Overview

The nineteenth century opened with the See of Peter vacant as rumors circulated throughout war-torn Europe that the papacy had come to an end. By 1870, however, the First Vatican Council had pronounced the doctrine of papal infallibility, turning the pontiff into the Church’s supreme and infallible authority. From the point of view of intellectual history, this volume tells the story of how political ultramontanism helped to reinvigorate and transform the papacy into a diplomatically effective power that could harness the devotion of millions throughout the globe. The new theology generated debate among Catholics across Europe, leading to schism and excommunication but also to new teachings and ecclesiologies and a role for the pope as international arbitrator.

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Carolina Armenteros, Ph.D. (2005, University of Cambridge) is Professor of Humanities and Social Sciences and Director of the Center for European Studies at the Pontificia Universidad Católica Madre y Maestra. She has published multiple books and articles on political and religious thought in the Age of Revolutions, including The French Idea of History: Joseph de Maistre and his Heirs, 1794–1854 (Cornell, 2011). Francisco Javier Ramón Solans, Ph.D. (2012, University of Zaragoza/University of Paris 8) is Lecturer in Late Modern History at the University of Zaragoza. He has published monographs, edited volumes, and articles on 19th-century Catholicism, including Beyond the Andes: The Ultramontane Origins of a Latin American Church (1851–1910) (Brill, 2025).

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