A Masterpiece Of Reason And Justice

Continuing on the satirical theme of Candide we are given a very sarcastic phrase: "The reverend fathers own the whole lot, and the people own nothing: that's what I call a masterpiece of reason and justice. I don't think I have ever seen such god like creatures as the reverend fathers." (62) This is probably a protest from Voltaire against the Catholic Church. At his time this was the most powerful institution of the time. It moved the beliefs of many people from different countries and it shared its power with none. Even after the appearance of Protestantism and the schism that gave birth to the Anglican Church the majority of Europeans remained catholic. This is clearly a demonstration of the problems of giving a single institution so much power. The church also had inconsistencies which if mentioned could end in a sentence to hell or getting excommunication if you were a member of the church. These are the faults that Voltaire wants to show us here: "They fight the Kings of Spain and Portugal over here and given them absolution in Europe. In this country they kill Spaniards and in Madrid they send them to Heaven" (62). These great inconsistencies are probably the target of Voltaire's satire here. Through sarcasm he shows the terrible thing the church does in order to maintain itself.

The greatest of all inconsistencies revealed in that page is within the ideology of Christianity. We are thought that Christianity is about helping the poor and accepting the life one is given in a humble manner. The church is one of the most powerful entities in the world yet it doesn't use this power for the good of humanity. Instead it is more interested in spreading its power above all things (at least as depicted here). It is able to increase its power by joining both sides of the conflict and agreeing with everybody. It also refuses to give its power to the poor who are supposedly the ones this church should be protecting. This led me to wonder why the church had such immense power then. It had obtained it through the irrationality of people and their desperation to escape the fear of death in order to continue living. Desperately people joined the church seeking salvation who obtained the promise of such thing. In the end the church is born from the lack of reason and the injustice of those who have and those who don't have.