Page "Spira (Final Fantasy)" Paragraph 49

Late in the game, it is revealed that the Final Summoning has no true hope of ever defeating Sin, and is simply a ruse to keep the clergy in power and the people ignorant as to Sin ’ s true nature.

The Yevon religion commands that a summoner have at least one Guardian ; this is to ensure that when a summoner reaches Zanarkand, there is always an available soul to become the Final Aeon.

Because Guardians are not allowed within Fayth Chambers, they are not aware of many of the secrets of Yevon, and by the time they do become aware of any possible secrets, the death of Summoner and Guardian effectively keeps the secret.

The maesters ( with the possible exception of Kelk Ronso ; it is never revealed how many of the church ’ s secrets he does and does not know ) know full well of this deception, but continue to instill it in the people to remain in power.

It is also revealed that Yo Mika, the man who has been Yevon ’ s grand maester for the past fifty years, is actually an unsent.

Likewise it is revealed that Yevon set up the disastrous Operation Mi ’ ihen as nothing more than a means to instill further loyalty to the teachings.

By making the Crusaders use machina that the church knew would never win against Sin, the church set them up to fall.

The plan was that the Crusaders who used the machina would be ex-communicated ; then when the Operation was a disaster any survivors would come to the conclusion that the only path to destroy Sin lay in the teachings ( using forbidden machina clearly didn ’ t work ), and that any path that deviated from Yevon would lead to ruin.

Through several clever manipulations such as these, the church has continued to remain in power.