PIUS XIV: THE SMOKE OF SATAN AND THE MAN OF GOD

This novel was written by Don Giuseppe Pace, a Salesian priest, under the pseudonym Walter Martìn in 1978 with the title Pio XIV Pontefice di transizione.

This English edition, which retains part of the original title, is based on the Italian edition published as Habemus Papam by Fede & Cultura in 2011.  

It is a fictional view 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.  Hopeful, the book ends with reigniting Tradition.