Ultramontanism

File:Papa Sant'Alessandro Porta Pia Roma.JPG

Statue 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 clerical-political conception within the Catholic Church that places strong emphasis on (and expresses loyalty to) the prerogatives and powers of the Pope in matters related to civil state governance. It contrasts with Gallicanism, the belief that popular civil authority – often represented by the monarch's or state's authority – over the Church is comparable to that of the Pope.

History

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). 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. From the 17th century, ultramontanism became closely associated with the Jesuits.

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. 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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". "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." The English bishops at the council were characterized by their ultramontanism and described as "being more Catholic than the Pope himself".

Reaction

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.

As with previous pronouncements by the pope, liberals across Europe were outraged by the doctrine of infallibility and many countries reacted with laws to counter the influence of the church. The term "ultramontanism" was revived during the French Third Republic (1870–1940) as a pejorative way to describe policies that went against laïcité, a concept rooted in the French Revolution. The French philosopher Jacques Maritain noted the distinction between the models found in France and the separation of church and state in the United States in the mid-twentieth century. He considered the US model of that time to be more amicable because it had both "sharp distinction and actual cooperation" between church and state, what he called "an historical treasure" and admonished the United States, "Please to God that you keep it carefully, and do not let your concept of separation veer round to the European one."

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 were rather inspired by erroneous private opinions of some Catholic laymen who tend to identify themselves completely with the Holy See.

At the Second Vatican Council's Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen gentium, the 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 doctrines 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 No. 25 and later codified in the 1983 revision of Canon Law.

Reception

Some, such as the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, have said the Catholic social teaching of subsidiarity can overrun ultramontanism and has the potential to decentralize the Catholic Church, whereas others defend it as merely a bureaucratic adjustment to give more pastoral responsibility to local bishops and priests of local parishes.

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

Position of other traditional churches

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. 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.

In the joint agreed statement "The Gift of Authority" (1999) the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion were agreed on the collegial nature of the life and work of bishops.^{: 148} Similarly both churches acknowledged the role of episcopal primacy within the college of bishops.^{: 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";^{: 159} nonetheless a clear distinction remained between the Anglican view of a universal primacy exercised within a universal collegiality, and the Catholic view of a universal primacy with actual universal jurisdiction.

See also

• Caesaropapism
• Donation of Constantine
• Thomas Erastus
• Integralism
• Interdict
• Louis-Antoine Caraccioli
• Neo-ultramontanism
• Quanta cura
• Syllabus of Errors
• Temporal power (papal)

From the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia

Ultramontanism — A term used to denote integral and active Catholicism, because it recognizes as its spiritual head the pope, who, for the greater part of Europe, is a dweller beyond the mountains (ultra montes), that is, beyond the Alps. The term "ultramontane", indeed, is relative: from the Roman, or Italian, point of view, the French, the Germans, and all the other peoples north of the Alps are ultramontanes, and technical ecclesiastical language actually applies the word in precisely this sense. In the Middle Ages, when a non-Italian pope was elected he was said to be a papa ultramontano. In this sense the word occurs very frequently in documents of the thirteenth century; after the migration to Avignon, however, it dropped out of the language of the Curia.

In a very different sense, the word once more came into use after the Protestant Reformation, which was, among other things, a triumph of that ecclesiastical particularism, based on political principles, which was formulated in the maxim: Cujus regio, ejus religio. Among the Catholic governments and peoples there gradually developed an analogous tendency to regard the papacy as a foreign power; Gallicanism and all forms of French and German regalism affected to look upon the Holy See as an alien power because it was beyond the Alpine boundaries of both the French kingdom and the German empire. This name of Ultramontane the Gallicans applied to the supporters of the Roman doctrines—whether that of the monarchical character of the pope in the government of the Church or of the infallible pontifical magisterium—inasmuch as the latter were supposed to renounce "Gallican liberties" in favour of the head of the Church who resided ultra montes. This use of the word was not altogether novel; as early as the time of Gregory VII the opponents of Henry IV in Germany had been called Ultramontanes (ultramontani). In both cases the term was intended to be opprobrious, or at least to convey the imputation of a failing in attachment to the Ultramontane's own prince, or his country, or his national Church.

In the eighteenth century the word passed from France back to Germany, where it was adopted by the Febronians, Josephinists, and Rationalists, who called themselves Catholics, to designate the theologians and the faithful who were attached to the Holy See. Thus it acquired a much wider signification, being applicable to all Roman Catholics worthy of the name. The Revolution adopted this polemical term from the old regime: the "Divine State", formerly personified in the prince, now found its personification in the people, becoming more "Divine" than ever as the State became more and more laic and irreligious, and, both in principle and in fact, denied any other God but itself. In presence of this new form of the old state-worship, the "Ultramontane" is the antagonist of the atheists as much as the non-Catholic believers, if not more—witness the Bismarckian Kulturkampf, of which the National Liberals rather than the orthodox Protestants were the soul. Thus the word came to be applied more especially in Germany from the earliest decades of the nineteenth century. In the frequent conflicts between Church and State the supporters of the Church's liberty and independence as against the State are called Ultramontanes. The Vatican Council naturally called forth numerous written attacks upon Ultramontanism. When the Centre was formed as a political party it was called by preference the Ultramontane party. In a few years the "Anti-Ultramontane Reichsverband" came into existence to combat the Centre and, at the same time, Catholicism as a whole.

As our present purpose is to state what Ultramontanism is, it is beside our scope to expound the Catholic doctrine on the power of the Church and, in particular, of the pope, whether in spiritual or temporal matters, these subjects being treated elsewhere under their respective titles. It is sufficient here to indicate what our adversaries mean by Ultramontanism. For Catholics it would be superfluous to ask whether Ultramontanism and Catholicism are the same thing: assuredly, those who combat Ultramontanis are in fact combating Catholicism, even when they disclaim the desire to oppose it. One of the recent adversaries of Ultramontanism among Catholics was a priest, Professor Franz Xaver Kraus, who says ("Spektatorbrief", II, quoted in the article Ultramontanismus in "Realencycl. für prot. Theol. u. Kirche", ed. 1908): "1. An Ultramontane is one who sets the idea of the Church above that of religion; 2....who substitutes the pope for the Church; 3....who believes that the kingdom of God is of this world and that, as medieval curialism asserted, the power of the keys, given to Peter, included temporal jurisdiction also; 4....who believes that religious conviction can be imposed or broken with material force; 5....who is ever ready to sacrifice to an extraneous authority the plain teaching of his own conscience." According to the definition given in Leichtenberger, "Encycl. des sciences religieuses" (ed. 1882): "The character of Ultramontanism is manifested chiefly in the ardour with which it combats every movement of independence in the national Churches, the condemnation which it visits upon works written to defend that independence, its denial of the rights of the State in matters of government, of ecclesiastical administration and ecclesiastical control, the tenacity with which it has prosecuted the declaration of the dogma of the pope's infallibility and with which it incessantly advocates the restoration of his temporal power as a necessary guarantee of his spiritual sovereignty."

The war against Ultramontanism is accounted for not merely by its adversaries' denial of the genuine Catholic doctrine of the Church's power and that of her supreme ruler, but also, and even more, by the consequences of that doctrine. It is altogether false to attribute to the Church either political aims of temporal dominion among the nations or the pretence that the pope can at his own pleasure depose sovereigns that the Catholic must, even in purely civil matters, subordinate his obedience towards his own sovereign to that which he owes to the pope, that the true fatherland of the Catholic is Rome, and so forth. These are either pure inventions or malicious travesties. It is neither scientific nor honest to attribute to "Ultramontanism" the particular teaching of some theologian or some school of times past; or to invoke certain facts in medieval history, which may be explained by the peculiar conditions, or by the rights which the popes possessed in the Middle Ages (for example, their rights in conferring the imperial crown). For the rest, it is sufficient to follow attentively, one by one, the struggle kept up in their journals and books to be convinced that this warfare by the Rationalist-Protestant-Modernist coalition against "Clericalism" or "Ultramontanism" is, fundamentally, directed against integral Catholicism—that is, against papal, anti-Liberal, and counter-Revolutionary Catholicism. (See also STATE AND CHURCH; FEBRONIANISM; SYLLABUS.)

Bibliography

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

External links

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