CALL FOR PENANCE

[Borin 7645]

Abbot Anton squints 

[ContestedSnow 1435]

Alric's face was a mask of dread as he read through this grave ignominy from his seat in the Bear Trap Tavern ... before the Ruthern could no longer bear to play the part of offended True Faith believer, nor could the bannerman stifle the uproarious laughter to follow.

[KaiserJacobII 1456]

"Oh," Lothaire manages. The sound slips past his teeth as a cough. Dabbing his forehead with his shawl, white and black and tasselled as it is, he places the notice down upon stained wood. "So that.. that is what happened. I see.. I see." He pauses, heart racing. He gazes, as if through the stone wall before him. He tends to the pyre, poking it a few times. Do something, pyre, do something. "Oh."

[Luto 439]

Dame Noiye burst into a laughter so bad it rendered the knight ugly crying, howling sounds that blurred between the lines of anguish and of despairing hilarity watching the clergy she held in high regards walk into an open fire.

"NAE, MINE HOLINESS! NOT LIKE THIS!!! HE'S CHOSEN BY GOD! WOEEEEEEEEEE!!!!"

[Onnensr 1908]

Cardinal-Emeritus Nerium pondered the geopolitical ramifications that resulted from his initial support of Callahan, who at that time was merely a low-ranking priest -- if senior to himself. The part he played in raising the modern Empire was not only entirely unnoticed, but at extraordinary disagreement with all promises made by the rabbi. So majestically, mind-bogglingly wrong had Callahan been, that as Nerium read the missive, he poked his tongue out with a laugh and descended into the sub-basement of a sub-basement in some place far, far away. Knocking dust from off a familiar cryo-crypt, he nestled in quite comfortably, and resolved to sleep for a few hundred years until all this blew over. 

[Gaja 1311]

Frederick shook his head, and sighed. "Father Anselm, the very same who not only spat at the Crown Prince of Idunia and insulted our peoples, but also attempted to accost and harass the Count of Aldersberg Miloš Sarkozic only to lose the fistfight he initiated. That's the man you are choosing over the Emperor." The disappointment was palpable.

[Fleeperpriest 1484]

Alas but that the reign of Virtue did not survive even two generations removed from their Vander sires, if that far. An Empire raised by the Church for defense of the Truth and to honor the innocent casts us back already to the time when it was conceived, when the Church were a slave, and men of power were a scourge unto the ancestors of this nation. 

 

Never in the wildest of nightmares could I have thought to see the Holy Nation of Man so long in the making turn upon God and on His Church. Never could I have thought the sons of Gaspard to be the men to betray us for Haense. 

 

It profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world . . but for Haense?

 

May the Living God have mercy upon the makers of this golem. May God above forgive Mankind. May my fathers, Saints and Teachers forgive me. May God grant His Holiness the strength to persevere, and may the Truth preserve forever. 

[fizzyquack 564]

Hazel looks upon the missive, and starts to tell their mom "Holeh fok- tis improper halfling is orderin teh emperor teh do biggun peanace or somethin... do yeh think tey will be executehd?" They ask, taking a long breath out of a Pipeweed blunt.

Spoiler

@NotEvilAtAll

 

[Xarkly 17299]

Eadred did not smoke.

 

Today, though, he lit a cigarillo. He had never before felt this particular sensation from the foreign memories, roiling around in his head.

[mojanghunter 566]

William of Glasgon crumpled the missive and laughed. Once, a century gone, when the Church was venerable still and the men who spoke in her name were not yet despised, such words might have bred fear. Now they begged only for derision. For who was this Pontiff, that he should sit in judgement upon the sovereign of all mankind, chosen by GOD and ruling by His right?

[Drew2_dude 2636]

The vast Thaddeus Baruch would muse aloud to himself while scarfing down his nightly feast-for-one, 
  "What does a pig and an owynist have in common? they both squeal the loudest right before they're dragged to the slaughter."

Edited February 9 by Drew2_dude

[Frisket 4538]

“It wasn’t even two minutes…was it?”

 

The High witch mouthed an ‘Oh shit’ after reading the penned public letter to the pontiff

[_Sug 2809]

Sir Hughes d'Amaury laughed alongside the Emperor Hadrian. "HurHurHur" 

[Xtessisold222 484]

"Who allowed this idiot to be pontifex" the helane said, reading from Villa Helane

[The Vulgate Cycle 577]

TO HIS HIGH HOLINESS BERNARD II
RELEASED FOR ALL TO READ

 

-=][=-

 

The church is a fallen body bereft of the dignity and grace of Aeradar. Long has it sought to sow discord amongst the faithful, long has its priests' committed sin against those who would truly walk with Aeradar at their finest hours. The church does nothing as people cry out for change, for reform, for a path more in line with those of the Exalted and of the Scrolls they so violently claim to protect. For decades, I and many others I love have been harassed, abused, some even killed- not in Aeradar's name, but in the name of preserving the temporal, earthly powers that the Church has so selfishly bought in blood and ruination. I therefore argue to you, your Holiness, that it is the majority of the clergy that have lost the mandate of Aeradar. 

It does not escape me that in a time when war and cruelty are in abundance, to acts that would make even a worm turn in disgust, you do not move to decry them. Just as Callahan, you do not properly punish your own for their wanton cruelty, acts of malevolence. Your institution brings out a shield to protect them. Your institution has done no more than wag a finger or slap a wrist, and for that, it is lost.

I walk into the temple, and I do not see holy men and women, I see schemers and fearmongers.
I walk the streets, and I do not see charitable monks and nuns, I see thugs brandishing threats and holy writ like a cudgel.
I walk amongst the people, and I do not see hopes of Aeradar following sermon, I see fear and despair. 

What I see is the is the Ibeesian twisting of all that my father believed in, everything he taught me to be. 
And still the Temple of the True Faith stirs only to the defense of Priests that have done terrible wrongs against us.

Reform now, and reform soon, for every day this continues, the faithful lose trust.

AERADAR IS INFALLIABLE, but you are not.

 

SIGNED,

Ser Arthur Marsyr - Knight of the Radiant Heart