"After nineteen centuries of Christian civilization, this [masonic] sect tries to overthrow the Catholic Church and to cut off its divine sources" (Leo XIII, "Custodi di quella Fede", 8.12.1892). "It has already sallied forth from its hiding-places, where it hatched its plots, into the throng of cities, and as if to defy the Almighty, has set up its throne in this very city of Rome, the Capital of the Catholic world" (Leo XIII, "Praeclara gratulationis", 20.06.1894), and "forms an invisible and irresponsible state existing within the legitimate state" (Leo XII, "Annum Ingressi", 19.03.1902)

In their evil plans, the freemasons are ideally assisted by the modernists, who are "the most pernicious of all the adversaries of the Church. For, as We have said, they put into operation their designs for her undoing, not from without but from within. Hence, the danger is present almost in the very veins and heart of the Church, whose injury is the more certain from the very fact that their knowledge of her is more intimate. Moreover, they lay the ax not to the branches and shoots, but to the very root, that is, to the faith and its deepest fibers. And once having struck at this root of immortality, they proceed to diffuse poison through the whole tree, so that there is no part of Catholic truth which they leave untouched, none that they do not strive to corrupt" (Pius X, "Pascendi", 8.09.1907).