Money and the Rise of the Modern Papacy

This the first scholarly study of the finances and financiers of the Vatican between 1850 and 1950. Dr Pollard, a leading historian of the papacy, explores the transformation of the Vatican into a major financial power and the part this played in the developement 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.