“I was spellbound . . . one of the best books I’ve recently read” —Elizabeth Strout, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Olive Kittredge.

A powerful church. An acquiescent government. In The Price of Children, investigative journalist Maria Laurino details the shocking story of mothers and children deceived and exploited as directed by the highest levels of the Vatican.

Between 1950 and 1970, the Vatican and the American Catholic Church sent nearly four thousand Italian children to the United States for adoption into “good” Catholic homes. With the religious stigma of unwed motherhood turning families against daughters and a Church and State wanting “illegitimate” children sent abroad, mothers were lied to, given forms to sign that they didn’t understand, or even told their baby had died, all to further supply this international adoption pipeline.

Maria Laurino uncovers archival correspondence among priests who ran this program; provides testimonies from birth mothers and their adopted children; and with passion and insight, considers how the intersection of Catholicism, women, sex, and sin shaped private lives. The Price of Children is a moving and brilliant account about the tenacity of people searching for their origins and trying to answer long-buried questions. It is a chilling lesson for post-Dobbs America as the author describes the danger of a powerful church and acquiescent government dictating the shape of a woman’s life.

“I could not put this book down. An amazing read. Laurino eloquently unfolds the nefarious history of the Italian ‘war adoptions’ in a manner that is entirely readable and clear as a bell, her research precise and well rendered.” —Elizabeth Strout, Pulitzer Prize–winning author

“An extraordinary work of investigative journalism.” —Corriere della Sera

“By shedding light on the mistreatment suffered by single mothers of that time, [The Price of Children] invites all women to defend those civil rights which, today, are questioned in many parts of the world.” —Vanity Fair Italia

“[An] astonishing investigative work. . . . Maria Laurino’s painful, very rich and very human book. . . . Helps us ask fundamental questions about the present and the future.” —Doppiozero