Religion, the Church, and the pope merge into a single and almost supernatural entity, one that will never grow old or disappear, the only institution that is eternal and unchanging by virtue of its divine nature. Further, the concept of papal infallibility was for him the essence of a spiritual sovereignty that structures the temporal world. Religion and Sovereignty: A Mystical Europeįor Maistre, the monarchical principle could not be reduced solely to a logical and rational legitimacy, as it proceeded from the spiritual monarchy that was the Holy See, thereby distinguishing his thought from that of Bonald. More than simply an early manifestation of ultramontane Catholicism, Maistre called for the birth of a fully-fledged European model structured around papal sovereignty. In Du Pape (1819), he depicted the Holy See as the historical and metaphysical origin of the continent’s political unity, as well as the ark of salvation that would enable its coming realization. However, the role of religion as a bond of reconciliation among nations took on an unprecedented and almost mystical dimension for him. In this regard his views were close to those of his contemporary Louis de Bonald, another theorist of the Counter-Revolution. For Joseph de Maistre (1753-1821), the reestablishment of a European balance based on the concert of strengthened or restored monarchies was a priority for post-revolutionary regeneration.
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