"I think that the Catholic religion has erroneously been looked upon as
the natural enemy of democracy. Among the various sects of Christians,
Catholicism seems to me, on the contrary to be one of those which are
most favourable to equality of conditions. In the Catholic church, the
religious community is composed of only two elements--the priest and the
people. The priest alone rises above the rank of his flock, and all
below him are equal. On doctrinal points, the Catholic faith places all
human capacities upon the same level. It subjects the wise and the
ignorant, the man of genius and the vulgar crowd, to the details of the
same creed: it imposes the same observances upon the rich and the needy;
it inflicts the same austerities upon the strong and the weak; it
listens to no compromise with mortal man; but, reducing all the human
race to the same standard, it confounds all the distinctions of society
at the foot of the same altar, even as they are confounded in the sight
of God. If Catholicism predisposes the faithful to obedience, it
certainly does not prepare them for inequality; but the contrary may be
said of Protestantism, which generally tends to make men independent,
more than to render them equal."