An Open Letter To Monk Matsuda

[Sander 3156]

An Open Letter to Monk Matsuda

11th of the Sun's Smile, 167 S.A.

 

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To the Monk Matsuda Sakuraba of Casica,
 

We hope this letter reaches you well and that you've calmed down a bit from when you wrote your letter to us. You wrote to us in a seemingly quite accusatory and ill-spirited manner, which we do not appreciate from a member of the Church, but we will consider it symptoms of well-meant concern and forgive your curtness. Next time that you have questions about Church policy though, we'd prefer if you just write to us personally rather than spreading discontent. As for your questions, we will gladly answer them in the hopes that our answers allow you to better explain things to your flock, and perhaps we will do so ourself to other readers of this letter.

To start on the matter of the magic commission report; we hear your concern about the matter of Scions and we will discuss it with the Curia. We were personally not one of the clergymen who researched the various magics for the writing of the report, so it is not clear to us in this moment why the choice was made to give certain exemptions to these Scions. In reading the report before making final additions for publishing, we did find this matter questionable ourselves, but we chalked it up to being a matter requiring better understanding of magic. Since it appears that it has received questioning from others as well however, it might indeed be a matter of the mage Valindra abusing her position as a source for influencing the report in her own favor. If the Curia can not justify the exemption for Scions either, we shall assume the latter to be the case and outlaw the magical practice completely. 

As for curses that are supposedly only possible to be lifted by Xanism and Shamanism, the solution is rather simple from our point of view. The practice of these magics is forbidden for the Canonist faithful. In the rare, niche case that someone does get cursed with a spell only able to be lifted by these magics - a problem we ourselves could not find any examples of - then in these cases the afflicted will need to seek out a non-Canonist who practices these magics. Being reliant on aid from pagans is regrettable, though if there's supposedly truly no other solution in this specific case then we deem it necessary. Insofar as the timing of the publishing of the Magic Commission Report is concerned, it has been in the works for a long time and it deserved to finally be published at the earliest possibility, if that possibility is during a time of serious allegations about darkspawn threats, then so be it, the two are not connected.

Speakign of darkspawn threats, there is the matter of the alleged connection between darkspawn and the Haeseni royal family. We did not ignore these serious allegations, in fact we had an emergency meeting about it in the synod building followed by a more private meeting with the members of the Curia at Patriarch Josef's request. By now we've been informed that King Aleksandr is present again, so it is permissable for us to shed some light on what we were informed of by Patriarch Josef in said private meeting with the Curia. We say the King is present again, because the Patriarch disclosed to the Curia that King Aleksandr was missing and they did not know where he was. He explained that the King had been tricked by fake tradesmen who were supposedly looking to trade in artifacts. King Aleksandr was said to have disappeared into thin air during this interaction and the Aulic Council was pretending the King was ill as to bide their time for a few months to see if the King would return, which he now has. We decided to likewise wait to see how this would develop before taking any course of action, as the words by the Arch-Lich shared in his letter were revealed to be a lie and we did not wish to take action based on fraudulent rumors. Now that His Majesty King Aleksandr is said to be back, we intend to meet with him in the near future to discuss the details of these events and make further decisions based on acquired insights.

As for the allegations of there being darkspawn in Haense and other places in general and our response to these threats, do not presume we do not tell our Auditor, the good Cardinal Mattia of Tyria, to investigate these matters. We have regularly told the Auditor, as well as Holy Ser Gerard, to investigate matters like these, orders which they've diligently followed and which have born fruit in the form of invaluable information. There are investigations being conducted into these matters, worry not. Sadly however, we were informed that Haense will not be allowing these representatives of the Church to be conducting investigations and resulting actions like arrests in their territory anymore. We were told that members of the Order of Saint Jude have shown undesirable or unsupervised - we have always told members of the Order to work in cooperation with local authorities, which seems to have been ignored here - conduct within Haense, for which reason the Order is now barred from operating within Haeseni territory. We recognize that the timing of these sanctions coinciding with the rumors about King Aleksandr make said sanctions seem very suspicious, though as it stands we do not presume the two to be tied. What we can say at the moment is that these events just seem to be the result of recently heightened tensions between Haense and the Order in light of the rumors, as well as regrettable conduct. In our meeting with King Aleksandr we will attempt to straighten things out, and, should the reintroduction of operations by the Order of Saint Jude in Haeseni territory be too much to ask for, we shall at least try to get Cardinal Mattia involved again in his role as Auditor.

We hope that this letter answers some if not all of your questions and that our relatively hasty response serves as a testiment that your accusations of sloth are not wholly justified. We are not perfect, Monk Matsuda, but we try to do what is best during troubling times.

 

Sincerely,
His Holiness, Sixtus VI


 

[Punished_Pup 1364]

A Wanderer could not help be amused at what she read, her worn mind thinking of all that will unfold, from the chaos invited into the world, and so she sung in private..

"The world of Descendants is etched with silent deceit,
Whipsers of forgotten falsehoods sow discord among kin,

And yet the Wheel keeps turning~"

[Haseroth 953]

"Hang on, so he's sayin the reason why the church cannot investigate Haense, is because they wont allow them to..? Yeah that's definitely not suspicious at all." The man gave a nod to his friend as he shared a drink while reading the fresh piece of eclesiastical drama.

[Ramon 3965]

"At least it's reassuring to know he is doing something in response to things, I suppose,"

John of Aaun mused after having read the letter, having waited for news from the Church for a good few months. 

"Though Canondom could have done with the reassuring news the Arch-Lich spoke false sooner."

[rukio 8910]

"I was baptized into Canonism long before this pontiff was ever born. The term 'pagan' does not fit, I am excommunicated. They should call me such."  Notes Aeolus of Khamees. "It's also a weak argument for them to excommunicate all paladins, call for them to be disconnected and harm their own souls in doing so, and then turn around and tell their flock to seek us 'pagans' if they end up with something only we can fix. Of course, there is little surprise to be had with the weak claims on everything else, especially given the fact they attribute things from our tenets and histories to templarii....but I suppose they have to appease them given how many nations are ruled over by those." 

 

An exhaled sigh, he'd rub at his mouth. "We will, of course, continue to help Canonists just as we help descendants in general but...I suppose nothing can be done to help the church until the priesthood isn't so corrupted by ignorance." He'd finish ranting to his twin, who probably just stared at him. @wooz

[Morigung-oog 2352]

A note promptly returned,

 

To his holiness the Pontiff,

 

As stated to the good monk, I’d be more than happy to explain my reasonings behind my writings, as many of them were incomplete at the time of submission. It fills me with sorrow that one would think I’d abuse my position, though I can understand the concern. If you seek to meet to hear my justification, you need only request my presence.

 

Sincerely, Valindra