The Johannines need police licenses to light their crypts with Hands of Glory. The Johannine priest Marmiadon reminds me of James Blish's white magician, Fr. Domenico, in Black Easter. Two nervous men, both conjure angels but are closer to the diabolical than they realize.
Thus, Blish's white monks of Monte Albano can join our list of fictional religious groups. See here. Heinlein's Angels of the Lord fake miracles with technology whereas the Johannines and the monks exercise genuine supernatural powers. Heinlein's Fosterites make a lot of noise. Anderson's Fr. Axor of the Galilean Order and the Jerusalem Catholic Church humbly seeks evidence for a Universal Incarnation.
Blish's Roger Bacon and Fr. Ruiz-Sanchez are members of real religious orders, Franciscan and Jesuit, and Anderson wrote of a Jesuit who communicated across space. See here.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
It's a pity we don't see more of Fr. Axor after THE GAME OF EMPIRE. How did his quest for evidence of Christ becoming Incarnate on other worlds end? What did Fr. Axor do in later life? Did he become either a parish priest or a teacher of archaeology?
Sean
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