On 1/12/25 09:18, Narilka Witheryn - amber.narilka at gmail.com (via tml
list) wrote:
> <snip>
>
> What will happen is a complicated process of balancing travel time,
> population level, and historical precedent. In short, the hierachy of
> the church, and the Holy See's central position, will return to
> pre-modern rules, since those rules were constructed for a world with
> much slower travel.
> At the crudest level, of the Patriarchate of Rome maintaining full
> control, each spatial region or planet designated as an ecclesiastical
> province will have a Cardinal and they will spend all their time in
> Rome. They will hear only distant news of their regions, and be
> effectively powerless back home, so most likely bishops sent to Rome
> by their Primate specifically to be cardinals (and be skilled
> theologians for the inevitable councils of doctrine). Which also runs
> into the issues of communications time, but we do have a historical
> method of dealing with that: it's fine to obey old doctrine only if
> the new one hasn't reached you yet. The use of the Primate title also
> solves the communication lag issue on empty Bishop and Archbishop
> positions, reducing the issue to just "hey who's the new Primate?",
> which at some point will turn into "the Holy See assigns Bishop Who,
> Archbishop of Wherever, Primas-Pro-Tempore of Someplace, who has
> performed the duties of Primas according to the wishes of their
> predecessor, as Archbishop of Elsewhere and Primas of Someplace"
> because that's just easier at a distance.
>
> The next level is the most fun, and the most likely. At a certain
> point of local population and distance, the Latin Church or other
> autonomous church in communion with the Latin Church declares that
> planet or region to be Church Sui Iuris (Catholic Church of Someplace)
> and all the Patriarchs try to send representatives to the twice a
> century council and tries to stay in communion with a mutually agreed
> upon standard. These Patriarchates are going to be big, think about
> five to six jumps out, likely with overlapping territories (meaning
> some planets will get representatives to two or three different
> branches of the Catholic Church), and their own Primates, Cardinals,
> Archbishops, and Bishops. This sounds like possible adventure hooks to me.

Narilka, how does your "next level", the one "most fun, and the most
likely" interact with changes in prevailing FTL technology, and politics
(small bloodsucking insects)?

Eg, at the expiry of His Holiness Bloggins c 2200 AD, when J-2 is the
prevailing FTL tech, and there's sod-all even charted in canon to
rimwards of the Terran Confederation?

Then at the expiry of His Holiness Bloggins II c 5000 AD, when J-4 is
the prevailing FTL tech, and the Church has to deal with SolSec?

And when His Holiness Bloggins III expires on the eve of the 62nd
century AD, when he's partying like it's 6199, H-1 is the prevailing FTL
tech, and the Solomani Confederation is a distant memory, at best?

Alex