Don Giuseppe Pace, a Salesian priest, who originally wrote this novel under the pseudonym Walter Martin, takes on the excesses and inversions of the aftermath of the Second Vatican Council in this novel, with its host of lovable and infuriating characters and often surprising storyline. The new leader of the Church, a relative unknown who has been elected as a mere transitional pope, upsets the entire process of Reform that held sway over the Church up to his election. Opposed on almost all sides by shrewd careerists, he prudently selects a principled group of supporters, many of whom had been coldly thrown aside in the furor to overturn centuries of Tradition and Faith. Against all odds, they end up reigniting Tradition.