To Carthage I came where a frying pan of illicit loves sputtered all around me … or, rather, to Rome where swifts screamed around the Column of the Immaculate Conception and where Leo XIV had just become the first Augustinian to be elected Pope. I headed immediately to his cathedral, St John Lateran, hoping for a plenary indulgence in this Jubilee Year of mercy and guessing that of the four Roman basilicas with holy doors the queues there would be the shortest. I left the noise, heat and the jasmine for quiet coolness, pacing over a splendid Cosmatesque floor to search between statues of the Apostles for a priest to hear my confession. To obtain an indulgence one must also pray for the intentions of the Pope and I did this on my knees up the nearby Scala Sancta, reciting the sorrowful mysteries amid discomfort that was utterly appropriate when following Our Lord up the stairs of Pilate’s praefectorial palace.