The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene, 2 of 3

Part 2: The Text

I think one element of truly successful Catholic literature is that the work can be read, appreciated, and discussed without being treated as a devotional text; in other words, its Catholicism is essential and yet one does not need to be Catholic (or Christian) to appreciate the work. Greene's novel fits.

The theology of the novel focuses on the character/concept of priest as father and representation of Christ. The whisky priest, Father Jose, and all other members of the clergy alluded to within the text are "officially" unacceptable, and yet the whisky priest's true theology is his personal suffering and self-doubt.

Greene is clever in avoiding polarization between the priest and the lieutenant, whose atheism is both pragmatic and reasonable in the context of this world: "There was something of a priest in his intent observant walk-a theologian going back over the errors of the past to destroy them again." Later the lieutenant claims "One day they'll forget there ever was a Church here," which of course is the fatal flaw of his philosophy. The text makes clear that the Mexican church was bloated, indulged, and overwrought, but the problem was the administration of that church, not the faith belief; the lieutenant has mistakenly yoked a disdain for certain clergy with a desire to whitewash belief systems.

The priest feels unworthy: he mangles sermons, mumbles confessions. He is truly aware of the inadequacy of his corporeal: this is a Mexico where insects "burst," where bodies are flaked by hunger. The layers of Greene's novel allow him to unfold this theological backdrop against a relatively standard chase-thriller, with a last act betrayal that has been sufficiently rehearsed.

My favorite quote from the novel is some third-person subjective thought of the whisky priest:

"How often the priest had heard the same confession--Man was so limited: he hadn't even the ingenuity to invent a new vice: the animals knew as much. It was for this world that Christ had died: the more evil you saw and heard about you, the greater glory lay around the death; it was too easy to die for what was good or beautiful, for home or children or a civilization--it needed a God to die for the half-hearted and the corrupt."

I say Amen, but this is what got Greene in trouble with the church.

Part 3: The Reaction