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Cynic project
QUOTE (nezumi)

I do kinda like the Catholic Church having all sorts of secrets, but I'm not so keen on their being put in a bad light about it. Maybe if people figure they have a lot of deep magical secrets, they'll get more converts.

We are talking about the same group of people that tried to cover up the holocaust, for decades, and still doesn't tell the whole truth about it's scale. We are talking about a group that hid Nazi's war criminals.

But really the secrets thing, they one the world's largest libaries that is mainly filled with books that only their higher ups can read. They have gathering books for this storage space for well over a thousand years, and they are not letting people read them now. As if we would be damned by what someone wrote in 600AD.

Like check these little facts out, nearly every Pope before the 1300's had children. Some had wives, and that was the way thing went right down to your local "Father". prostution was banned in Vatican in in the early 1500's. The Church did not speak out to stop the gladiator games for well over 50 year after the RCC was formed(At least as a whole). They suported slavory for a few hundard years.The Pope used to be one of a few powerful people in the RCC, but not really the leader.

Then again we are talking a about a group that has countless members, and some of them were siants, and some were not. Most of them happen to some where in the middle. But no matter what way you look at it, in a group that has say one billion members you will have a few bad people. That being said, it is not unlikely that a lot of the bad apples to get seats of power, and from those seats of power to do bad things. They may not be doing bad things acording the RCC, but they may do things that are bad to you, me, or other people.

So, why shouldn't a dystopic future have them not so shiny?
Penta
Uh, stop.

No, the RCC did not try to cover up the Holocaust. That's just a lie, period.

Also...Christianity was illegal until the 300s AD, and Christians were regularly fed to the lions up to the time of Diocletian.

Re Papal authority: That depends.

Even during the early Church, the Bishop of Rome was looked upon as primus inter pares, and was often asked to settle disputes between other patriarchs of the ancient sees.

It wasn't until around the 5th century that he started claiming jurisdiction over anybody else.
nezumi
Yeah, I think you need to do some more fact checking there. WHY would the RCC ever cover up the holocaust? Catholics were thrown in there as a matter of procedure too, if I remember my history right.
Dashifen
QUOTE (nezumi)
Yeah, I think you need to do some more fact checking there. WHY would the RCC ever cover up the holocaust? Catholics were thrown in there as a matter of procedure too, if I remember my history right.

You do.
Demosthenes
QUOTE
So, why shouldn't a dystopic future have them not so shiny?


That isn't the point, IMHO.

The point is (much the same as in the case of Aztechnology, for example), that it's unrealistic, unappealing, unpleasant, and a number of other un-words to portray any organisation as being so 2-dimensionally "bad".

It's also highly insulting to do so when the organisation in question genuinely exists and is not a two-dimensional cartoon-villain entity that is out for power and world domination etc etc.

More pertinent to the discussion at hand, it's bad for the believability of the setting (which has enough problems as it is, what with the NAN etc), and that in turn makes the game less enjoyable - at least for me.

As to the Holocaust issue...
[ Spoiler ]
Pthgar
I don't know if SR always intended for the RCC to be a Big Bad. In the Secrets of Power Trilogy, the Sylvestrians were portrayed as quiet heros doing God's work. Things have sort of moved off of that. I try to portray the RCC as sort of a steel hand in a velvet glove. They are (meta)humanitarian and everything, but if you are out to harm them, their work, or their flock, you will bring the wrath of God (literally) down on yourself.

Oh yeah, in one of the other novels there is a priest working with the Yucatan Rebels. I can't remember the name of the book though.
hahnsoo
QUOTE (Pthgar)
I don't know if SR always intended for the RCC to be a Big Bad. In the Secrets of Power Trilogy, the Sylvestrians were portrayed as quiet heros doing God's work.

The Order of St. Sylvester still does this. It's just that Threats 2 details another organization that also has agents within the Order of St. Sylvester. It's something that you can take or leave. I personally leave it at the doorstep of those whackos who like the Da Vinci Code a little too much.
Penta
QUOTE (Pthgar)
I don't know if SR always intended for the RCC to be a Big Bad. In the Secrets of Power Trilogy, the Sylvestrians were portrayed as quiet heros doing God's work. Things have sort of moved off of that. I try to portray the RCC as sort of a steel hand in a velvet glove. They are (meta)humanitarian and everything, but if you are out to harm them, their work, or their flock, you will bring the wrath of God (literally) down on yourself.

Which is exactly my thought.

Currently, the New Templars and the like don't fit that. They're expansionist.

No. No. No.

The rule of thumb should be that the Church *does not* use force unless necessary. The NSOJ (which seems to have no connection to their Ignatian brothers...And thus deserves a better name...) is that *absolutely necessary* force.

In countries where the Church is repressed, they're the guys who help hide the underground hierarchy. They protect the faithful when they manage to gather for Mass. They keep lines of communication between the Vatican and the bishops of a country open.

And so forth. Occasionally, that requires combat, such as to draw off pursuit and to slam through borders when quieter means are not possible.

Only problem if you use that is the name. The "New Jesuits" causes twitches.

Um...Anybody know any Saints that would be good choices for the Church Persecuted?
mfb
i see the SR RCC as being a lot more fractured and self-conflicted than the modern church--more like the medeival church, in other words. while The Church may not authorize or approve certain actions or methods, individual sections of the church might engage in them with glee.
Penta
With modern communications?

Not really possible.
Pthgar
Maybe not fractured due to bad communications, but how about conflicting ideologies?
mfb
modern communications only work if someone uses them the right way. modern communications haven't stopped any other illicit activities--in fact, they've enhanced lots of them. at best, modern communications have forced those involved in illicit activities to adapt. and if no one knows that bishop X is doing unsanctioned activity Y, all the modern communications in the world won't stop him from continuing.

moreover, if an ideological split becomes too open, the RCC faces a choice: does it break off the offending unit, and weaken itself, or does it allow the offender to remain and continue causing problems? neither is a good option.
Cynic project
QUOTE (Dashifen)
QUOTE (nezumi @ Apr 27 2005, 08:58 AM)
Yeah, I think you need to do some more fact checking there.  WHY would the RCC ever cover up the holocaust?  Catholics were thrown in there as a matter of procedure too, if I remember my history right.

You do.

The cold war. If you look into the number of how many people died in those death camps you will come with a number around 12,000,000. The two biggest factions were Jews, and Communists. It is damned hard to make someone look like the bad guy when they are in a death camp. It is a lot easier to lie and cover things up.

In modern times we forget that, that RCC wasn't always so nice to the Jews. It also wasn't always so nice to other poeple.
Cynic project
QUOTE (Demosthenes)
QUOTE
So, why shouldn't a dystopic future have them not so shiny?


That isn't the point, IMHO.

The point is (much the same as in the case of Aztechnology, for example), that it's unrealistic, unappealing, unpleasant, and a number of other un-words to portray any organisation as being so 2-dimensionally "bad".

It's also highly insulting to do so when the organisation in question genuinely exists and is not a two-dimensional cartoon-villain entity that is out for power and world domination etc etc.

More pertinent to the discussion at hand, it's bad for the believability of the setting (which has enough problems as it is, what with the NAN etc), and that in turn makes the game less enjoyable - at least for me.

I do not think that the RCC should be black hats, hell I would like the world at large to think that they are good guys. But most of UCAS thinks Ares is a knight in shiny armour. I think that the RCC shouldn't be treated as white hats either. The group is a group, and it should be treated as one, meaning that they will never always be right, and never always be wrong. You look at a distopic future, and you have a group like the RCC, and you make them self centered. It is not like the RCC isn't that now. I mean, it could preach the use of condoms, or watch as millions die of AIDs. Would their preaching save each and everyone of those people? No. Would it save countless lives? Yes. But it doesn't do that, because it is not prefect. i am just saying that, the RCC should have just as dirty hands as any other cause heads. They will have just as many exreamist as say the invormentalist groups. Yes, they are just as likely to have people blow up buildings as Green Peace is. Maybe even more likely based on numbers.


Aztlan, is one the worst parts of the game world. But I would rather have bad guys in SR than good guys. I can see people doing bad things to other people to gain power. Hell, that is one the best parts about shadowrun, you are in a despotic hell hole, and you can't save the world. But you can save yourself, and you can change the lives of of those around you. You are left in a dark world, and it is up to you the player to play the man on a mission, or the lone gunman out for his own. Having good guys who have wide sweeping power leads to a better world. A world that wouldn't need shadowrunner. It wouldn't need the lone gun man, who is trying to put his neighbor hood back together. It would have no room for the crazy ninja who kills for no reason.
FlakJacket
The way I see it is that you've got two main active groups in the Church not counting the average priests and nuns just getting on with normal life - the conservative guys who're best exemplified by the Templars and the modernists who're represented by the current Pope. Small yet vocal minorities who are doing what they think's best, with the only reason people like the Templars getting the higher word count is that they have the most interesting/useable story and plot hooks.
Demosthenes
QUOTE (Cynic Project)
The cold war. If you look into the number of how many people died in those death camps you will come with a number around 12,000,000. The two biggest factions were Jews, and Communists. It is damned hard to make someone look like the bad guy when they are in a death camp. It is a lot easier to lie and cover things up.

That -could- be a reason.

A potential motive is not evidence.

proof.gif
nezumi
I could see the Church growing more fragmented, even with communications. After all, with groups in the Yucatan having to deal with electronic warfare, it's safer altogether to cut all communication unless absolutely necessary and operate independently.

I like the idea of there being 'bad people' in the church in high political stations, who are willing to crack a few heads for their own gain, or to help their overzealous view of how things should be. But there's a difference between having a few bad apples and saying the ENTIRE organization is a cesspool of violence and corruption. I agree, I don't like anything to be completely evil or completely good in Shadowrun. Churches are the same (although some may be more enlightened than others, and the RCC especially will have difficulties coping with that dichotomy.)

I wonder when we'll get our first metahuman saint.
Garland
QUOTE (nezumi @ Apr 28 2005, 10:26 AM)
I wonder when we'll get our first metahuman saint.

Not until well after the SR era. It takes a long friggin' time for someone to be canonized. It'd certainly be possible for a metahuman to be beatified in the current time frame, though.

On a different level, I wonder if this sort of thing is really even appropriate to SR. It's not exactly a game about saints. The idea that someone can be that purely good kind of doesn't fit with the setting.

Though it makes for a good run. SRs are hired by a group of pastors in the RCC to erase records of certain indiscretions by a person that is being investigated for beatification.

Edit: I can't spell simple words, apparently.
nezumi
It could take as little as 150 years, if memory serves. We do have some 19th century saints. I could go look it up. I imagine, given the political repurcusions of such a thing, it might be hurried up a little more. But I wouldn't expect it until around 2100 at the earliest.

It would be interesting to see something like that, though. Either someone is going to be beatified, or has already been so and the group discovers some skeletons.
Garland
Yeah. Mother Theresa might become a precedent for really fast saint-making, for instance. But but the current standards of becoming a saint, "fast" is still beyond the foreseeable (5-year) future of SR.
Penta
Given the process, it would take a while to get a meta saint, no matter what.

Ecen with John Paul II's streamlining of the process, it still takes a while. Mother Theresa is a very exceptional case (and JP2 will likely be the same).

Now, re communications:

The weird thing is, the Church doesn't use electronics all that much. IRL, much of the work of the Church is still done on paper. (Source: Inside the Vatican, by Thomas Reese SJ, 1996)

This applies also at the diocesan level (since parishes don't have too much in the way of admin responsibilities). Certainly, anything from Rome works on paper.

Why?

Ironically, security. Paper is harder to forge. Paper can and does have hordes of copies. One of which, in the Vatican's case, kept in a library in which lie documemts people would kill to get access to. Security on the Vatican archives is high, to say the least.

Finally, paper is much harder to intercept. You can sniff packets out of the datastream fairly easily.

Not so with mountains of paper that all look the same.

One may expect that wherever there is the Catholic Church, there are churchmen with diplomatic privileges and regular correspondence between them and Rome through diplomatic pouches.

The country they're in need not have diplomatic relations with the Vatican for this to apply, either; the Church has Apostolic Delegates to handle relations with the Church in the country (these days, often to formalize the appointment of Bishops, but also for other matters). International conventions treat those delegates as having immunity regardless of whether said country and the Holy See have diplomatic relations.

It would not surprise me if, for situations like Aztlan, the New Jesuits are smuggling in communications the same way as Runners are smuggled in, or things are smuggled in or out, from the Nunciatures in (in Aztlan's case) the CAS, Amazonia, Peru, or elsewhere.

Now, regarding cutting communications altogether.

That sounds like a fine idea. But it will never happen for the Catholic Church.

Why?

Because the hierarchical nature of the Church is a doctrine of faith.

You can look up the Cathecism on the Vatican website. Look for paragraphs 811-822, paragraphs 857-870, and paragraphs 1533-1600.

Note also Part II of Book II of the Code of Canon Law, available also from the Vatican.

To sum all this up:

The only way that the faith descends from Christ and the Apostles is through valid and licit ordination, particularly of bishops. To be valid, it must occur in the proper manners and forms. To be licit, the ordination of bishops must have the approval of the Holy Father. To be licit, the ordination of priests must have the approval of the Holy Father (more or less). And the same with deacons.

Without them, you have no Church.

(Synner, somebody? Help me explain this?)

That said:

Yes, independent action is possible. Only, however, slightly.

What always amazes people is the reality of just how much discretion the local bishop has. It's actually quite a bit.

However, that only goes so far as day-to-day affairs. In those cases, the bishops have pretty wide authority, subject to appeal to Rome. When things get sticky, Rome has it. After John Paul II, Rome does a lot. Don't expect bishops to go off on their own all that much.

Having them run shadowruns, actually, wouldn't be too nuts. But they would be very limited runs, almost never involving violence, and usually very rare. Favorites would be info-gathering. Also, the Conclave...Well, that's a special case, and if you're messing around there and then, you're probably at an epic level.
mfb
penta, history proves that such things can easily be circumvented, or even ignored entirely. yes, it's difficult to simply cut communications--when everything is working properly. but what about when things break down? what if a situation exists where it's difficult to get any form of communication in or out--like, say, the Yucatan war? someone there could easily proclaim themselves a bishop, forge enough documents to convince the locals, and begin building a base of followers. even if the RCC sends word that this guy isn't a real bishop, are the locals going to believe it? is the Aztlan government going to believe he's not with the RCC when his followers start conducting raids in the name of the church?

it doesn't even need to be anything that extreme--simple politics could give a 'bad' bishop power that the RCC might not be able to take away. for instance, a swiss church official who routes church funds away from metahuman-oriented charities and funds. the metahumans in the area are going to be pissed at "the church", despite the fact that the church as a whole is doing its best to help them. if the church official has enough friends in switzerland's political structure, the RCC won't be able to boot him without doing serious damage to their other operations in that area. ta-da! RCC-backed church official who goes against RCC policy.
Penta
There...Maybe.

You do present situations one would need to consider.

Then again, I'm not really awake at the moment.
nezumi
The point I was making is there's a difference between ordaining priests without a bishop, and ordaining priests in Rome and sending them over, then cutting communication. The priests currently in the Yucatan are already priests. So the doctrine of faith doesn't apply. They can operate independently as long as they stay within their orders, but they can't proclaim themselves bishops or do anything else that directly contradicts the rules. But they can certainly do that without constant communication with the hierarchy.
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