The term ultramontanist has had a long and complicated history. In the Middle Ages, Northern Europeans called someone an “ultramontanist” simply because he was ruled by the pope, who lived “beyond the mountains” (ultramonate in Latin), i.e., in Rome, on the other side of the Alps. Of course, those in Italy thought of the French and the Germans as “beyond the mountains,” so when a pope came from those lands, he was a papa ultramontano. Same term, nearly opposite meanings.
After the advent of Protestantism, the meaning of the term evolved. The rise of Protestantism was tied to national politics, with each new denomination usually having its own set of political views and leaders. In France, those who did not follow the pope derogatorily called those who supported papal authority in French political affairs “ultramontanists.” The Jesuits in particular were branded with this title, due to their great devotion to the pope.
The nineteenth century saw another evolution of the term. During the Middle Ages, a movement called conciliarism had become prominent within the Church. This movement, which held that ecumenical Church councils were the highest authority in the Church—even higher than the pope—was eventually defeated in the fifteenth century. In the nineteenth century, the debate over the precise extent of papal authority arose again, and there were still those within the Church who wished to place an ecumenical council over the pope. In this context, the defenders of papal authority were given the “ultramontanist” label.
The ultramontanists defeated the conciliarists at the First Vatican Council, a council in which the universal jurisdiction and infallibility of the pope was solemnly defined in the Dogmatic Constitution of the Church of Christ (Pastor Aeturnus, 9). Note, of course, that this wasn’t the “invention” of papal authority or infallibility (as the opponents of the ultramontanists claimed), but rather simply the official declaration of the perennial teaching of the Church.
This is how the term ultramontanism became synonymous with a Catholic who accepts the universal jurisdiction and infallibility of the pope. Every faithful Catholic, therefore, is by definition an ultramontanist in this positive sense, as The Catholic Encyclopedia affirms, along with Fr. John Hardon in his Modern Catholic Dictionary.
However, in keeping with its confusing history, the definition evolved yet again in the latter half of the twentieth century. In recent years, the term has come to sometimes refer to someone who believes the pope’s charism of infallibility to be broader than defined by Vatican I.
Although Vatican I is seen by many today as a robust expansion of the authority of the pope, in certain ways it narrowed it. Within the ranks of the nineteenth-century ultramontanists, there was debate as to exactly how far papal authority went. Yes, a pope was infallible, but when? Whenever he taught? Whenever he said anything? Vatican I made clear that the pope was infallible only when teaching ex cathedra: i.e., when issuing a solemn doctrinal definition on faith or morals to be held by the whole Church, or “when, as the supreme shepherd and teacher of all the faithful, who confirms his brethren in their faith,” he otherwise teaches in a definitive and therefore infallible manner, as the Church affirms in the Second Vatican II’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church (Lumen Gentium, 25).
Consequently, if someone suggests that a non-ex cathedra papal declaration is infallibly binding, then he would be an ultramontanist in this more modern and pejorative sense of the term.
Nevertheless, a Catholic should not be afraid to embrace the term ultramontanist in its traditional positive sense, proudly stating that he is simply someone who accepts papal authority as defined at Vatican I and definitively reaffirmed at Vatican II.