Grendel #27

Orion brings his sisters to see the bazaar, a marketplace around the Church's Tower, so they can see the corruption of religion firsthand.  While there, Grendel attacks, trying to convince the people that the market and church are debasing them.  Some C.O.P.s are waiting for him, but he kills them easily.  Pellon Cross shoots him, but Grendel shrugs it off and leaves.
 
Orion Assante meets with Innocent XLII again, confronting him with his information about the Church's hiring of so many Solar employees.  The Pope doesn't tell him anything, but Orion succeeds in riling him up.  Meanwhile Mother Aimee ramps up the Inquisition, torturing many people. Innocent asks Cross to start investigating Orion as well as Grendel.  He tries to weaken Orion's support on the Board.
 
Orion meets with his various advisors, including Sherri Caniff, the Deva Princes, and his sisters.  He quits the Deva Princes, angered by their inaction and their intent to kill the Pope instead of using legal means.  His assistant Fadi finds out that the Church has plans for a nuclear device in their data storage.  Since the nuclear war that almost destroyed the planet, nukes have been strictly banned.  He brings this information to the Board and they give him more power, allowing him to limit the Church's fund-raising broadcasts.
 
However, when he gets home, he finds out that Sherri Caniff, his main ally on the board, has received a mandatory summons by the Inquisition, where she would certainly be tortured to death.  She's been set up.  They investigate and find out that a man has been blackmailed into lying about her to the Inquisition.  They force him to admit it, and Sherri is freed from the summons.
 
Innocent is furious, and Cross suggests arresting him through his connection with the Deva Princes, not knowing he has already quit. The Devas, meanwhile, make plans to assassinate the Pope, now that Orion no longer blocks it.
 
Orion talks to a Pope from a rival church in Africa, who tells him that Innocent has some kind of strange deal with the System in South America to buy 600 tons of bananas, but he doesn't know why.  Orion also uses his new commissionary powers to block the Pope's fundraising broadcast.
 
Grendel shows up at the live fundraiser, where many people have still come, and where Innocent is in attendance.
 
In this issue, the animal metaphor involves some pigs, which root around, eating and farting.