Then there is the haunting image of the priest-hunting lieutenant. There is then, the image of the famished, alcoholic priest, who spends his last remaining few pesos on wine – not to drink, but to consecrate: to bring God sacramentally present in a world where the Sacraments have all but been eliminated. For if Greene offers countless vignettes of fallenness, he also includes countless glimpses of heroism, compassion and love – the latter paradoxically intermeshed with the former. It is the joy of the novel that it is so, so much more, as well. Now, if these human failures were all there was to this book, it might collapse under a weight of despair. The result is an achingly poignant, honest confrontation with the fallen-ness of our condition. A little lack of courage here a little bit of autistic incomprehension and insensitivity there … and a little dash of sheer malice over there.
Tinctures spanning a wide spectrum from malevolence, hatred, contempt and fear to tenderness, heroism, frailty, love and compassion – as well as sublime faith in and dedication to God …Īll the little ways we human beings hurt each other are soberly realised indeed in this novel. Yes, I recognise it, as Greene bears witness to the tragedy of the human condition.Īnd I recognise it as he observes the human heart in all its ever shifting tinctures. And I certainly recognise it in Graham Greene. But it is relatively easier to recognise it, when one sees it. ‘A unique way of envisioning the world’: It is not easy to name all which that Imagination entails.
Now, some have called this “The Catholic Imagination”, implying that the practice of the Catholic and Christian religion – with its Sacraments – bestows a unique way of envisioning the world. I mean to say this is a book possessed of a deeply Catholic sensibility and vision.
He is being hunted to the death in a wretchedly poor 1930s’ Mexican state, which has outlawed the Church with the decree: “Kill all the priests” …īut no, by calling this book Catholic, I mean to say far more than the fact that its subject matter concerns the clergy or Church-State relations. What words, what phrases of mine can possibly render justice to this masterpiece: Graham Greene’s The Power and the Glory?įor here is true literature, in which one finds the most acute observation of the human condition, in all its frailty and fallen-ness.įallen-ness: One may draw the word from Christianity and Catholicism – and this is a book that is very, very Catholic.īy this, I mean to say that this is not merely a book whose subject matter is explicitly Catholic.įor it concerns the plight of an alcoholic Mexican priest being hunted for his life.
Human, so very, very human and yet also about the power of God … Haunting, poignant, tragic, noble, heroic, tender, heart-wrenchingly beautiful.
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