The Pope is Joseph de Maistre’s uncompromising defence of the papal office as the vital keystone of Christian civilization. Written in the wake of the French Revolution, this masterwork asserts that without an infallible and visible sovereign, true religion—and with it, social order—inevitably collapses into anarchy. Far more than an ecclesiastical treatise, The Pope stands at the crossroads of theology, political theory, and the philosophy of authority. De Maistre’s vision prefigures modern doctrines of sovereignty later articulated by thinkers such as Carl Schmitt, who likewise saw the necessity of a supreme decision-making power above the flux of human will.

Against the fragmented churches of Protestantism and the rising ideologies of nationalism and revolution, de Maistre proclaims the Roman Pontiff as the indispensable centre of unity, without whom both faith and society dissolve. Today, as questions of legitimacy, order, and global authority resurface with new urgency, The Pope reads as both prophecy and antidote: a profound meditation on why no enduring order—political or religious—can stand without an unshakable principle of sovereignty at its heart.

A cornerstone of reactionary thought, The Pope speaks urgently across the centuries to our present age of crisis.

The Imperium Press edition contains three scholarly essays by the founder of Imperium Press, on the relevance of Maistre’s vital work, on its historical background, and on its academic reception up to the present day.