Here’s a replacement video to the one that has been removed. This interview was done with Great Minds and is titled Gerald Posner, God’s Bankers – Blood Money?
[youtube=https://youtu.be/mQnDm-112iI]
For tonight’s Conversations with Great Minds – Thom is joined by Gerald Posner. Gerald Posner was one of the youngest attorneys ever hired by the Wall Street law firm of Cravath, Swaine & Moore and is the author of eleven books – including New York Times bestsellers – and one a finalist for the Pulitzer in History. Gerald has written dozens of articles for national magazines and papers and has been a regular contributor to a variety of television networks. He’s also the author of the new book, “God’s Bankers: A History of Money and Power at the Vatican.”
Richard Syrett – Acclaimed journalist Gerald Posner joined host Richard Syrett for a discussion on the money and the cardinals-turned-financiers at the heart of the Vatican.
In tracing the evolution of the relationship between the Catholic Church and money, Posner noted that during the era when the Church was a colonial empire, it was vehemently opposed to capitalism and raised money via traditional methods such as taxes on the denizens of the land it controlled. However, with the emergence of nation states, the physical size of the empire was shrunk to just Vatican City and it lost its status as an independent nation in 1870, which led to the reliance on old methods to generate funds such as indulgences and donations. When these tactics failed, he said, church leaders begrudgingly opted to embrace capitalism and began taking out loans as a way to survive. Continue reading