Father Wilhelm Burnell

Summarium

The faith of Father Romanus (or Wilhelm, if you prefer), is strong and unyielding. It has been so ever since the traumatic series of incidents that so altered the path of his life. As a devoted man of God, Father Wilhelm rejects the things of this world and has his one-eyed gaze ever-set on eternity.
He is also a dedicated, self-flagellating member of a fanatical secret society within the Church, and believes that he has been called to the priesthood for a higher purpose than merely taking confession and ministering to the flock.

Judging by the eerie happenings that have characterized his rise through the priesthood thus far, it would seem that he is favored by...Someone.Whether that Someone is Who he perceives Them to be is anyone's guess, but knowledgeable Church authorities certainly aren't taking any chances. Though his fanaticism may be seen by more moderate clergy as a liability, his devotion to the Highest Power is indisputable; if forced to choose between the Church as an institution and what he perceives to be the Will of God, Wilhelm will choose the Blessed Deity every time. This renders him somewhat of a loose cannon, though his wrath and extreme piety are better to have on the Church's side than against it.

In truth, his faith is all that he has left in his shattered life, and he clings to it like a drowning man would a sturdy rock jutting up from out of the cold, uncaring sea.

Possibile Fabulae

• Spectaculum A: "The Rectory" - After a number of bizarre incidents
  and a history of mental instability, Father Burnell is consigned to a remote and disheveled old rectory, where the actual clergy of the diocese can keep an eye on him.
  Even as he works to improve the dated place with the sweat of his own brow, he is nonetheless convinced that the Almighty has greater plans for him, ones that will allow him to escape his isolated "imprisonment" and lead a new, reignited crusade...
  
  ...But first, he must deal with that godforsaken WITCH holed up in the nearby estate.
  
  
• Spectaculum B: "The Newcomer" - Father Wilhelm presides over a congregation in a humble, well-loved cathedral, igniting its sanctuary with fiery sermons and exhorting his congregation to give their all for God. But a new and strange attendee, a woman with vibrant red hair and a Mona Lisa smile, seems intent on disrupting the usual way of things in Father Wilhelm's tightly-run spiritual community.

  Trivia Exclusiva

  • This guise of Wilhelm's is equally at home in modern and antiquarian settings.
  • He need not be a Catholic priest; he can be Lutheran as well. Unless you intend to depict him as a nondenominational, free firebrand, Lutheran is as much of an organized Protestant as he likely can be.
  • He is no longer in contact with his family, as none of them approved of his becoming a priest. His sister misses him and has tried to reach out, but Church authorities have gently discouraged her efforts.
  • He could easily and readily serve as a headmaster or some other instructor in a religious school environment. He would be exceptionally strict in such roles.
  • It is perhaps telling that the additional name he took upon becoming a priest is that of a martyred saint. His highest goal in life is to be a martyr for his faith, and he would willingly, even eagerly, submit to being slain. However, it isn't a cult of personality and reverence on earth post-canonization that he craves so much, but the sheer ecstasy of perishing for a holy cause.
  • He desperately denies any sexual longings in his heart, and deeply desires to be castrated, even completely nullified. It is for this precise reason that he wears a chastity belt - one far more harsh in its intricate internal design and operation than the one worn by a certain pious knight.
  • His self-harm and self-castration attempts have not escaped the knowledge of the Church...and neither have the strange, sometimes violent events that seem to follow in his wake.