The Vatican Files
Maria Antonietta Calabro and Paola Totaro
Dark money, power and the battle with America’s Right.
Pope Leo XIV was elected in the shadow of a secretive and ferocious power struggle that saw the historic resignation of Pope Benedict and shaped the papacy of Francis.
The Vatican Files tells the inside story of the 25-year battle for control of the Church’s wealth. Efforts to bring the Vatican’s ancient, murky accounting systems into the 21st century were thwarted at every turn by the Curia and international political interests. A secret operation to seize control of the Holy See’s one billion euros in cash assets coincided with the launch of a police operation halfway across the world in Australia, investigating historic child abuse allegations against Cardinal George Pell, the very man appointed by Francis to lead a sweeping clean-up of Vatican finances.
The Vatican Files charts the increasing tensions between the Catholic Church and the state in Donald Trump’s America, and the Holy See’s vexed engagement with Putin’s war on Ukraine and its increasingly complex relationship with China. It also reveals the efforts of the American Right to block the election of the first American pope, and a clandestine influence campaign by billionaire tech bros from Silicon Valley.
Based on Il Trono e l’Altare, written by Maria Antonietta Calabro and published in Italy in 2024 by Edizioni Cantagalli. Translated by Paola Totaro. Author and translator together have substantially reshaped and updated the book to ensure it is relevant to an international English-speaking readership.
Calabrò and Totaro follow the money through two decades of Vatican intrigue and arrive at the doorstep of the first American pope. Anyone who wants to understand why Leo XIV unsettles the American right should start here.'
- Release
- Feb-2027
- ISBN
- 9781761473654
- RRP (AUD)
- $34.99
- Pages
- 320
- Format
- Paperback
- Category
- Current Affairs
Maria Antonietta Calabro and Paola Totaro
Maria Antonietta Calabro is a veteran of the Vatican press corps and former senior correspondent at Corriere della Sera, now a contributing editor at HuffPost Italia. She is the author of five books including Il Trono e l’Altare.
Paola Totaro is a prominent Italian-Australian journalist based in London. She has covered the Vatican for The Australian for more than a decade. She is the author of three books and a contributing editor to The New World.
Allen & Unwin
Allen & Unwin is Australia’s leading independent publisher and is the 2023 Publisher of the Year, a title we’ve now held fifteen times. Our lists are unrivalled in scope and quality, our focus on original ideas and voices, and our acclaimed authors and titles amongst Australia’s best.
- Rights
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World English
- Contact
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Sandra Buol
- Website