Ultramontanism

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