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Tinto Talks #59 - 16th of April 2025

Hello and welcome once again to our super secret Project Caesar Tinto Talks. I will be your host this time, where we will be talking about the mechanics of Catholicism and its associated Catholic Church International Organization.

Here’s an overview of the religion itself:
Catholicism Tooltip.png


One thing to highlight here besides all the other effects, is that Catholic countries are not able to tax their clergy at all by default, although there may be other things modifying this on top of it. However, the clergy won’t necessarily swim in money, as that has to be instead paid to the Papacy directly in the form of a tithe.
Tithe.png


Another key aspect of Catholicism is that all Catholic countries will belong to the Catholic Church IO:
Catholic Church Map.png

Catholic Church IO pannel.png


You can see here that there are quite many countries belonging to it (the total list is expandable and scrollable), with some of them having some special statuses. For Bishopric and Military Order these are self-explanatory, but the Curia and Cardinals need some more information.

The decisions concerning the Catholic Church are taken by the Curia, which is composed of Cardinals. In Project Caesar, Cardinals are represented by a special building, called Cardinal Seat, available to be built by Catholic countries higher than county rank in any location where they already own a large religious building. Each Cardinal Seat will grant its owner country a Cardinal, which the country can use to influence the decisions of the Curia (more on that later). Countries can have more than one Cardinal Seat and thus more than one Cardinal, that’s why in the panel you can see that there’s 7 countries in the Curia but a total of 16 Cardinals among them.
Cardinal Seat.png


Another aspect of the Catholic Church IO is its doctrines, represented by a set of laws. These laws are not something that’s easily changed, as it’s what defines the core values of Catholicism, but some important events will be able to shape them, like for example the Council of Trent (more on that in future Tinto Talks). Here are some of these laws effects:
Papal Authority.png

Purchase of Indulgence.png

Marriage of Priests.png

Persecution of Witchcraft.png


Next to the Doctrines, we have the Papal Bulls. These are actions that any Catholic country can choose to propose, but only those in the Curia can vote on whether to pass them or refuse them. Here are the possible bulls with some examples:
Papal Bulls.png

Illius Qui Se Pro Divini.png

In Coena Domini.png


When voting on a Papal Bull, the interface changes slightly to show how many cardinals support each option. It goes without saying that all the cardinals that a country has will be assigned to vote for the same option, so the amount of cardinals a country has is effectively its amount of votes.
Papal Bulls Vote.png


Besides the Papal Bulls, there’s also the action of Excommunication, available to all countries of the Curia, that if approved, will get the excommunicated country some very nasty modifiers and allow for a special casus belli.

Excommunication Effects.png


The Catholic Church also has some extra aspects in the form of Saints and Holy Sites. Saints are characters of a country that have been elevated to sainthood. A country can choose to canonize any of its previous rulers, and they will get benefits depending on the abilities of such character. Holy Sites are special locations to the Catholic faith, giving some extra income to their owner due to the affluence of faithful in them.
Saints.png

Holy Sites.png


Outside the Catholic Church per se and instead in the main religion panel, there are some extra religious actions available to certain countries, besides the already mentioned option to canonize a character.
Religious Actions.png


  • Demand Apostolic Tax is an action exclusive to the Papacy, in which they will demand extra payment from those countries with the Apostolic Tax privilege enabled.
  • Request Aid is an action exclusive to the military orders, in which they can ask to petition support to the Pope for their infrastructure, military, or coffers.
  • Placitum Regium is an action available to kingdoms or empires that gives them some extra crown power at the expense of relations with the Papacy.

One last thing to mention here is that, as you can see, Catholicism also has Reform Desire. However, in contrast to some other of our titles that also present this value, here it is not a ticking clock for the Reformation, but instead something that will come into play in the Council of Trent. As such, you will have to wait a bit for a further explanation on it.

And that is all for today, next week we will resolve these cliffhangers by taking a further look at what Catholicism has in store after the start of the game, including the situations of the Western Schism, Reformation, and the Council of Trent. On the other hand, in this week’s Tinto Flavor we will go directly to the head of Catholicism by taking a look at the flavor content for the Papal States. Also, remember that this week’s Tinto Flavour will be on Thursday, as this week is Good Friday and the Papal States would be too busy to attend their own Tinto Flavor then (oh, and it’s also a holiday).

See you next time!
 
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Will the game simulate pilgrimages to Holy Sites in any way? Like will we see a number of Catholic pops traveling to and from Jerusalem, Rome, and Santiago de Compostela?
I'd be surprised if Pop's are used to represent tourism, since I imagine that'd be a nightmare to simulate, and generally tourists don't really contribute to nations in ways that influence nation building.

Holy Sites would certainly enjoy an economic benefit (even to this day Mecca as a city has it's entire economy built around the Hajj tourism industry), and there's arguably a cultural bonus they could receive- territories gain renown as people travel from afar to visit it, and in the renaissance commissioning paintings as souvenirs became fashionable and many of these now line museums. Outside of that though, tourists don't really engage in local industries or serve in the nations military, so I'd say it should be left there. Maybe the cultural exchange helps with the spread of institutions though? I'd say tech, but I'd also say tourists aren't like importing new cannon designs or the like, even though the exchange of ideas helps a lot for a nations vibrancy.
 
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1、Can not Italy totally annex Papal States? That is what happened in history. And then Papal States will be on Mars and hold no more lands.
2、Really hoping that other catholic countries except HRE have some special ways to become empires, because this connects to Unifying culture group and some other thing. Especially it is very cool to be called as empire. There was one guy advance that we can let the catholic country we control be able to become an empire by destroying HRE, which is a good idea.
Well, technically the Papacy is an independent nation still. Just limited to the micro-state of the Vatican. Now obviously through sheer real-politik the Italy government can dictate a lot to the Papacy (this happened with the Pope endorsing Mussolini in WW2), but officially they are entirely independent.

I'd say that Italy once they annex the Papal States have an event fire that releases them as a building based country in Rome. Maybe the Vatican itself is a Monument, or they have a series of buildings that represent the Vatican. So otherwise the Pope gets to keep existing and keep all the mechanics related to them, they just no longer get the land to play with. Of course an alternate option for forming Italy would be take the Vatican to govern directly as well, but this should naturally enrage the rest of the Catholic world.
 
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I think they're being simulated as just some Catholic minorities in places and that's about it.
So far the only evidence we have seen of them at all is that there is a significant Catholic population in Lebanon. Honestly we should have heard more about them in the tinto maps, most prominently everything I've read on them says that the Grikos at this time follow the Greek rite but do acknowledge the Pope, yet they are Orthodox on the map. And Greek Catholics are the biggest Eastern Catholic church!
And other people have already pointed out that there should be some in the Caucasus.
 
Well, technically the Papacy is an independent nation still. Just limited to the micro-state of the Vatican. Now obviously through sheer real-politik the Italy government can dictate a lot to the Papacy (this happened with the Pope endorsing Mussolini in WW2), but officially they are entirely independent.

I'd say that Italy once they annex the Papal States have an event fire that releases them as a building based country in Rome. Maybe the Vatican itself is a Monument, or they have a series of buildings that represent the Vatican. So otherwise the Pope gets to keep existing and keep all the mechanics related to them, they just no longer get the land to play with. Of course an alternate option for forming Italy would be take the Vatican to govern directly as well, but this should naturally enrage the rest of the Catholic world.
What I want to say is that it will feel better when Italy gain Papal States' last land, Papal States will not run away from Apennine Peninsula, but become a country with no lands in game. And if you search for it, game will tell you it stays in Vatican. A Papal States not in Apennine Peninsula is really profane.
 
Besides the Papal Bulls, there’s also the action of Excommunication, available to all countries of the Curia, that if approved, will get the excommunicated country some very nasty modifiers and allow for a special casus belli.

Excommunication Effects.png
Do other countries ruled by an excommunicated ruler get this opinion penalty? I would suggest it doesn't make a lot of sense to apply the penalty between rulers/countries who are both excommunicated.

Same goes for situations where multiple countries are led by the same ruler, as the tool tip implies these countries would all end up getting the malus against each other.
 
1. They will reappear somewhere, as they are key to how Catholicism works
2. We are abstracting it with the buildings rather than with characters
3. It means the only empire accepted by the Pope is the HRE
4. No, cardinals are tied to the buildings
1. I would find it fitting if they appear in a theocracy and only if that is not possible they give some strong monach an event to release them out of their terretory but therefor the ruler gets some special buff: The savior of the papacy: giving them 25 religios influence

2.
Okay, how about this suggestion for the cardinal mechanic:

Each historical diocese starts with a "Bishop's Seat" building in its appropriate location. These buildings can only be destroyed if the location owner isn't Catholic.
Each of these buildings is always linked to a character, its bishop - if that character dies, a new one is spawned. In bishoprics and archbishopric countries, the leader is chosen from these bishop characters (typically there's only one to choose anyway).

The college of cardinals has a certain number of cardinals (which can change with different laws being passed, roughly between 20 and 70), which are made up of characters with the bishop tag. Whenever one dies, a new one is elected from all possible bishop characters by random chance, although countries can interact with the IO to pay money to increase the chance for bishops in their country to be elected cardinal.

If you have a cardinal in your country, you benefit - not sure exactly how, maybe the character's seat can provide better bonuses, maybe the character himself confers bonuses to the country he's in. You also get the votes of all your cardinals and your vassals' cardinals on your side, of course.
There's a plethora of potential flavor that can be added here, for example when using these bishop/cardinal characters in government.
do that but if it is to expensive with all the characters, let the Bishop's Seat be without an cardinal, but if you bishop's seat becomes a cardinal then a character spawns, but i prefer the quoted option, so you know who you support to become a cardinal as a state, furthermore their should be a function of loyalaty of the cardinals since some cardinals where loyal to the king (state) and others to the pope, maybe make it like:
defalt: -> loyal to the pope,
if ruler influenced pope to make him a cardinal: -> loyal to ruler
if ruler bribed cardinal: -> loyal to the ruler
if ruler dies: -> cardinal become loyal to the pope

3. it shouldnt be a hard rule, their should be the possiblitiy for the pope to recognize your empire: but make it very hard

4. look at 2. the pope can name cardinals, but only from bishop seats, look at this post for the already esablished bishop seats
Well... depending. Here's a screenshot of all the dioceses of western Europe in 1350 (because yes I have that on-hand):
View attachment 1282089
In some regions, yeah, they're going to roughly correspond to a province. In others, they're as small as a single location.
 
Cardinals are represented by a special building, called Cardinal Seat, available to be built by Catholic countries higher than county rank in any location where they already own a large religious building. Each Cardinal Seat will grant its owner country a Cardinal, which the country can use to influence the decisions of the Curia (more on that later). Countries can have more than one Cardinal Seat and thus more than one Cardinal, that’s why in the panel you can see that there’s 7 countries in the Curia but a total of 16 Cardinals among them.
Is it possible to have additional limitation on building a Cardinal Seat? It could make sense to require that building countries aren't ruled by an excommunicated ruler. And perhaps require a certain level or positive relations with the papal states, on top of the religious influence cost.
 
the holy sites, cardinal seat and saints seem pretty bad right now, they are wrong, aren't representative and add no real immersion. here is why and how you could change things to solve it.


in 1300 pope bonifacio VIII, emanates Antiquorum habet fida relatio. with this plenary indulgence started which basically states that anyone that visits certain basilicas will be freed from any sins they made. there is also another type of indulgence that is called partial indulgence, as the name states it only partially cleanses your sins.
this is heavily linked to pilgrimage and the entirety of catholic religion during this time.
speaking of basilicas there are two types of basilicas, major and minor, major are those that given plenary indulgence, minor are those that give partial and the only one that decide which is what is the pope.

this distinction is pretty important because it's where corruption started to spread as the papacy decided which basicilica would be minor and or major and they would decide based on how much money they could make out of the people visiting them. it is as a matter of fact what brought martin luther to start his things, what kickstarted the buying of indulgences and widespread corruption in the catholic church. these indulgences always start on the first of august and end on the second of august, being a once a year thing, and is what brought to the pilgrimage.

the major basilicas are:
saint peter's basilica, rome
saint paul's basilica, rome
saint john lateran basilica, rome, from 1350
saint mary major basilica, rome, from 1390

as you can clearly tell they only gave the status to ones in rome because they gave money to the papacy the most, you can also tell that the number increases over time showing the increased corruption in the papacy. they should definitely be represented as holy order as they are the most important ones.
as you may notice jerusalem is not in here and it's not an error, as you will soon see they are a minor basilica (eg. of minor importance).
all of these should probably have 4 as value in the holy sites.



as for the minor basilicas they are a lot more widespread and still provide a lot of money to the papacy (expecially through corruption on who to choose as bishop of this basilicas).
minor basilicas have a secondary group inside of them, called the papal basilicas, these basilicas are an inbetween of a minor and a major basilicas, they have stronger a status and can hold pope mass. (as it is obvious at this point corruption can help in becoming one.

there are the 3 papal basilicas:
saint lorence basilica, rome
saint francis basilica, assisi
saint mary of the angels, assisi
as you may note it's present outside of rome, although not outside of the papal state.

these basilicas should hold 3 as value in holy sites and maybe as a game mechanic you chould have other minor basilicas have the possibility of being elected as papal basilicas at the cost of having to pay the pope some taxation.


minor basilicas: (only those relevant to the game time frame (there are more than 1000 otherwise). (i am using 1800 as end date) (if "from" is missing it means that when it got completed or during it's costruction)

-mexico
our lady of guadalupe, mexico city, from 25.05.1754
-israel/palestine
holy sepulchre, jerusalem
of the annunciation, nazareth
of the nativity, bethlehem
-france (note that chartres is missing because it was added the 29.01.1908 so it shouldn't even be represented in this timeframe)
notre dame of folgoet, le folgoet, from 1427
-greece
hagia sophia, thessaloniki
-italy (skipped a lot of the less important ones since there are too many, hope i didn't miss anything too important, i think there were about 200 in the list)
holy sepulchre, acquapendente (viterbo),
saint peter of alessandria, alessandria
saint mary of adria, rovigo
saint ferdinand, caserta
saint agostin, amatrice
saint mary of anagni, anagni
saint mary of andria, andria
saint mary of aquileia, aquileia
saint nicole, bari
saint domenico, barletta
saint giacomo, como
saint mary major, bergamo
saint sebastian, biella
saint colombano, piacenza
saint petronio, bologna
blessed virgin, bologna
saint salvatore, brescia
saint cross, cagliari
transfiguration, cefalù
saint trinity, sassari
saint carpoforo, como
duomo d'enna, enna
saint mary of the flower, florence
saint miniato, florence
saint john, florence
saint lawrence, florence
saint siro, genoa
saint mary, l'aquila
twelve apostle, lecco
saint mary major, lomello (pavia)
holy house, loreto
saint barbara, mantua
saint andrew, mantua
saint babila, milan
saint mary of the miracles, milan (yes, the duomo of milan is not a minor cathedral)
saint michael the archangel, foggia
saint john, ragusa
saint john, monza
saint annunziata major, naples
saint chiara, naples
saint mary, naples
saint anthony, salerno
saint anthony, padua (unknown date, (exact date missing from the papal records) but probably before start of the game)
saint paul, siracuse
most holy trinity, palermo (date missing but before 1300)
tindari, messina
saint peter, perugia
saint peter, pisa
saint agata, ravenna
saint prospero, reggio emilia
...., rome (refuse to even try, there are like 50)
saint benedict, mantua
saint bernardino, siena
saint lucy, siracuse
saint mary, siracuse
saint peter, spoleto
saint maurice and lazarus, turin
saint laurence, trapani
saint marc, venice
of the redemptor, venice
saint andrew, vercelli
-poland
saint stanislaus, krakow
mogila abbey, krakow
-portugal
saint peter, ave (braga), from 1751
mary of the angels, lisbon, from 27.01.1559 until 1755 (destroyed from earthquake)
our lady, mafra, from 1730
-spain
saint lorence el escorial, madrid
santiago de compostela

as you can see there are a lot in here. the holy site value should be 2.


finally we have cathedrals/domus/duomo/whatever you wanna call them. there are too many to list but they should all have 1 as value and should be something you can build and not need any approval from the pope. (this is where cologne, chartres and canterbury are as a matter of fact, as well as the duomo of milan)


as for gameplay, this would be my suggestion
divide the holy sites in 4 tiers as described, the higher the tier the more important they are, just like any other building. each location can have more than one holy site and they all start at tier 1 by building a monastery (personally i would change the name to cathedral but monastery could be fine),

to get tier 1 you just need to build a building without any influence from the pope.

to get to tier 2 you need to have a saint to dedicate the tier 1 building as well as opinion/money/etc, to the pope. the one to decide who can be dedicated to a saint should only be the pope as per history (could be change in the council of trent tho). i would 100% suggest to rename these to minor basilicas as that is the real name.
(the importance of the saint it is dedicated to should also hold some importance although i am unsure how).

for tier 3 only the pope can declare them and they could be outside of the papal state territory, but should provide the pope a large amount of money daily/monthly/yearly. as for tier 3 i'd suggest a change in name to the historical one, papal basilicas.

for tier 4, they are unique to the pope and you can't have more than 5. the limit is because these basilicas are closely linked to the pentarchy. (saint lawrence of rome (papal basilica) was back in time the fifth one in this cathegory and was associated to jerusalem but got demoted).

as you go up in tier the owner should get more papal influence and other bonus but would also give more and more control to the pope in exchange.

here are my suggestions: (number are random as i have no idea of the balance of this number in the game)
max literacy for clergy in location: +5%|+10%|+20%|+40%
monthly religious influence: +0.1|+0.4|+0.8|+1.6
max religious influence: +10|+40|+120|+500
monthly reform desire: 0|+0.0025%|+0.0075%|+0.03%
location taxation to pope: 20%|40%|70%|100%
location taxation to clergy: +10%|+25%|+50%|+100% (if possible the best would be to have the increase only come once a year and be very strong)
population attraction: +5%|+15%|+40%|+100% (i don't know if it is possible but for this the best would be to have the increase only come once a year and be very strong)
monthly papal influence: +1|+3|+8|+20
cardinal approval rate: +10%|+30%|+90%|permanent seat
tier increase refusal-> local reform desire +0.1%|0|0|0


cardinals: they are people that only the pope can appoint, and there should not be a limit to how many but the more there are the looser the papal grip on them it gets so the more cardinals there are the bigger the malus for the pope should be. this should tho be counteracted by how much population is catholic, the higher the population the more cardinal you can approve without loosing too much as the pope (this is pretty realistic as the increase of catholic pops did go hand to hand with the pope appointing more cardinals).
all basilica/cathedral tiers can have a cardinal assigned but will need a lot of requirements needed: a "small tax" to the pope, good relationship to the pope (main reason why germany had no basilicas -> look at guelph vs ghibellins to understand), and papal influence (could add more requirement but i'd say these are the most important).
also the higher the tier the more likely you should be to have a cardinal assigned.

cardinal gameplay should be really important and there should be constant fight to get one as it was historically. it doesn't need to be a character and could be a modifier added to certain basilicas/catherdrals indicating whether the cardinal is there or not.
presence of cardinals should decrease local reform desire, heavily impacting where reformation will take place in the game. as already said tho appointing cardinals also must have a cost to the pope in some way or another.
basically cardinals imo should be used a tool that will represent animosity towards the current papacy and where reformation will take place in the future (if at all (?)) and viceversa.
cardinal should change a percentage of the money that goes to the pope as taxation and instead move it to the local clergy making the clergy in said location stronger at the exchange of the one in rome.

why should they be separated from the construction of the basilica. well cardinals were appointed by the pope and assigned to a basilica of any tier (even tier 1) and heavily impacted the influence that the papacy had in the area. again this clearly shows it for uk and germany, which had a low amount of cardinals as well as tier 1 basilicas and were places in which reformation to place strongly. also given that the more cardinals you appoint the more punishing it is for the pope it means that you won't ever be able to make everyone content and potentially having the reformation took place in a different place than it historically did (maybe in your game the pope will favor germany and spain will be trascurated making the reformation stronger in spain and weaker in germany. of course this is only true unless the pope intentionally decide to appoint more cardinal bring to a lose of control and power in rome.


why all of this is important.
it is historically accurate, and heavily shows corruption and infighting in christianity.
it clearly shows why and where the later reformations took place. uk and germany as you can see did not have their building accepted to tier 2 which obviously created animosity, also the low amount of cardinals played a crucial role. on the other hand, places with a lot of them shows why and where they didn't take place. basically changing things this way will heavily impact where and how reformation will take place making things a lot more dynamic and realistic to how the game played out.
it deepens flavour to the catholic church.
it makes mechanics that are pretty much useless (saints) actually important.
create a more dynamic catholic fate, shaping it's future
it clearly shows why certain holy sites you listed weren't as important as it's being shown right now and how the holy sites can be changed and accurately represented potentially even making them be dynamic.


i did blabber a lot and i am sure i forgot about things i wanted to say and other things you can improve but for now this is all. hopefully i've shown why certain things aren't correct and potential changes to better represent them.
 
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Purely UI question. Everywhere where there is something enabled, the UI indicator shows as:

<enabled thing>: Yes
e.g.
Papal Ban on Empires: Yes
Monasteries Allowed: Yes

This is pretty weird. It is also present in Eu4 but to a much lesser. I really don't like it, it looks like clanky code to text translation. Could it be still changed to more intuative version? E.g.

Active Effects/Policies:
- Papal Ban on Empires
- Monasteries Allowed

Or just replace "yes" with "Enabled" and "No" with "Disabled"

Papal Ban on Empires: Enabled
Monasteries Allowed: Enabled
 
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I really hope that ban on usury will play a role too. It was one of the most important rules of medieval Europe and one of the biggest issues during the religious wars.
 
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The Papal States should have their own status rather than be considered a bishopric
I mean, that's exactly what the Pope was though.

The Bishop of Rome.
 
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I’m not sure if there are more holy sites than what is shown here but if not I’d recommend adding Montserrat because of the Santa Maria de Montserrat Abbey which was a site for pilgrims (famously Saint Ignatius). There are definitely more holy sites than this that are worth mentioning and I think should be included.
 
I feel like Cardinals should be more linked to the Religious Estate within their country, as a basic idea your cardinals voting the way you want should require good relations with the Religious Estate, they could also possibly be involved in the process of creating new Cardinals.
 
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I mean, that's exactly what the Pope was though.

The Bishop of Rome.
Sure, that's one of the things the pope was, I would say him being the supreme pontiff was slightly more relevant though.
That would like calling Louis XIV the 'king of Navarre' since that's 'exactly what he was'.
 
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Hopefully Spain is refered to as a 'Monarchy' rather than a kingdom, at least while having their values in decentralized. It will be a tad cringe to see 'Kingdom of Spain' in the XVI century rather than 'Hispanic Monarchy' (or at least 'spanish monarchy').
? Why are people disagreeing with an objectively correct post? We can't speak of a 'Kingdom of Spain' until the XVIII century, with Charles III being the first to use the term 'King of Spain' in official documents.
 
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? Why are people disagreeing with an objectively correct post? We can't speak of a 'Kingdom of Spain' until the XVIII century, with Charles III being the first to use the term 'King of Spain' in official documents.
It is a "tad cringe" to care about this too much in a game, where half the countries have unfitting names (both short and long form) and ranks.
 
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It is a "tad cringe" to care about this too much in a game, where half the countries have unfitting names (both short and long form) and ranks.
-'I wish Spain was refered to by an accurate name'
-'Duhh, cringe, why make a suggestion? You shouldn't care about how it is refered to as, Arch-barony of Spain is a perfectly fine title'.
 
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Would they be given jurisdiction, or outright land, though? Like... this game isn't really handling the cases of non-landed bishops/archbishops/patriarchs. I've got my own plans (as I've mentioned time and time again whenever given the occasion), but I don't think the base game has any interest in representing the actual ecclesiastical hierarchy in any substantial way.
I mean I don't see why it can't at least be given a building and or land within a state which could unlock laws of how they are treated which has a default to certain settings which are natural for the country that may occupy them/it

Are you thinking of working more in a modding space?

I agree entirely though paradox team are making something that looks fantastic but ignoring the importance of ecclesiastical borders being often more sovereign as land dividers than previously agreed borders between rulers