Robbery has always been a crime of passion, the result of individuals being struck with a lust for ill gotten gain. The five members of The Syndicate, an international crime group with supporters in the British Government, Church of England and the Freemasons, together with several influential members of the Vatican’s College of Cardinals were no exception. Cardinal Di Luca, Grandmaster of the Order of the Deity and Vatican power broker Cardinal Saltieri along with the mysterious Sister Marie-Élise Bessette conspired to find the lost wealth of the Vatican. What followed was a trail of death and destruction as the fanatical Order of the Deity sought power and control of the Roman Church at any price. At Cardinal Di Luca’s command, the church entered into a fearful and deadly conflict with both The Syndicate and a Chinese Pirate Lord known as the ‘Chameleon’. Within months the desolation of the Holy Roman Church appeared inevitable! With the Vatican’s power base on the verge of collapse and the walls of the city state under siege from foreign powers, the pontiff sought exile in Britain using the hidden wealth of his church to buy passage to freedom. While an evil spread throughout the Holy city the Catholic Churches most closely guarded secret was revealed by Syndicate member Michael Daniels, alias ‘Ares’. When the opportunity to steal the hidden Vatican Gold presented itself, temptation for all concerned proved irresistible!

Robbery has always been a crime of passion, the result of individuals being struck with a lust for ill gotten gain. The five members of The Syndicate, an international crime group with supporters in the British Government, Church of England and the Freemasons, together with several influential members of the Vatican’s College of Cardinals were no exception. Cardinal Di Luca, Grandmaster of the Order of the Deity and Vatican power broker Cardinal Saltieri along with the mysterious Sister Marie-Élise Bessette conspired to find the lost wealth of the Vatican. What followed was a trail of death and destruction as the fanatical Order of the Deity sought power and control of the Roman Church at any price. At Cardinal Di Luca’s command, the church entered into a fearful and deadly conflict with both The Syndicate and a Chinese Pirate Lord known as the ‘Chameleon’. Within months the desolation of the Holy Roman Church appeared inevitable! With the Vatican’s power base on the verge of collapse and the walls of the city state under siege from foreign powers, the pontiff sought exile in Britain using the hidden wealth of his church to buy passage to freedom. While an evil spread throughout the Holy city the Catholic Churches most closely guarded secret was revealed by Syndicate member Michael Daniels, alias ‘Ares’. When the opportunity to steal the hidden Vatican Gold presented itself, temptation for all concerned proved irresistible!

There are one billion Catholics in the world today, spread over every continent, speaking almost every conceivable language, and all answering to a single authority. The Vatican is a unique international organization, both in terms of its extraordinary power and influence, and in terms of its endurance. Popes come and go, but the elaborate and complex bureaucracy called the Vatican lives on. For centuries, it has served and sometimes undermined popes; it has been praised and blamed for the actions of the pope and for the state of the church. Yet an objective examination of the workings of the Vatican has been unavailable until now. Drawing on more than a hundred interviews with Vatican officials, this book affords a firsthand look at the people, the politics, and the organization behind the institution. Reese brings remarkable clarity to the almost Byzantine bureaucracy of congregations, agencies, secretariats, tribunals, nunciature, and offices, showing how they serve the pope and, through him, the universal church. He gives a lively account of how popes are elected and bishops appointed, how dissident theologians are disciplined and civil authorities dealt with. Throughout, revealing and colorful anecdotes from church history and the present day bring the unique culture of the Vatican to life. The Vatican is a fascinating institution, a model of continuity and adaptation, which remains constant while functioning powerfully in a changing world. As never before, this book provides a clear, objective perspective on how the enormously complex institution surrounding the papacy operates on a day-to-day level, how it has adapted and endured for close to two thousand years, and how it is likely to face the challenges of the next millennium.

For the entire history of human civilization, gold has enraptured people around the globe. The Nazis was no less enthralled by it, and felt that gold was the solution to funding Hitler's war machine. Gold was also on the mind of FDR across the Atlantic, as he worked with Europe's other leaders to bring the United States and the rest of the world out of a severe depression. FDF was hardly the first head of state to turn to gold in difficult times. Throughout history, it has been the refuge of both nations and people in trouble, working at times when nothing else does. Desperate people can buy a loaf of bread or bribe a border guard. Gold can get desperate nations oil to keep tanks running or munitions to fight a war. If the price is right, there is always someone somewhere willing to buy or sell gold. And it was to become the Nazi's most important medium of exchange during the war. Chasing Gold is the story of how the Nazis attempted to grab Europe’s gold to finance history’s bloodiest war. It is filled with high drama and close escapes, laying bare the palate of human emotions. Walking through the tale are giants of world history, as well as ordinary people called upon to undertake heroic action in an extraordinary time.

On October 16, 1943, the Jews of Rome were targeted for arrest and deportation. The Nazis, the Vatican, and the Jews of Rome examines why—and more importantly how—it could have been avoided, featuring new evidence and insight into the Vatican’s involvement. At the time, Rome was within reach of the Allies, but the overwhelming force of the Wehrmacht, Gestapo, and SS in Rome precluded direct confrontation. Moral condemnations would not have worked, nor would direct confrontation by the Italians, Jewish leadership, or even the Vatican. Gallo underscores the necessity of determining what courses of actions most likely would have spared Italian Jews from the gas chambers. Examining the historical context and avoiding normative or counterfactual assertions, this book draws upon archival sources ranging from diaries to intelligence intercepts in English, Italian, and German. With antisemitism on the rise today and the last remaining witnesses passing away, it is essential to understand what happened in 1943. The Nazis, the Vatican, and the Jews of Rome grapples with this particular, awful episode within the larger, horrifying story of the Holocaust. Despite the inadequacy of memory, we must continue to attempt to make sense of the inexplicable.

The next phase of world conflict claims the Vatican and terrorizes the holy lands.

In the waning days of World War II, a crafty Sicilian prospector and his mafia associates concoct a scheme to hide tons of Nazi gold, pilfered from their victims, in an aspiring gold mine in the mountains of British Columbia until it is called for. Decades later, a private organization contracted by a group based in Turkey is determined to find the gold and return it to the countries and the descendants of the people from whom it was stolen. In order to recover it and correct this historic injustice, they’ll have to battle secretive Swiss and German banks, the mafia, and even the Vatican, all of whom are seeking to either cover up their involvement in the crime or racing to reclaim the gold.