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1. • value: Religion
2. • value: beliefs

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1. • role: Author
   • fileAs: Posner, Gerald
   • bioText: Gerald Posner is an award-winning journalist who has written twelve books, including the Pulitzer Prize finalist Case Closed and multiple national bestsellers. His 2015 book, God's Bankers, a two-hundred-year history of the finances of the Vatican, was an acclaimed New York Times bestseller. Posner has written for many national magazines and papers, including The New York Times, The New Yorker, Newsweek, and Time, and he has been a regular contributor to NBC, the History Channel, CNN, CBS, MSNBC, and FOX News. He lives in Miami Beach with his wife, author Trisha Posner.
   • name: Gerald Posner

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2015-02-03T00:00:00-05:00

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title

God's Bankers

fullDescription

A deeply reported, New York Times bestselling exposé of the money and the clerics-turned-financiers at the heart of the Vatican—the world's biggest, most powerful religious institution—from an acclaimed journalist with "exhaustive research techniques" (The New York Times).
From a master chronicler of legal and financial misconduct, a magnificent investigation nine years in the making, God's Bankers traces the political intrigue of the Catholic Church in "a meticulous work that cracks wide open the Vatican's legendary, enabling secrecy" (Kirkus Reviews). Decidedly not about faith, belief in God, or religious doctrine, this book is about the church's accumulation of wealth and its byzantine financial entanglements across the world. Told through 200 years of prelates, bishops, cardinals, and the Popes who oversee it all, Gerald Posner uncovers an eyebrow-raising account of money and power in one of the world's most influential organizations.

God's Bankers has it all: a revelatory and astounding saga marked by poisoned business titans, murdered prosecutors, and mysterious deaths written off as suicides; a carnival of characters from Popes and cardinals, financiers and mobsters, kings and prime ministers; and a set of moral and political circumstances that clarify not only the church's aims and ambitions, but reflect the larger tensions of more recent history. And Posner even looks to the future to surmise if Pope Francis can succeed where all his predecessors failed: to overcome the resistance to change in the Vatican's Machiavellian inner court and to rein in the excesses of its seemingly uncontrollable financial quagmire. "As exciting as a mystery thriller" (Providence Journal), this book reveals with extraordinary precision how the Vatican has evolved from a foundation of faith to a corporation of extreme wealth and power.

reviews

1. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     February 1, 2015
     

     Stories of the inner workings of the Vatican Bank are popular among those fascinated by conspiracy theories. A mysterious organization managing billions of dollars in assets and controlled by the largest church in the world naturally invites intense interest and scrutiny. Posner (Case Closed: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK) is no stranger to such stories, having written books about theories surrounding the deaths of both John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. Here he expertly shows that theory and conjecture aren't necessary when the real-life narrative is compelling enough. Despite its extensive length, with nearly 200 of those pages as notes, Posner's history of the institution reads like a sprawling novel, full of complex characters and surprising twists. The book also serves as a modern history of the Catholic Church, showing how the institution's financial issues connect with its broader goal of maintaining and growing its influence over the faithful. VERDICT Readers interested in issues involving religion and international finance will find Posner's work a compelling read. [See Prepub Alert, 8/22/14.]--Brett Rohlwing, Milwaukee P.L.

     Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

2. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     January 1, 2015
     A decade of exhaustive research into the deep and mysterious history of the Vatican's finances is a monumental task, but controversial author Posner proves more than up to this daunting challenge. The tireless and prolific historian and investigative journalist has also written weighty tomes on such conspiracy-laden topics as the assassination of John F. Kennedy (Case Closed, 1993) and the 9/11 attacks (Why America Slept, 2003). Unsurprisingly, the Catholic Church had no interest in welcoming him inside its secrecy-shrouded archives, so Posner had to sift through thousands of government papers, court records, and private-company documents scattered around the world, in multiple countries, just to piece his remarkably taut expos' together. He also interviewed a handful of clerics and officials in Rome who spoke only on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution. At 700-plus pages, the book's sheer size might intimidate some readers, but it's a fast-paced read that brings history alive on every page. The book will captivate those who prefer their historical nonfiction spiked with real-life tales of murder, power, and intrigue.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)

3. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     Starred review from December 22, 2014
     Posner (Miami Babylon) uses his superlative investigative skills to craft a fascinating and comprehensive look at the dark side of the Catholic Church, documenting “how money, and accumulating and fighting over it, has been a dominant theme in the history of the Catholic Church and its divine mission.” He opens with the various spiritually creative methods the Church has used to make ends meet, such as the sale of indulgences and Pope Urban II’s offer of full absolution to those who volunteered to fight in the Crusades. The bulk of the book focuses on the mid-20th century and includes the Papacy’s accommodations to the Nazis. While this is familiar terrain, Posner convincingly buttresses his unusual position that money swayed Pope Pius XII “to remain silent in the face of overwhelming evidence of mass murder.” And the author’s access to previously undisclosed documents enables him to flesh out the Vatican Bank scandal, which reached its nadir with the mysterious hanging—from London’s Blackfriars Bridge—of Italian banker and convicted fraudster Roberto Calvi. Accessible and well written, Posner’s is the definitive history of the topic to date.

popularity

453

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languages

1. • code: en
   • name: English

subjects

1. • value: Business
2. • value: History
3. • value: Religion & Spirituality
4. • value: Nonfiction

publishDateText

02/03/2015

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shortDescription

A deeply reported, New York Times bestselling exposé of the money and the clerics-turned-financiers at the heart of the Vatican—the world's biggest, most powerful religious institution—from an acclaimed journalist with "exhaustive research techniques" (The New York Times).
From a master chronicler of legal and financial misconduct, a magnificent investigation nine years in the making, God's Bankers traces the political intrigue of the Catholic Church in "a meticulous work that cracks wide open the Vatican's legendary, enabling secrecy" (Kirkus Reviews). Decidedly not about faith, belief in God, or religious doctrine, this book is about the church's accumulation of wealth and its byzantine financial entanglements across the world. Told through 200 years of prelates, bishops, cardinals, and the Popes who oversee it all, Gerald Posner uncovers an eyebrow-raising account of money and power in one of the world's most influential...

sortTitle

Gods Bankers A History of Money and Power at the Vatican

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awards

1. • source: The New York Times
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subtitle

A History of Money and Power at the Vatican

publisher

Simon & Schuster

bisacCodes

1. • code: BUS004000
   • description: Business & Economics / Banks & Banking
2. • code: HIS037070
   • description: History / Modern / 20th Century
3. • code: REL010000
   • description: Religion / Christianity / Catholic