Books: Justice of The Peace

THE VICAR OF CHRIST by Walter F. Murphy Macmillan; 632 pages; $12.95

The proposition is preposterous. Once again the Cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church gather to elect a successor to the late Pope, killed in a plane crash. The conclave is deadlocked. An Italian prelate offers a radical proposal: elect a monk. Said monk is not your average Trappist. He is a former U.S. Marine colonel who won the Congressional Medal of Honor for leading his troops out of a deathtrap during the Korean War; a Pulitzer prizewinner for the book he wrote about...

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