A young boy is rescued from the cruelty of the Spanish Civil War. He is able to demonstrate a gift of learning that propels him to achieve high levels of scholarly performance and judicial responsibility at the Vatican, eventually becoming a cardinal. The stress of his dedication to work forces him to take a restorative incognito sojourn in Naples. From idle talk at a cafe, he becomes engaged in an intervention to restore a community that falls in conflict with the Camorra. Meanwhile, he completes translations of ancient Greek manuscripts that are successfully published. In all, he is assisted by a nun working as an able secretary somewhat caught in a flesh-and-vocation conflict. Seeking spiritual clarity for both and fulfilling a long, postponed urge, he takes a forty-day pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago before returning to his post in Rome. He engages a monastery of dissident nuns with a personal engagement that affirms gender equality. Eventually, elected pope after the death of his mentor, he leads a radical change in the clergy, complete with his kidnapping by a conspiracy of cardinals from which he emerges unscathed and affirmed. With his pontifical name, he renders homage to his family background and the loss of grandparents and uncles to instruments of war. His father survives the concentration camp at Mauthausen before returning to Spain after the Allied liberation and the death of Franco. His mandate over thirty years transforms the church in line with the Petrine command to feed the sheep and the historical structure of the faith.