/i3 I (l

LORD ACTON AND THE LIBERAL CATHOLIC

MOVEMENT, 1858 - 1875

THESIS

Presented to the Graduate Council of the

North Texas State University in Partial

Fulfillment of the Requirements

For the Degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

By

William T. Shuttlesworth, B.A.

Denton, Texas

December, 1987 Shuttlesworth, William T., Lord Acton and the Liberal

Catholic Movement, 1858-1875. Master of Arts (History),

December, 1987, 105 pp., bibliography, 82 titles.

John Dalberg Acton, a German-educated historian, rose to prominence in late Victorian England as an editor of The Rambler and a leader of the Liberal Catholic Movement.

His struggle against Ultramontanism reached its climax at the

Vatican Council, 1869-1870, which endorsed the dogma of Papal

Infallibility and effectively ended the Liberal Catholic

Movement. Acton's position on the Vatican Decrees remained equivocal until the Gladstone controversy of 1874 forced him to take a stand, but even his statement of submission failed to satisfy some Ultramontanists. This study, based largely on Acton's published letters and essays, concludes that obedience to Rome did not contradict his advocacy of freedom of conscience, which also placed limits on Papal

Infallibility. PREFACE

Lord Acton left his bench mark on the religious, intellectual, and political history of late Victorian

England, notwithstanding that most of his actions-- editorials and essays in The Rambler, rejection of

Ultramontanism, and opposition to Papal Infallibility -- met with failure. Acton, however, should be remembered as a man in search of the truth. Due to his leadership, the cause of

Liberal Catholicism flourished briefly before Ultramontanism defeated it. In the end, Acton yielded to the very forces against which he had fought. This study focuses on his seventeen-year struggle against the Papal authority and attempts to show his impact on the Liberal Catholic Movement in England and in the Continent. His career as a journalist, opposition at the Vatican Council, and denunciation of its decrees evoke such questions as these: 1) What did Acton hope to accomplish by working with the English journals? 2)

Was abandoning The Home and Foreign Review the best action to take? 3) How important was Acton's role at the Vatican

Council? 4) What was Acton's policy toward Papal Infallibility? 5) Did Acton compromise his principles in submitting to Rome?

This study is based on Acton's printed correspondence

iii and works. Abbot Gasquet, Lord Acton and his Circle contains many of his letters, covering his journalistic career and other phases of his life. J. N. Figgis and R. V. Laurence

(eds.), Selections from the Correspondence of the First Lord

Acton and Josef Altholz and Damain McElrath (ed.), The

Correspondence of Lord Acton and Richard Simpson, supplement

Gasquet's work. Acton's essays published in Gertrude

Himmelfarb, Essays of Freedom and Power, Douglass Woodward,

Essays on Church and State, and Figgis and Laurence, The

History af Freedom and other Essays, all furnish valuable insights into his life and thoughts. The scholarly works of

Hugh MacDougall, Acton-Newman Relations and David Mathews,

Lord Acton and His Times were especially useful.

I wish to thank the library staffs of North Texas State

University, Baylor University, and Southern Methodist

University, who helped me find the needed materials.

But all errors of statement and judgment are, of course, my own.

William T. Shuttlesworth Denton, Texas

October, 1987

iv TABLE OF CONTENTS

PAGE

PREFACE0.0...... iii

PROLOGUE: GENESIS OF THE LIBERAL CATHOLIC MOVEMENT . . 1

I. LORD ACTON AND THE CATHOLIC JOURNALS: THE ISSUE JOINED ...... 17

II. LORD ACTON AND THE VATICAN COUNCIL: THE CHALLENGE REPELLED...... 40

III. GLADSTONE AND THE AFTERMATH: TO YIELD OR NOT TO YIELD? ...... 63

IV. ASSESSMENT AND RETROSPECT ...... 79

EPILOGUE: THE QUEST FOR RESPECT AND RECOGNITION . . . . 88

CHRONOLOGY ...... 91

BIBLIOGRAPHY...... 95

V THE PROLOGUE:

GENESIS OF THE LIBERAL CATHOLIC MOVEMENT

The Liberal Catholic Movement began as a compromise between the traditional authority of the Church and the

new pronouncements of the secular sciences and philosophies.

The term "Liberal Catholic" incorrectly describes the nature of the movement, for it conveys a religious or political overtone. The Liberal Catholic Movement was not very

liberal, nor was it strongly Catholic in its cause and philosophy. At first the movement focused on intellectual progress apart from the authority of the

Church.1 Each country, however, had its own idea about when and where it should protest Papal encroachment.

France, the largest Catholic nation, held a unique position vis-a-vis the Holy See in matters regarding church-state relations. Since the days of Charles VII

(1422-1461) and the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges (1438),

France had been allowed to appoint her own bishops and control the national church. The majority of her bishops were Gallican; i. e., they believed that the Church should be submissive to the state or fully state-controlled.

The Revolution had bequeathed to France an anti-clerical bias as well as democratic principles.

1 2

After 1830, F4licit Robert de Lamennais (1782-1854), a priest and former reactionary, rose to prominence as an opponent of Ultramontanism, a doctrine which urged the faithful to look beyond the mountains (Alps) to Rome for spiritual guidance.2 Charles X, he charged, had misused the

Church to further his own ambitions. A social romanticist,

Lamennais put his faith in democracy and an independent

Church. The people, he argued, due to their devotion to liberty, should work for a free Church because of their common devotion to liberty. For Lamennais, the Liberal

Catholic Movement served a political purpose.3

Lamennais'ideas appeared in the L'Aveni (The Future) a journal that began its short-lived publication in 1830.

"God and Liberty -- unite them!" became its battle cry in an effort to bring about a union of Church and democracy. In order to separate the Church from the state, a strong liberal

Papacy was required to ensure the freedom human of society.4

Lamennais was aided in this cause by two prominent colleagues: Charles Rene Montalembert (1810-1870) and Henri

Dominique Lacordaire (1802-1861). These men founded the

L'Avenir Movement.

Despite the original popularity of this campaign with the Holy See and the people, it failed to reach its potential due to internal problems. Lamennais was too naive and busy with other interests; he also lacked leadership.

For want of someone to guide the movement, it failed to achieve its political goals. Lamennais, Lacordaire, and 3 Montalembert, moreover, held different ideas on policy and procedure.5

In 1832, the L'Avenir Movement collapsed. Having debated the French bishops for two years, Lamennais submitted his ideas to Pope Gregory XVI for his approval or rejection. The Holy Father seized this opportunity to denounce the secular trends of the day. On 15 August 1832, he issued the bull, Mirari Vos, denying everything Lamennais stood for.6 Thus he was defeated by his own doctrine: the authority of the Pope. Lamennais submitted to the will of the Pope, but in 1834, when Gregory condemned his Paroles d'un croyant as contrary to God's word, he left the communion of the Church and became a disciple of Louis Blanc. His fall was a great loss to the movement, but he carried no one with him; Lacordaire and Montalembert continued the movement in

France.7

Lacordaire reasoned that the best way to serve the

Church and further his own cause would be to resurrect the religious orders which had been suppressed during the

Revolution. He chose to reestablish the Dominicans, because they favored preaching and education.8

Montalembert's liberalism took a far different course than that of Lacordaire. Following the end of the L'Avenir

Movement, Montalembert became the leader of Catholic journalism and organized a Catholic political party.

Continuing the cry of "Liberty," Montalembert devoted his time to the issues of freedom of education and political 4 reform. He abandoned the ideals of the separation of church and state and democracy to follow a position more moderate than that advocated by the L'Avenir.9

The two opposing schools of the Catholic Church in

France polarized in 1850 with the passage of the Loi

Falloux.1 0 Ostensibly a victory for the cause of freedom of education, it nonetheless caused French Catholics to divide into Liberal and Ultramontane parties. The latter, perceiving the Church to be in a "state of siege," rallied around the absolute authority of the Pope. The organ of the

Ultramontanists, the Univers, was edited by Louis Veuillot and the voice of the Liberals was Montalembert's

Correspondant. While the debate continued, leadership of the

Liberal Catholic Movement passed from the French.

In Italy, the liberal cause paralleled and complemented the Risorgimento (Resurrection), as Italy's struggle for unification was called. The election in 1846 of Pius IX, a

"liberal" Pope, brought new hope for unification under Papal leadership, allied with the liberal movement. But the temporal power of the Pope and his ambivalent role in the

1848 revolutions proved such an obstacle to the Risorgimento that on 15 November 1848, Italian revolutionaries murdered

Count Pellegrino Rossi, the Papal premier. This act of violence drove the Pope into exile, but he returned to Rome in 1850, after the city had been secured by a French army (June 1849). For the next two decades, French bayonets propped up the chair of St. Peter. This series of events 5 impelled Pius to pursue a reactionary policy. To maintain the temporal power of the Papal States and his own prestige, he supported the Ultramontanists.1 1

The Liberal Catholic Movement in Germany was purely intellectual in character. As in Italy, geography played a part in the nature of the movement. The particularism of the

German states within the Bund enabled the theology of many different church communities to infiltrate Catholicism:

Germany was the only country in possession of theological schools which, through their connections with the universities and their controversies with different church communities, remained in touch with the intellectual problems and currents of the day. 12

The school of thought which posed the greatest threat to the

Church was that of historical theology, exclusively the work of German scholarship, though not seen in this light by its creators.13

German scholars, adopting the practices, but not the beliefs, of the secular world, cast off the shroud of scholasticism and turned to a scientific method of study.

The Society of Jesus, a devoutly Ultramontanist order, quickly accepted the challenge to traditional Catholic teachings. Lord John Acton, influenced by his German education, entered the controversy and insisted that science and religion not only were compatible, but together would lead to God.

Faith is the basis of true knowledge, and knowledge the complement of faith; for uninstructed faith is liable to be shaken, but he who has proceeded from faith to knowledge is sure of his belief. Therefore, he insisted on the necessary progress of science as the safeguard of 6

religion: ... Science, which seeks to clear up what our consciousness dimly and uncertainly perceives, is the guide through the labyrinth of the feelings, and therefore harmonizes necessarily with faith. Human nature strives after unity with itself; and the union of faith and reason, things equally necessary and important, must be practically attainable at least to a certain extent. 1 4

German Liberal Catholics fervently believed that truth, regardless of its form, must be divine. They wished, moreover, that the Church would follow their example, tolerate their studies, and move forward without concern for the Catholic cause. Corollary to this idea was the notion that all men must be free to pursue the truth.1 5

The center for the Liberal Catholic Movement was the

University of Munich, under the leadership of Ignaz von

Ddllinger, priest and church historian, which opposed the scholasticism of the Seminary of Mainz, then led by Wilhelm von Ketteler, who later joined the liberal Minority at the

Vatican Council. Von Ketteler rallied his followers with the slogan: "A pious priest rather than a learned priest." 1 6

It must be understood that the majority of the faculty of the

University of Munich were Ultramontanist and monarchist in their beliefs, but they distrusted any absolute ruler, whether Pope or King. Some give credit to this school of thought for preventing what is called "corporatism,," the practice of organizing society into units subordinate to the State.17

Acton, Dollinger's model student and disciple, observed and studied his mentor's thoughts. "Dbllinger," he believed,

"was more earnest than others in regarding Christianity as 7 history, and in pressing the affinity between Catholic and historical thought... [He] regarded Christianity as a force more than as a doctrine"1 8 To Dllinger, it constituted the soul of history, and history shaped his religious thought. Historical methodology, developed independently of Church authority, had assumed new meaning with the study of unpublished sources, a process which gave scientific proof to the student's ideas and theories.

To Dollinger, the study of history must be free of political and clerical interference. D"llinger and the German Liberal

Catholic Movement continued to grow intellectually in its search for truth. Boldly waving the standard of freedom of conscience, German Liberal Catholics grew in numbers and influence until they had become a thorn in the Pope's side.' 9

Separated from the Continent as much by culture and history as by the English Channel, the Liberal Catholic

Movement in Britain had unique handicaps. The English, during the last two centuries, had developed a paranoid view of the Catholic faith. Since the creation of a national church by Henry VIII and Elizabeth I--and, of course, their

Parliaments--Catholics had been persecuted by the Anglicans and isolated from Rome. After the Catholic hierarchy had been abolished in 1585, Archpriests, the senior priests attached to a cathedral and empowered to take the bishop's place at episcopal functions, did what they could to keep the

Catholic faith from disappearing. In 1628, Rome appointed a

Vicar Apostolic to lead the members of the Roman Catholic 8

Communion, but until the late eighteenth century, recusants

(English Catholics) faced constant persecution. To become a priest was treason; the laity were fined twenty pounds per month for not attending Anglican services. Catholics, moreover, could not travel over five miles, could not initiate a lawsuit, nor enter the professions of law or medicine. During the reign of almost every English king, some legislation suppressing Catholics was enacted. In the reign of Charles II, Catholics were forbidden to sit in

Parliament or hold civil, military, or naval offices, and

George II levied on them special disabilities and a double land tax.2 0

Urban Catholics faced the brunt of the persecution.

John Henry Newman paints a bleak picture of the urban

Catholic's plight before emancipation in his famous sermon

"The Second Spring": One could see him "... walking in the streets, grave and solitary, and strange, though noble in bearing, and said to be of good family, and a 'Roman

Catholic.'"2 1 Rural Catholics fared better than their city counterparts, because the old Catholic nobility protected them. Due to the few parishes available, those nobles often supported chaplains to provide spiritual guidance and employed poor Catholics in their households.

The manpower shortage created by the War for American

Independence resulted in the passage of Britain's First

Catholic Relief Act (1778). In 1777, the London government had assigned Sir John Dalrymple the task of working out a 9 compromise with the Catholics of Scotland, for the

Highlanders, noted for their fighting prowess, could be of great service in the British army. Dalrymple had no luck with Bishop John Calloner, but he did receive the support of William Sheldon, an influential member of the laity.

Notwithstanding, this act touched off a new series of "No- popery" riots, it constituted the first step toward emancipation.2 2

Catholics, encouraged by this gesture of toleration, organized a committee of the laity to work for better relations with the Crown. The Committee advertised its loyalty to the King and opposition to Papal interference.

The "Crimontane" Party, as it was called, accepted a government veto of episcopal appointments and the limited power of the Pope in England. In 1788, however, a dispute arose between the Committee and the Vicars over the oath of allegiance. The issue was settled by using the Irish Oath of

1774, which gave allegiance to the Crown, while retaining the

Pope's spiritual authority. Though still heavily restricted,

Catholics had new hope for the future.2 3

At the fin de siecle, events outside of England brought even more relief to English Catholics. The French

Revolution had forced many Catholics to seek asylum across the Channel, and once England had joined the struggle against the Revolution, she condemned it as "Anti-Catholic." Finally in 1800, Britain allied with Catholic Ireland against France.

Due to the need to govern the Irish efficiently and without 10 violence, Parliament reevaluated its policy toward

Catholics.24

Catholic Emancipation came on 13 April 1829, with the passage of Sir Robert Peel's bill, which granted Catholics the right to vote, sit in Parliament, and to hold most state offices. The bill was unique in that it represented the will of a Protestant government; no Catholic had taken part in the legislative debate.25

Liberal Catholicism evolved quite differently in England than it had in France and Germany. Due to Emancipation and

Irish immigration, Catholicism experienced a great revival, but it remained loyal to Church tradition.

Liberal Catholicism in England began with the Oxford

Movement.2 6

In the late eighteenth century, the Evangelical

Movement led by John Wesley aroused the Church of England.

The Evangelicals, later known as Methodists, called for devotion to public service and emotionalism to inspire the

Anglican Church. The movement brought its disciples into a close personal relationship with God and shifted the emphasis of worship from the liturgy to piety.2 7 A true

Christian, Wesley taught, should practice the Sermon on the

Mount and the Parable of the Good Samaritan. The Oxford

Movement came as a counterpoise to the Evangelicals. John

Henry Newman, its leader and driving force, well remembered the day of its beginning:

The following Sunday, July 14th, Mr. [John] Keble preached the Assize Sermon in the University pulpit. It 11

was published under the title 'National Apostasy.' I have ever considered and kept the day as the start of the religious movement of 1833.28

The Oxford Movement was first and foremost a religious revival, stressing holiness and churchmanship, free from state control.2 9 It appealed not only to the doctrines of the Primitive Church; but also to history.3 0 Its objective was to revive High Church traditions of the seventeenth century to combat the reforming trends of the nineteenth.

The second outstanding leader of the movement was Edward B.

Pusey, who wished to Catholicize England. Newman, Pusey,

Keble, and others directed the movement to restore the

Catholic elements of the Anglican faith in order to promote unity in England and a religious awakening.3 ' The strength of this movement was its leaders--men who regarded religion as the most important moral aspect of a human being. They were all highly educated men connected with Oxford

University. To circulate their views they published tracts or pamphlets, a practice which earned them the nickname

"Tractarians." These tracts contained no new material, merely their views on Anglo-Catholicism, and expounded their belief that the Church of England was a branch of the

Catholic Church, via media Rome and Geneva.3 2 The Anglican hierarchy , however, concluded that the movement had gone too far when Newman in 1841 published his last tract--

Tract XC on the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of

England.3 3 Newman's thesis was clear: "The Articles do not oppose Catholic teaching; they but partially oppose Roman 12

dogma; they for the most part oppose the dominant errors of

Rome." 34 Due to pressure from Church authorities, he

withdrew the tract, but refused to surrender his beliefs.

In 1845, he joined the Roman Catholic Church, declaring "the

Church of Rome in every respect represents the continuation

of the early Church." 3 5

The apostasy of Newman led other High Churchmen to

return to Rome; to them the Tiber now looked bluer than the

Thames, and it was among them that the Liberal Catholic

Movement took root in England. It was not their intention to

use Catholicism to achieve political or nationalistic goals,

as was the case in France and Italy, but to promote their

cause and justify their religion through intellectual means.

First, they wanted higher intellectual standards for fellow

Catholics. Once this objective had been reached, the

movement could be used to better the social position of

Catholics by combating entrenched prejudice.3 6

These former Anglicans unknowingly brought Liberal

Catholicism to England. They, of course, were familiar with

the activities and ideas of Dllinger, Lamennais, and

Montalembert, but they followed no group or person. The

Liberal Catholic Movement in England differed from that on

the Continent in that it stemmed from a resurgence of

Catholicism which tended to be Ultramontanist. It should be understood that becoming a convert did not necessarily make that person a liberal; many of the Ultramontanist leaders in

England, such as Henry Edward Manning and William Ward, had 13

converted from Anglicanism. Above all, the Oxford Movement

produced men devoted to their faith.

The Liberal Catholic Movements in France, Germany,

Italy, and England, however, were similar in some ways.

First, the movement was primarily intellectual in character.

In all these countries, it was connected with scholastic

publications or a university. Secondly, since it was led by

a small group of priests and professors, it was a minority

movement which largely ignored the masses.

Italy was the exception to both of these similarities.

The crusade for unification enticed its adherents away from

scholarship and religion. Due to the struggle against

Hapsburg hegemony and the proximity to Rome, a leadership

within the Liberal Catholic Movement, separate from the

Risorgimento, never developed. Italy, however, was the first

to use the movement to fight absolute authority. The battle between Church and State was joined at the Vatican Council of

1869-1870.

The character of the Liberal Catholic Movement, 1830-

1870, changed with the country; it was political in France, nationalistic in Italy, moral in Germany, and socio-political in England. Thus it did not constitute a preponderant force, but supplemented other movements already begun in each nation and served as the backdrop for religious thought. NOTES

1 Josef Altholz, The Liberal Catholic Movement in England (New York, University of Columbia Press, 1960), 1.

2 For a scholarly account of Lamennais and the L'Avenir Movement, see A. R. Vilder, Prophecy and PapaLcy: A Study of Lamennais, the Church, and the Revolution (London, Burns, Oates, & Washburne, Ltd., 1954).

3 Altholz, Lib. Cath. Mov., 47.

4 The movement advocated four basic rights: freedom of education, freedom of the press, freedom of association, and freedom of worship. J.P.T. Bury, The Zenith of European Power, Vol. X of the New Cambridge Modern History, 11 vols. (Cambridge, 1960), 77.

5 Peter Stearns, "The Nature of the Avenir Movement,," American Historical Review, 65, no 4 (July, 1960), 839.

6 Mirari Vos: "The bull denounced the demand for an end of the Concordat; it repudiated the suggestion that the church needed regeneration and reform or that it should ally itself with revolutionary liberalism; it condemned indifferentism; it fulminated particularity against the chief error of indifferentism, namely freedom of conscience; and it denounced freedom of the press." CMH, X, 78.

7 Stearns, "Avenir Mov., " AHR, 65, 844,

8 Philip Spencer, Politics of Belief in 1 9th Century France (London, George Allen & Unwin, Ltd., 1953), 42-50.

9 Altholz, Lib. Cath. Mov., 49.

10 Loi Falloux: "The law abolished the University monopoly; substituted for the Counseil Royal de l'Universite a new Conseil Superieur de l'Instruction Publique in which the eight University members constituted a minority flanked by nineteen others who included four bishops, two Protestant ministers and one rabbi." CMH, X, 80.

11 E.E.Y. Hales, Pio Nono (New York, P.J. Kennedy & Sons, 1954), 82-95.

14 15

12 Lady Charlotte Blennerhasset, "The Late Lord Acton," Edinburgh Review, 197 (Apr., 1903), 501.

13 Stephen Tonsor, "Acton on D8linger's Historical Theology," Journal of the History of Ideas, 20 (1959), 329.

14 Acton, "Ultramontanism," Essays on Church and State, ed. Douglas Woodruff (New York, Thomas Y. Crowell, 1968), 73- 74. Here Acton is repeating the opinion of Franz von Baader (1765-1841), whom he called the "poorest of writers, but the most instructive and impressive talker in Germany" in his essay "Dollinger's Historical Work."

15 Altholz, Lib. Cath. Mov., 52.

16 Damian McElrath, "An Essay on Acton's Critical Decade," in Lord Acton: The Decisive Decade, 1864-1874: Essays and Documents (Louvain, University Press, 1970), 8.

17 Stephen Tonsor, "Ignaz von Dllinger: Lord Acton's Mentor," Anglican Theological Review, 41 (May, 1959), 213.

18 Acton, "D8llinger's Historical Work," English Historical Review, 5 (Oct., 1890), No. 20, 712; History of Freedom and Other Essays," ed. John Figgis and Reginald Laurence (New York, Books for Library Press, 1907), 380, 383.

19 Blennerhassett, "Lord Acton," Edin. Rev., 197, 508. It was at this point in D8llinger's development (June, 1850) that Acton came to Munich to live with and learn from the historian.

20 John O'Connor, The Catholic Revival in England (New York, MacMillan company, 1942), 105. The British Goverment recruited 4500 (three regiments) Scottish Catholics to fight in North America.

21 John Henry Newman, "The Second Spring.," Sermons Preached on Various Occasions (London, Longman, Green, & Co., 1898), 172. Newman preached this sermon on 13 July 1852 at St. Mary's, Oscott.

22 Bernard Ward, The Dawn of the Catholic Revival in England (New York, Longmans & Co., 1909), 86.

23 Altholz, Lib. Cath. Mov., 3.

24 O'Connor, Cath. Revival, 111.

25 David Mathew, Catholicism in England (London, George Allen & Unwin, Ltd., 1936), 176. Edward Norman, The English Catholic Church in the Nineteenth Century (Oxford, University Press, 1984), 65. 16

26 The Oxford Movement has been the subject of many studies, but Richard Church's, The Oxford Movement: Twelve Years, 1833-1845 (London, 1891; repr. ed. Gregory Best, Chicago, University Press, 1970) is a classic in this field.

27 The following example of how the formality of the Anglican service had been relaxed is provided by G. Kegan Paul in his Confessio Viatoris (1891) "... Upon the altar, which was covered by a dirty wine-stained cloth, there stood a loaf of bread and a dusty black bottle of wine which were to serve as the elements for the Communion. When the prayer of Consecration was reached, to the horror of this pious curate, the vicar turned to the congregation to ask if anyone present had a corkscrew." Bowen, The Idea of the Victorian Church (Montreal, McGill University Press, 1971), 53.

28 Newman, Apologia Pro Vita Sua (London, 1864; repr. New York, Longman, Green, & Co., 1947), 35.

29 Norman Sykes, The English Religious Tradition (London, SCM Press, Ltd., 1953), 81.

30 W. J. Simpson, The History of the Anglo-Catholic Revival from 1845 (London, George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1932), 12.

31 Ibid., 29; Church, Oxford Mov., 21.

32 Dieter Voll, Catholic Evangelicalism, trans. Veronica Ruffer (London, Faith Press, 1963), 24.

33 David Edwards, Leaders of the Church of England, 1828-1944 (London, Oxford University Press, 1971), 62-67. With The Book of Common Prayer, they represent the liturgy and doctrine of the Church of England. Brought to their present form under Elizabeth I, they used ambiguous language in order to accommodate as many different points of view as possible.

34 Newman, Apologia, 79.

35 Newman to Richard Westmacott, Littlemore, 11 July 1845; Newman, A Packet of Letters, ed. Richard Sugg (London, Clarendon Press, 1974), 70.

36 J. Derek Holmes, More Roman than Rome (London, Paulist Press, 1980), 112. CHAPTER I

LORD ACTON AND THE CATHOLIC JOURNALS:

THE ISSUE JOINED

The Liberal Catholic Movement was only as efficacious as

the scholarship of its protagonists. One of the most

effective means of reaching their fellow Catholics and

preaching their ideas was through journals. In England, the

most important Liberal Catholic organ was The Rambler, a

provocative periodical edited by Lord John Acton, a German-

educated Englishman. He was born on 10 January 1834 in

Naples, where his father Sir Richard Acton held a minor post

in the government of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. When

Sir Richard died in 1837, the baronetcy and estate of

Aldenham in England passed to his son at the age of three.

His mother Marie Louise Pelline was the daughter of the Duke of Dalberg. From her Acton inherited the estate of Herrsheim near Worms and a connection with the old German nobility.

The early death of his father thus imparted to Acton a considerable German influence.

In 1840, Marie married George Leveson-Gower, later 2nd Earl of Granville, Gladstone's foreign secretary. Although

Acton and his stepfather never became close, they shared a

17 18 mutual respect, and Granville, of course, gave him access to the English nobility and took him on trips abroad, including journeys to Russia and America.1 One important consequence of Granville's influence was that Acton became a Whig.

At the age of nine, Acton entered Oscott College, a

Catholic school near Paris, where he studied from 1843-1848.

The president of the school was Dr. Nicholas Wiseman, an

Ultramontanist who Played an important role in Acton's later years. At Oscott he also met Felix Dupanloup, who became his ally at the Vatican Council.

After graduation, Acton continued his education at

Edinburgh (1848-1850), where he studied under Paul Logan, a former vice-president of Oscott. Acton applied for admission to several universities in England, including

Cambridge, but was turned down on account of his Catholicism.

This rejection, however, proved to be a beneficial paradox.

Unable to attend a prestigious British university, he looked to Germany, where the University of Munich admitted him to study under Dr. John Ignaz von Ddllinger.

In June of 1850, Acton went to Munich, Bavaria, to live in D8llinger's home; his arrival coincided with a renaissance of German Catholicism. D3llinger, an ecclesiastical historian, encouraged Acton to pursue history, especially church history, for a positive relationship existed between

Roman Catholicism and history. Only a Roman Catholic could be an impartial judge in the study of history.2 To

D8llinger, and therefore Acton, history revealed what is 19

truth and what is error.3 Theology became the center of

young Acton's life, and all else revolved around it. As

Acton explained in January, 1864:

For the German the advancement of Theology is not only a grave religious duty, it is also a great national necessity. Not only is the inexhaustible power of research and love of labor their special intellectual gift, but the curse of the great separation [Protestant Revolt] is upon them, and is felt every moment of their existence.4

From Dollinger, Acton learned that the idea of Christianity

was more than a philosophy; it was a history.5 His studies

also imbued him with a deep admiration for scholarship and a

desire to achieve it. From the romantic school, "where

history was honeycombed with imagination and conjecture,"

Dollinger brought to historical criticism new thoughts on the

search for the truth. Like Leopold von Ranke, he emphasized

the use of original sources. The historian, moreover, must

apply an "indifferent" attitude to the subject in order to

achieve an impartial and truthful study.6

Acton's education at Munich provided the foundation for

all his later activities. "Sitting at the Professor's feet,"

he was exposed to historical theology, philosophy, history,

and many other subjects. His formal education ended in 1856,

but he continued what D8 llinger had implanted in him: the

life-long quest for truth. At the age of twenty-two, Acton, without having earned a degree, left the shelter of his professor's home and repaired to Berlin, where he attended

Ranke's lecture's before returning to England. For the next two years, he and Lord Granville sojourned in America and 20

Russia, were on 19 February 1855 he witnessed the coronation of Tsar Alexander II.7

Acton's primary goal was to use his German trained intellect to assist Catholics in their struggle for toleration, acceptance, social and political recognition.

Upon his arrival, he found among the old Catholics a great contrast between German and English academic standards.

"[In Germany] learning has passed on beyond the range of these men's vision. Their greatest strength was in the weakness of their adversaries, and their own faults were eclipsed by the monstrous errors against which they fought." 8

Acton chose to write essays for a Catholic journal, since this literary form provided enough "space to state the facts and to point the moral." 9 He wanted an organ in which he could express ideas and philosophies he had espoused in

Germany.10 The first question for Acton, therefore, was which Catholic review best suited his needs: The Dublin

Review, The Atlantis, or The Rambler.

The Dublin Review, established by Nicholas Wiseman in

1836, was the oldest and most prestigious of the three journals, but by 1858, its reputation had declined, and it had become what Newman called "a dreary publication ... which wakes up to growl or to lecture, and then goes to sleep again."11 Though tempted by the chance to work with his old teacher, Acton soon recognized that he could not work within the policies of Wiseman's review, now primarily an

Ultramontanist organ. Its reputation did not improve until 21

1863, when William George Ward took over as editor. The

Dublin Review, nonetheless, did counter the liberal tendencies then beginning to evolve within the Catholic Faith in England.12

The second option, to join the staff of The Atlantis, a new journal founded by John Henry Newman in 1858 to bring

Catholic education to Britain. The Atlantis published articles in all subjects taught at the University of Dublin and attempted to keep its readers in touch with contemporary scientific developments. The Atlantis, a very scholarly journal, was above party policies in which Acton intended .to play an active role.1 3 He decided, therefore, to join the staff of The Rambler, a periodical founded in 1848 by

John More Capes, an Oxford convert and layman like himself.

Many former Anglican priests had been denied positions in the

Catholic Church because they were married. The Rambler provided them an opportunity to publish their ideas and contribute to their new religion. Newman served as advisor to Capes, but contributed few articles. Though created as a weekly magazine, The Rambler, within a year, became a monthly. Its policy was to discuss all problems of English

Catholics without regard to party lines.14 The Rambler's radical nature had tarnished its reputation, but the freedom to discuss any topic without restriction appealed to Acton.

He wanted, moreover, to work with Richard Simpson, who became his co-editor and friend.

Simpson had begun his literary career in 1850 with a 22

series of articles in The Rambler. From 1852-1858, he played

an active role in the review, working with Capes in various

capacities and finally becoming editor and co-owner. He

had a flare for exposing scandal and boldly asserting his

liberal ideas. Newman gives this description of Simpson:

He will always be clever, amusing, brilliant and Suggestive. He will always be flicking his whips at Bishops, cutting them in tender places, throwing stones at Sacred Congregations, and, as he rides along the high road, discharging peashooters at cardinals who happen by bad luck to look out the windows.1 5

By his many talents and ability to write on different

subjects such as history, metaphysics, mathematics,

Shakespeare, or theology, Simpson won Acton's admiration.

It was partly Simpson and his "provocative pen," of course, which were responsible for The Rambler's poor reputation.1 6

Acton joined The Rambler briefly in 1857 and on a

full-time basis in 1858. He became a partner with Simpson as proprietor and co-editor, but the latter yielded to Acton's

leadership, despite being fourteen years his senior.1 7

Acton's true abilities evolved as he began to edit and write

for a review with no background in journalism. Placed in charge of the political department, a job for which he was well-suited, he commented that he already had a complete manifesto for the conduct of political affairs, but that he would unfold them gradually, because English Catholics lacked political education.18

Acton's plans, however, went beyond his department, he intended to recreate the atmosphere of the Munich circle.1 9 In bringing about the new spirit of German 23 scholarship, he hoped to improve not only the reputation of he review, but the standards of English scholarship. On

28 February 1858, Acton confided to Simpson what he believed to be the major problems of English journalism:

1) No English journal does foreign questions well. 2) No English journal keeps a judicial position aloof from all parties. 3) No English journal, in my opinion, represents the true constitutional doctrine. 4) And none, I think, maintains the true Catholic view of public affairs.

It was Acton's mission to fill these needs in the pages of The Rambler.2 1

Acton immediately set forth his political ideas concerning Church-State relationships in an essay entitled

"Political Thoughts on the Church," which praised the English

Catholics for using the constitution to obtain emancipation rather of revolution.2 2 He formulated, moreover, two theories about the Church and its position on absolute authority and liberty: (1) The Church was "the irreconcilable enemy of the despotism of the State";

(2) "The Christian notion of conscience imperatively demands a corresponding measure of personal liberty." 2 3 These two ideas became commandments which influenced Acton's public and private life. On them hung all the law and the prophets.

Acton's first encounter with the English hierarchy involved John Capes. After his resignation from The Rambler,

Capes argued that the Catholic faith did not have to be held as absolutely certain. Acton, alarmed by this view and its implications, sought to bring the former editor back into the 24 fold. He arranged a meeting at Aldenham between Capes,

Dollinger (then visiting Acton), Simpson, and himself. The meeting failed to convince Capes. Despite their good intentions, they failed to persuade Capes, but news of the rendezvous leaked out and rumors soon reached to the hierarchy. Monsignor George Talbot, a convert and a Papal chamberlain, reported the meeting to Cardinal Wiseman and related Rome's displeasure. Wiseman dispatched an informal letter to the staff of The Rambler, denouncing the ideas he thought had emanated from them. Thus the editors of The

Rambler incurred their first reprimand by the English hierarchy.2 4

The next conflict arose over the origins of

Jansenism.2 5 In June 1858, Acton published an essay on

Bishop Jacques Benigne Bossuet, Louis XIV's court confessor, which hinted that the French bishop, albeit he was a Jesuit, had displayed Jansenist tendencies. In the August issue,

Acton wrote a review of Pierre-Adolphe Cheruel's Marie Stuart et Catherine de Medicis, which exposed St. Augustine as the father of Jansenism, an assertion which aroused the ire of the hierarchy. The September issue contained an explanatory note of an apologetic nature written by Simpson: "We [the editors] protest that we never intended any errors which the church has proscribed to be confused with the teaching of the greatest 'doctor of the West' when properly understood." 2 6

Acton, who was at Aldenham with Dllinger, was not at all pleased by Simpson's efforts to appease the hierarchy. To 25

Simpson he wrote: "D8llinger, who is here, is fattening with laughter at the ignorance of our divines betrayed in the

Augustinian dispute." 2 7 Acton then persuaded D5llinger to write on the subject and through impeccable scholarship, resolve the conflict over St. Augustine. D&llinger's "The

Paternity of Jansenism," translated into English by Acton, appeared in the December 1858 issue. The thesis of his essay was clear: St. Augustine was the father of Jansenism, a pronouncement widely regarded as a challenge to the Old

English Catholic theologians. Acton, thrilled with

D6llinger's article, sent copies "to all the divines" he could think of. 28 Wiseman planned to refer the controversy

"to an authority superior to mine," but never followed through.2 9 Acton met with Newman to keep him abreast of the debate. During a three hour discussion, Newman called for

The Rambler to retire from all theological matters and to exercise patience toward the hierarchy.3 0

Despite this good advice, Acton vented his indignation at the English Catholic hierarchy in an essay entitled "The

Catholic Press," which appeared in the February 1859 issue of

The Rambler. His reasons for writing it were threefold.

First, he wanted to defend Dollinger, whom he believed had been misunderstood and ill-treated. Secondly, he hoped to influence The Dublin Review, then in the process of reorganizing, to follow a more liberal path. Finally, Acton wanted to promote his plan to bring German scholarship to

England. Since the other journals had not followed his 26

lead in improving the quality of English journalism, he set

forth his ideas for all to see.

"The Catholic Press," an excellent collection of the

doctrines of religious liberalism, has been hailed as the

"manifesto of the Liberal Catholic Movement."31 Acton

sought to convince Catholic readers that "the growth of

knowledge cannot in the long run be detrimental to

religion."3 2 He applied this idea to Catholic journalism:

The mere statement of the claims of science, and of its present character, is enough to indicate how far we are from really accepting it, and how great are the services that might now be performed by a Review that kept aloof from none of the intellectual or social problems which occupy the world. In insisting on a high standard of learning and criticism as the great object of a Catholic Quarterwe have had also our own interest in view...

Though persuasive, "The Catholic Press," due to its

hostile tone, further antagonized the English hierarchy. At

a time when The Rambler needed to reconcile itself to the

hierarchy, Acton "declared war" on Ultramontanists.3 4 The

hierarchy, however, chose not to respond immediately to

"The Catholic Press," but attacked instead Scott Stokes, whose article on education had appeared in the same issue.

In 1858 a royal commission had been established to study

the English educational system. For reasons unknown, no

Catholic was appointed to this commission which would

evaluate Catholic schools among others. The hierarchy had denounced the commission and urged Catholics not to cooperate with its inspectors. Stokes' essay argued in favor of

cooperation with the committee to prevent the loss of 27 government grants .35 Since Acton had taken temporary leave from The Rambler, it was entirely under the direction of

Simpson, but he, encouraged by Acton, had published

Stokes' article in the February issue.

On 13 February, Cardinal Wiseman met with Archbishop

George Errington, Bishop Jeremy Grant of Southwark

(Simpson's bishop), and Bishop William Ullathorne to discuss possible action against The Rambler, now on trial for past transgressions as well as the present one over Stokes.

Though Simpson was the major concern of the bishops, Cardinal

Wiseman included Acton, too, for their condemnation. After much debate, it was decided to leave The Rambler in the hands of Newman, requiring only that Acton and Simpson resign as editors. Newman, for lack of a better solution, took over as editor. Simpson, remaining in a background position, was delighted at the prospect of working with Newman, whom he held in awe.38 He confided to Acton on 20 February: 'I rejoice greatly; though I have been conquered personally, they have not got anything but their revenge, and I expect they will be exceedingly riled to find they have aroused the sleeping lion.' 3 9

Simpson's prediction proved correct for the hierarchy had replaced liberals with a liberal. Newman indeed was inclined to submit to authority, but he continued to support all of Acton's goals, though with a sense of moderation.

Newman hoped to redeem The Rambler by changing the offensive stance it had assumed under Simpson and Acton. Newman, 28 moreover, wanted to imbue The Rambler with the spirit of its founders by meeting the intellectual challenges of the day.40

Wiseman hoped it would become a counterpoise to The Dublin

Review, for with Newman in charge, no second review could compete.41 His first issue, however, disappointed the bishops for they found no change of policy. Soon they became more fearful of The Rambler under Newman than with Acton and

Simpson in control. After only two issues, Bishop Ullathorne requested Newman to resign from the review. 4 2 The Rambler then was restored to Acton and Simpson. Newman's brief editorship, therefore, served one purpose: it preserved The

Rambler for Acton and Simpson. The bishops soon realized that having liberal laymen at the helm of this controversial journal was better than having a respected, liberal priest in the same position. In leaving The Rambler,

Newman offered this advice to the resurrected editors: avoid theology.

Acton became the sole editor in 1859, with Simpson as his co-worker. Thomas Wetherell, a conservative who had joined the staff under Newman, continued to serve as sub- editor. On 25 May 1859, Simpson, in high spirits, boasted that The Rambler would become the "mouthpiece and oracle of

... [Acton's] politics." He agreed with Newman, however, that the review should be "weaned from theology" in order to avoid upsetting the bishops.4 3 Thus in 1859, the battlelines were drawn in England: Acton, Simpson, and the Liberals on the side of freedom of inquiry verses Wiseman, the bishops, 29 and the Ultramontanists all supporting ecclesiastical authority.

During 1859 and 1860, three events occurred which affected Acton's editorship of The Rambler. In June 1859, the Irish borough of Carlow elected him to Parliament. As an

M. P., he contributed little, but this detour in his life's work brought him into contact with William E. Gladstone, with whom he worked closely in later years. In 1860, his mother died, and despondency over her death caused him to neglect his duties at The Rambler and in the Commons. Finally,

Newman in 1860 ended his association with the review, believing it was Simpson, not Acton, who actually edited The

Rambler.4 5

Acton steered The Rambler free of major controversy during these years, but the hierarchy kept a watchful eye on the two liberals controlling it. In 1861, however,

Archbishop Manning informed Acton that a censure from Rome was impending and that he should disengage himself from the review, due to its being "less Catholic in spirit." 4 6 Acton, not yet willing to lower his ensign, sought for a way to change the Church's antagonism toward The Rambler.

In March 1862, Acton, with Simpson and Wetherell, agreed to convert the bi-monthly Rambler into a quarterly publication. This transition followed the periodical's natural development, but brought it into competition with the decrepit Dublin Review. Having no desire to antagonize

Wiseman and the hierarchy and confident the negotiations 30

would fail, Acton proposed merging the two publications. He

hoped, of course the attempt to reconcile the opposing

Liberal and Ultramontanist factions would earn for him the

soubriquet, "Peacemaker." As expected, the proposed merger

failed, and the Ultramontanists were branded as the party

unwilling to compromise.4 7 Acton observed: "Here is the end

of the Dublin negociations and the beginning of the fight; a

stand-up fight it will be." 4 8

As a result of these proceedings, The Rambler changed its

title to The Home and Foreign Review, though the personnel

and the spirit of the old review remained intact. The new

name was intended to signify a fresh start and a shift away

from the negative attitude of The Rambler. This obvious and

disingenuous maneuver, however, did not fool the hierarchy,

which continued to watch the new journal as closely as the

old.

The bishops did not have long to wait for the very first

issue of The Home and Foreign Review aroused the wrath of

Wiseman. In the spring of 1862, he had visited Rome for the

canonization of the Japanese martyrs. While there, he

presided over a commission on Temporal Power; for this

occasion, he had composed an address supporting the Pope.

Acton gave notice of the address in the issue of 1 July, but made no comment. On 4 July, LaPatrie, a French newspaper, published a scathing review of the Cardinal's statement.

Wiseman mistakenly connected the two reports and censured

Acton's journal. But the condemnation, expressed in general 31 terms, was nothing more than a disapproval of dangerous tendencies.4 9 There the matter might have rested had not The

Dublin Review, now under the direction of Ward, an extreme

Ultramontanist, renewed the attack.5 0 Ward's religious philosophy, moreover, excluded history, an omission which further vexed Acton, already resentful of The Dublin Review's competition.5 1

The Home and Foreign Review served as the leading journal of the Liberal Catholic Movement in England until

1863, when events on the Continent brought an end to its tribune role. Two Catholic congresses were held in Malines,

Belgium, and Munich to discuss liberalism and the position of the Church. In August, The Congress of Belgian Catholics met in Malines where Montalembert delivered two speeches: "A Free

Church in a Free State" and "Liberty of Conscience."

He strongly defended freedom and toleration, but cautioned against theological controversy. Acton rejoiced at his words and praised the assembly as the beginning of a new age.5 2

In Munich, meanwhile, the Congress of Catholic Scholars, composed of about one hundred professors, authors, and doctors of divinity, met under the presidency of Dollinger.

In his opening speech, "The Past and Present of Catholic

Theology," he proclaimed that German theology, having embraced the new scientific and historical methodology, had become the true Catholic theology. D"llinger called for a reevaluation of scholastic theology, freedom of inquiry, and, repeating Lamennais' appeal of 1832, he urged the Church 32

to embrace the liberal doctrines. Acton, who attended the meeting, again rejoiced at the progress of Liberal

Catholicism.5 3

The Pope at first approved of the purpose of the

Congress at Munich, but later changed his mind. On 21

December 1863, Pius IX issued the "Munich Brief," but did not

publish it until 5 March 1864. In vague language, the

response condemned general propositions, but it specifically

denounced the doctrine of freedom of scholarship outside

the approval of ecclesiastical authorities.5 4 Acton

summarized the Brief as follows: "In a word,,... [it] affirms

that the common opinions and explanations of Catholic divines

ought not to yield to the progress of secular science." 5 5

Although the Brief was a response to the Munich

Congress, Acton thought The Home and Foreign Review fell

within the range of its condemnation. To Simpson he declared

that if the Papal letter were accepted, "the Review loses its

identity and the very breath of its nostrils"; moreover, it

contains nothing new "but the open aggressive declaration

and the will to enforce obedience." 5 6 With the support of

Simpson and Wetherell, he wrote "Conflicts with Rome" and

published it in the last issue of The Home and Foreign

Review.

No Catholic can contemplate without alarm the evil that would be caused by a Catholic journal persistently labouring to thwart the published will of the Holy See, and continuously defying its authority. The conductors of this Review refuse to take upon themselves the responsibility of such a position. ... I will not challenge a conflict which would only deceive the world into a belief that religion cannot be harmonized with 33 all that is right and true in the progress of the present age. But I will sacrifice the existence of the Review to the defense of its principles, in order that I may combine the obedience which is due to legitimate ecclesiastical authority, with an equally conscientious maintenance of the rightful and necessary liberty of thought .57

With this issue, The Home and Foreign Review yielded to the

authority of Rome. Acton ceased to be an editor, but his work as a journalist was far from over. After the demise

of his review, Acton wrote articles regularly for the

Chronicle and the North British Review.

The Munich Brief struck a severe blow at the Liberal

Catholic Movement. Dollinger, undoubtedly the object of

Papal wrath, remained silent for the moment. Pius IX again attacked the Liberal Movement in the Syllabus Errorum (8

December 1864). The Syllabus of Errors appended to the encyclical Quanta Cura, listed what Rome considered errors in the modern world. It focused on problems within the Latin world and ignored the politics of England, France, and

5 8 Germany. (Only the last four errors, indeed, pertained to liberalism.)5 9 This amazing document, the epitome of obscurantism, paved the way for the declaration of Papal

Infallibility, an episode which ended the Liberal Movement within the Roman Catholic Church.

An investigation of Acton's work with Catholic reviews, indicates how important this phase of his life was to his development as a Church critic. Acton began to work with

English journals in order to raise their intellectual standards. He soon realized, however, that Ultramontanist 34

priests and bishops would oppose his efforts. Due to their

opposition, his goals changed, and he began to challenge the

authority of the Church on behalf of freedom of inquiry.

Acton's essays reveal his extraordinary talent and

ability. With no journalistic training, he came to England

to edit and write for a respected review. These six years

(1858 - 1864) were the most productive of his life. In this

short time, he produced hundreds of reviews and essays in

four languages on a variety of subjects. For the January

1863 issue of The Home and Foreign Review, Acton contributed

thirty-one of the sixty three reviews.6 0

Acton's partnership with Richard Simpson was beneficial

to both men. Simpson, with his experience in journalism and

similar views, allowed Acton the freedom to visit with

Dollinger and pursue other interests. There were times when

Simpson, not Acton, indeed edited The Rambler. On the other hand, the association with Simpson, the black sheep among

Catholic journalists, probably damaged Acton's reputation.

In any case, the hierarchy concluded that both threatened the unity of the Catholic communion, whether separately or together. Acton's work would not have taken another path nor been delayed had he never met Simpson, but his association with this Liberal Catholic journalist reinforced Dllinger's influence and encouraged his evolution as a critic of Church authority.

D0llinger was, of course, the source and inspiration for most of Acton's knowledge and ideas in the fields of history 35

and theology. He brought to England not only German

scholarship, but the Liberal Catholic doctrines of the

Continent. English Liberal Catholics knew of the work being done in Germany and France, but Acton gave them direct

contact with these concepts and provided unity for the movement.

Without a struggle, Acton forfeited The Home and Foreign

Review to the forces of Ultramontanism. This action was a gross error of judgment, for it left the liberal movement in

England without a voice to express the views of fellow

Catholics. When Pius IX issued the Syllabus of Errors and later announced the assembly of a council, Acton and his liberal colleagues were unable to make an effective response.

In defense of Acton's decision to terminate The Home and

Foreign Review, it must be admitted that his options were limited. He could either continue the journal and face the full wrath of the Pope or leave the review and find another way to bring the teachings of historical theology into the

Church's doctrines.

During the years, 1858-1864, Liberal and Ultramontanist doctrines evolved in opposite directions. Ultramontanists began to rely more and more on the authority of the Church and to deny the tenets of historical theology. Did they fear the Church could not compete with the progress of modern science? It came as no surprise when Ultramontanists called for a Vatican Council to declare the Pope infallible. But could a Church council hold back the march of time? NOTES

1 Acton's trip to America can be studied through his diary: Acton in America, ed. S. W. Jackman (Shepardtown, West Virginia, Patmos Press, 1979).

2 Herbert Butterfield, "Lord Acton," in Pamphlets of the English Historical Association, No. G-9 (London, 1948), 4.

3 Josef Altholz and Damian McElrath, The Correspondence of Lord Acton and Richard Simpson, 3 vols. (Cambridge, University Press, 1971), I, x.

4 Lord Acton, "The Munich Congress," Home and Foreign Review (Jan., 1864), reprinted in Essays g Church and State, 184.

5 Gertrude Himmelfarb, Lord Acton: A Study in Conscience and Politics (London, Routledge & Psaul, 1952), 21-23.

6 Lord Acton, "Dollinger's Historical Work," English Historical Review, 5 (Oct. 1890), 721.

7 David Mathew, Lord Acton and His Times (University, Alabama, University Press, 1968), 52; George Peabody Gooch, History and Historians of the Niniteenth Century, (London, Longmans, Green and Co., 1913), 354.

8 Lord Acton, "Cardinal Wiseman," Home and Foreign Review (1862), repr. in History gf Freedom, 452.

9 Lord Acton, "The Catholic Press," The Rambler (Feb., 1859), repr. in Church and State, 268.

10 Altholz, Lib. Cath. Mov., 61.

11 Abbot Gasquet, Lord Acton and His Circle (London, Burt Franklin, 1906), xxiv.

12 In 1858, Acton negotiated for the editorship of The Dublin Review, but Wiseman insisted on keeping control of the journal. Gasquet, Acton, 30-42.

36 37

13 Hugh MacDougall, Acton-Newman Relations: The Dilemma of Christian Liberalism (New York, Fordham University Press, 1962), 26.

14 Ibid., 27.

15 Quoted in Wilfrid Ward, The Life of John Henry Cardinal Newman 2 vols. (London, Longman, Green, & Co., 1912), I, 529.

16 Altholz and McElrath, Acton-Simpson Corr., xvi.

17 MacDougall, Acton-Newman Rels., 29.

18 Acton to Simpson, 16 Feb. 1858, Gasquet, Acton, 4.

19 Lionel Kochan, Acton on History (London, A. Deutsh, 1954), 20.

20 Acton to Simpson, 28 Feb. 1858, Gasquet, Acton, 11.

21 The limited scope of this study does not permit it to cover all of Acton's policies, essays, and activities. Its focus ereforce is his confrontation with the Catholic hierarchy, reestablished in 1851, and how his position changed from purely intellectual to anti-Ultramontanist.

22 Lord Acton, "Political Thoughts on the Church,." The Rambler (1858), repr. in History gf Freedom, 209.

23 Ibid, 203.

24 Altholz, Lib. Cath. Mov., 73.

25 Developed by Cornelius Jansen (1585-1638), Jansenism argued that the official teaching of the Roman Catholic Church was Augustinian in form, but not in content; it also denounced the Jesuits for searching for loopholes in divine law. It was condemned by Innocent X's Cum Occaisione (1653). Alexander Sedgwick, Jansenism in Seventeenth-Century France (Charlottesville, Virginia, University Press, 1977), 193-200.

26 Altholz, Lib. Cath. Mov., 78.

27 Acton to Simpson, 2 Sept. 1858, Acton-Simpson Corr., I, 75.

28 Ibid, 105.

29 The Jansenism debate is thoroughly covered in Altholz, The English Liberal Catholic Movement, 77-81 and Macdougall, Acton-Newman Rels., 36-40. 38

30 Newman to Acton, 31 December 1858 Ward, Newman, I, 483-485; Acton to Simpson, 1 January 1859, Acton-Simpson Corr, I, 117.

31 Altholz, Lib. Cath. Mov., 85.

32 Acton, "The Catholic Press," Church & State, 272.

33 Ibid., 276.

34 MacDougall, Acton-Newman Rels., 42.

35 Altholz, Lib. Cath. Mov., 89.

36 Acton to unknown correspondent, 4 Feb. 1859, Gasquet, Acton, 60.

37 Acton to Simpson, 12 Dec. 1858, Acton-Simpson Corr., 102.

38 Damian McElrath, "Richard Simpson and John Henry Newman: The Rambler, Laymen, and Theology," Catholic Historical Review, 52, No. 4 (Aug., 1967), 513.

39 Simpson to Acton, 20 Feb. 1859, Acton-Simpson Corr., 154.

40 Altholz, Lib. Cath. Mov., 98.

41 Woodruff, Church and State, 20

42 MacDougall, Acton-Newman Rels. 44.

43 Simpson to Acton, 25 May 1859, Acton-Simpson Corr., 183.

44 For an account of Acton's uneventful Parliamentary career, see J. J. Auchmuty, "Acton: The Youthful Parliamentarian," Historical Studies, Australia and New Zealand, 9 (June, 1960), 131-139.

45 Woodruff, Church and State, 23.

46 Ibid., 27.

47 Himmelfarb, Acton: A Study in Con., 58.

48 Acton to Simpson, 5 Apr. 1862, Gasquet, Acton, 267.

49 Altholz, Lib. Cath. Mov., 187-8.

50 For a study of William G. Ward, see Wilfrid Ward's William G. Ward and the Oxford Movement (London, Macmillian & Co., 1890) and William G. Ward and the Cathlic Revival 39

(London, Macmillian & Co., 1893); K. Theodore Hoppen, "W.G. Ward and Liberal Catholicism," Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 23, No. 4 (Oct., 1972), 323-344.

51 Ibid., 337.

52 MacDougall, Acton-Newman Rels., 87; Altholz, Lib. Cath Mov., 220.

53 Altholz, Lib. Cath. Mov., 222.

54 Acton, "Conflicts with Rome," Home and Foreign Review (Apr., 1864), repr. in Essays on Freedom and Power, ed. Gertrude Himmelfarb (Gloucester, MA, 1972), 259.

55 Ibid., 265.

56 Acton to Simpson, 8 Mar. 1864, Gasquet, Acton, 317- 318.

57 Acton, "Conflicts with Rome," 270-271.

58 Mathew, Acton and his Times, 163.

59 The Papal Encyclicals, ed. Anne Fremantle (New York, New American Library, 1956) 152. "X. Errors having reference to Modern Liberalism

77. In the present day it is no longer expedient that the Catholic religion should be held as the only religion of the state, to the exclusion of all other forms of Worship. Allocution "nemo Vestrum," July 26, 1855

78. Hence it has been wisely decided by law, in some Catholic countries, that persons coming to reside therein shall enjoy the public exercise of their own peculiar worship. Allocution "Acerbissimum," Sept. 27, 1852

79. Moreover, it is false that the civil liberty of every form of worship, and the full power, given to all, of overtly and publicly manifesting any opinions whatsoever an thoughts, conduce more easily to corrupt the morals and minds of the people, and to propagate the pest of indifferentism. Allocution "Nunquam fore," Dec. 15, 1856

80. The Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and come to terms with progress, liberalism, and modern civilization. Allocution "Jamdudum Cernimus," March 18, 1861."

60 Mathew, Acton and his Times, 91. CHAPTER II

LORD ACTON AND THE VATICAN COUNCIL:

THE CHALLENGE REPELLED

The Liberal Catholic Movement championed freedom of inquiry in opposition to Papal authority, which became synonymous with Ultramontanism. For Lord Acton the struggle against authority had begun in 1858, when he assumed the role of a Catholic pundit, and reached its climax in 1870 at the

Vatican Council. Despite being an uninvited layman, he became the leader of the Liberal Catholic Opposition at Rome, where his influence exceeded that of any bishop or churchman.

Here he tried to unite the disorganized Minority and to bring

about the intervention of certain governments.

On 6 December 1864, Pius IX announced to his cardinals

that he believed an ecumenical council should meet to discuss

problems confronting the Catholic Church. He directed the cardinals to study the question in complete secrecy and to

report their opinions as soon as possible. Of the twenty-one

responses, two opposed the idea, and- six questioned its

utility, but the rest welcomed a council which would define and support Catholic doctrines. Only two of the replies mentioned Papal Infallibility. In April 1865, the Pope

40 41 informed certain bishops that he was giving the matter serious consideration and asked what issues should be on the agenda. Following the lead of the cardinals, they, too, favored a council which would discuss the ideological offspring of secular learning: pantheism, rationalism, communism, socialism, naturalism, spiritualism, religious indifference, and Protestant teachings about the Sacred

Books. On 29 June 1867, Pius IX officially announced the

Council would be held during the eighteenth centenary of the martyrdom of the Apostles Peter and Paul.1

Why did the Pope want an ecumenical council? As the

German theologian and philosopher, Jakob Frohschammer, has explained: "Its object was entirely to bind faith and knowledge of the people to the will of the Bishop of Rome, and to give them a place in his warfare against temporal governments with all their rights and liberties.)"2 This statement indicates the two main reasons for the Council: liberalism and temporal power. The liberal forces of the day created disunity within the Catholic communion. By binding the faith and knowledge of all Catholics, Pius hoped to overcome his liberal opponents.

The temporal power of the Pope had long been an albatross of European diplomacy, but especially since the

Revolution of 1848. Most nations supported the existence of the Papal monarchy, but few were willing to fight for the

Pontiff. Pius IX argued that every man was either a sovereign or subject; thus the loss of temporal authority 42 would reduce his status to that of a subject. The Papal

States, therefore, opposed all efforts to unite Italy, while the French garrison in Rome defended Pius against his enemies; but in 1860, the second war of the Risorgimento cost the Pope all of his lands, except Rome and the surrounding area. Pius had, of course, excommunicated King Victor

Emmanuel II, an act which further strained Italo - Papal relations.3

The temporal power of the Pope, however, was as much a religious issue as a political one. Ultramontanists, citing the traditional authority of the Pope, supported all his temporal claims. Liberals, meanwhile, saw the Papal States as an obstacle to the national unity of Italy and advocated their annexation.4

Pius IX maintained a discreet silence on the infallibility question until the Council was in session, but his ambition, nonetheless, was well-known. He regarded the declaration of infallibility as a strong weapon to wield in his struggle to regain lost temporal power. Personal vanity was not the reason for this policy. He had come to exercise great influence over the majority of Catholics through his long pontificate, which enabled him to renew most of the episcopate and appoint many cardinals.5

Since the closing of The Home and Foreign Review, Acton had continued to write essays for the Chronicle and the North

British Review, and from 1864 to 1868, he made a systematic search of continental archives and museums. From Dllinger, 43

sources to Acton learned the importance of original book to manuscript and historical accuracy: "By going from "we exchange doubt for from library to archive," he declared, 6 These were certainty, and become our own masters.1" this time opposition to the formative years for Acton, for at mind. He also came to church council evolved in his fecund Infallibility would believe that the declaration of Papal of all Popes. Citing justify retrospectively the actions actions of some the history of the Papacy, he argued the that they were Popes would deny even the remote possibility with Gladstone his infallible. While in Rome, Acton shared March 1870, confessed: "I thoughts on this problem. On 20 to find find one part of the Episcopate busily trying despotism, regicide, sophisms that will justify persecution, if the and other things to which the church is committed 7 popes are infallible." the definition of Acton regarded the growing support for Catholics as the chief Papal Infallibility among orthodox subject threat to freedom of inquiry, for this doctrine would he had labored to show it to the Pope's control. Since 1858, of the sciences how historical criticism and the advancement only to could benefit England. Now this dogma threatened not Movement itself. end this progress, but the Liberal Catholic power it Acton feared centralized authority and the "Power tends to held. His great axiom, formulated in 1887 -- -- indicates corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely." 8 of the this feeling of dread. It was not the autocracy 44

Roman Catholic Church that Acton feared, but authority without a system of checks and balances to restrain it.

He respected, for example, the Constitution of the United

States for its inherent separation of powers, for Federalism, as practiced in the United States, could ensure the liberty of its people.9

Acton also argued that the dogma of Papal Infallibility would give the Jesuits too much power. He had long opposed this order as the hotbed of scholasticism, the antithesis of scientific methodology, and now the Pope had come too much under the influence its organ the Civilta cattolica.10

"Papal Infallibility," he charged, "had been always their favorite doctrine."1 1 During the Council, Acton became convinced that the Society of Jesus was plotting his assassination, a suspicion he shared with Cardinal Prince

Gustav-Adolf Hohenlohe.12

Acton believed, moreover, that the dogma of Papal

Infallibility would undermine ecumenical forces then at work within the Church. If the Roman pontiff were declared infallible, a possible reunion with the Greek Church and several Protestant churches would be shattered.13

At the beginning of 1869, Acton was optimistic that some good might come out of the Council, bringing reform and new life to the Church. This optimism, however, soon vanished as the forces of Ultramontanism gained. He spent these early months of 1869 collecting statements that liberal bishops had made against infallibility. If the need arose, he intended 45 to hold them to their word.14

The Minority, meanwhile, received support from

D5llinger, Acton's professor and friend, who had just published Der Papst und das Konzil under the pseudonym

"Janus." This essay, based on extensive historical documentation, demonstrated the difference between the ancient and modern Papacy and revealed how modern Popes had lost their innocence through deceit and heresy. Acton, nonetheless, thought the pamphlet too mild and urged

D6llinger to produce a second essay to be the coup de grace of the Infalliblists.1 5 Acton spent the months before the

Council, (July - September, 1869), at Herrnsheim, his estate near Worms, in order to be closer to Rome. As a result of this decision, Herrnsheim became a meeting place at which the

Minority planned strategy for the Council. Men like Felix

Dupanloup, the Bishop of Orleans, Wilhelm Ketteler, the

Archbishop of Mainz, and Karl Hefele, the Bishop of

Rottenberg, came here to concert their plans with Acton and

Do"llinger. These men, however, represented different viewpoints. In Acton's judgment:

Ketteler appears resolute on the right side, but on grounds of expediency, not like Hefele, of doctrine. Dupanloup looks forward to the question of opportunity as his vantage ground. They expect to get off on a quibble, like a condemned criminal.1 6

Of the three positions, Acton believed only that based on doctrine could challenge the Ultramontanists. Dupanloup,

however, spoke for most of the Minority when he questioned

the dogma's opportuneness. 46

from Acton and many Dupanloup had earned a reprimand he had defended the syllabus Liberal Catholics in 1864, when of propositions to his own brand of Errors and reconciled its Acton again rebuked the Liberalism. In September 1869, ignorance," he French bishop: "I was appalled at his I said to ... Professor confessed, "After he was gone 'What is to be expected if [D8llinger], with some emotion: On 11 November, this is one of the best specimens.'"17

however, Dupanloup redeemed himself by denouncing its inopportuneness. Acton infallibility on the grounds of show of support welcomed his pastorial letter as a positive 1 8 and accordingly revised his opinion of the bishop. German bishops met at In August and September, 1869, the and the question of Fulda to debate the upcoming Council came a joint pastorial infallibility. From this conference not the Pope, should letter which suggested that the Council, but in any case, define the theology of the proposed dogma, to raise the most German Catholics thought it inexpedient any mention of the issue. The bishops discreetly avoided affirmed their loyalty to phrase "Papal Infallibility" and dispatched a private the Holy See. Later fourteen prelates over the letter to Pius, expressing their concern dogma.19 Despite Acton's inopportuneness of the proposed Conference. Of the need for support, he scorned the Fulda It "was worded with studied pastorial letter, he remarked: of opposite opinions, and to ambiguity, to be signed by men 2 0 conceal the truth.." 47

While at Herrnsheim, Acton wrote "The Pope and the

Council" for the October issue of the North British Review.

This article, a review of Ddllinger's essay, "Der Papst und das Konzil," succinctly restated the professor's main ideas and documentation and warned that Councils as well as Popes could err.2 1

After three months of preparation, Acton at last was ready to go to Rome. To Peter Renouf, an English Orientalist and theologian, he declared: "I am on my way, an unbidden guest, to the council. I am afraid that before we meet again we shall be heretics.",22 These words indicate his pessimistic mood. The meetings at Herrnsheim had demonstrated how far apart the bishops of the Minority were.

He, of course, continued to work them, but came to believe that the only hope for stopping the Ultramontanists lay in intervention by a foreign government. In the past, the

Papacy had invited the major powers of Europe to send envoys to church councils. If this tradition were followed, could one or more of them be persuaded to oppose a declaration of infallibility?2 3 Faced with this delicate problem, the Roman

Curia responded with a masterpiece of diplomacy. On 29 June

1868, Pius had published the Bull of Convocation which did not invite any government to the Council, but allowed each to request permission to send an ambassador. Thus the question of attendance was shifted from the Church to each state. In

February 1869, the Civilta Cattolica announced that the

Council would translate the Syllabus of Errors and Papal 48

Infallibility into dogma and predicted its deliberations would be brief. In the wake of this announcement, several governments finally became alarmed that Papal Infallibility would constitute an intrusion by the Church into the civil realm.2 4

The first to respond to the Jesuit claim was Prince

Chlodowig von Hohenlohe, Chancellor of Bavaria. Encouraged by Do'llinger, Hohenlohe sent a circular letter to the

Continental cabinets, calling their attention to the possible consequences of a declaration of infallibility. Switzerland did not respond, but Portugal and Belgium declared that it would violate the principle of separation of Church and

State. Spain concurred, for here the recent revolution had aroused anti-clericalism and forced the clergy to depend on the Pope for protection. The Marshal Serraon, provisional regent, moreover, had no control over the bishops appointed by the ousted Queen Isabella II.25

Berlin and Vienna, responding to Hohenlohe's letter, suggested that he had exaggerated the danger posed by the

Council. Otto von Bismarck, Prime Minister of Prussia and himself a Lutheran, had little interest in the Catholic

Church and its doctrines. Despite the plea of many German bishops, he refused to send an envoy to the Council, for the

Austrian and Prussian governments had agreed to ignore the

Council so long as it did not invade the civil domain.2 6

Most Italians, however, showed indifference toward the

Council. On his way to Rome, Acton visited Florence to seek 49

there, he observed that support for the Opposition. While the Council." 2 7 the Italians "do not seem very curious about to annex Rome The Government of Italy, of course, intended intervention by regardless of what the Council decided. But largely on France, whose Italy or some other nation depended troops still occupied Rome. to Acton realized, too, that the Roman Curia looked to persuade Paris for protection, but all he could do was

French bishops among the Minority to write the Quai d'Orsay,

since he had no friends within the French government.

Emile Ollivier, the French premier, though a Protestant, was reasons. He knew that opposed to intervention for political he had the no ambassador to the Council could succeed, unless from Rome, an act that power to recall the occupation forces alike. would alienate French Catholics and nationalists of the pro-Roman The party led by Louis Veuillot, editor

L'Univers, would consider withdrawal a betrayal of

Ultramontanism. The Republicans and Liberals opposed Church and intervention as a violation of the separation of French State. Ollivier, moreover, thought that recall of 2 8 troops would only make Pius IX a martyr. the Another major problem within the French ministry was

conflict between Ollivier and Count Napoleon Daru, his

foreign minister. Daru, a Catholic, opposed Papal also Infallibility as an intrusion upon states' rights, which

threatened the Church. After taking office on 2 January de 1870, Daru instructed Gaston-Robert Morin, Marquis 50

Banneville, ambassador at the Vatican, to inform the Pope that French troops might be withdrawn, if the Council adopted dogmas hostile contrary to normal Church-State relations. On

February 20, he directed Banneville to read a strong note to

Cardinal Giacomo Antonelli, the Vatican's Secretary of State.

The foreign minister indeed had acted with the approval of

Napoleon III, but had not consulted Ollivier nor the Cabinet.

Banneville delayed delivering the note while Ollivier persuaded Daru to soften its tone. Cardinal Antonelli, for his part, denied the accusation that Pius aspired to raise ecclesiastical power above civil authority. The foreign minister's threat to the Council, however, ended abruptly when he resigned on 14 April over an unrelated issue.2 9

Daru's attempts to forestall the promulation of Papal

Infallibility were defeated as much by disunity within the

French ministry as by domestic opposition and Papal diplomacy. Writing to Gladstone, the British prime minister,

Acton confessed that he could not 'understand why the

Liberal Ministry in France continued to support an authority so misused.' 3 0 Only through Gladstone, did he have a connection with any European government.

The friendship of these two prominent Victorians had begun during Acton's brief Parliamentary career. Gladstone, himself a High Church Anglican, had briefly considered be- coming a priest. Despite rumors that he had Roman Catholic leanings, his belief in liberty and disgust with the despotism of the Catholic Church assured his loyalty to the 51

Church of England. Gladstone, however, admired Acton's

wealth of knowledge and high moral principles, notwith-

standing his Catholicism. Gladstone, nonetheless, followed

closely the proceedings of the Vatican Council, due to his

reform program for Ireland, which included the

disestablishment of the Anglican Church in that Catholic

island. An aggressive Ultramontanist Church, he reasoned,

would undermine his policies.31

While in Rome, Acton wrote Gladstone eleven letters.

These, plus the dispatches of Odo Russell, the Secretary of

the English Legation at Florence, kept him well-informed of

events at the council, Gladstone demonstrated faith in his

friend by directing him to act as an alter ego. In a

dispatch to Russell, Gladstone wrote: "Please tell Lord

Acton he may use the strongest language he thinks fit

respecting my opinion on the subject ... [of Papal

Infallibility]."3 2 Gladstone, moreover, secured for Acton a

peerage, which increased his prestige in the eyes of the

Ultramontanists at Rome.

On 24 November 1869, Acton infored Gladstone:

"Everything is prepared here for the proclamation of Papal

Infallibility." 3 3 The Opposition's reliance on the

expediency of the decree, he thought, created a problem, for those who relied on this argument would soon fall before the power of Rome. The only legitimate stand was denial of the

truth of the dogma, but only "a score or two" were willing to do so. Early in the Council, Acton estimated the 52

Opposition to number no more than two hundred of all shades of opinion. With so few, their ranks divided, nothing could be accomplished. Soon the content of his letters to

Gladstone changed as he shifted his focus to the political aspects of the Council.3 4

On 1 January 1870, Acton appraised the situation in

Rome, inside and outside the Council, and denounced three

Papal documents -- Multiplices Inter, Apostolica Sedis, and

Schema de Doctrina Catholica -- which clearly revealed Papal absolutism. The first gave the Pope the right to define dogma, though the Council could approve or reject his actions; the second defined excommunication procedure; and the third reaffirmed the Ultramontanist dictum that scientific claims had no validity, if not approved by the

Church. The policies of the French government and other nations toward the Council were noninterventionist;

consequently, the Opposition, as predicted, stumbled from one dismal failure to another.35

In February, Acton observed that aid from one of the

Great Powers was the only hope of the Opposition. He thought

naively that France remained a possibility and that

Prussia might join in such a step.3 6 Acton's pleas for

British intervention, in fact, were the sole hope of the

liberal Minority in Rome. Gladstone, relying on Acton's

reports, were correct, did attempt to prevent the

promulgation of Papal Infallibility. The London cabinet,

however, received contradictory information. 53

Acton had the ear of the Prime Minister and the colonial secretary (his father-in-law, Granville); therefore, he was able to influence the British government. But Odo Russell, whose father-in-law George Villiers, 4th Earl of Clarendon, was foreign secretary (1868-1870), had doubted the chances of the Opposition from the beginning and now urged the Ministry not to support a lost cause.3 7 The difference between their attitudes and actions may be explained by their contacts and sources in Rome: Acton associated with the bishops of the

Minority, while Russell worked with Archbishop Manning, a leader of the Ultramontanist party. Pius IX had lowered a veil of secrecy over the Council and ordered its participants to maintain silence, but to counterwork Acton, he had permitted Manning to leak information to Russell. Thus, the

3 8 London cabinet heard both sides of the debate in Rome.

Notwithstanding Russell's role in this chess game, that of

Lord Clarendon was more influential in persuading the

Ministry not to intervene.

Lord Clarendon, former Viceroy of Ireland (1846-1847),

strongly opposed intervention and regarded Gladstone's Roman

policies as detrimental to the political status quo of

Ireland. In April, as Gladstone prepared to support a French

protest to the Vatican, Clarendon secretly polled the

Cabinet and informed the Prime Minister of its unanimous

disapproval of involvement. Gladstone perforce submitted to

the will of the majority.3 9 Pius and Clarendon thus

outmaneuvered Acton and Gladstone. 54

Acton, however, continued to work with the bishops of the Minority, trying to unite them. His room at the Palazzo

Chigi served as a foyer for clergymen from France, Germany, and the United States. Due to Acton's fluency in several languages, he acted as translator for the Minority, whose members tended to divide themselves by nationality. For the bishops, he was a source of advice, information, and inspiration. During one of Dupanloup's nightly talks with

Acton, the French prelate asked him: "How is it that you always have courage and industry?" Acton replied, "It is for my children. I desire only that the religion which will instruct them be pure.1"4 0

Acton, of course, was not the only one aware of the

Minority's disunity. Others, too, saw the problem and sought to remedy it by forming an organization designed to unify the

Opposition. Austrian Cardinals Joseph Rauscher and Friedrich

Schwarzenberg formed the International Committee to provide

one voice for the Minority, but even with it, the Minority

continued to struggle. Ruefully, Acton confessed to

Gladstone: "The minority are in great confusion and

uncertainty, and disposed to rely on external help. "41

Through Acton, the Opposition received such aid from

private sources.

Acton, while in Rome, corresponded regularly with

Dollinger. Another former student, Dr. Johann Friedrich,

who advised Cardinal Prince Hohenlohe, did likewise. Using

the pseudonym "Quirius," Dllinger published these 55 informative letters in the Alligemeine Zeitung. The "Quirius

Letters" embarrassed the Roman Curia, which tried in vain to discover the identity of their authorship. At one point,

Pius ordered prominent Liberal Catholics to leave Rome, but he did not enforce the decree.4 2

The "Quirius Letters" provided a cogent commentary on documents coming out of the Council and helped to mold public opinion against Ultramontanism. They also influenced the policies of minority bishops. The "Quirius Letters," though factual and objective, still exhibited a positive attitude toward the Church.4 3 By this time, Dollinger's attitude had become pessimistic and radical, but Acton's mission to Rome and association with the minority bishops had shielded him from this bias.

Acton continued to work with the Opposition until he

realized that Papal Infallibility would be declared. On

11 June, he repaired to Tegernsee, Bavaria, the home of

his wife's family. Other members of the Minority stayed in

Rome for so long as their consciences would allow. The final

act occurred in July as the definition of Papal Infallibility

was placed before the General Assembly. The first vote, cast

on 13 July, was far from unanimous, but after minor

amendments, Papal Infallibility was promulgated as dogma

4 18 July in the Constitution Pastor Aeternus.4 The

Opposition, realizing its cause was lost, followed the

example of Acton and left Rome rather than vote non-placet

against the decree. The Pope had his victory, but it was 56 short-lived. The next day, 19 July 1870, the Franco-Prussian

War was declared, effectively ending the Council. The French government withdrew its garrison from Rome on 19 August, and a month later (20 September), Italian troops occupied the city. The question of the Pope's temporal power thus was 4 5 settled, giving Acton great satifaction.

Acton published his account of the events in Rome in an essay, "The Vatican Council," which appeared in the North

British Review (October, 1870). Written after his anger and sense of hopelessness had waned, Acton was able to regain much of the impartiality expected of an honest historian. In it, he explained that the Minority was destroyed not so much 4 6 by Ultramontanism as by their own disunity. Acton ended with an evaluation of, and program for, Liberal Catholics:

Looking to the immediate future, they [the Opposition] were persuaded that an irresistible reaction was at hand, and that the decrees of the Vatican Council would fade away and be dissolved by a power mightier than the Episcopate and a process less perilous than schism. ... And they resolved to spare the Pope and themselves the indignity of a rupture. Their last manifesto, La derniere Heure, is an appeal for patience, an exhortation to rely on the guiding, healing hand of God. They deemed that they had assigned the course which was to save the Church, by teaching Catholics to reject a Council which was neither legitimate in constitution, free in action, nor unanimous in doctrine, but to observe moderation in contesting authority over which great catastrophes impend. They conceive that it would thus be possible to save the peace and univ of the Church with sacrifice of faith and reason.

Acton tried to find hope for Liberal Catholics, but with the

Pope having been declared infallible, they knew their

movement had lost. Now Catholics had to submit to Rome or

leave the Church. 57

Odo Russell, despite his disagreement with Acton, praised his work on behalf of the Opposition:

To Lord Acton's marvellous talents, science, energy and its zeal, the enlightened opposition in the Council owes present existence and strength. Without him the Germans, French, Americans and English could not have agreed and acted together,.. Acton has done what no one else in the world could do4

The Vatican Council was Liberal Catholicism's final battle. Every member of the Opposition realized that Papal

Infallibility would place the will of the Pope above his own concepts and intellect. With the passing of the Vatican

Decrees in 1870, one could not be Catholic and liberal.

Acton had been a worthy opponent of Ultramontanism, but in the end, the absolute authority of the Pope had prevailed.

What was Acton's role at the Vatican Council? As a layman, he had no official status in Rome, but due to his prestige and personal contacts, he was in a position to know what happened at the proceedings and behind the scenes.

Acton functioned as the fulcrum of the Opposition; their

ideas and suggestions passed through him to the other

national groups.

More than that, Acton was a source of information and

materials about the Council's work. His opposition stemmed

from a deep knowledge of ecclesiastical history, which

revealed that the dogma rested upon false claims. Acton

realized that all arguments dealing with expediency and

inopportuneness would be refuted by the Ultramontanists. As

he and Dllinger had foreseen, the best way to destroy the 58

clay. "monster' was to show that it stood on feet of men who did not Unfortunately, Acton had to work with of the Minority understand historical theology. The bishops of the Pope on minor moreover, had submitted to the will crisis arose, they lacked issues for so long, that when this his claims. the courage and determination to resist His Acton served as a catalyst for the Opposition. support that kept the energy provided much needed emotional to He worked behind the scenes spirit of resistance alive. Despite exhort them onward when their enthusiasm flagged. Acton continued the defeat, rejection, and abandonment, was gone. struggle against the dogma until all hope into How much faith did Acton have in the Minority going of 1869, but the Council? He was optimistic at the beginning when the Council opened. turned pessimistic about its chances national lines Differences in opinion and division along any case, the Opposition helped to cause its downfall. In the Ultramontanists. faced the overwhelming superiority of had Working with unity and devotion to the Pope, the majority in order to regain one goal: Declare the Pope infallible way to his temporal domain. Acton realized that the only was with a might equal fight the power of the Ultramontanists

to that of the Papacy: the power of the modern sovereign

state. lay in the hands Acton knew that the fate of the Council proceedings could of the Great Powers; only by stopping the The question before the dogma's promulgation be prevented. 59 each cabinet was simple: Do we have the right to intervene?

Ignorance, apathy, and democracy, all played a role in the answer each government gave. Most cabinets did not see the far-reaching consequences of Papal Infallibility. Some officials were indifferent to the proceedings in Rome.

Others wanted to keep the affairs of Church and State separate and did not believe the Pope would cross that line of separation. A few who saw Papal Infallibility as a threat were overruled by their peers. Thus the majority won in the capitals of Europe as in Rome.

Acton had done everything he could to prevent the declaration of Papal Infallibility on the grounds that it was a false dogma. Now he, too, had to decide whether he would submit to the Vatican Decrees or leave the Church. NOTES

1 Abbot Butler, The Vatican Council (Westminister, MD, the Newman Press, 1962), 63-65. Continuation of the Italian unification movement and the Austro-Prussian War (1866) delayed the Council's convocation.

2 Jakob Frohschammer, "The Papacy and National Life," Contemporary Review, 25 (Oct,., 1870),, 328.

3 Hales, Pio Nono, 82-90.

4 J. Victor Conzemius, "Lord Acton and the First Vatican Council," Theology Digest, 18 (Fall, 1970), 223.

5 Hales, Pio Nono, 280. Pius IX's pontificate lasted from 1846-1879, which exceeded the normal span of twenty-five years.

6 Acton, "Notes on Archival Reseaches, 1864-1868," in Lord Acton: The Decisive Decade, 1864-1874, ed. Damian McElrath (Louvain, University Press, 1970), 140.

7 Acton to Gladstone, 20 Mar. 1870. Lord Acton, Selection from the Correspondence of Lord Acton, ed. Figgis and Laurence (London, Longmans, Green, and Co., 1906), 113.

8 Acton, "Review of Dr. Mandell Creighton's The Histroy of the Popes in the Middle Aces," in Essays on Freedom and Power, 335.

9 G. P. Gooch, "Lord Acton: Apostle of Liberty," Foreign Affairs, 25 (June, 1947), 629-631.

10 John Garvey, "Lord Acton, Power, and Papal Infallibility," Commonweal, 42 (Feb., 1980), 43.

11 Acton, "The Vatican Council," North British Review, 14 (Oct., 1870), 188.

12 Mathew, Acton and his Times, 187.

13 MacDougall, Acton-Newman Rels., 112.

60 61 14 Sue Katzman, "Acton and the Bishops of the Minority," Decisive Decade, 189.

15 Himmelfarb, Acton: Study of Cons., 96-98.

16 Acton to Peter Renouf, 18 Sept. 1869, Decisive Decade, 74-75. Peter le Page Renouf was an English Orientalist, Egyptologist, and theologian who contributed regularly to the Home and Foreign Review.

17 Acton to Lady Charlotte Blennerhassett, n. d., Corr., 50-51.

18 Katzman, Decisive Decade, 191.

19 Bulter, Vatican Council, 91.

20 Acton, "Vatican Council," N. Brit. Re_., 14, 202 - 203.

21 Lord Acton, "The Pope and the Council," ibid., 51 (Oct., 1896), 131-132.

22 Acton to Renouf, 2 Sept., 1869, Decisive Decade, 71.

23 Ward White, "Lord Acton and the Governments at the Vatican Council I," ibid., 141.

24 Ibid., 145.

25 Acton, "The Vatican Council," N. Brit. Rev., 14, 194-195.

26 Acton to Gladstone, 1 Jan. 1870's, Corr., 93; Butler, Vatican Council, 78.

27 McElrath, Decisive Decade, 29; Acton later revised his judgment about Italian public opinion. In his essay, "The Vatican Council," he declared: "Italy was more deeply interested in the events at Rome than any other nation."

28 Acton to Gladstone, 1 Jan. 1970, Corr., 9; White, Decisive Decade, 146.

29 Ibid., 148.

30 Acton to Gladstone, 19 Dec. 1869, Corr., 88.

31 Lord George Eversley, Gladstone and Ireland, (Westport, Conn., Greenwood Press, 1971), 109.

32 Wiliam E. Gladstone, The Gladsotne Diaries, with Cabinet Minutes and Prime Ministerial Correspondence, ed. H.C.G. Matthew, 7 vols. (Clarendon Press, 1982), VII, 184. 62

33 Acton to Gladstone, 19 Dec.1869, Corr., 84.

34 Same to same, 24 Nov. and 19 Dec. 1869, ibid. 84, 88.

35 Same to same, 1 Jan. 1870, ibid., 89 - 91.

36 Same to same, 16 Feb. 1870, ibid., 102

37 Odo Russell, The Roman Question: Extracts from the Despatches of Odo Russell from Rome, 1858-1870, ed. Noel Blakiston (London, Chapman and Hill, 1962), 354-355. Upon Clarendon's death on 27 June 1870, Granville suceeded him as foreign secretary.

38 Edmund Purcell, Life of Cardinal Manning (New York, Macmillian and Co., 1896), II, 436.

39 White, Decisive Decade , 160.

40 Acton to Marie (his wife), May - June, 1870, ibid., 93. The translation is my own.

41 Acton to Gladstone, 10 Mar. 1870, Corr., 107.

42 Himmelfarb, Acton: Study of Cons., 99.

43 Conzemius, "Lord Acton and the First Vatican Council," 224-5.

44 The Definition of Papal Infallibility: "The Roman Pontiff when he speaks ex cathedra, that is, when exercising the office of pastor and teacher of all Christians, he defines with his supreme apostolic authority a doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by the universal Church, through the divine assistance promised to him in St. Peter, is possessed of the infallibility with which the divine Redeemer willed his Church to be endowed defining doctrine concerning faith and morals: and therefore such definitions of the Roman Pontiff are irreformable of themselves [and not from the consent of the Church]. Butler, Vatican Council, 385.

45 Mathew, Acton and his Times, 203.

46 Lord Acton, "Vatican Council," N. Brit. Rev., 14, 219-228.

47 Ibid., 549-550.

48 Russell, Roman Ques., 419. CHAPTER III

GLADSTONE AND THE AFTERMATH:

TO YIELD OR NOT TO YIELD?

The Vatican Council and the declaration of Papal

Infallibility had undermined the Liberal Catholic Movement, whose members now had to choose between yielding to the new dogma or leaving the Church. This decision -- a crise de conscience -- was not an easy one for Lord Acton.

On 30 August 1870, in the wake of the Vatican Council,

Acton published an open letter "To a German Bishop of the

Vatican Council," but really intended for Liberal Catholics.

In it he cited documents of the Council and publications of

Minority bishops, including Dr. Hefele's Causa Honorii papae and Archbishop Peter Kenrick's Concio in Concil. Acton praised the Minority for its courageous resistance to "a conspiracy against divine truth and law," but lamented that some 'bishops who had fought the decree now did nothing to oppose its acceptance by the faithful.' He called upon them to continue the struggle against this false dogma which had become "another source for the truths of faith besides Scripture and Tradition."i

Despite the eloquent appeal, Archbishop Kenrick, a

63 64

prominent member of the Minority, announced his submission.

Shocked, Acton immediately asked why. Kenrick responded

that he had applied to his own case Newman's theory of

development; i.e., Papal authority, through evolution, had

become quite different from that held by early Popes.2 As

time passed, other Liberal Catholics also submitted to Rome.

German bishops, however, remained firm in their

opposition to the new dogma. Even before the Council had

ended, clergy and laity laid the foundation for the Old

Catholic Movement. At a meeting in Kdnigswinter (August

1870), 1,359 Catholic laymen issued a declaration, rejecting

Papal Infallibility, and in Nuremberg, a meeting of German

intellectuals, including Dollinger, also denounced the new

doctrine.3

In self-defense, the Church counterattacked in this

sequel to the Reformation of the 16th century. Archbishop

Gregor von Scherr of Munich fired the first shot by requesting Dollinger's submission to Rome. Dllinger, like

Luther three centuries earlier, contemptuously refused on the grounds that the decrees offended him as a Christian, violated the traditions of the Church, disregarded history, and created civic disorder by denying the separation of

Church and State.4 On 17 April 1871, the Roman Curia excommunicated D8llinger. In a new exodus, hundreds of his followers left the Church, and as their ranks grew, Acton became involved.

In May an important meeting of university professors 65

and others took place in Munich to debate the Vatican

Decrees. The Munich Declaration of Whitsuntide (30 May

1871), as expected, condemned Papal Infallibility, the first

overt act in the formation of the Old Catholic Church. The

fifth name on the list of thirty-two signers was Acton's, but

it had been put there by Dr. Josef Berchtold, the meeting's

secretary, without Acton's permission. Acton, indeed, was

not present at the Munich meeting, nor did he wish to be

associated with the Declaration. He protested the inclusion

of his name to De'llinger and asked that it be silently

removed. This incident reveals his ambivalent position.

Acton obviously disapproved of the Vatican Decrees and agreed with the Declaration, but even as he refused to be identified with a schismatic movement, he refrained from submission to

Rome.5 Thus he remained on the horns of a dilemma until the

Gladstone controversy forced him to take a stand.

Gladstone and the Liberal Party, which had come to power during a reforming era, hoped to redress numerous Irish grievances. After disestablishing the Anglican Church in

Ireland (1869) and reforming the Irish educational system,

Gladstone attempted to establish a university in that island for both Catholics and Protestants, but found no support for his University Bill. The Non-conformists did not like the concessions made to Rome; Whigs did not see the need for it, and Catholics charged that Gladstone had not done enough to protect the interests of the Irish hierarchy. With the defeat of the bill (1873), the Liberal Party collapsed 66

(1874), and Gladstone retired from politics for a time.6

Gladstone did not remain idle, however, for the

Vatican Decrees and their political consequences still

vexed him.

Now out-of-office, Gladstone felt himself free to become

involved in a religious debate in which he committed a gross

blunder. His position as Prime Minister had forced him to

remain neutral while the Vatican Council deliberated. Now,

as he observed in 1874, "every difficulty, arising from the

necessary limitations of an official position, had been

removed. "7 Gladstone had harbored resentment toward

the Vatican Decrees for years, but other events, too,

prompted his action in 1874.

In July, 1874, the Disraeli government introduced in

Parliament the Public Worship Regulation Bill, which limited

"ritualism" in the Church of England. Appalled, Gladstone

opposed it in the House of Commons. To refute the argument

'that the High Church Party had introduced Romanism into the

Church of England, Gladstone wrote the essay, "Ritualism and

Ritual," which appeared in the October issue of Contemporary

Review. In it he addressed the question "whether a handful of the clergy are or are not ... [engaged] in an utterly hopeless and visionary effort to Romanize the Church and people of England?"8 This accusation showed his contempt for the Vatican Decrees:

At no time since the bloody reign of Mary has such a scheme been possible. But if it had been possible in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, it would still 67

have become impossible in the nineteenth; when Rome has substituted for the proud boast of semper eadem a policy of violence and change in faith when she has refurbished and paraded anew every rusty tool she was fondly thought to have disused; when no one can become her convert without renouncing his moral and mental freedom, and placing his civil loyalty and duty at the mercy of another.9

The effect of this anti-Catholic essay was slight, for the

author completely missed the main point of the legislation.1 0

"Ritualism and Ritual" proved to be only a stepping stone to

his next, stronger, statement on the civil loyalty of

Catholics.

In September, Gladstone traveled to Munich, where he

stayed with Dollinger who further incited him against Rome.

While there, Gladstone received word of the conversion of

George Frederick Robinson, the Marquess of Ripon, to Roman

Catholicism. The Times depicted Ripon as "the man who ...

has renounced his mental and moral freedom, and has submitted himself to the guidance of the Roman Catholic priesthood."1 1

The conversion of Ripon and the influence of D8llinger convinced Gladstone of the need to attack the Vatican

Decrees.

Acton, also in Germany at the time, supported

Gladstone out of loyalty, since he had not read "Ritualism and Ritual". To his old friend, he declared: "I know pretty well what you wrote the other day,... and I can easily believe that you will find it necessary to say more." Then turning to his bate noire, Ultramontanism, he again castigated it as "so serious a matter, incompatible with

Christian morality as well as with civil society, that it 68

ought not to be imputed to men who, if they knew what they

were about, would heartily repudiate it."1 2 Thus in October

1874, Acton still boldly defied the Pope and his

Ultramontanist advisors. He urged Gladstone, moreover, to

write more on the subject.

Before publishing the "Expostulation," Gladstone

consulted Acton, for many of his arguments stemmed from his

friend's letters about the Vatican Council.1 3 In reading

the essay, Acton found many errors, but Gladstone ignored his

advice. "Objections in detail were attended to, but to all

political, spiritual and other obvious arguments against

publication, he was deaf."14

Gladstone, impelled by an exaggerated fear of Papal

power, then published as a pamphlet "The Vatican Decrees in

Their Bearing on Civil Allegiance: A Political

Expostulation." To Granville, he clearly stated his reason

for making this "Expostulation":

My proper and main motive has been this: the conviction that I have that they [the Roman Catholics] are waiting, in one vast conspiracy, for an opportunity to direct European war to the re-establishment by force of the temporal power' or even to bring about such a war for that purpose.'

This paranoia, of course, was totally unjustified, but

it does indicate that Gladstone's motive was political, not

religious.

The thesis of Gladstone's "Expostualtion, " according to

Acton, Manning, and others, was that English Catholics could not be loyal subjects. He restated the accusations of 69

"Ritualism and Ritual," but explained his fears in greater

detail. He really believed the Vatican Decrees "must be for

some political object, of a very tangible kind, that the

risks of so daring a raid upon the civil sphere have been

deliberately run." 1 6 His hope was that English Catholics

would respond to the charge of conspiracy by proclaiming

their loyalty to the Crown.1 7

Gladstone, moreover, saw no limits to the power of an

infallible Pope as defined by the Vatican Council. "Only

a matter of morals! Will any of the Roman Casuists kindly

acquaint us [with) ... the departments and functions of human

life which do not and cannot fall within the domain of

morals. "18

Within three months of the publication of the

"Expostulation," more than twenty prominent Catholics,

Manning, Acton, and Newman among others, submitted rebuttals.

On 9 November, Archbishop Manning's reply, which carried

the legitimate authority of Roman Catholicism in England,

appeared in The Times. Appealing "to the justice and the

good sense of the Christian people of this country," he dismissed Gladstone's pamphlet as the spawn of Dr.

Dllinger's and Lord Acton's misrepresentations of the

Papacy.19 The loyalty of Catholics, he declared, is no more nor less than that of any Christian man:

In this sense [that the civil allegiance of all who believe in God is divided], and in no other, can it be said with truth that the Civil allegiance of Catholics is divided. The Civil allegiance of every Christian man in England is limited by conscience and the Law of God; 70

and the Civil allegiance of Catholics is limited neither less nor more.2 0

Manning's rebuttal, rewritten for The New York Herald, set forth his own interpretation of the Vatican Decrees.

Acton's reply, which appeared in the same issue of The Times as Manning's open letter, criticized the

"Expostulation" as extreme and illogical in its attack upon

Catholics. Though not mentioned directly, Acton regarded

himself as one of those challenged.2 1 Acton, of course,

found himself in an awkward position for in exposing

Gladstone's mistakes, he revealed the errors of Rome; perforce he walked a thin line between resistance and

submission. Gladstone's indictment of Rome, he argued,

'would have been more convincing, if it had been more complete. '22 The Vatican Decrees, indeed, were as fallacious as Gladstone had alleged, but Ultramontanists had invented them long ago to justify Papal Infallibility, yet

English Catholics had never used the doctrine to harm the state. But Acton, like Gladstone, blundered in asserting the dogma of Papal Infallibility had no hypothetical limits.2 3

His cautious rebuttal, therefore, angered Catholics more than the original "Expostulation." Acton had written so vaguely that they did not understand his argument and concluded that he really agreed with the "Expostulation" in rejecting the authority of the Pope. In trying to explain Acton's letter to The Times readers, the editors asserted that Acton had treated the Decrees "as a nullity." One of the confused readers was Archbishop Manning himself.2 4 71

To remove this confusion, Manning put to Acton two

questions: 1) Do you intend to repudiate the Vatican Decrees?

2) Do you have some special interpretation of them? Acton

quickly assured the prelate that he had no intention of

organizing a schism that would harm the Church, and Manning

expressed satisfaction with this assurance. Acton's answer

to the second question, however, was at once evasive and

ingenious. He simply denied that the Archbishop had the

right to ask it. Manning, he charged, was hounding him for

the word "Submit." To Simpson , he confided that he would be brief, since he did not believe he owed His Grace an

explanation.2 5

Manning, however, continued to press the issue. On

16 November 1874, he again put the question and asked if

Acton were one "of those who adopt a less severe and more conciliatory construction of those decrees." Sphinxlike, His

Lordship replied: "The Acts of the Council alone constitute the law which I recognize. I have not felt it my duty as a layman to pursue the comments of divines, still less to attempt to supersede them by private judgements of my own." 2 6

Manning, of course, refused to accept such an evasive response.

The only person to whom Acton thought he owed an answer-- Bishop James Brown of Shrewsbury, his own bishop-- who was as confused as Manning about the historian's position on the decrees. Acton, of course, had deliberately used ambiguous language in his articles and letters, because he 72

did not wish to take a public stand; he wanted to be left

alone, but the hierarchy, due to his international

reputation, would not let him go in peace. Vexed by Acton's

intransigence, Brown soon joined Manning in trying to get a

confession of submission from him.2 7 Finally, on 16

December 1874, Acton provided Brown with a statement that

satisfied him. To the Bishop of Shrewsbury, he avowed:

To your as to doubt whether I am a real or a pretended Catholic I must reply that, believing all the Catholic Church believes, and seeking to occupy myself with no studies that do not help religion, I am, in spite of sins and errors, a true Catholic, and I protest that I have given you no foundation for your doubt... I have yielded obedience to the Apostolic Constitution whic embodies those decrees, and I have not transgressed. 8

Though Brown was now content, Manning was not. On 2

January 1875, His Grace informed Acton that he had decided to transfer the case to the Roman Curia, but before his dispatch reached Rome Newman published his reply to Gladstone.2 9

"Letter to His Grace the Duke of Norfork," a pamphlet has become the most lasting legacy of this controversy.

Newman explained that he had chosen the format of a letter, because he was "too old to stand up to my man as some champion"; besides he needed a pretext to write, since no duty compelled him.3 0 Papal Infallibility, Newman declared, indeed was limited by the conscience. He argued that both the conscience and the Pope have the same authoritative base; but the Pope, by this decree, gives the individual general rules to follow, while the conscience gives the individual specific commands.3 1 His moderate essay has continued to serve as a guide for Catholics in America and England. 73

With Newman's reply, Gladstone was thoroughly refuted,

but he kept the issue before the public with a second

pamphlet, "Vaticanism: An Answer to Reproofs and Replies,"

which again questioned the validity of the Decrees, a

moribund gesture. The controversy, however, soon became a

Catholic issue that revolved around Acton's position.3 2

Despite their friendship and mutual respect, Newman and

Acton marched to different drummers. The former, a devout

clergyman, believed the individual must submit his will

to ecclesiastical authority, while the latter, an

intellectual layman, just as sincerely advocated freedom of

conscience.3 3 Acton, however, did endorse the "Letter to the Duke of Norfork," and in April 1875, he admitted that

"Newman's conditions would make it possible, technically, to accept the whole of the decrees."3 4

Newman, for his part, came to Acton's defense in the dispute over the Vatican Decrees and praised his friend's honesty. In thanking Newman for his consoling letters, Acton avowed that he had no difficulty in accepting the decrees, but did not think he could satisfy Manning who was forcing the crisis. On 7 December, he returned to this issue, confiding to Newman that the Minority bishops at the Council, indeed, had held a unique position. The Vatican Decrees were legitimate, but perhaps not true.3 5

Throughout the Gladstone controversy, Acton awaited excommunication. As late as April, 1875, after the intensity of the debate had waned, he still expected to be expelled 74

from the Church." 3 6 But the Pope, for whatever reason,

ignored the dispute and permitted Acton to remain in the

Church. From this time onward, however, he could not, and

would not, fight for the religious ideals of Liberal

Catholicism.

What did Acton really think about the Vatican Decrees?

His correspondence with Newman clearly indicates that he did

not believe the Vatican Decrees, but obeyed them, because he

must. "Now I certainly do not reject them ... ," he declared

to Newman, but "do you think that, consistently with what I

have told you, I can honestly say that I accept them."3 7

Did Acton accept the decrees, or did he merely not reject

them? On this point he was deliberately vague, because he

did not want his position known. A student of Dllinger and

a liberal, he could never believe the decrees, but he could

tolerate them in order to keep his faith. In Acton's

opinion, he had done all that was required of him: He did not

publicly repudiate the Vatican Decrees.

Why did Acton choose this apparently inconsistent course

of action? Despite his historical, theological, and moral

disagreements with Rome, he still believed the Church offered the only means of obtaining salvation. His allegiance was to the Church, not the Pope. For Acton to leave the Church was to lose his soul. This is why he chose not to follow

D'llinger and the German bishops into the Second German

Reformation or Gladstone into the Anglican Church. The

Papacy, of course, had made mistakes, but he was prepared to 75 abide by its laws.

Acton believed that time was on his side, and he also

was prepared to wait. In time, theologians would dilute

Papal Infallibility or nullify it. Gladstone's "Expostulation" had forced him into defending his policy of

"non-rejection" of the Decrees through obscurantism. He anticipated, however, that the Curia would see through his game and excommunicate him.

Why was Acton not excommunicated? Acton was saved from this sentence by his layman's status, the passage of time,

and Newman's intervention. Rome did not hunt for dissenters

among the lay community to make martyrs of them. The Curia's

concern was the submission of the clergy. Four years, moreover, had passed since Pius IX had promulgated the Vatican Decrees. By 1874, the Papacy had come to realize Acton, indeed, had no schismatic intent and posed no threat to the unity of the Church, if he remained silent. Newman, too, became an unexpected ally. The appearance of his

"Letter to the Duke of Norfork" coincided with Manning's decision to transfer Acton's case to Rome. The "Letter" established a juste-milieu between Ultramontanism and Liberalism by demonstrating that Papal Infallibility was subject to limitations imposed by the conscience. This compromise provided both Pius and Acton with a face - saving formula.

Should Acton have left the Church? No; to do so would have violated his conscience, and the hierarchy's toleration 76 of his equivocal attitude could not have assuaged his feeling of guilt. He still believed that the dogma of Papal Infallibility was unhistorical and wrong, but he so loved the Church that he could not leave it. He, therefore, fell silent, with the end of the Gladstone controversy. Did this silence hide resentment? No, for now a spirit of contentment animated him. By remaining in the Church, Acton was being true to himself; thereby, he won at last what the hierarchy could not give him -- serenity and the promise of salvation. NOTES

1 Frank Lally, As Lord Acton Says, (Newport, RI, R. Ward, 1942), 100-101.

2 Ibid., 107-112.

3 McElrath, Decisive Decade , 38-39.

4 Himmelfarb, Acton: Study in Cons., 113.

5 McElrath, Decisive Decade, 38. 6 John Rossi, "Gladstone and the Fate of the Liberal Party, 1873-1880," Duguesne Review 15, (Fall, 1970), 266-268. 7 Gladstone, "The Vatican Decrees in their Bearing Civil on Allegiance: A Political Expostulation," in Gladstone: Newman and The Vatican Decrees, ed. Alvan S. Ryan (Notre Dame, University Press, 1962), 60.

8 The Times (London), 5 Sept. 1874.

9 Gladstone, "Ritualism and Ritual," Contemporary Review, 24 (Oct., 1874), 674.

10 "English History," Annual Register, 116 (1874), 97. 11 The Times, 5 Sept. 1874. 12 Acton to Gladstone, 21 Oct. 1874, Corr., 46.

13 Himmelfarb, Acton: Study in Cons., 117-118. 14 Gasquet, Acton, 358. 15 Gladstone to Granville, 2 Nov. 1874, The Correspondence Political of Mr. Gladstone and Lord Granville, ed. Agatha Ramm, 2 vols.; Camden 3rd ser. (London, Royal Historical Society, 1952), LXXXII, 458.

16 Gladstone, "Expostulation," 48. 17 Altholz, "The Vatican Decrees Controversy, 1874- 1875," Catholic Historical Review, 57 (Fall, 1972), 599.

77 78 18 Gladstone, "Expostulation," 36.

19 Purcell, Life of Manning, 472-473.

20 Archbishop Manning, The Times, 9 Nov. 1874.

21 Acton to Simpson, 4 Nov. 1874, Gasquet, Acton, 358- 359.

22 Lord Acton, The Times, 9 Nov. 1874.

23 E. D. Watt, "Rome and Lord Acton: A Reinterpretation," Review of Politics, 28 (Oct., 1966), 501.

24 MacDougall, Acton-Newman Rels., 77.

25 Acton to Simpson, Nov. 1874, Gasquet, Acton, 359-360.

26 Acton to Manning, [n. d.] Corr., 152-153.

27 Acton to Simpson, 3 Dec. 1874, Gasquet, Acton, 362- 363.

28 Quoted in Mathew, Acton and his Times, 230-231.

29 Shane Leslie, Henry Edward Manning (London, burns, Oates, & Washurne, 1921), 232.

30 Newman to Duke of Norfolk, December 12, 1974, Letters and Diaries of John Henry Newman, ed. Charles Dessain and Thomas Gornall, 30 vols. (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1975), XXVII, 171.

31 Lee Yearly, The Ideas of Newman (University Park, Pennsylvania State University, 1978), 74.

32 Josef Altholz, "Gladstone and the Vatican Decrees," The Historian, 25 (May, 1963), 323.

33 MacDougall, Acton-Newman Rels., 145.

34 Acton to Lady Blennerhassett, 2 Apr. 1875, Acton Corr., 155.

35 Acton to Newman, 7 Dec. 1874, Decisive Decade, 114.

36 Acton to Lady Blennerhassett, 2 Apr. 1875, Corr., 155.

37 Acton to Newman, 9 Dec. 1874, Decisive Decade, 113- 114. CHAPTER IV

ASSESSMENT AND RETROSPECT

The years, 1858-1875, witnessed Acton's struggle against Catholic ignorance, Church authority, and his own conscience. In February 1879, after his campaign against the Vatican Decrees had ended in failure, Lord Acton confided to Lady Blennerhassett: that he had "started in life believing himself a sincere Catholic and a sincere Liberal; who therefore renounced everything in Catholicism which was not compatible with Liberty and everything in Politics which was not compatible with Catholicity.1 This confession is a succinct statement of his personal creed.

After the Gladstone controversy, his orthodoxy went unchallenged, but he could not comment on religious issues nor question Church policies. In 1895, Cambridge University became his sanctuary, and here he waited to see what effect the dogma of Papal Infallibility would have on the Church.

Anyone who studies Lord Acton will recognize the importance of religion in his life and that he practiced what he believed. In his Inaugural Lecture to the students of

79 80

Cambridge, he declared "the first of human concerns is religion.1"2 Notwithstanding Acton's own disappointments,

his conviction that the Roman Catholic Church embraced the

only true and historically sound religion in the world

remained unshaken. For the Church to maintain her strength,

however, she must keep in touch with public needs and

constantly update her attitudes and policies. The Church

served as the soul within the body of Universal history.

Applying this idea to the current scene, Acton concluded that

the Church should function as the conscience of the state.3

It was Acton's good fortune to return to England

during the Catholic revival of the 1850's. Englishmen

historically had viewed the Catholic Church as a foreign

institution which demanded supremacy over the state and

Catholics as a unique community of recusants.4 This prejudice did not easily nor quickly abate, but as it

subsided, the Oxford converts raised the intellectual standards of their new faith. Acton's work with English

Catholic Liberals served as an outlet for his German education and prevented their movement from growing in a distinctly English way. Despite preoccupation with improving their social and political position, they accepted Acton's admonition to follow Germany's lead and to study historical theology. In so doing, he made Liberal

Catholicism in England a movement against Ultramontanism.

The period, 1858-1864, when Acton edited The Rambler and The Home And Foreign Review, was the most productive 81

of his life; nonetheless, he never achieved his goal

of improving the intellectual standards of Catholics and

enhancing their political position. Because he disagreed

with Papal policy, the majority of English Catholics

rejected his ideas and leadership.

Unlike most Catholic journals, which utilized the

apologetic approach of defending the past policies and

actions of Rome, The Rambler and The Home and Foreign

Review, following Acton's example, pursued freedom of

inquiry and published critiques, regardless of the

consequences. To Ultramontanists, the Liberals were

supplying intellectual ammunition to the Church's enemies.5

Their journals represented a minority view of traditional

doctrines and practices; perforce their survival depended

on the tolerance of Rome and the determination of their supporters.

Acton contested the ignorance of the Ultramontanists and

his fellow Catholics. Through The Rambler and The Home and

Foreign Review, he tried to show Catholics the intellectual and scientific advances made outside the Church. The hierarchy showed an inquisitorial attitude in rejecting all of Acton's attempts to reconcile theology with secular science. The Roman Curia refused to recognize the validity of any reasoning, but its own. Acton blundered, therefore, when he demanded that the Church accept the ideas of the

German theologians who were versed in historical theology.

When the hierarchy forced Acton to close The Home and 82

Foreign Review, he explained it was the only action left

open to him. The loss of this review dealt the British

Liberal Movement a serious blow which left it helpless

before the Ultramontanists. The only recourse for Liberals

was to publish an occasional article in another periodical.

During the critical years between the Syllabus of Errors

(1864) and the Vatican Council (1869), English Liberals could

only read about the future which the Dublin Review and the

Civilta Cattolica prophesied. Thus Acton did the Liberal

Catholic Movement a great disservice by terminating the

Review under any circumstances.

The Vatican Council constituted the arena in which

Acton, like a gladiator, challenged the authority of Rome.

At the beginning of 1869, he was hopeful the Council would

enact reforms to modernize the Church, but he soon realized

its raison d'etre was to formalize Papal Infallibility.

Concluding that foreign intervention to prorogue the Council was the Liberal Catholic Movement's only hope, Acton

attempted to persuade the British and French governments that

Papal Infallibility posed a civil threat to them. But these efforts, too, failed. With rare unanimity the cabinets of

Europe agreed that the Roman Church should not insinuate itself into the political realm, but Gladstone's fear that the Curia had spawned a "vast conspiracy" was as paranoid as it was impossible in the nineteenth century. His "No - popery!" cry fell on deaf ears, for Englishmen had come to regard Catholics as loyal subjects. 83

The proceedings of the Vatican Council demonstrated

to Acton the disunity and confusion of the Liberal Minority,

which was divided by nationality, tactics, and opinion about

how to fight Ultramontanism. With great energy and insight,

Acton labored to reconcile these differences, but the

Opposition was too small and the forces of Ultramontanism too

strong. Thus the Council yielded and approved the decrees

which proclaimed that in matters of faith and morals, the

Pope's judgement was infallible.

Acton now was impaled on the horns of a cruel dilemma.

The Gladstone controversy forced him to take a public stand

on the Vatican Decrees, something he did not wish to do, but he himself -- by his writings and work in Rome -- was

largely responsible for his own predicament. Acton finally yielded by stating that since he was a loyal Catholic, the decrees created no problem for him. In his correspondence, he had studiously avoided giving a direct answer to the questions put to him. By this evasion, he hoped to hide his skepticism and disapproval and thereby delay excommunication. Despite Acton's rejection of Papal

Infallibility, which administered the coup de grace to the

Liberal Catholic Movement, he did submit to the authority of the Pope as primate of the Roman Catholic Church.

Why did Acton choose to play this ambiguous game rather than leave the Church and thus obtain the freedom he sought? As a devout Catholic, he would not leave the

Church, but the only way to get rid of him was through 84 excommunication. Rome wisely decided not to press the

issue, since such action against England's most prominent

layman would arouse further dissention. When asked about

the Vatican.Decrees and whether he would turn to Protestantism, Acton replied, "Why should I change my

religion because the Pope has changed his." 6 The British

hierarchy, moreover, recognized him as an loyal Catholic and thought it could control him and his work better if he remained within the Church.

A major flaw in Acton's thinking was that he could

not see beyond history. Vexed by the historical inaccuracies of the definition of Papal Infallibility, he refused to acknowledge its advantages to the Pope's temporal

power and the unity of the Catholic faith. His theology was influenced too much by historical precepts. For this reason, he granted to the new dogma more power than even the Ultramontanists would concede. Acton feared it would endow the Pope with almost divine powers. In his imagination, the infallible Pope became an aggressive ruler who closely watched his flock, ready to strike at anyone who strayed from the path charted by the Curia, that stronghold of orthodoxy. In reality, the dogma increased the Pope's authority very little; no Pope, indeed, has ever used it to promulgate doctrine.

By submitting to Rome, Acton kept his religion, but sacrificed part of his intellectual freedom. Acton's struggle against clerical authority ended with the 85

Gladstone controversy, but he continued to challenge

tyranny wherever he found it. During his remaining years,

Acton collected material for a multi-volumed work on The

History of Liberty. Like many of his projects, he never

finished it, but he did leave fragments in the form of

lectures and essays. Acton defined liberty as the

"assurance that every man shall be protected in doing what

he believes his duty against the influence of authority and

majorities, custom and opinion." 7 He knew, of course when

he wrote these words, that due to his submission to the

Church and its laws, he could never have complete liberty.

But who is absolutely free? Does not custom and the social

contract limit civilized man in the interest of security?

Acton feared autocracy for its oppression of

individual liberty, and he did not exclude the Church.

Absolute authority, he believed could neither grant nor

protect human rights. The problem was not only with the

form of government, but with the monarch and/or his agents who wielded and frequently abused power. To bestow

absolute power on any person was to contradict all

historical experience. Despotism, however benevolent and righteous, was the enemy of liberty.

The struggle against authority within the Catholic

Church could not be won at this time, though most of its members wanted more freedom of thought on religious issues.

Ultramontanists argued that the Church needed a strong, central authority like the Papacy to guide it through times 86

of religious indifference, rising secularism, and militant

nationalism. The Roman Curia, fearful of the forces which

dominated the modern world, would concede nothing to any

group or idea which appeared to undermine its authority.

The Liberal Catholic Movement contained a strong

secular element; its message was that religion had nothing

to fear from science, since the two were compatible.

Liberals, however, with the secular sciences, underestimated

the mysticism of the Catholic majority and overrated their own powers of persuasion. Most Catholics did not care about theological debates, but did seek the security offered by a

strong Church, which claimed the supremacy of spiritual

authority over secular power.

Acton, notwithstanding his great learning and prestige, did not live up to the expectations of his peers. The Liberal Catholic Movement, to which he had devoted so much thought and energy from 1858-1875, ended in failure and ridicule. His submission to Papal authority hampered his later work. He published no book and earned no university degree, though he did receive three honorary doctorates. He held no ministerial post, yet influenced the leaders of England. With the passage of time, Acton regained the respect of his contemporaries, not as a great historian nor champion of liberty, but as a man who followed his conscience and thus was true to himself. NOTES

1 Acton to Lady Blennerhassett, Feb. 1879, Corr., 54.

2 Lord Acton, "Inaugural Lecture on the Study of History," repr. in Freedom and Power, 32.

3 Butterfield, "Lord Acton," Pamphlet, 18.

4 "The Position of English Roman Catholics," Theological Review, II (Mar., 1865), 214.

5 Hugh MacDougall, "Lord Acton: A Frustrated Liberal Catholic," Report of the Canadian Catholic Historical Association, 21 (1964), 16.

6 Philip Sidney, "The Liberal Catholic Movement,," Hibbert Journal, 2 (Jan., 1904), 384.

7 Lord Acton, "The History of Freedom in Antiquity," repr. in Freedom and Power, 55.

87 EPILOGUE:

QUEST FOR RESPECT AND RECOGNITION

After the Gladstone controversy had ended, Acton no

longer tried to change Church policy and theology, but his

peers continued to regard him as one of the most brilliant and learned intellectuals of late Victorian England. Despite

his disagreement with Gladstone, their friendship remained

strong, for he agreed with the Prime Minister's philosophy

and supported his attempts to secure Home Rule for Ireland. The historian's cool and cautious intellect balanced well with the statesman's Liberal idealism. Matthew Arnold, poet and social critic, observed that "Gladstone influences all around him but Acton; it is Acton who influences Gladstone."i In 1873, Acton could have become ambassador to Germany, but he declined the post to stay in academia.

Acton continued his search for primary sources for

several major projects, including a biography on Dollinger and The History of Liberty, but he never finished any of them. Perhaps like Leonardo da Vinci, he would have completed more of what he began, if he had not been so versatile; nonetheless, his reputation as a historian grew.

In 1885, he helped to found the prestigious English

88 89

Historical Review. Three years later, Cambridge University,

which in 1850 had refused to have him on its faculty,

awarded him an Honorary Doctorate. Oxford University

followed suit in 1889, and the following year, All Souls College made him an honorary Fellow.2

His long service to England was recognized in 1892, when

he was made a Lord-in-Waiting to Queen Victoria, and in 1895,

he was chosen Regius Professor of History at Cambridge, his

highest honor, on the recommendation of the new Prime

Minister, Archibald Philip Primrose, fifth Earl of Rosebery.

This position offered a public platform, not a research

opportunity. He now devoted all his energy and imagination

in his most famous work, The Cambridge Modern History, which

he planned and edited from 1896 to 1901 when illness forced

him to resign. This project, of course, precluded any other

major work. Acton described this collective, multi-volume

history as a nineteenth-century historian's bequest to the

twentieth century. It embodied his ideals of objective,

scientific, universal history, and the evolution of the

3 history of ideas. With the first volume of the series in

type, Acton suffered a paralytic stroke. On 19 June 1902,

only three weeks before his sixty-eighth birthday, he died

at his wife's estate in Tegernsee, Bavaria. What the

Edelweiss is to the tenacious mountain climber, so letters,

editorials, essays, and lectures were to Acton. Inspired peers and students constituted his highest achievement. NOTES

1 Quoted in Hon. Maua Lyttelton, "Mr. Gladstone's Friendship with Lord Acton," Lippincott's Magazine, 74 (Oct., 1969), 611.

2 In 1872, Munich University granted Acton an Honorary Doctorate, notwithstanding that in six years of study (1850- 1856) he had not earned a degree.

3 Himmelfarb, Acton: A Study of Cons., 223.

90 CHRONOLOGY

1585 Catholic Hierarchy in England abolished 1628 Rome appoints Vicar Apostolic

1777 First Catholic Relief Act in England 1800 Britain unites with Ireland

13 April 1829 Catholic Emancipation in England

1830-1832, L'Avenir Movement 15 August 1832 Mirari Vos

14 July 1833 Oxford Movement begins August 1834 Lamennais excommunicated

10 July 1834 John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton born in Naples

1837 Sir Ferdinand Richard Acton dies

1838 Bishop Wiseman founds the Dublin Review

2 July 1840 Marie Dalberg marries Lord Levenson (Earl of Granville)

May 1841 John Henry Newman publishes "Tract XC"

1842-1848 Acton attends Oscott College in Paris

October 1845 Newman joins the Roman Catholic Church 16 June 1846 Pius IX becomes Pope

1848 John More Capes founds the Rambler

15 November Italian revolutionaries murder Count Rossi; 1848 Pius IX goes into exile at Gaeta April - June, French Troops secure Rome 1849

91 92

April 1850 Pius IX reenters Rome

1848 - 1850 Acton has private tutoring at Edinburgh College, Scotland

1850 - 1858 Acton studies at University of Munich under Dr. D linger

1850 Richard Simpson begins work on the Rambler

1850 Loi Falloux passed in France

January 1858 Acton joins The Rambler staff

March 1858 "Political Thoughts on the Church"

June 1858 "Bossuet"

December 1858 Dllinger's "Paternity of Jansenism"

February 1859 "The Catholic Press"

March - June Newman edits the Rambler 1859

July 1859 Acton becomes sole editor of the Rambler

June 1859 Acton elected to Parliament from Carlow

14 March 1860 Marie Dalberg dies

1860 Second War of the Risorgimento

March 1862 The Rambler becomes the Home and Foreign Review

Spring 1862 Wiseman supports the Pope's temporal power

1863 Congress of Malines

March 1863 Munich Congress

5 March 1864 The Munich Brief

May 1864 "Conflict with Rome"; Acton terminates the Home and Foreign Review

6 December Pius IX consults the Cardinals about a 1864 Council

8 December Pius IX issues the encyclical Quanta Cura and 1864 Syllabus Errorum

1864 -1868 Acton's Archival tour 93

August 1865 Acton marries Countess Marie Arco-Valley

29 June 1867 Pius IX announces the Council

28 June 1868 Bull of Convocation

February 1869 Civilta Cattolica proposes Papal Infallibility

February 1869 Dollinger's "Der Papst und das Konzil"

March 1869 Hohenlohe's circular letter

Aug. - Sept. Conference of Fulda 1869

July - Sept. Acton prepares at Herrnsheim 1869

October 1869 Acton's "The Pope and the Council"

November 1869- Acton at Rome June 1870

11 November Dupanloup issues pastorial letter 1869

6 Dec. 1869 Acton elevated to the Peerage

8 Dec. 1869 Vatican Council opens

1 January 1870 Acton writes Gladstone

2 January 1870 Count Napoleon Daru becomes French Foreign Minister

14 April 1870 Daru resigns

April 1870 Gladstone's cabinet refuses to join the Opposition

11 June 1870 Acton leaves Rome

18 July 1870 Papal Infallibility declared

19 July 1870 Franco - Prussian War begins

30 August 1870 Acton's "To a German Bishop of the Vatican Council"

August 1870 Meetings at Knigswinter and Nuremberg

October 1870 "The Vatican Council" 94

17 April 1871 Dllinger is excommunicated

30 April 1871 Munich Declaration of Whitsuntide

1872 Munich University awards Acton Honorary Doctorate

February 1873 Gladstone resigns, but returns for the year

February 1874 Gladstone loses to Disraeli in general election

July 1874 Public Worship Regulation Bill

October 1874 Gladstone's "Ritualism and Ritual"

5 November Gladstone's "The Vatican Decrees in Their 1874 Bearing on Civil Allegiance: A Political Expostulation"

9 November Manning's and Acton's reply printed in The 1874 Times

12 November Manning question Acton's submission 1874

16 Nov. 1874 Manning again writes Acton

16 Dec. 1874 Acton writes Bishop Brown

2 Jan. 1875 Manning writes to Rome

5 Jan. 1875 Newman's "Letter to his Grace the Duke of Norfolk"

February 1875 Gladstone's "Vaticanism: An Answer to Reproof s and Replies"

1888 Cambridge University awards Acton Honorary Doctorate

1889 Oxford University awards Acton Honorary Doctorate

1890 Acton becomes Honorary Fellow of All Souls College

1892 - 1895 Lord -in- Waiting to the Queen

1895 - 1902 Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge University

19 June 1902 Acton dies at Tegernsee, Barbaria BIBLIOGRAPHY

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. Acton in America. Edited by S. W. Jackman Shepardtown, West Virginia, Patmos Press, 1979.

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._ A Packet of Letters, A Selection from the Correspondence of John Henry Newman. Edited by Richard Sugg. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1983.

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Autobiographies, Memoirs, Diaries

Blennerhassett, Lady Charlotte. "The Late Lord Acton," Edinburgh Review, 197 (April, 1903), 501 - 534.

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Contemporary Works

Gladstone, William Ewart. "The Vatican Decrees in Their Bearing on Civil Allegience: A Political Expostulation" in Newman and Gladstone: The Vatican Decrees. Edited by Alyan S. Ryan. Notre Dame, University of Notre Dame Press, 1962.

Newman, John Henry, Cardinal Apologia Pro Vita Sua, being A History of My Religious Opinions 1864; Reprinted New York, Longman, Green, & Co., 1947. 97

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. "Letter to the Duke of Norfolk on the Occasion of Mr. Gladstone's Pamphlet" in Newman and Gladstone: The Vatican Decrees, Edited by Alvan S. Ryan. Notre Dame, University of Notre Dame Press, 1962.

Contemporary Newspapaers and Periodicals

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. "The Pope and the Council," North British Review. 13 (October, 1969), 127 - 136.

(October, 1870), _ . "The Vatican Council," ibid. 14 183 - 230.

Annual Register, Vol. 116 (1874).

Frohschammer, Jacob. "The Papacy and National Life," Contemporary Review. 15 (October, 1870), 327 - 347.

Gladstone, William E., "Ritualism and Ritual," ibid. 24 (October, 1874), 663 - 681.

The Times (London), 5 September - 9 November, 1874.

"The Position of English Roman Catholics," Theolgical Review, 2 (January, 1904), 383 - 395.

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Biographies

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Himmelfarb, Gertrude. Lord Acton: A Study in Conscience and Politics. London, Routledge & Paul, 1952.

Kochan, Lionel. Acton on History. London, A. Deutsch, 1954. 98

Lally, Frank. As Lord Acton Says. Newport, Rhode Island, R. Ward, 1942.

Leslie, Shane. Henry Edward Manning: His Life and Labors. London, Burns, Oates, & Washburne, Ltd., 1921.

Mathews, David. Lord Acton and His Times. University, University of Alabama Press, 1968.

MacDougall, Hugh A. Acton - Newman Relations; Dilemma of Christian Liberalism. New York, Fordham University Press, 1962.

Purcell, Edmund. Life of Cardinal Manning, Archbishop of Westminster. 2 vols. New York and London, Macmillian and Co., 1896.

Ward, Wilfrid. The Life of John Henry Newman, 2 vols. New York, Longmans, Green, & Co., 1912.

Histories and Monographs

Altholz, Josef. The Liberal Catholic Movement. New York, University of Columbia Press, 1960.

Bentley, James. Ritualism and Politics in Victorian Britian. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1978.

Bowen, Desmond. The Idea of the Victorian Church. Montreal, McGill University Press, 1968.

Church, Richard. The Oxford Movement: Twelve Years, 1833 - 1845. London, 1891; Reprinted edited by Gregory Best, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1970.

Edwards, David. Leaders of the Church of England, 1828 - 1844. London, Oxford University Press, 1971.

Eversley, George John Lord, Gladstone and Ireland, London, Melhuen & Co., Ltd, 1912; Reprinted Westport, Conn., Greenwood Press, 1971.

Gooch, George, Peabody. History and Historians in the Nineteenth Century. London, longman, Green & Co., 1913.

Holmes, J. Derek. More Roman Than Rome. New York, Paulist Press, 1980.

Mathews, David. Catholicism in England. London, George Allen & Unwin, Ltd., 1936. 99

Norman, Edward R. The English Catholic Church in the Nineteenth Century. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1984.

O'Connor, John. Catholic Revival in England. New York, MacMillan Company, 1942.

Sedgwick, Alexander. Jansenism in Seventeenth - Century France. Charlottesville, University Press of Virginia 1977.

Simpson, W. J. The History of the Anglo - Catholic Revival from 1845. London, George Allen & Unwin, Ltd., 1932.

Spencer, Philip. Politics of Belief in 1 9 th Century France. London, George Allen & Unwin, Ltd., 1953

Sykes, Norman. The English Religious Tradition. London, SCM Press, Ltd., 1953.

Ward, Bernard. The Dawn of the Catholic Revival in England. New York, Longmans & Co., 1909.

Ward, Wilfrid. William G. Ward and the Oxford Movement. London, MacMillian and Co., 1890.

. William G. Ward and the Catholic Revival. London, MacMillian and Co., 1893.

Vilder, A. R. Prophecy and Papacy: A Study of Lamennais, the Church, and the Revolution. London, Burns, Oates, & Washburne, Ltd., 1954.

Voll, Dieter. Catholic Evangelicalism. Translated by Veronica Ruffer. London, Faith Press, 1963.

Yearly, Lee. The Ideas of Newman. University Park, Pennsylvania State University Press, 1978.

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._ "The Vatican Decrees Controversy," Catholic Historical Review. 57 (June, 1972), 593 - 605.

Auchmuty, J.J. "Acton: The Youthful Parliamentarian," Historical Studies: Austrialia and New Zealand. 9 (June, 1960), 131 - 139. 100

Conzemius, James. "Lord Acton and the First Vatican Council," Theology Digest. 18 (Fall, 1970), 222 - 227.

Garvey, John. "Lord Acton: Power and Papal Infallibility," Commonweal. 107 (February, 1980), 42 - 44.

Gooch, George P. "Lord Acton: Apostle of Liberty," Foreign Affairs. 25 (June, 1947), 629 - 642.

Hoppen, K. Theodore. "W. G. Ward and Liberal Catholicism," Journal of Ecclesiastical History. 23 (Fall, 1972), 323 - 344.

_. "Church, State, and Ultramontanism in Mid-Victorian England: Case of W. G. Ward," Journal of Church and State. 18 (June, 1976), 289 - 309.

Lyttelton, Maud. "Acton's Friendship with Gladstone," Lippincott's Magazine. 74 (December, 1904), 610 - 616.

MacDougall, Hugh. "Lord Acton: A Frustrated Liberal Catholic," Report Canadian Cathoilic Historical Association. 21 (1964), 13 - 19.

McElrath, Damain. "Richard Simpson and John Herny Newman: The Rambler, Laymen, and Theology," Catholic Historical Review. 52 (January, 1967), 509 - 533.

Nurser, John. "The Religious Conscience in Lord Acton's Political Thought," Journal of the History of Ideas. 22 (Fall, 1961), 47 - 62.

Rossi, J. "Gladstone and the Fate of the Liberal Party, 1873-1880," Duquesne Review. 15 (Fall, 1970), 266 - 279.

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Tonsor, Stephen. "Ignaz von Dllinger: Lord Acton's Mentor," Anglican Theological Review. 41 (September, 1959), 211- 215.

. "Lord Acton of Dollinger's Histical Theology," Journal of the History gf Ideas. 20 (August, 1959), 329 - 352.

Watt, E.D. "Rome and Lord Acton: A Reinterpretation," Review of Politics. 28 (December, 1966), 493-507. 101

Special References

Steffen Dictionary of National Biography.. Edited by Leslie and Sidney Lee. 22 Vols. London, 1908 - 1909.

New Catholic Encyclopedia. 15 Vols. New York, 1967.

The Zenith of European Power, Vol. X of the New Cambridge Modern~History. 11 vols. Edited by J.P.T. Bury. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1960.

Unpublished Studies of the Roman Paz, Denis G. "The Papal Agression: Creation Catholic Hierarchy in England, 1850." M. A. Thesis, North Texas State University, 1969.