Money and the Rise of the Modern Papacy: Financing the Vatican, 1850 1950

John Pollard, a leading historian of the papacy, explores the transformation of the Vatican into a major financial power and the part money played in the development of the modern papacy. Using hitherto unexplored sources, he sheds new light on tensions between the Vatican's engagement with capitalism and the Church's social teaching, and conflicts between the Vatican and the Allies during the Second World War and the early Cold War.