How we cite our quotes: (Part.Chapter.Paragraph.)
Quote #7
"Have you ever told a landlord he shouldn't beat his peon—oh yes, I know, in the confessional perhaps, and it's your duty, isn't it, to forget it at once. You come out and have dinner with him and it's your duty not to know that he has murdered a peasant. That's all finished. He's left it behind in your box." (3.3.53)
In the lieutenant's mind, the forgiveness of sins that priests offer benefit the rich and corrupt the poor and oppressed—sometimes at their expense. This makes the Church part of the social order he wants to uproot. That explains it.
Quote #8
"We have facts, too, that we don't try to alter—that the world's unhappy whether you are rich or poor—unless you are a saint, and there aren't many of those. It's not worth bothering too much about a little pain here. There's one belief we both of us have—that we'll all be dead in a hundred years." (3.3.62)
The priest doesn't share the lieutenant's belief that empowering the poor will make the world a happier or better place. We wonder what the priest means by a "little" pain. Any pain in this life would seem little in comparison to eternal hellfire.
Quote #9
"We've always said the poor are blessed and the rich are going to find it hard to get into heaven. Why should we make it hard for the poor man too? Oh, I know that we are told to give to the poor, to see they are not hungry—hunger can make a man do evil just as much as money can. But why should we give the poor power? It's better to let him lie in dirt and wake in heaven—so long as we don't push his face in the dirt." (3.3.107)
The priest disagrees not only with the means the lieutenant uses to raise up the poor, but also with the goal itself. The two men have their similarities, but there's not a lot of common ground between their respective worldviews. It's no surprise that historically Catholicism and atheistic socialism have been at odds.