Before his 1997 trip to Cuba a troubled Pope Karol I sends his chamberlain, Stanislaw Gierek, to the island nation as an undercover advance man. The chamberlain's mission is to assess the Cuban revolution from the grassroots perspective. Gierek's involvement with those sources (and with Fidel Castro) reveals far more than either he or Karol I expected about Cuba, Castro -- and the pope himself.