The Power and the Glory
First edition
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| Author | Graham Greene |
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| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
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Publication date
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1940 |
| Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) |
| Pages | 216 |
The Power and the Glory (1940) is a novel by British author Graham Greene. The title is an allusion to the doxology often recited at the end of the Lord's Prayer: "For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, forever and ever, amen." It was initially published in the United States with the title, The Labyrinthine Ways.
Greene's novel tells the story of a renegade Roman Catholic 'whisky priest' (a term coined by Greene) living in the Mexican state of Tabasco in the 1930s, a time when the Mexican government was attempting to suppress the Catholic Church.
In 1941, the novel received the British literary award, the Hawthornden Prize. In 2005, it was chosen by TIME magazine as one of the hundred best English-language novels since 1923.
The main character is an unnamed 'whisky priest', who combines a great power for self-destruction with pitiful cravenness, an almost painful penitence, and a desperate quest for dignity. By the end, though, the priest "acquires a real holiness." The other principal character is a police lieutenant tasked with hunting down this priest. This Lieutenant – also unnamed but thought to be based upon Tomás Garrido Canabal – is a committed socialist who despises the Church.
The story starts with the arrival of the priest in a country town in an area where Catholicism is outlawed, and then follows him on his trip through Mexico, where he tries to minister to the people as best as he can. He is also haunted by his personal demons, especially by the fact that he fathered a child in his parish some years before. He meets the child, but is unable to feel repentant about what happened. Rather, he feels a deep love for the evil-looking and awkward little girl and decides to do everything in his power to save her from damnation. The priest's opposite player among the clericals is Padre José, a priest who has been forced by the government to renounce his faith and marry a woman and lives as a state pensioner.
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