The Shoes of the Fisherman plot
"In a last desperate effort to prevent World War III, a secret meeting is arranged. One man is called upon to succeed where all the world leaders have failed. That man was once a prisoner in a Russian labor camp. He is now the Pope."
A priest has spent twenty years in a Siberian penal camp when he is released and sent to Rome. Once there, he is appointed cardinal by the Pope. The world is in bad shape at that time, hunger and crisis are everywhere. When the pope dies, the cardinal suddenly finds himself in a position where he can be elected pope. But now his past is surfacing and he doesn't know what to do.