White Smoke - Pope Leo’s Cancer Diagnosis

Who Steps In While the Pope Heals?

Pope Leo is in hospital, but the work of the Church continues. Who handles Vatican business, which decisions wait and who takes his place at public events? White Smoke go

Pope Leo Has Cancer. What Happens Next?

A cancer diagnosis, a successful operation and questions still unanswered. Pope Leo is recovering after surgeons removed a tumor from his lung. In White Smoke, we explore

42. The Antichrist Popes

For over a thousand years, reformers and revolutionaries have identified papal authority with the biblical Antichrist. From medieval monks to Protestant reformers to mode

41. The Great Schism

Three men simultaneously claim to be pope, tearing European Christianity apart for forty years. The crisis that nearly destroys papal authority forces the church to confr

40. The Papal Prisoners

Throughout history, the successors of Saint Peter have found themselves at the mercy of emperors, kings, and revolutionaries. From Byzantine dungeons to Napoleonic captiv

39. The Templars Revenge

King Philip the Fourth destroys the Knights Templar through false charges and papal capitulation. The mysterious end of Christianity's most powerful military order spawns

38. The Spanish Inquisition

Nobody had expected Papal authorization woudld uleash three centuries of terror across the Spanish Empire. Systematic torture, bureaucratic persecution, and theatrical ex

37. The Nazi Pope?

Pope Pius the Twelfth remains silent while the Holocaust unfolds before his eyes. The pontiff who should have spoken truth to power chooses institutional preservation ove

36. The Last King

Italian armies blast through the walls of Rome, ending over a thousand years of papal temporal rule. Pope Pius the Ninth becomes "the prisoner of the Vatican," losing his

35. The Prisoner Pope

Napoleon personally arrests Pope Pius the Seventh and drags him into five years of captivity. The emperor who crowned himself demonstrates that papal spiritual claims pro

34. The Counter Attack

The Catholic Church strikes back with the Council of Trent, militant Jesuit shock troops, and a brutal Inquisition. The Counter-Reformation saves papal Christianity from

33. The Fire Spreads

Calvin transforms Geneva into a theocratic police state while Henry the Eighth breaks England away from Rome to solve his marriage problems. Protestant ideas explode acro

32. Monks Revolt

Martin Luther's hammer blows against a church door in Wittenberg echo across Europe, shattering the Catholic monopoly on Christianity forever. The German monk's challenge

31. The Borgias

Alexander the Sixth transforms the Vatican into a criminal enterprise run by his murderous children Cesare and Lucrezia. Orgies in the papal apartments, systematic poison

30. The Warrior Pope

Julius the Second trades his papal robes for armor and personally leads armies into battle. The pope who commissioned Michelangelo also commanded cannons, proving that Re

29. The Iron Pope

In 955, eighteen-year-old Octavian became Pope John XII, the grandson of the notorious Marozia and the ultimate product of the corrupt Pornocracy system. Contemporary sou

28. The Pornocracy

 The Cadaver Synod of 897, where Pope Stephen VI put his predecessor's rotting corpse on trial, marked the beginning of the most corrupt period in papal history. For the

God’s Influencer Becomes a Saint, LGBTQ Pilgrims Enter Vatican, and Chicago Chefs Cook for the Pope

Carlo Acutis, the 15-year-old computer prodigy known as “God’s influencer,” has been canonized in Rome as the Catholic Church’s first millennial saint. Also, hundreds of

27. The Forged Donation

In 778, Pope Adrian I made a remarkable historical claim in a letter to Charlemagne, referencing how Emperor Constantine had granted the western Roman Empire to the papac

26. The Price Of Power

When Charlemagne died in 814, Pope Leo III's great triumph in creating the papal-imperial alliance began to reveal unexpected costs. His successors discovered that the po