So, my current PC took (for 14 bp in a 350 street-level game >.<) the Seattle Catholic Church as a contact. What could/couldn't such a group contact do?

Absolve him of sins?

Seriously though, give him a place to hide out, food, medical services, and local parish priests will have a lot of community contacts so lots of job opportunities for Hooding. Possibly access to some decent libraries and researchers depending on the topic. (If you need Latin or Ancient Greek translated they could help.) Depending on your relationship or how corrupt the priest in question is you might be able to get dirt on people as well. Depends on how cynical your GM is.

i guess the question would be, since you took it, what did you want out of it?

Actually, after reading Vice, it might be a round-about way to have a contact with one of the Seattle Mafia Families. The Cosa Nostra still have a lot of Catholic ties, and...

In addition, the Catholic Church needs Shadowruns done as well at times, particularily as they're not a very popular religion any more (What with one of the Popes declairing all Awakened creatures to be "Demonic" or some such.).

Also, a Priest can't break the oath of confession, and can't turn in the guy who just confessed to some sick, twisted deed that "He just can't stop doing"... But he can convince Shadowrunners to investigate what is going on and "Convince" him to turn himself into Lone Star.

And places to hide out when the 'Runner's home is compromised, there are still a lot of shelters that the Church runs. Lone Star isn't about to start looking for highly-paid Shadowrunners in a Homeless Shelter, now, are they?

Or Knight Errant, depending on what year the campaign is set it.

Keep in mind that having the Catholic Church as a contact works better if you're playing a human. If you're playing a meta or a mage/shaman, you might actually get negative modifiers to them as a group contact even though you bought them. Any GM worth his salt will take this into consideration when you are asking for favors.

On the other hand, Sanctuary is a wonderful thing. Technically, if the Church gives you that, so long as you remain in the church, no one can drag you out of there. And, as others have mentioned, there's all the support with hiding other places or soup kitchen food when you're broke. But also remember that the Church will probably expect tithes when you are flush and quid-pro-quo when you're tight (volunteering at said Soup Kitchen, etc.).

I thought the Pope said metahumans had souls etc, in In Imago Dei(In God's Image)? I wouldn't expect the Catholic Church to be a(n outwardly) racist organisation. Also, make sure that you localize that contact. I doubt your PC knows the GLOBAL catholic church.

What can a Catholic Church contact do for you... watch Boondock Saints for some thoughts and ideas. Especially the second one.

The Catholic Church tried to pull back the "Awakened Have No Souls!" comment by the Pope, but too late. They lost respect in countries where they were major powers (Such as Ireland and Mexico), which were major hits to their power base.

While the public statement is that the Church is anti-racist and accepts Metahumans, that isn't true in all cases. Churches are often strongholds for the Humanis Policulb.

As for magicians, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch" is still the norm, but they have their own "Miracle Workers"...

In fact, in one game where the team had to extract an orphan from a Catholic Orphanage, Jesus was watching them, got off his cross, and boy was he pissed!

Lol, while I'm sure that the Church isn't big in Mexico since they've gone back to their pre-Cololmbian (and thus, pre-Christrian nature based pagan) roots the books are pretty clear that after the big confusion settled down the Pope officially declared metahumans and magic alright. Regardless of what "damage" was done the point still stands that the Catholic Church's current policy is to welcome all (unlike a whole LOT of religions).

Plus there's even a Catholic magical group, the Order of St. Sylvester, described in Street Magic. I think anyone giving negative modifiers for not being a mundane human is just writing in their own material, because it's not supported by the actual fluff.

He did localize. He said "Seattle Catholic Church".

Ooops.

That's okay. My oops too, working off of old information re: the whole metahumanity thing and all. @=)

In Imago Dei came later. The original line of the Church were that metahumans were an abomination in the eyes of the Lord. This, naturally, caused a schism within the Church, and some more liberal Diocese and Archdiocese left outright. When a later Pope issued In Imago Dei, some of these schismatics came back... but other more conservative groups broke off in response.

So, basically, the Roman Catholic Church is probably still the single largest unified religious organization on the planet, but it has probably become much more stratified in its internal politics and comprises a smaller percentage of the world than it once did.

While I believe it is possible to have an organisation as a contact, in terms of the seattle catholic church, it makes more sense that the runner just knows the local priest. Unless he/she is an active church-goer in which case, you could argue that he is known by the priest and many of the parishioners at his local church.

As to what he could get from the contact: shelter, local info, requests for help, salvation .

http://wiki.dumpshock.com/index.php/In_Imago_Dei

Also note that magic is considered a human ability, not an act of divine intervention. So calling yourself a miracle worker when just working ordinary magic might in fact piss off a lot of believers...

Possibly get you in touch with churcher magigians Order of the st.Sylvester and maybe even the knight templars the former is a front of.

I could believe that level of contact, if the runner was a charitable type who donated a lot of time / money to the Church and Church charities. Also, if the runner's family has long been involved in the Church, that would make for a lot of contacts.

Catholics are an incestuous lot, metaphorically speaking. They're a very tight knit "club", and if you don't know someone, your sister or cousin or best friend, or even the neighbor down the street, knows that person. And they're not shy about referring friends to other friends when they trust the friend in question.

But you're correct in that you do have to have some sort of presence in the community for that kind of contact to apply.

The character doesn't have to necessarily be very charitable or pious, he could have been employed by the Church in his shadowrunning capacity. I always enjoyed the idea in various works of fiction (Hellsing, John Carpenter's Vampires, Trinity Blood, etc. etc.) that the Catholic Church sponsors international monster hunting teams to keep humanity safe (typically, and in all the above examples, Vampire hunting teams).

The character could be a well known (by those in the loop) member of one of the Church's Nosferatu hunting teams, perhaps a sole survivor of a particularly pyrrhic victory? Give his super secret organization some badass name or just call him an Inquisitor, etc. the backstory just writes itself.

Hell there may be elements in the Church doing "rob from the rich and give to the poor" work and doing runs on corporations. Robin Hood had Friar Tuck after all You can really make up any reason you want for this contact and make it work.

I would also include some potential political contacts. UCAS politicians still need to get elected and churches still have large, fairly dependable voting blocks. Expect many local politicians to be in contact with the church and a few to be dependent on it.

One thing no one's mentioned yet is street level information.

The local priest is certainly going to know who's homeless and who has been tithing an extraordinary amount lately. And if he's not willing to share confessional information, he doesn't need to. There are plenty of secretaries, church fathers & mothers, gossip mongers, who will know when weddings and funerals have happened, and more personal details about each others' lives than most people would know.

I can see a runner getting all sorts of info about local gangs, appropriate bribes for local officials, blackmail / extortion info, and data on people who are in trouble or trying to stop trouble.