And not so incidentally, helping themselves to all those pesky Catholics' church property. A good role model for the Nazis of the modern era.
Yes, to both posts ;-)
A little noticed factiod is that the government owns the churches. In our little village in France, the mayor, a member of the Communist Party, ruled on the use of the church, an historic thousand year old church. He could decide its use for anything at all. Although he didn't interfer much with the goings on, he was empowered to do so.