The Power and The Glory by Graham Greene is a Magnum opus included on the All-TIME 100 Novels list https://entertainment.time.com/2005/10/16/all-time-100-novels/

10 out of 10

Graham Greene is (even if not alive anymore, He still ‘lives’ through his eternal Magnum opera) one of the greatest novelists of mankind and he may hold the record of most works included on the relevant best lists, equaled perhaps by another phenomenal luminary, Evelyn Waugh – incidentally, the two authors had a lot in common, from their conversion to Catholicism to their reading history at Oxford and their friendship and mutual admiration…

The Power and The Glory is an outstanding…Glorious masterpiece, which gives readers the opportunity to meet an incredible, indeed, unlikely hero, the Whisky Priest, a man that has to face his limitations, anxiety, addiction to alcohol, poverty, pride, but who is at the same time a Role Model, in that he still commits to his duty as a priest, trying to offer solace under impossible circumstances, seeing that the Mexican government tries to have the clergy killed (or give up their vocation and positions) in the 1930s, considering them more dangerous and reprehensible than murderers…

When the hero is wanted by the law, they are also looking for an American who had killed people, but they set the reward for information leading to the catching of the priest at seven hundred pesos, higher than the one fixed for the murderer, and the clergy is considered a traitor – there are quite a few outstanding dialogues that look at religion, the bible (the title itself refers to the Lord’s Prayer ‘For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, forever and ever, amen’) and when the nemesis talks to the priest, the former accuses the clergy of being false, protecting the rich and turning a blind eye when the land owners killed peasants (those are his people), furthermore, they also charge for their services…

Our Whiskey Priest has indeed all the shortcomings of a normal human being and probably a little more, but this is crucial for his profile and it makes him so much more likeable (at times, perhaps the word is adorable, though that sounds like he is a cute cat, so maybe the better word is admirable) as he is fighting with his weakness, the traps he finds himself in, the vices (for those who believe in the term, and more generally, in god, the figure who decides what is virtuous and what sinful…sex outside marriage, to name just one false step for Catholics, and by the way, he is a catholic that meets with different faiths…some German American who offers him refuge talks about something which I also loath at most religions, the lavish spending on trinkets, expensive paraphernalia, gold on walls, elaborate garments…the head of the local church, Romanian Orthodox is more of a crook that a Whisky Priest, the one in this novel is millions of times more suitable, virtuous and holly than this sleaze bag, who drives in a Maybach, for he is not satisfied with a hugely expensive Mercedes, he needs a car that would feed a small town, with the money it costs, for a few years) and he is not the strong human who has no problems controlling his urges, teetotaler who does not find alcohol attractive…

In the opening of the chef d’oeuvre, our main character spends some time with a dentist, and shares with him the little alcohol he has, until he is called to his duty and though he could have escaped the danger, he travels to see a dying woman…he will try to respond to the needs of Christians throughout this Tabasco state, though he is to be shot when found, and if there is a charge, he is willing to lower it for the poor people – he dreams of buying some clothes, so that he does not show in the next village as a destitute, a pauper who looks like a vagrant, but this will not happen – and he has some close encounters with the police looking for him…in fact, the under signed has been thinking of…Dostoevsky.

Fyodor Dostoevsky had been sentenced to die, much like our protagonist, who looks set to die and indeed, at times he wants to finish this life on the road, with little food and people shot because of him (the lieutenant that leads the hunt had decided to take hostages from the villages and if they do not report the movements of the fugitive, the men taken would be shot), and the Russian giant writes about the last minutes in the life of a man who is facing his final departure, because Dostoevsky himself had three minutes before the firing squad and this is when he saw how wonderful life is, according to what we can learn from his brilliant masterpieces http://realini.blogspot.com/2017/08/dostoevsky-and-positive-psychology-by.html

The Whisky Priest is in a village, where he exchanges his garments with those of a peasant…they tell him that they are poor and have no money – he thinks of what he had learned from others, the fact that what they do not pay for, the villagers do not value – but for his ‘services’, the hero is asking for a change of clothes…the lieutenant and his troops arrive in the place and then they start a public interrogatory, nearly catching the priest, when talking to his daughter (yes, Catholic and he has a daughter, but he is repentant, not on this matter, for he loves his child profoundly, he wishes that he had the same feeling for humanity, and he is the one who keeps showing modesty, remorse, repeating that he is a ‘bad priest’ and when the lieutenant says that ‘maybe the church is better off without him’ he agrees that it is possible)

The protagonist escapes that situation, but one may feel for a while that he should have given himself up, especially when they take a hostage from that village – the priest offers himself as a prisoner, not by admitting he is the wanted man, for he has a duty to try and escape, perhaps because committing suicide, which surrender would be equivalent to, is not allowed by the church or god, actually it would be both, isn’t it…but by saying he is old and no good in the fields anymore and the lieutenant rejects the offer, saying that is he is no good at work, he does not qualify, he is not taking lazy ones to keep them sheltered .

The runaway meets with a mestizo on the road and the latter will play the role of Judas, first figuring that the traveler is the priest, asking questions and setting up traps, such as asking for confession, which the priest cannot refuse…well, this heroic figure, for most of the others have played the government’s game, by marrying and breaking thus the vow of celibacy and taking a pension from the state – there is the negative example, in contrast with the Whisky Priest, of Padre Jose, the latter refuses to give shelter at one point, and later, when his ‘colleague’ wants to confess, albeit he is inclined to oblige, when his massive wife interferes, he retreats and the poor, now cornered hero may have nobody to listen to his (maybe last) confession…

Some notes on Graham Greene works are here:

http://realini.blogspot.com/2017/04/the-heart-of-matter-by-graham-greene.html

http://realini.blogspot.com/2021/11/the-ministry-of-fear-by-graham-greene.html

http://realini.blogspot.com/2014/07/travels-with-my-aunt-by-graham-greene.html

http://realini.blogspot.com/2020/05/this-gun-for-hire-aka-gun-for-sale-by.html

http://realini.blogspot.com/2016/07/the-end-of-affair-by-graham-greene.html