What was ultramontanism a reaction against

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This was the attitude of Innocent III. Thus, too, even at the present time, the opinion is very clearly expressed in Ultramontane quarters that, in the event of the state issuing laws contravening those of nature or of the Church, obedience must be refused.

The attitude of Ultramontanism, for instance, towards the right claimed and exercised by the state to make laws concerning marriage is wholly negative; for it recognizes no marriage laws except those of the Church, the Church alone being regarded as competent to decide what impediments are a bar to marriage, and to exercise jurisdiction over such cases.

Thus Ultramontanism disclaims any moral subjection to secular authority or law, and will recognize the state only in so far as it conforms its rules to those of the Church. An instance of this interference with the duties of the individual citizen towards the state may be found in the fact that, till the year , the Catholics of Italy were prohibited by the pope from taking part in any parliamentary election.

Since Ultramontanism cannot hope to realise its political ambitions unless it succeeds in controlling the intellectual and religious life of Catholic Christendom, it attempts to extend its sphere of influence in all directions over culture, science, education, literature and the forms taken by devotion.

This endeavour is the third great characteristic of Ultramontanism. Wherever its operations can be traced, they are dominated by the conviction that all stirrings of independence must be repressed, and any advance beyond the stage of immaturity and nonage checked at the outset.

That science must be left free to determine the aims of her investigation, to select and apply her own methods, and to publish the results of her researches without restraint, is a postulate which Ultramontanism either cannot understand or treats with indifference, for it regards as strange and incredible the fundamental law governing all scientific research - that there is for it no higher aim than the discovery of the truth.

This ignorance of the very nature of science leads to under-estimation of the elemental force which science possesses; for only thus can we explain the pertinacity with which Ultramontanism, even at the present day, strives to subject her work to its own censorship and control. Nor are its criticisms limited to theology alone: its care extends to philosophy, history and the natural sciences. Even medicine has not escaped its vigilance, as is proved by the prohibition of certain surgical operations.

The development of these efforts. Ultramontanism, too, labours systematically to bring the whole educational organization under ecclesiastical supervision and guidance; and it manifests the greatest repugnance to allowing the future priest to come into touch with the modern spirit. Hence the attempts to train its growing manhood in clerically regulated boarding-schools and to keep it shut out from the external world in clerical seminaries, even in places where there are universities.

Again, it works zealously to bring the elementary schools under the sway of the Church. Since it regards the training and instruction of childhood as inseparable, and holds that the former is essentially the work of the Church, it contests the right of the state to compel parents to send their children to the state schools and only to the state schools.

In logical sequence to these tenets it seeks to divorce the school from the state - a proceeding which it terms educational freedom, though the underlying motive is to subordinate the school to the Church.

In the domain of religion, Ultramontanism tends to foster popular superstitions and to emphasize outward forms as the essence of religious life, for it can only maintain its dominion so long as the common people remain at a low spiritual level. If any one desires to appreciate the intellectual plane and the power - of this Ultramontane habit of thought, he will find ample material in the performances of the notorious swindler Leo Taxil under Leo XIII.

In the fourth place, Ultramontanism is the embodiment of intolerance towards other creeds. The general presupposition involved is that a man cannot be saved except within the Catholic Church. Since, however, on the one hand - in virtue of a theory advanced by Pius IX.

In the past this principle led to the erection of the Inquisition and, even at the present day, there exists in the Curia a special congregation charged with its application ' see' Curia Romana. On the Roman Catholic side the employment of compulsion against heretics has never been acknowledged as a blunder; and this method of silencing opposition has found champions in the bosom of the Church down to the most recent years.

But the development of modern culture has rendered these exploits of an unbridled fanaticism impossible, and no government would consent to enforce the once obligatory sentences of ecclesiastical courts. As a result of this situation, the Catholic condemnation of heresy - though as stringent as ever in principle - has assumed less dangerous forms for the heretic. Nevertheless, it proved capable, even in the 19th century, of imposing onerous restrictions on the heterodox, and practical exemplifications of this hostile attitude persist to the present day.

The embittering influence of Ultramontanism may be further traced in its attitude towards the baptism of nonCatholics, for it seeks to establish the rule that baptism conferred by Protestants is invalid through defect of form or matter, or even of intention, and that, consequently, the rite must be readministered, at least conditionally, to proselytes joining the Roman Church.

Finally, ample scope for the display of tolerance - or intolerance - is found in the mixed marriages between Protestants and Catholics, which, as a result of the modern facilities for intercommunication and the consequent greater mobility of the population, have shown a large increase during the last few decades - in Germany, for instance.

Here, again, Ultramontanism has done much to aggravate the pernicious feud between the two creeds, by exacting a promise before marriage from the Roman Catholic party that all the children shall be brought up as members of the Roman Catholic Church see Marriage: Canon Law. A like result has been produced when, in response to Ultramontane agitation, interdicts have been placed on churchyards in which non-Catholics have found their last resting-place.

Lastly, Ultramontanism is the foe of the nationalization of Catholicism. This peculiarity is connected, though not identical, with the above-mentioned tendency towards the Romanization of the Church. Just as in Protestant countries there has often been an amalgamation of evangelical belief with national feeling, to the great gain of both, Catholics demand that Catholicism shall enter into the sphere of their national interests, and that the activities of the Catholic Church should rest on a national basis.

These aspirations have been proclaimed with especial emphasis in France, in Germany Reformkatholizismus and in the United States Americanism; see Hecker, I. For Ultramontanism fears that any infusion of a national element into ecclesiastical life would entail the eventual independence of the people in question from papal control, and lead to developments opposed to its papalistic mode of thought. It endeavours, therefore, to undermine all aspirations of this nature and, its own tendency being essentially international, strives to ensure that national sentiment and national interests shall not find over-zealous champions among the clergy.

The relationship of Ultramontanism to Catholicism is a much-disputed problem. The Ultramontane, indeed, maintains that there is no justification for distinguishing between the two: but the motives underlying this attitude are obvious.. For, by representing the prosecution of its party-political objects as a championship of the Catholic Church, Ultramontanism seeks to acquire the support of the official organs of that Church, and the good will of all circles interested in her welfare; while at the same time it strives to discredit any attempt at opposition by branding it as an assault on the orthodox faith.

But, even within the pale of the Roman Church, this identification provokes emphatic dissent, and is repudiated by all who are shocked by the effects of a onesided accentuation of political Catholicism on the inner life of the church, and are reluctant to see the priest playing the part of a political agitator.

It was on these grounds that. Count May, in January 19,94, proposed in the chamber of the Bavarian Reichsrath that the clergy should be deprived of the suffrage.

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.