The Power and the Glory is interested in the interplay between secular authority and spiritual belief in a society marked by political turmoil and religious persecution. Set against the backdrop of 1930s Mexico, the novel examines the antagonistic relationship between the Mexican government (controlled by the Red Shirts) and Catholicism. Throughout the novel, Greene portrays the Red Shirts as a repressive force seeking to eradicate Catholicism and establish its own authority as the ultimate power. The lieutenant, representing the government's ruthless pursuit of ideological purity, is relentless in his mission to hunt down and eliminate priests, viewing them as a threat to the regime's control over the masses. His zealous determination to enforce anti-clerical laws and suppress religious dissent demonstrates the government’s larger attempt to maintain absolute control over the populace.
In contrast, Greene depicts Catholicism as a subversive force, defiantly resisting government oppression and offering solace to those in need. Despite the persecution and danger they face, Catholic priests continue to administer sacraments in secret. The whisky priest, in particular, emerges as a force of spiritual resilience and moral integrity, despite his sense of personal failure and inadequacy. In the novel’s climax, the whisky priest knowingly sacrifices his life because of the slight possibility that someone wishes to confess their sins to him. He goes to his death boldly in spite of his fear because of his belief in serving a higher purpose. While the novel does not pretend that Catholicism is a perfect system, the religion nonetheless emerges as an important force that is largely preferable to the government of the Red Shirts. As such, the novel argues for the value of religious belief in a world of secular governance because of an enduring confidence that religious faith will ultimately overcome tyrannical regimes.
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Government vs. Religion ThemeTracker
Government vs. Religion Quotes in The Power and the Glory
Mr. Tench went out to look for his ether cylinder: out into the blazing Mexican sun and the bleaching dust. A few buzzards looked down from the roof with shabby indifference: he wasn't carrion yet. A faint feeling of rebellion stirred in Mr. Tench's heart, and he wrenched up a piece of the road with splintering finger-nails and tossed it feebly up at them. One of them rose and flapped across the town: over the tiny plaza, over the bust of an ex-president, ex-general, ex-human being, over the two stalls which sold mineral water, towards the river and the sea. It wouldn't find anything there: the sharks looked after the carrion on that side. Mr. Tench went on across the plaza.
“He sipped at it. It was like an indulgence. He said: "You remember this place before—before the Red Shirts came?”
“I suppose I do.”
“How happy it was then.”
“Was it? I didn't notice.”
"They had at any rate—God.”
“There's no difference in the teeth,” Mr. Tench said. He gave himself some more of the stranger's brandy. “It was always an awful place. Lonely. My God. People at home would have said romance. I thought: five years here, and then I'll go. There was plenty of work. Gold teeth. But then the peso dropped. And now I can't get out. One day I will.”
“The lieutenant said suddenly: “I will tell you what I'd do. I would take a man from every village in the state as a hostage. If the villagers didn't report the man when he came, the hostages would be shot-and then we'd take more.”
“A lot of them would die, of course.”
“Wouldn't it be worth it?" the lieutenant said with a kind of exultation. "To be rid of those people forever.”
“You know," the chief said, "you've got something there.”
He stood with his hand on his holster and watched the brown intent patient eyes: it was for these he was fighting. He would eliminate from their childhood everything which had made him miserable, all that was poor, superstitious, and corrupt. They deserved nothing less than the truth-a vacant universe and a cooling world, the right to be happy in any way they chose. He was quite prepared to make a massacre for their sakes-first the Church and then the foreigner and then the politician-even his own chief would one day have to go. He wanted to begin the world again with them, in a desert.
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.
They toasted each other, all three sitting on the bed-the beggar drank brandy. The Governor's cousin said: “I'm proud of this wine. It's good wine. The best California.” The beggar winked and motioned and the man in drill said: “One more glass, your Excellency—or I can recommend this brandy.”
“He doesn't really matter, but the Governor's found there's still a priest, and you know what he feels about that. If it was me, I'd let the poor devil alone. He'd starve or die of fever or give up. He can't be doing any good—or any harm. Why, nobody even noticed he was about till a few months ago.”
The lieutenant rode for a little while in silence: they came to the cemetery, full of chipped angels, and passed the great portico with its black letters: Silencio. He said: “All right. You can have him.” He wouldn't look at the cemetery as they went by-there was the wall where the prisoners were shot. The road went steeply down-hill towards the river: on the right, where the cathedral had been, the iron swings stood empty in the hot afternoon. There was a sense of desolation everywhere, more of it than in the mountains because a lot of life had once existed here. The lieutenant thought: No pulse, no breath, no heart-beat, but it's still life-we've only got to find a name for it. A small boy watched them pass: he called out to the lieutenant: “Lieutenant, have you got him?” and the lieutenant dimly remembered the face—one day in the plaza—a broken bottle, and he tried to smile back, an odd sour grimace, without triumph or hope. One had to begin again with that.
The crash of the rifles shook Mr. Tench: they seemed to vibrate inside his own guts; he felt rather sick and shut his eyes. Then there was a single shot, and opening his eyes again he saw the officer stuffing his gun back into his holster, and the little man was a routine heap beside the wall-something unimportant which had to be cleared away. Two knock-kneed men approached quickly. This was an arena, and there was the bull dead, and there was nothing more to wait for any longer.
