He offers a fresh compendium of the thought of saints and sages as diverse as Aquinas, Augustine, Dante, Newman, Lewis, Eliot and many more in this literary-theological look at the last things. A novel by Ralph McInerny. Early in the third millennium, Thomas Lannan, the Archbishop of Washington, D.C. is named Cardinal, but the Pope dies before Lannan and other nominees are inducted into the College, and they are excluded from the new conclave. This leads to widespread criticism and the new pope is mysteriously killed in a plane crash. The next conclave elects the controversial Pope Timothy from Tanzania.
Schism threatens, and in Avignon, an anti-pope is elected.
Lannan, against the grain of his brother bishops, remains loyal to Timothy and rallies a remnant of the American church. His moral triumph is threatened when he is accused of having fathered a child when he was a seminarian. He becomes the subject of a sensational trial. This issue will be settled by DNA evidence. The suspense builds.