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A review by julesjoulesjewels
The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene
4.0
This is certainly a book that leaves you with a lot to grapple with, making it an excellent read for Lent. Some of it is hopeful, most of it is bleak, but all of it is poignant.
I think my favorite thing that Greene does with this novel is make the important comparison between how martyrs are remembered and how their lives are actually led; the storybook martyr, Juan, never wavers in his faith and meets death smiling, while the "whiskey priest" at the heart of the novel struggles in a very human way with real lapses in faith and real despair.
I want to place emphasis on the word "real," too, because it goes beyond internal doubt. Everyone can forgive a few moments of internal doubt when it comes to faith in God; that's something priests talk about in homilies often enough. As the persecution of the Catholic church becomes more severe and the whiskey priest finds himself in more immediate danger, however, he responds with outright human cowardice, abandoning his duties and observances as a priest one by one. He falls into despair, which leads him to fall into alcoholism, which leads him to commit the mortal sin of fornication and thereby father a child.
One of the key questions at the heart of this novel is whether or not these sins, seen as egregious by a solid percentage of layfolk and clergy alike and made especially egregious by the fact that they are committed by a priest, cancel out his moments of strength and the good he still finds a way to do, even amid his despair. The whiskey priest does not die nobly; he dies drunk and terrified and unable to put his heart into an act of contrition. But the whiskey priest also saw all of the worst of humanity, in jails and in slums, in an old drifter who betrayed him for money and in the false righteousness of a pious woman, and still recognized that it was for all of this that his savior had died. He still tried, to the best of his ability, to love these people as he loved his own daughter. Even at his worst, even when he resented it, he never turned away someone's confession and he never refused a request to say Mass. All of that, to me, is more powerful and more moving than the unshakable faith of storybook martyrs, because it is more human.
Saints and martyrs are often placed upon an untouchable pedestal, because it makes us more comfortable to see things like sainthood and martyrdom as unobtainable. It takes the pressure off of us. "Nobody's perfect," we tell ourselves. The Power and the Glory challenges us to see these saints and martyrs as they were: as human beings. It challenges us, in our own human lives, to continue the struggle that is loving one another, even amid our despair and our failings. It challenges us never to give up on each other, even when we see ourselves as irredeemable.
In a lot of ways, that's more difficult than being unshakable. In a lot of ways, that's more noble.
I think my favorite thing that Greene does with this novel is make the important comparison between how martyrs are remembered and how their lives are actually led; the storybook martyr, Juan, never wavers in his faith and meets death smiling, while the "whiskey priest" at the heart of the novel struggles in a very human way with real lapses in faith and real despair.
I want to place emphasis on the word "real," too, because it goes beyond internal doubt. Everyone can forgive a few moments of internal doubt when it comes to faith in God; that's something priests talk about in homilies often enough. As the persecution of the Catholic church becomes more severe and the whiskey priest finds himself in more immediate danger, however, he responds with outright human cowardice, abandoning his duties and observances as a priest one by one. He falls into despair, which leads him to fall into alcoholism, which leads him to commit the mortal sin of fornication and thereby father a child.
One of the key questions at the heart of this novel is whether or not these sins, seen as egregious by a solid percentage of layfolk and clergy alike and made especially egregious by the fact that they are committed by a priest, cancel out his moments of strength and the good he still finds a way to do, even amid his despair. The whiskey priest does not die nobly; he dies drunk and terrified and unable to put his heart into an act of contrition. But the whiskey priest also saw all of the worst of humanity, in jails and in slums, in an old drifter who betrayed him for money and in the false righteousness of a pious woman, and still recognized that it was for all of this that his savior had died. He still tried, to the best of his ability, to love these people as he loved his own daughter. Even at his worst, even when he resented it, he never turned away someone's confession and he never refused a request to say Mass. All of that, to me, is more powerful and more moving than the unshakable faith of storybook martyrs, because it is more human.
Saints and martyrs are often placed upon an untouchable pedestal, because it makes us more comfortable to see things like sainthood and martyrdom as unobtainable. It takes the pressure off of us. "Nobody's perfect," we tell ourselves. The Power and the Glory challenges us to see these saints and martyrs as they were: as human beings. It challenges us, in our own human lives, to continue the struggle that is loving one another, even amid our despair and our failings. It challenges us never to give up on each other, even when we see ourselves as irredeemable.
In a lot of ways, that's more difficult than being unshakable. In a lot of ways, that's more noble.