The Power and the Glory

An era of virulent anti-CatholicFollower of the Catholic church, a Christian denomination with over a billion followers worldwide, led by the Pope. persecution provides the backdrop for Graham Greene’s 1940 novel The Power and the Glory. The novel is set in southern Mexico, where Catholic churches are closed and priests are exiled. The state uses propagandaInformation, which may be biased or misleading, used to promote a certain viewpoint. rather than religion to provide order and meaning in its citizens’ lives. This is based on a real moment in history, in the 1920s and 1930s, when the Mexican government did attempt to suppress the Catholic Church. The novel’s main character is The Whisky Priest — a priest who combines undoubted personal flaws with a genuinely deep commitment to his religious duties. For example, despite the expectation that Catholic priests remain celibate, he is father to a child. He is also an alcoholic. The central dynamic running through the plot is his struggle with The Lieutenant, his mirror image. This police officer is committed to eradicating the Catholic church, a goal that he carried out by taking hostages from villages suspected of giving shelter to priests. However, he also shows virtue in his personal dealings, such as by showing compassion for the poor. Using this dynamic, Greene explores the meaning of morality. Can one be both faithful and flawed? Can one be virtuousHaving or showing high moral standards but also oppressive? Good and evil, Greene suggests, are not separate and opposing categories, but composed of characteristics that co-exist within all of us.