House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., called leaked emails from Hillary Clinton's advisers about Catholics and Christian evangelicals "an insult to millions of people across the nation."

The emails appeared on WikiLeaks and date back to 2011. Several Clinton aides discussed the Catholic vote and the faith, which they criticized as unfair to women.

"Many of the most powerful elements of the conservative movement are all Catholic (many converts) from the SC [Supreme Court] and think tanks to the media and social groups," Clinton advisor John Halpin said in an email to John Podesta and Jennifer Palmieri, now top members of the Clinton campaign staff. "It's an amazing bastardization of the faith. They must be attracted to the systematic thought and severely backwards gender relations and must be totally unaware of Christian democracy."

Ryan, who is Catholic, called the Clinton campaign's "disdain" for Catholicism and Christian evangelicals "staggering."

"If anything, these statements reveal the Clinton campaign's hostile attitude toward people of faith in general," Ryan said. "This is the United States of America — for centuries, people fled to our shores to find refuge from religious persecution. All Americans of faith should take a long, hard look at this and decide if these are the values we want to be represented in our next president. If Hillary Clinton continues to employ people with biased and bigoted views, it's clear where her priorities lie."