''Crux Ansata'', subtitled 'An Indictment of the Roman Catholic Church' by H. G. Wells is a (96-page) wartime book first published in 1943 by
Penguin Books
Penguin Books is a British publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, as a line of the publishers The Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the following year. frontispiece and an appendix of an interview with Wells recorded by John Rowland. The U.S. edition of 144 pages went into a third printing in August 1946.
H. G. Wells, living in London under the regular German
Luftwaffe
The ''Luftwaffe'' () was the aerial-warfare branch of the German '' Wehrmacht'' before and during World War II. Germany's military air arms during World War I, the '' Luftstreitkräfte'' of the Imperial Army and the '' Marine-Fliegerabt ...
bombings from across the
English Channel
The English Channel, "The Sleeve"; nrf, la Maunche, "The Sleeve" ( Cotentinais) or (Jèrriais), ( Guernésiais), "The Channel"; br, Mor Breizh, "Sea of Brittany"; cy, Môr Udd, "Lord's Sea"; kw, Mor Bretannek, "British Sea"; nl, Het Kan ...
, extensively attacks Pope Pius XII and calls for the bombing of the city of Rome.
The book also forms a hostile history of the Roman Catholic Church, deeply imbued with
anti-clericalism
Anti-clericalism is opposition to religious authority, typically in social or political matters. Historical anti-clericalism has mainly been opposed to the influence of Roman Catholicism. Anti-clericalism is related to secularism, which seeks to ...
. Wells, an atheist, had a long history of anti-Catholic writings spanning decades.