"Bloomsbury presents Flirting with Evil by Ambrogio A. Caiani, read by Mark Elstob.
The history of the Catholic Church in the twentieth century is one of spies, scandals and bad political choices. It’s a shadowy, ornate world of cover-ups and hidden motives. In this book, Ambrogio Caiani lifts back the heavy velvet curtains of the chancel and peers behind the locked mahogany doors of the Vatican to reveal the shocking truths that make up a century of Catholic corruption.
For many, Catholicism’s flirtation with evil has become impossible to ignore: a pope courting Nazi officials and, horribly, turning a blind eye to the Holocaust; the Vatican becoming embroiled in a series of dodgy financial dealings; the child abuse continuously perpetrated by members of the clergy. Time and time again, Catholic figures have made terrible choices in private and preached in public about goodness and morality.
This is the first history that focuses exclusively on Catholicism throughout the twentieth century, sketching not only scandalous stories of corruption but also lively portrayals of Catholicism’s key characters – from a beret-clad communist revolutionary priest to the bizarre morning routine of the pope who followed a daily cold bath with dry unbuttered toast. Caiani, a critical Catholic himself, takes a frank and sceptical look at the trajectory of global Catholicism and wrestles with vital questions about the future of the church. Taking in the wider socio-political contexts of a world at war and the accumulating momentum of social progress, this brilliant history traces the evolution of the Catholic church alongside the development of our modern society right up to the election of Pope Leo XIV in 2025. P 2026 Bloomsbury Publishing PLC C 2026 Ambrogio A. Caiani"
"An ambitious, authoritative history of the Roman Catholic Church in the modern age.
Despite its many crises, especially in Western Europe, there are still 1.2 billion Catholics in the world and the Church remains a powerful, controversial and defiantly archaic institution.
After the French Revolution and the democratic rebellions of 1848, the Church retreated, especially under Pius IX, into a fortress of unreason, denouncing almost every aspect of modern life, including liberalism and socialism. The Pope proclaimed his infallibility; the cult of the Virgin Mary and her apparitions to semi-illiterate shepherds became articles of faith; the Vatican refused all accommodation with the modern state, until a disastrous series of concordats with fascist states in the 1930s.
In Losing a Kingdom, Gaining the World, Dr Ambrogio A. Caiani narrates the epic, fascinating, entertaining and horrifying history of the Roman Catholic Church. It is an account of the Church's fraught encounter with modernity in all its forms, from representative democracy and the nation state to science, literature and secular culture.
Praise for the author: “In gripping, vivid prose, Caiani brings to life the struggle for power that would shape modern Europe. a historical read which is both original and enjoyable” ANTONIA FRASER"
"A groundbreaking account of Napoleon Bonaparte, Pope Pius VII, and the kidnapping that would forever divide church and state.
In the wake of the French Revolution, Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul of France, and Pope Pius VII shared a common goal: to reconcile the church with the state. But while they were able to work together initially, formalizing an agreement in 1801, relations between them rapidly deteriorated. In 1809, Napoleon ordered the Pope's arrest.
Ambrogio Caiani provides a pioneering account of the tempestuous relationship between the emperor and his most unyielding opponent. Drawing on original findings in the Vatican and other European archives, Caiani uncovers the nature of Catholic resistance against Napoleon's empire; charts Napoleon's approach to Papal power; and reveals how the Emperor attempted to subjugate the church to his vision of modernity. Gripping and vivid, this book shows the struggle for supremacy between two great individuals—and sheds new light on the conflict that would shape relations between the Catholic church and the modern state for centuries to come."
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