In the provincial stone-and desert world of MadreDeDios, the entire population was mostly Catholic, but not Pax born-again Catholic. Instead, the people were part of a break-away movement called the Mariaists. One century before the lifetime of Father Capitan Federico de Soya, their ancestors had left the planet of Nuevo Madrid when that world had voted to join in the Pax and have its Christian churches submit to the Vatican. [1]
The Mariaists venerated the Holy Mother of Christ more than Vatican orthodoxy allowed. They consisted of a group sixty thousand "heretical" Catholics who refused to accept the Cruciform.[1]