This novel is a sort of 'inside look" at the workings of a fictional Roman Catholic Bishop's headquarters in the United Kingdom.

The central characters are Bishop Bede Jenkins; Father Spyers, a young, recently ordained priest who serves as the Bishop's secretary; Monsignor Basil Powell, the Vicar General, who was once a Major in the Grenadier Guards; and Monsignor Finbar O'Flaherty, the administrator of the pro-Cathedral.

The process of implementing perhaps the most controversial papal bull released during the Church's second millennium supplies most of the activities of the story.

The Bishop finds himself embroiled in fights with his superiors over his methods of implementing the decree.

Father Spyers spends time in the hospital after being struck down by an angry husband.