For more than 25 years John Thavis held one of the most fascinating journalistic jobs in the world: reporting on the inner workings of the Vatican. His daily exposure to the power, politics, and personalities in the seat of Roman Catholicism gave him a unique, behind-the-scenes perspective on an institution that is far less monolithic and unified than it first appears. Thavis reveals Vatican City as a place where Curia cardinals fight private wars, scandals threaten to undermine papal authority, and reverence for the past is continually upended by the practical considerations of modern life.

The latest novel in Francis Joseph Smith's beloved Amazon bestselling James Dieter series. During the opening months of World War II, the Vatican initiated a covert operation to steal the eighth wonder of the world. Their treachery succeeded beyond their wildest expectations -- or so they thought. Now their 80-year-old secret is in danger of unraveling and some very powerful people and ruthless people will do anything to keep their secret buried. Now begins the ultimate game of cat and mouse. In this fast-paced thriller, Hezbollah, Mossad, The Vatican, and MI-6 are all hunting for James ...

A POWERFUL ANCIENT RELIC IN AN UNEXPECTED PLACE Throughout the course of human warfare, no weapon has been as feared, as deadly, as the Ark of the Covenant. Legend claims that this mysterious, supernatural force, first carried into battle by the ancient Israelites, was so powerful that the Ark could lay waste to entire armies, entire cities in moments—thousands of years before the advent of nuclear bombs. So, when an ancient order of killers reemerges from the shadows after centuries of hiding—convinced that other secret societies took the Ark from Jerusalem to hide it in early America...

Recovering black market artifacts was already a dangerous business. And it just got worse. When the Russian military invaded Ukraine, the world watched from the sidelines as shells rained down on homes, schools, businesses, and factories. But what the media didn't show us was a sinister plot carried out by a rogue Russian unit. In the frigid chill of winter, while the Russian army barreled into Kyiv, an elite band of fighters had a different target in mind. Led by a notorious Colonel, the rogue unit broke into the Ukrainian Museum of National History, and took every valuable artifact ...

From a master chronicler of legal and financial misconduct, a magnificent investigation nine years in the making, this book traces the political intrigue and inner workings of the Catholic Church. Decidedly not about faith, belief in God, or religious doctrine, this audiobook is about the church's accumulation of wealth and its byzantine entanglements with financial markets across the world.