Since the Catholic Church was strongly related to feudalism, the element of destruction necessarily reached it. From there it was an easy step to attack religion in general. The distrust of the Church's teaching and the frivolity hindered by the moral philosophy of the moment combined to arouse the suspicion that the clergy clung to their prerogatives, social organization and possessions not because of their conviction of the essential legitimacy of such things, but simply because of the desire for power.