Theo Zenou
@theozenou.bsky.social
📖 Journalist and historian ✍️ The Washington Post, Economist, Sunday Times, Guardian and others 🎓 PhD from Cambridge
On His Holiness's Secret Service.
For the Sunday Times, I looked into the Vatican’s intelligence agency. The Holy See has always been a major player on the international stage. That’s why non-Catholics should care who the next pope is. www.thetimes.com/culture/book...
For the Sunday Times, I looked into the Vatican’s intelligence agency. The Holy See has always been a major player on the international stage. That’s why non-Catholics should care who the next pope is. www.thetimes.com/culture/book...
Vatican Spies by Yvonnick Denoël review — papal intrigue for Conclave fans
The Vatican has an intelligence agency? It sounds straight out of a Dan Brown novel — but the Pope’s spies are all too real
www.thetimes.com
May 3, 2025 at 7:12 PM
On His Holiness's Secret Service.
For the Sunday Times, I looked into the Vatican’s intelligence agency. The Holy See has always been a major player on the international stage. That’s why non-Catholics should care who the next pope is. www.thetimes.com/culture/book...
For the Sunday Times, I looked into the Vatican’s intelligence agency. The Holy See has always been a major player on the international stage. That’s why non-Catholics should care who the next pope is. www.thetimes.com/culture/book...
The MAGA factor.
For Foreign Policy, I reported on how the late Pope Francis clashed with the Trump administration. The confrontation casts a shadow over the coming conclave.
foreignpolicy.com/2025/02/10/p...
For Foreign Policy, I reported on how the late Pope Francis clashed with the Trump administration. The confrontation casts a shadow over the coming conclave.
foreignpolicy.com/2025/02/10/p...
Pope Francis Is Ready to Take on MAGA
Trump’s assault on immigrants and charity has no friend in the Vatican.
foreignpolicy.com
May 3, 2025 at 7:12 PM
The MAGA factor.
For Foreign Policy, I reported on how the late Pope Francis clashed with the Trump administration. The confrontation casts a shadow over the coming conclave.
foreignpolicy.com/2025/02/10/p...
For Foreign Policy, I reported on how the late Pope Francis clashed with the Trump administration. The confrontation casts a shadow over the coming conclave.
foreignpolicy.com/2025/02/10/p...
The conspiracists on the outside.
For UnHerd, I wrote about the sedevacantists: the Catholic separatists who believe the modern Church is heretical. Their extreme ideas are starting to influence more mainstream traditionalists.
unherd.com/2025/04/meet...
For UnHerd, I wrote about the sedevacantists: the Catholic separatists who believe the modern Church is heretical. Their extreme ideas are starting to influence more mainstream traditionalists.
unherd.com/2025/04/meet...
Meet the Catholic conspiracists
unherd.com
May 3, 2025 at 7:12 PM
The conspiracists on the outside.
For UnHerd, I wrote about the sedevacantists: the Catholic separatists who believe the modern Church is heretical. Their extreme ideas are starting to influence more mainstream traditionalists.
unherd.com/2025/04/meet...
For UnHerd, I wrote about the sedevacantists: the Catholic separatists who believe the modern Church is heretical. Their extreme ideas are starting to influence more mainstream traditionalists.
unherd.com/2025/04/meet...
Understanding the stakes.
For Literary Review, I looked at how the past few decades transformed the Catholic Church. It opened up to the world while fighting to hold itself together.
literaryreview.co.uk/sanctity-sca...
For Literary Review, I looked at how the past few decades transformed the Catholic Church. It opened up to the world while fighting to hold itself together.
literaryreview.co.uk/sanctity-sca...
Theo Zenou - Sanctity & Scandal
Theo Zenou: Sanctity & Scandal - Hope: The Autobiography by Pope Francis (Translated from Italian by Richard Dixon); Jesus Wept: Seven Popes and the Battle for the Soul of the Catholic Church by Phili...
literaryreview.co.uk
May 3, 2025 at 7:12 PM
Understanding the stakes.
For Literary Review, I looked at how the past few decades transformed the Catholic Church. It opened up to the world while fighting to hold itself together.
literaryreview.co.uk/sanctity-sca...
For Literary Review, I looked at how the past few decades transformed the Catholic Church. It opened up to the world while fighting to hold itself together.
literaryreview.co.uk/sanctity-sca...
Who could succeed Pope Francis?
I wrote for Foreign Policy about the battle now unfolding behind closed doors. foreignpolicy.com/2025/04/21/c...
I wrote for Foreign Policy about the battle now unfolding behind closed doors. foreignpolicy.com/2025/04/21/c...
Who Will Be the New Pope?
After Francis’s death, conservatives and liberals contest the papal legacy.
foreignpolicy.com
May 3, 2025 at 7:12 PM
Who could succeed Pope Francis?
I wrote for Foreign Policy about the battle now unfolding behind closed doors. foreignpolicy.com/2025/04/21/c...
I wrote for Foreign Policy about the battle now unfolding behind closed doors. foreignpolicy.com/2025/04/21/c...
Many thanks, Deb! Bluesky seems great.
November 18, 2024 at 9:13 PM
Many thanks, Deb! Bluesky seems great.
Or the one about a Russian teenager who wanted to be an airline pilot. His name: Vladimir Putin. www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-...
The spy movie that set Putin on the path to the KGB
Leningrad, summer 1968. Volodya is 15-year-old. With his mates, he goes to the cinema to catch The Shield and the Sword, the new movie everyone in the USSR is buzzing about. It’s a big-budget producti...
www.spectator.co.uk
November 18, 2024 at 8:32 PM
Or the one about a Russian teenager who wanted to be an airline pilot. His name: Vladimir Putin. www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-...
Or the one about the quest for immortality, from Gilgamesh to Jeff Bezos. www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022...
The long and gruesome history of people trying to live forever
Silicon Valley is investing billions in the quest to stave off death. It's been pursued by quixotic and powerful people around the world for millennia.
www.washingtonpost.com
November 18, 2024 at 8:32 PM
Or the one about the quest for immortality, from Gilgamesh to Jeff Bezos. www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022...
Or the one about climbers who invented a new form of therapy. www.theguardian.com/sport/2022/a...
‘My head was completely free’: the rise of climbing as therapy
Supporters of climbing therapy say it can help people focus on the here and now and provide relief from the whirlwind of modern life
www.theguardian.com
November 18, 2024 at 8:32 PM
Or the one about climbers who invented a new form of therapy. www.theguardian.com/sport/2022/a...
There is the one about the time the World Cup trophy was stolen. www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022...
When the World Cup trophy was stolen — and found by a dog named Pickles
The breathtaking heist of the World Cup trophy in London in 1966 set off a Scotland Yard search and an unlikely happy ending, courtesy of Pickles the dog.
www.washingtonpost.com
November 18, 2024 at 8:32 PM
There is the one about the time the World Cup trophy was stolen. www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022...