Page:William John Sparrow-Simpson - Roman Catholic Opposition to Papal Infallibility (1909).djvu/352

 332 judgment on the minority, for investing with new Authority the Papal Decree, was born of a deep conviction that already, on countless occasions, that Authority had proved excessive, injurious to the advance of truth, and the freedom of the individual. It is probably quite correct that Acton's objections were more on the moral and political or social side than on the strictly theological. But his sharp distinction between the Catholic and the Roman elements within the Church is really a distinction in dogmatic principles. And nothing can exceed his loathing for principles commonly known as Ultramontane. Acton and Manning stand at the opposite poles in their anticipations of the results of the dogma of Infallibility.

But Lord Acton went far beyond all this. He wrote a letter to a German Bishop reproaching the minority with inconsistency in discontinuing their opposition after the Infallibility Decree was published. In this letter he gives the actual language of the leaders of the minority, and concludes—

This letter was described by the Dublin Review as "an open and decisive revolt against the Church."

Yet it does not appear that the writer was challenged to express his adhesion to the new Decree. But Lord Acton's letters during this period are yet to be published. Abbot Gasquet omits all the critical years from