First published 2015
Gerald Posner investigates how the Catholic Church transformed from a spiritual institution into a global financial empire. Over nine years of research, he traces two centuries of Vatican money management through popes, cardinals, and bishops who doubled as financiers. The book examines the Church's accumulation of wealth and its complex relationships with international financial markets. Posner documents poisoned business leaders, murdered prosecutors, mysterious deaths of private investigators, and suspicious suicides connected to Vatican finances. His cast includes religious leaders, mobsters, financiers, kings, and prime ministers entangled in the Church's monetary affairs. The investigation avoids questions of faith or doctrine, focusing instead on institutional power and money. Posner concludes by analyzing whether Pope Francis can reform the Vatican's financial operations where previous popes failed, confronting both internal resistance and the institution's sprawling monetary complications.
Genres: history, business, crime, non-fiction, 21st-century, finance
Vibes: suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: institutional-power
Setting: Vatican
Period: 19th-century, 20th-century, 21st-century
752 pages · Hardcover · Simon & Schuster
Content warnings: murder, suicide