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The Assassini
''The Assassini'' is a 1990 thriller novel by American author Thomas Gifford, published by Bantam Books. Plot summary Set in 1982, while the Roman Catholic Church is preparing to elect a successor to the dying pope, Callistus IV, the book describes the attempts of lawyer Ben Driskill to solve the murder of his sibling, Sister Valentine, a nun who was an outspoken activist and a thorn in the Church's side. Driskill's world-spanning investigation leads him to the discovery of a document from a forgotten monastery in Ireland, which proves the existence of the ''Assassini'', an age-old brotherhood of killers, once hired by princes of the Church to protect it in dangerous times; and the person who now controls them in his Machiavellian bid for power. Inspiration and influences The novel was inspired by, and wove together in its dramatic structure, numerous historical controversies about the Roman Catholic Church: * Constantine I and Christianity; * Constantine I and the bish ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Gifford
Thomas Eugene Gifford (May 16, 1937 – October 31, 2000) was a best-selling American author of thriller novels. He was a graduate of Harvard University. He gained international fame with the crime novel '' The Glendower Legacy'' and later with the Vatican thriller ''The Assassini''. The books posited George Washington as a British spy and the Roman Catholic Church as a criminal organization. ''The Glendower Legacy'' was made into a movie in 1981 under the name '' Dirty Tricks''. Gifford also published under the names Dana Clarins and Thomas Maxwell. He died of cholangiocarcinoma in his home in Dubuque, Iowa Dubuque (, ) is the county seat of Dubuque County, Iowa, United States, located along the Mississippi River. At the time of the 2020 census, the population of Dubuque was 59,667. The city lies at the junction of Iowa, Illinois, and Wisconsin, a r ..., on Halloween 2000. Bibliography Won awards at Harvard for creative writing; worked at ''The Sun'' newspaper and ''Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Papacy
The pope ( la, papa, from el, πάππας, translit=pappas, 'father'), also known as supreme pontiff ( or ), Roman pontiff () or sovereign pontiff, is the bishop of Rome (or historically the patriarch of Rome), head of the worldwide Catholic Church, and has also served as the head of state or sovereign of the Papal States and later the Vatican City State since the eighth century. From a Catholic viewpoint, the primacy of the bishop of Rome is largely derived from his role as the apostolic successor to Saint Peter, to whom primacy was conferred by Jesus, who gave Peter the Keys of Heaven and the powers of "binding and loosing", naming him as the "rock" upon which the Church would be built. The current pope is Francis, who was elected on 13 March 2013. While his office is called the papacy, the jurisdiction of the episcopal see is called the Holy See. It is the Holy See that is the sovereign entity by international law headquartered in the distinctively independent ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Art Theft
Art theft, sometimes called artnapping, is the stealing of paintings, sculptures, or other forms of visual art from galleries, museums or other public and private locations. Stolen art is often resold or used by criminals as collateral to secure loans. Only a small percentage of stolen art is recovered—an estimated 10%. Many nations operate police squads to investigate art theft and illegal trade in stolen art and antiquities. Some famous art theft cases include the robbery of the ''Mona Lisa'' from the Louvre in 1911 by employee Vincenzo Peruggia. Another was theft of '' The Scream'', stolen from the Munch Museum in 2004, but recovered in 2006. The largest-value art theft occurred at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, when 13 works, worth a combined $500 million were stolen in 1990. The case remains unsolved. Individual theft Many thieves are motivated by the fact that valuable art pieces are worth millions of dollars and weigh only a few kilograms at ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was the German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a dictatorship. Under Hitler's rule, Germany quickly became a totalitarian state where nearly all aspects of life were controlled by the government. The Third Reich, meaning "Third Realm" or "Third Empire", alluded to the Nazi claim that Nazi Germany was the successor to the earlier Holy Roman Empire (800–1806) and German Empire (1871–1918). The Third Reich, which Hitler and the Nazis referred to as the Thousand-Year Reich, ended in May 1945 after just 12 years when the Allies defeated Germany, ending World War II in Europe. On 30 January 1933, Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany, the head of gove ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Reichskonkordat
The ''Reichskonkordat'' ("Concordat between the Holy See and the German Reich") is a treaty negotiated between the Vatican and the emergent Nazi Germany. It was signed on 20 July 1933 by Cardinal Secretary of State Eugenio Pacelli, who later became Pope Pius XII, on behalf of Pope Pius XI and Vice Chancellor Franz von Papen on behalf of President Paul von Hindenburg and the German government. It was ratified 10 September 1933 and it has been in force from that date onward. The treaty guarantees the rights of the Catholic Church in Germany. When bishops take office Article 16 states they are required to take an oath of loyalty to the Governor or President of the German Reich established according to the constitution. The treaty also requires all clergy to abstain from working in and for political parties. Nazi breaches of the agreement began almost as soon as it had been signed and intensified afterwards leading to protest from the Church including in the 1937 '' Mit brennender S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kingdom Of Italy (1861–1946)
The Kingdom of Italy ( it, Regno d'Italia) was a state that existed from 1861, when Victor Emmanuel II of Sardinia was proclaimed King of Italy, until 1946, when civil discontent led to an institutional referendum to abandon the monarchy and form the modern Italian Republic. The state resulted from a decades-long process, the '' Risorgimento'', of consolidating the different states of the Italian Peninsula into a single state. That process was influenced by the Savoy-led Kingdom of Sardinia, which can be considered Italy's legal predecessor state. Italy declared war on Austria in alliance with Prussia in 1866 and received the region of Veneto following their victory. Italian troops entered Rome in 1870, ending more than one thousand years of Papal temporal power. Italy entered into a Triple Alliance with the German Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1882, following strong disagreements with France about their respective colonial expansions. Although relations with ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lateran Treaty
The Lateran Treaty ( it, Patti Lateranensi; la, Pacta Lateranensia) was one component of the Lateran Pacts of 1929, agreements between the Kingdom of Italy under King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy and the Holy See under Pope Pius XI to settle the long-standing Roman Question. The treaty and associated pacts were named after the Lateran Palace where they were signed on 11 February 1929, and the Italian parliament ratified them on 7 June 1929. The treaty recognized Vatican City as an independent state under the sovereignty of the Holy See. The Italian government also agreed to give the Roman Catholic Church financial compensation for the loss of the Papal States. In 1948, the Lateran Treaty was recognized in the Constitution of Italy as regulating the relations between the state and the Catholic Church. Constitution of Italy, article 7. The treaty was significantly revised in 1984, ending the status of Catholicism as the sole state religion. Content The Lateran Pacts are oft ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pope Pius XI
Pope Pius XI ( it, Pio XI), born Ambrogio Damiano Achille Ratti (; 31 May 1857 – 10 February 1939), was head of the Catholic Church from 6 February 1922 to his death in February 1939. He was the first sovereign of Vatican City from its creation as an independent state on 11 February 1929. He assumed as his papal motto "Pax Christi in Regno Christi," translated "The Peace of Christ in the Kingdom of Christ." Pius XI issued numerous encyclicals, including '' Quadragesimo anno'' on the 40th anniversary of Pope Leo XIII's groundbreaking social encyclical '' Rerum novarum'', highlighting the capitalistic greed of international finance, the dangers of socialism/ communism, and social justice issues, and ''Quas primas'', establishing the feast of Christ the King in response to anti-clericalism. The encyclical ''Studiorum ducem'', promulgated 29 June 1923, was written on the occasion of the 6th centenary of the canonization of Thomas Aquinas, whose thought is acclai ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Clerical Fascism
Clerical fascism (also clero-fascism or clerico-fascism) is an ideology that combines the political and economic doctrines of fascism with clericalism. The term has been used to describe organizations and movements that combine religious elements with fascism, receive support from religious organizations which espouse sympathy for fascism, or fascist regimes in which clergy play a leading role. History The term ''clerical fascism'' (clero-fascism or clerico-fascism) emerged in the early 1920s in the Kingdom of Italy, referring to the faction of the Roman Catholic Partito Popolare Italiano (PPI) which supported Benito Mussolini and his régime. It was supposedly coined by Don Luigi Sturzo, a priest and Christian democrat leader who opposed Mussolini and went into exile in 1924, although the term had also been used before Mussolini's March on Rome in 1922 to refer to Catholics in Northern Italy who advocated a synthesis of Roman Catholicism and fascism. Sturzo made a distincti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sodalitium Pianum
''Sodalitium Pianum'' is Latin for "the fellowship of Pius," referring to Pope Pius V; the sedeprivationist organization with the same name refers to Pope Pius X. In reaction to the movement within the Roman Catholic Church known as Modernism, Pope Pius X issued in 1907 the encyclical '' Pascendi dominici gregis'' and the decree ''Lamentabili sane exitu'', which condemned the movement as a heresy. To ensure enforcement of these decisions, Monsignor Umberto Benigni organized, through his personal contacts with theologians, an unofficial group of censors who would report to him those thought to be teaching condemned doctrine. This group was called the ''Sodalitium Pianum'', i.e. The Society of St. Pius V, which in France was known as ''La Sapinière''. It never had more than fifty members, who sometimes employed overzealous and clandestine methods such as opening and photographing private letters, and examining the records of local bookshops to see who was buying what. Among tho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Temporal Power (papal)
The temporal power of the Holy See designates the political and secular influence of the Holy See, the leading of a state by the pope of the Catholic Church, as distinguished from its spiritual and pastoral activity. Origins Pope Gregory II's defiance of the Byzantine emperor Leo III the Isaurian as a result of the first iconoclastic controversy (726 AD) in the Byzantine Empire, prepared the way for a long series of revolts, schisms and civil wars that eventually led to the establishment of the temporal power of the popes. For over a thousand years popes ruled as sovereign over an amalgam of territories on the Italian peninsula known as the Papal States, from the capital, Rome. Avignon also came under the jurisdiction of the Papal States in 1348. Early modern period Theologian Robert Bellarmine, in his 16th-century dogmatic work '' Disputationes'' strongly affirmed the authority of the pope as the vicar of Christ. However, he reasoned that since Christ did not ''ex ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Papal Infallibility
Papal infallibility is a dogma of the Catholic Church which states that, in virtue of the promise of Jesus to Peter, the Pope when he speaks '' ex cathedra'' is preserved from the possibility of error on doctrine "initially given to the apostolic Church and handed down in Scripture and tradition". It does not mean that the pope cannot sin or otherwise err in most situations. This doctrine, defined dogmatically at the First Vatican Council of 1869–1870 in the document '' Pastor aeternus'', is claimed to have existed in medieval theology and to have been the majority opinion at the time of the Counter-Reformation. The doctrine of infallibility relies on one of the cornerstones of Catholic dogma, that of papal supremacy, whereby the authority of the pope is the ruling agent as to what are accepted as formal beliefs in the Catholic Church. The use of this power is referred to as speaking ''ex cathedra''. "Any doctrine 'of faith or morals' issued by the pope in his capacity a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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