This section begins with Margaret Bent's virtuosic study of motets for popes from John XXII to Eugene IV, continuing with John Nadas/Giuliano di Bacco's work on polyphony during the great schism, Alejandro Planchart on early fifteenth-century papal music, Adalbert Roth on late fifteenth-century music, and Jeffrey Dean and Mitchell Brauner studying the development of musical traditions and a Roman canon.

This kind of intervention requires a justification in terms of what John XXII called "the international common good.

Postponement of the Beatific Vision until the Last Judgement, as suggested by Pope John XXII in 1331 before public recantation on his death-bed in 1334, would have had dire consequences for belief in the power of the saints as effective intercessors with Christ.