L’attività Della Santa Sede Nel 1949 and the Holy See at Work and the Vatican and the Kremlin and the Vatican and Its Role in World Affairs and Pie XII and Pius XII

Of these recent works on the Vatican and the Pope, most of them in celebration of the Holy Year, the first is a useful chronology and digest of events and activities. Father Heston outlines the central organizational structure of the Roman Catholic Church. The New York Times correspondent, Cianfarra, reports largely on the Vatican's response to the Soviet attack on Catholicism in Eastern Europe; the French Catholic journalist Pichon reviews favorably the history of the Vatican as a Great Power, particularly in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Padellaro's somewhat anecdotal but substantial biography is also concerned with political affairs; that by Bargellini is slighter and more other-worldly.