The Infallible

After the French Revolution, the magnificent but centuries-old crooked house of Catholicism lay in ruins and had to be rebuilt. But in what style? Romantic-medieval? Or contemporary modern? While some were still arguing, others were already building anew: Hubert Wolf describes how Catholicism, in the name of invented traditions, was completely geared towards Rome. With Pius IX, the right pope was elected in 1846 for this programme: Conscious of his own perfection of power, he proclaimed the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, isolated the Church from democracy and modernity with the "Syllabus errorum" and had himself declared infallible at the First Vatican Council. To traditional critics he coolly replied: "La tradizione sono io", I am the tradition! When shortly afterwards the Papal States were finally lost, this could only increase the worldwide veneration of the "prisoner in the Vatican". The book makes impressively clear how since then everything stands with the Pope - and falls with him.