ADVENT: History

The Purge of the Vatican

"Whoever decided to do this on Reformation Day sure had a sense of humor."

- Sally Eridan, ADVENT Peacekeeper

ADVENT Peacekeeper After-Action Report

Operation: Lustita Omnibus

Author: Chief of Peacekeeper Operations Amalda Stein

Recipients: Chancellor Saudia Vyandar, Chief Diplomat Firdaus Hassan, Director of ADVENT Intelligence Elizabeth Falka, Minister of ADVENT Public Relations Kyong Suk-Chul

As expected, the operation against various members, administrators, priests, and other figures of import in the Roman Catholic Church has been executed successfully. Considering that the ones involved were amateur criminals at best, and had poorly attempted to discredit witnesses, wipe computer drives, or hide financial transactions, it took surprisingly little time to build multiple solid cases that will be wrapped up in the courts within days.

We specifically targeted suspected criminals in the Vatican leadership as per your request to gather leverage against the Pope, yet even along the way we opened dozens of additional cases, not necessarily because there were that many perpetrators, but because the chain of people working to cover up these crimes kept expanding.

Once we had reached a certain point, the operation was amended to begin full investigations of all major Catholic Churches in ADVENT Member Nations, which involved full interrogations of church leadership and noted witnesses or victims. We also discovered during the course of this that the Catholic Church was, unsurprisingly, dragging their heels on conforming to the standards outlined in the ADVENT Directive, and have moved to file monetary fines against them, as well as additional warnings.

Given the conclusion of our operation today, I expect they will find the motivation to bring their cathedrals up to standards.

There were two main categories of offenses, neither of which are likely surprising. Accusations of pedophilia have dogged the church for decades, and unfortunately it was and is still a problem in the local churches. Higher-ranked figures connected to this are generally implicated in the cover-up, not the act itself.

We are still working to locate additional victims, and given your approval, I expect we will expand the probe significantly, especially with the Pope taking an active part in purging this filth from the world. As expected, the majority of the victims were young males, though there were some young females also located and all have been willing to provide us with descriptions, names, and other official needed documents.

We have yet to verify that any of the claims are false, though that will likely be a concern in the coming days as the probe expands.

The other major category of crimes not connected to internal obstruction of justice are surprisingly mundane monetary crimes. Tax evasion, money laundering from the Church to various Cardinals and associates, unreported off-shore accounts, this is largely related to the Vatican leadership and doesn't generally connect to the more local churches.

Another, much smaller segment of perpetrators have been found to be guilty of blackmail. I am honestly surprised it's not much higher due to the, ah, questionable tradition of confessions. This gives the priests an extreme amount of influence and blackmail over the person in question. Religious people are more vulnerable to this than others; the threat of revealing to their family that they had sex outside of marriage is an actually serious matter.

Interestingly enough, this was indeed one of the common examples related to blackmail we discovered. Infidelity, especially among those married was used to extort the man or woman of either money or resources, or in some cases was an ill-guided attempt to force them to give more to the church. It should be noted that this was, again, not the prevailing crime we have noted, although this might change as our probe expands.

We are fully expecting to act once more outside ADVENT territory, and I have prepared multiple statements to be sent to all foreign nations informing them of our intentions. I have made it clear that refusing to cooperate is grounds for annexation and additional investigation of offending parties. As of right now, there are foreign governments promising to assist if needed without being prompted.

China was one of the first, ironically, although this might be due to the fact that organized religion is not nearly as prevalent there and Catholicism is nowhere near as popular. An easy PR move for them, but an admirable one.

Your agreement with the Pope has made this significantly easier going forward. Now that we have his blessing to proceed, there are plenty who are eager to talk to us. Good job on making him an ally; it's good to know there some decent people in power left.

Battlemaster,

While we have been making efforts to solidify our own positions on Earth, ADVENT has been making similar moves in the diplomatic and geopolitical sphere of Earth, which is still not completely under their control. But even if they are not taking the same drastic steps such as the annexation of Canada, they are moving to expand their influence in other areas of the world, and it seems like there are very few who are openly standing in their way.

You are aware of the various religious institutions of Earth, and while the Christian religion is the most prominent, the one that preceded it, the Catholic Church, is the second largest overall, and the largest unified religious body in the world. Nearly one-seventh of Humans openly follow this belief, and are spread out across the world.

Mostly in ADVENT member nations, I will add. China and most African nations have a much smaller presence, but Europe, North and South America have a strong Catholic presence.

The headquarters of the Catholic Church is in a unique city-state called the Vatican, and it is where the main head of the Church, the Pope, resides along with his advisors. The Pope is not a military leader nor does he have a significant role in government (with the exception of the Vatican itself, which is considered an independent state, yet is not comparable to actual countries in any meaningful way), yet he retains an extreme amount of influence over the entire Church body, and by extension, the congregations of believers.

Because of this, many world leaders of Earth made a point to speak to the Pope, and it is largely considered an honor even by those not of the faith. The Pope himself is generally a figure that restricts himself to improving the image of the Church and assisting with the masses, as it were. Various Popes have had different levels of piety, but in general they are considered good people who are touched by spiritual power.

Ridiculous, but do not discount the effect a figure like this can have on not only the morale of the military, but also the civilian population.

So with this context, it should not be a surprise that Chancellor Vyandar has taken an interest in bringing the Catholic Church to her side, and as should be expected at this point, she does not hold back to get what she wants. In what appears to be a massive operation, ADVENT has performed what is best described as a purge on the entirety of the Church at all levels, and been extremely public with it as well.

The justification for this is supposedly that some in the Church were complicit in criminal activity such as minor crimes like monetary crime such as tax evasion and laundering, and much more severe crimes such as pedophilia (The sexual assault of Human children). Additional research has shown that it is likely that ADVENT is not just using this as a way to pressure the Catholic Church into working with ADVENT, but as a legitimate way to remove criminals from the institution.

But make no mistake, this was and is intended to be a message to the world that ADVENT does not care for convention or fairness. I suspect that Chancellor Vyandar would have carried this operation out, regardless of whether the Pope was willing or not. As a result this is making the non-ADVENT nations either go quiet, or preemptively say they will assist ADVENT.

Intelligence gathered that this is likely a strategic move by Saudia to bring all major religions under ADVENT control, as the planned summit for it is scheduled in a matter of weeks. With this Chancellor Vyandar has effectively secured a major ally, and one she is almost certain to use further on.

This will need to be monitored closely.

- Zar'Chon'ravarian'vitiary

The photo of Pope Marcellus the Third and Chancellor Saudia Vyandar standing together, surrounded by the silent figures of the SSR and Swiss Guard in the aftermath of the ADVENT operation against the Vatican and greater Catholic Church will go down in history as one of the defining moments not just in the history of the Church, but the history of the war itself.

The Church is no stranger to controversy and accusation, and have been dogged with reports of pedophilia and misconduct in the church leadership, as well as talks accusing the Church leadership of working to protect those accused rather than the victims. The main argument levied against them has been they put the protection of the Church above anything else.

Pope Marcellus has repeatedly stated his intent to address these accusations and has said that the Church needs to do more, and as a result there has indeed been a concerted effort to try and excise these predators in the Church. The success of course, has not been transparent; another common complaint of the Church. The Vatican has said that they have worked to remove dangerous people from the Church, though they have not released names or locations, aside from saying they have been turned over to law enforcement.

So for the past half-decade, no one knew for sure if the Church was indeed making progress addressing this issue, or if they were simply keeping it quiet. Regardless, it has remained scandal-free during this time, and much of the credit goes to Pope Marcellus for at the very minimum, not ignoring it.

With the rise of ADVENT, no one knew for sure how the Vatican was going to respond to the new leadership. The regulations and restrictions imposed were far more severe than the Church has ever experienced before, and there was certainly talk of fighting it. Those talks were quickly shot down by ADVENT who simply stated they would shut down non-compliant churches, and given how widespread the Church is in ADVENT, that was simply not acceptable to the Vatican.

ADVENT has allowed a grace period for all major religious institutions to conform to the new guidelines, but it does appear that the Church is not going to quickly jump to complete what is required, at least without prompting. There were fears that ADVENT would use the required database as a means of control, and that there would be a decreased turnout and declinations of piety as a result of ADVENT surveillance not only in the Cathedrals themselves, but in the Confession Booths, an extremely private tradition between believer and priest.

However, given the events taking place in the world at this point, it was not an unreasonable belief that ensuring the Church conformed to these standards was not a priority for ADVENT. In the aftermath of this purge, that appears to only be partially correct. ADVENT indeed had higher priorities, but they had most certainly not forgotten about the Church.

The day of the largest purge of Church leadership was ironically the day of the Reformation, a coincidence most believe was intentional. There was no warning, no indication that the Church was being watched, let alone that arrests would be carried out. This was also the first time the general public was introduced to the SSR, the fearsome and silent State Special Response that is only used for high-profile operations.

At best, a warrant was given to the one of the highest authority, but otherwise no one stood in the way as the SSR did their work, shackling the offenders and carrying them off in a span of minutes leaving the congregations and bystanders in shock. Those who attempted to placate or block the SSR from doing their job were either arrested or shot, although there were thankfully no casualties that day.

The trials that followed took place over mere weeks instead of months as would be normally expected for cases this high. It is a mistake to even call them trials, they were sentencings where the only unknown factor was the severity of punishment. Witnesses were called, evidence was displayed, and those convicted were taken away.

Justice in ADVENT is carried out quickly, and the criminal will almost certainly long for the days of trials that took obscene amounts of time. The ages of those affected by this operation were almost exclusively elderly, which was an interesting change, and showed that ADVENT does not take any half measures.

Many pleaded to reduce their sentences or severity as they were older, some approaching seventy, but ADVENT was unrelenting. Because of this, almost all of them were put away for a minimum of twenty years if they maintain good behavior, and the unlucky ones convicted of sexual assault and pedophilia would indeed be castrated and sentenced for thirty years, which was essentially life.

The Pope himself has since demonstrated a willingness to work directly with ADVENT, and there are rumors his new advisors are screened by ADVENT Intelligence to ensure they are clean, and he had openly stated that ADVENT will be allowed to continue their investigations deeper into the Church.

It has been decades since the last time the Church has worked so closely with a government, yet there are many who wonder just how much leverage ADVENT has over the Pope, and now that they have removed so many, how much influence they have over the successors. Time will tell if the Catholic Church has undergone a reformation, or if it will emerge as a puppet of ADVENT, and their means of exerting their will on one of the largest religious communities in the world.

- Special Report on the Aftermath of the Vatican Purge for TIME Magazine, Journalist Gillion Yarrow

Most people will view the so-called "Purge of the Vatican" through only that lens. ADVENT arrested some deranged and dangerous predators through a massive investigation the likes of which has rarely been seen. While that is not incorrect, what is also important to realize is just how much bigger this is than simply affecting the Catholic Church itself.

ADVENT is not run by people who are not aware of this; it was not just about cleansing the Church, but sending a message to every single organization and government that they do not care.

What do I mean by this? I mean that ADVENT does not restrict itself to its own sphere of influence. They have power, they know they have power, and they know no one is capable of stopping them. They demonstrated that day that if you have made an enemy of ADVENT, there is nowhere you can run.

There were several convicted priests that fled before the SSR arrived, and did receive asylum in foreign nations. This was when the international community realized that words like 'asylum' and 'diplomatic immunity' were not in the vocabulary of ADVENT. They located the priests and promptly arrested them. I suspect the guards took one look at the SSR and decided they would prefer not to die.

This was not restricted to those seeking asylum either. Those who were connected in any way to the investigation, regardless of country, were arrested and taken back to ADVENT territory for trials. ADVENT was courteous enough to let the respective nations know beforehand why their elite Peacekeepers were operating in their countries, but not one dared to challenge ADVENT's authority, because they knew both that their own soldiers would not last against the SSR, and to refuse ADVENT would be tantamount to declaring war.

And no nation wants a war with ADVENT.

Such brazen extrajudicial operations would be unthinkable before ADVENT, but times have changed and ADVENT is ensuring that no one is ignorant of this. This is a warning from ADVENT to the world that intentionally meddling through proxies or foreign agents will not be tolerated. They do not fear reprisal from any other nation, and they feel they can strike back with however strong a force they want and get away with it.

Because ultimately, they can.

The effects of this event have gone far beyond a simple warning, ADVENT has shown that it does not matter how large or influential an organization is, they will take down any criminals found within it. Amalda Stein's unbending commitment to justice is now beginning to win over people who were otherwise skeptical of her, even if she is still seen as overly harsh.

But no one can deny her integrity in the face of this operation.

And now that ADVENT has shown their commitment to prosecuting those in power, the floodgates have now opened. It is not only those who have suffered abuse through those in the Catholic Church who are freely approaching ADVENT, but those of all religions who have similar experiences. This extends beyond religion as well, those who have been abused and assaulted in business and entertainment industries are coming to ADVENT in the hopes things can change.

And it is now likely that it will.

This has affected the international scene as well. Immigration to ADVENT nations has spiked to unprecedented amounts, with many of the prospective immigrants fleeing to ADVENT with evidence of criminal activity that they hope will be enough to convince ADVENT to take action abroad. To date, that process takes some time, but ADVENT is committed enough to it where it is forcing other nations to take action and extradite the accused party to prevent ADVENT Peacekeepers from coming to their country.

With this one operation, ADVENT has fundamentally changed the dynamics of power in the world, and for now, it seems to be a universally positive improvement.

If it stays that way will be a different story.

- Op Ed for the New York Times by Attorney Bob Faraday