Vatican I: The Council and the Making of the Ultramontane Church

by John W. O'Malley

Overview

In 1869, some seven hundred Catholic bishops traveled to Rome to participate in the first church-wide council in three hundred years. The French Revolution had shaken the foundations of the church. Pope Pius IX was determined to set things right through a declaration by the council that the pope was infallible.

John W. O’Malley brings to life the bitter, schism-threatening conflicts that erupted at Vatican I. The pope’s zeal in pressing for infallibility raised questions about the legitimacy of the council, at the same time as Italian forces under Garibaldi seized the Papal States and were threatening to take control of Rome itself. Gladstone and Bismarck entered the fray. As its temporal dominion shrank, the Catholic Church became more pope-centered than ever before, with lasting consequences.

“O’Malley’s account of the debate over infallibility is masterful.”
—Commonweal

“[O’Malley] excels in describing the ways in which the council initiated deep changes that still affect the everyday lives of Catholics.”
—First Things

“An eminent scholar of modern Catholicism…O’Malley…invit[es] us to see Catholicism’s recent history as profoundly shaped by and against the imposing legacy of Pius IX.”
—Wall Street Journal

“Gripping…O’Malley continues to engage us with a past that remains vitally present.”
—The Tablet

“The worldwide dean of church historians has completed his trinity of works on church councils…[A] masterclass in church history…telling us as much about the church now as then.”
—America

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780674241404
Publisher:	Harvard University Press
Publication date:	08/06/2019
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	1,048,330
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.10(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

John W. O’Malley was University Professor in the Department of Theology at Georgetown University and the author of many books, including Four Cultures of the West, Trent, Vatican I, What Happened at Vatican II, and The First Jesuits (all from Harvard); The First Jesuits has been translated into twelve languages. He was a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a member of the American Philosophical Society, and a recipient of the Harvard Centennial Medal as well as Lifetime Achievement Awards from the Society for Italian Historical Studies, the Renaissance Society of America, and the American Catholic Historical Association. O’Malley was a member of the Society of Jesus and a Roman Catholic priest.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

1 Catholicism and the Century of Lights 23

2 The Ultramontane Movement 55

3 The Eve of the Council 96

4 Under Way and Moving toward Dei Filius 133

5 Infallibility 180

Conclusion 225

Appendix: English Translation of Pastor Aeternus 251

Basic Chronology 261

Notes 263

Bibliography 285

Acknowledgments 297

Index 299

Editorial Reviews

A concise and accessible overview of the Council and the history that led to it…O’Malley does an excellent job of narrating the dynamics at play as the Church picked up the pieces from the devastation of the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars.

Denver Catholic - Jared Staudt

An eminent scholar of modern Catholicism…O’Malley…invit[es] us to see Catholicism’s recent history as profoundly shaped by and against the imposing legacy of Pius IX.

Wall Street Journal

[O’Malley’s] oeuvre now forms a satisfyingly coherent whole…As authoritative as it is accessible.

Times Literary Supplement - Stella Fletcher

O’Malley gives an accessible, even-handed overview of the council with a minimum of interpretive gloss. He excels in describing the ways in which the council initiated deep changes that still affect the everyday lives of Catholics.

First Things - Russell Hittinger

Provides an elegant historical narrative.

Times Higher Education - John Cornwell

With Vatican I: The Council and the Making of the Ultramontane Church, John O’Malley, S.J., the worldwide dean of church historians, has completed his trinity of works on church councils… O’Malley completes his masterclass in church history and ecclesiology of the last 500 years, telling us as much about the church now as then.

Christopher Bellitto

A gripping good read…With characteristic economy and clarity, O’Malley tells the story of Vatican I and the making of the ultramontane church—and, most importantly, why it matters.

Harvard Theological Review - Mary Dunn

O’Malley offers a comprehensive and gripping narrative of Vatican I…In his eminently accessible volume, O’Malley repeats the success of his earlier histories of Vatican II and Trent…[He] weaves together the doctrinal issues with the personalities of the principal historical characters in the drama of controversy and conflict…[This] belongs to a long and productive career of exposing a wide readership to the fascinatingly complex history of the Church.

The Tablet - Hilmar M. Pabel

Much needed and very informative…O’Malley’s book shows the many ways in which the church we know is still very much shaped by the First…Vatican Council. Put differently, the modern church is still, in certain ways, the work of reactionaries.

National Catholic Reporter

This excellent book fills a critical need for an up-to-date and comprehensive account of the events, the personalities, and the elaboration of the doctrine at the First Vatican Council. O’Malley draws from the best and most recent historical sources published in multiple languages to weave together masterfully the complex convergence of social, political, intellectual, and ecclesial movements that contribute to a culture of ultramontanism, the horizon against which one must understand both the event of the council and its teaching.

Catherine Clifford

O’Malley is not new to writing re-assessments of pivotal events of modern Roman Catholic history. One can think of his important volumes on What Happened at Vatican II and Trent: What Happened at the Council, which have proven to be trend-setting in their interpretation of present-day Roman Catholicism. In this new book on Vatican I it is as if he has completed the trilogy on the three modern councils…O’Malley’s strength lies in the comprehensiveness of his historical reconstruction.

Evangelical Focus - Leonardo De Chirico

[A] judicious work of scholarship, carefully researched and elegantly narrated.

Patheos - Thomas Albert Howard

The best available [work] in English on Vatican I…O’Malley’s account of the debate over infallibility is masterful…The descriptions of the council’s setting and procedure convey a feel for what the bishops experienced there.

William L. Portier

To be the premier historian of the modern ecumenical councils would seem an odd bit of praise, but John O’Malley, S.J., is exactly that and with characteristic grace. His history of Vatican I is a marvelous bookend to his field-shaping history of Vatican II and possesses the lucidity, insight, and erudition we associate with one of the world’s leading historians of Catholicism. It immediately becomes the standard history.

John McGreevy

An eminent scholar of modern Catholicism…O’Malley…invit[es] us to see Catholicism’s recent history as profoundly shaped by and against the imposing legacy of Pius IX.

Wall Street Journal

06/01/2018
Ultramontanism is the authority the Holy See has over other dioceses of the Roman Catholic Church, which vests the Pope with particular prerogatives, most notably the infallibility of the Pope's teaching office. O'Malley (theology, Georgetown Univ.; The Jesuits) details the events that led up to and include the Vatican I council which promulgated the doctrine. Although Pius IX—who convened the council—welcomed the result, O'Malley focuses on the uprising that began with those disillusioned with the social upheavals following the Enlightenment and French Revolution. O'Malley illuminates this bottom-up movement with illustrations from independent journals, such as Louis Veuillot's 19th-century French Roman Catholic newspaper L'Univers and the writings of ultramontane converts, such as Henry Edward Manning. The final two chapters deal with Vatican I itself and the aftermath of the First Vatican Council. O'Malley also provides a translation of dogmatic constitution Pastor Aeternus, which includes the chapter on papal infallibility. VERDICT A fascinating and dispassionate glimpse into a pivotal and dramatic period of Catholic Church history.—James Wetherbee, Wingate Univ. Libs., NC

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