On the Pope

Book excerpt: On the Pope (Du Pape) is the main political-philosophical work of the counter-revolutionary writer and philosopher, Joseph de Maistre. Maistre worked for 20 years on the writing of his magnum opus, a book that laid the foundation for his invention of political ultramontanism. Ultramontanism was a school of thought of the Catholic Church that promoted the doctrine of central papal supremacy in matters of governance and spirituality. Championed by Pope Pius IX, the ultramontanists attained their greatest triumph in the late 19th century with the formal proclamation of papal primacy and infallibility. On the Pope is divided into four parts. In the first part, Maistre makes the argument for his thesis that there is "no pope without the supremacy which belongs to him" and "no Catholicism without one pope." His argument in favor of papal infallibility stands out in the history of theology because he was among the earliest Catholic writers to openly discuss the doctrine. Part two reveals the key components of Maistre's political thought: His absolutist ideas about the nature of sovereignty, his unique argument for the divine origins of all forms of political sovereignty, and his rejection of social contract theories on the origin of society and sovereignty. Part three is devoted to demonstrating Maistre's argument that, above all, nations need a higher sovereign to help protect against the abuses of power, and that this sovereign should be the pope, as the savior and creator of European civilization. He argues that the only nations that have known civil liberty are those which "have remained sufficiently under the influence of the Sovereign Pontiff." Part four deals primarily with "schismatic churches." Maistre felt that the schismatic churches would inevitably fall into Protestantism, and from Protestantism through Socinianism into philosophic indifference. For "no religion can resist science, except one."