Ultramontanism vs Conciliarism — Who Actually Runs the Church?

Ultramontanism vs Conciliarism: who runs the Catholic Church? Papal infallibility, Vatican I, and the Council of Constance decided it — twice, in opposite directions. On the eighteenth of July, 1870, in a thunderstorm, Pastor Aeternus made the pope the supreme and infallible governor of the Church. Conciliarism, the claim that a council of bishops outranks any single bishop including the bishop of Rome, was buried that afternoon. Except the Catholic line of succession itself runs straight through a decree Rome now calls invalid. Martin V was elected by the Council of Constance under the authority of Haec Sancta — the same decree later treated as an emergency measure with no wider force. This episode traces the whole argument: the Western Schism and three rival popes, Jean Gerson and the canon lawyers who picked the lock, Haec Sancta and Frequens, Nicholas of Cusa switching sides at Basel, Execrabilis, the Four Gallican Articles of 1682, Joseph de Maistre deriving infallibility from political sovereignty, the eighty-eight bishops who voted no at Vatican I, Lumen Gentium and the Nota Praevia, and where synodality stands under Leo XIV in 2026. Both positions were born in emergencies, not in theology. That is the problem. Sources: Primary: Haec Sancta, Council of Constance, session five, 6 April 1415; Frequens, session thirty-nine, 9 October 1417 Martin V, Inter Cunctas, February 1418 Pius II, Execrabilis, 18 January 1460; In Minoribus Agentes, 1463 Leo X, Pastor Aeternus, Fifth Lateran Council, 1516 Declaration of the Clergy of France (Four Gallican Articles), 19 March 1682; Alexander VIII, Inter Multiplices, 1690 Joseph de Maistre, Du Pape, 1819 Vatican I, Pastor Aeternus, 18 July 1870 Döllinger to Archbishop Scherr, 28 March 1871 Vatican II, Lumen Gentium and Nota Explicativa Praevia, November 1964 Synod on Synodality final document, 26 October 2024; Leo XIV, Confirma Fratres Tuos, June 2026 Secondary: Francis Oakley, The Conciliarist Tradition: Constitutionalism in the Catholic Church, 1300–1870 Izbicki, Christianson and Krey (trans.), Reject Aeneas, Accept Pius Peter McDermott, "Nicholas of Cusa: Continuity and Conciliation at the Council of Basel," Church History 67:2 Carolina Armenteros on Du Pape and political ultramontanism Philip Schaff, Creeds of Christendom, vol. I, on Döllinger and the Old Catholics Disputed or uncertain: Whether Haec Sancta was ever validly promulgated, and whether Gregory XII's re-convocation of July 1415 places it outside the ecumenical council Whether Martin V ratified it; the scope of the Inter Cunctas formula Vatican I vote totals (533–2 is standard; the 13 July trial vote and the number who left Rome vary by source) Whether Cusa reversed his position or developed it Whether Roman legates carried binding papal assent at Nicaea #ChurchHistory #CatholicChurch #PapalInfallibility