
From the back cover:
"The Pope will never come to the secret societies. It is for the secret societies to come first to the Church; in the resolve to conquer the two ... in order to secure to us a Pope in the manner required, it is necessary to fashion for that Pope a generation worthy of the reign of which we dream.., go to the youth ... in a few years the young clergy will be called upon to choose the Pontiff..." Let them "march under your banner in the belief always that they march under the banner of the Apostolic Keys. Lay your
nets in the depths of sacristies, seminaries and convents... and you will have fished up a Revolution in Tiara and Cope marching with Cross and banner ..."
At least two eminent Catholic prelates have recently
issued public warnings that they consider the Alta Vendira's
coldly scientific plan for the destruction of Catholicism
may be nearing its fulfillment: Archbishop Lefebvre in his
circular letter No. 10 of March 1976, and the Bishop of
Regensburg, Dr. Graber, in his AthanaFius and the Church
of our Time. The latter refers to the work of dechristianisation of the secret societies, and Archbishop Lefebvre reminds us that Plus IX ordered the publication of the documents of the Alta Yendita of the Carbonari, and quotes
part of the passage which we have cited above.
Mgr. Dillon's work, which was originally published in 1885 as The War of Antichrist with the Church and Christian Civilisation, contains the full text of this remarkable document now in the Vatican Archives, as well as a wealth of other material covering the rise and progress of atheism; its extension through Voltaire; its use of Freemasonry and kindred societies for anti-Christian war; Weishaupt and Illuminism; its progress in the First French Revolution, and under Nubius, Palmerston and Mazzini; the control of its hidden "inner circle" over all revolutionary organisations; its influence over British Freemasonry, and its attempts upon Ireland.
This edition contains a comprehensive index and a
valuable introduction (1950) by the Rev. D. Fahey, C.S.Sp.,
and the book as a whole contains vital source material on
the nature and rise of Freemasonry in Europe during the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.