Vatican Spies: From the Second World War to Pope Francis

by Yvonnick Denoël, Michael Page (Narrator), Alan McKay - translator

"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 channeled 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 Benedict XVI and, today, Pope Francis.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Politics, Espionage

Audible Audio

First published December 5, 2024

Reviews

[Cassidy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Contrary to the other reviews of this book I thought this was solid in terms of information as well as entertainment. It’s true though that it doesn’t do a good job of introducing topics sometimes and large parts of the book are probably better enjoyed if you’ve already read books about similar topics or have at least wasted a good deal of time on Wikipedia prior.

I hope for a sequel to this book one day when I’m like 75 called Vatican Spies 2: 2 Vatican 2 Spy after some more files have been unredacted (the Benedict and onward chapters were disappointingly not as long as hoped for).

[Marc Blake · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fascinating topic. Translation from French to English maybe misses some narrative and context.

[Juanathang · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF. This was so dense and pitifully organized, you could hardly keep up with what was going on. This should have been more focused geographically or on specific characters but instead it read like a deck of Wikipedia pages on similar topics that were randomly shuffled together.

[Steven Bragg · Rating 3 out of 5]

There's a massive amount of information in this book about priests who acted as spies, as well as the actions of foreign intelligence agencies to infiltrate the papacy. However, the text is not well structured; the timeline bounces around, there are far too many characters to keep track of, and many of the stories do not actually involve spies (tending more toward juicy gossip tidbits). Overall, consider reading partway through it to gain an overview of the situation, but it may not be worth grinding through to the end.

[Mary · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF didn’t like the style of writing. I was hoping for a more storytelling writing style but instead it’s written more like a higher education textbook. Couldn’t keep track of all the Italian phrases and terms.