Three Roman Catholic Cardinals@ — a Frenchman, an Italian, and a Spanish-English@ — from the Vatican convene in an Italian estate garden with an Irish-born missionary bishop from America in the mid-1800s. The missionary requests that a bishop be appointed to the United States' newly annexed territory on New Mexico.
Garcia Maria de Allande, the Cardinal of Spanish-English parentage, although still a young man, has retired to his country estate following the death of Pope Gregory XVI to avoid the reforms of his successor. Allande whiles away his time playing tennis against competitors who come from as far as Spain and France. By contrast, the missionary Father Ferrand is weathered and haggard in appearance.
Ferrand explains to the three Cardinals that the recent annexation of the New Mexico territory equals a country larger than Central and Western Europe combined. He predicts that the Bishop overseeing such a large area will "direct the beginning of momentous things." Ferrand provides a background of the Catholic Church's activities in the area since its evangelization by Spanish missionaries in 1500. Since that time, however, the area has been understaffed by Catholic priests and has lapsed into such corruptions as priests taking concubines and ignoring the strictures of the Catholic Mass. Ferrand warns that if reforms are not put in place, the territory will infect the Catholic Church throughout the New World.
