The fitting final chapter of a political-religious epic that offers a fresh historical perspective on the election of the new pope. All this while recognizing that Leo XIV now faces the immense task of bringing peace and healing to a fractured Church.

With the election of an American pope, the last Conclave marked the decline of the Eurocentrism of an impoverished and divided Vatican. Leo XIV’s new course, however, must be understood in the light of a long and tormented underground struggle, in which American Catholicism often played a crucial role, beyond appearances. As Massimo Franco illustrates in a sweeping panorama spanning history and current events, the keys to explaining what has happened are strategic, doctrinal, and financial. The flow of contributions from across the Atlantic is a clue that cannot be ignored: from the funds that flowed into Rome in the 1920s and 1930s from a benefactor, a friend of Roosevelt and of Pius XI and XII, to those that arrived during and after World War II through Cardinal Francis Spellman. More recently, the role of the Papal Foundation—created by John Paul II to cement the “Axis of Good” with Ronald Reagan’s United States, and now led by New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan—has come to light. And the financial power of the Knights of Columbus and the charitable and cultural institutions that have showered the Vatican’s budgets with dollars is emerging. Through unpublished testimonies, documents from the Apostolic Archives, stories of spies, cardinals, emigrated gold bars, and clashes between popes and presidents, this book recounts how and why the taboo that made the election of a “Yankee” pope seem impossible fell. And it takes us on a journey through over a century of history to arrive, in May 2025, at an imposing and little-known complex in the heart of Rome: the Pontifical North American College, where a sort of pre-Conclave of U.S. cardinals took place.

With unprecedented access to the Vatican’s secret archives, Franco delivers a vivid, electrifying portrait of the papal world—tracing its hidden past and unveiling Pope Leo XIV’s election like never before.