> I can't see how "they" can refer to any but "the holy people."

"They" is an accepted and widely-used shorthand term for any faceless, nameless amorphous mass of Other Guys who do things to you. They're raising the taxes again. They haven't fixed the road yet. They're telling us we need to use less fuel. They can't dictate hemline-lengths to us every year anymore. In song lyrics there are too many to name, but the opening lines of "Wish You Were Here" will do: "They're not making the skies so blue this year... they're not shining the stars as bright, they've stolen the joy from the night..."

In other words, we grow up under an army of Theys who control our lives at every turn, religious and otherwise. JTT and George have exactly described my own interpretation of that term and that lyric. I used to sing it all the time when I was a kid - and again later when I occasionally had to sing TO kids - and I have always thought of that line as simply meaning all the pious and narrow-minded my-way-is-the-only-right-way types who inflict judgment on everything, sacred and secular, and punish accordingly. Plenty of those around, and they come in all shapes and sizes and colours.

In addition to being a leader, Jesus also worked outside the comfortable norms of society - a stance that is always going to annoy the authorities (religious no less than political), challenge their power, and get you into trouble. This is how I have always read this lyric. Anti-Semitism is certainly not the only interpretation one can put on it (and it had not even occurred to me before now). I think it's one of those cases of "you find what you're looking for".