Holy See

The Holy See enters the narrative as an institutional power with practical consequences for a criminal investigation: the prospect of questioning a senior Vatican official raises the possibility of conflict with the Church’s central authority. Its presence is felt less through direct action than through the legal and political limits that its standing may impose.

Authority and institutional standing

When Amaia considers seeking an interview with a priest attached to the Vatican’s defense of the faith, Judge Markina stresses the scale of the request. The proposed interview concerns a man described as one of the Curia’s highest-ranking officials, and Markina warns that the matter could bring them into conflict with the Holy See. Amaia replies that she wants only to ask questions, not to accuse him; the exchange makes clear that institutional rank itself is already an obstacle to ordinary investigative procedure. The suspected official also holds responsibilities within a prestigious psychiatric clinic associated in the discussion with Opus Dei. Markina invokes both the Vatican office and the clinic’s standing in explaining why the proposed inquiry is difficult. The Holy See is therefore presented not as a participant in the alleged crimes, but as an authority whose reach and reputation shape what investigators believe they can do.

Religious history and local exclusion

The investigation’s account of the agotes supplies a broader context for the novel’s treatment of religious institutions. Jonan explains that this community was kept apart for centuries in Bozate: its members faced restrictions on residence, work, and marriage, and were marked by distinctive clothing and, in some cases, a bell announcing their presence. Although they were Christians who observed Catholic rites, the Church treated them as outcasts. Separate baptismal arrangements, discarded holy water, restricted access to the altar, and a barrier separating them from other worshippers made exclusion part of religious practice in Arizkun. That history is relevant to the Holy See’s institutional significance, but the account does not identify the Holy See as the direct author of those local rules. Instead, it sets the contemporary investigation beside a remembered church practice that continued to trouble the community: the barrier in Arizkun had been removed as a rejection of the shame attached to the old separation. The distinction matters. The novel connects religious authority with the history of exclusion without collapsing every level of the Church into a single named actor.

Limits of attribution

Other evidence gives the investigation a dense religious and folkloric setting, including beliefs about the mairu-beso and the use of unbaptized infants’ bones, but does not establish that the Holy See directed or endorsed those practices. Likewise, Doctor Franz accuses Sarasola of manipulation and refers to his Vatican exorcist associations; this is an accusation within the conflict, not proof of institutional involvement by the Holy See. The organization’s role in the story is consequently defined by the gap between authority and demonstrated action. Its status makes an interview politically and procedurally sensitive, while the surrounding history of church discrimination gives that status a troubling local resonance. The novel preserves the difference between an institution’s power to complicate an inquiry and evidence that it participated in the crimes under investigation.