Catholics have long understood that Satan is always at battle with the Church. However, the last three centuries have seen a considerably more radical attack than ever before, resulting in a quick and widespread apostasy among formerly Christian countries. Who or what is responsible for the Catholic Church's largest schism? It is Freemasonry, according to this prophetic text.
The War of the Antichrist with the Church and Christian Civilization, first published in 1885 in response to Pope Leo XIII's request to "tear away the mask from Freemasonry," sets forth the realities of Freemasonry, its history, and its anti-Christic doctrine. Despite being published almost 130 years ago, it is still shockingly applicable today. Monsignor Dillon describes the Masonic plot to de-Christianize the world through the separation of Church and state, "democratic" ideology, religious indifferentism, civil marriage and easy divorce laws, secularized education, the encouragement of moral decay among the populace, and the destruction of the temporal and spiritual authority of the pope, all animated by an atheistic Socialist, Communist, and ultimately pantheistic ideology of nature worship that will culminate in the destruction of the pope's temporal and spiritual authority.
The outcome was so reliable that Pope Leo XIII authorized it and paid for its translation and publishing in Italian. This is not merely a "conspiracy theory." However, as Monsignor Dillon points out, the duty of Catholics in the face of the antichrist's war on the Church and Christian civilization remains constant: to love God above all, our neighbours as ourselves, and to confront evil wherever we find it—first within ourselves, and then in the world around us. Only by carrying the cross with Our Lord during these terrible days can we ensure our own and others' salvation.