Providence, however, took an earlier hand in the matter, without summoning the soul of Brother Jeris to its Maker. During the summer which followed his appointment as master, a prothonotary apostolic and his retinue of clerks came by way of a donkey train to the abbey from New Rome; he introduced himself as Monsignor Malfreddo Aguerra, the postulator for the Beatus Leibowitz in the canonization procedure. With him were several Dominicans. He had come to observe the reopening of the shelter and the exploration of "Sealed Environment." Also, to investigate such evidence as the abbey could produce that might have a bearing on the case, including-to the abbot’s dismay-reports of an alleged apparition of the Beatus which had, so travelers said, come to one Francis Gerard of Utah, AOL.