The Vatican Exposed: Money, Murder, and the Mafia
by Paul L. Williams
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Burdened by a lurid title, this is a short history of the politics and finances of the Vatican during the last hundred years. As in his Complete Idiot's guides to the Crusades and to the lives of the saints, Williams displays an ability to compress a great deal of information in a short, highly readable way. His main argument is that the current financial strength of the Roman Catholic Church as well as many of its problems began in 1929 with the signing of the Lateran Treaty, in which a financially besieged Pope Pius XI exchanged recognition and support of Mussolini's Fascist government for more than $90 million and the establishment of the Vatican as a sovereign state. Williams traces how the Vatican's new emphasis on financial stability led it into other morally questionable financial arrangements with Adolf Hitler, the fascist state of Croatia and reputed Sicilian Mafia financier Michele Sindona. He examines carefully the establishment and workings of the Instituto per le Opere di Religione, commonly known as the Vatican Bank, "an entity unto itself without corporate or ecclesiastical ties to any other agency within the Holy See." While parts of the book overlap with other recent works on the Vatican and the popes (especially on Pius XI's refusal to censure the brutal ethnic cleansing of Orthodox Serbs and Jews by Croatia's Ustashi regime), this is a surprisingly solid short look at the dubious financial dealings of the Vatican from the 1920s to the present.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
On February 11, 1929, Pope Pius XI signed the Lateran Treaty with Mussolini's government, affirming Il Duce and netting him the political capital necessary for a secure Fascist future in exchange for $90 million in cash, a new tax-exempt papal state on Vatican Hill, government salaries for Italian parish priests, and the promise of both power and financial security. With it was formed the Vatican's Special Administration of the Holy See, the cleric-free investment arm of the Vatican, in the care of Bernardino Nogara, financial architect of the German Reichsbank. Thus ended the church's long-standing ban against usury and began a tradition of financially rewarding Faustian relationships with some of the twentieth century's most unsavory elements, including Nazi Germany and the Sicilian Mafia. Williams, a church historian who has also done FBI consulting, also investigates the suspicious death of reformer John Paul I and the shadiness of business as usual under John Paul II. This is a jaw-dropping book for Catholics and non-Catholics alike, and its straightforward manner and thoroughly documented evidence make it a compelling challenge for reform. Brendan Driscoll
Copyright � American Library Association. All rights reserved
Conscience, Autumn 2003
"...this is an important work that pieces together the events over several scandal-filled decades."
From the Inside Flap
With over $50 billion in securities, gold reserves that exceed those of some industrialized nations, real estate holdings that equal the total area of many countries, and opulent palaces containing the world's greatest art treasures, the riches of the Roman Catholic Church are enormous. Yet in 1929 the Vatican was destitute, Pope Pius XI, living in a damaged, leaky, pigeon-infested Lateran Palace, could hear rats scurrying through the walls, and he worried about how he would pay for even basic repairs to unclog the overburdened sewer lines and update the antiquated heating system. Paul L. Williams's account in THE VATICAN EXPOSED shows how the Church managed in less than seventy-five years such an incredible reversal of fortune. This riveting story is intriguing and shocking, as Williams describes the outrageous undertakings of the papacy.
The turnaround began on February 11, 1929, with the signing of the Lateran Treaty between the Vatican and Italy's Fascist leader Mussolini. Through this deal Mussolini gained the support of his staunchly Catholic people, who at the time looked to the Church for leadership and guidance. In return, the Church received, among other benefits, a payment of $90 million, status for the Vatican as a sovereign state, tax-free property rights, and guaranteed salaries for all priests throughout the country from the Italian government. With the stroke of a pen, the pope had solved the Vatican's budgetary woes practically overnight, yet he also put a religious institution in league with some of the darkest forces yet to come in the twentieth century.
Based on his years as a consultant for the FBI, Williams produces explosive and never-before-published evidence of the Church's morally questionable financial dealings with sinister organizations -- over seven decades! He examines the means by which the Vatican accrued enormous wealth during the Great Depression by investing in Mussolini's government; the connection between Nazi gold and the Vatican Bank; the vast range of Church holdings in the postwar boom period; Pope Paul VI's reliance on reputed international Mafia chieftain Michele Sindona as the Vatican banker; a billion-dollar counterfeit stock fraud uncovered by Interpol and the FBI; the "Ambrosiani affair," called "the greatest financial scandal of the twentieth century" by the New York Times; the mysterious death of Pope John Paul I; most recently, profits from an international drug ring operating out of Gdansk, Poland; and much more.
For both Catholics and non-Catholics, this troubling expose of corruption in one of the most revered religious institutions in the world will serve as an urgent call for reform. It will also shed light on history as well as on contemporary affairs.
About the Author
Paul L. Williams holds a doctorate in philosophy and a master's of divinity in church history from Drew University and has taught religion and philosophy at the University of Scranton and Wilkes University. He is the author of EVERYTHING YOU ALWAYS WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT THE CATHOLIC CHURCH BUT WERE AFRAID TO ASK FOR FEAR OF EXCOMMUNICATION, THE COMPLETE IDIOT'S GUIDE TO THE CRUSADES, THE MORAL PHILOSOPHY OF PETER ABELARD, and numerous other books and articles.
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