The turmoil that we see in the Catholic Church today begins to unravel in an idyllic Polish Catholic Church in Detroit, Michigan in the 1950's. A priest's body found hanging in a church belfry appears to be an apparent suicide but evolves into an investigation of suicide, accident, or possibly murder.
Father John Paziek, a battle-hardened World War II former chaplain is the assistant pastor at Saint Francis Church. As he assists the police into what happened, he seeks help from an unlikely source - Calvin Teasley, the operator of a blind pig in the black ghetto of Detroit.
Father John is also solicited by the Detroit Archdiocesan Bishop to seek out other priestly problems in the Church. Conflict with the Bishop's goals to protect the Church clashes with Father John's goals of protecting any possible victims. A baroque painting in the Bishop's study takes on a symbol representing the story and the conflict in the Catholic Church.