Ultramontanism
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, was a dweller beyond the mountains (ultra monies), 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 ultramontane. 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 favor 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 (ullramontani). 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. 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.
The tendency toward Ultramontanism which was fostered by the reaction against the French revolution was energetically and persistently seconded at Rome. By every practical expedient that was offered to their hands the popes and their agents wrought for the suppression of Gallican principles and for the promulgation of their absolutist creed. Among these expedients a notable function was fulf1lled by the revision or condemnation of writings that entered prominently into religious education or touched upon the theme of papal prerogatives. In France the phraseology of the catechisms was made by degrees agreeable to Ultramontane presuppositions.
Ultramontanism is an arbitrary term for expressing a belief that by divine right the Bishop of Rome is officially infallible, solely as Bishop of Rome, and without any necessity for the co-operation of any general council : and further, that he has a right to rule the Christian Church as an absolute monarch without regard to the jurisdiction of any national body of Bishops whatsoever.
The Vatican Council originated with the Papacy alone, and was neither demanded nor desired by Roman Catholic Christendom. Its object was confined to securing the triumph of the Ultramontane school within the Roman obedience by establishing papal autocracy as divine and infallible.
While the Council of Trent did much to repair the damage done to the personal authority of the popes by the incidents of the " great schism " and the character of the pontiffs who sat during the close of the 15th and the beginning of the 16th century, it left several questions concerning the source and extent of papal authority undecided, which proved a fruitful cause of debate between the Gallican and Ultramontane schools of theology, the former minimizing the papal claims as far as is compatible with acceptance of the tenet of the Petrine privilege, and viewing the Papacy as a constitutional monarchy under strict limitations, the latter holding it to be an autocracy resting on a divine charter, and incapable of restraint on the part of its subjects. But the French Revolution, by breaking up the old Gallican Church, led to the substitution of a largely Ultramontane episcopate in France under the concordat between Pius VII and Napoleon I.
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