About the author:

Avro Manhattan (1914-1990) was the world’s foremost authority on Roman Catholicism in politics. Wikipedia says he was an “Italian writer, historian, poet and artist” but it’s clear he lived in the UK later in life and was a resident of London. During WW II he operated a radio station called “Radio Freedom” broadcasting to occupied Europe. He was the author of over 20 books. This book The Vatican in World Politics was a best seller and twice Book-of-the-Month. It had 57 editions. He risked his life daily to expose some of the darkest secrets of the Papacy. His books were #1 on the Forbidden Index for the past 50 years!!

I don’t know if he was a Bible-believing Christian or not, but what he has to say agrees with all the Christian authors I read about this subject. And I think he’s a great writer! This book is much easier to read than the 19th century and earlier books posted on this website. Manhattans’s works were supported by Jack Chick of Chick Publications.

Persecution is the hallmark of a true witness. A brother in Christ who was in communication with Manhattan’s widow believes his death was through the use of poison administered by the Jesuits.

FOREWORD

The importance of this book cannot be exaggerated. Properly understood, it offers both a clue and a key to the painfully confused political situation that shrouds the world. No political event or circumstance can be evaluated without the knowledge of the Vatican’s part in it. And no significant world political situation exists in which the Vatican does not play an important explicit or implicit part. As Glenn L. Archer, Executive Director of Protestants and Other Americans United for Separation of Church and State, puts it, “this book comes to grips with the most vital social and political problems of our day. The author presents with singular clarity and without bias the conflicts between the Roman Church and the freedoms of democracy.” This book is valuable also in that it brings to light historical facts hitherto kept secret, many of them published here for the first time. The author coped with great difficulties when he attempted to compress into the confines of a single volume the great mass of material available. For that reason he had to leave out many valuable discussions. And some were omitted because the cases dealt with remained still unresolved. That is the reason no mention is to be found of the case of Archbishop Stepinac of Yugoslavia, and there is only a brief mention of the case of Cardinal Mindszenty of Hungary―cases which at the time this book was published were on the schedule of the United Nations for investigation. But sufficient evidence is presented in other cases to enable the reader to evaluate current events and similar situations.

Guy Emery Shipler

June 1949

PREFACE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION

Within the last few decades, amid the rumblings and the ruins of two World Wars, the United States of America has emerged paramount and dynamic on the stage of global politics.

From across the great land mass of Eurasia, Russia―the bastion of Communism, equally dynamic in its struggle to build up new political structure―is challengingly waiting for the tumbling of the old pattern of society, confident that time is on her side.

At the same time, the Catholic Church, seemingly preoccupied only with its religious tasks, is feverishly engaged in a race for the ultimate spiritual conquest of the world.

But whereas the exertions of the U. S. A. and of the U. S. S. R., are followed with growing apprehension, those of the Vatican are seldom scrutinized. Yet not a single event of importance that has contributed to the present chaotic state of affairs has occurred without the Vatican taking an active part in it.

The Catholic population of the world—400 millions—is more numerous than that of the United States and Soviet Russia put together. When it is remembered that the concerted activities of this gigantic spiritual mass depend on the lips of a single man, the apathy of non-Catholic American should swiftly turn to keenest attention. His interest, furthermore, should increase when he is made aware that the United States is intimately involved in the attainment of both the immediate and the ultimate goals of the Vatican.

These goals are:

1. The annihilation of Communism and of Soviet Russia.
2. The spiritual conquest of the U. S. A.
3. The ultimate Catholicization of the world.
Do these goals seem fantastic?

Unfortunately they are neither speculation nor wild and idle dreams. They are as indisputable and as inextricably a part of contemporary history as the rise of Hitler, the defeat of Japan, the splitting of the atom, the existence of Communism. Indeed the inescapable alternative by which mankind today is confronted is not whether this will be the American or the Russian Century, but whether this might not after all become the Catholic Century.

Surely, then, the nature, aims and workings of the Catholic Church deserve some scrutiny. The American citizen, perturbed by the past, bewildered by the present and made increasingly anxious about the future, would do well to ponder the exertions of the Vatican in contemporary American and world politics. His destiny as well as the destiny of the United States, and indeed of mankind, has been and will continue to be profoundly affected by the activities of an institution which, although a church, is nonetheless as mighty a political power as the mightiest nation on the planet.

Avro Manhattan

London, 1949