Catholic Church

The **Catholic Church**, also known as the **Roman Catholic Church**, is the largest Christian church, with 1.5 billion baptized Catholics worldwide.

It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a prominent role in the history and development of Western civilization. It has recently underwent a series of reforms following the 5th Great Awakening in its Protestant counterpart. These changes were initiated by the election of Pope Sarah, who implemented conservative reforms leading up to the Vatican III Council. The council repealed many of the reforms introduced during Vatican II, doubling down on Vatican I and emphasizing the Church's commitment to fighting rationalism, anarchism, communism, socialism, liberalism, and materialism.

While these reforms led to the loss of many Catholics in America who had become theologically liberal, they gained the loyalty of Africa and South America and prevented further declines in the Church's global population. The Church found new followers in South America, while Europe experienced a decline in the faith and North America established its own religious movements through the Awakening movement.

The Catholic Church was one of the first churches to address the theological implications of extraterrestrial life, and laid out its doctrines in the Council of Alexandria. The Council was hosted in 2150, which was a meeting between the Catholic Church as well as several Protestant denominations who had an interfaith dialogue. They were also some of the first to lay out acceptable and extremely limited use cases for transhumanism, after enough of the population had undergone some form of genetic modification, and Protestant Churches increasingly used trans humanism to rid what they deemed "sinful behavior". (Due to the mass popularity of Protestant fetal clinics and the "homosexuality vaccine", homosexuality was nearly extinct in the North American Federation by the year 2150.) The advent of immortality, and rampant spread of anti-aging technologies through the population was reluctantly tolerated by the Catholic Church, who decided to label it under the banner of medicine. Ever since then, taking after similar traditions held up in the Supreme Court of the United States, it is now customary for Popes to retire after 35 years of service, to allow the cycling in of new blood, and to prevent one immortal spiritual leader from ruling indefinitely.

## Progressive Schism

Following the election of Pope Almeida in 2045, a controversial and inflammatory arch-conservative, somehow even more hardline than the previous Pope Robert Sarah, Progressives across the Catholic Church declared a schism, with the progressive candidate fleeing to Argentina, where the center of the new Progressive Catholic Church has been established.

From there, the Progressive Antipope continues to guide their flock of few hundred million Catholics around the world, mostly concentrated in Western and secular populations. The Catholic Church of Rome, hereafter referred to as the Roman Catholics, immediately excommunicated the new pope, and the entire Progressive Catholic Church for inciting a schism in the faith. In 2083, the Progressive Catholic Church elected Abigail Campbell as their 2nd ever pope of the Progressive Catholic Church. As the name implies, she is the first ever female pope of any Catholic Church. When the Church in Rome was asked for comment, Pope Leo XIV commented that "my only regret is that you can only excommunicate a church once."

## List of Popes (2022 Onwards)

Pope Francis (2013-2027)

Pope Sarah (2029-2044)

Pope Almeida (2045-2078)

Pope Leo XIV (2079-2112)