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

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	• The Power and the Glory: Inside the Dark Heart of Pope John Paul II's Vatican David Yallop Carroll & Graf, 2007 - 400 pages average customer review:based on 18 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

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

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.

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If you don't want to know the truth...don't read it

10 to 1 the people that rated this book 1 are jesuits. The reason is that most catholics know very little about their church and don't want to know. They love hidding their head in the sand. This book is nothing less than biblical in truth. I think every christian..real christian that is...should read this as an awakening to what they're allowing themselves to be sucked into.

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The Power and the Glory - Wow!!!!!

If David Yallop's book 'In God's Name' is a book that every Catholic should read, 'The Power and Glory' is the book every Catholic MUST read.

We have just experienced World Youth Day celebrations in Sydney, Australia. It is admirable to see that Catholics still have so much faith in the RCC. What a pity the RCC does not have the same faith in its own flock by revealing to it the RCC's recent 20th Century sins to its followers.

The RCC can easily rectify this situation. It has a world network of Churches and media outlets through which it can easily reveal the evidence presented by David Yallop.

The RCC needs major reform as was intended by Albino Luciani, the "30 day Pope"!

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Sad but True; Absolute Power Corrupting the Papacy

Never has Lord Acton's dictum been proven more emphatically than in the case of the Vatican. This book, which devout, blind, dumb Catholics will dismiss as a hatchet job, gathers all the evidence of the Papacy's grasping, cloying, conniving schemes to maintain power and wealth at all costs. From a conspiracy of silence on pedophile priests, to cover-ups of John Paul I's death and the Vatican Bank crimes to the continuation of misogynistic policies and the silent collaboration with tyrants of the left and right , the tenure of the Polish Pope is laid bare as an unending series of propagandistic hype, charisma, smoke and mirrors and medieval invocations of failed doctrines. Indeed, this pope must rank as one of the most reactionary of all time, happy to maintain brutal oligarchial status quo in third world countries that struggle for justice in an unjust world, made so by the hypocrisy of institutions like the Catholic Church. Prior to reading this, I held this Pope in some esteem for what I perceived as his proactive work undermining communism. Alas, this book makes apparent that Karol Woytjwa was a passive collaborator, if anything, with fascists and communists. But it seems self-evident that an organization that has beeen around the corridors of power for 2000 years would degenerate into a cesspool of sexual, political, financial and criminal corruption. Little wonder that Dante in his immortal poem made the 13th century papacy a symbol of worldly decadence. Clearly, little has changed. And why should it? As long as the Vatican can hide behind its facade of Christ worship, what politician would have the huevos to challenge God's Vicar on earth? For those who, like to live with their eyes open, read this and pass it on. For the Catholics who have not abandoned this self-serving monster, hopefully this book will force you to acknowledge the unpleasant truth you have so long denied.

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Expose at it's best!

Yallop's previous expose of dirty doings within the Catholic Church - In God's Name - was an excellent piece of investigative journalism, one that really did go 'where angels fear to tread'. As was to be expected, the Catholic Church responded with its usual vigour, denying everything in the book & pouring vitriol onto Yallop, by the gallon. No doubt the same will occur here, as 'The Power and the Glory' adds more hot coals onto an organisation that is so badly tainted and corrupted in the minds of so many. Yallop pulls no punches in his narrative, & whilst the descriptions of financial corruption within the Catholic Church make one realize just how un-Christian the organisation is, the chapters devoted to sexual abuse within the church, will surely churn the stomach & disgust the most hardened reader. And if the actions of the abusers is not bad enough, the church's attempts to dissuade victims from going public about the abuses, & its attempts to cover them up, and protect the abusers - their own clergymen - makes the reader realize just how far from the principles of living, as laid down by Jesus, this organisation has gone. The book clearly shows how good the church's spin doctors were at hiding an endemic evil from the true heart of darkness. As a Christian, I am apalled that an organisation such as this, can so distort the truths of God's word & the glory of His Holy Spirit, for its own ends.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4

From the first moment of his papacy Karol Wojtyla sought political influence and a role on the world stage. At the dawn of the twenty-first century, he was a leader to millions of Catholics at a time of tremendous change. Promising a renewed church, he was the first media Pope and travelled around the world to preach his message. It is said that he was central in the fall of Soviet Eastern Europe, in particular his own homeland of Poland. Now, one year after his death, there are already calls for his sainthood. But is this the whole truth? David Yallop explores the myths and half truths of John Paul II's long reign and asks some difficult questions ranging from the role of the Vatican in the momentous events in 1989, and the continued mismanagement of Vatican finance which allowed Calvi and others to continue to use the Vatican banks for money laundering to the failure to address the child sexual abuse crisis and the rise of the Opus Dei. Including explosive revelations from the CIA, the KGB, and the Vatican itself, it is a bold and unflinching look at a man who soon stands to become a saint.

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