Double Cross: The Code of the Catholic Church

This book is a fascinatingly readable, immaculately researched masterpiece. David Ranan is a past master at dealing in irrefutable fact. He has been criticised for emphasing all the bad things about Roman Catholicism without acknowledging any of the good it has achieved, but this is not true. From time to time throughout the book he does mention the good things it has achieved such as in the spheres of health and eductaion. However, since he's obviously an honest revealer of facts, it's not surprising there's little good he can find to say about it and he would have been wrong not to also point out the monumental mistakes it has made with regard to both health and education.This is a book that needed to be written and humankind ought to be be indebted to Mr Ranan for researching and writing it. Apart from anything else it takes someone of both integrity and courage to achieve such a work. His painstaking research clearly reveals that much of what passes for religion is a scheme by the few to achieve control over the lives of the many and that we can all be much better, honest and upright people of our own volition than we ever can be when we allow ourselves to be controlled and manipulated by a hierarchy of self-serving clerics.This is an honest, highly moral work of great integrity that needed to be written and, apart from anything else, it's a great read, and I thoroughly recommend it.

This book should be read by Roman Catholics & others as it demystifies the workings of the Catholic church.

I've never given the Catholic Church much credit, but I had absolutely NO idea what a thoroughly vile institution it really was until political scientist, David Ranan, booted open its unholy doors for me with his book "Double Cross: The Code of the Catholic Church". This is not a book, it's an incendiary device!You can just hear the Catholic Taliban now, can't you...? `Oh, but you mustn't let it blind you to all the good the Church does'. Put it this way... With almost 500 pages of bad stuff - and I mean BAD - it would have to be very good! I should think the new blasphemy law prohibiting "publication or utterance of blasphemous matter" in Ireland and the Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications (Scotland) Bill might be coming about in just the nick of time to help save this Church's sorry arse from the sort of criticism this book could unleash! Even the Catholic Herald described the book as `salutary' after the reviewer checked the references and had to admit, rather drily, that "they proved satisfactory".Ranan digs deep. Very deep. Reminding us the Catholic Church's own rule about all the Pope's - the `successors of Peter' - being culpable, he reveals the ones guilty of nepotism, murder, sexual debauchery and general depravity, none of whom the Church has officially condemned. There are the ones who took lovers, mistresses, girls or boys, married, had illegitimate children and housed and promoted their, er... `nephews' (many of them had children). Pope Julius III hardly made much of a secret about the teenage boy he picked up in the street. First he was his `monkey keeper' and then he was made a Cardinal).My goodness, I was only into the first chapters, and had no idea Ranan was just warming up! He then goes on to expose the gun-running, the financial wheeling and dealing, the laundering of illegal funds, the deals with the Mafia and the administration of the Nazi rat-runs. Oh, yes... You didn't even need to be a Catholic to get Vatican help here: Just a Nazi. Twenty Catholic agencies helped spirit away the likes of the commander of Treblinka, Franz Strangl who murdered 900,000 people; deputy commander of Sobibor, Gustav Wagner who murdered 250,000 Jews and Adolf Eichmann amongst many, many others. All that before you're reading another chapter about some of the endless cases of child abuse the Catholic Church tried to cover up, often blackmailing its victims into silence.It comes as no surprise to find this Church's copybook blotted by an historical hatred of Jews, passing laws that closed professions to them, locking them up in ghettos and forcing them to wear yellow identification. Add to that the inquisitions, enforced conversions, slave trading and operations of torture and you are left - by the time you've read the last page - either needing counselling or wondering what kind of twisted mind would ever want to associate itself with such a poisonous institution. Of course, I'm reminded that `Catholics' are born into this religion, often forced into their schools and don't have much choice. This is why I salute every one of them that finds the courage to speak out against the Vatican.

This is exquistitely written and flawlessly researched. I could not put it down. The bibliography is itself a fascinating read. In the secular world, such evidence as this would provide the foundation stone of a class action suit that would put a stake through the heart of the subject. This is a beautiful covering over dark matter.

Although this book does not draw too heavily on Nietzsche, this is probably the codebook the great Friedrich would have liked to write, had he been born in the XXth century. It's clever, well informed, brillantly written, and provides new insights behind an all too well known decor.Alexandre Kostka, University of Cergy Pontoise, France

Ranan's expose of the Catholic Church and the Vatican is extremely well researched and yet it reads like a thriller. You will not want to put this book down.I found it fascinating, saddening and also relevant.

I have long known about the shortcomings of the Catholic Church, but even I was startled by what David Ranan had to say. This book is a result of deep research, and I warmly recommend it.