It might have escaped lay people at the time, but for some observers the ascension of Leo XIV as head of the Catholic Church this year was a reminder that the last time a Pope Leo sat in St. Peter’s Chair in the Vatican, from 1878 to 1903, the modern view of infinity was born. Georg Cantor ’s completely original “naïve” set theory caused both revolution and revolt in mathematical circles, with some embracing his ideas and others rejecting them.

Cantor was deeply disappointed with the negative reactions, of course, but never with his own ideas. Why? Because he held firm to the belief that he had a main line to the absolute—that his ideas came direct from l’intellect divino (the divine intellect). And, like the Blues Brothers Jake and Elwood, that he was on a mission from God. So when

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