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Neo-ultramontanism (ornew ultramontanism) is the belief of certainRoman Catholics, primarily during the period immediately prior to theFirst Vatican Council, thatpapal infallibility was not restricted to a small number of papal statements but appliedipso facto (by virtue of being said by thePope) to all papal teachings and statements.
Although few contemporaryhistorians of the Roman Catholic Church distinguish between neo-ultramontanism and the more moderate ultramontanism of mainstream nineteenth-century Roman Catholicism, there were substantial differences between the two. The neo-ultramontanes wanted to pass by decree the most extreme definition of papal infallibility possible and did not wish for debates at all. They were, indeed, regarded as imprudent by more moderate ultramontanists who won the debate at the First Vatican Council.
Neo-ultramontanism as a movement dates back to the writings ofJoseph de Maistre, who inDu Pape ("The Pope"), argued essentially that what thePope says is true to the exclusion of all other contrary truths. In the following period the ideals of neo-ultramontanism were formulated – though for many years in a quite incoherent manner – to free theRoman Catholic Church from the power of the secular state. Many who know about it see neo-ultramontanism as the most extreme reaction to the ideas promoted by theFrench Revolution, which made them turn to the papacy as the last bastion of truth. Its main bastion in these early days was the French journalUnivers under the leadership of Louis Veuillot.
The termneo-ultramontanism, however, was not coined until 1893, when it was used byone of its strongest adherents,[citation needed] the British lay convertWilliam George Ward[1] and adopted by CardinalHenry Manning.Cuthbert Butler, an historian of theFirst Vatican Council, summarized Ward's viewpoint:
He held that the infallible element of bulls, encyclicals, etc., should not be restricted to their formal definitions but ran through the entire doctrinal instructions; the decrees of the Roman Congregation, if adopted by the Pope and published with his authority, thereby were stamped with the mark of infallibility, in short "his every doctrinal pronouncement is infallibly rendered by the Holy Ghost".[2]
During the lead-up to the First Vatican Council the neo-ultramontanes were very well organized and included within their ranks a substantial portion of the 601 bishops who voted on the question ofinfallibility at thatcouncil. They were concentrated in Western Europe, but did not manage to win the debate, which liberal historians attribute to their lack of theological and historical understanding of how the doctrine of infallibility was first proposed.[citation needed]
After the First Vatican Council, neo-ultramontanism as a semi-organized movement declined as its chief adherents were not replaced.Pope Leo XIII never attempted to exercise infallibility and by the time of his death all the neo-ultramontane publications had been closed down or had changed their views on what was now "history" (the First Vatican Council and the debates within it). However, some liberal theologians and historians have argued since the beginning ofJohn Paul II's papacy that a view of papal infallibility analogous to that proposed by neo-ultramontanes has made a comeback. This has been especially true since the controversy surrounding the aftermath ofOrdinatio sacerdotalis in 1994[citation needed] and "On Not Inventing Doctrine",Nicholas Lash's article inThe Tablet about that letter published a year and a half later.[3] However, neither Pope John Paul II norPope Benedict XVI have cited nineteenth-century neo-ultramontanists as influences on their theological or ecclesiological viewpoints.
Many Catholic Church historians are critical of the termneo-ultramontanism because they believe that it fails to clarify clearly the position of those who advocated it and that it was never in any general use, always being confined to a few of either its staunchest advocates or to strong opponents of its beliefs like theLord Acton.
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