Unintended Ultramontanism

Abstract

The reception of Vatican I has changed unexpectedly in the fifty years between the centennial and the sesquicentennial. The ultramontane papacy created by Vatican I, seen as blocking renewal after Vatican II, has developed over fifty years into the condition making a global church possible. This historiographical sketch of Vatican I’s reception organizes these surprising developments around three pivotal works: Hans Küng’s Infallible? An Inquiry, Jean-Marie Roger Tillard’s The Bishop of Rome, and Émile Perreau-Saussine’s Catholicism and Democracy.