In The Power and the Glory, the whisky priest grapples with his own flaws and moral shortcomings while attempting to uphold his responsibilities to the Catholic community he serves. Despite the danger posed by the government's anti-clerical laws, the whisky priest feels compelled to continue ministering to his flock, risking his own safety to fulfill his spiritual obligations. However, as the novel progresses, the whisky priest's sense of duty becomes increasingly conflicted as he grapples with his own desires for self-preservation and his past sins. In particular, his decision to not give himself up becomes difficult once the authorities begin taking hostages and executing them in an attempt to make him give himself up. In one instance, the whisky priest is present while the lieutenant takes a hostage, but he decides not to reveal his identity. In this moment, the priest’s behavior is not entirely selfish, as he genuinely believes it is his duty to save himself because he is one of the few representations of the Catholic Church left in this society. However, he nonetheless knows that the reason people are dying is because he is still alive.
Soon, many of the small communities reject the whisky priest altogether, asking him to go elsewhere so that he will not put them in danger. Previously, the priest wanted to help these communities, but now he finds that his help has only led to more death and despair. In reality, the communities are helping him by providing him with food, shelter, and lying on his behalf. Meanwhile, his small sacraments feel like an uneven exchange. In the end, the whisky priest engages in a redemptive act of self-sacrifice by placing himself directly in the lieutenant’s path to hear the confession of the “gringo” criminal. It is a purely selfless act that the priest undergoes not only for the sake of the criminal, but for the broader community that the authorities will no longer terrorize once he is caught. Through the priest's internal conflict, Greene prompts readers to consider the moral complexities of duty and sacrifice in the face of persecution. While the novel does not condemn the whisky priest for attempting to uphold his beliefs, it ultimately recognizes that his duty to his community supersedes his duty to himself.
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Duty, Sacrifice, and Persecution Quotes in The Power and the Glory
Far back inside the darkness the mules plodded on. The effect of the brandy had long ago worn off, and the man bore in his brain along the marshy tract-which, when the rains came, would be quite impassable-the sound of the General Obregon's siren. He knew what it meant: the ship had kept to time-table: he was abandoned. He felt an unwilling hatred of the child ahead of him and the sick woman-he was unworthy of what he carried. A smell of damp came up all round him; it was as if this part of the world had never been dried in the flame when the world was sent spinning off into space: it had absorbed only the mist and cloud of those awful spaces. He began to pray, bouncing up and down to the lurching, slithering mules stride, with his brandied tongue: “Let me be caught soon…Let me be caught.”
The old man pushed the coffin aside with his foot the better to approach Padre José: it was small and light and might have contained nothing but bones. “Not a whole service, you understand-just a prayer. She was-innocent,” he said. The word sounded odd and archaic and local in the little stony town, outdated like the Lopez tomb, belonging only here.
“It is against the law.”
The half-caste was calling after him: “Call yourself a Christian.” He had somehow managed to get himself upright. He began to shout abuse—a meaningless series of indecent words which petered out in the forest like the weak blows of a hammer. He whispered: “If I see you again, you can't blame me…” Of course, he had every reason to be angry: he had lost seven hundred pesos. He shrieked hopelessly: “I don't forget a face.”
“In the lamplight Padre José’s face wore an expression of hatred. He said: "Why come to me? Why should you think? I'll call the police if you don't go. You know what sort of a man I am.”
He pleaded gently: “You're a good man, José. I've always known that.”
But what good could he do now? They had him on the run: he dared not enter a village in case somebody else should pay with his life: perhaps a man who was in mortal sin and unrepentant: it was impossible to say what souls might not be lost simply because he was obstinate and proud and wouldn't admit defeat. He couldn't even say Mass any longer—he had no wine. It had all gone down the dry gullet of the Chief of Police. It was appallingly complicated. He was still afraid of death; he would be more afraid of death yet when the morning came, but it was beginning to attract him by its simplicity.
The priest tore off some of the raw meat with his teeth and began to chew: no food had ever tasted so good, and now that for the moment he was happy he began to feel a little pity. He thought: I will eat just so much and she can have the rest. He marked mentally a point upon the bone and tore off another piece. The nausea he had felt for hours now began to die away and leave an honest hunger: he ate on and the bitch watched him. Now that the fight was over she seemed to bear no malice: her tail began to beat the floor, hopefully, questioningly. The priest reached the point he had marked, but now it seemed to him that his previous hunger had been imaginary: this was hunger, what he felt now: a man's need was greater than a dog's: he would leave that knuckle of meat at the joint. But when the moment came he ate that too-after all, the dog had teeth: she would eat the bone itself. He dropped it under her muzzle and left the kitchen.
“If you would let me come in,” the man said with an odd frightened smile, and suddenly lowering his voice he said to the boy: “I am a priest."
“You?” the boy exclaimed.
“Yes,” he said gently. “My name is Father—” But the boy had already swung the door open and put his lips to his hand before the other could give himself a name.
