Although it can be read independently of its predecessors in West's trilogy, Lazarus contains many references to the two other novels that deal with the issue of the Roman Catholic papacy: The Shoes of the Fisherman (1963) and The Clowns of God (1981). In each, West traces the career of an extraordinary pope who is forced to confront a world where technology offers new challenges to traditional Roman Catholic teaching. The three major characters are strikingly different, yet their responses to the crises they face share certain important similarities.

When pressed to act, they do so with a firm faith that God will guide their actions and that anything done from motives of love for their fellow humans will somehow come to good. All three novels suggest — with subtle irony — both the efficacy of the religious approach to solving world problems, and the inadequacy of such...