As the year 2092 dawns, Catholicism remains the largest component within Christianity, the world's biggest and most widespread faith. In the preceding century, the papacy has been making the multicultural rounds. A safe Italian followed the sharp-edged Pole, John Paul II, but then came South American, African and Asian Popes (one African American nearly made it). Finally, the Italians reinstituted their monopoly over the throne of Peter. The incumbent Italian, Pope Pius XIV, is slowly reacquiring some of the art masterpieces sold off to cover Vatican debts.
At the formal level, nothing much came of the moral rearrangements that some Catholics...