Pope Francis Among the Wolves: The Inside Story of a Revolution

Vaticanista Politi (His Holiness) is one of a cadre of Italian journalists who have spent their professional lives watching popes come, go, and pronounce. Unlike ostensibly neutral American journalists, Politi makes his pro-Francis sympathies clear. He knows the home team of Italian prelates and politicians who give the Vatican its immediate national context. His chapter on the Vatican Bank and its scandals is especially helpful, though it requires close reading if one is unfamiliar with the institutions and people involved. He's much less familiar with Francis's 40 years of serving the church in Argentina, but has gone there to interview those who worked with him during that part of his career. Politi's well-sourced reporting is evident in voluminous notes, citing enough reporters, sources, and internal intrigue to provide grist for a variety of interpretations of Francsis's first two years as pope. Politi certainly delivers on the subtitle's promise of a look inside the byzantine halls of the institutional Catholic Church. (Sept.