You ought to declare that the only duty which they have to perform is, to ameliorate the moral and physical existence of the most numerous class; and that every expense incurred by them in the administration of the public treasury, if it be not strictly necessary, is a crime on their part, and constitutes them the enemies of God.
"You possess all the power necessary to compel the temporal power to admit this application of Christianity; for your supremacy is acknowledged by all powers, and you can dispose of the clergy spread over the surface of Europe. Now, the clergy will always exercise a preponderating influence over the temporal institutions of all nations, when they work in a decisive manner to ameliorate the condition of the poor, who are in all places the most numerous class.
"I pass now to the examination of another question; and I blame you, most holy father, under this second aspect.
"At all times, when two Christian nations are at war, they are both in fault, since the divine founder of Christianity has commanded all men to conduct themselves towards each other as brothers, and has prohibited them from employing other means to terminate their differences than those of persuasion and demonstration.
"You ought to employ all your papal power, all the influence of the national clergy, to prevent wars; but, far from conducting yourselves in this manner, you permit all the clergy of belligerent nations each to invoke the god of armies in their behalf, which god can only be in some Pagan deity. You permit them, at the termination of the combat, to sing Te Deum on both sides. Your conduct, in this respect, as well as that of the clergy, is altogether impious.
"It is union which constitutes strength; a society, whose members enter into opposition one against the other, tends to dissolution; hasten, then, to recall the clergy to unity of action.
