the priests of protestantism

If you survey the modern history of Portugal with reference to the Catholic Church you will find that the greatest adversaries of the Church and of Catholic culture, the most anti-clerical people of all, are predominantly lawyers. The father of all mata-frades in the country was Marquis de Pombal, himself a former student of Law at Coimbra.

The chief mata-frades of the nineteenth century, Joaquim António de Aguiar, was a lawyer from Coimbra, and so was Afonso Costa, the chief mata-frades of the twentieth-century. Today in the Portuguese blogosphere the chief mata-frades is still a lawyer writing in this blog. The greatest opponents to the mostly Catholic political regime of Salazar were also lawyers, such as Álvaro Cunhal, Mário Soares and Sá Carneiro.

At the same time lawyers fight whatever is distinctly Portuguese and Catholic they all show an immense admiration for all that is distinctly Protestant, such as secularism, republicanism, democracy and socialism. In a Catholic society lawyers are the priests of protestantism. Why this admiration of Portuguese lawyers for all that is Protestant and their radical opposition to all that is Catholic? Is it perfectly sincere?

I do not think so. Lawyers have a vested interest in a Protestant-type of society. They know that in such society they will occupy that position of social prestige which in Catholic society is occupied by priests - namely, the position of arbiters of morality (see here). And all the money that in a Catholic society people give to the priests for this role, will go to their pockets in a Protestant-type of society.