Once I set the Absolute Cognatic Succession Law, will that remain even if my heir isn't Cathar?
I've converted to catharism and set the succession law to absolute cognatic: will that remain set even if my heir is not a cathar himself?
Alright, so this question got me curious enough to dive into the game files to try to set up a situation like what you've experienced to see what the game will do.
So here we have King Guinea of the mighty and ancient house of O'Pig:
Now King Guinea O'Pig has lived a long, long life, recently celebrating his 100th birthday. In that time, he's had two children, his eldest Gwenny O'Pig:
And his youngest, Porky O'Pig:
At the party, some say addled by advanced age, others by years of blasphemous, heretical lies, he made the declaration that his daughter Gwenny, a woman of all things, should have equal standing in terms of inheritance.
On his inevitable and swift trip to meet the reaper, Gwenny became the new ruler of Laigin, herself the mother of two children, an older daughter and a younger son.
Strangely enough, Gwenny rather liked the idea of holding onto power, and of allowing her daughter to inherit just the same as she did, despite having never held to her father's bizarre, unorthodox religious delusions.
As such, she made the decision to keep laws as they were, even if they contradicted the "norm" for her faith.
So there you have it. If this little experiment is anything to go by, it does indeed appear that even on the inheritance of a non-heretic character, a succession law allowed only by being of that heresy will stick. I may just have to see if switching Gwenny and Porky's ages has any effect.
Edit: After trying it out with the two children's age's flipped, I can confirm that even if Porky inherits rather than Gwenny, the succession law remains unchanged.