You who were born a Catholic say you are a Protestant.

Perhaps you do not know Catholicism well enough to understand that Protestantism is being shattered upon the dead Christ, while Catholicism evolves by virtue of the living Christ.

But now I speak to the statesman, not, indeed, to implore him to protect the Catholic Church, which would be a misfortune, but to tell him that though the State may not be either Catholic or Protestant, neither may it ignore God, and you dare to ignore Him in more than one of your schools, in those you call high, and this in the name of freedom of science, which you confound with freedom of thought and of speech; for thought and speech are free to deny God, but the negation of God neither partakes nor can partake of the nature of science, and you are bound to teach science alone.

You are well acquainted with that petty statesmanship which forces you to a private compromise with your conscience, in order to obtain in secret some favour from the Vatican, in which you do not believe, but you are ill acquainted with that grand statesmanship which upholds the authority of Him who is the eternal principle of all justice.

You work harder to destroy it than the atheistic professors themselves; for, after all, the atheistic professors have but little power; you statesmen, who sometimes talk of your belief in God, you undermine His authority far more deeply than those professors, by the bad example of your practical atheism.
You who imagine you believe in the Godhead of Christ are, in reality, prophets and priests of the false gods.