====== The Holy Roman Church ======

Until 1517, Catholicism effectively //was// Christianity for the vast majority of Europe. With the Protestant Reformation came a great weakening in the power of the Church and the Holy Roman Emperor; but similarly, those individuals and countries who chose to remain Catholic have been infused with the fire of conflict. This came to a head with the Catholic uprising and murder of King Henry IX in 1607.

After this date, Catholicism in Albion is almost non-existent. For Catholics to openly practice their faith, they must swear loyalty to the King above the Pope. The Pope, in turn, requires that any practicing Catholic swear allegiance to him rather than any monarch. As such, the //vast// majority of Catholics have left for [[Spain]], [[Ireland]] or the [[New World|elsewhere]]. The few who remain do so either as [[travel|foreign]] emissaries, or secretly as members of the [[Jesuits|Order of Arundel]]. 


===== The Pope =====

In 1612, an accident with a Paschal Candle inadvertently revealed that the then Pope had been dead for the best part of his reign, apparently being kept moving by some form of spirit. The resulting chaos within the church lasted several years, as cardinals blamed each other, themselves, and most often, [[Rosicrucians]]. Lay churches, in the meantime, were left almost entirely without guidance.

Pope Pius VI, born Antonio Sfondrati, was finally elected in 1619, and immediately took control of much of the work previously left to cardinals. Thus far, his reign has been marked with a much stronger stance against anything deemed unholy, particularly magic. Excepting Theurgy, the practice of magic is now forbidden to all Catholics. [[Sorcery]] in particular is detestable, being the school blamed for animating Pope Leo XI, and consequently just about everything else that has gone wrong for the church in the past few decades.