The Power and the Glory: Inside the Dark Heart of John Paul II's Vatican

This book is undoubtedly an eye opener, and the amount of investigation and detailed evidence that Yallop proffers is astounding. As one of the apparently dying breed of British practising Catholics I was intrigued to read the book. I expected the 'anti-papist' sentiment one often gets in this sort of 'expose' book but in the circumstances I think the author made a good stab of simply offering the evidence (much of which was, sadly for me, damning)and allowing the reader to decide. There are without doubt huge issues of corruption and abuse within the church. I hope that books like this can shame the powers in the church into reverting to the Catholic Church's original ethos of caring and loving rather than allowing much of this nonsense to carry on. Well done the author.

The Power & The Glory: The Dark Side of The Wojtyla Pontificate (0/0 people found this helpful)

The Power & The Glory: The Dark Side of The Wojtyla Pontificate

Reviewed by William Courson

Karol Wojtyla, who was to become known to the world as Pope John Paul II, is one of the most influential and even beloved figures of the 20th century, credited with speeding the demise of Eastern European and Soviet Communism and for speaking out for the human rights and dignity of the disenfranchised, the poor, and the powerless.

From the moment of his election to the papacy, Karol Wojtyla sought political influence and a role on the world stage. At the close of the twentieth and dawn of the twenty-first century, he was a leader to millions of Catholics at a time of tremendous social change and religious upheaval. Promising a renewed church, he was the first "media pope" and crossed the globe many times to preach his message. Now, but two years after his death, there are calls for his canonization as a saint and for the award of the appellation "John Paul the Great."

According to the author of "The Power and the Glory: Inside the Dark Heart of Pope John Paul II's Vatican," this widely-held view of a heroic and principled leader is but the officially promulgated tip of an iceberg whose submarine mass is one composed of tolerance (at a minimum) of criminality, friendly cooperation with some of the most nefarious political regimes and corrupt commercial empires on the face of the earth, and brutal (and that is not too strong a word) indifference to the needs and aspirations of Catholic clergy and laity. This is a stunning and sobering chronicle of a man wholly dedicated to advancing without regard to human cost the conservative agenda of the most retrograde and plutocratic elements within the Roman Catholic Church.

Investigative journalist David Yallop, who also authored "In God's Name: An Investigation Into the Murder of Pope John Paul I" paints a convincing and extraordinarily well-documented portrait of a man who seized the reigns of papal authority with the aim of quashing any and all dissent within the Catholic Church and preserving at all costs that Church's - often illicitly gained - patrimony, whilst installing a dictatorial climate of fear and self-censorship in the labyrinthine bureaus of the Holy See.

Wojtyla's blatent cover-up of pedophile priests and bishops, his policies promoting economic and social disparities, his suppression of the popular uprisings of the poor in Latin America, his ban on contraception which drove poverty and disease in third world countries and - what may have been Wojtyla's mortal sin - his clearly demonstrable knowledge of if not involvement in the conspiracy that led to the death of his predecessor - are all brought out of the silent, malarial fog that envelopes the inner workings of the Vatican.

David Yallop does not traffic in circumstantial "evidence" and hypothetical constructs of what may have happened or could have happened or probably did happen. He confines himself to demonstrable facts of probative value. `He ably documents the other half of Karol Wojtyla's career before and after his ascent to the Throne of Peter which has never been publicized.

There are uncounted `biographies' in print of Karol Wojtyla that are nothing apart from (more or less officially sanctioned) hagiographies that demonstrate only Wojtyla's `great' side. In fact, almost all of them embellish his sanctified image by relating accounts of events that never happened or sanitizing those that did in such a way as to make the man appear in a near-Divine light.

"The Power and the Glory: Inside the Dark Heart of Pope John Paul II's Vatican," properly balances Karol Wojtyla's world-changing achievements against his misjudgments (such as his obsessive silencing of critics) and his misdeeds (such as his glacial reaction to the clerical child abuse scandals at a time when he was obsessively concerned with the sexual practices of the laity).

At the end of the day, the objective reader is forced to ask himself this question: could the unfortunate events and processes that are described in detail in this work have transpired without Karol Wojtyla's knowledge, acquiescence and complicity? And the objective reader is forced to conclude, tragically, that the answer is `no.'

When a sufficient time has elapsed so as to allow an unemotional, rationally objective assessment of the pontificate of John Paul II to take place, David Yallop will surely be seen not as an investigative journalist but as an historian, and this critical and invaluable book as a work of historic import.

What a coverup. (1/2 people found this helpful)

This book is a real eyeopener. The billions of money involved and the cover ups between the Vatican and other states is quite unbelieveable. As a mother and grandmother, the part that I found most difficult to take in, is that until 2004 Pope John Paul 11. saw child abuse as merely a sin, which could be forgiven. Then in 2004 he acknowledged it was a crime. God bless the victims.

Brilliant study of an overrated celebrity (3/6 people found this helpful)

In this extraordinary book, investigative journalist David Yallop examines the record of Pope John Paul II.

Yallop details the many scandals of John Paul's rule, especially the cover-up of widespread sexual abuse by paedophile priests across the world, including 1,200 in the USA. In Britain, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor connived at the criminal offence of abusing children by helping priests to evade justice so that they could continue to abuse. He appointed a known paedophile as Chaplain to Gatwick Airport, where he could prey on new arrivals to Britain. Cardinal Basil Hume covered up the widespread sexual abuse at Ampleforth College, a Catholic private school.

Cardinal Ratzinger, John Paul's close colleague, now Pope Benedict, recently reminded every bishop of the penalties that his Church imposes on those who make allegations of sexual abuse to the civil authorities. The Church puts itself above the law to protect itself, not its victims. They tell us all how to lead our lives, on pain of eternal damnation, while they hide abusing priests and attack those who expose the crimes. What hypocrisy!

John Paul said, "The Roman Catholic Church is not a democracy. Dissent from the Magisterium is incompatible with being a Catholic." The Church is an autocracy and loves other autocracies. John Paul granted a `personal prelature' to Opus Dei, making this openly fascist body answerable to no one but himself.

Yallop depicts John Paul's hatred of Liberation Theology and his consistent support for brutal right-wing tyrannies in Latin America. He shows John Paul's links with the CIA: John Paul and CIA head William Casey had both supported Franco in the 1930s war in Spain. As Pope, John Paul beatified 471 Franco supporters, but not one Republican.

Ratzinger volunteered to join the Hitler Youth and served in the Wehrmacht. It is no coincidence that there is a German Pope, when Germany is trying to foist a Bismarckian Constitution on the European Union.

The Roman Catholic Church operated the infamous ratlines for 30,000 Nazi, Italian and Croat war criminals after World War Two, with the connivance of the US and British governments. (No wonder Blair is so keen to join the Church.) In the 1980s, Germany and the Vatican backed the destruction of Yugoslavia, to `free' Catholic Croatia.

Mussolini's deal with the Papacy is still in force: the Italian state gives half a billion pounds annually to the Church. Yallop shows how John Paul defended the corrupt Vatican Bank, the Mafia's bank, which launders round $50 billion a year. As a member of the Vatican Secretariat said of the absurd `visions of the Virgin Mary' at Medjugorje in Yugoslavia, "Of course it's a fraud but the money is genuine."

What did John Paul achieve? By trying to hide the Church's vice and corruption, he brought it lasting shame. So less than half the world's Catholics even attend Mass and numbers are falling rapidly. 72% of the Spanish people think that the state should stop its £100 million annual handout to the Church. Like other reactionaries, all his scheming resulted only in the failure of his cause.

The Power and the Glory: Inside the Dark Heart of John Paul II's Vatican

David A. Yallop

Reader Reviews:

Interesting insights (0/0 people found this helpful)

The Power & The Glory: The Dark Side of The Wojtyla Pontificate (0/0 people found this helpful)

What a coverup. (1/2 people found this helpful)

Brilliant study of an overrated celebrity (3/6 people found this helpful)

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