sacerdotalism

Definition

The spirit of the priesthood; devotion to priestly interests; priestcraft.

Etymology

From sacerdotal + -ism.

Example Sentences

• "[T]hey tell fortunes, which practice, confined to a certain caste but forbidden to others, seems to be a kind of sacerdotalism."
• "You make me hate Christianity, or mysticism, or Sacerdotalism, or whatever it may be called, if it’s that which has caused this deterioration in you."
• "This was the phrase of that interesting mystic St. Paul (Saul) of Tarsus […] who did so much to pervert and enlarge the simpler cosmopolitan fraternalism of Jesus of Nazareth […] before it was finally overwhelmed and lost in the sacrificial sacerdotalism of formal Christianity."