He concerns himself unduly for enjoying a few days of rest at the Lehrs' home, and while there, he is immediately conscious of his tendency to return to his old, stilted ways, so sensitized is his conscience to any possible rumblings of sin. He feels guilty because he loves the offspring of his sin, Brigitta he suspects that his refusal to leave Mexico stems merely from pride he broods over taking a lump of sugar from a dead child and snatching a bone from a dying dog -even though he himself is starving. He was pompous in the early days of his priesthood he subjugated emotions and concern for others to intellectual gymnastics he did commit adultery and he does drink far too much and might well be an alcoholic.īut his imagined crimes, he feels, are much worse. Greene's priest, however, does have reason to repent.
To such a man, virtues become vices and, added to valid guilt, they almost overpower him. Greene's priest has a tender conscience and a tendency to see only the evil in his actions and to exaggerate his blemishes. The nameless priest becomes Everyman, picking his way through the labyrinths of Mexico's mountain ranges and swamps in his attempt to do God's will, even though his spiritual situation is unnecessarily complicated by issues that would bother no one but the priest himself. But the priest has the capacity - and the opportunity - to analyze theological problems that have always troubled humankind. Greene has chosen a most complex man to carry the burden of his theological ideas. The novel alternates between these two positions, focusing on the priest's own ruminations concerning the state of his soul. In her eyes, the priest is merely a drunk, a lecher, a jester at Church precepts, and, above all, a sinner who will not repent. The second view is expressed by the pious woman incarcerated with the priest. We discover, however, that Calver did write the note. Even his death is caused by his sense of duty: he could have stayed across the mountains in safety, but he chose instead to administer Last Rites to the dying outlaw, Calver, although he sensed that he would be wasting his time and that the message summoning him was almost assuredly a police trick.
The clergyman has lived in the most dire conditions for years in Mexico - half-starved, assaulted by fever and the police - simply to carry out God's will. The first view sees the priest's holiness as almost a truism. In his treatment of the fugitive, Greene offers two possible views of the protagonist's plight, and he allows his readers to form their own conclusions concerning the priest's fate in eternity. In The Power and the Glory, Greene examines the bases of sin and salvation by focusing on the final months in the life of a man who is the last priest still practicing his calling in Mexico.
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