Actually, all the Abbot needs to affect the Temper of the Divine Aura is a decent Presence and Leadership. I'd also suggest that commanding a nasty faerie to tear apart a monastery is an incredibly bad and dangerous idea. First off, a direct assault on innocent believers by supernatural forces will only make divine intervention in the form of a miracle even more likely. Second, how are magi supposed to find and control a faerie powerful enough to use its powers in the Dominion? Third, by setting up a faerie to take the blame wouldn't the magi responsible be violating the Code by indirectly molesting the fae, in addition to provoking the wrath of the mundanes?
Breaking the Code by doing the very same thing the ex-diabolist himself is guilty of? Of course there would be repercussions. Big, horrible ones. It's entirely possible that his former demon patrons would be out for revenge, but if they succeeded in killing him they'd make doubly sure it looked as if magi were involved.
Ah, no they don't. He confessed all his sins, renounced magic and infernalism, took holy orders and is currently doing the whole hair shirt, sack-cloth and ashes thing. He's en route to Heaven, or at least Purgatory, unless he commits another mortal sin and dies before he can receive absolution. (see RoP Infernal, p. 22)
Well, Hell would certainly get the souls of any magi who killed a penitent sinner and didn't see any need to do penance for the deed themselves.
I think we have a very differing view when it comes to the frequency with which there should be miracles and/or direct intervention by god into the world. I view these as extremely momentous and rare events, not something any given PC action is all too terribly likely to evoke unless it serves a very particular and unique function in a given story. The rest of the time I would be more inclined to rely upon the intervention of the divine realm taking the form of angels or practitioners of divine methods/powers, and these 'are' contestable IMO.
Ultimately, under the code, the provision with regard to mundanes as I've pointed out prohibits 'interference' in the mundane. It does not give mundanes the right to interfere in wizardly affairs and this has been shown in peripheral code rulings in canon. The renegade magus is a rightful issue/matter the Order would perceive as belonging to them, not to the church. Depending on the saga and the relationship that is present there may be more diplomatic recourses to undertake in regards to solving the problem... however... my point is that the code doesn't protect the monastery in this situation, in fact it 'green lights' whatever someone hunting that renegade may decide to do because the monastery is knowingly choosing to involve itself in wizardly/Order affairs, not vice versa.
Now to Faeries. You find a faerie by 'scouring' in a faerie forest. Very simple. You probably break the code, if you can be determined to have been involved, by making the church mad at faeries. If anyone survives to tell the tale. But that is about it. If you have enough of a summoning total, you should be able to summon something big and bad enough to handle anyone who doesn't have methods/powers or angelic protection.
Putting it in a bottle afterwards was to keep the other fae from knowing you are the big bad mage that got them the bad wrap. YMMV. You could just as easily summon up a magic realm oriented spirit and avoid all of said issues with probably a little more 'oumph' under your belt anyway. But then you aren't deflecting any possible blame from Magi and Order onto Faeries. Again, YMMV.
This seems like a very vast and saga specific assumption as to the motivation and desires of demons and their attitudes towards Magi. If they are always trying to make Magi look bad, get them killed, or kill them... it is a given that demons will not be on 'good' terms with almost all Magi. Corruption is a much more subtle art.
Demon: "Hey, I'll help you hunt down that renegade. No problem. He pissed off my boss to anyway. But, uh, nothing is free .... ( insert nefarious offer that isn't quite bad enough to be turned down out of hand. )"
Well, I'm not saying miracles should be common occurrences at all. However, the rules given in RoP: Divine (p.61) do make it clear that it's much easier for innocent believers to receive divine aid when they're under direct supernatural attack.
Obviously I haven't read any of the Peripheral Code rulings in sourcebooks that give magi sole jurisdiction over Hermetic crimes. Some priests and nobles might indeed be inclined to let the magi get on with policing their Order, but I really don't think that would extend to allowing the destruction of a monastery when the monks are just doing their Christian duty by offering the prospect of salvation to a penitent sinner. Furthermore, in my sagas priests, especially very senior ones, tend to be of the opinion that no authority on earth is above Canon Law. I base this supposition on the various disputes that medieval popes had with kings and emperors as to who was calling all the shots. Therefore in this situation the Abbot feels he is answering to a higher authority and even if if he knew what rights magi felt they had he wouldn't care.
It all sounds just about as despicable as everything the diabolist was accused of. Breaking the Code in order to punish another breach of the Code. Very moral. And I'm sorry, but take a look at the Realm Interaction Table again. Even without the aid of divine methods/powers and angelic protection, the Divine Aura is going to cause massive problems for any Faerie or Magical creature sent in to wreak havoc.
Well, if magi went hunting down nasty faeries and magical creatures to sic on monks, I think that would be quite enough corruption to get them into Hell without any demon having to lift a finger. I think demons would be more likely to just quietly encourage the magi to pursue such schemes in order to kill the renegade, and suggest to them that they have no need to acknowledge the laws of God and the Church.
You seem to have a view in which the Order is integrated into normal society rather than secluded from it, which is different than mine.
The point isn't that the abbot is going to think the magi have a right to his penitent diabolist. I agree, he is likely to stand on canon law if the matter is debated. It is that the wizard's law says that they not only have a right to him, but a duty to kill/harm them, and the wizard doesn't necessarily need to care that the abbot doesn't agree. The Code doesn't say he must, it in fact says he must kill the renegade, and people standing in the way are fair game.
Will there be a reaction from the devout magi of the tribunal if he obliterates the whole monastery in the process? Sure.
Enough for him to get into actual legal trouble? That is a political question.
My point is that the assumption that the PCs 'must' come to some sort of terms with the abbot because the other options are socially unacceptable is a 'large' assumption that doesn't necessarily hold true.
A more likely scenario the assassination ploy described by Ladyphoenix. But a militant pagan who has enough friends to think he can get away with may just destroy the whole place because he feels he has the legal pretext to do so, and wants to anyway.
I didn't realise we were having some form of moral debate? I thought we were discussing a game? I'd appreciatte it if you could refrain from being morally, or otherwise for that matter, condescending.
And, playing a summoner, part of the point is avoiding rolls in such situations. Whip up your spirit retinue ahead of time, go where you want to, and when the action comes... the spirits spend might and stuff happens. No nasty botches. Reduced penetration, sure, but magic resistance isn't so common that every random abbot has it. Like I said... a methods/powers guy? Whole different ballgame. Random schmuck priest, no methods/powers, no angels, no miracles?
You seem offended by the idea that this exact type of person is, matter of course, a non-challenge to a mage. To me that is simply a factor of the setting and, more often than not, something I like about it.
First off, all faerie/demonic mights are reduced by the aura (so goes their magic resistance), second penetration on all their powers drops a lot, third, there is matter of getting in uncaught. and finally there is fact that supernatural attacks are much more likely to bring divine response.
I always liked the way Christopher Stasheff dealt with it in his Wizard in Rhyme series. Where demons and angels of the same might clash, the angel wins. Where the supernatural foes directly intervene, heaven is just waiting for a direct invitation to send the countering force. Only as long as it is just men acting against men will heaven refuse the aid.
Consider you have a sinner that repented of major evils and retired to monestery to pray with incredible furvor, he is going to have a guardian angel most likely against attacks by demons and faeries. Veils of invisibility and assassination by man on the other hand is much more likely to succeed. THat said, if this guy really repented, the monestary is going to know rough powers of magi and how they work and the most common sorts of threats mages represent.
A natural seeming death though is always best since they will assume that god took him as it was his time. He repented, received absolution and then died at peace. It might even work in order's favor to shift a church focus to save the magi rather than burn the witches as there is a success story to refer to.
Sorry if anything I said sounded condescending, but to be entirely honest with you I did find some of your comments just a little condescending as well. "I think we have a very differing view when it comes to the frequency with which there should be miracles and/or direct intervention by god into the world," for instance, does carry a very slight tone of "I'm right, you're wrong" about it, as does "You seem to have a view in which the Order is integrated into normal society rather than secluded from it, which is different than mine." That's assuming quite a bit. If that really were the case, for instance, the magi would probably find it much easier to just ask the abbot to hand the outcast over, and he would probably have less trouble with the idea that Hermetic law should deal with Hermetic crimes.
As for a moral debate, I personally don't have a view on the issue one way or the other as a Storyguide. There are PC and NPC magi in my sagas that doubtless think that whatever they did to kill this renounced magus would be necessary and acceptable under Hermetic law. Others would strongly disagree, and probably condemn their actions as being just as bad as the one who was cast out. If every magus just agreed that they should go ahead and attack the monastery it wouldn't make for a very interesting story, especially given that House Guernicus has strong Christian sympathies, as do various magi in Houses Flambeau and Jerbiton, among others. Furthermore, as I pointed out, a number of things magi could do in this situation, e.g. attacking the monastery or arranging a "natural death," would clearly provoke the wrath of mundanes if discovered (and I think there must be a risk of discovery), and that's not just a political issue. Some magi would strongly argue at Tribunal that it would be a violation of the Code in order to punish another violation, and consider it unacceptable.
My other point is that obviously, a divine mystic with True Faith, powers and methods is going to be a serious obstacle to anything the magi want to do, but otherwise, it's still going to be a major hassle because of the Divine Aura as ladyphoenix rightly points out:
Couldn't have put it better myself. I also agree that many magi would want to deal with this as subtly as possible, but that even a death they somehow arranged to look natural might get found out. I say "might," not "would." Some monks would probably be suspicious under any circumstances, and as I said, they don't need True Faith, Methods or Powers to bring about a Just Temper in the Divine Aura, just decent Presence and Leadership.
So all in all, I'm not at all of the opinion that this is a "non-challenge" for magi. I just don't think they can handle the issue any way they please without incurring some serious risks. Nevertheless, it's inevitable that someone is going to try something, maybe successfully, maybe not.
A just tempering of aura won't cause evidence that doesn't exist to appear and won't cause magi that killed and left to be revealed. Subtle magic that kills isn't necessarily going to leave any traces. They don't do autopsies and even if they did, they lack modern forensic science to know what is truly adnormal.
Well, right enough. All the same, magi would still have a hard time killing someone with magic in the Dominion, no matter how subtly they went about it. Besides, they'd have to be very, very careful about not leaving behind an obvious wizard's sigil.
Get a normal POF item with boosted penetration and the magus is toast. Not subtle, though, that is true. The best thing when you ar ein a powerful hostile aura is not to cast spells at all. Saves a lot of trouble with nasty botches. One of our mages was chastised by Peter himself for being over-inquisitive during twilight after a 5-botch roll in the Vatican. He lost the ability to use intellego for 5 years (BAD twilight effect). I think 90% of the troupes run at least one adventure in the vatican We learned the lesson
What I probably would do would try to get a lab total of about 40. Not that hard at all.
Create charged magic item with 1 charge to put the guy to sleep. (Reme 10, +30 for penetraton 60). I would arrange for a lethal poison and then another charged magic item (PeXX where XX is form of the poison An, He or Te) to destroy all traces of the poison from the body.
Then Use veil of invisibility (no stress if you cast it outside the edge of the dominion) and walk in at night. Use the first item to insure the former magus is asleep, administer the poison and then use second spell to remove poison traces.
Alternatively item 1 to freeze his body so he can't move or talk and then use pillow to suffocate him.
Either way, there is no traces left, no one sees you come or go, death looks natural to all but magic or divine messenger betraying you and no stress rolls to blow up in your face.
As was mentioned, if you are going to be doing things where mundane authorities might be investigating then you should take every effort to be subtle and smooth.
The best thing when you ar ein a powerful hostile aura is not to cast spells at all. Saves a lot of trouble with nasty botches. One of our mages was chastised by Peter himself for being over-inquisitive during twilight after a 5-botch roll in the Vatican. He lost the ability to use intellego for 5 years (BAD twilight effect). I think 90% of the troupes run at least one adventure in the vatican 
