lyonheart wrote:Hi Paler Sperry,
Kudos for some excellent points!
RFC had Cayleb tell Sharleyan that first night that lies eventually destroy what they're trying to protect [there being too many lions in Zion], and that truism can be seen again and again.
It might be entertaining at least to come up with some possible and impossible lies to lubricate what we know so far, when things get slow.
I imagine statements that are technically true but invite an acceptable misinterpretation instead of the terrifying genuine background will continue to have a big role. "Seijin Merlin has visions", for example, gets understood as "Seijin Merlin has a mystical form of clairvoyance" and accepted instead of "the PICA known as Merlin has SNARC feeds, processed through the tactical computer OWL, delivering full EM-spectrum and audio data from about 120 sources at any given time." (Getting people used to acronyms may be important too....)
Maybe Archangelic tricks can be described as the use of "devices" as an interim stage. People can hear "devices" as "holy relics" until they are ready to swallow "flashy technology common to the Terran Federation, knowledge of which was lost to Adams and Eves so it could really impress them."
We've argued about CoGA reforms before, now with the SSK added to the mix, the alliance has or soon will know details of how power in the temple shifted over the centuries, whether it was the result of a 'great man' or several that concentrated power; the fact that the corruption continued unabated leads me to think it wasn't any kind of reform movement.
If the reformists don't dominate the post war CoGA, having the CoC acting as at least a second opinion to any changes in whatever CoGA(s) survives as the majority church beyond the current war may help keep them more balanced than being swept away by some 'new reformist' or 'restorationist' movements [ie old reactionaries bent on restoring everything back to 'normal' especially the inquisition].
Indeed hunting down the underground inquisition is going to be a very long term project, though with the temple accessible after the war, and hopefully much if not most of the inquisition records, much of it will only tedious searching.
Perhaps we should concentrate here on the specifics the alliance will require the CoGA besides effectively castrating the inquisition.
Whatever is left should be almost entirely focused on the priesthood, making sure it and the remainder of the vicarate are true good men.
How can the sick heal the sick?
How can the priesthood lead their flocks in righteousness if they aren't?
L
The Inquisition, or something replacing it, is still going to be needed as an investigative and police force for church abuses. I'd love to devolve that function to secular authorities as another public service as soon as practical, but it's not likely to be practical soon. In the meantime, Nynian and the SSK have a lot of evidence of specific abuses by higher-ups. The Inquisition itself does too, as blackmail materials. Tribunals led by Wylsynn and priests like him - Staiphan Maik may well have a role there too - can go over that and for at least those upper echelons sort them out into groups:
(1) out of authority and oh so punished you scum
(2) out of authority and allowed to retire to various cloistered orders
(3) kept in place and watched
and (4) fit for promotion, you precious icon of decency in a pit of iniquity
Lower down in the hierarchy - or in less powerful orders - there will be plenty of priests who didn't come under scrutiny by the Inquisition or the SSK. The default assumption for priests who aren't on a vicarate career track and who have not had issues come up with their conduct is that they really are honest men and women who have been doing about the best they can as they understand it. They should be allowed to carry on, to form the backbone of a reformed church, and stand for promotion higher up in the Church.
Getting good management and good conduct, not to mention reality-based theology, is going to take a lot of work and risk, but if you clear out the known scum and let the (presumably) genuinely service-minded mass of the priesthood select their future leadership with that qualification in mind, you're off to a pretty good start.