Thomas Jefferson makes a stinging point from the grave:

“In every country and in every age,
the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own.”

–Thomas Jefferson to Horatio G. Spafford, 1814. ME 14:119

Are priests and despots no longer intermingling today — or did Jefferson sound an alarm we have yet to fully comprehend and employ?