IN PREPARING my first visit to Moscow, when was working for the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rodric Braithwaite, then British Ambassador to the Soviet Union, briefed me while in London. He recommended that I read John Hands’s novel Perestroika Christi. It is a fictional account of new Private Secretaries to thinly disguised Mikhail Gorbachev and Pope John Paul II: “In there is all you need to know about Soviet intelligence, and, indeed about the Vatican diplomacy and espionage,” he said. It set the scene for much that is explored in this intriguing analysis of the Vatican’s diplomatic service.
Yvonnick Denoël is a French historian and intelligence specialist. His methodology is chronological, following the personalities and policies of successive Popes. An introduction describes the extensive network of nuncios (Vatican ambassadors) worldwide. Denoël notes that each successive Pope defines the “role of intelligence” in response to contemporary international politics.
First on stage is Eugenio Pacelli. From an aristocratic family, he was Secretary of State to his predecessor, Pius XI, and first encountered the Nazi threat with Hitler’s ascent to power in 1933. Elected Pope in 1939, Pacelli agreed a concordat with Hitler and has frequently been branded a Nazi “fellow-traveller”. Ultimately, however, his driving motive was a virulent anti-communism, although silence on the Polish genocide further fuelled fears of Nazi sympathies. Denoël dismisses these firmly. Pacelli’s most able diplomat was Gianbattista Montini, later Pope Paul VI.
Angelo Roncalli, elected as Pope John XXIII in 1963, came from a modest country family in northern Italy. He breathed a completely different atmosphere into the corridors of the Vatican, notably by establishing the Second Vatican Council. Roncalli had diplomatic experience as nuncio in Paris, and was made Patriarch of Venice by his predecessor. During his pontificate, which included the Cuban crisis, key international espionage players emerged: James Angleton, diplomat and a key member of the CIA; Francis Spellman, Cardinal Archbishop of New York, a key figure in Vatican intelligence; and the aristocratic D’Arcy Osborne, British Minister to the Holy See.
AlamyIn the Vatican in 1945 (from left), Lieut. General Sir W. D. Morgan, Pope Pius XII, Sir D’Arcy Osborne, and the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke
Montini’s election as Pope Paul VI brought someone with great experience in the Vatican corridors of power. Montini retained his integrity, presiding, during a period of significant crises, including Vietnam and further intrigues within the Vatican bank, IOR. The publication of Montini’s encyclical Populorum Progressio caused right-wingers to see him as dangerously pro-communist, especially in his pursuit of an Ostpolitik.
Albino Luciani, Pope John Paul I, died after only 30 days as Pontiff, and was succeeded by Karol Wojtyla, the first non-Italian pope for 450 years. Formed under communism in Poland, Wojtyla was well schooled in operating undercover and behind the lines. He was remarkably effective in his engagement with Vatican diplomacy, eventually becoming the key to the downfall of Polish communism, which effectively precipitated the collapse of Soviet Europe. Wojtyla was more circumspect in response to liberation theology, and this had its impact on espionage within South American politics.
Joseph Ratzinger, Wojtyla’s doctrinal enforcer, succeeded him, as Benedict XVI. There followed an increasing engagement of Vatican initiatives with the German intelligence and espionage network. Despite the dismissal of Paul Marcinkus as head of the IOR, corruption remained. It was, no doubt, this, alongside issues of clergy abuse, which caused Benedict XVI to be the first pope to resign for 600 years.
The 2013 conclave elected the first South American pope, in the person of Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Pope Francis. Francis is the pope most committed to reform of the Curia since Paul VI, appointing the late Cardinal Pell from Sydney to clear corruption in the IOR and elsewhere.
A very exciting and intriguing read, this account remains true to its title until the final chapters of the book, in which issues of Vatican scandals (interesting in themselves, of course) predominate. The analysis makes it crystal clear why so many nations invest in appointing an ambassador to the Holy See.
The Rt Revd Stephen Platten is a former Bishop of Wakefield.
Vatican Spies: From the Second World War to Pope Francis
Yvonnick Denoël
Alan McKay, translator
Hurst £25
(978-1-911723-40-0)
Church Times Bookshop £22.50