A Roman religious institute is directed by a nun. Its regular guests are religious if not for various reasons, in the eyes of the Vatican, they must remain out of this world: there is a woman, Emilia, saved in her country, Bolivia, from a secure death penalty from church intervention; a worker priest; a Cuban bishop who supports the Castro regime; a Polish priest accused of collaborating with the Nazis; a scion prince of an aristocratic family linked to the Vatican. The arrival of an agnostic writer, called by the Polish priest to help him write his own memories of the time of Nazism, which challenges the questionable psychological methods of the mother superior, causes a real upheaval in the monotonous and flat cloistered life of all the characters.