Avro Manhattan was a writer and philosopher, primarily known for his criticisms of the Roman Catholic Church

Roman Catholic Church

The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...

 (see anti-Catholicism

Anti-Catholicism

Anti-Catholicism is a generic term for discrimination, hostility or prejudice directed against Catholicism, and especially against the Catholic Church, its clergy or its adherents...

). Having covered various political topics throughout his career, Manhattan is perhaps best remembered as the author of several works analyzing the Vatican's

Vatican City

Vatican City , or Vatican City State, in Italian officially Stato della Città del Vaticano , which translates literally as State of the City of the Vatican, is a landlocked sovereign city-state whose territory consists of a walled enclave within the city of Rome, Italy. It has an area of...

 role in world politics and global affairs.

Life

Born in Milan

Milan

Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...

, Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 on April 6, 1914 to American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 and Swiss

Switzerland

Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

/Dutch

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

 parents of Jewish extraction, Manhattan was educated at the Sorbonne

University of Paris

The University of Paris was a university located in Paris, France and one of the earliest to be established in Europe. It was founded in the mid 12th century, and officially recognized as a university probably between 1160 and 1250...

 and the London School of Economics

London School of Economics

The London School of Economics and Political Science is a public research university specialised in the social sciences located in London, United Kingdom, and a constituent college of the federal University of London...

.

During World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, Manhattan was jailed in Italy for refusing to serve in Benito Mussolini

Benito Mussolini

Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism....

's fascist army. Later during the war, he operated a radio station called "Radio Freedom" broadcasting to nations occupied by the Axis Powers

Axis Powers

The Axis powers , also known as the Axis alliance, Axis nations, Axis countries, or just the Axis, was an alignment of great powers during the mid-20th century that fought World War II against the Allies. It began in 1936 with treaties of friendship between Germany and Italy and between Germany and...

. For this service he was made a Knight of Malta.

His friends included H G Wells, Pablo Picasso

Pablo Picasso

Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...

, George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...

 and scientist Marie Stopes

Marie Stopes

Marie Carmichael Stopes was a British author, palaeobotanist, campaigner for women's rights and pioneer in the field of birth control...

.

Manhattan spent much of his later life after 1979 at the ornately decorated home of his wife's late mother in South Shields

South Shields

South Shields is a coastal town in Tyne and Wear, England, located at the mouth of the River Tyne to Tyne Dock, and about downstream from Newcastle upon Tyne...

, North East England

North East England

North East England is one of the nine official regions of England. It covers Northumberland, County Durham, Tyne and Wear, and Teesside . The only cities in the region are Durham, Newcastle upon Tyne and Sunderland...

.

Works

Manhattan authored more than 20 books, including The Vatican in World Politics. It has been translated into most major languages, including Chinese, Russian and most recently, Korean. Some of his other popular works include The Vatican Billions, The Vatican's Holocaust, and Vatican Moscow Alliance. Some of his books which are especially critical of the Vatican and of Roman Catholicism.

The following is a list of Avro Manhattan's most notable works, ordered chronologically:

• The Rumbling of the Apocalypse (1934)
• Towards the new Italy (Preface by H.G. Wells) (1943)
• Latin America and the Vatican (1946)
• The Catholic Church Against the Twentieth Century (1947; 2nd edition 1950)
• The Vatican in Asia (1948)
• Religion in Russia (1949)
• Vatican in World Politics (1949)
• Catholic Imperialism and World Freedom (1952; 2nd edition 1959)
• Terror Over Yugoslavia, the Threat to Europe (1953)
• The Dollar and the Vatican (1956)
• Vatican Imperialism in the Twentieth Century (1965)
• Vatican Moscow Alliance (1982)
• The Vatican Billions (1983)
• Catholic Terror in Ireland (1988)
• Vietnam ... why did we go? (1984)
• Murder in the Vatican, American Russian and Papal Plots (1985)
• The Vatican’s Holocaust (1986)

External links

• The entire text of The Vatican's Holocaust provided on-line by Reformation.org
• The entire text of Vietnam ... why did we go? provided on-line by Reformation.org
• The entire text of The Vatican in World Politics provided on-line by cephas-library.com
• Excerpts from Vatican Imperialism in the 20th Century, provided on-line by Reformation.org
• Biography on Avro Manhattan