Thanks to the Franco-Prussian War, the First Vatican Council was suspended in October 1870 and never reconvened. Before its unanticipated end, Vatican I did important work: It defined the universal scope of papal jurisdiction (and thus frustrated the claims of the new nationalists to authority over the Church) while spelling out the precise, limited circumstances in which the Bishop of Rome can teach infallibly on matters of faith and morals. Nonetheless, the council’s abrupt adjournment led to an imbalance in the Church’s self-understanding: Catholicism was left with a strong theology of the papacy but a weak theology of the episcopate.