Vatican A Novel By Malachi Martin 1986 1st Edition

A novel centred on a fictional American monsignor, Richard Lansing, who serves five successive popes across the 20th century, weaving real historical Vatican events, including the fall of Mussolini and a Soviet mole penetrating the Vatican, into a story of Church politics and intrigue. Author Malachi Martin (1921-1999) was an Irish-born former Jesuit priest and biblical archaeologist who held a doctorate from the Catholic University of Louvain, taught at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome, and served as secretary to Cardinal Augustin Bea during the preparatory period of the Second Vatican Council, drawing on that insider knowledge of Vatican bureaucracy in his fiction. His other books include Hostage to the Devil and Windswept House: A Vatican Novel.