Synopsis
Vatican silence on Nazi crimes is fiercely debated. History has accused wartime pontiff Pius the Twelfth of complicity in the Holocaust and dubbed him "Hitler's Pope." But a key part of the story has remained untold.
Pius ran the world's largest church, smallest state, and oldest spy service. Saintly but secretive, he skimmed from church charities to pay covert couriers, and surreptitiously tape-recorded his meetings with top Nazis. When he learned of the Holocaust, Pius played his cards close to his chest. He sent birthday cards to Hitler--while plotting to overthrow him.
Church of Spies documents this cross-and-dagger intrigue in shocking detail. Gun-toting Jesuits stole blueprints to Hitler's homes. A Catholic book publisher flew a sports plane over the Alps with secrets filched from the head of Hitler's bodyguard. The keeper of the Vatican crypt ran a spy ring that betrayed German war plans and wounded Hitler in a briefcase bombing.
The plotters made history in ways they hardly expected. They inspired European unification, forged a U.S.-Vatican alliance that spanned the Cold War, and challenged Church teachings on Jews. Yet Pius' secret war muted his public response to Nazi crimes. Fearing that overt protest would impede his covert actions, he never spoke the "fiery words" he wanted.
Told with heart-pounding suspense, based on secret transcripts and unsealed files, Church of Spies throws open the Vatican's doors to reveal some of the most astonishing events in the history of the papacy.
"[E]xciting.... deals fairly with the pope's theological and political rationale.... thoroughly documented with primary sources... Church of Spies is the best account of the subject to date. Amen!" - CIA Studies in Intelligence (Unclassified Edition)
About the Author
Mark Riebling is a pathbreaking writer and researcher on religion, secret intelligence, and national security. He is Fellow in 20th-Century History at the Archivum Historiae Pontificiae, Pontificia Università Gregoriana, in Rome, and a summer lecturer at the Jan Karski Institute for Holocaust and Genocide Education, in the Center for Jewish Civilization at Georgetown University. Previously he was Editorial Director at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, and co-founder and Research Director of the NYPD Center for Policing Terrorism. Mark Riebling is the author of Wedge: The Secret War Between the CIA and FBI (Knopf, 1994; Touchstone, 2002) and Church of Spies: The Pope's Secret War Against Hitler (Basic, 2015). His works are in translation in Japan, Brazil, Mexico, Poland, the Czech Republic, Holland, Portugal, Spain, Italy, France, and Germany. His book Wedge provided the program for "seven assorted congressional committees, internal evaluators, and blue-ribbon panels" (Wall Street Journal). At the Center for Policing Terrorism, Mr. Riebling implemented a Presidential Finding to make New York the first city state since the Renaissance to build its own spy service. He has appeared on MSNBC, FoxNews, CNBC, and National Public Radio, and he has written for The Guardian (London), The Wall Street Journal, National Review, Salon.com, and The New York Times. A native of Pasadena, California, Mark Riebling studied at Dartmouth College, the University of California at Berkeley, and Columbia University, as a National Merit Scholar and a President's Fellow. He is a member of the Author's Guild, and of the Association for Former Intelligence Officers (AFIO).
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