I'm gonna go on the record OOC here and say again that this is factually FALSE. The crusade was, in point of actual, material, real facts, NOT motivated by "political" reasons such as Hireshmont's desire for personal power or bitterness at Triunists for seceding. In fact, I think a really political war would have been much easier to get people to support.
I have to admit that this is not what it looked like IG. I am fairly certain that a very large chunk of the church thinks that the entire theocracy/crusade was nothing but an ass pull by Hireshmont to save the last remnant of Terran from certain destruction.
The ONLY reasons that the Crusade happened are:
1. Mathurin suggested it - oft forgotten fact, Mathurin suggested the Crusade before Phantaria even attacked Terran (or right around that time). Hireshmont would not have called for a Crusade except that Mathurin suggested it. Otherwise, Hireshmont just would have tried to call in alliances.
Actually, he didn't. Unless he did so in private. What Mathurin said was that he thought saving Terran was "a matter more worthy of a Crusade than Aurvandil was". This can be interpreted the same as saying 3 is more than 2, but it's still not greater than 10. He did not specifically say that it *was* worthy of a crusade, nor did he mention it until after someone else mentioned calling a Crusade to save Terran.
You really need to pay closer attention to the exact wording of the Holy Prophet's letters.
I'm unsure what is meant by "political," in many of its uses (it usually seems to mean "not what I politically favored")
This I heartily agree with. "Corruption" and "political" have come to be synonymous with "not doing what I want it to be doing". I.e. when someone says "The church is
Corrupt!" what they really mean is "The church is
not doing what I want it to be doing!", even if what they want it to be doing is "nothing at all". Similarly, "The church is too caught up in
politics" really means "The church is too caught up in
not doing what I want it to be doing." At this point, I think those two terms deserve their own tvtropes pages.
