Holy See

The Holy See is the Roman ecclesiastical authority whose response to an anonymous appeal from Seville sends Lorenzo Quart to investigate a threatened parish church. Its role is not simply to defend or condemn the church: rival offices use the inquiry to manage internal power, while the archdiocese, a bank, and a parish priest contest the church’s fate through overlapping procedures and interests.

The intrusion and the papal appeal

At the start of the chain of events, Father Ignacio Arregui discovers that an intruder has entered the Pope’s personal computer and reports the breach to the emergency office of the Apostolic Palace. The security record shows growing internal memory, evidence that the intruder has bypassed protection and is inserting an illicit file. The message that appears there, unsigned, describes a small seventeenth-century church in Seville abandoned by both ecclesiastical and secular power and threatened by merchants. It asks the Pope, as pastor and father, to turn his attention toward the vulnerable members of his flock and demand an account from those who have left them exposed.

The message gives the Holy See a reason to act, but the location of the intrusion also narrows the investigation: authorities establish that the message was written in Seville on a computer connected to the telephone network. The appeal therefore links an anonymous digital intervention directly to the local dispute over Nuestra Señora de las Lágrimas.

Delegation and institutional rivalry

The Pope wants a proper inquiry, but involving the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith at the outset is considered excessive. Archbishop Paolo Spada instead assigns the investigation to the Institute for External Works and sends Quart to Seville for several days. Quart is to identify the message’s author, keep prudent contact with local ecclesiastical authorities, and handle the matter discreetly and reasonably. Transfer to the formal arm of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith remains possible if evidence of serious misconduct emerges.

That arrangement is also an internal political calculation. Spada explains that the hacking incident is, in itself, a minor matter that would ordinarily fall within the competence of the Archbishop of Seville. Papal attention changes its weight: Spada needs a substantial report to show that his office is acting, satisfy the Pope, and keep Cardinal Jerzy Iwaszkiewicz at bay. He tells Quart that the investigation has become another stage for settling accounts inside the Holy See, and warns that personal loyalty to Spada may make Quart vulnerable if Spada loses power.

Iwaszkiewicz presses the possibility of referring the matter to the former Inquisition, then corrects the name to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith when reminded that the Inquisition ceased to exist thirty years earlier. His repeated remark that they no longer burn anyone carries a darker implication: coercion may persist in less literal forms. He directs Quart to maintain exquisite neutrality, avoid publicity and scandal, and remember that publicly airing the truth does not necessarily make people free. The ceremonial farewell reinforces the ambiguity of the mission: Quart kneels to kiss the cardinal’s ruby ring, and the cardinal’s slow sign of the cross can be read as either blessing or threat.

The church’s privilege and the diocesan dispute

In Seville, Archbishop Aquilino Corvo explains that secularizing Nuestra Señora de las Lágrimas, a prerequisite to demolition, has become difficult because of a privilege granted in 1687 with papal sanction. The church must retain its privileges as long as Mass is celebrated there every Thursday for the soul of its benefactor, Gaspar Bruner de Lebrija. The Thursday service commemorates his death on that day in 1709; it is not merely a devotional custom but a condition with material consequences for the building’s status.

The privilege constrains the archdiocese without resolving the underlying conflict. Corvo says that Father Príamo Ferro ignores his pastoral letters and calls to order, and that he has requested Ferro’s suspension from office. The process is slow, and Corvo suspects that Rome is waiting for Quart’s report following the Vatican computer intrusion. Meanwhile, Banco Cartujano has prepared a redevelopment operation that would benefit the diocese through compensation, a new church in one of Seville’s poorest neighborhoods, and a foundation supporting social work in the Roma community. Corvo presents the arrangement as a practical response to parish poverty, but the demolition plan remains blocked so long as the Thursday obligation is met.

That condition produces a weekly scene of institutional surveillance. At the Thursday Mass, an emissary of the archbishop and a notary paid by Pencho Gavira sit in the last row, each watching for an irregularity or lapse that might invalidate the church’s protection. The Holy See’s papal sanction thus has an effect at a distance: an old grant is kept alive through repeated ritual and the scrutiny of local representatives, even as the archdiocese and bank pursue a different future for the site.

Procedure, responsibility, and limits

The novel presents the Holy See as a hierarchy whose authority operates through delegation, reports, disciplinary procedures, and strategic delay as much as through formal decree. The church’s old privilege does not automatically settle ownership or prevent every attempt at demolition; the archdiocese can seek to discipline its parish priest, while the bank’s proposed transaction offers financial and social benefits that help explain the pressure to proceed. The weekly Mass is at once a religious act and a procedural safeguard.

As the investigation develops, Corvo tells Quart that the matter now belongs exclusively to Rome and disclaims responsibility for its conduct, while offering support and prayers. Quart recognizes that a cleric’s possible arrest creates a further institutional problem: Rome will not welcome a police detention before he can supply information, and the Church would prefer to take the initiative. He considers finding Ferro a lawyer and defending his innocence unless evidence proves otherwise, while also accepting that manifest guilt should not obstruct secular justice. The resulting tension—between protecting forms, pursuing truth, and accepting responsibility—shows how the Holy See’s intervention reaches Seville without making its competing authorities or obligations disappear.