Lord Acton is a person whose utterances are of some
importance. He is perhaps the only genuine Liberal Catholic in England, that is to say, the only Catholic who is Liberal without being at heart -a sceptic also, and we have read his speech on the Pope's rights with keen interest. There is nothing in it. His one plea is that it is essential to Catholic liberty that the Pope should be free, a proposition to which we have always assented, but he does not show why the Pope cannot be free unless he has Rome. Suppose he has Capri in full sovereignty, or Caprera. There is nothing in that particular city to make him free, and =thing in any other dominion to enslave him. Lord Acton in effect says the Catholic Church must decide what the Pope's freedom means, but suppose the Methodist Church asks a sove- reign position for its Moderator ? The truth is, Lord Acton, like every other honest Catholic, thinks his Church has Divine rights, and why does he not plead them ? Because heretics do not ac- knowledge them ? Some heretics do not acknowledge the rights of the Almighty, but they exist, and are operative, nevertheless.
Previous page
