The New York Times Book Review - Damon Linker
Posner does an impressive job of explaining how [Bernardino] Nogara guided the church through the economic minefields of the Depression, World War II and the immediate postwar years using a combination of shrewdly diversified investments and morally suspect (and to this day still murky) financial deals…From there Posner weaves an extraordinarily intricate tale of intrigue, corruption and organized criminality…from Pius XII down to Benedict XVI…Posner's gifts as a reporter and storyteller are most vividly displayed in a series of lurid chapters on the American archbishop Paul Marcinkus, the arch-Machiavellian who ran the Vatican Bank from 1971 to 1989…The cumulative effect of Posner's detective work is an acute sensation of disgustalong with a mix of admiration for and skepticism about Pope Francis' efforts to reform the Vatican Bank and its curial enablers.
Publishers Weekly
★ 12/22/2014
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. (Feb.)
Catholic Insight
"God's Bankers should be read by every Catholic truly interested in Church history."
Chicago Tribune
Why all this reform? Wall Street-lawyer-turned-author Gerald Posner lays it out in his deeply researched, passionately argued book, ‘God's Bankers: A History of Money and Power at the Vatican.’ Posner…is a merciless pitbull of an investigator, marshaling mountains of evidence to make his arguments…. the heart of ‘God's Bankers’ lies in chapters devoted to the church's actions during and immediately after World War II. In these chapters, Posner dissects the church's actions with the eye of a prosecutor.
Philadelphia Inquirer
The Vatican began trying to reform its bank, but with only modest success. Now there's a new sheriff in town, Pope Francis, and he has made significant progress. Posner's compelling book provides a benchmark for measuring his success.
CNN Michael Smerconish
A highly anticipated book, the result of a nine year investigation by author Gerald Posner. It reads like Robert Ludlow’s fiction [and] paints a picture of murder, double-dealing, and fraud surrounding the bank.
The Pioneer Agenda
"The church was with Hitler and Mussolini during the Second World War. Even today, the Church is run on blood money. Blood money from where? By whom? Well, the details are in God’s Bankers. It is a must read for all those who love action-packed and suspense-filled real life incidents. God’s Bankers is more thrilling that Mario Puzo’s Godfather."
John L. Allen
"An outstanding book"
New York Times Book Review
An exhaustive history of the financial machinations at the center of the church in Rome….Posner weaves an extraordinarily intricate tale of intrigue, corruption and organized criminality….Posner’s gifts as a reporter and storyteller are most vividly displayed in a series of lurid chapters on the American archbishop Paul Marcinkus, the arch-Machiavellian who ran the Vatican Bank from 1971-1989.
Booklist
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.
Washington Independent Review of Books
God’s Bankers is often fascinating reading, full of international intrigue….God’s Bankers is meticulously researched. Almost 200 pages of end notes indicate the care Posner took in nine years spent researching his subject….The book tells a compelling story, but never at the expense of journalistic principles. Posner might speculate, but he is always careful to mark it as such, and to point out the facts and primary sources that support or undermine the speculation….His work pulls together existing scholarship and massive amounts of original research to present the closest thing to a definitive account of the workings of money and finance within the Vatican that could be produced without cooperation from the Vatican itself.
Financial Advisor Magazine
A book worth the time if a reader is interested in Roman Catholic Church and European history….The book will be appreciated by those involved in finance. It is chock full of tales of investment schemes involving off-shore ghost companies, shell corporations and holding companies set up to hide the movement of money, the use of tax havens, tax laws (and how to avoid them), and financial instruments that caused millions of dollars to disappear….Some may also appreciate reading about the personalities of popes, the power games and the internecine politics of the Roman Curia (the pope’s administrative wing) that make the current political games played in Washington, D.C., seem amateurish by comparison.
Portsmouth Herald
This fast-paced, carefully researched exposé of the nefarious enrichment of the Vatican is a real eyebrow-raiser….a spellbinding, intricate tale of corruption, intrigue, and criminality at the heart of the world’s largest religious institution.
Providence Journal
"A stunning exposé by investigative reporter Gerald Posner. As exciting as a mystery thriller."
Chicago Tribune
Why all this reform? Wall Street-lawyer-turned-author Gerald Posner lays it out in his deeply researched, passionately argued book, ‘God's Bankers: A History of Money and Power at the Vatican.’ Posner…is a merciless pitbull of an investigator, marshaling mountains of evidence to make his arguments…. the heart of ‘God's Bankers’ lies in chapters devoted to the church's actions during and immediately after World War II. In these chapters, Posner dissects the church's actions with the eye of a prosecutor.
Booklist
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.
Library Journal
02/01/2015
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.
Kirkus Reviews
2014-11-15
A dogged reporter exhaustively pursues the nefarious enrichment of the Vatican, from the Borgias to Pope Francis.In one of his previous works, Mengele (1986), former Wall Street lawyer-turned-accomplished historian and author Posner (Warlords of Crime; Hitler's Children, etc.) followed the money connection from the Nazi criminals fleeing the Third Reich to Argentina—and struck Vatican gold. Laundering Nazi booty extracted from the Jews, protecting Nazi criminals as they found refuge across the globe, providing hush money for egregious cases of pedophiliac priests—these are just some of the tentacles of Vatican bankrolling since World War II. Having overcome its aversion to moneylending and capitalism as being practices of Protestants and Jews after Italian unification, the Vatican later established a stabilizing appeasement policy with secular leader Mussolini in the form of the Lateran Pacts. Pope Pius XI's financial adviser, Bernardino Nogara, diversified Vatican finances through the Depression era, entangling Vatican and Fascist ties. The Reichskonkordat, a series of pacts signed by Hitler, extracted taxes from Catholic churches and guaranteed the Vatican's silence regarding the Holocaust; it also funneled "blood money" from Nazi victims and supported the "ratline" for escaping Nazi criminals. Posner tracks the formation of the Institute per le Opere di Religione (the Vatican bank) in 1942 through its troubled survival into the present era, as it has battled accusations of mob ties, "gay lobby" scandals, WikiLeaks disclosures, lawsuits by victims of sex abuse and the insistence by the European Union on more transparency in the bank's dealings. Pope Francis' promises of reform are going to be closely watched. Posner bases his massive research on extensive interviews and documents found in the archives of governments and private companies across the world (the author was barred from the Vatican's own Secret Archives). A meticulous work that cracks wide open the Vatican's legendary, enabling secrecy.