Both fictional and IRL. It’s why although I love all the diverse religions of the world, I absolutely detest all of the religious leaders. None of them actually care about the people they preach to. They’re all in political alliances and overlook true evil for money or power. Most of them have a personal hit squad too. This manhwa definitely hits close to home.
Growing up, I saw what it truly meant to be religious and what we as a collective are supposed to be doing for people. We need to help people, and what this so called church is doing does not represent that all. Honestly they're a disgrace to religion and it makes me sick that they can justify their actions like this. So, you are right that this hits close to home.
I think religion in and of itself is great but religious leaders aren’t. If you look into them, they act similar to this church. This manhwa is a social commentary. Just like how the pope was being wilfully ignorance of the things priests have been doing, other religious leaders have been doing the same. This manhwa just brings it out in the open vs the reality of all of this being done in the shadows where the general public are none the wiser. If this story was narrated by a commoner, the priests would seem like saints. It’s only those who are in the know who see through the mask. It’s really cleverly written so that we criticise the actions of the church and end up seeing parallels between this fictional world and our own. I just wish that religion could go back to being an individual and community thing rather than a whole identity and cause for war and conflict.
Priests as villain are really the worst. They hold to much power than they should have