Pop Quiz. What's the name of the smallest country in the world? I'll give you a hint. It's also

the heart of one of the biggest religions on the planet. You know, the home of a guy who mostly

wears flowing white robes and gets driven around in this incredibly swag custom Jeep. Have you already

guessed? That's right, I'm talking about Vatican City, often simply called the Vatican.

The Holy City only covers 121 acres, that's just 14% of New York Central Park, and contains a

tiny population of around 800 people. But it's here religious legacies such as the beautiful

St. Peter's Basilica can be found,

making it a spiritual center for Roman Catholicism.

But for all the prayers and blessings, the walls of this city also hold a horde of sinister secrets.

From forbidden archives to sacred scams, it's time to grab your flashlights as we

explore some dark secrets of the Vatican that the Pope would rather stay hidden.

The Catholic Church is one of the oldest institutions in the Western world, with origins dating back over 2,000 years.

And in that time, it's collected several centuries worth of documents.

However, these documents are not open to the public. Instead,

they are kept in a mysterious vault known as the Vatican's Secret Archives.

It's a huge storage space adjacent to the Vatican Library containing 35,000 volumes of catalogues and 53 miles of shelving.

I bet Tom Hanks is glad he didn't have

to sprint down that endless hallway while shooting the Da Vinci Code. But even Tom Hanks is

forbidden to enter as these archives are only accessible to scholars once they are 75 years old.

Given the average life expectancy ranges between 81 to 83 years of age here, that only offers

an exceptionally narrow window for academic study, given that PhDs can take years to complete.

Though some hardworking scholars have managed to successfully unearth some incredible documents

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