The Collaborative International Dictionary
Priest-ridden \Priest"-rid`den\, a.
Controlled or oppressed by priests; as, a priest-ridden
people.
--Swift.
Wiktionary
a. dominated or plagued by priests.
WordNet
adj. ruled by or oppressed by a priest
Usage examples of "priest-ridden".
No wonder that in an age in which courtiers and theatrehaunters were turning Romanists by the dozen, and the priest-ridden queen was the chief patroness of the theatre, the Puritans should have classed players and Jesuits in the same category, and deduced the parentage of both alike from the father of lies.
I saw the poor, and the degraded, and the racked, and the priest-ridden, tillers and peoplers of the soil, which made the substance beneath the glittering and false surface,--the body of that vast empire, of which I had hitherto beheld only the face, and THAT darkly, and for the most part covered by a mask!
And the same effects caused but a feeble resistance to be opposed to their arms, and the speedy surrender of Manilla by its priest-ridden and effeminate defenders.
One would almost imagine from the long list that is given of cannibal primates, bishops, arch-deacons, prebendaries, and other inferior ecclesiastics, that the sacerdotal order far outnumbered the rest of the population, and that the poor natives were more severely priest-ridden than even the inhabitants of the papal states.
History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government.