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An astonishing history of the priests and missionaries whose ‘special ops’ serve the Holy See and 1.3 billion Catholics worldwide.
‘Officially’ the Vatican has no espionage service; but does no one carry out intelligence operations on its behalf? During the Second World War and Cold War, Rome was teeming with spies. A band of undercover monsignors and priests hunted for Vatican ‘moles’, led clandestine diplomacy, investigated assassinations of priests and other scandals threatening the Church, and conducted high-risk missions behind the Iron Curtain.
Drawing on freshly released archives of foreign services that worked with or against the Holy See, Vatican Spies reveals eighty years of shadow wars and dirty tricks. These include infiltrating Russian-speaking priests into the Soviet Union; secret negotiations between John XXIII and Khrushchev; the future Paul VI’s close relationship with the CIA; the Vatican’s infiltration by Eastern Bloc intelligence; the battles between the Jesuits and Opus Dei; and the secret bank funds channelled first to fight communism in South America, then to support Solidarity in Poland.
This entertaining book journeys right to the present, uncovering startling machinations under Pope Benedict XVI, Pope Francis and Pope Leo XIV.
Introduction: The spies who didn’t exist
I: PACELLI
1. A crisis pope
2. Facing the Nazis: Double play and false pretences, 1940–1943
3. Under German occupation, 1943–1944
4. Rome: Open city, 1944–1947
5. No holds barred, 1949–1958
II: RONCALLI
6. Détente
III: MONTINI
7. Paul VI’s torments
8. The Vatican moles
9. Octopus Dei
10. The monsignor’s explosives
11. Setting the cat among the pigeons
12. The puppet master
13. The IOR changes horses
14. Paul VI’s last sorrow
IV: WOJTYŁA
15. The Pope who shouldn’t have died
16. Wojtyła, the special operations pope
17. The theology of the gun
18. A trip to Poland
19. Three shots in Saint Peter’s Square
20. Death of a banker
21. Polish crusade
22. New challenges
23. Marcinkus goes … the corruption stays
24. Murders in the Vatican
25. Twilight wanderings
V: RATZINGER AND BERGOGLIO
26. The impossible inheritance
27. The infernal machine
28. Barack and Francis
29. China: The other Church of silence
30. A story without end
Conclusion
Afterword: Pope Leo XIV
Acknowledgements
Notes
Index
Description
An astonishing history of the priests and missionaries whose ‘special ops’ serve the Holy See and 1.3 billion Catholics worldwide.
‘Officially’ the Vatican has no espionage service; but does no one carry out intelligence operations on its behalf? During the Second World War and Cold War, Rome was teeming with spies. A band of undercover monsignors and priests hunted for Vatican ‘moles’, led clandestine diplomacy, investigated assassinations of priests and other scandals threatening the Church, and conducted high-risk missions behind the Iron Curtain.
Drawing on freshly released archives of foreign services that worked with or against the Holy See, Vatican Spies reveals eighty years of shadow wars and dirty tricks. These include infiltrating Russian-speaking priests into the Soviet Union; secret negotiations between John XXIII and Khrushchev; the future Paul VI’s close relationship with the CIA; the Vatican’s infiltration by Eastern Bloc intelligence; the battles between the Jesuits and Opus Dei; and the secret bank funds channelled first to fight communism in South America, then to support Solidarity in Poland.
This entertaining book journeys right to the present, uncovering startling machinations under Pope Benedict XVI, Pope Francis and Pope Leo XIV.
