 John Flaherty (Christopher Reeve) is a young and ambitious American priest who arrives in the Papal Sovereign city state of the Vactican in 1944 to take his holy orders as a catholic priest. After distinguishing himself in combat in the World War II battlefields of northern Italy, he s assigned as the Vactican treasurer. With the Vactican strapped for money during the war, Flaherty soon makes illegal business deals with a corrupt U.S. Army sergeant, named Varese (Joseph Cortese), who deals goods on the local black market which is connected to a ruthless Sicilian mobster, named Don Appolini (Jason Miller). Appolini agrees to fund Flaherty s operation for profit through his Swiss bank connections. Flaherty s mentor, Cardinal Santoni (Fernando Rey), the secretary to the elderly but powerful Pope (Leonardo Cimino), learns of Flaherty s business deals, but covers for Flaherty in order for them to rise in the ranks of the church against Santoni s rival, Cardinal Vinci (Adolfo Celi). But Flaherty s double life as a black marketeer and priest takes a turn when he falls in love with a young French nun, named Clara (Genevieve Bujold), who knows of his dealings, but not of his true identity to the Catholic Church.