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Why would a dicey opportunity stab the man?  :-)
Point taken.
Thanks

Nuts. My first murder victim's titular church (next to the cemetery) isn't actually a titular church. I didn't think until yesterday to research if there was a specific list of such churches vs my previous assumption that any church could be one if it was assigned a cardinal. Somewhat surprising that the church I chose isn't one given how big it is. I doubt I'm going to fix it, though. It's too difficult to accurately determine interior and exterior layouts of big churches based solely on internet photos.

There are people on YouTube who filmed themselves watching that episode. It was funny. First a buzz when they see the X-Wing. Then excitement builds as they see the hooded figure with a lightsaber on a black & white screen. "Don't toy with me...," one says. Then joy when they see it's green (Luke's lightsaber in ROTJ). Finally ecstasy when he wades into the corridor full of killer droids. What's silly is that I took time out of my life to watch their reactions. I don't actually have Disney+. No interest.

Sara Selg is the name of one of my reviewers.

Changed 370 years to 220 years. I would have gone for less, but the AC needs time to secretly recruit and place 10,000 followers in the Church globally, including allowing for turnover in the ranks. I hope I'm done with this s--t now. I'm sick of act one. Time to screw up act two.

Decided to switch to caps for Earth, Heaven, and Hell. Quickly ran into all of the usual consistency crap from my last book. Good thing there's an undo feature in Word.

I originally chose 370 back when I was still crucifying cardinals every 5-10 years. The A-C had to move slowly, otherwise the Church would have been forced to mount an aggressive defense, which would have spilled into the open. When I switched the A-C's approach to infiltrating at multiple levels, I simply kept 370 as a placeholder until I figured out if it needed adjusting. It does.

Things to consider, though. The Church regularly purges certain offices (just to be unpredictable and to clean house). All the key positions are given to cardinals, who are usually old men with a very limited remaining lifespan. That prevents anyone staying in place too long. The estimated number of infiltrators is 10K. There are 5600 bishops in the world. If the A-C wants a near-perpetual lock on the key dioceses, he has to have obvious replacements in line for those dioceses. He also has to have control of key Vatican dicasteries (departments), plus a few in line to succeed those who head those dicasteries. So, 10K stretches the A-C kinda thin, especially when you consider that a decent number of his followers will be discovered because they blow their covers with bad behavior.

Related to all this is the fact that the A-C has to have his followers at or near their target positions when he takes control of the Church. There's only so long he can stay in power before people realize he's not purely human due to the fact that he doesn't die of old age. He's also racing to beat the clock, because when Jesus returns, times up. If Satan's challenge succeeds, Jesus will be destroyed upon his return and the Church will crumble thanks to the A-C and his followers.

There are actually three members of the Unholy Trinity, one of whom is the False Prophet. In the early Church, it was generally believed that the A-C was a secular ruler (e.g., Emperor Nero) and the False Prophet was a holy man. That made the latter more suited to seizing the Church. However, protestants confused all that by equating the Catholic Pope with the A-C. In modern times, there is no global position of secular power at risk of being seized by the A-C. He would need to engineer control of the US, Russia, and China in order to have a real shot at world domination. So, when choosing which interpretation of Revelation to go with (there are many), I decided the A-C will go after the Church. The False Prophet plays a lesser role, and I punted him to book two. He's a key character in book one, but remains under deep cover, working mischief.

Off to bed.

Fixed the problem caused by the low life expectancy in the 1600s. Instead of comparing priest life expectancy to those of the average male, the sharp-eyed monk compares them to the average *adult* male. A one-word fix. That weeds out the deaths of minors, which greatly skews the average.

I think it depends on the character. A snooty grammarian or a very formal character might talk without passive voice, just to make them sound different, whereas a country hick probably wouldn't give a damn.

I'm not sure how. The stabbing, the shooting, the confrontation with the other guards,  the demonic dagger & holy water, Connor's failed prayer, etc. are all natural elements of the scene based on what occurred earlier in the story. This is the end of act 1 and intentionally very tense, so this is a place for show over tell.

Thank you, gents. Very helpful. For example three, I reworded it slightly to eliminate the issue: