[f. VATICAN.]
1. The tenet of absolute papal infallibility or supremacy in respect of ecclesiastical doctrine or affairs as declared by the Vatican Council.
1875. Gladstone, Vaticanism, 8. The proceedings of Vaticanism threaten to be a source of some practical inconvenience. Ibid. (1875), Glean. (1879), VI. 243. The antichristian action of Vaticanism on the minds and lives of men with a power and sagacity worthy of the best days of Italian thought.
1890. Spectator, 23 Aug. But in 1870 Manning and Newman seemed to be drifting in opposite directions,—the one towards ‘Vaticanism,’ the other towards restrictions of the Papal initiative.
2. transf. (See quot.)
1884. Dublin Rev., Jan., 184. ‘Vaticanism,’ in the sense in which we here use the term, is a word borrowed from Dr. Scrivener to express the opinion of those who think the Vatican Codex to be the truest and best text of the Greek Testament.
