Sir de'Ehre,

Loathe though I am to be the bearer of bad news, I feel it incumbent
upon me to provide some measure of explanation for the deafening silence
expanding in the wake of your very simple query, namely, "What is the
Church doing these days?"

The short answer, and perhaps the most readily-understood, is that the
Holy Church of Achaea, as we once knew it to exist, has died.
Self-serving politicians circle its corpse, feasting on the rotting
carcass like bureaucratic buzzards, drawing nourishment from their
pointless titles and vestigial authority.

But why, one might rightly inquire, should the reading public accept my
diagnosis? I freely acknowledge never having been a member of the
Church. Indeed, we have never enjoyed anything approaching the warmth
and familiarity that gives rise to frank discussion. Necks have been
throttled. Backs have been stabbed.

Yet it is precisely this history of animosity that lends credence to my
words.

Before its collapse and subsequent death, the Holy Church of Achaea was
an enthusiastic advocate of its philosophies and faith, as recorded in
the Holy Codex. The Codex remains on display to this day within the
Chrysalis Basilica, if only as a museum piece. For all practical
purposes, this "seminal work" of the Holy Church is so riddled with
obvious fallacies that very few acknowledge its authority and fewer
still publicly admit to it. For an enlightened, non-Mhaldorian
dissertation on why the Church consistently downplays the scripture's
significance, see Public #15433.

This theological timidity has given rise to military paralysis on the
part of the Church. In years past, Mhaldor would play host to her
Eastern assailants on a monthly basis. There the Church could be seen
living out its misguided animosities towards me and mine, taking up the
sword in defense of the "innocent." These bloody encounters dwindled
over time to the present day, where the public butchery of Shallamese
children rouses little more than a passive-aggressive "tut, tut" on this
public forum.

Mourn not, my young sparrow, for the festering stench of dead ideas. Our
mortal lives are entirely too brief to squander our remaining years
debating how many flies might dance on the head of a prelate. There is a
life beyond the nattering impotence of those "Holy" necrovores -
challenges to meet, strength to pursue, victories to attain. There is a
world to win.

You lament whether there is any reason left to fight. I humbly urge you
to accept the counsel of your doubting heart and reexamine just what it
is you are fighting for.

Faithfully,

Father Herenicus Coldraven

Penned by my hand on the 3rd of Valnuary, in the year 418 AF.