Ultramontanism (redirected from ultramontanist)

ultramontanism (ŭl'trəmŏn`tənĭzəm) [Lat.,=beyond the mountains, i.e., the Alps], formerly, point of view of Roman Catholics who supported the pope as supreme head of the church, as distinct from those who professed Gallicanism or other tendencies opposing the papal jurisdiction. The term was used principally in France by Gallicans, especially before the French Revolution, but it was revived in 19th-century Germany by the group that left the church as Old Catholics after the First Vatican Council. The term is now obsolete, since all those in communion with the pope accept his supremacy. See papacy.

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Ultramontanism 

a religious and political trend in Catholicism. Adherents of ultramontanism maintain that the pope has supreme power in ecclesiastical matters and the right to intervene in the secular affairs of any state. First enunciated as a doctrine at the Council of Constance (1414-18), ultramontanism was firmly supported by the Jesuits in the 16th century. In the first half of the 19th century, it was advocated by members of reactionary aristocratic circles, for example, J. M. de Maistre, who saw a centralized church headed by the pope as an effective weapon against revolution. The ideas of ultramontanism were embodied in the Syllabus of Errors (1864) and in the resolutions of the First Vatican Council (1869-70). During the age of imperialism, ultramontanism was adapted to new historical circumstances, and it became the banner of clerical forces opposed to the labor movement and to socialism.