Real world events
Much of the characteristics of Father Telemond were based on the controversial French Jesuit paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.
Pope John XXIII died on the day the novel was published, June 3, 1963.[2] Pope Paul VI was serving as Pope when the film version was released.
Ten years after the release of the film, on October 16, 1978, a Slavic cardinal from a Marxist-dominated country, Cardinal Karol Józef Wojtyła from Poland, was elected as Pope John Paul II.

Set approximately twenty years in the future at the height of the Cold War, The Shoes of the Fisherman opens as protagonist Kiril Pavlovich Lakota (Anthony Quinn), the Metropolitan Archbishop of Lviv, is unexpectedly set free after twenty years in a Siberian labor camp by his former jailer, Piotr Ilyich Kamenev (Laurence Olivier), now the premier of the Soviet Union.
He is sent to Rome, where the elderly fictional Pope Pius XIII (John Gielgud) raises him to the cardinalate in the title of St. Athanasius. Lakota initially declines, but reluctantly accepts the promotion.
When the Pontiff suddenly collapses and dies, the process of a papal conclave begins, and Cardinal Lakota participates as one of the electors. During the sede vacante, two cardinals in particular, Cardinal Leone (Leo McKern) and Cardinal Rinaldi (Vittorio De Sica) are shown to be papabile. After seven ballots of deadlock, Lakota finds himself elected Pope as a compromise candidate (suggested by Cardinal Rinaldi) by acclamation after the Cardinals, unable to decide between the leading candidates, interview him and are impressed by his ideas and his humility. Lakota takes the name of Pope Kiril (using his baptismal name). Meanwhile, the world is on the brink of nuclear war due to a Chinese-Soviet feud made worse by a famine caused by trade restrictions brought against China by the United States.
The evening after his election, Pope Kiril, with the help of his personal aide Gelasio (Arnoldo Foà), sneaks out of the Vatican and explores the city of Rome without being recognized. Later, the Pope returns to the Soviet Union to meet privately with Kamenev and Chairman Peng (Burt Kwouk) of China to discuss the ongoing crisis.
Pope Kiril realizes, however, that if the troubles in China continue, the cost would be a war that could ultimately rip the world apart. Knowing this, he must seek to convince the West as well as the Catholic Church to open up its resources to aid. At his papal coronation, Kiril removes his tiara (in a gesture of humility) and states this intent, much to the delight of the crowds in St. Peter's Square below.
A major secondary plot in the novel and the film is the Pope's relationship with a theologian and scientist, Father Telemond (Jean Telemond in the book, David Telemond in the film). The Pope becomes a close personal friend of Telemond (Oskar Werner). To his deep regret, in his official capacity, he must allow the Holy Office to censure Telemond for his heterodox views. To the Pope's deep grief, the shock of the censure, combined with his chronic medical problems, eventually kills Father Telemond, who has been slowly dying all this time from a cerebral aneurysm.
Background
Morris West's protagonist Lakota is inspired by the life of Ukrainian Catholic Cardinal Josyf Slipyj. Slipyj was released by Nikita Khrushchev's administration from a Siberian Gulag in 1963, the year of the novel's publication, after political pressure from Pope John XXIII and United States President John F. Kennedy. Slipyj arrived in Rome in time to participate in the Second Vatican