Crusader

Holy Order
From a tactical standpoint, the holy order fills a similar role to the heavy infantry, which is taking punishment. What makes them better though, is that they start off with higher STR, and the paladin shield. The paladin shield is one of the better shields in the game, and will be one of the BEST shields you can get early. However, once you start investing in shield R&D, you will quickly leave this shield behind. Also, there are some optimization issues in terms of his stats.

So why WOULD you use the holy order? Early caster boosting. Every holy order character will start with SOME magic capabilities, so it's not a completely lost cause.

The Holy Order class as a whole are named after famous christian saints.

Male
Half of the male holy order characters are type 9s, which means they are actually better at sparking spear techs. When you take into account all of types present, for the exception of two, the rest are all better at sparking spear/hammer/axe techs than the sword they start off with. Combine this with the fact that you lose the benefit of the shield when you use a two handed weapon, it means that using them for their best tech fit would actually defeat the whole point of using them for the free shield.

Female
Female holy order characters are AWESOME compared to their male counterparts. Why? Their casting power is routinely higher than MOST of your other casters you have access to, thanks to a low DARK and high MAG. And thanks to the paladin shield, they can take a bit of punishment. In her case, having that shield is almost incidental, since as a caster, she will probably be sitting in the back. But that just sweetens the deal and makes her that much more reliable for a caster. The only downside? She's really slow. When you add in her equipment (that shield is heavy), she's effectively a slug that's guaranteed to always go last. Sofia is also the sister of Toma and Georg who are very important in the Cumberland series of quests.