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The ''political debate'' concerned relations of the Catholic churches in various countries with the state on the one hand, and with the papacy in Rome on the other. In the so-called [[w:Gallican Church|Gallican]] (named for the French Catholic Church) view, the church in a given country should enjoy a certain independence from Rome and largely govern itself, for example, in the matter of appointing bishops. They also believed that a general council of the Church was a higher authority than the pope. An important aspect of Jansenist ecclesiology was adopted from French [[w:Gallicanism|Gallicanism]] as promoted by the French theologian Edmund Richer (1559-1631)<ref>In the Council of Aix-en-Provence in 1612, the Gallican work of Edmund Richer, ''De la puissance ecclésiastique et politique (Paris, 1611),'' was censured.</ref>, that held that ecclesiastical councils, not the papacy was the method by which doctrinal truth was established.<ref>Douglas Bradford Palmer (M.A.). ''[http://www.ohiolink.edu/etd/send-pdf.cgi?osu1090415628 The Republic of Grace: International Jansenism in the Age of Enlightenment and Revolution]''. (Dissertation presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of the Ohio State University). The Ohio State University, 2004. pp.89-90.</ref> The so-called [[w:Ultramontanism|Ultramontanes]] ("beyond the mountains", meaning the party of the Papacy of Rome) on the other hand, were convinced that local churches should always be subservient to Rome. The [[w:Society of Jesus|Jesuits]] in particular became associated with this view, while [[w:Gallican Church|Gallicanism]] was especially strong among those of a [[w:Jansenism|Jansenist]] theological bent. This situation applies of course paradigmatically to France, where the controversies were particularly acute, but also characterized Catholicism in the Dutch Republic, which unlike France had been under Protestant rule since the late sixteenth century.
The coalescence of these two controversies in the northern Netherlands in the early eighteenth century led to the foundation of a schismatic Catholic church, variously known as the ''' ''[[w:Old Catholic Church of the Netherlands|Church of Holland]]'' ''', ''' ''Church of Utrecht,'' ''' and later as the ''' ''Old Catholic Church'' ''', which broke with Rome in 1723 under its own archbishop and hierarchy.<ref>ibidOld Catholic Church of the Netherlands/Utrecht Archives. ''[http://www.moranmicropublications.nl/documents/Archbishopguide.doc Gallicanism and Ultramontanism in Catholic Europe in the 18th Century: Foreign Correspondence and Other Documents from the Archive of the Jansenist Archbishops of Utrecht, 1723-1808]''. Old Catholic Church of the Netherlands/Utrecht Archives, (Utrecht, The Netherlands); & Moran Micropublications, (Amsterdam, The Netherlands).</ref>
"Both the ''philosophes'' of the Enlightenment and the Jansenists in Utrecht, supported an open society dedicated to freedom of conscience. While the Jansenist “Republic of Grace” resembled the Enlightened ”Republic of Letters”, Jansenist discourse was ultimately derived from a fundamental religious belief almost exclusively rejected by the ''philosophes''. The activities of the Jansenists in Utrecht, however, demonstrate a public sphere that was religious in nature – where faith and reason cooperated during the European [[w:Age of Enlightenment|Age of Enlightenment]]".<ref>Douglas Bradford Palmer (M.A.). ''[http://www.ohiolink.edu/etd/send-pdf.cgi?osu1090415628 The Republic of Grace: International Jansenism in the Age of Enlightenment and Revolution]''. (Dissertation presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of the Ohio State University). The Ohio State University, 2004. pp.98-99.</ref>