[ungururuh]

@sacredriver

Spoiler:

What about the pope? Does he ever show up?
The pope does indeed appear in a chapter. He is the one that oversees the "witch blood infusion ritual" and the chapter where we see him is from the perspective of someone else that is groomed to be the next pope. So this character goes to oversee a "witch blood infusion ritual" in the presence of the pope and they have a short discussion.
It is tough to say though what type of human the pope is because it's mostly a neutral exchange of words. Personally I think the current Pope to have lost his emotions (not in the elite soldier way because those soldiers do not have thoughts of their own) but it's hard to say why. My conjecture is that it's due to the large amounts of rituals and witch killings he had to supervise. The rituals aren't quick and they aren't painless and the soldiers are killed immediately on the spot if they deemed not to be able to succeed. The reason given for the "on the spot killing" is that they don't want to see the soldiers suffer before they ultimately die, but who knows, maybe they transform into something else, we can just speculate.

Do we know anything about the higher echelons of the church?
The upper echelons of the church are a mixed opinions and point of views. Some know that the witches power isn't from the devil while some don't, some are there just in pursuit of power while others think that they are doing "Gods work". But all of them agree that killing the witches and gathering elite soldiers while destroying the royal bloodlines too join all the kingdoms together under their rule is the necessary thing to do.
A couple of members are named and some of their intentions are made to some degree clear but unfortunately I am not that good with names so if Mechatrill would help us on that or someone else then I would give them my thanks.