Anathemata Curialis
And into the night the holy soldiers went, alone, unaided. No longer protected by the Lord and his light, these soldiers took up their post within the Shadow of the Valley of Death. Each of them accepted their price for the cost of their success. Because at the coming dawn there would be no one to watch it if the most Devout would not stand outside of the Gates to guard them. On their arm was branded the mark of Jude, protector of those who take up the lost cause. Theirs was a holy order inhabited by the unholy, using the Catechism of Hell for a guide post. Do not hate them for forsaking Christ, love them for their devotion to the Last Great Cause. -- Luther the Elder, 1610 C.E.
A holy order founded and given their charter by Pope Paul III (the same gent who bankrolled Ignatius Loyola when he set up the Jesuits). Pope Paul felt that the Inquisition had gone soft on crime and soft on the causes of crime. The Anathemata’s scarily open mission statement is to deal with anything that the Church had declared anathema – abomination – and by deal with he meant stop dead. Then a much later pope excommunicated the whole outfit, right down to the factory cat, but not before he’d voted it enough funds to keep it going to the crack of doom. Pretty neat trick, that – adding plausible deniability to the list of Christian virtues. With up to potentially a thousand modern members, the Anathemata still exists, but has gone to ‘silent running’. They’re officially disconnected from the apparatus of the Church. They cannot receive communion, be given last rites or be buried in hallowed ground. They also think that the Nox noctis Vigilo are a bunch of pussies.
- Father Terence Rodgers -- Head of the Anathemata in the United States.
