The Abbey of St. Benedictus

[civman2000]

I have been in Pamplona recently and have heard and read of the recent international goings-on. In doing so, I discovered some interesting information about the land that calls itself "the Gathering Storm." One such "Stormian" made some religious references that hinted at a somewhat Christian-like religion, though it seemed to be a harsher and less loving version thereof. He also made his emblem (ooc his country flag) that of the Church. Here are some quotes:

Armies of angels are helping the glorious Stormian forces to crush the hated foe utterly. Here is a woodcut from the Field of Battles, showing an archangel expelling godless Voxians in the outskirts of Elipolis

Instead to help and morally strengthen their people, the heretics calling themselves "Order of The Voice" think only of drinking and filling their stomach. Here is a picture of the Grim Reaper getting hold of a Voxian monk

the Prophecy of our ancestors, written down in the Book of the Storms

(God forgive thy humble servant for this freedom)

it's the Armies of Heaven exterminating those who don't believe. Besides, there are no innocent Voxians. They shall all burn in Hell.

In response, I sent a letter to him a few days ago:

Herr Ralphus, I noticed that your descriptions of some of you artwork had some religious references. Would you be willing to elaborate on the religious beliefs of the Gathering Storm?

Does anyone know more about this religion? I am aware that Brother Nuclearis has been doing missionary work in Persia, and now that the Stormians have mostly conquered Persia, perhaps he could also send us information about their religion and how we could hopefully convert them to the true Church without much trouble.

Daniel de la Civ

[Togas]

The Church should send an ambassador immediately to the Storm lands to discover if they share the same beliefs as us. If they do not, we should discover if they would welcome our missionaries to their kingdom. If they do, well, we may have found a new way to breech the gap between us and to unite under the one true faith.

--Togas

[civman2000]

The response I received today:

The highest deity of the Gathering Storm is the Almighty Chicken, which is told to be blown in the Heaven by a gigantic storm yet before our times. An egg of the Almighty Chicken fell down on the World, right to the place known as Eye of the Storm. This egg brought the Spirit of the Chicken to the humble peasants of Stormia. They worked hard and went through many ages, some of which were good and let our people flourish, and some were bad and brought diseases and death to our peaceful citizens. All this is written down in the Book of the Storm, which is a part of the Scrolls of Truth, the most valuable possession of the People of Storm.

The text of the prophecy of the arrival of the armies of the Storm in North Estonia is told to be amazingly similar to the Revelation of Saint John the Divine, but this only shows, that this fellow John has stolen it out of our sacred scrolls.

Perhaps this "Spirit of the Chicken" is their version of the Holy Ghost. However, I fail to see any connections between the pagan Chicken story and Christianity. The disparaging attitude toward Saint John is also disappointing.

Daniel de la Civ

[DAVOUT]

We should trade them the pope Aidun I as a WoMD (Weapon of Mass Deception) against some techs ...

[History Guy]

Torquemada, button up, knave, you're in jail...

(a group of Swiss Guards whack ol' Torque across the jaw and drag him off to some deep, dark chamber)

As it is, these Egyptians are obviously all morons. This religion may be similar, but it is also a lie. It is deception from the Devil that has filled their minds with such chicken babble.

Let us appoint a missionary bishop to the region.

Cardinal Calamari

[Aidun]

Torquemada, it seems that you cherish grudge towards me. Although this place was appointed by me as a place of freedom of speech and a place to share ideas, that does not mean that you can also insult whatever person without being punished. You are arrested and you have to await your trial, so no further comments please, or I'll have you put in the deepest and darkest dungeon that the Church has.

Pope Aidun I

[civman2000]

From now on Republicanism is OUTLAWED and ANY republican will be put in JAIL if he dares to say anything about changing the government or performs any acttions that undermine the position of the King.

Pope Aidun I

I would like to question this decree. First, why did the Pope make this decree and not the King? It does not seem to be a religious issue, and my only hypothesis is that by making it religious law the Inquisition can prosecute it instead of an ordinary court. Also, I believe it is a good idea to be open-minded. Openly calling for the overthrow of the King is treason anyway, and calls for republican reform, not revolution, could be beneficial and surely couldn't do much harm.

Also, I would like to decline the King's appointment of myself as Duke of the Cordoba province and the Governor of the soon-to-be founded city there. I am but a member of the clergy, and that is all the de la Civs have ever intended to be, my uncle notwithstanding.

Daniel de la Civ

OOC: On being Duke of Cordoba, up to now I have been entirely RPing and intend to continue that way. I am going on vacation this weekend and won't get back for over a week, and maybe after that Roberto (Menor) de la Civ or maybe Roberto Mayor (who will be returning!) or someone else might agree to be Duke.

[Aidun]

There are two reasons why I included a passage in the Law of the Church about Republicanism. (For those who want to know: Law od the Church, General Law, Article VI).

The first one is that it has come to my attention thet more and more people are questioning the position of the King in Spain. The King is, together with the Pope, the representative of the almighty God on this earth. Questioning the legitimacy of the King to rule Spain is questioning the very fairness and truth of the almighty God. Chuch and state are closely bound to each other by the devine leadership of the almighty God.
It is not good to seperate two organizations, the Church and the state, that are so closely bound to each other. Both need each other, both rely on each other and both earn their legitimacy from each other.

The second reason is that it is the Church who manages the judicial power in this country. The King has stated several times that divine judgement is far better than mortal judgement. The church has the power to form the law to which every citizen of Spain is bound. So it is the task of the Church to make the law. My edict is an announcement that the law has been changed.

I hope that I have explained myself and answered yor questions.

Pope Aidun I

[civman2000]

My opinions on the recent calls for input on a possible restructuring of the Church:

The Señores that are now in an executive position in the Church will be made Bishops.

I would prefer a more decentralized system, in which bishops and other new officials are chosen locally. The central Church would only get directly involved in serious cases of corruption or other evils.

The inquisition should be subject to strict rules. I want to know from the members who have been active in the trials and inquiries what they think of the current set of ruses and if there should be even more, or less rules.

I think it should be restructured to be more orderly. The Judges should keep firm control of the Tribunal, and there should be strict rules concerning who can speak when (OOC: a la SPDG1 Court). On the other hand, it should be possible for people not directly involved with the prosecution or the defense to also make comments, arguments, or present their own evidence. Perhaps there could be the following order: Prosecution's case-rebuttals of defense-Defense's case-rebuttals of prosecution-Other people-rebuttals form both sides.

I hope people will start founding abbeys throughout Spain. The Law contains but very few restrictiont to the founding of abbeys.

Hmmm...maybe if I find some free time I might consider starting one in San Agustin.

Internationalize the Church.

This is something that both myself and my father have pushed for for many years. Let us spread the Gospel to the other nations, so peace and righteousness may rule the world!

Discuss anything that you think is important for the future of the Church and eventually implement it.

I believe that putting the Church in charge of the entire judiciary is a grave error. Although the Church may be more trustworthy and honest than civil authorities, I fear that it would become quite entangled with political issues and would be invaded by the corruption of temporal power.

Daniel de la Civ, Monk of San Bendito

PS: I sent a letter to my cousin Roberto a few months ago and have yet to receive a reply. I hope the Persia-Egyptian war is not interfering with his work.

[Aidun]

What I meant to say with making the Señores Bishops is that it is ridiculous that laymen can be at such high positions in the Church. The executives of the Church are supposed to be Cardinals and Bishops.

It is the task of the prosecutor to gather as many evidence as possible. Therefore he should talk to every person to gather information. This evidence should be presented before the Tribunal or the Head of the Inquisition. The defenders, led by the accused can defend themselves with evidence too and point on faillures of the prosecutor. After this process the, the Tribunal or the Head of inquisition make a decision regarding the amount of guiltiness and the punishment reflecting the amount of quiltiness and the committed crime.

After this the accused or the Prosecutor can start a new trial before the Pope if they believe that the Tribunal has misjudged or the accused can ask the Pope to pardon him from punishment. It is then to the Pope to decide what to do with it.

The situation described above is the current situation. The process is not included in the Law because I thought it would function that way by just giving certain rights and duties to certain persons, but that assumption has been proved to be wrong. The Head of the Inquisition was corrupt in the Case of the murder of the heretic GodKing and in the Case of the Triator Torquemada, the prosecutor clearly has the lead instead of the Head of the Inquisition.

I have waited with internationalizing the Church because we thought it to be safer to do this when we had already converted one nation (Vox). Now that this operation has failed because Vox hardly exists, I think we should just go international regardless of what the other nations think of that.
If we let members of other nations even participate in the Church, we can let it be a place in which we be kind to each other and be friends, regardless of the relations between our teams.
The problem GS and Vox faced when they got into personal war with each other, was that they were only concerned with their teams. Having 'another game' beside the inter-team relations helps us to have a better diplomacy because the chance of getting into a personal war is much smaller.

Finally, I think that there is nothing wrong with letting the Church do the judiciary, but the way the Inquisition functioned until today is not good. Therefore I propose stricter rules. I think corruption will not be a problem, because, if you have read the additions made to the Law of the Inquisition after the Case of the murder of the heretic GodKing, you can see that there is a special procedure to keep the system clean of corruption: every person can start a corruption-trial against a judge before the Pope and accuse the judge of being biased.

About your letter to Roberto de la Civ, I think the Egyptians respect preachers of the Word of the Lord. If you are but unsure if the war is interfering with his work, you can ask Bishop Pablo Winterius about it, Ricardo de la Civ is working under his authority.

Pope Aidun I