History Main / FantasticCatholicism

* ''Film/{{Priest}}'' is an example of badass church priests. The church is pretty much the controlling government and the only people shown are the downtrodden, voluntary exiles, the priests, cops controlled by the church and the controlling priests (magisters). (Also, the {{Manhwa}} it is based off of).

Enter FantasticCatholicism, wherein creators spice up TheChurch with fantastic elements, making it out to be the coolest, most badass organization around. Most typical of {{Fantasy}}, ScienceFiction and AlternateHistory, this trope applies the RuleOfCool to that fusty old Catholic Church, coming out with a Holy Grail full of awesome. See also ChristianityIsCatholic for when it's not ''explicitly'' stated to be Catholic, but uses elements unique to Catholicism anyways. Compare CrystalDragonJesus, where a fantasy universe features a religion with superficially Christian ([[ChristianityIsCatholic usually Catholic]]) trappings.

* The Church of Abel in ''TabletopGame/{{Anima Beyond Fantasy}}'', even if its central figure is a CrystalDragonJesus, has many elements of both real Catholicism and fantastic one as described in this trope, such as organization, dogma (parts of it at least), prosecution of the supernatural, use of magic -considered a gift of God-, and being the most powerful (visible) organization of the game's setting.

** It depicts the Roman Catholic Church as including a secret society dedicated to fighting various supernatural nasties, as well three [[ThePaladin Knights of the Cross]] with [[CoolSword holy swords]] made using the nails from the Crucifixion and more or less confirmed to be {{Excalibur}}, [[Literature/TheSongOfRoland Durendal]], and the [[JapaneseMythology Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi]].

* In the ''GlobalGuardiansPBEMUniverse'', the Order of Malta (a RealLife paramilitary order controlled by the Church) has been retasked into a Church-run team of superheroes who protect Vatican City (and by extension, Rome), and especially oppose any supernatural enemies of the Church, such as demons, vampires, and evil sorcerers.

* The Iscariot Organization from Manga/{{Hellsing}} is a Catholic ChurchMilitant organization that hunts down vampires and unbelievers and is full of serious badasses, among them Father Alexander Anderson, who uses technology designed to regenerate wounds to put him on the level of the vampires he kills. Iscariot frequently clashes with the Protestant-based Hellsing Organization, a vampire-hunting organization which isn't above using undead to fight undead.

-> Often the Church will fight and destroy all manner of unholy creatures (or creatures they have deemed as such), either overtly, or covertly in a MildlyMilitary sub-organization of the church. Demons, Vampires, Werewolves and ravenous spirits seem to be the most popular villains, but when the Church is fighting Fey creatures, witches and other things that are nice or cute, then it's a sign they are being portrayed as {{Well Intentioned Extremist}}s. See: ChurchMilitant.

Enter FantasticCatholicism, wherein creators spice up the TheChurch with fantastic elements, making it out to be the coolest, most badass organization around. Most typical of {{Fantasy}}, ScienceFiction and AlternateHistory, this trope applies the RuleOfCool to that fusty old Catholic Church, coming out with a Holy Grail full of awesome. See also ChristianityIsCatholic for when it's not ''explicitly'' stated to be Catholic, but uses elements unique to Catholicism anyways. Compare CrystalDragonJesus, where a fantasy universe features a religion with superficially Christian ([[ChristianityIsCatholic usually Catholic]]) trappings.

[[folder:Comicbooks]]
* The Entire Premise of ComicBook/WarriorNunAreala involves a division of the Catholic Church devoted to hunting down Supernatural Evil, with both Magic-using priests, badass Warrior Nuns, holy relics, super-technology and the resources of the global organization of the Church.
* ChickTracts claim the Ancient Secret/Rules the World interpretation. According to the (purportedly nonfiction) comics, the Catholic Church is a completely separate entity from Christianity and is responsible for [[http://chick.com/reading/tracts/1077/1077_01.asp Islam, communism, Nazism, Masonry/Baal worship... the list goes on.]]

!!!TheChurch Fights The Supernatural!

!!!TheChurch Has A Direct-Line To Jesus!

!!!TheChurch Has An Ancient Secret!

!!!TheChurch Is Full Of Badasses!

* The Catholic Church is also one of the few Christian faiths that still trains exorcists, so movies such as TheExorcist are rather TruthInTelevision. In the rare cases that a priest from another faith tradition believes that someone is under DemonicPossession (not unknown, but ''vanishingly'' rare -and a subject of controversy as to whether it's real at all- in RealLife), they'll ask the nearest Catholic priest for help. That priest, however, will refer the person to the local Bishop or Archbishop, who then will demand a battery of physical and psychological tests to exclude any illness that would produce similar effects to a possession. It is only after that, having exhausted any possible temporal causes, that the person will be allowed to see one of the Church's trained exorcists.
** That does not include the growing Pentecostal/Charismatic movements whose explicit distinctives involve literal beliefs in miracles and the supernatural, with many running "Deliverance Ministries" for the dual purpose of expelling demons from an individual and bringing that individual to Christ.

** ''Literature/TheDaVinciCode'' involving a plot by Opus Dei to eliminate the last surviving member of the bloodline of Christ, hidden by the Templars, with a crazy albino assassin-devotee. In the movie version it's implied the girl has healing hands.

* The Entire Premise of Warrior Nun Areala involves a division of the Catholic Church devoted to hunting down Supernatural Evil, with both Magic-using priests, badass Warrior Nuns, holy relics, super-technology and the resources of the global organization of the Church.

Compare AnimeCatholicism, which is also Catholicism meets RuleOfCool but has {{Japanese media tropes}} mixed in. Unlike AnimeCatholicism, FantasticCatholicism is usually more accurate at least where religious beliefs are concerned, not to mention main characters in their thirties and older are common occurrences and there isn't a particular amount of emphasis on being good looking. FantasticCatholicism may also be mixed with social commentary on the church while AnimeCatholicism never is, at least not on purpose.

The Catholic Church [[OlderThanFeudalism has existed for close to two thousand years]], and nothing steeped in that much history, mystery, and power is ever left alone when it comes to storytelling. It's way too juicy a target not to take advantage of.

* In JohnCarpenter's ''Film/PrinceOfDarkness'', the Church kept [[{{Satan}} the Devil]] prisoner in the basement of an out-of-the-way church, alongside proof that Jesus was an alien, and that the Church was meant to be a militant society on guard in case [[{{Satan}} the Devil]] (also an alien) ever escaped his prison. Unfortunately, the Church became corrupt and started seeking power for its own sake.

The Catholic Church has existed for close to two thousand years, and nothing steeped in that much history, mystery, and power is ever left alone when it comes to storytelling. It's way too juicy a target not to take advantage of.

* In ''Franchise/AssassinsCreed'' video games, the church ("Templars") have a serious organization out to control the world and keep the big secret about ThePrecursors from entering common knowledge. They use a technology called the animus to extract information about religiously important object (which are lost etch, perhaps), and hunt and kill anyone in their way.

The Catholic Church has existed for close to two thousand years, and nothing steeped in that much history, mystery and power, is ever left alone when it comes to storytelling, it's way too juicy a target not to take advantage of.

** TheKnightsHospitallers

** Sovereign Military Order of Malta

** The Swiss Guard set the time in Rome....using a [[{{BFG}} howitzer]] dubbed '[[ICallItVera The Monster]]'.
* [[ChurchMilitant The church has had many military orders]] throughout their history, especially during the Crusades period, although the best known are the [[TheKnightsTemplar Templars]] they were not the only ones, other military religious orders include:

** {{Knights Templar}} (Duh)
** {{The Teutonic Knights}}

:: See [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_order Wikipedia for more details]].

* The Church ''is'' technologically advanced, after a fashion -- far from being dead set against science, the Church has always had a hand in it. [[note]]Galileo's punishment was not because the Church thought heliocentrism was a heresy -- nothing happened to Copernicus a century earlier -- but instead because Galileo was not holding off on publishing some of his documents to be sure they were free of ''other'' things that might have been doctrinally iffy, i.e. teaching scientific theory as fact without proof. Galileo stated that our sun was not only the center of our solar system, but of our galaxy and the universe - which we now know to be incorrect.[[/note]] The Vatican has two state-of-the-art observatories (in Italy and the United States), and the scientist who conceived of the Big Bang Theory was Fr. Georges [=LeMaître=], a Jesuit. It does not teach a literal creation and is at home with evolution (reserving that HumansAreSpecial as two were granted an immortal soul). The only time the Church really takes a negative stance towards science comes in two forms.
** The Church is against science that runs against the Church's moral teachings, such as embryonic stem-cell research [[note]]The Church believes human life has value regardless of legal/philosophical 'personhood', so Catholics believe embryonic stem cell research is basically PoweredByAForsakenChild.[[/note]] (the Church heartily endorses ''adult'' stem-cell research).
** The Church is against those who try to push through scientific theories ''without adhering to the scientific method''. That's what the whole Galileo mess was about (see note above).