The Sodality

IRL, the Reformation gave rise to a new force within Catholicism: the Society of Jesus. A Spanish thing originally, and it really couldn't have formed the way it did by anybody but a Spanish guy (well, Basque, but I'm gonna split the difference and assume no nationalists are gonna hit this blog any time soon.) Or, at least, a guy growing up in that particular Spain. Which, after what happened to Spain way back there at the start, doesn't exist.
It also doesn't help that all two responses to medieval Catholicism are, to say the least, more than a little different from the ones we're used to thinking of. That's what happens when you steampunk social science. Even if the Jesuits existed, the context in which they existed would be quite different; in particular, it's one where the Gonzalans (and thus potentially the Inquisition itself) has already been seriously compromised by the Reformation.*

No, Andalusada needs something different. Something that isn't relying on people well past their allotted century of grace. And that something is *whispers* The Sodality.

What's it The Sodality of?

That's actually a really good question. I was thinking "the Most Holy Savior," for a few reasons:

• The Sodality arises in the context of a turn towards Christ against the Holy Mother Church; part of their unconscious purpose is to provide an alternative to that, both by providing a sanctioned way to express the same sentiment and by turning Holy Mother Church back toward Christ.
• It alliterates nicely in Latin: Sodalitas Sanctissimi Salvator. (Any coincidence to a certain other group with way to many /s/es in their name actually is coincidental.)
• While I'm not decided exactly on what it's called, the derivations that come from the root of "saving" lend themselves to a variety of nice names. Is it "the Most Holy Saviour"? Then they're "Salvatorians." The Most Holy Salvation? Maybe Salutarians, or Salvationists. (Not like the Starvation Army's gonna be around to complain about the copyright infringement.) "Sodality" is like "Jesuit," a pejorative shorthand used by its detractors and opponents; an impressive (if not respectable) force like the Sodality needs a nice impressive name.

The thing is, I'm not sure how many organizations are spun off it, or absorbed into it. Potentially, there could be groups associated with it that have all of those names.

And of course I could be wrong.

How the Sodality is organized

Above and beyond everything else, what defines *whispers* The Sodality is its organization. There's nothing quite like this in Catholicism IRL, and there's certainly nothing like it in Andalusada. And that's because by the time it's established itself, the Papal Curia realizes the full magnitude of the horror they unleashed upon the earth, and decides to never allow something like this to happen again.

• Overlappingness: I'm pretty sure that *whispers* The Sodality is organized along sodal lines. This was chosen deliberately; at the time of its organization, there were two widespread revolts against the hierarchy, both of which had reached far into the friars themselves. The founders wanted their Sodality to unite the Church rather than having to compete for resources that weren't guaranteed to be there, and decided to make it relatively inclusive to do so.
• Simple vows: For the most part, the Sodality makes a point of only taking simple vows, which need regular renewals and can be voided by ordained clergy.
• The Fourth Vow: The Sodality is the first organization in Catholic history to declare a fourth vow: cooperation. Sodalites, even violently opposed Sodalites, do not actively oppose the works of each other, regardless of the forces that would compel them to do so. In *whispers* the Sodality there is no French or German, Franciscan or Gonzalan, no cleric or laity; for all are made one.

All of this was established with the very best of intentions, which makes *whispers* the Sodality in practice even more frightening.

A brief history of the Sodality

Truth be told, I'm not entirely sure when the Sodality gets founded (the 1500s, obviously, but that's gonna need more work.) What I do know is when it takes off: in the 1620s, after the French Wars of Religion plunges France into Catholic dystopianism.

• The House of Guise is an early and very important patron of the Sodality. With its support, it's trivially easy for the Sodalites to permeate (and to a large extent found) the French Catholic educational system. Having done that, it's trivially easy for them to spread their network, consciously or unconsciously, across huge stretches of the Catholic world. France is a great power and great powers tend to do that. (It also spreads to Portugal, and from there across the Portuguese world empire, possibly reaching as far as Japan.)

The Gallican Church being far and away the most powerful and independent of the See of Rome, this is where the Sodality becomes (for lack of a better word) "Jesuitical." If it makes a decision, there is usually jack and shit that the Curia can do to stop them. And when the ties between a royal house and an institution are that close - especially when it's that house, and that institution, both of them terrifying forces of darkness in the popular imagination - the obvious question is going to present itself: Does France serve The Sodality... or does The Sodality serve France?

• One of the few places that manages to avoid French subversion through the Sodality [details?] is Poland-Ruthenia, an unstable mix of Polish Catholics, assorted Ruthenian Uniatists, Hungarian Uniatists, and several others for good measure. It's in Eastern Europe, far from France, where the Sodality continues its charism in a fairly un-subverted fashion: bringing Catholics together.

The Sodality crosses the Atlantic Ocean inside of its first century, probably with the Portuguese. Be that as it may, the first time it starts being an issue is in 1746:

• The Mexican Liturgical War, where the Sodality serves as the nucleus for a peasant revolt in the heartland of the Moorish New World. It gets ruthlessly crushed out (leading amongst other things to the settlements that give way to Axamalla a century later) for its troubles.

75 years later, the Sodality's involved in another uprising: the Sodalite Revolt, when they come out in support of the Duc de Guise against the newly-reigning Burgundians.

• Prior to this point, the Burgundians were considering a Guise-style relationship with the Sodality themselves. Seeing so many of them throw in behind the pretender soured them on that idea, leading to the Sodalite suppressions in France. So many were killed, imprisoned or exiled that it permanently shifted the Sodality out of French control, leaving it more prominent in Eastern Europe and more loyal to the Papal Curia.
• Not that it matters much. With the 1837 marriage of Carlos Sansinger to the Princess de Guise [who?], the Sodality gains a new regional stronghold in Mexico.

The Sodality does good things too

One thing that the Sodality does do well, though, is ecumenical relations within Catholicism.

• Takasago: After reacting against Portuguese Gonzalanism, the Takasagonese become not just Catholic but Franciscan. Dogmatically, militantly so. There, the Sodality works to promote good relationships between different religious societies.
• The UCNA: The former Moorish Empire is a slow-motion Catholic civil war, with various parts Isidoran or Roman based on colonial church policies and national liberation struggles. The UCNA is a particularly messy case of this, because so many of its Catholics aren't even Moorish to begin with. The Sodality in the UCNA serves as a pan-Catholic force.

This is a stub. It will be expanded upon considerably.