Even if God didn't exist, religion would still be holy and divine. God is the only being that, in order to rule, needn't even exist. The femininity of the Church, as a reason for its omnipotence. The grandeur of the priest, because he leads people to believe so many astonishing things. The people adore authority.
Priests are the servants and sectarians of the imagination.
Baudelaire's thesis that God needn't exist for religion to be holy is only possible, or perhaps only probable, from a Romantic and aesthete such as he was. God is the only being that, in order to rule, needn't even exist. This notion puts me in mind of another text from French literature, one appearing a couple generations later than Baudelaire's. On the contrary, he is never so well served as when he is unperceived. Of course, in spite of all I have just told you, in perfect sincerity I do not believe in the Devil.