This [Jesuit] society has been a greater Calamity to Mankind than the French Revolution or Napoleons Despotism or Idiology. It has obstructed the Progress of Reformation and the Improvement of the human Mind in Society much longer and more fatally. […] If ever any Congregation of Men could merit, eternal Perdition on Earth and in Hell; according to these Historians though like Pascall true Catholicks, it is this Company of Loiola.
— John Adams, in letters to Thomas Jefferson, 1816
