A01=Yvonnick Denoel
Author_Yvonnick Denoel
Category=JPSH
Category=QRMB1
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eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
forthcoming
Vatican
Product details
- ISBN 9781805266914
- Dimensions: 138 x 216mm
- Publication Date: 27 Aug 2026
- Publisher: C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Paperback
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‘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.Yvonnick Denoël is a French historian, publisher and intelligence specialist who has written on the CIA, Mossad, and espionage in the twentieth century. Vatican Spies has been translated into German, Italian, Polish, Turkish, Estonian and Vietnamese.
