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The Catholic Church and how it sees the 6th world.

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Alrician

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« on: <03-06-22/1142:55> »
First of all: this is of course not a real theological discussion. It's all about the fiction within the Shadowrun universe.


I'm working on the character concept of a Vatican agent. An adept or magician with the role of investigator/spy/problem solver. He should also act as a minister and theologian in most situations. The question now arises as to what the Catholic Church's view of the "supernatural" entities of the 6th world is. And how far a clergyman's view can deviate from that.

In particular, I'm interested in whether threats like bug spirits and horrors are considered part of creation, as well as varieties of magic like toxic and blood.

Reaver

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« Reply #1 on: <03-06-22/1151:53> »
The 6th world almanac has this info....

In a nut shell, NONE of the 'old skool' religions handled the awakening very well.

In Catholism, there was an actual splitting of the faith, with a whole new Pope and Cardinals setting up in France for a time...

By the 2070s things have settled down more or less, and you now have several priestly orders that employ magic...


Again, this is the super condense version. The 6th world alamanc has way more info.
Where am I going? And why am I in a hand basket ???

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MercilessMing

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« Reply #2 on: <03-07-22/1003:44> »
Quote
The question now arises as to what the Catholic Church's view of the "supernatural" entities of the 6th world is. And how far a clergyman's view can deviate from that.

In particular, I'm interested in whether threats like bug spirits and horrors are considered part of creation, as well as varieties of magic like toxic and blood.

Your agent is probably a member of the https://shadowrun.fandom.com/wiki/Order_of_St._Sylvester

The Catholic church keeps its magical clergy on a tight leash, so a typical one's views will probably be more dogmatic than most practitioners, or even other clergy.  The "tight leash" is never detailed afaik, so you can come up with your own version of that, but I'd wager it involves a lot of communication, paperwork, regular psych evals, and probably detect truth/mind probe when needed.  Tight leashes indicate a lack of trust.

Officially, the church considers magical ability something that can be used for good or evil. 
https://shadowrun.fandom.com/wiki/Imago_Dei

The church really just has a broader view of what constitutes an "evil" use of magic, so you can bet the things regular practitioners consider evil also fits their their definition. 

However, since Atzlan was a heavily Catholic country, but Aztechnology's influence there is all encompassing, there may be a subset in that region that finds a space for blood magic and Catholicism to coexist.

Tecumseh

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« Reply #3 on: <03-07-22/1523:36> »
The Imago Dei link that MercilessMing provided is the key piece of this. Here are the top points, the second of which is most pertinent to this discussion:

* Metahumans are possessed of souls and capable of salvation. Discrimination against metahumans is not Christian.
* Magical abilities are not, by nature, evil. Rather, like any other human ability, they may be used for good or evil.
* Spirits are living manifestations of nature. Thus, conjuring is not in itself evil. However, conjuring touches on so many questions of faith and doctrine that Catholics may not practice it without specific permission from the Church, to be only used by clergy under unique circumstances.

So to more directly answer your question, bug spirits and horrors and blood magic and toxic magic are evil expressions of magic that would be condemned.

To respond to MercilessMing more directly, Aztlan actively suppresses/persecutes the Catholic Church. In 2041 an executive order from the President's office officially rescinded the Roman Catholic Church's right to function in Aztlan. The church became an underground illegal organization.

I've used the Church very successfully (in my opinion) in my campaigns before. Here's a short piece discussing magical expression that I dropped into a game a few years back:

"Religion is different now that it was for our grandparents," the pastor said. "It no longer requires faith. We all see angels now. We can all converse with the apostles. There are no more Doubting Thomases. Christianity's biggest challenge isn't a lack of belief, but rather too many beliefs. We are now just one flavor in a sea of religions, and all of them now 'work'."

MercilessMing

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« Reply #4 on: <03-07-22/1549:18> »
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To respond to MercilessMing more directly, Aztlan actively suppresses/persecutes the Catholic Church. In 2041 an executive order from the President's office officially rescinded the Roman Catholic Church's right to function in Aztlan. The church became an underground illegal organization.
  Nice, thanks.  It was just pure speculation on my part.  I never read deeply on Aztlan.