The Pearl of Great Price

In 1797, Revolutionary France, with the dynamic young General Bonaparte in command of its armies, set upon the conquest of Europe, both by taking territory and by spreading the new ideology. Pope Pius VI, though firmly opposed to the Revolution, nonetheless thought he had spared Rome from its march by granting Napoleon control over the papal lands in Tuscany, where the popes had reigned for a millennium. But the accidental death of a French general, living in Rome at the residence of the French ambassador, Napoleon’s own brother, gave the Revolutionary government at Paris the excuse it needed to invade the Eternal City. This is the story of the sack of Rome, and the actual and figurative siege of the Church at the hands of the Revolution, which sought to make Pius VI the last of his line—the Last Pope.

Interview with Fr. Peter Stravinskas

Book Review by James Baresel (The Catholic World Report): "Christian Browne’s The Pearl of Great Price: Pius VI & the Sack of Rome not only takes the form of the now less common genre of a play but is one of the better Christian didactic plays written in English since the death of T. S. Eliot."

Book Review by The Kirk Center (By David G. Bonagura, Jr.)

The Pearl of Great Price is itself a literary pearl, serving as a work of apologetics and as a much needed work of revisionist history. I welcome its publication. —Joseph Pearce, editor, St. Austin Review

A very interesting and dramatic retelling of one of the most exciting events in the history of the Church, one part of her encounter with modernity in the form of the French Revolution. Not without implications for Catholics today, who are still struggling with how to deal with modernity and now with its bastard child, postmodernity. —Thomas Storck, author of An Economics of Justice and Charity

This play's portrayal of historical events in the Rome of Pope Pius VI is instructive and cautionary. Christian Browne brings to life the stark choices facing the elderly pope when the French revolutionary army in Italy threatened the very existence of the papacy. His fidelity to Christ was his triumph over his enemies, and is a source of strength for us. —The Rev. Gerald E. Murray, Pastor, Holy Family Church, New York, NY, member of EWTN's The Papal Posse