There are fifty-thousand people in France who are all very influential thanks to their character and have sworn steady and blind obedience to their spiritual leader who is at the same time a foreign king.

Frédéric Bastiat
Complete Works, Volume 7, pages 355 to 357 (in French)
1848

According to Guillaumin, the date of this article is obvious within the context. Assuming that the bishop of Langres in question is Pierre Louis Parisis, I deduct that the text dates back to 1848. At the time, there was no separation of state and church, which rendered the religious question newsworthy.

What I found extraordinary in this text is that Frédéric Bastiat, who was a fervent catholic, was able to distance himself as he does here. While we could expect from protestants or atheists a  criticism of the drawbacks and weight of the Roman catholic Church encroaching politics in France, it is more of a surprise when it comes from Frédéric Bastiat. However, he is the one who warns us against the undue power of the Pope granted through the organisation of the Catholic Church. What today’s quote highlights is that Frédéric Bastiat expected national representation to represent the people and that the fact the catholic Church was obedient to the authority of the Pope created a conflict of interest that was disturbing in principle, independently from his own convictions.