دانلود کتاب The Vatican Exposed:

Over 50 billion dollars in securities. Gold reserves that exceed those
of industrialized nations. Real estate holdings that equal the total
area of many countries. Opulent palaces containing the world’s greatest
art treasures. These are some of the riches of the Roman Catholic
Church. Yet in 1929 the Vatican was destitute. Pope Pius XI, living in a
damaged, leaky, pigeon-infested Lateran Palace, could hear rats
scurrying through the walls, and he worried about how he would pay for
even basic repairs to unclog the overburdened sewer lines and update the
antiquated heating system. How did the Church manage in less than
seventy-five years such an incredible reversal of fortune? The story
here told by Church historian Paul L. Williams is intriguing, shocking,
and outrageous.The turnaround began on February 11, 1929, with the
signing of the Lateran Treaty between the Vatican and fascist leader
Benito Mussolini. Through this deal Mussolini gained the support of the
staunchly Catholic Italian populace, who at the time followed the lead
of the Church. In return, the Church received, among other benefits, a
payment of $90 million, sovereign status for the Vatican, tax-free
property rights, and guaranteed salaries for all priests throughout the
country from the Italian government. With the stroke of a pen the pope
had solved the Vatican’s budgetary woes practically overnight, yet he
also put a great religious institution in league with some of the
darkest forces of the 20th century.Based on his years of experience as a
consultant for the FBI, Williams produces explosive and never-before
published evidence of the Church’s morally questionable financial
dealings with sinister organizations over seven decades through today.
He examines the means by which the Vatican accrued enormous wealth
during the Great Depression by investing in Mussolini’s government, the
connection between Nazi gold and the Vatican Bank, the vast range of
Church holdings in the postwar boom period, Paul VI’s appointment of
Mafia chieftain Michele Sindona as the Vatican banker, a billion-dollar
counterfeit stock fraud uncovered by Interpol and the FBI, the
“Ambrosiano Affair” called “the greatest financial scandal of the 20th
Century” by the New York Times, the mysterious death of John Paul I,
profits from an international drug ring operating out of Gdansk, Poland,
and revelations about current dealings.For both Catholics and
non-Catholics this troubling expose of corruption in one of the most
revered religious institutions in the world will serve as an urgent call
for reform.