Le cléricalisme, voilà l’ennemi! (Léon Gambetta)
"Clericalism is the enemy"
Believe it or not, after the Second Vatican Council anticlericalism is a Catholic virtue.
In elaborating a theology of laity, as many call it, and speaking of a hierarchy of service rather than of domination in the Church, Vatican II implicitly endorsed opposition to clericalism, which is a policy of maintaining or increasing the power of a religious hierarchy.
Clearly, this sort of anticlericalism has nothing to do with the other anticlericalism: a term used in Europe since the 12th and 13th centuries, according to Encyclopædia Britannica, and associated in more recent history with the French Revolution and its aftermath.
