Ultramontanism

Ultramontanism is a clerical political conception within the Catholic Church that places strong emphasis on the prerogatives and powers of the Pope.

The term originates in ecclesiastical language from the Middle Ages: when a non-Italian 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 English bishops at the First Vatican Council were characterized by their ultramontanism and described as "being more Catholic than the Pope himself."

The term "ultramontanism" was revived during the French Third Republic (1870–1940) as a pejorative way to describe policies that went against laïcité—i.e., that advocated integrating Roman Catholicism into government policy. In the years of the Kulturkampf in the German Empire (1871 - 1878) and in Switzerland the term was also used for the Catholics opposing the separation of church and state.

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