(iii.) Since Ultramontanism cannot hope to realize its political ambitions unless it succeeds in controlling the intellectual and re ligious life of Catholic Christendom, it naturally attempts to ex tend its sphere of influence in all directions over culture, science, education, literature and the forms taken by devotion. The devel opment of these efforts may be easily traced from decisions of the Congregation of the Index and the Holy Office in Rome. Ultra montanism, too, labours systematically to bring the whole organi zation of education under ecclesiastical supervision and guidance.
(iv.) In the fourth place, Ultramontanism is the embodiment of that intolerance towards other creeds which is the logical con sequence of the authoritarian claims of the Catholic Church. The general presupposition involved is that a man cannot be saved except within the Catholic Church. Since, however, on the one band—in virtue of a theory advanced by Pius IX. against the emperor William I. of Germany, in a letter which has since be come famous—every Christian, whether he will or no, belongs to that Church by baptism, and is consequently pledged to obey her, and, on the other hand, since the state lies under the obligation to place the "secular arm" at her disposal whenever one of her members wishes to secede, the most far-reaching consequences result. In the past this principle led to the erection of the Inqui sition (q.v.) and, even at the present day, there exists in the Curia a special congregation charged with its application. The gradual separation of State and Church, a process traceable in its various degrees in all countries of Europe, has resulted in rendering im possible the strict application of system to which human nature itself has, rightly or wrongly, taken exception. As a result of this situation, the Catholic condemnation of heresy—though as string ent as ever in principle—has assumed forms less physically danger ous for the heretic.
(v.) Lastly, Ultramontanism opposes 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 of ten been an amalgamation of evangelical belief with national feeling, so many Catholics desire 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 Ger many (Ref ormkatholizismus) and in the United States (Ameri canism; see HECKER, I.T.) ; but they are everywhere met with a blank refusal from the Ultramontane side. Ultramontanism fears that any infusion of a national element into ecclesiastical life would entail the eventual separation of the people in question from papal control, and would lead to developments fraught with danger to the supremacy of the Papacy.
The relationship of Ultramontanism to Catholicism is a much disputed problem. The Ultramontane maintains that there is no justification for distinguishing between the two; but, even within the pale of the Roman Church, the identification provokes dissent, and is repudiated by all who are shocked by the effects on the life of the Church of an over-centralized political Catholi cism. It was on these grounds that in Jan. 1904, it was proposed in the chamber of the Bavarian Reichsrath that the clergy should be deprived of the suffrage. The years between the Treaty of Frankfurt (1871) and the outbreak of the World War witnessed a growing difficulty on the part of Catholic Germans to reconcile Ultramontane doctrine with the political and industrial develop ment of united Germany. This was the real background of what is known as the Kulturkampf (see GERMANY, History).
The collapse of Germany after the World War (1914-18) tended, on the whole, to stimulate Ultramontanism (e.g., in Bavaria) ; but the republican elements which combined in 1919 to uphold the Constitution of Weimar, proved strong enough to resist the more extreme manifestations of this tendency.
It may be admitted that for all the principal contentions of Ultramontanism, analogies may be found in the past history of the Catholic Church. Thus, in the middle ages, we find extremely bold pronouncements with respect to the position of the papacy in the universal Church; while political Catholicism had its begin nings in antiquity and found very definite expression, for instance, in the bull Unam sanctam of Bonif ace VIII. Again, the attempt to subordinate all intellectual life to ecclesiastical control was a feature of the mediaeval Church, and the fundamental attitude of that Church towards heresy was fixed during the same period. But since then much has been altered both in the Church and her secular environment. The State has become independent of the Church, legislates on its own sole authority, and has recognized as falling within its own proper sphere the civilizing agencies and social questions formerly reserved for the Church. Again, edu cation, science, art and literature have been secularized; the printing-press carries knowledge into every house, the number of illiterates diminishes from year to year in every civilized country, and the clergy are no longer the exclusive propagators of culture, but merely one factor among a hundred others.