Note : In the nineteenth century, it took courage to oppose the Catholic Church. Still, many took up the pen to expose the power of the clergy. Arthur Buies was one of them, as is evidenced by the following excerpt. According to him, what is the real purpose of the church?
Extract :
“Come and see how we indoctrinate the youth with narrow and tyrannical practices: look at all these institutions, all these associations, this large invisible thread with which we bind all consciences, this vast organized network we use to hold in our hands the mind and the will of all men. The clergy is everywhere, it presides over everything, and we can only think and will what it will permit to think and will. There is a free and generous institution that it wanted to dominate in the same way; but when it saw that that institution did not want to be dominated, it cursed. It is so true that it is not the triumph of religion it seeks, but that of its domination over religion.”
Source : Arthur Buies, Lettres sur le Canada; étude sociale, Montreal, Réédition-Quebec, 1968, p.23.
