordat § List Papal deposing power
Existing dogma compared to popes Development of doctrine Cum ex apostolatus officio Pascendi Dominici gregis
Objections and controversy Ecclesiastical differences between the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church § Papal authority Ignaz von Döllinger § Papal authority Ultramontanism § Position of other apostolic churches Papal infallibility § Objections Old Catholic Church § First Vatican Council, Old Catholic Union of Utrecht Sedevacantism Josip Juraj Strossmayer § Catholic diplomacy Ultrajectine

Ultramontanism is distinct from the positions adopted by the other traditional churches, particularly the Anglican communion, Eastern Orthodox communion, the Oriental Orthodox communion, the Old Catholic Church, or the Church of the East. These churches regard the pope as having been primus inter pares when the churches were united in full communion, and generally still acknowledge that status today, albeit in an impaired form due to disunity; similarly they do not recognize the doctrines of infallibility or the pope's alleged universal jurisdiction over patriarchates and autocephalous churches other than that of Rome itself, except insofar as this is part of the concept of primus inter pares.[16]

In the joint agreed statement "The Gift of Authority" (1999) the Anglican Communion and the Roman Catholic church were agreed on the collegial nature of the life and work of bishops.[17]^: 148 Similarly both churches acknowledged the role of episcopal primacy within the college of bishops.[17]^: 151 On the question of the universal primacy of the Pope, the joint report found common ground, and stated that a "particular conclusion" of their discussions had been "that Anglicans be open to and desire a recovery and re-reception under certain clear conditions of the exercise of universal primacy by the Bishop of Rome";[17]^: 159 nonetheless a clear distinction remained between the Anglican view of a universal primacy exercised within a universal collegiality, and the Roman Catholic view of a universal primacy with actual universal jurisdiction.

• Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Ultramontanism" . Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.

Look up ultramontane in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• The Gift of Authority (Eternal Word Television Network)
• Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Ultramontanism" . Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.