The money changers aren't just running the temple, they're planning to sell it off to cover molestation lawsuits, according to this scattershot exposé. Investigative journalist Berry (Vows of Silence) surveys a grab bag of financial irregularities in the Catholic Church: collection plate offerings siphoned into archdiocese slush funds, lavish bishops' mansions, and petty embezzlement; unfunded clergy pension funds; hush money paid to a bishop's gay lover; a scheme to flip underpriced Church properties for profit involving a Vatican cardinal and the then-boyfriend of movie star Anne Hathaway. He links it all to the American Church's sexual abuse crisis; huge legal settlements, he notes, have been followed by the closure of parishes and sale of churches, leading to vigils pitting defiant parishioners against bottom-line–obsessed bishops. The author sets his muckraking within a larger moral indictment of the Church that makes it hard to follow the money; details of financial shenanigans are dispensed in meandering, disorganized driblets amid anguished rehashes of pedophile-priest scandals and extraneous backstories of Catholic dissidents. Berry's revelations are dispiriting; he gives us a troubling if blurry portrait of a corrupt, worldly Church hierarchy that's callously out of touch with a flock that expected something holier. (June)

"Money dominates the third of Jason Berry’s important books about the Catholic Church. Render Unto Rome probes deeply into the culture of the church. To painful questions about money and sex, Berry finds, the response of the church is always the same – secrecy and silence." —Thomas Powers

"The Catholic Church wants us to believe that it can reform itself from within. This book shows that it simply can’t. If you are an entrenched member of the hierarchy, you are not going to like this book. If you are a Catholic who believes that truth will lead to change – and that the Vatican needs to change, and change fast – Render unto Rome is your catechism." —James Carville

"A captivating read, Render to Rome is an astounding revelation of the church's financial system, and required reading for those who donate to the church or are interested in the ongoing effort to restore the credibility of the church and its hierarchy." —Sister Joan Chittister, OSB

"Once again Jason Berry is ahead of the curve when it comes to writing about the Catholic Church. Nothing about this book is superficial. This is a prodigiously researched work that looks at the church with both breadth and depth, and it is fascinating." —John M. Barry, author of Rising Tide and The Great Influenza

"As a writer, Jason Berry has the jeweler’s eye for significant detail that combines with the novelist’s art in telling a story; as a reporter and researcher, Berry is thorough, compelling, and complete." —George Fish