06/03/2026
UltraMontanism
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The crisis the Church is experiencing today is partly attributable to the apparent victory of the Ultramontanist faction at the First Oecumenical Vatican Council. Their error was to understand authority in the Church as stemming from the pope of Rome as the Absolute Monarch of the Church and only being shared by the rest of the bishops by a participation in a charism which is – in essence – only proper to his Petrine Office.
They may not have believed that the Roman Pontiff was an absolute monarch – unconstrained by any context, circumstances, or mandate – and only accountable to God; but their legacy is a very prevalent belief (among the naïve and ignorant, but also many who think themselves erudite and sophisticated) that the Roman Pope is God’s personal representative on Earth; that his election is underpinned by divine providence and – in effect – that he is “God’s chosen one”; and that he is divinely inspired – at least when he acts officially or sets something out by spoken or written word in anything considered to be more than “off the cuff” remarks.
"Sacred Scripture and Tradition constitute the remote norms of our faith, but the next regula fidei is represented by the teaching and judging authority of the Church, which has its apex with the Pope.
There is no Tradition outside of [the papal office], just as there is no Sola Scriptura independent of the Magisterium of the Church…
The Church is based on Tradition, but it cannot continue without the Pope, whose authority cannot be transferred to either an oecumenical council, a national episcopate or a permanent synod…
The Roman Pontiff, successor of Peter, prince of the Apostles, is the guarantor par excellence of the Church’s Tradition…
What the Protestants… and Orthodox… have in common is the rejection of the infallibility of the Pope and his universal Primacy… there is no radical difference between the Eastern Schism and Western Protestantism."
[R. de Mattei “Ultramontanists: Godfathers of the Trad Movement” (2022)
https://onepeterfive.com/ultramontanists-godfathers-trad-movement/]
"It is a fundamental truth in all religious matters that every church that is not Catholic is Protestant… Every Christian who refuses the Holy Father’s communion is a Protestant or soon will be."
[J. de Maistre “Du Pape” (H. Pélagaud, Lyon-Paris: 1878) p401]
"But if the Church is infallible there must be a subject who exercises this charism. This subject is the Pope and it cannot be anyone other than him. In the faith of the infallibility of the Pope lie the roots of the faith in the infallibility of the whole Church."
[M. Schmaus “Catholic Dogmatics vol 3/1” (Marietti; Casale Monferrato:1963) p696]
For many Catholics today, the Pope is not the Vicar of Christ on Earth: whose job it is to transmit intact and pure the doctrine he has received; rather, he is a successor to Christ: one who perfects the doctrine of his predecessors, adapting it to the changing times.
They believe that Gospel doctrine is in perpetual evolution and coincides with whatever the reigning Pontiff asserts it to be. Sacred Tradition is supplanted by the “living Magisterium”, which is transformed every day.
"One does not need theological science to understand that, in the unfortunate case of contrast – true or apparent – between the 'living Magisterium' and Tradition, primacy can only be attributed to Tradition, for one simple reason. Tradition (which is the living Magisterium considered in its universality and continuity) is in itself infallible; whereas the so-called 'living Magisterium' – understood as the current preaching of the ecclesiastical hierarchy – is so only under certain conditions."
[R. de Mattei “Apologia della Tradizione” (Lindau; Turin: 2011) p146]
This belief enabled Paul VI to begin the revolutionary process of “self-destruction” which has ravaged the Church ever since.
It enabled John-Paul II to apply the brakes for a brief pause (while doing nothing whatever to address the underlying malaise) and made it possible for him to make even more extreme claims for arbitrary papal authority: in effect asserting that the Roman Pontiff could indicate definitively that some proposition was undoubtedly true without exercising the charism of infallibility – thereby exercising coercive theological power without having to take personal responsibility for doing so.
Benedict XVI did not subscribe to this erroneous doctrine, and so never acted in accordance with it.
Pope Francis revelled in the self-perceived plenitude of this supposed power: ransacking many well established Traditional practices and making statements in stark variance with orthodox belief.
The truth of the matter is that the Pope of Rome is no more than the First Among Equals of the bishops; but this primacy is associated with certain powers, because the Roman See (not the person of its bishop) is the centre of Catholic unity.
In particular, I firmly believe that the Roman Pontiff can make infallible statements in the same manner and on the same basis as an Oecumenical Council (and in extremis, even on his own personal initiative) as long as he acts in communion with the entire college of orthodox bishops (which in extremis might be a tiny minority of the putative episcopate) but not not necessarily under its direction or commission. I also firmly believe that the Roman Pontiff has universal ordinary jurisdiction over all Catholics – Roman, Greek, and Oriental; but that this is only to be exercised so as to oppose bullying, or the suppression of natural rights: that is, so as to promote and uphold charity and justice; never merely to impose his own whim, or express his own preference or will. The primacy of the Roman pope in no way means that he enjoys unlimited and arbitrary power. While the dogma of infallibility defines a supreme privilege, it sets its precise boundaries, admitting the possibility of infidelity, error, and betrayal.
John Henry Newman warned that the Vatican Council’s definition of papal infallibility was inopportune, as it was done in a context of over-enthusiastic triumphalism and without prudential caution. He might well have said to the pope “be careful what you ask the Council for: you may get it and the Church later regret it.”
There was a huge presumption among supporters of pope Francis that he could do no wrong, and that everything he said, wrote, and did was true and wholesome: merely because he said, wrote, or did it. It is not clear whether the people who propounded this idea thought that it only applied to Francis, or only to all post Vatican-II popes, or to all popes.
If the first case was intended, this is absolutely impossible to justify rationally. It amounts to nothing more than factionalism, sycophancy, the servile worship of celebrity and – in effect – the establishment of a fascistic tyranny.
If the second case was intended, this could only be justified on the basis that Vatican-II was some kind of spiritual re-set and revolution for the Catholic Church, which gave it a new constitution supplanting and – supposedly – improving on that which was inaugurated by Christ, and subsequently ratified and established by Holy Spirit at Pentecost. This is extravagant, to say the least.
Moreover, even if this were to be the case, it is difficult to see how the actions and words of pope Francis are coherent with those of pope John-Paul II and – most especially – Benedict XVI.
If the third case is intended, then pope Francis was condemned by the witness of Sacred Tradition, as he has explicitly adopted ideas and policies which are directly and explicitly condemned either by Scripture or by solemn dogmatic teaching (idolatry, the illegitimacy of judicial ex*****on, religious indifferentism, the indulgence of s*xual misconduct, the impossibility of a just war) hence this third case is manifestly incoherent.
The only way to quasi-justify this kind of view is via a dishonest slight-of-hand which asserts that all papal teaching is infallible – as long as it is understood as agreeing with that of the current pope.
This makes it sound as if no-one ever made a special claim for pope Francis, while in effect making him – and his successor(s) – not merely the “Custodian of Tradition” [What a horrendous and illiberal idea this is! Tradition lives in the body of the Church: most especially in the holy laity of God. It requires no custodian. This term misrepresents an abusive kidnapper as a benevolent guardian!] but rather the personal embodiment and actualisation of “Tradition”.
This means that in effect one can ignore what every Oecumenical Council, every orthodox Father, every approved theologian, and every previous pope has said: attending only to the words and policies of the sitting pope of Rome, because these are what constitute and entirely substantiate orthodoxy.
If a Roman pontiff can become a heretic – which fate has clearly befallen popes in the past – than it is manifest that pope Francis espoused serious heterodoxy and promoted serious heteropraxy. Hence he should have been denounced as a heretic and apostate.
If anyone tries to tell me that to say such things is any kind of breach of canon law, I reply.
1. If the pope can be a heretic, any positive law which penalises someone simply for claiming that this is the case is an unjust regulation, contrary to the divine constitution of the Church, and should be disregarded. Clearly, slander is slander; and any-one who commits such an uncharitable act should be subject to a just penalty: but denouncing a heretic as being a heretic is not slander. Failing to denounce a manifest heretic and cooperating with his policies is a grave sin against both faith and charity.
2. In my reading of the current code (recently updated to give greater impunity to the pope) what is criminalised is any attack on the institution of the papacy, or of one’s ordinary (bishop): not any particular pope or ordinary (bishop) as an individual.